thank you
we might begin with prayer
come holy spirit of christ enlighten our hearts or minds the words of our maps you may deepen our understanding of the mystery of christ's redemption this we asked the same christ our lord amen
so our theme today is sort of the monks relation to the secular dimension and the secret or you could reword it amongst relation sort of to the modern world since the seconder this kind of characteristic of what's happening in the modern world and in
relation to the ancient and medieval or you can give it a kind of a geographical shape and saves the monks relation to the west where the secondary mergers and to the east will be asking if the secular doesn't emerge choice when it is for case cases is kind of and probably will won't finish today i have of sorts of so
so maybe we'll go on for years and years but we start to me
oh what have we seen comes out of discussions with done bruno with lots of people also within on shinzo and thomas an elite squad back years and years and years of and so up every now and then there's an explosion of enthusiasm or anger something this isn't just that didn't come
up from yesterday afternoon when i thought it was tough on sorts of things that are repressed and
ah i talked with that bruno about this theme about perhaps better than the one about marxism since you might get the merton teeth and that was the essence of what i wanted to see and he said fine and i'm asking invader to listen to the tape and then we can carry on our discussion cetera up
if i say anything really outrageous suggests river racer from the time
remember the nixon tapes to this pedestrian gags
so ah what i'd like to do is kind of approach this i'm certainly serenely and try openly but also a little on one side kind of a take the role of the gun
attorney for the defense for the west for the secular for the modern world sort of thing
von bruno mention that sometimes we can get more to the truth in its complexity ah
if instead of everyone trying to offer a very balanced sort of bland synthesis if one person takes one position tries to push that right to the extreme in another takes another position and push that right to an extreme it's in this kind of arguing a case with the enthusiasm etc this is the function of a lawyer
the function of a defense lawyer for instance is to present every aspect for and against the client but to sum up the client's case as strongly as possible there's a strong christian by heritage with as remember sir thomas more agreed a true new argument many cases of know
we're accustomed to tune in there's a whole tradition earliest fathers were apologists they were presenting a case so today i'm presenting the case of the west and some people can be presented better than that and good i will kill the other boy your security and civil case ah one day
danger of this genre of this approach is that it is inherently necessarily one cited so i think we always have always have to corrected by sink again this has to be complemented completed et cetera and it pushed to it's extreme becomes polemic and it becomes polarization
no professional lawyer knows not to get into that trap my father was a lawyer and you scream at each other in the courtroom and then you come out new the best of friends so it's a it's a role that you play a kind of up in the unions and so was that's important on the social level but it's to be taken as simply a means to this deeper integration of all
parts which hopefully will promote this
exercise
wow
so we want to integrate when i say today with a wealth from the east and i've tried to do this my own life of back in the very early days here the yeah she's a spare was coming in and the funeral columbia was been read the secretly sort it hurts and i found create wealth for my own
own life of prayer and i want to continue to integrate self respect i would note as a attorney for the difference that we can integrate precisely because we're living in the west living in the west that has gone through the renaissance it is living the secular age where the whole business of objective studies
so of printing presses of diffusion of books so foot careful analysis of texts all this was as typically western typically modern makes available to us the wealth of my battles or similar new theologian or him do hinduism some or whatever it be you can go into our
library there and not a world open to you in the way that if you were to go into the library of mount athos just wouldn't dare so of even are need to integrate i think is is itself a sign of one of them
hampton aspects of living in the modern west
these books are available that require very advanced technology in hunting in distribution of
planes and buses and cars trucks to ship them all over etc very very advanced technology is behind this instrument of the stuff fruit and mr good books of cheapness and it's very hard to see beasts rather contradictory to blacks the west and secularism and technology of
utilizing at the books of the west and of technology such as it's he's be summed up in some people do
ah
this
model of defense attorney presupposes that someone's attacking so either we've got a problem of paranoia here we think we're being attacked and we're not really or there's some attack against the west so this has to be clarified my impression after talking with the show's over years and thomas
and reading these people reading my indoor reading claremont reading each meme on its he's be rather paradoxical but you start reading these people and what you want is a deeper insight into the mysticism of the east the spiritual theology eastern said you find it to prepare this they have to attack the west
just last night i was reading an article of into chances were his summing up all sorts of eastern theologians and scott young artists in my endorphins shaman and all these people here and what he wants to do is present a spiritual theology the and i think the predominant theme here is the attack
against to west the spiritual schizophrenia the west year and technological efforts of the west and the yeah the superficiality of the west the lack of of all these things that problem of accustomed i think it's paradoxical and a little sad and a first sign
right with the east that the way they propose their own wealth is in attacking the west and sometimes i think the attacks are a room sometimes there's little pictures of the typical western man here that i've never met a western men at all like that so it's it's quite curious here
for instance young artists who's talking about that
the religious life in the west which is typified by this total empiricism and the only possibility for religious experience is to seek a psychological refuge in a mysticism of allegories and illogical demonstrations of abstract medafor
physical truths
now this images is typical of of western person into spiritual the dynamite of you can get into that empiricism and all that but these abstract metaphysical truths i don't think we're into a face of strong metaphysics in the western it anyway it's a constant attack against the west
that is interesting now when the west is attacked and we are westerners you can do one of three things that since we you can submit and say yes they're right and we americans have a certain temptation to this kind of a self flagellation thing and we end up more anti western and than anyone on mount athos or
or or an india sort of thing
am i reading too much of this in europe it's interesting of american immigrants who have to be more violently anti western and secular and american than anyone else of out of button india or wherever it is so that's one solution another solution is to just not face the issue and put him in parentheses and just go app
after the the positive aspects of the east and that that's perhaps the what the wisest approach but it's curious because the east presents its well to be studied precisely through this polemic so i think it's detaching in a little a slightly artificial way and the other is to try to respond and say blizzard or true
and indeed to say if if some of questions by indeed be raised about the east of the best defense is sometimes of good attacks hopes of so what i'm doing today is take this third track to not let all these of accusations simply pass to not
nor them or not say yes yes yes but to say maybe know so that's our function today what are these accusations when could send spend entire conferences just summing up all these accusations it seems to me up to use the technical terms of debate i don't want
when you're going to high school or college to beat it sort of fun but their techniques and debate one technique is a so called shotgun attack you open first what you do it just blast the appointment for tens of thousands of accusations etc
now the hope is that he'll be so thrown off balance and you'll have to make long lists and try to reply to number one number two number to and you'll never end and even if he clears himself with three or four of the accusations the neutral third party will still have this lingering doubt and could have any time of the southern off so if you read these people they're really accused
this of incredible wide range of things from a very serious theological whack it starts to understand it from the trinitarian theology we we slip that filial queen and that was a terrible mistake from that point on we've lacked a full spirit in our western
and theology and spirituality and ecclesiology to we've lacked a no magical dimension so there's this exquisitely theologically very technical business about the philly okay and that whole business then you get into of kind of sociological business about technology when man says the
a whole other west is summed up in technology and all the sort of sociological implications of that you have historical accusations and everything we have has been filtered through the very narrow kind of constricted filter of augustan and with all the errors that he brought in with an excessive manichaean some men in excess
the pessimism and the and so that the wealth of the east was didn't get through to us and we've lived this sort of constricted partiality ever since exclusively of psychological rather than ontological into this sort of thing of the fragmentation of the west you get into the secular means and art goes this way
and and the state goes to sway in science courses way and so you've got schizophrenia man that's divided up a whole series of accusations the western man doesn't live in a level of deep experience but he lives at the level of simply of superficial on scientific analysis said transit
after empty can go on for hours are kind of a again a shotgun attack and i wondered how to answer without taking years and years i thought what i might do is just sketch very briefly a whole series of responses to the shotgun attack then to go on to focus in greater length
upon up the issue of secularism which many of them stress is kind of the concrete fruit these sign that things are not well in the west kind of typical fruit that shows of the tree or sick so to come to grips with that but first sketch a whole
series of points and then if some of these points are more meaningful to you we could bring them up in the discussion period and try to go deeper into them against one point is simply this constant attacking would be interesting to hear a psychologist or psycho analyst done this but also as an attacking in a kind of an era
can't wait no here's these people who are presuming to some of the western religious experience and how it's terribly superficial and inadequate etc how many years if they lived in the west how much have they tried really sympathetically to get into the western vision to understand it at its best
how often are they building stereotypes of the west at its worst
how often are they taking the worst of the west today and comparing it maybe with the best of the east of six century school and say look we're right you're wrong
so i think this can be documented but a kind of spiritual arrogance and runs quite frequently through the whole thing that i think sad and it seems to me raises some questions about the profundity of this of this mystical wisdom because i don't think it's typical of the christian
one religious experience at its deepest a kind of an arrogant
superiority complex in a gym so are sometimes says and what it really is as a kind of an inferiority complex they know that they haven't come to grips shit with so many things of the modern world they're somewhat terrified by it and they react by a kind of a defensive withdraw into their
gentle that necessarily has to be for them superior and all sufficient etc to justify they're not coming out and wrestling with these issues that have for better or worse been wrestling with in the west like science like the autonomy of signs like the industrial revolution like freud you
like marks darwin of all these things modern exit jesus historical sense all these things are yet to be discovered in the east
oh some of this is the thesis of his book of continuum dedicated a whole issue to sacralization and secularization and there's one unfortunately too brief essay i think of this whole thing in the east and instead the basic problems as they haven't come to grips with it yet so they're still in his defensive
a state which which brings out a kind of an excessive
aggressive style sometimes they often talk about this perennial orthodox wisdom that it's kind of monolithic and and unified and all pervasive in all the centuries and we know from our historical and sensitive in seoul there's one current and
origin and wagner is there's another current and a call me as there's one current basil there's another current and the aeromedical it's there's an incredible cruise and all sorts of debates all sorts of developments etc it's incredibly complex picture and they sometime
ames come up with these kind of mythological simple years katamari is a greek and theologian says that if you want to understand the orthodox church you've got to understand that what it is fundamentally is solid and from permanence in the holy tradition
the with a capital h in the capital t orthodoxy signifies essentially traditional tradition casualty and this tradition is that which is witness to and interpreted by the holy father's capital h capital f fine but want tradition
the best father distinguish very much between the tradition of hint at the holy tradition of sacred scriptures which is the death and resurrection of christ and which is the eucharist when supports says i give you what it's been passed on to be there the word is tradition that's tradition the capital t that cell death
all the other things that come in later the studio queer know the real distinction between dying divine energies and not the uncreated light of taper to these are beautiful theological things that they come in quite later the jesus prayer they always want to take it back right of lie to watson john the baptist or something it's rather late
under development
and to say that it's all these sacred tradition tradition defended by d fathers or what fathers and what phase of history etc so there's the simplistic kind of triumphalist tick
sure that the interactions in historically so
the who has he cast things i think very lovely very deep but the question to what extent can we as western moderns suddenly become an eastern hezekiah astern eastern food for christ to whatever how much we try to rip out from us all of our culture
oil and historical roots and try to kind of dive into the entirely different world it's it's a question they seem to say the only salvation is there but than what's left for us i was talking to up an orthodox gal at the gt who graduate theological union heard things that orthodoxy is a great
eight unified organic synthesis you've gotta take the whole thing right from the jesus prayer and the icons and the beard and a special way of doing the liturgy and the iconostasis and the patriarch and right the whole thing you take the whole package you can't pick and choose and the whole package is it
it is the norm for salvation
now in tv there's no arrogance that there's a little cultural imperialism you're mixing in their things are very different levels of cultural developments of the seventh century of the eleventh century with with gospel elements to this is real integral awesome that's sort of ambiguous
ah the constant attack against secularism the secular technology here we've got to make some very important distinctions
the intelligent bishops of all people are not too radical order they they came out with a lovely document on the secular and they said the first distinction we have to make us between the secular and secularism
he said the secular is absolutely valid and a positive development of the modern world
when all this means we're getting into deeper sectors of the a relative autonomy for some area like physics or astronomy or psychology or medicine
secular means that the theologian and the priest are not presuming to intervene there and say as astronomer you must say that the universe as this shape and structure and it's centered on the much and as a doctor you have to come up with this cure against cancer know leave the relative autonomy that field
and you let these people work in that field with total commitment to of the real rules that fuel field and respect this as a god given grace of our modern age this is the secular
secularism is an extreme form where it becomes ideal out ideology and the people say look we're totally sufficient or so the human reason can save us etc so what the italian bishops who says basically as christians we must be in favor of the secular and against secularism
and i think this is a very important thing we're against secularism how far this ramp and secularism characterize the west this is a sociological christian a very good stimulating catholic sociologists greeley since it's all nonsense were not any more in the west today
the under a kind of a grips of atheistic secularism than they were in the middle ages were quite as filled with a religious dedication to our churches etc as they were in any age and then he tries to document is sociologically that a cardinal cushing is quite as much muscle if he wants to organize a pilgrimage to
rome or something as any medieval cardinal ever had or or ancient patriarch or whatever you're still quite as much commitment to so there's that whole issue
then there's a very interesting issue of where do you find rampant secularism at its worse
and i think you'd have to sit you find it in the east you find it in marxism
the east is red and according to grow arts as slogan the giant seat of of secularism to be as a science of atheism is marxism is russia
and china
oh and this i think we have to go very carefully into this because they say book western secularism is the fruit of a whole theological mentality old spirituality it's indication that the tree is sick etc at some point we have to say what about your east where is this east
is russia today is that the whole list of what ninety percent of the orthodox rooms behind the iron curtain my thing
now this is interesting it has to be
hundred i found extremely little about this in the orthodox writers
if they'd come up with an answer to this and it's very rare that they do it's in terms of a kind of a theory of communicable diseases they say there was a disease of marxism which of course comes from the west and is carried by the west and then unfortunately the poor innocent easterners catch and this is the up explanation in a few lines
they just sum it up with i think it kind of embarrassment i think it won't do because you're just pushing the problem backstep question is why was the east of orthodox east with his for beautiful sacred synthesis and full trinitarian theology and and full spirituality it's so why did it catch
the sickness with such and such facility and why did the west not kitchen mike's was was convinced that that the working class and germany would be the first to go in germany with the be the first mike's step state center know it was rush up it became the these seat for
rampant secularism to the how did this happen
i think we have we can have a rather romantic picture of russia before it all happened and then we have this kind of magical it happened because a couple of westerners with their past the disease around and somebody miraculous wake oh
if you read the history of russia the middle ages right up to the last tsar it's incredible story of corruption and top of political tyranny of misery on the bottom of suffering of sicknesses et cetera ah
it's interesting there's not that much on all this in the library there's whole of shelves on russia but it's almost always from the point of view of orthodox who are writing how heroically the orthodox or carrying on the faith in russia today or how holy russia was before the revolution but nothing that i've least i found the why
this homey healthy into grow russia widdecombe started it happen
on anyway it's interesting at least getting for instance there's a little summary of the history of modern russia in encyclopedia britannica just just read the last tsar nicholas the second
there can hardly be imagined a more tragic contrast and that of the extremely complicated situation inherited by nicholas the second and the complete naughty of the man who had to solve the problem then you have this man and all these movements and agitations and strikes and thirty thousand workmen and demonstrations and and
rest and instead of open your doors to reform trying to clamp down with even worse and his court was this incredible weird gothic quarter these mistakes like rasputin wandering around and as kind of a neurotic alexandra princess who was convinced she had this
predestined single miss mission to save for god's elect and all this sort of thing
oh nineteen or five persons example many thousand working and led by a priest georgie got on much with icons singing religious songs to the winter palace to speak to bears are just some kind of last desperate attempt so what happens the troops come out and shoot on the make your thousand etc the law
last phases this sort of thing
ah lord says an interesting thing a great catholic he's doing about how revolutions happen he says we can't have some sort of magical model of some bad man comes in exhibiting explode
he says revolutions are not made by propaganda even the most powerful most serious appeal of a single great man cannot bring them about the whole or a great part of the general public must be thoroughly prepared for them revolutions are not simply created they are we
released the very powerful image that i think this describes a rush of these last year system is explosion of wrath of anger and it was an utter chaos in the liberals try to have set up a kind of a parliament in the middle way they just can't get the act ticket and
the whole bit about the westerners bringing marxism the western powers to everything to keep marx's amount of russia
and remember the civil war and and
england sent troops into russia germany since troops france and troops of all things america since troops we had troops fighting on the russian mainland to try to wipe out the bolsheviks on the side of the white russians during the civil war and we could do it was too chaotic know
nothing at that point could see russia from cummins or how you know something has to i'm really be worked out there and i think if the our eastern brethren want to insisted the real fruit of the western tree is is secularism
i think we have to ask well how to get through to come about could it possibly be that an excessively spiritual istick mysticism that was excessively unrelated to the gospel excessively platonists up sacrilegious will see something about the singer
listen up the eastern synthesis excessively out of touch with the real suffering of the people at a certain point this just collapsed under the wrath of these people to look at the misery of these people
the last issue of time is completely dedicated to russia it's were interesting inside the ussr and there's lots of articles about how things are going bad because you have to wait in line for hours for a pair of blue jeans etc but there's lots of concession since issue
the basic theme is the russians are happening today than they've ever been and they're better off today than there ever been in if we insist well it's a police state and it's security they know that and it's always been that way the only point is it was worse than the bizarre and than now
oh insights of one of the major themes of literature of the nineteenth century in russia is national self pity
oh god or sad or russia is side alexander pushkin on reading nikolai goals dead souls and i've been reading a little about call goods fascinating story went up
he writes about this in a humorous like but about this tragic side of russia and the this misery and the ignorance and superstition in the galloping consumption or where but he's deeply religious and he has to get more and more religious and
he can't get this spiritual experience he's he's clutching for he's got all these stories is advising him and he goes on pilgrimages to the volume and can't get it and meanwhile he's writing his masterpieces and he sits down to right volume two of dead souls but he has his ups and downs and this starts father
matthew joseph know it's a sin to be creating know really spiritual man writes would you gotta do is tear up all your or your manuscripts so he does he tears up body to what did souls so that he has complete nervous and collapsed and he dies shortly after very close to
for sanity etc but ah
i think we have available man a picture of pre communist russia is kind of happy christmas gathered around the icon but after six hours before working in the pyramids and you know children's summer road some print the jesus prayer and ca
instant ecstasy in the northern lights from pics but it was real
an article about medicine in soviet russia a doctor from the u s winter and he's been living here eighteen months and he's written this book on medicine in russia and he's really quite astonished with what they've achieved but he says that russia before the revolution was two hundred years behind the web
just in the area of medicine
and here we're in the area of the secular because medicine is a classical secular discipline and this is just a statistic but how much suffering and misery does it mean to hundred years and the life expectancy up to the revolution was thirty years
the russian children and away way a problem he describes himself as thirty three years old which might be just a mythological age we don't know kind of jesus age but he was already an old man at that time for russia that time andy
infancy rate et cetera
well what they've done in two hundred in since the revolution will go into that a little later but at least up to us in many ways that got twice as many doctors now as we have they've got up a life expectancy that's at least up to where we're at in central central but will get into them
so all this is just lots of little answering various things the feel your queen of this would take up ted conferences striking the video quick can be a resolutely and should be defended also i'm a level of the l jones and level of spirituality of is apparent long complicated question
you have to distinguish all sorts of issues whether the few new york we should we have a creed or not this is one whole issue you can hold that we could for ecumenical reasons take it out of a creed it's rather a later edition for the our eastern brother whereas we can still defend theologically of there's many things have faith and theology not in the creed
infallibility the poor poor the eucharist the real presence the seven sacraments none of us in the green the kree doesn't presume to some of the whole of christian theology so one issue is should appeal your baby in the creed don't summon defend the neck there's an article in the latest issue of to academia where they say it was
all that arbitrary the pope putting it in it was in spain since the for hundreds and it was in the spanish cream since the five hundred and said center in any way of one could concede that ticket out of the creed of our eastern rites in the east in greece etc they don't have to recite it but it's another question is
there are any theological sense in any spiritual sense to it at all
and here you have to distinguish two levels of the trinity the interior life of the divine trinity which is the ultimate mystery and then the trinity manifested to us in salvation history the word second person the tree becomes flesh of the spirit is sent to us in pentecost
said so there's as trinity on extra is it's called or economic to or trinity in salvation history and then there's the inner life of the trinity you gotta distinguish these
but i think what the best western theology says you don't want to distinguish them too much and you don't want to have a complete cut off of the one from the other runner i think as a beautiful book on the trinity and one of his main thesis is our road into the mystery of the inner life of the trinity is
precisely the holy trinity as revealed in scripture is as rebuilding salvation history and we don't want any other road we don't want simply the road of abstract speculation of a few very esoteric theologians
now what you got in scriptures on the startling statements of jesus saying i'm going to send you the holy spirit
ah john sixteen seven if i go says jesus i shall send the spirit to you
and all sorts of it's a very long question but many many texts of the spirit of the father says matthew the spirit of the sun says paul and second set so of the fathers of the east will say well that's just the trinity on extra but i think the best western theology as
wait where it really muddy waters if we're saying i'd extra yes but i need to absolutely no
ah but it were bordering it seems to be on a kind of what's called the cynicism or gnosticism that is to say what seems to be revelation in the word of god in jesus is only apparent we've got to get to the real revelation through some very esoteric secret knowledge of very very of advanced missed
sticks are visionaries with theologians in any case what can the philly okay give us positively on a spiritual level it gives us a spirit that is the spirit of the sun
and i think this is very important of what they stress is what you got in here we have a spirit that to subordinate and then it disappears in the west whether the spirit disappears know as i don't think so i think if you go down the history of western spiritual you have incredible number of saints are obviously filled the holy spirit or our own
of superannuation a blessing rudolph st francis of assisi it systems a giant of the spirit of richard all julian of norwich of catherine of sienna catherine a general read of to our own time sir charles de for coal a john the twenty third he himself talks about the in
inspiration came to him about vatican to it it's be very our distress the case the spirit just isn't working in the west but i think as caesars st francis it is always clearly the spirit of our lord the spirit of scriptures
and as a lawyer for the defense i have adapt desks you've got the spirit in the east but is it always a spirit of our lord you've certainly got some sort of weird spirit in rasputin to come back to our friends but everyone was amazed by this charismatic type which sort of stare at you and you'd sort of wither something
was it off but what spirit was it or this famous a father matthew a constant off skin tones cocoa you must burn all your manuscripts no spiritual man writes when spirit was that where does he finds in the word of god and you can see this
as a rare exception a touch of my limited reading in the east is that it's not that rare you have many many star insists and many many fools for christ and between very very rude things
and they're certainly in the spirit but it doesn't always seem to be the spirit of our lord so it sees me to feel ya quake can defend us there
an instant francis it seems clear that you have the spirit but it's always the spirit of jesus and the whole bit about the a crip and sitting up the devotion spirit of encourage jesus even a little baby etc
so a feeling awkward augusta everything we haven't been strung constricted through this little tiny aperture of st augustine so we were very sort of anemic in the west we haven't the fullness of the eastern wisdom sort of thing
well i think historically that can really questions perceval our font isn't with all due respect the eastern fathers and are fun is the word of god and we had thank god the scriptures and west and we have people very very dedicated scriptures like augusta like jerome like gregory
the great central the main focus is the word of god and that's what sell giphy and you even have a lot of an eastern fathers around the west just think of patient who comes in absolutely independently from accustomed and fights like crazy against the custom of politely and then you add the influence of case
one on the rule of st benedict and on the whole of the middle ages key she is clearly very eastern in his in his inspiration a wagnerian
and he can't say so explicitly because it's been condemned in the east and origin has been torn up in all this there's more origin surrey me in the west at a certain point in the east
i was reading john criminals the other day champion because they have nothing to do with that dog origins or and john clematis himself is completely dependent upon the a wagnerian origin current but he can say so and know cinzia was astonished when he was at mount athos the anger the hatred for aura
junior and he wanted to tell them where your hospitality is very dependent upon origin but they didn't know that because they haven't gone this route of serious historical research and study and a kind of a serene opened as to what the truth tells us central so anyway cation is an example of the east
comes into the west
hemp the the life of snap and you've athanasius this is very early in the east that as a huge influence on august and this is all around of athanasius basil it's in the west
refine us it's very early age so same time of a jerome is translate all sorts of eastern things into latin of right up to pseudo dionysius was tremendously influence influential in the middle ages and right up to st thomas aquinas some argue that he's more influential in the west
than in the east and right up through the middle ages or john duns scotus dedicates himself to translating either eastern fathers and defending them up the whole lot of fabric tradition the cloud of unknowing a nicholas of cusa etc i think one can really defend that there's much more
known about the best of the east and west then there's known about the best of the west in the east if there is a very tragic of cutting off of the one from the other i think one could argue that unfortunate it's the east the doesn't know the best of the west it only knows the worst of a kind of a decadent
your scholasticism in the fourteenth and fifteenth and seventeen hundreds and then they react violently against that and they take that to be the west etc but
that's a whole new area that has to be gone him to
a kind of a concrete sign of this or if you go into the bookstore up at the graduate theological union you find a whole section on the eastern fathers and the the whole thing that has he cast thing in the the whole bit
and there's much interest up there on that not to speak of the whole petrology series and bansal don't pre-treat listed origin whole thing is available there if you go into the bookstore of st vladimir's theological seminary new york i was astonished all you get is
the whole eastern fathers and eastern mysticism and eastern litter tree and eastern nepal and should i couldn't even find a section on scripture and it must be there somewhere but i couldn't find it and serve me nothing of of the western mystical spiritual geological heritage it was
it seemed really a ghetto and of course icons everywhere in the hopi to eastern music and records in the whole been you walk in there you walk into the east and you sort of close the door on anything else energy to you for all sections are young and floyd all these things ah it would serve
so if they're going to accuse us of being cut off from a whole the heritage i think there again up we can defend ourselves and we must also a little up counter attack as a criminal ah so i've gone forty five as i could go on happily we haven't even
come ashore huh
but i'll rush through this and you can think about this for a age and then
tomorrow we'll take it up again now start to focus on what i think might be a kind of a central issue for us is this modern secular world and what we do about it
oh
in many of their attacks i think there's a kind of implicit equivalency going on between various of polarities i think the basic polarity that we're all in agreement about it's the polarity between belief and unbelief it's a great polarity of sunshine and gospel
to believe to not believe and as christians as monks were dedicated to christian belief to extending and enriching our life of faith and we're dedicated to push it back sort of the horizons of unbelief
but in the new testament sense and we shouldn't get sloppy here
and we'll go back to that would now i think often when they talk quickly and somewhat what they end up doing is working out and equivalency between that polarity of belief and unbelief and a whole series of other polarities like sacred and religious on the one hand which would be sort of equivalent them to be
leave and the secular on the otherhand which becomes a kind of a equivalency to unbelief
now my thesis is that this isn't a biblical polarity this is much later sociological and it has nothing to do with this it's an entirely different plane you can have profound believers who are very much a secular you can have their neighbors and the seiko you can have under covers in the signal you can have unbelievers
the sector that's entirely different plane but i think when they talk quick sometimes but they do is make this equivalency what you make from this polarity of sacred religious as opposed to secular then you go right down the line you get all serious have other priorities central or religious vision
experience seems to characterize the ancient world or the medieval there's horses cushions you to be whereas secular seems to characterize the modern world
so to sit in kind of a time three if you want to set it in kind of a geographical free of the secular seems to characterize the modern west the sacred religious seems to characterize the east village in also modern
then what you've got a spatial thing to get more and more concrete the west means what western europe and sort of from italy west of and course my instincts east would mean what would increase mount athos russia etc if you want to get into the dialogue with other religions and in the etc
oh if you want to get a crease you about that the west obvious music
technological secular west is characterized by what focusing on technology and the sciences more this stuff whereas the east is focused on what wisdom religion prayer so you kind of typical western representative is your scientists or your technique
i'll adjust or maybe your business hand or something in your typical gang the east would be your wise man your
so you go on all the typical order to the west is that analytical mind that wants to dominate typical word with the east is the heart or the deeper wisdom with my spirit was something you can go on and on the basic point is
if it has to do with this everything becomes simple it's obviously that we in so far as were in favor of belief in a can start doing so we should be in favor of a single religious and against the secular we should be in favor of the old good old times and chemist the mom should be favorite east and against the west and so
a right way down the line becomes very simple we have a series of battles to fight
and our easter friends close to the seem to have a series of battles to fight and they often seem a kind of these polarities which are implicitly sometimes even explicitly plugged into the southern
so are against the secular which is surrounded the end of each of
if he isn't it were against the mater where the sectors ramp were against the west where this is unfortunately taken over like a cancer in questions or about russia and china but if you were against what's happening in america western europe and were very dedicated to force this sort of thing
now what will be wanting to focus on is this opposition between sec secular and sacred and religious there's an article in this can show you that makes an interesting says this is a kind of the late medieval western and still perhaps the eastern model it's problematic
and is unfortunately due to break down sooner or later the east as it has in the west and that is good faith as and are all confused with a kind of sacral isn't lol sorts of temporal contingent historical phenomenon and you've gotta buy the whole package and so you put yourself against all sorts of you put you
yourself against the potter and the secular in the sciences it's if you have to fight against them in the name of religion in the name of holy tradition this is the holy office condemning galileo the whole bit that we have gotten past with all sorts of suffering and anguish in the west
ah
that's what model that's the model implicit in that equipments are model has to be something like this and we've gone quite a ways in the west towards is that faith is on one plane totally different from the sacred our religious and there are many dimensions of the sick or they just
faith wants to animate penetrate you last but they are also many dimensions of a secular many very positive values that faith wants to penetrate like levin animate utilize medicine science physics etc
now the secular kinda while secularism that were again just as sacred can go wild in sick realism religiosity and said were also can that so this would be the western that still being fought and suffered et cetera and so many issues it's a kind of a guy
global thing that touches so many things up and the eastern is still locked in here this is the pieces of a couple of verses there and i think it's an interesting misled insists that can be pumped at least reflected upon now with the easterners attack the modern western secular world but some believe
in implicitly they're locked into this model and we shouldn't go that route because what isn't doing its going back to a kind of a happy childhood that one is lovely they can say look our vision is very unified and organic and our faith is related to r art which is related to our co
culture to our philosophy to the whole thing is global and unified and and beautiful and sacred and it is just like the little child everything is unified and everything is magic and everything of the were when you get into adolescence things start to break apart and your body goes weirdly in one day
section and your mind and another and you just uncertain of things that you get relative autonomy is breaking out and you have to study physics you find that help that has nothing to do with a very simplistic faith you add or maybe superstitions you out as a child and there isn't a sandy claws and all this and things start to split up
claremont remember speaks about this fragmentation of the west will someone hold and as on turning for the defense i would maintain that this is a sign of moving from a very childish state that was left me into the the rough battles of adolescence now we have to try to move beyond
both the solution is not to go back to the simplicity of the east and we all want to become of the children don't have problems of of modern x oh jesus and modern science and modern psychology etc we want to become fools for christ or or pure as he casts or something so
they cut off all that terrible baggage of a modern secularist world i don't think that's a solution at the solution is we have to go forward on this basic path and many said this is the uses locally famous east is going to have to go this route house it's inevitable
and if there's any schizophrenia it's much worse here than their the young greeks to to wants to be a devout orthodox and also finds himself in the university and is kind of attracted to physics what does he do
lehman college we had an exchange student from greece who is into physics and boy he had his ups and downs but
when this suggests this the easterners are starting to learn something about obviously physics engineering medicine psychiatry they've gotta do something with it there is no longer the sacred emperor around to to unify all this they're all our old occurrence of art from the renaissance on
on there isn't just the old iconography styles etc there's there's picasso around michelangelo it said where do you do with them to just spit at them and where do you do with law these other dimensions so many stress it
the east has inevitably to go through this dark night of adolescence and so the solution for us is not to say yes you're right the secular modern western world is terrible and to kind of make some sort of psychological be into the east but to move on this route certainly again on
assimilating all the past positive best elements of the east which are very profound and which prophetically criticized much that's that's bad in the secular and secularism but integrate the precisely because we can and hope that they can come around where they will finally be able also
oh to integrate of other areas into their so that a kind of a simplicity of the single synthesis begins to become more on plural for an articulated so here
as a defense attorney i rest my case now we can take a five minute break and then go into discussions and ducks jury
pardon that's
so the jury is come back now and from its deliberation suit
me
guilty
at the west has been declared guilty as charged
so electric chair of our lives for life
roasted her
are there any questions or problems or
who wants to defend here's a defender as that i was new york has internet access
have you the in that east except as well
well how it's a good question
for instance there's some greek theologian interchange of sites he says what is the essence of orthodoxy and he talks about these holy traditions capital as to
and the holy fathers and he doesn't have mentioned the word of god
i don't know i'm sure it's there but i think it's there in a very kind of the allegorical level i think it's often there whereas through the west and we've gone a whole route of critical textual exegesis a real giant is erasmus who sort of opens up the
west to western humanism and he creates out of his genius a critical edition of the new testament greek and he sort of creates all sorts of areas of critical exegesis what'd i think you want to get beyond exegesis but as vatican two says the solid rock of your spiritual reading of scooters has
to be the literal has to be the historical sense and
what am i i'm sort of anguish as is when this francis is orthodox up there at berkley said the distinction between the divine energies and essence which simple orthodox and is so important that we've got to keep the church split on this and they say the same thing about the cod yolk way
my only question is where is it in the word of god where do you get the essential distinction between energies and essence it's not even dreamt of in the word of god so here we're keeping the church divided over very esoteric theories had come out of their holy father's quite late
but i know i think a great breakthrough for the catholic church choices at assertion with vatican two of divine revelation that the word of god is kind of the criteria for catholic theology and catholic spiritual i don't have access to wait for the movies
the pay yellow
at work chosen he was presented some eastern thought himself would come back
yeah but he was a lie
but probably not
avocet
it seems get to
well i've heard the word of god
was it has been no i think we went to appear new round of touch
i just keeps me
spirit
place or the said
trees know the same type
oh it's you
good shit and we were to accept like the or with some said
this is bruce ah here
hey t
i think i'm very grateful to bringing back
ah
we work
right
when resource i think we have to is strictly western if we're ecumenical enough in the spirit of vatican two is the whole resource of the reformed tradition because if scriptures word central to us for a long time they've been critically import
hunt for the whole heritage out of luther
and he really for him the word of god was so difficult no doubt about that and he did a reading of pauline theology that every serious catholic exigent i've read and basically he was right then he went to foreign the other thing and said governments but the basic intuition that we are saved by faith is was decisive for paul and it was
and then the importance of reading scriptures scriptures as south africa etc we've had this heritage in the west and thus serious exit she's spoiled it's he translated immediately the scriptures into german a beautiful transition is the anglicans to the central and but we've had a lot of scripture reading
and meditation and scripture theology be done for four hundred years have that we can tap into up
catholic humanism
i didn't pick up to that song
racing
but
oh yeah not too much on me
strachan
i think they are no
jelly
curtis story
his church is unmatched
a minute
and this would be sign of the presence of the spirit
that it isn't just word it isn't just institution but there's is credible since it's spring up for francis i think it's a tremendous but catherine of sienna this woman i can do some bruno see there's not that many women states in the east but there are in the western is prophetess is catherine of sienna was
starts you know i'm talking to the pope in no uncertain terms and the bishops it's a this is certainly the spirit
eh
i think that the danger of the west certainly to get down into some kind of very dry air it's of the jesus of scripture this is the temptation now and the whole wealth of the eastern spiritually we have to get into that but then again we can because we know origin and we know the importance of origin and gregory of nyssa and so forth
i was kidding a in chenzhou was work on gregory listeners it all grigory west was just a a disciple origin and he says it's true it's now we know that and we can search me accept origin in a way that you couldn't if you were right now in mount athos are some a theological seminary in greece sword russia or something
so i think it's paradoxical but we have more access to the profundity of eastern spiritual ecstasy system the east in some ways don't they can say we've been cut off to want from it
other questions comments
question

take it
i spend more time
what
hi
said

year

yes

question

the question now
since me that's extremely important that
this business of trying to be elsewhere and it it's
ah the fact remains is a kind of a starting point and sees me that we are here we are americans born in this century and somehow the will of god is tight alchemists he does no one else it was our parents who decided that this unique person is this sort of thing now so in
fact i'm here
now i can go else where psychologically i can do it with all sorts of efforts but i think i first cut to be mean i've got to start from where i am
a big griffiths was commenting on an italian student who had gone very eastern and was there in india
he says when he's here in india is always still italian you know when it goes back to italy he's always the indian and that there's this type you know that has to be defined against and even against where he's really at which is interesting it gives you a kind of identity paradoxically but it's so
color istick
so i've been told by any chance so to not underestimate the kind of cultural difference of the east we can read these has a gasoline it's it's beautiful and one immediately to appropriated and apply it but he says it's an incredibly different world
the whole mindset envision is so different that you've gotta be there years before you start and i think i kind of western superficiality might be to want to make that leap before really serenely coming to terms with where i am i think that snip
you're so many westerners western india for instance where it's rather trenches they're hooked into drugs
says
yes
is i point
while
no
snyder
no

of monasticism is this way and just christianity for many people is quite an unknown quantity in is real faith but i think if this is case as it is i think you aggravate the problem is the identity of a whole community is then very esoteric lee
fourteenth century indian order to twelfth century clooney or something like that that is to save you can start dialoguing with this young man in terms of him bonds for instance thomas merton is lip contemporary american his dialogue with the roles very much part of the umair
his dialogue with the young hippie he said cetera of you can present the contemporary western monastic experience in a way that
i think it's less something from the moon or you can do it anyway this war from the big difference i think one of the ways to make it less from the moon is to accept that we are in fact you know americans have nineteen eighty and it's as americans and nineteen eighty that were wanting to be come out the least
monks whatever that means and to work through that i think if we take that path we might be able to dialogue more with this chap who comes off because you'll be all sorts of titans monasticism made me very weird but you'll be able to relate to have threatened the communal aspect for instance was a very strong in the young people having everything in com
and living in community are sharing the halting of meditation i think you can start building bridges like crazy if if you start from where we're at but if you start from on the sacred texts about tibet buddhism or sandwich and it it's a double
i almost wanted to say alienation that a double dip into another world
and some people want that w they want a break completely not just with egoism sin that they want to break completely with a culture
which in many ways is very ugly and hardy
as it might be on the streets of athens or the streets of moscow who are to poland's
so

well
shop
he son
else
his beard
water was happy to be

all this business
said
i
yeah
maybe separate

the fact that
twenty seven
she was
me
se
still
no

when when i think when tries to get into in the west at its best is as they often the comparison is the west at its worst against the east at its best so you're comparing some it is the businessman with the simian the new theologians and but if you compare the west at its best person francis of assisi with rasputin
but i think the west at its best things is an excellent chico
not all things like a incarnation and the god redeemed us is the god who created us and st thomas here grace presupposes nature that's a model that has so many implications and so just the joy of creation the joy of our own human nature
or and therefore not trying always to forcefully spiritualized everything
i think that's very year in a kind of a heroic attention that and but soon me be where we're at
but i think this is biblical and i think it's of happily theological so
and
up but one of the gifts spirit
it was produced it's a great discovery
and at very so by vibrating just
introduction
really at dialogue
researching them interact he says a fine then i must come back
but i think you percent two things not screen
the that it was round
spirituality
and her
ah
terms of rates
roots
and a pilot
i
yeah
yeah
perhaps a republic
yeah but it it's like there's a corporate kill
give it a real real
we just sort of a wishy washy now offering
i just wondered pumps
i wonder if we weren't cut off from a tradition work in the act
when does trains and really
struggle
when you read time why sure with boundary stepped
and a part one and i wouldn't get
i yeah he said
yeah was touched your girl outside and we're doing right and isn't there some mild appeared get pulled out look at ourselves
anna and
bennett
this moving forward with dynamism of person has been very important to me as cardinal newman it was very catholic and very oriented towards tradition in the fathers that was decisive for him but the anglicans always told him the roman church today is different from the age of
fathers and at a certain point he said you're right but that's because any living reality developed said he wrote his yes development of doctrine that's me development in continuity so he works out criteria said but i think i'm truly catholic vision precisely once development if you don't want development you should be either
lutheran anglicanism because they correspond often closer to the church of that slippery under the church of but what we're saying is this the streets and ongoing and dynamic and newman said yes i've changed thanks heavens i've changed because to grow as to change so up
that was history so i think of we we've had so born this model of immobility which is their model and so truth has to be a mobile because truth can't change and out and newman took us back to this organic model of scriptures the vine grows the body grows and so things develop
so i like that it's very important for me because if you get into an immobile list and it's always a fault similar because this is the monsignor lefevre we've got to go back to the old times in latin would jesus didn't celebrate the increasing latins absurd and certainly not in that right he uses he's going back to one period and he saying that
it's it but there was a before that said to herself the is all resort official because there's not that golden rock truth but there's so i think the beach and serene i'm going as the only answer which permits in a while to psychic growth and of creativity etc
crossing you can get off inside track siblings such a good so prevents so next time will come back and try to get further into what is secular what is sacred what is the good of the secular whereas the good of the sacred and how we can hopefully of fit into that model something