Obedience

[karcy]

Elder Porphyrios on obedience:

I can't give you an example of what real obedience is. It's not that we have a discussion about the virtue of obedience and then I say to you, 'go and do a somersault' and then you obey. That's not obedience. You need to be entirely carefree and not thinking at all about the matter of obedience, and then suddenly you

Comments

[mysterious_joy]

I think obedience means a listening, receptive attitude. The german term for obedience is "Gehorsam", which means listening to what you're told. It's mostly a matter of talking right with other people, including listening to them and putting into practice what you've heard. But there's the intermediate state of thinking about what you've been told. And that's not counter to the virtue of obedience. There is no "pure obedience" in which you don't think anymore. The inbetween state of thinking of what you heard is important too and allows you to make an action into your own. Being entirely obedient in the sense of always immediately positively responding to requests and orders would turn you into a drone, and I don't think that's what God wants. And the real point of obedience is not the obedient action but instead a wholesome reception of the entirety of what someone tells you. So when some people say to their children, how dare you talk back to me, that's entirely wrong. There must be a lively dialogue. God doesn't want to be our

[karcy]

I think we can both agree that God is not looking for robots

[mysterious_joy]

Sorry Catalina, but I don't understand that at all. A monk who moves stones around is showing obedience in the sense of a godly value? You must be kidding. Are we some kind of wild horse whose will must be broken? Really, this is making me feel very uncomfortable

[karcy]

Hmm. One of the things I am concerned about when I post stuff like these is that many people can misinterpret the ascetic life.

In your case, you've had continual problems with imagining God as a very harsh, judgmental, cruel individual who will condemn yourself or your loved ones to eternal torture and pain. And I don't want to encourage that image of God in you, either. When an Orthodox becomes a monastic, this is not what they believe.

To understand what the monks are doing, think of it less as 'obedience to an angry God' and more as 'self-disciplineFor an example, do you get up at a certain time every morning? Do you try to get to some place on time? Do you brush your teeth

[susannah]

I think any discussion on the virtues of obedience should also engage in the virtues of disobedience.

I agree with what you say about obedience being a kind of self-discipline, and considering how selfish we often are, and how naturally reluctant to serve others rather than ourselves, obedience is sonething active rather than passive, something positive and not demeaning.

However, I think good Christians should also be disobedient at times in the face of injustice, oppression, unkindness. They should seek to subvert dominant cultures of oppression - whether that is outside or inside the Church.

Religion is far too powerful and dangerous in people's lives to be exploited as a tool of compliance, whether consciously or unconsciously.

Disobedience is a virtue too. And sometimes takes moral courage.

[karcy]

The place of a kind of conscientious disobedience is another topic though. I touch on this topic fairly briefly here.