So, what makes the Orthodox mindset (what Eugenia Constantinou calls phronema) different from the “Western” mindset seen in both Catholicism and Protestantism? In this post, I will be looking at chapters 4-5 in Constantinou’s book, Thinking Orthodox, in which she discusses this very thing.
Chapter 4: The Orthodox Phronema
One of the first things Constantinou talks about in this chapter is what unites Orthodox Christians, and how it is different from Catholicism and Protestantism. The “main unifier” in Catholicism is obviously the centrality and authority of the Pope. In Protestantism, even though in reality it is actually quite fractured, in theory it is the centrality and authority of the Bible in terms of Sola Scriptura. The problem, though, within Protestantism is that the claim of Sola Scriptura has actually led to everyone interpreting the Bible the way they see fit and according to their own assumptions, and the result is that everyone becomes his/her own authority over the Bible—sort of a Sola Individuala!
By contrast, Orthodoxy doesn’t obsess so much over the issue of authority. What unites the Orthodox is adherence to the common apostolic faith and the ancient Church practices, both of which shape the Orthodox mindset. There is no centralized authority that doles out official statements and “exact definitions and explanations for theological mysteries” (61). The only thing that comes closest to official statements of faith is the Nicene Creed and the statements of the seven ecumenical councils. But even they, as Constantinou says, don’t so much try to give “exact definitions and explanations,” as they seek to set the boundary lines that highlight the limitations of human language and reason.
Take, for example, the doctrine of the Trinity. How is it possible for God to be “three-in-one”? That doesn’t make rational sense. Many Catholics and Protestants have tried to work out some kind of authoritative definition that perfectly explains it. Orthodoxy, if I can put it this way, simply points to the creeds and essentially says, “We can’t fully understand it, but this reality of God being Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is testified to in the Scriptures and the early Church. It ultimately is a mystery that goes beyond our intellect. We’re not going to try to explain it any further.”
This appreciation and acceptance of divine and theological mystery is what Orthodoxy calls apophatic theology. Again, to use the doctrine of the Trinity as an example, Orthodoxy points to that Trinitarian formulation and says, “This is the best way we can describe God, but we already know our explanation doesn’t fully explain God—that’s impossible to do. The reality of God is much bigger than our doctrine of the Trinity.”
To be clear, it isn’t that Orthodoxy rejects intellect, reason, and science. Rather (and this is the key difference in my opinion) it is that Orthodoxy does not accept the Western assumption that intellect, reason, and science can explain the totality of reality. They have their limitations, especially when it comes to understanding God. If I can put it this way: It doesn’t take an advanced academic degree to get theological insight. As Constantinou, knowledge of God is open to everyone, but that knowledge comes from a relationship with God, not necessarily an intellectual pursuit of God.
Speaking as someone who has advanced academic degrees in Biblical Studies, I think that is an important thing to emphasize. I have read more than my share of academic books that contain a lot of information, but nevertheless treat God (and Jesus Christ, for that matter) as a thing of academic study alone. Ironically, oftentimes, when I read books like that, I find them to actually be intellectually trite, lazy, and quite frankly, boring. Of course, God can be known through His creation, and of course we can use our reason to better understand things, not only in the created order, but also (specifically when it comes to Biblical Studies) things like the original historical and literary contexts of the Bible. But, as Constantinou says, “[God] cannot be understood or analyzed as though He were part of the created order, because He is uncreated and beyond human comprehension” (65). If you have that mindset (as most in the West tend to have), you’re simply going to miss the “WHO” for the sake of a lot of bits of information concerning the “what.”
In any case, in the second part of Chapter 4, Constantinou revisits a number of topics I covered in previous post, so I will not spend too much time on them. She reemphasizes the major differences in how all three branches of Christianity view authority: (A) Catholics, in terms of union with Rome; (B) Protestants, in terms of Sola Scriptura (which, in reality, boils down to individuals’ personal interpretation of Scripture); and (C) Orthodox, in terms of preserving the Apostolic Tradition, of which is comprised of both Scripture and the early Church Fathers who help provide that “Orthodox mindset” that acts as the proper interpretive grid for understanding Scripture.
Constantinou also revisits substitutionary atonement theology as expressed in Catholic theology and, by extension, Protestant theology. Both Catholics and Protestants interpret the work of Christ on the cross almost solely through a legal lens, whereas Orthodoxy points out that the New Testament describes the work of Christ on the cross through a number of metaphors: legal, sacrificial, and medical. All of them are metaphors that don’t (indeed can’t) fully “explain” the work of Christ on the cross, because it is ultimately a mystery. Still, they are the ones the New Testament writers use, and they, when taken together, give a pretty good idea of what Christ has accomplished. Still, Constantinou says that the metaphor Orthodoxy primarily likes to emphasize is the one that sees salvation as the cure for a spiritual sickness, and therefore Christ as the Good Physician who heals us: “God never departs from us. It is we who depart from Him. It is we who become spiritually ill through sin. It is we who need to be cured and restored. The Orthodox view is that ‘by his sacrifice on the cross, Christ did not propitiate his Father, but he cured the ailing nature of man” (73).
Chapter 5: Acquiring an Orthodox Phronema
In the final chapter of the first part of her book, Constantinou clarifies what she means by an Orthodox phronema (mindset) and then discusses the various ways in which one can acquire and develop an Orthodox mindset.
She begins the chapter by discussing just what it means to have the mind of Christ. It isn’t so much about having information about Christ but about developing the mindset of Christ through living a spiritual life. To that end, Constantinou talks about the Greek word Nous, which is the word translated as “mind.” It doesn’t refer to simply the intellect. In fact, she notes that among the Church Fathers, Nous became a theological term of art. What that means is that developing an Orthodox Nous comes down to the art of the spiritual life. In fact, Orthodoxy, it is believed that human beings have two centers of knowing. One is the intellect/reason, which allow people to know information about the sensible world around us. The other is the Nous, which allows people to experience the revelation of God. We then can put those experiences into words by the use of our reason, so that others can get a sense of our experience, but the Nous is a higher way of knowing than intellect/reason. One simply cannot acquire experiential knowledge of God through intellect/reason. “True knowledge of God is gained through purification of the Nous, and this comes only through prayer” (76).
So how does one “purify one’s Nous”? Constantinou spends most of the chapter discussing Orthodox practices. Here they are in a nutshell:
- Baptism: What Orthodoxy calls “Holy Illumination.” It marks the beginning of the process to restore our ability to know God and have a relationship him. And since it really is a relationship, Orthodoxy acknowledges that you have to put forth effort in building that relationship and maturing in your relationship with God.
- Spiritual Warfare: Simply put, this involves being aware of the way the world (through media, movies, literature, advertising, etc.) tries to shape your mindset, and then “going to battle,” so to speak, in order to not allow yourself to be shaped and molded by the world. Ultimately, as the Apostle Paul says, it truly is spiritual warfare.
- The Liturgy and the Holy Mysteries (Sacraments): One of the things I realized and appreciated about the Orthodoxy Liturgy is how it was the same every week. It was like participating in a play every week. And, just like a certain song, or poem, or play, or work of art impacts you the more you interact with it and contemplate it, so does the Liturgy impact and shape your very soul. It becomes the defining “rhythm” in your life that shapes how you view and interact with the world.
- Scripture and Spiritual Reading: Again, just as with the Liturgy, the practice of Scripture reading and the reading of other books on Christian Spirituality, have that “shaping” effect on your life. For me, obviously Bible reading has shaped my life, as well as many other books. Some of the most influential have been books by Thomas Merton, Kathleen Norris, and Kallistos Ware, among many others.
- Participating in Orthodox Feasts and Fasts: Obviously, these are easier to do if you are actively involved in a local Orthodox church. But they, like with the Liturgy, also have the effect of shaping one’s life in general, and one’s own Orthodox mindset in particular.
OtherOrthodox practices that Constantinou touches upon are the following: (a) Having a spiritual mentor, (b) avoiding extreme practices that easily lead to false piety, (c) living an appropriate lifestyle, and (d) practicing virtue. Constantinou discusses all these things in more detail, but most of them are quite self-explanatory, so I will not go into detail on them. What I want to add with all of these is that, while some are quite distinctly Orthodox, many of them aren’t. And that is why, as I said in an earlier post, I have known many Catholics and Protestants who are truly Orthodox in their mindset. Why is that? Because in a very practical sense, they are doing many of these things, and these are the things that truly shape a person and that help develop the mind of Christ.
At the end of Chapter 5, Constantinou reiterates that perhaps the fundamental difference in mindset between Orthodoxy and Western Catholicism and Protestantism really comes down to what each focus on. In both Catholicism and Protestantism, there is that drive to define, delineate, and systemize formulas and rules that produce a sense of intellectual certainty. That is perhaps why so many Catholics and Protestants often talk of that sense of “Catholic guilt,” or in my personal Evangelical background, “Evangelical guilt”—that ominous fear that, no matter how much you “get right,” no matter how many “right answers” you can give, there is always that uncertainty that says, “What if I screw up even once? Did I really repent from my heart? Did I do it wrong? Will that cost me? I don’t want God to send me to hell, but I’m afraid He will if I don’t check all the necessary boxes!”
I can’t speak for Catholics, but I’m pretty sure that sort of mindset is emblematic of many people who have grown up in Evangelicalism. That’s why we tend to think the Apostle Paul is describing the struggle in the Christian life in Romans 7—we most definitely relate to that! The thing is, though, Paul isn’t describing his Christian life in Romans 7. He’s describing what his life used to be like as a Torah-observant Jew who was zealously trying to keep all the rules but had that gnawing anxiety eating away within him.
If I can hearken back to my old Assemblies of God days, if one feels that way, then that person needs to get saved! Romans 7 is describing the mindset of the flesh and the “split personality” of a religious person without Christ. By contrast, it is Romans 8 where Paul describes the freedom and joy that characterizes the followers of Christ who are being conformed to His image and who are having their minds transformed to be like the mind of Christ.
Consequently, the Orthodox mindset and Orthodox spirituality, as Constantinou says, is essentially relaxed because Christians realize that they are a work in progress—they don’t need to be perfect for God to approve of them. They’ve been accepted and are now in the process of their spiritual healing. “What if I screw up once?” That’s okay. Just repent and keep moving forward, because Christ is faithful. And don’t freak out if you don’t do all those Orthodox practices all the time. They aren’t virtues in and of themselves. They are simply “exercises to assist our spiritual healing” (99).
As Constantinou says, obedience is certainly important, but it isn’t the same as obligation. Orthodoxy emphasizes obedience because it equally emphasizes the freedom Christians have in Christ. A free person can choose to obey; one who is in bondage of some sort is under obligation. That is why Constantinou says at the end of the chapter, “The spirit of Orthodoxy is essentially relaxed because we are free. If we experience stress in attempting to live our lives in the Church, something is wrong” (101).
In any case, that is the end of Part 1. Hopefully these four posts have helped to clarify some of the fundamental differences between the general Orthodox mindset and the mindset found in both Catholicism and Protestantism. In my next few posts, I’m going to cover Part 2 of Constantinou’s book, in which she specifically discusses Orthodox theology. It should end up being about three more posts.
