St. Theophan the Recluse: Darkness of Deconstruction

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Sunday, July 14 (1), 2024
3d Sunday after Pentecost
Rom. 5:1-10; Mt. 6:22-33                                             

If thine eye be simple, thy whole body shall be full of light.  But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness” [Mt. 6:22-23].  Our mind is called an eye here, and the entire soul is denoted by body.  Thus, when our mind is simple, our soul is well lit, and when the mind is evil, the entire soul is in darkness.

What, then, is a simple mind, and what is an evil mind?  A simple mind accepts everything as it is written in the Holy Scripture and believes it without any doubt: no reservations, no ifs, ors and buts.  An evil mind, on the contrary, approaches the Word of God cunningly, with artful counter-arguments and hostile questioning.  It has no straight belief, but instead makes the Scripture an object of deconstruction, an intellectual exercise of sorts.  It looks at the Scripture not as a disciple, but as a judge or a critic, interrogating it, and then either scoffing or saying arrogantly: “That’s not too bad…”

Such a mind has no principles because, obviously, it does not believe in the Word of God, while in itself it is always unstable: one way today, another way tomorrow.  There is nothing in it but uncertainty, confusion, questions with no answers: everything is out of place, so it moves around as if groping in darkness.  Conversely, a simple mind sees everything clearly: its world view is based upon, and determined by, the Word of God, so that all things are in place, logical and coherent with one another.  A simple mind travels on wide open, well-marked roads, with clear sense of the right direction.

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