I am the image of Thine inexpressible glory, even though I bear the wounds of sin
From the Orthodox funeral service for the laity
A few days ago we commemorated Julian of Norwich, the medieval anchoress and mystic whose writings are widely known and read in the Western Christian world. She is particularly famous for her statements that may be interpreted as hinting at apocatastasis, or universal salvation, and using the metaphor of a mother to describe Christ and his relation to us. These are controversial enough motives, but since she doesn’t use definitive or dogmatic terms with regard to, for example, apocatastasis, but merely talks about God’s will and desire, as many other Christian thinkers have done, they do not make her unorthodox in the eyes of most contemporary theologians (even though there are certainly also such that reject any suggestion of universal salvation whatsoever). The most problematic thing about her teaching, however, seems to be the way she speaks about the soul and human condition in relation to God. The Rev. Dr. Gregory Neal, our Facebook friend, for example, contends in his article Divine Love and Semi-Gnosticism: Heretical Tendencies In The Thought of Julian of Norwich that hers is in fact a Gnostic concept and so incompatible with orthodox Christian teachings. We find the problematic assertion expressed most clearly in this passage from Julian’s Revelations of Divine Love :
. . . I understood with absolute certainty that there is in every soul to be saved a godly will that never has assented to sin, and that never will. This will is so good that it never wills evil, but always wills good, and, in the sight of God, does good.
To say that something is unorthodox as Gnostic means a fundamental critique. Dr. Neal writes, describing the teaching of Julian:
This will is a gift of God … The object of “salvation” is the union of the soul with God, this union being possible because there is, within the soul, a portion of God’s will that is without sin. … this portion of will is … viewed as a deposit of God’s very nature within the human soul
And then says that
… Julian opened up the road for gnostic influences; most importantly, it made the nature of God within the Christian the conduit for the salvation process. Without the divine nature within the soul, a nature which is incapable of doing sin, it would be impossible for there to be any reunification of human and divine – for the Divine will not reunite with that which is not sinless. Indeed, this divine substance is not only sinless and capable of unification with God, but also has never been removed from communion with God.
When I read this critique and Julian’s writings, however, it came to my mind that it may be worthwhile to present her views in the context of Orthodox theology. I believe that it is possible to defend them as orthodox (in the broadest, Christian sense), and so I would like to share a few reflections, even though of course this topic requires a much more thorough study. Two things seem important: the understanding of the image of God after which man was created and the implications of the Incarnation, that is the God-Manhood of Christ and our union with him. Orthodox theology distinguishes between image and likeness, the first being in a sense a potential, the other the actual realisation, advancing on the path towards union with God, becoming like God (theosis). Archbishop Kallistos Ware writes :
Orthodox religious thought lays the utmost emphasis on the image of God in man. Man is a ‘living theology,’ and because he is God’s icon, he can find God by looking within his own heart, by ‘returning within himself:’ “The Kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:21). ‘Know yourselves,’ said Saint Antony of Egypt. ‘…He who knows himself, knows God (Letter 3 (in the Greek and Latin collections, 6)) ‘If you are pure,’ wrote Saint Isaac the Syrian (late seventh century), ‘heaven is within you; within yourself you will see the angels and the Lord of the angels’ (Quoted in P. Evdokimov, L’Orthodoxie, p. 88). And of Saint Pachomius it is recorded: ‘In the purity of his heart he saw the invisible God as in a mirror (First Greek Life, 22).
And Valerie A. Karras argues that the problem of human condition
is not (…) that human beings have no natural orientation toward God. The problem of our fallen condition is that, because we have broken communion with God, our spiritual vision has become “clouded” so that we fail to recognize clearly in what direction our natural orientation lies and therefore fail to move consistently in that direction, i.e., to restore communion with God.
It seems tenable, then, to say that Orthodox theology acknowledges that human will is not entirely corrupted, which corresponds to the distorted, but not removed, image of God. Practically it means that a desire to do good and seek God is to be found in man, but in and of itself it is not enough to move him towards God and overcome the barrier of sin. Karras writes :
Thus, Orthodoxy understands human sin primarily not as deliberate and willful opposition to God, but rather as an inability to know ourselves and God clearly. It is as though God were calling out to us and coming after us in a storm, but we thought we heard his voice in another direction and kept moving away from him, either directly or obliquely. It is illuminating that the Greek word for sin, hamartia, means “to miss the mark”. Despite our orientation toward God, we “miss the mark” because, not only does the clouded spiritual vision of our fallen condition make it difficult for us to see God clearly, but we fail to understand even ourselves truly; thus, we constantly do things which make us feel only incompletely and unsatisfactorily good or happy because we don’t recognize that God is himself the fulfillment of our innate desire and natural movement. Explaining Maximos’ theology, Andrew Louth offers, “… with fallen creatures, their own nature has become opaque to them, they no longer know what they want, and experience coercion in trying to love what cannot give fulfilment.” Ultimately, it is not our natural human will that is deficient, but rather how we perceive it and the way, or mode, by which we express it; as Louth sourly opines, “it is a frustrating and confusing business.”
What is the solution then, what is salvation? The answer Orthodox theology gives is the God-Manhood of Jesus and his overcoming of human mortality through the resurrection. Eastern soteriology has not been formulated in legal terms – like penal substitution – but it always refers to ontology and salvation through participation in Christ who deified and restored human nature. To put it as simply as possible: every man can participate in the nature of Christ, which is “homousious” with our nature, and consequently in God, who is “homousious” with Christ. That is not a static accomplishment, however, but a dynamic process of theosis, which occures through the Holy Spirit. As Mark Shuttleworth writes :
With the Incarnation, God has assumed and glorified our flesh and has consecrated and sanctified our humanity. He has also given us the Holy Spirit. As we acquire more of the Holy Spirit in our daily lives, we become more like Christ, and we have the opportunity of being granted, in this life, illumination or glorification. When we speak of acquiring more of the Holy Spirit, it is in the sense of appropriating to a greater degree what has actually been given to us already by God. We acquire more of what we are more able to receive.
Could we say then that when Julian writes of this will of the soul she in fact refers to the image of God which, in order to be restored and become active – leading us to God – depends “on the sight of God”, as she put it? The sight of God can mean his grace revealed in the deification of human nature in Christ. The Holy Spirit and grace are indispensable for us to draw closer to God – and I think nothing in Julian’s writings denies that. But the revolutionary foundation lies in the deification brought about by Christ and in the restoration and elevation of human nature in him. The hitherto obscured and powerless longing of the human soul may be fulfilled in Christ through the grace (“the sight”) of God.
The above is of course nothing but a very general attempt to find a way to reconcile Julian’s views with Christian doctrine. All these points need elaboration and there are more that should be taken up. But I think it might be cautiously concluded that her teachings are not gnostic or even semi-gnostic (unless we assume that Orthodoxy is also semi-gnostic, which is of course thinkable). And of course, the problem whether “gnostic” should always mean unacceptable is an altogether different question. I’m curious what Rev. Neal would think about my propositions.
