In the last part of this series I concluded by saying that, in my view, the problem of morality can only be understood fully, through an appreciation of Orthodox Christian Ethics. So now I’m going spend the next few posts diving into what that means exactly and how it works. Because I feel like there are a lot of misconceptions, not just in the secular world, but in the Christian world also, as to how morality is understood from an Eastern Orthodox perspective. I don’t claim to have full knowledge of this myself, but I hope to learn something as part of my exploration into this topic.
The main source I will be using for this study is Greek Theologian Christos Yannaras’ book The Freedom of Morality (1984). In which Yannaras sets out the Orthodox position on Ethics and explains how it presupposes the truth of personal distinctiveness and freedom.
The Ethos of the Person
Yannaras starts by making a distinction between two types of ethics, Authoritative Ethics and Conventional Ethics. Authority can be a divine power, or it can be the power of the state. Convention on the other hand, is purely social, it’s based on some kind of agreement or custom. The problem with both of these positions is that they place the authority outside of us, and this causes a split in our nature. What we are as human beings is separated from our ethos, or what we think we ought to do. If all we have to do to be moral, is conform to some authority or convention, then we never have to look at our own self. We never have to confront the problem of our own existence.
At first this may sound like it contradicts the message of my last few posts. Previously I argued that morality cannot be subjective, and now it might sound like I’m saying that it can. The important difference however is that the question being asked here is not about justification, but relation. Yannaras is merely trying to show how ethics and ontology are connected to each other. And that we cannot separate our moral decision making from who we are as human beings. The ethos of the Orthodox Church is not concerned with formulating abstract principles, but in explaining how the truth of our existence is tied up with our morality:
“Morality is not an objective measure for evaluating the character and behaviour, but the dynamic response of personal freedom.”
Morality is something that relates to mans salvation, it’s about what man is, what it means for us to be. It’s not about what code of conduct we follow, but our ontology as human beings. For Christians, the truth about man and his being comes from divine revelation. God is revealed to us through history as a person or Hypostasis. God is not some kind of impersonal essence.
God says ‘I am He who is’ (John 4:26).
His ‘mode of being’ is personal. And this reveals that:
“the truth of the ethos of morality is equivalent to the truth of being”.
We all have a common nature or essence, and the person is the hypostasis of that nature. It’s what makes us unique. Our ‘mode of existence’ is personal freedom and distinctiveness.
This is the image of God in man. The hypostasis of life which is beyond biological individuality. Our personal distinctiveness ‘is realized and revealed in the existential fact of communion and relationship’. Mans ‘mode of being’ is defined by his relationship with God.
In everyday speech we use the terms person and individual synonymously, but the person is not an individual. It’s not a relationship of the part to the whole. When an individual is related to the group, he is neutralized, he becomes like an abstract collection of shared characteristics. But this isn’t what makes you unique. Personal distinctiveness is what makes you unique. It distinguishes a person from the common nature of shared attributes. And it’s only this person that has the freedom to act morally:
“Morality reveals what man ‘is’ in principle, as the image of God, but also what he becomes through the adventure of his freedom: A being transformed, or ‘in the likeness’ of God.”
Person and Nature
The Greek Fathers distinguish between Person and Nature. The image of God is not part of the nature, and it’s not part of the ‘spirit’ of man either. Personal distinctiveness is defined as freedom from any natural pre-determination. It’s what separates us from the wild beasts. It’s what frees us from the natural necessity of our biological species and enables us to act freely.
“Rationality, free-will and dominion define the image of God in man, but not as his ‘spiritual nature’. They are how the person is distinguished from his nature.”
Because if the image of God is found in mans nature, morality becomes something that is pre-determined. A lion hunts his prey because that’s what he does by nature. But what we are by nature does not determine who we are as persons. Our uniqueness as persons allows us to act freely. Without the truth of the person, ethics has no foundation. It just devolves into a system of legalistic moral codes, which bear no relation to our experience as human beings. Yannaras explains this by saying:
“This is the road to an understanding of ethics as individual obligation or individual achievement. Inevitably, the obligations and achievements are classified into general codes of individual behaviour, and into laws which lay down the relationship between the individuals rights and his obligations. Morality is understood within the objective context of social co-existence, and constitutes an external and ultimately legal necessity.”
With this understanding, ethics becomes devoid of any real meaning. Morality is no longer concerned with the fact of our existence, but only with conventional categories of behaviour. The problem of morality becomes objectified and separated from the ontological truth of our personhood.
Sin: Existential Failure and Missing the Mark
You can’t talk about Christian Ethics without addressing the fall of man. In Biblical Theology this event represents the renouncing of our connection with God. In Christos Yannaras’ words:
“The fall arises out of mans free decision to reject personal communion with God and restrict himself to the autonomy and self-sufficiency of his own nature.”
By making ourselves autonomous we identify with nature, instinct, and the passions. Our nature becomes divided and fragmented. Often times we are divided against our own self. As St. Paul describes in Romans (7:15-17).
“For what I am doing, I do not understand. For what I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate, that I do….
I agree with the law, that it is good. But now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me.”
Sin is just another name for ‘missing the mark’, or losing sight of what is true. Sin has no nature or hypostasis, evil is not something that exists in itself. It’s a movement away from the good. First our intention is corrupted and then nature is corrupted along with it. But sin shouldn’t be seen as the individual transgression of some moral law. God is not a judge in the vengeful sense, but by the pure fact of His existence. It’s because of what God is that man is judged, he is judged ‘according to the measure of life and existence from which he excludes himself’. And it’s this that results in corruption and death.
Ethics is not about good versus evil, but life versus death.
The Orthodox Church has as its aim the transcendence of death and corruption. This requires a change in mans ‘mode of existence’. Only through liberation from natural necessity can man exist as a distinctive personality. It’s only through freedom that man can achieve the likeness of God.
In Western Christianity sin is often identified with legal transgression and salvation is seen as justification of the individual. This legalistic conception of sin sees man as enslaved to his own psychology. The moral crisis in the modern world can be seen as mans attempt to free himself from this dilemma, but he is forever lost within the relativity of good and evil. Man wants to face up to the truth of his own existence but he is trapped within a psychological guilt complex. In the Orthodox Church on the other hand, morality is seen in sin and deification, in recognition and repentance. There are no abstract principles, axioms, or impersonal imperatives. The foundation for ethics is the salvation of the human person.
The Dynamics of Repentance, Freedom and Love
Sin is the starting point for repentance or Metanoia. This signals a change in mans whole attitude not just a change in certain behaviour. Repentance isn’t just about self improvement. It’s not about individual virtues or merits. It’s a complete change in our ‘mode of existence’.
If we are looking for an example of true repentance we look to the lives of the saints. Here we find that the pursuit of virtue is deeply connected to the facts of the fall. We start with what is natural and transfigure it. Man becomes aware of the tyranny of his natural will and his subjection to the passions. Following the path of repentance leads him to knowledge, discernment and love. St John of the Ladder writes:
“Let them take courage who are humbled by the passions. For even if they fall into every pit and are caught in every snare, when they attain health they will become healers, luminaries, beacons and guides to all, teaching about the forms of every sickness and through their own experience saving those who are about to fail.”
Even in the fallen state man remains a person, and can draw closer to God through repentance. The problem is when the existential impact of sin is shifted to the level of legalism or psychology. When behaviour that falls outside the norm is classified as a crime, sin is effectively erased. If we abide by the law, we are supposedly free from sin. But all we have done in reality is normalize certain behaviours and criminalize others. This is complicated even further by the fact that traditional values are often see as prejudicial in the modern world. So what at one time was considered to be sinful, now just falls in line with social convention. But this is a long way from the Church’s view on sin, which finds its meaning in our Ontology. And this Ontology is prior to any social or objective measurement. The Orthodox Church sees sin as something which is transformed, through repentance, something which brings us closer to God. It’s not just the violation of a social convention but the exclusion from true life and communion in Christ. In sin, man refuses to recognize his true existence. In love and communion he is born again.
Conclusion
With the above I have tried to summarize the main points in the first few chapters of Yannaras book. The information is quite dense and difficult to make plain at times. But I have tried to bring it down to my own level of understanding. In the next post or two I will make an effort to summarize the rest of the chapters which go into other areas of interest, including the Gospel, the Sacraments, Canon law, and Liturgical art. All of this is intricately connected to the Ethos of the Church and the Christian worldview as a whole.
I hope I’ve made clear here, how Orthodox ethics differ from secular ethics. How it’s impossible to understand morality without understanding how it is connected to our existence as human beings. This is a far cry from Utilitarian ethics where the veracity of human reasoning is just assumed from the outset. With the Orthodox approach nothing is assumed. The only pre-condition is the existence of God. The ethos of the church can never be separated from its Theology, from its Ontology or from its Anthropology. The image of God in man provides the foundation for morality. It’s what helps us to understand our personal distinctiveness and it’s what gives us the freedom to make moral choices.