Fr. Romanides on Neurobiological sickness of religion

Please note section 31  of the paper.  I will  tie it in with the rest of st Gregory's triad next post,  God willing.

31. The Council Of Orange 529 Condemned Augustine's Interpretation of Romans 5:12

 Gregory Palamas (1296-14 ) summarizes the patristic tradition against mysticism as follows: "The practice of making the nous^[ 108 ] abandon, not the physical thoughts,^[ 109 ] but the body itself in order to come upon rational spectacles, is the strongest of the Greek delusions and the root and source of every erroneous opinion, the invention of demons and the punishment which gives birth to despair and is the offspring of madness."^[ 110 ]

 An inseparable part of the cure in question is that the glorified have become specialists on the thoughts of Satan since "we are not ignorant of his thoughts."^[ 111 ] The invincible weapon against the devil is the repair of the short-circuit between the noetic faculty in the heart and the brain. This cure consists of confining all thoughts, good and bad, to the brain which is brought about only when the noetic faculty in the heart returns to its natural circular motion by means of unceasing prayer. Naive are those who think it is possible to keep only good thoughts in the brain by getting rid of bad thoughts. Not only is this impossible but one is obliged to know exactly how the devil manipulates human thoughts from the environment in order to defeat him at his own game.

 Success in this contest against the devil is guaranteed by means of the circular motion of the noetic faculty in the heart. St. Gregory Palamas summarizes the patristic tradition as follows: "For indeed it did not escape their attention that the act of vision sees other things visible, but it does not see itself. So it is with the noetic faculty. It acts on the one hand upon other things, surveying what it needs, which the Great Dionysius calls motion in a straight line. When it returns to itself and acts upon itself the noetic faculty sees itself. This again the same one (Dionysius) calls circular motion. This again is the best and special motion of the noetic faculty by which it transcends itself and finds itself with God. "For the noetic faculty," he says, "not scattered outside of itself", you see that it is outside? since outside, it needs to return, so therefore he continues saying "it returns to itself, therefore by means of itself it finds itself with God" i.e. it ascends by means of the way without error. For also it is impossible for such a motion of the noetic faculty to fall into error."^[ 112 ] During this state of either illumination or glorification the brain is functioning normally in communion with the environment and adding no kind of metaphysics or ontology to this experience of "seeing (Christ) in a mirror dimly" or "or face to face" (1 Cor. 13:12). The only ecstasy involved in one's first glorification is a loss of orientation until one gets used to seeing everything saturated by Christ's uncreated glory of the Father which has no similarity whatsoever to anything created.

 The uncreated glory of God is everywhere present saturating creation and therefore in each person and his heart. This uncreated glory's ruling, creative, providential and even purifying energy is already at work in each individual and in one's heart. However, not all respond in the same way to the uncreated purifying energy of God because of the short-circuit in the heart and one's environment. That one searches like Augustine for God outside of oneself in some kind of mystical experience by sending a supposedly immaterial soul into a world of immaterial archetypes is of course nonsense and according to the Fathers demonic.

 Dionysius the Areopagite was never understood by Orthodox Fathers as a mystic. He did not write a book on Mystical Theology, but on Secret Theology, so called because there is no similarity between the created and the uncreated and therefore it is "impossible to express God and even more impossible to conceive God." In other words Dionysius has nothing to do with Neo-Platonism and nothing to do with the Franco-Latins and pseudo-Orthodox who imagine that they are his disciples.

 The reason why there is no speculative theology in the Orthodox Church is the fact that the sickness of religion is neurobiological and its cure is a tested fact. "Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God."