Father Gabriel (Bunge) continues the first chapter of Earthen Vessels: The Practice of Personal Prayer According to the Patristic Tradition, entitled “No one after drinking old wine desires new,” by discussing the concepts of “spirituality” and “spiritual life.” He notes that there is great confusion around these concepts in contemporary understanding and that they are often vaguely understood as referring to interiority and to various forms of devotion and piety, including those found outside of Christianity.
The fact that the concept of “spirituality” is so vaguely defined has extremely negative consequences for the Christian understanding of “the spiritual life”. For, as a result, many other things appear to be “spiritual” that actually belong to an entirely different sphere. This becomes clear immediately when we turn to Scripture and, moreover, to the Fathers. For here the adjective “spiritual”, in the connection that is of interest to us, refers unambiguously to the Person of the Holy Spirit. (27-28)
Whereas the Old Covenant had viewed the Holy Spirit as the impersonal power of God, in the New Covenant the Spirit is revealed as the “other Paraclete” who is sent by the Son in order to teach us all things.
The “spiritual man”, therefore, is one who, thanks to the Holy Spirit and “taught by the Spirit”, is able to judge “spiritual things” “spiritually” in order to discern them. This is, of course, in contrast to the sensual, “natural man”, who can neither receive nor understand “the things of the Spirit of God”, precisely because he does not possess the Spirit of God and the “wisdom of God” remains “folly” to him.
Therefore “spiritual” always signifies, both here and in other contexts in Paul’s writings, “endowed with the Spirit” – wrought or inspired by the Holy Spirit; it is by no means a decorative epithet! (28-29)
The Fathers followed Saint Paul in adopting the distinction between the natural or psychic (i.e. of the unaided human soul) and the spiritual that is wrought by the Spirit. When the adjective “spiritual” is used it is in order to designate that something is a fruit of the Holy Spirit.
However much we may talk of “spirituality” and however fond we may be of using the epithet “spiritual”, the Person of the Holy Spirit is the Great Absent One in the “spirituality” of the West, as has often been lamented. As a consequence, we regard many things as “spiritual” that in fact belong to the realm of the “natural man”, who is lacking precisely in the “gift of the Spirit”. We mean here everything that falls within the scope of the “feelings” and “emotions”, which are of a thoroughly irrational nature and are by no means “spiritual” or wrought by the Spirit. (29)
The Fathers distinguished between a “rational” and an “irrational” part of the soul and prayer belongs to the “rational” part.
Prayer is not a matter of “feeling” and certainly not one of “sentimentality” – which is not to say that it consists of a purely “intellectual act” in the modern sense of the word. For “intellect” is not identical with “understanding”, but is rather to be rendered by “core of being”, “person”, or, in biblical terms, “the inner man”. (33)
Therefore,
…we would do well to distinguish carefully, with the Fathers, between that which is really “spiritual”, namely, what is wrought by the Person of the Holy Spirit, and all that belongs to the domain of the “natural man”, that is, our irrational wishes and desires. For the latter are, at best, indifferent in value; most often, though, they are the expression of our “self-love”, which is the exact opposite of a “friendly love for God, in other words, [quoting Evagrius] that “perfect and spiritual love in which prayer acts in spirit and in truth.” (33)
December 14, 2010 at 6:59 pm
I would have felt more comfortable if Father had referred to “the Person of the Holy Spirit is the Great Absent One in the “spirituality” of the West” by saying rather the ‘secular and secularized West’, indicating that the “spiritual” has been co-opted in far too many cases. That would leave in place those knowing and appropriate understandings of the Spirit among the faithfully aware and the devout…in the west.
I find, and I hope not to make you uncomfortable Macrina, that it is much too easy to speak of “the West” as though that is a genuinely all encompassing umbrella. It is not. Thankfully, it is not.
M.
December 14, 2010 at 8:45 pm
Mary, I very much doubt that Father Gabriel was referring to the “secular and secularized West.” I frankly find the defensiveness of some Catholics to any criticism (self-criticism in this case as Father Gabriel wrote this while he was still Catholic) of the West a little trying. However much you may want to protest that there were also other traditions, there have been seriously problematic developments in western theology. The loss of consciousness of the Holy Spirit’s role in the Church is not the focus of this post, but it is hardly an unknown theme and one that Father Gabriel has every right to mention.
December 14, 2010 at 9:15 pm
Dear, in Christ, Macrina,
I forgive you sharpness of your tone, but please try very hard to grasp that my distress is quite personal.
As someone, eastern Catholic or not, from the west, as I am in all ways cultural, linguistic, ethnic, and the various forms of the social all inclusive, I have no part in the discussion at all as long as the umbrella casts such a long and uniform shadow.
How stupid I sound to cry out “Oh!! But I have not lost the consciousness of the Holy Spirit as the Fathers have taught us!!”…”Oh shut up you stupid westerner”, I hear in response, “You haven’t got the nous!!”
Is that the liminal space that I must always inhabit? Is that where you would consciously consign me so that I could “fit” and I could not “disturb” your peace of mind without risk of being put in my place?
Restore to me a voice of authenticity, if it is just.
I am sorry to hear that Father Bunge lost a right understanding of the Holy Spirit. I do not believe that I have, yet I come without any other natal or cultural recourse, out of the west.
Mary
December 14, 2010 at 9:34 pm
Mary, Many of us are westerners in one way or another. But that should not prevent us from looking critically at what has happened in the West. I don’t know where the depth of your emotion and exagerated sarcasm is coming from (and that is between you and God) but I am not prepared to be manipulated or bullied into not saying things, or posting things that are critical of developments in western Christian tradition.
December 14, 2010 at 9:47 pm
You are on the defensive and accusing me of things for which I am not guilty at all. You’ve exaggerated every word and added emotions that are not here.
December 14, 2010 at 9:54 pm
And as a PS, I was not at all demanding that you not post anything that you choose to post. I was simply looking for a way to make my own personal voice heard without sounding as though I was protesting too much.
I should have said “secular and under the sway of the secular” which of course great numbers in the west are indeed.
This is too much tension and actually hurtful, so I will refrain from disturbing you any more.
December 15, 2010 at 5:10 am
I am sorry that you find this hurtful, Mary. But I can’t help thinking that you set yourself up for being hurt by your repeated demands that people deny that there are substantive differences between East and West. If we refuse to conform to your agenda then it is very difficult to know how to respond in a way that you will not interpret as hurtful.
December 15, 2010 at 5:20 am
Actually what I have great difficulty with is the automatic nous machine.
December 15, 2010 at 3:10 pm
Mary, I honestly haven’t the foggiest idea what you are talking about. Nowhere in this post or discussion is the word “nous” mentioned. Perhaps this is simply online jargon that I am unfamiliar with. Or American jargon. Or whatever. In any case, I don’t understand what it has to do with anything.