"Struggling To Do It God's Way"

Values, be they personal, corporate, cultural, or sub-cultural are are founded upon and guided chiefly by two influences.  First and as previous submissions have discussed there are the influences of mores, that is the prevailing standards found in the individual and the previously listed social groups.

Then second and also as previous submission have discussed, there are those transcendent objective universal truths.  These values have their origin from outside of the individual and the previously listed social groups.  A new word to the discussion is the word, "virtue" which is the acting out of these transcendent truths.

There is for some a missing piece to this discussion and it is found in the following article titled, "THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN" with the subtitle, "The Limits of Human Reason and the Knowledge of God."    

There is the seen, and there is the unseen, the material and the immaterial. That which is material can be scientifically examined and experienced, the immaterial can only be seen and experienced spiritually. These are two worlds that are only seemingly at odds with one another. If you attempt to examine that which is of a spiritual nature using a science that is by its very nature meant to explore the material realm, you will fail.

The things that are of God are far beyond the capabilities of our finite mind to comprehend. The divine can only be known through the nous, that place in the heart that is our true center. It, unlike the brain, is capable of knowledge that is beyond human comprehension, coming as it does from noetic knowledge.

The science of the soul is noetic and can be examined and experience only through the activation of the nous. The nous in Orthodox Christian theology is the "eye of the heart or soul", the mind of the heart. God created us with the nous because the human intellect is not capable of knowing Him without it. The intellect alone can not know God, for human reasoning is limited to the things that are of a material nature. God is unknowable without His divine revelation, and only the nous can perceive this knowledge. God's essence remains inaccessible without noetic knowledge. Science has it's place, but only the heart can know God.

Love in Christ,
Abbot Tryphon

(article available at https://www.facebook.com/pages/All-Merciful-Saviour-Orthodox-Christian-Monastery/104578182913886)

Once again the tension between a closed (material) system and an open (Divinely influenced) system may be seen.  Transcendent objective universal truths are a reflection of the very person and nature of the Divine.  Just perhaps this is the reason that though some desire to live out these principles, they struggle.  Could it be that such understanding and practice as is necessary is only possible because of the "nous?"  Oh, yes, there are those who have such profound volitional strength that they do so but for most people such is a struggle.


It is only as God the Holy Spirit in relationship with and then because of that relationship functions within the human spirit that one can not just understand these Divine principles but also is empowered to live them out.  Such is "Christ-likeness."  Said another way "Christ-likeness" is not being conform in thought and action to mores (cultural relativism) but is simply the living out of God established principles or as others have termed it Divine character principles.  


An attendant discussion then is that to be Christ-like in a secular culture may yield the view that one does not fit in.  It might be well to remember that Jesus did not fit into His culture either.