To me, we are the presence of Christ now - this is what his release of the holy spirit to a bunch of fearful disciples means. Therefore, the Incarnation continues, and we don't have to choose. We have to reflect on all the history of that Incarnation, especially on the life of Christ and his actions, as recorded, but somehow to allow ourselves to be what we are, rather than always fearfully looking away from ourselves. That, I suppose, is my measure of spiritual maturity - the ability to take oneself seriously as an instantiation of the Incarnation without that getting to lead to self-aggrandisement.
Ok. I think I can see where you ate coming from @The_Riv and your family have my sympathy for stubbed toes and other disasters.
I think you are onto something by suggesting that these things are best evaluated in a relational or community context, and, of course, different faith traditions are going to have different ideas as to what spiritual 'progress' looks like.
I think we'd all agree with the 'shoulders of giants' thing, but that doesn't mean that a colossus can't have feat of clay nor that 'spiritual giants' are perfect. The Russians have a saying, 'greatness casts a long shadow.'
I understand there's an African saying that the higher the monkey climbs the tree, the more you can see its arse.
I'm sure the Apostle Paul was a pain in the neck to be around or to work with at times.
The Orthodox don't insist on unfeasible levels of sanctity for canonisation. Sometimes we've taken that to extremes. Diarmid MacCullough recounts a medieval incident where a Russian fella was canonised after he'd fallen down drunk and been robbed by thieves. The idea was that people who had suffered in some way could also he regarded as Saints. Western churchmen were scandalised when they heard of it.
On the hubris thing that @chrisstiles mentions - there's always a danger of that and I imagine that's why there are so many warnings about spiritual pride in the New Testament.
There is a New Testament exhortation to 'test' or 'examine' ourselves to see whether we be in the faith - 2 Corinthians 13:5, which rather suggests that there must be criteria for such an evaluation.
That isn't to say we should apply that to other people or go round speculating about the spiritual state of everyone else. I remember Mousethief relaying the Orthodox saying in relation to fasting, 'Keep your eyes upon your own plate.'
Judge not lest ye also be judged.
There is a big emphasis within Orthodoxy about not going round judging or criticising the spiritual state of others.
We aren't supposed to pay attention to what others are doing in church services for instance, although that doesn't stop ya-yas or babushkas from calling people out for not doing things 'properly' from what I've heard.
As I've heard Rowan Williams say, 'Ask the Greek Grannies.'
At ant rate, I'm not talking here about judging or evaluating anyone else's spirituality or spiritual maturity. I'm simply thinking aloud about what it actually consists of, how we recognise it and what we should do if we want to 'grow spiritually' in whatever way we define that in the context of our particular faith traditions and practices.
That’s coming from a more basic human development standpoint. Kind of a civilizational advancement thing. People reach levels of excellence in all kinds of endeavors. My non-supernatural hypotheses is that spiritual maturity should be included as one of those endeavors. And just like we’d rarely if ever look back 2000 years for more/better insight into, say, medicine (another area which is “practiced”), it strikes me as a little odd to suggest that spirituality shouldn’t or can’t be viewed in the same way.
Medicine is one possible analogy. But then, if one used art as an analogy you get a rather different picture. Poets and novelists may be aware of more things that can be done with words, and ways of telling stories, but few reach the level of excellence of Homer. Painters know a lot more about the craft of painting that Giotto or even Michelangelo, but again few reach that level of excellence.
I doubt Buddhists would claim to be more reliably able to reach enlightenment in this generation that in the first few centuries after the Buddha. Spiritual advice can help a bit, but fundamentally it is something that has to be done by every person for themselves, and every person being different every person has to start afresh.
That’s coming from a more basic human development standpoint. Kind of a civilizational advancement thing. People reach levels of excellence in all kinds of endeavors. My non-supernatural hypotheses is that spiritual maturity should be included as one of those endeavors. And just like we’d rarely if ever look back 2000 years for more/better insight into, say, medicine (another area which is “practiced”), it strikes me as a little odd to suggest that spirituality shouldn’t or can’t be viewed in the same way.
Medicine is one possible analogy. But then, if one used art as an analogy you get a rather different picture. Poets and novelists may be aware of more things that can be done with words, and ways of telling stories, but few reach the level of excellence of Homer. Painters know a lot more about the craft of painting that Giotto or even Michelangelo, but again few reach that level of excellence.
I doubt Buddhists would claim to be more reliably able to reach enlightenment in this generation that in the first few centuries after the Buddha. Spiritual advice can help a bit, but fundamentally it is something that has to be done by every person for themselves, and every person being different every person has to start afresh.
Thank you for this. It’s captured pretty well what I couldn’t quite figure out how to articulate about why I’m uncomfortable with the idea the civilization as a whole or the church as a whole now should be somehow more spiritually mature than 2000 years ago.
Kind of you, @Gamma Gamaliel to invite a reply. I don’t want to derail things, though, and a losing/absent faith perspective may not be the most helpful.
I think it was @ChastMastr who took some umbrage re: the idea that 21st century Christians should/could be more spiritually “mature” than Paul. That’s coming from a more basic human development standpoint. Kind of a civilizational advancement thing. People reach levels of excellence in all kinds of endeavors. My non-supernatural hypotheses is that spiritual maturity should be included as one of those endeavors. And just like we’d rarely if ever look back 2000 years for more/better insight into, say, medicine (another area which is “practiced”), it strikes me as a little odd to suggest that spirituality shouldn’t or can’t be viewed in the same way.
Maybe I pause here for feedback.
Yes, I don't consider that to be the same as spiritual maturity. There might be advances in general understanding of morality in a society (though I think this often improves one thing as one thing declines). But we're also looking at a world that has had, in living memory, the Holocaust, and current "ethnic cleansing" stuff, and oppression of all kinds. But I'm thinking of spiritual maturity as something each individual, in whatever part of time and space they inhabit, deals with, whatever pluses or minuses they may have in the society they grew up in.
To me, we are the presence of Christ now - this is what his release of the holy spirit to a bunch of fearful disciples means. Therefore, the Incarnation continues, and we don't have to choose. We have to reflect on all the history of that Incarnation, especially on the life of Christ and his actions, as recorded, but somehow to allow ourselves to be what we are, rather than always fearfully looking away from ourselves. That, I suppose, is my measure of spiritual maturity - the ability to take oneself seriously as an instantiation of the Incarnation without that getting to lead to self-aggrandisement.
Er, doesn't the Incarnation continue regardless of the presence of the Holy Spirit? It's not like (in my understanding of Christian theology) Jesus un-Incarnated after the Ascension...
Ok. Interesting. But how would you say that spirituality develops and how can we measure whether it is of a 'better' quality than it was 2,000 years ago, 500 years ago or 50 years ago?
I'm not suggesting "better" as much as further. Again, very generally speaking, things that present themselves as new discoveries or realizations of leading thinkers/doers eventually work their way "down" into the common core of the general population's knowledge or understanding, broadening or elevating a general baseline position. Can this not be true for matters of the spirit?
Sure, the Apostle Paul lived in a world where slavery was acceptable and where attitudes towards women and children were very different to how they are now. Standards of health, literacy etc are much higher than they were then.
How do we judge or assess the maturity or otherwise of the Apostle Paul's spirituality compared with our own? Is ours necessarily going to be more 'mature' simply because we live 2,000 years later then he did?
It sounds to me rather like the 'Whig view of history' applied to spirituality.
Even though he was God Incarnate Christ couldn't possibly be as 'spiritually mature' as we are because we live in the 21st century not the 1st ...
Yeah, right ...
That may be (the Whig thing), but I'm not so sure that's exactly what I suggested. Chronology is more the envelope other things reside within rather than the thing itself. How should Paul's spirituality be judged? Wouldn't a starting point be via the same mechanisms suggested here? Fruits of the Spirit, humility, etc? This very quickly starts to stray over an "own voice" line, because I've all but completely disengaged from faith. I'd only say that the whole 'who am *I* to say how things should be judged' attitude does seem to (IMO) start to smack of the false humility so many are wary of. Touching on @Twangist 's idea of peer relationships, is it not within those dynamics that comparisons and contrasts are most valuable? Why shy away from that, spiritually? I'll paraphrase a quote oft heard at awards ceremonies: "If I have seen further, it is because I've stood on the shoulders of giants." or some-such thing. But not spiritually? That's arrogant? That's disingenuous?
It's all very academic of course, as you are someone who no longer buys into a faith position and, correct me if I'm wrong, appear to using contemporary views and attitudes as a yardstick to measure the levels of 'maturity' of past generations. We have the capacity to nuke the planet to Kingdom Come but at least we don't have gladiators any more ...
I'm trying to be as self effacing in that regard as I can. But I'm not trying to judge in retrospect, here. I'm talking about my contemporaries being able to reconcile the idea of having eclipsed their forbearers.
I'm not saying there hasn't been progress. Of course there has. Penicillin. Greater levels of self-determination and choice.
And yes, we do seem to heve moved beyond Bronze Age notions of sacrifice and vengeance etc.
At least in theory...
I would have thought that whether we live in the 21st century or lived in the 13th, 3rd or 8th century or whenever else, the context should be taken into account.
I have, I think, but my curiosity, in part, is how much time needs to pass before something like spiritual maturity, if it is even in part a human endeavor, can be acknowledged let alone assessed.
Are we more 'spiritually mature' sat eating popcorn and watching a cheesy Christian You Tube video, say, than we would have been if we were Irish monks freezing away on a rocky outcrop somewhere in 732 AD?
If we are more 'spiritually mature' than previous generations, what are we doing about it? How does it affect those around us?
Pause.
These are questions for your fellow travelers. I no longer have what I believe is a helpful perspective in this area, unless outside, decidedly non-supernatural criticism is welcome. My guess is that at least @Lamb Chopped would prefer otherwise! (not in any way a criticism, @Lamb Chopped -- I'm just remembering your friendly warning upthread. )
[disclaimer]Please forgive me if these answers are underwhelming. Progeny2 came into the house at 3AM from having been out of town, so not a great night of sleep, and to start our day today around 7AM Mrs. The_Riv broke and dislocated one of her toes by kicking the foot of the bed, and we've been out and back to the ortho clinic, and I'm waiting on her hand and foot (pun intended).[/disclaimer]
Oh—and for what it’s worth, there seems to be a higher than average amount of suffering in the lives of the people I’ve identified as seeming to be spiritually mature. Which is doubtless no accident.
I've long had the impression that what is meant by spiritual maturity in Christianity involves accepting suffering. In this regard, I think spiritual maturity is less something that we can make happen through adopting particular practices, and more something that happens to us, through our attitude to suffering when it happens - through enduring.
A consequence of this is that maybe spiritual maturity isn't for all Christians. Putting that as a question, why should spiritual maturity arise from living a comfortable life?
And in relation to some of the points above, I suspect the Christian understanding of spiritual maturity only makes sense from a Christian perspective. (The theological concept I have in mind is the suffering servant.)
I agree with much of what Dafyd says. Shakespeare didn't have access to the special effects we have nor some of the advances in stage-craft. Does that mean he had less insight into the human condition, into characterisation?
To me, we are the presence of Christ now - this is what his release of the holy spirit to a bunch of fearful disciples means. Therefore, the Incarnation continues, and we don't have to choose. We have to reflect on all the history of that Incarnation, especially on the life of Christ and his actions, as recorded, but somehow to allow ourselves to be what we are, rather than always fearfully looking away from ourselves. That, I suppose, is my measure of spiritual maturity - the ability to take oneself seriously as an instantiation of the Incarnation without that getting to lead to self-aggrandisement.
Er, doesn't the Incarnation continue regardless of the presence of the Holy Spirit? It's not like (in my understanding of Christian theology) Jesus un-Incarnated after the Ascension...
I agree with much of what Dafyd says. Shakespeare didn't have access to the special effects we have nor some of the advances in stage-craft. Does that mean he had less insight into the human condition, into characterisation?
But you’re looking backward again. You’re starting to use the Whig History thing as a bit of a straw man here. I’m looking for aspects of an overall spiritual maturity. A progression. A rising tide that’s lifting all spiritual boats. Doctrinally it seems this reasonable, but not spirito-humanly.
The Arts aren’t as helpful an example as you might think. No great artist in any genre is an imitator. Yes, they all know what’s come before them, but they don’t copy. They innovate. They move things forward. They use what’s preceded to guide or safeguard progression.
What I’m reading here is that any spiritual endeavor must be started from a blank slate. All development is repeated on an individual basis all of the time. I guess that’s one way to facilitate the faith of a child. The collective effort, no matter how large or long, is only ever going to get so far.
Yes, we can innovate within a tradition. Picasso famously said that he spent 16 years learning to paint like Raphael and the r4st of his life learning to paint like a child.
We have to know the rules in order to break them.
Jazz improvises around themes and recognised structures thrn takes them off in all sorts of directions.
FWIW, I don't believe any of us operate with a blank slate. Our faith or lack of it is informed by all manner of environmental and societal factors. I'm also very conscious that we 'formed' I'm community. Those of us who adhere to faith positions have largely been 'socialised' into them.
When I was a card-carrying charismatic I didn't immediately start raising my hands or speaking in tongues the moment I crossed the threshold. No, I gradually became acclimatised to all that through engagement with it over a period of time. The same applies to the faith position I hold now.
I don't want to reprise the discussions and debates about the individual/collective mix that have been held here in the past. @Lamb Chopped would see these things differently and more 'individualistically' than I would as she found faith from a more 'isolated' position. That doesn't mean she rejects the corporate or communal aspects of faith. She is an active member of a faith community.
I'm not sure what you are saying here, @The_Riv, whether you are arguing for or against collective effort.
Perhaps I ought to trot out a both/and thing here ... 😳
Okay, well I don’t think I’m going to be able to say anything much clearer. Christianity is 2000 years on, and my take from this thread so far is that nothing’s really changed for Christians, developmentally, since then. 2000 years from now, things will pretty much be the same for Christians. A Christian from the 2nd century will essentially be interchangeable with a Christian from the 41st century. Maybe it was unfortunate that the germ of this discussion was an idea of maturity. We’ve bandied about the Fruits of the Spirit as an evaluative tool, but those traits aren’t specific to Christianity, or even religion in general. By we’re not here to talk about what distinguishes Christianity itself, but what distinguishes a mature Christian faith from an immature faith. But so far we’ve kind of preferred an idea that maturity isn’t really possible, that no one is really qualified to judge that, that no definitive tool or measure exists, and that every individual has to stumble their way forward organically and on their own, figuratively speaking (yes-yes in community and in relationships and within traditions…). That’s a surprising amount of stasis to me. Seems to be perfectly acceptable tho.
More love, I think, would show greater spiritual maturity. And the fruits of the Spirit, even if non-Christians show those traits.
If spiritual maturity is an individual thing, within each person’s soul, then it does not surprise or trouble me that spiritual maturity or lack thereof would not be dependent on the society, time, or place they grew up in.
As for being able to tell, we can make guesses at times. Certainly God knows. More than the individual would, even. Someone may think themselves very immature or very mature and have it completely wrong. (Maybe especially if they think themselves very spiritually mature.)
Re being born in different societies, with different/better/worse moral environments, I’m reminded of what Lewis says in Mere Christianity:
When a neurotic who has a pathological horror of cats forces himself to pick up a cat for some good reason, it is quite possible that in God’s eyes he has shown more courage than a healthy man may have shown in winning the V.C.
I’m thinking that the spiritual maturity and such showing itself in that context—a context which includes our societal experiences, education or lack thereof, upbringing, mental issues and such (boy, do I relate to the last two), etc., work a bit like that. We do want to make society as good as we can, absolutely, of course, just as part of loving our neighbors and their/our descendants, but yes, I think someone in 4000 BC and in 4000 AD will be able to be, however it plays out in their world, equally spiritually mature or immature.
Oh, and I think we’re only going to see the tiniest tip of the iceberg of spiritual maturity while in this lifetime. What will we be like after millennia or millions of years after this? (Or if we’re instantly transformed by God later?) We must do the best we can while we’re here, though.
I don't think anyone saying that we can't grow spiritually, rather that we cannot attain complete and total maturity in this life. You may have heard of theosis, the Orthodox idea - echoed in some Western Christian concepts albeit using different terms - that we can become 'deified' and more like God. We don't become God, but 'as he is, so you are to the world.' That's the ideal.
But we are never going to become fully perfect. There is always going to be scope for improvement.
I'd be intrigued to know what maturity looks like to you. Never doing anything wrong or not making mistakes? Perfect moral probity in all things? The rejection of concepts you consider outmoded or unhelpful?
What should Christianity look like in 2124 or 4124?
We are no longer burning one another at the stake. That's something. But what else and how else should our increasing levels of spiritual maturity be shown?
I’m tempted to say that we here in the “western world” are not burning people at the stake specifically, but lots of cruel forms of execution and murder are still going on all over the place.
Of course and I'm denying that. Nor am I saying that the 'Western world' is devoid of cruelty, not just in terms of executions and murder but other more subtle things as well as exploitation, gross inequalities etc etc etc.
I don't think anyone saying that we can't grow spiritually, rather that we cannot attain complete and total maturity in this life. You may have heard of theosis, the Orthodox idea - echoed in some Western Christian concepts albeit using different terms - that we can become 'deified' and more like God. We don't become God, but 'as he is, so you are to the world.' That's the ideal.
But we are never going to become fully perfect. There is always going to be scope for improvement.
Sure-sure, I understand those as givens, and I appreciate the reminder about theosis, and indeed, "continuous improvement" is desirable in a lot of human endeavors. Maybe I've been asking whether 2000 years of Christianity has, on average, facilitated a higher degree of theosis in general, or by some collective human gauge. It seems, though, that that's simply not a thing. Would you say that from an informational perspective there's a finite collection of knowledge that just about any Christian can 'get?'
I'd be intrigued to know what maturity looks like to you. Never doing anything wrong or not making mistakes? Perfect moral probity in all things? The rejection of concepts you consider outmoded or unhelpful?
I feel disqualified from making this kind of assessment, self inflicted as it is. What about the hierarchical (power) structures of the church? Would you say, at least insofar as the Big-O Church is concerned, @Gamma Gamaliel, that hierarchical authority is based on some concept of spiritual maturity? If so, what is that? Or is it more a function of something temporal, like administrative capability, instructional capability, political dexterity, or what have you?
What should Christianity look like in 2124 or 4124?
An intriguing topic for another thread, to be sure.
Would it help at all to compare the concept of spiritual maturity with that of physical maturity?
Because both are to a very large extent limited; you start at a given point and you end (roughly) at a given point, and in between there are all different stages and levels. But it's an individual trek for the most part; others may assist you (or not) as you grow, but it's not a cumulative thing--like where you could add up maturity levels for everybody in this group, and contrast with that of another group, and really be saying anything worthwhile.
For spiritual maturity, the starting point is the new birth; and the ending point is what Gamaliel would call theosis, and the rest of us maybe union with God, or some such...
(Note: this does NOT mean being subsumed into God and disappearing, or ceasing to be a person; it means being united, not absorbed and cancelled out.)
If you see what I'm getting at, you'll also see why every generation of believers is starting more or less at the same point, and hopefully ending at the same point as well, though that's not going to be as visible, coming after death.
And so it makes no sense to expect the human race as a whole to be becoming more spiritually mature.
Now there is a sense in which you might look for something like that, and that is in the body of Christ--the mystical union of all believers with one another and with Christ, the head. This is to be more or less identified with the Christian church in the large sense (not one denomination). Paul says of it
11 And [God]gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds[c] and teachers, 12 to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, 13 until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, 14 so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. 15 Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, 16 from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love. (Ephesians 4)
Here indeed it would make sense to ask whether there's been progress--and to expect it, too, after 2000 years. And I think there has been. But I also think it's going to be very hard to measure it, because for every victory critics can point to an equally showy defeat. And of course most of this goes on in the slow, quiet, everyday life of backstreet congregations and ordinary households, and rarely if ever comes to public attention. I mean, how would anybody besides myself know if I finally got the better of a serious tendency toward envy or spiritual pride? It's not the sort of thing you blow trumpets about... and so that kind of growth, in individual Christians contributing to the overall growth of the body of Christ, will go mostly unnoticed.
I'd like to say that generally speaking, knowledge is not what spiritual maturity is about. I'm speaking of the academic, "learn this stuff" kind of knowledge--the kind of thing you could put on a syllabus and test for, and see if people have mastered it. It's easy to memorize the seven deadly sins, and not hard to learn how to explain them and give examples, etc. But overcoming them in one's personal life is another matter altogether, and not only more difficult, but almost impossible to measure--especially in a person that's not you.
I think things can get both better and worse. I have been of the view that aspects, at least, of the so-called dark ages were better than the Middle Ages or the Renaissance. The levels of complicated cruelty that we see in the later eras are much worse than in the simpler post-fall-of-Rome era. They did have better plumbing, art, etc., later on, absolutely, but also some much scarier stuff.
And I think a lot of us in the US genuinely thought that things like racism, misogyny, etc. were gradually going away, not there yet, but still… and then the aggressive backlash the last array of years. Or even stuff like torture—I thought we’d “gotten over” that until Abu Ghraib and such happened, and a bunch of people thought waterboarding was just fine. I was astonished and horrified.
You ask a good question, @The_Riv about the hierarchical powers structures within Christianty and within the Orthodox Church in particular. That could be the basis for a number of new threads!
I'll make the following observations for now:
1) Yes, the Orthodox Church is very heirarchical. That doesn't mean that the Bishops and Heirarchs are always right. There have been instances historically, from an Orthodox perspective, when it was the laity who got things back on track after the Bishops messed up. I stress that this is from an in-house perspective, of course. Other Christians may not think they messed up at all.
2) The heirarchy aren't necessarily 'spiritually mature'. Often the opposite. They fall out all the time, play power politics and act daft. Some bishops are bonkers. The current issues and schism over the Ukraine is a case in point. Likewise, I would argue, the failure to resolve differences with other Christian churches despite agreements being reached at various conferences and so on.
3) The Orthodox can hold these things in tension, frustrating as it most certainly is. We see the Church as a divine and yet also very, very human institution at one and the same time. Nevertheless, and in spite of us all, 'the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it.'
It's messy though.
On the other question: 'Would you say that from an informational perspective there's a finite collection of knowledge that just about any Christian can 'get?'
Well, I would say, of course, that isn't just about 'information' and processing knowledge. The Orthodox wouldn't agree with the Puritan John Robinson that, 'The Lord hath more light and truth yet to breake forth from His holy word.'
No, we believe that the Truth has 'once been revealed to the saints' and that Truth is not a schema or set of propositions but Christ Himself who is the Truth.
Now, that doesn't mean that we can't grow in our understanding or appreciation of that Truth - or truths. There can certainly be development, even in the Orthodox Church. It may take hundreds of years but ...
I once mischievously asked the late Metropolitan Kallistos Ware what would happen if Paul's epistle to the Laodiceans, referred to in Colossians, were ever discovered or if documents purporting to be it were found beyond reasonable doubt to be authentic. Would it have to be accepted into the canon of the New Testament? He told me that he didn't like hypothetical questions but he would answer my question, which he graciously did and we chuckled about it on a later occasion.
His answer, for what it's worth, was that, hypothetically should such a thing happen and scholars across Christendom - Orthodox, RC and Protestant - were all agreed on the veracity of the discovery, then in theory it could be - but it would require an Ecumenical Council for the Orthodox to do so.
That answer wouldn't satisfy everyone of course.
Put more simply perhaps, and borrowing a Protestant example, there is the famous story (whether apocryphal or otherwise) of the theologian Karl Barth replying to a question as to what his extensive studies had taught him: 'Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so ...'
I've wandered a bit from your question, but I s'pose what I'm trying to say is that there is a mystical and revelatory aspect to how the Big-O's see these things as well as what we might call practical and pragmatic considerations. The two should work in tandem.
@Lamb Chopped - I might start a new thread about theosis as, to be quite frank, although some Orthodox rigourists might disagree, I'm pretty sure your 'union with God' thing is pretty darn close and to some extent I think we are dealing with semantics.
If there's one thing the Orthodox will insist upon as strongly as avoiding the filioque clause it's the idea that 'Scholasticism' shouldn't snuff out hesychasm and the potential of seeing 'The Uncreated Light' - the Palamite controversy and so on.
But that's another topic ... and for another time.
1) Yes, the Orthodox Church is very heirarchical. That doesn't mean that the Bishops and Heirarchs are always right. There have been instances historically, from an Orthodox perspective, when it was the laity who got things back on track after the Bishops messed up. I stress that this is from an in-house perspective, of course. Other Christians may not think they messed up at all.
2) The heirarchy aren't necessarily 'spiritually mature'. Often the opposite. They fall out all the time, play power politics and act daft. Some bishops are bonkers. The current issues and schism over the Ukraine is a case in point. Likewise, I would argue, the failure to resolve differences with other Christian churches despite agreements being reached at various conferences and so on.
3) The Orthodox can hold these things in tension, frustrating as it most certainly is. We see the Church as a divine and yet also very, very human institution at one and the same time. Nevertheless, and in spite of us all, 'the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it.'
Well yes, seeing how, however clumsily, I'm trying to draw on the Ecumenical Councils. And yes, I know there are disagreements as to how many there have been and which ones we should recognise or accept etc etc etc.
Chalcedon itself saw all sorts of infighting and fall-outs, of course.
But I s'pose what I'm trying to get across us that there's a creedal and conciliar basis to these things however we cut it. Even if we ignore the Councils or pick and choose from them we are still operating within that context and with reference to that background to some extent or other.
Well yes, seeing how, however clumsily, I'm trying to draw on the Ecumenical Councils. And yes, I know there are disagreements as to how many there have been and which ones we should recognise or accept etc etc etc.
Chalcedon itself saw all sorts of infighting and fall-outs, of course.
But I s'pose what I'm trying to get across us that there's a creedal and conciliar basis to these things however we cut it. Even if we ignore the Councils or pick and choose from them we are still operating within that context and with reference to that background to some extent or other.
What I'm meaning is that just as chalcedon clarified and formalised the idea that jesus is fully man and fully God.
Your statement (which I whole heartedly (and sometimes broken heartedly) agree with)
"We see the Church as a divine and yet also very, very human institution at one and the same time." Takes an analogous view of the church.
@Lamb Chopped I found your last post to be helpful, and it's encouraging to have it acknowledged that it's not unreasonable to at least ask if we are, overall, after 2000 years, more mature in faith, even if that overall corporate maturity comes via individual experiences that aren't identical, but similar and somehow collaborative for the greater good.
I still wonder about the possibility of someone being generally acknowledged as mature in faith before dying (after which faith isn't a component of one's self any more), and whether or not that is, by definition simply spiritually immature on the part of the people thinking so, if that's not too poorly worded.
I wouldn't see it as a problem EXCEPT for the temptation issue. And this is a live issue for me, given the work that I do in real life, and the reception it gets from some people. Since my besetting sin IS pride, the last thing I need is for people to start acting like I walk on water, simply because they like something I produced. In my opinion, they are mixing up the Giver and the means (that'd be me). And if I am ever fool enough to start picking up the credit they are throwing at me, I'd be in deep shit spiritually at once.
There probably are Christians who can handle being told that they're spiritually mature or whatever without difficulty. Their specific weaknesses lie in other directions. And certainly there's a real value to detecting spiritual maturity in someone else if you're (say) interviewing candidates for pastoral leadership at your congregation. Absolutely you want to get the most mature candidate you can, and so you'll ask questions and do investigations (read: check references) with an eye to finding out how mature this candidate is.
It's also possible to have certain famous individuals that everyone agrees are spiritually mature--though such people are at a very high risk of the danger I mentioned in my first paragraph, and need all the prayers they can get for their protection.
So it's not wrong to look for signs of spiritual maturity in others, or even in oneself (though that's not wise, as most of us are very good at self-deception). The question really is what you're going to do with that information. Call a pastor? good. Heap adulation on the person? Not good at all.
It occurs to me I haven't said anything about WHY spiritual pride is such a danger. It's because if you give in to it, in a heartbeat you can go from being a perfectly healthy, normal Christian in right relationship to God and the rest of the universe, to being an idolater--sticking yourself in the center of the universe, and by doing that, fucking up every other relationship you have, all at the same time. It's pretty much the top sin out there, because it does so much damage.
Well put, @Lamb Chopped. We have a different approach to the Lutherans, of course, but spiritual pride is pretty much seen as the deadliest of sins among the Orthodox too.
This observation may explain, to some extent, @The_Riv, why both Lamb Chopped and myself - and I think we share common ground here - are reluctant to concur with what appears to be your view of spiritual maturity - as some kind of culmulative progress across the generations.
The flip-side of that, of course, is the kind of Uriah Heep style false humility of the 'I am more mediocre than you ...' variety which I lampooned up thread.
There's a story told in Anglican circles of a vicar bidding his parishioners farewell at the church door after the service, as is the custom in the CofE. One old lady pauses and says, 'Wonderful sermon, vicar!'
To which he replies, 'Funny you should say that, the Devil said the same thing to me a few minutes ago ...'
Alright, that can come across as self-deprecation but spiritual pride is the opposite of spiritual maturity and is to be avoided at all costs. It is like playing with fire.
Comments
Very well put. Thank you.
I think you are onto something by suggesting that these things are best evaluated in a relational or community context, and, of course, different faith traditions are going to have different ideas as to what spiritual 'progress' looks like.
I think we'd all agree with the 'shoulders of giants' thing, but that doesn't mean that a colossus can't have feat of clay nor that 'spiritual giants' are perfect. The Russians have a saying, 'greatness casts a long shadow.'
I understand there's an African saying that the higher the monkey climbs the tree, the more you can see its arse.
I'm sure the Apostle Paul was a pain in the neck to be around or to work with at times.
The Orthodox don't insist on unfeasible levels of sanctity for canonisation. Sometimes we've taken that to extremes. Diarmid MacCullough recounts a medieval incident where a Russian fella was canonised after he'd fallen down drunk and been robbed by thieves. The idea was that people who had suffered in some way could also he regarded as Saints. Western churchmen were scandalised when they heard of it.
On the hubris thing that @chrisstiles mentions - there's always a danger of that and I imagine that's why there are so many warnings about spiritual pride in the New Testament.
There is a New Testament exhortation to 'test' or 'examine' ourselves to see whether we be in the faith - 2 Corinthians 13:5, which rather suggests that there must be criteria for such an evaluation.
That isn't to say we should apply that to other people or go round speculating about the spiritual state of everyone else. I remember Mousethief relaying the Orthodox saying in relation to fasting, 'Keep your eyes upon your own plate.'
Judge not lest ye also be judged.
There is a big emphasis within Orthodoxy about not going round judging or criticising the spiritual state of others.
We aren't supposed to pay attention to what others are doing in church services for instance, although that doesn't stop ya-yas or babushkas from calling people out for not doing things 'properly' from what I've heard.
As I've heard Rowan Williams say, 'Ask the Greek Grannies.'
At ant rate, I'm not talking here about judging or evaluating anyone else's spirituality or spiritual maturity. I'm simply thinking aloud about what it actually consists of, how we recognise it and what we should do if we want to 'grow spiritually' in whatever way we define that in the context of our particular faith traditions and practices.
Just this, @Lamb Chopped: "(And if this thread gets anywhere near as confrontative as the last one, I'm out. Letting you know now.)"
"Warning" may be too strong of a word, but I'm being mindful of your position.
I doubt Buddhists would claim to be more reliably able to reach enlightenment in this generation that in the first few centuries after the Buddha. Spiritual advice can help a bit, but fundamentally it is something that has to be done by every person for themselves, and every person being different every person has to start afresh.
Yes, I don't consider that to be the same as spiritual maturity. There might be advances in general understanding of morality in a society (though I think this often improves one thing as one thing declines). But we're also looking at a world that has had, in living memory, the Holocaust, and current "ethnic cleansing" stuff, and oppression of all kinds. But I'm thinking of spiritual maturity as something each individual, in whatever part of time and space they inhabit, deals with, whatever pluses or minuses they may have in the society they grew up in.
God, I need another mentor. O Daddy Vern, pray for me... and Cubby, pray for me too...
Er, doesn't the Incarnation continue regardless of the presence of the Holy Spirit? It's not like (in my understanding of Christian theology) Jesus un-Incarnated after the Ascension...
Oh no!! Many hugs, and prayers ascending!!
I've long had the impression that what is meant by spiritual maturity in Christianity involves accepting suffering. In this regard, I think spiritual maturity is less something that we can make happen through adopting particular practices, and more something that happens to us, through our attitude to suffering when it happens - through enduring.
A consequence of this is that maybe spiritual maturity isn't for all Christians. Putting that as a question, why should spiritual maturity arise from living a comfortable life?
And in relation to some of the points above, I suspect the Christian understanding of spiritual maturity only makes sense from a Christian perspective. (The theological concept I have in mind is the suffering servant.)
That's now how I understood @ThunderBunk's post.
If we are an 'instantiation' of the Incarnation that doesn't leech Christ of his.
@Pease, interesting and I was going to ask how Christian understandings might differ from other approaches such as classical Stoicism and so on.
But you’re looking backward again. You’re starting to use the Whig History thing as a bit of a straw man here. I’m looking for aspects of an overall spiritual maturity. A progression. A rising tide that’s lifting all spiritual boats. Doctrinally it seems this reasonable, but not spirito-humanly.
The Arts aren’t as helpful an example as you might think. No great artist in any genre is an imitator. Yes, they all know what’s come before them, but they don’t copy. They innovate. They move things forward. They use what’s preceded to guide or safeguard progression.
What I’m reading here is that any spiritual endeavor must be started from a blank slate. All development is repeated on an individual basis all of the time. I guess that’s one way to facilitate the faith of a child. The collective effort, no matter how large or long, is only ever going to get so far.
We have to know the rules in order to break them.
Jazz improvises around themes and recognised structures thrn takes them off in all sorts of directions.
FWIW, I don't believe any of us operate with a blank slate. Our faith or lack of it is informed by all manner of environmental and societal factors. I'm also very conscious that we 'formed' I'm community. Those of us who adhere to faith positions have largely been 'socialised' into them.
When I was a card-carrying charismatic I didn't immediately start raising my hands or speaking in tongues the moment I crossed the threshold. No, I gradually became acclimatised to all that through engagement with it over a period of time. The same applies to the faith position I hold now.
I don't want to reprise the discussions and debates about the individual/collective mix that have been held here in the past. @Lamb Chopped would see these things differently and more 'individualistically' than I would as she found faith from a more 'isolated' position. That doesn't mean she rejects the corporate or communal aspects of faith. She is an active member of a faith community.
I'm not sure what you are saying here, @The_Riv, whether you are arguing for or against collective effort.
Perhaps I ought to trot out a both/and thing here ... 😳
If spiritual maturity is an individual thing, within each person’s soul, then it does not surprise or trouble me that spiritual maturity or lack thereof would not be dependent on the society, time, or place they grew up in.
As for being able to tell, we can make guesses at times. Certainly God knows. More than the individual would, even. Someone may think themselves very immature or very mature and have it completely wrong. (Maybe especially if they think themselves very spiritually mature.)
Re being born in different societies, with different/better/worse moral environments, I’m reminded of what Lewis says in Mere Christianity:
I’m thinking that the spiritual maturity and such showing itself in that context—a context which includes our societal experiences, education or lack thereof, upbringing, mental issues and such (boy, do I relate to the last two), etc., work a bit like that. We do want to make society as good as we can, absolutely, of course, just as part of loving our neighbors and their/our descendants, but yes, I think someone in 4000 BC and in 4000 AD will be able to be, however it plays out in their world, equally spiritually mature or immature.
Oh, and I think we’re only going to see the tiniest tip of the iceberg of spiritual maturity while in this lifetime. What will we be like after millennia or millions of years after this? (Or if we’re instantly transformed by God later?) We must do the best we can while we’re here, though.
I don't think anyone saying that we can't grow spiritually, rather that we cannot attain complete and total maturity in this life. You may have heard of theosis, the Orthodox idea - echoed in some Western Christian concepts albeit using different terms - that we can become 'deified' and more like God. We don't become God, but 'as he is, so you are to the world.' That's the ideal.
But we are never going to become fully perfect. There is always going to be scope for improvement.
I'd be intrigued to know what maturity looks like to you. Never doing anything wrong or not making mistakes? Perfect moral probity in all things? The rejection of concepts you consider outmoded or unhelpful?
What should Christianity look like in 2124 or 4124?
We are no longer burning one another at the stake. That's something. But what else and how else should our increasing levels of spiritual maturity be shown?
What should it look like?
I feel disqualified from making this kind of assessment, self inflicted as it is. What about the hierarchical (power) structures of the church? Would you say, at least insofar as the Big-O Church is concerned, @Gamma Gamaliel, that hierarchical authority is based on some concept of spiritual maturity? If so, what is that? Or is it more a function of something temporal, like administrative capability, instructional capability, political dexterity, or what have you?
An intriguing topic for another thread, to be sure.
Because both are to a very large extent limited; you start at a given point and you end (roughly) at a given point, and in between there are all different stages and levels. But it's an individual trek for the most part; others may assist you (or not) as you grow, but it's not a cumulative thing--like where you could add up maturity levels for everybody in this group, and contrast with that of another group, and really be saying anything worthwhile.
For spiritual maturity, the starting point is the new birth; and the ending point is what Gamaliel would call theosis, and the rest of us maybe union with God, or some such...
(Note: this does NOT mean being subsumed into God and disappearing, or ceasing to be a person; it means being united, not absorbed and cancelled out.)
If you see what I'm getting at, you'll also see why every generation of believers is starting more or less at the same point, and hopefully ending at the same point as well, though that's not going to be as visible, coming after death.
And so it makes no sense to expect the human race as a whole to be becoming more spiritually mature.
Now there is a sense in which you might look for something like that, and that is in the body of Christ--the mystical union of all believers with one another and with Christ, the head. This is to be more or less identified with the Christian church in the large sense (not one denomination). Paul says of it
Here indeed it would make sense to ask whether there's been progress--and to expect it, too, after 2000 years. And I think there has been. But I also think it's going to be very hard to measure it, because for every victory critics can point to an equally showy defeat. And of course most of this goes on in the slow, quiet, everyday life of backstreet congregations and ordinary households, and rarely if ever comes to public attention. I mean, how would anybody besides myself know if I finally got the better of a serious tendency toward envy or spiritual pride? It's not the sort of thing you blow trumpets about... and so that kind of growth, in individual Christians contributing to the overall growth of the body of Christ, will go mostly unnoticed.
I'd like to say that generally speaking, knowledge is not what spiritual maturity is about. I'm speaking of the academic, "learn this stuff" kind of knowledge--the kind of thing you could put on a syllabus and test for, and see if people have mastered it. It's easy to memorize the seven deadly sins, and not hard to learn how to explain them and give examples, etc. But overcoming them in one's personal life is another matter altogether, and not only more difficult, but almost impossible to measure--especially in a person that's not you.
I'll make the following observations for now:
1) Yes, the Orthodox Church is very heirarchical. That doesn't mean that the Bishops and Heirarchs are always right. There have been instances historically, from an Orthodox perspective, when it was the laity who got things back on track after the Bishops messed up. I stress that this is from an in-house perspective, of course. Other Christians may not think they messed up at all.
2) The heirarchy aren't necessarily 'spiritually mature'. Often the opposite. They fall out all the time, play power politics and act daft. Some bishops are bonkers. The current issues and schism over the Ukraine is a case in point. Likewise, I would argue, the failure to resolve differences with other Christian churches despite agreements being reached at various conferences and so on.
3) The Orthodox can hold these things in tension, frustrating as it most certainly is. We see the Church as a divine and yet also very, very human institution at one and the same time. Nevertheless, and in spite of us all, 'the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it.'
It's messy though.
On the other question: 'Would you say that from an informational perspective there's a finite collection of knowledge that just about any Christian can 'get?'
Well, I would say, of course, that isn't just about 'information' and processing knowledge. The Orthodox wouldn't agree with the Puritan John Robinson that, 'The Lord hath more light and truth yet to breake forth from His holy word.'
No, we believe that the Truth has 'once been revealed to the saints' and that Truth is not a schema or set of propositions but Christ Himself who is the Truth.
Now, that doesn't mean that we can't grow in our understanding or appreciation of that Truth - or truths. There can certainly be development, even in the Orthodox Church. It may take hundreds of years but ...
I once mischievously asked the late Metropolitan Kallistos Ware what would happen if Paul's epistle to the Laodiceans, referred to in Colossians, were ever discovered or if documents purporting to be it were found beyond reasonable doubt to be authentic. Would it have to be accepted into the canon of the New Testament? He told me that he didn't like hypothetical questions but he would answer my question, which he graciously did and we chuckled about it on a later occasion.
His answer, for what it's worth, was that, hypothetically should such a thing happen and scholars across Christendom - Orthodox, RC and Protestant - were all agreed on the veracity of the discovery, then in theory it could be - but it would require an Ecumenical Council for the Orthodox to do so.
That answer wouldn't satisfy everyone of course.
Put more simply perhaps, and borrowing a Protestant example, there is the famous story (whether apocryphal or otherwise) of the theologian Karl Barth replying to a question as to what his extensive studies had taught him: 'Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so ...'
I've wandered a bit from your question, but I s'pose what I'm trying to say is that there is a mystical and revelatory aspect to how the Big-O's see these things as well as what we might call practical and pragmatic considerations. The two should work in tandem.
Yes, you've guessed it ... both/and ...
If there's one thing the Orthodox will insist upon as strongly as avoiding the filioque clause it's the idea that 'Scholasticism' shouldn't snuff out hesychasm and the potential of seeing 'The Uncreated Light' - the Palamite controversy and so on.
But that's another topic ... and for another time.
A kind of Chalcedonian Definition of the church.
Chalcedon itself saw all sorts of infighting and fall-outs, of course.
But I s'pose what I'm trying to get across us that there's a creedal and conciliar basis to these things however we cut it. Even if we ignore the Councils or pick and choose from them we are still operating within that context and with reference to that background to some extent or other.
What I'm meaning is that just as chalcedon clarified and formalised the idea that jesus is fully man and fully God.
Your statement (which I whole heartedly (and sometimes broken heartedly) agree with)
"We see the Church as a divine and yet also very, very human institution at one and the same time." Takes an analogous view of the church.
I still wonder about the possibility of someone being generally acknowledged as mature in faith before dying (after which faith isn't a component of one's self any more), and whether or not that is, by definition simply spiritually immature on the part of the people thinking so, if that's not too poorly worded.
There probably are Christians who can handle being told that they're spiritually mature or whatever without difficulty. Their specific weaknesses lie in other directions. And certainly there's a real value to detecting spiritual maturity in someone else if you're (say) interviewing candidates for pastoral leadership at your congregation. Absolutely you want to get the most mature candidate you can, and so you'll ask questions and do investigations (read: check references) with an eye to finding out how mature this candidate is.
It's also possible to have certain famous individuals that everyone agrees are spiritually mature--though such people are at a very high risk of the danger I mentioned in my first paragraph, and need all the prayers they can get for their protection.
So it's not wrong to look for signs of spiritual maturity in others, or even in oneself (though that's not wise, as most of us are very good at self-deception). The question really is what you're going to do with that information. Call a pastor? good. Heap adulation on the person? Not good at all.
It occurs to me I haven't said anything about WHY spiritual pride is such a danger. It's because if you give in to it, in a heartbeat you can go from being a perfectly healthy, normal Christian in right relationship to God and the rest of the universe, to being an idolater--sticking yourself in the center of the universe, and by doing that, fucking up every other relationship you have, all at the same time. It's pretty much the top sin out there, because it does so much damage.
This observation may explain, to some extent, @The_Riv, why both Lamb Chopped and myself - and I think we share common ground here - are reluctant to concur with what appears to be your view of spiritual maturity - as some kind of culmulative progress across the generations.
The flip-side of that, of course, is the kind of Uriah Heep style false humility of the 'I am more mediocre than you ...' variety which I lampooned up thread.
There's a story told in Anglican circles of a vicar bidding his parishioners farewell at the church door after the service, as is the custom in the CofE. One old lady pauses and says, 'Wonderful sermon, vicar!'
To which he replies, 'Funny you should say that, the Devil said the same thing to me a few minutes ago ...'
Alright, that can come across as self-deprecation but spiritual pride is the opposite of spiritual maturity and is to be avoided at all costs. It is like playing with fire.