ABSTRACT
There is no such thing as an atomized human being. People may do this and that, but we reach no understanding of them from a recital of their ostensible actions. People may harbor a collection of ideas, but even a flood of abstract principles presents no more than an ornamental intellectual confusion, providing no contact with the inward sources of our life, and often only keeping just one step ahead of the impotence of our dislocated designs and actions. It is, therefore, particularly important to stress at this point what has emerged throughout the preceding account. John Climacus, together with earlier ascetic mystics, interprets human faculties, for good and evil, indeed all attitudes and practices, in relation to the total structure of the human person. This chapter approaches the same subject from a number of angles, now considered in its active, more ‘militant’ perspective – the perspective of the ascetic struggle of the monk. More particularly, it examines John’s view of human nature, and its relation to and interaction with divine grace. This implies a consideration of the impact of alien forces in the shape of demons, and the way of regaining wholeness in confrontation with them. The ascetic will be seen to be a ‘passionate’ being, ridden with passions and freed from them, in discernment, sensibility and contest. Eventually, the struggle of human nature will be illumined by its subsumption in divine passion (eros). ‘Nature’ (physis) cannot be separated from the total structure of the human
person. Vague in many passages where it is used by John, this term reflects the recovery of one’s true self, oriented towards God, who makes life holy and who is its ground and goal of existence. However, there are levels or dimensions in
human nature. John’s Ladder distinguishes two such levels: the unfallen nature of the human person created in the image of God, and the fallen or sinful nature. The distinction between the two marks a fundamental Christian dichotomy. Yet it is a dichotomy not between nature and grace, but between two levels within human nature. One’s perpetual struggle is a search for the state of glory properly belonging to human nature:
Following the tradition of the Life of Antony, which advises the ascetic to be preserved in accordance with God’s creation and intention,2 the Ladder exhorts the ascetic to seek that ‘pure nature of the soul, as it was created.’3 The conviction is that one has undergone ‘a change in nature’ and a ‘distortion in behavior,’4 though not a catastrophe. Terminologically, ‘nature’ (physis) is somewhat ambivalent in John, signifying mostly unfallen nature, though on occasion also denoting fallen nature.5 Nonetheless, this does not affect the substance of the matter. The evil within us is not natural, but it can become something like second
nature to us.6 It is this nature which the monk faces and fights with force; Climacus speaks of ‘the continual violence of nature.’7 The aim of the effort is to expel this second nature from the intellect,8 to reject it; Climacus speaks of ‘the supernatural denial of nature.’9 Ultimately, the purpose is to overcome it:
In connection with the latter expression, when John is being more precise, he makes a twofold distinction, between para physin (fallen nature) and kata physin (unfallen nature). Sometimes, however, as in the passage just quoted, he
implies a threefold distinction (para kata and hyper physin, or ‘above nature’), although one should not read any basic inconsistency into this. It is against their fallen nature that the ascetics in the Alexandrian Prison
fought so ruthlessly. The battle was fought as a fight against death, which is ‘unnatural.’11 ‘Although we all sin of our own volition, no one in reality actively chooses to sin against God.’12 We were created good by God, and our nature is neither evil in itself ‘nor responsible’ for the evil in the world.13 This is not to say that it is neutral, but rather that it is in essence good. Such is the basic Greek patristic view of physis, with which Climacus is in basic accord:
There are many natural virtues, as we shall see below, but no natural vices. In fact, sin is often un-hypostasized, rather than en-hypostasized, in ascetic literature.15 Other writers, such as Clement of Alexandria, distinguish ‘passion’ from ‘nature,’16 while the History of the Monastics describes passions as ‘alien or superfluous.’17 Sin alone is contrary to human nature (para physin). For Abba Isaiah of Scetis and Dorotheus of Gaza, the para physin state is tantamount to disease or sickness.18 However, it is we who have averted from God those inclinations, which were by nature good19 and marred the condition of our unfallen nature. Barsanuphius observes in one passage that the devil is actually even the cause of this marring.20 Hence we seek our former state of natural ‘relation’ with God, and we must do so in a manner described by John as ‘insatiable.’21
