The nous (mind, intellect) which has rebelled against God becomes either bestial or demonic and, after having rebelled against the laws of nature, lusts after what belongs to others.
The Church is not a human organization, but a Divine-Human organism. It is not a human corporation, but the Divine-human Body of Christ. The source of the Church is
Saint Gregory Palamas teaches that knowledge of created things comes from doing virtuous deeds. And when asked what the aim of virtuous deeds is, he writes:
A great deal is being said today about acquiring the mind of the Church. Sometimes, however, we do not know just what the mind of the Church is. We identify it with a blind obedience to some general laws or
Saint John of Damascus says that the soul is intelligent and noetic. God gave man “an intelligent and noetic soul for proper breathing”. It is a basic
We can divide the human soul into four aspects, three of which are formulated by Plato and, on the whole, are accepted by the Holy Fathers. We have two irrational aspects:
The whole purpose of the Saviour’s commandments is to free the nous from dissipation and hatred. God’s commandments excel all
When a thought is prolonged in us we become enslaved to the attraction. When a thought lingers within a man,
We cannot play with eternity. We aspire to glory and this is natural. However the sin of Adam distorted this by separating us from God and now we seek glory in vain here on Earth. Saint Evdokimos
How is the soul cured? First we must emphasize the right faith. We Orthodox attach great importance to preserving the faith, just because we know that when faith is distorted, the cure is automatically distorted. We have previously emphasized that theology should be interpreted as medicine. Medical science has
There is nothing more burdensome and grievous then when our conscience accuses us , and there is nothing dearer than calmness and approval of our conscience. So many psychological illnesses are caused by
The severing of communion between us should be the last thing we do, not the first. We must resort to this only
Very often humanistic wisdom is not simply different from divine wisdom. It is also opposite to it. Human wisdom “is contrary to the true and spiritual knowledge” . In fact, St. Gregory argues that all human heresies have sprung out of human wisdom, whose center is rationality and human thinking. “And if you examine, you will see that all or most of the heresies have their origin here” . The saint’s observation is remarkable. If we examine church history carefully we will find out that all heretics originated from human thinking and a man-centered view of life. They always tried […]
Analyses of the person are essential, because within this framework we can solve social problems as well. A society cannot exist without man. Man is making our society and all the social institutions ill. A person who is ill creates…
Christianity is not a philosophy in the sense that prevails today. Philosophy