This is the concluding part to the book review of St Gregory of Nyssa, On the Human Soul.
Click here for ⇐ Part I

The Soul after Death

Plato, Origen, and the Bible provided the sources for Gregory’s thought on this matter. Unlike the fundamentalists of today — and I would include the anti-Christian, neo-Nietzschean and neo-pagans in that camp — Gregory tends to understand Scripture allegorically rather than literally. Gregory believed that by the very order of things, the good and justice will ultimately prevail. Again, this is consistent with Guenon in the Symbolism of the Cross. Gregory believed that if the soul becomes mindful of its previous sins, and fearful of their consequences, he becomes wise and prudent. That is a big “if”. On the one hand, few today believe they are sinful or that there are consequences. On the other hand, the neo-Christians who believe in “faith alone”, don’t accept that there is any necessary reason to become wise or prudent.

I will gloss over the discussion of the resurrection, but will point out that “resurrection is the restoration of our nature to its original state.” Of course, for us, that is the Primordial State. In that state, there is no childhood, old age, disease, or infirmity. The body is incorruptible and is finer and lighter. This is not unlike what Guenon wrote about the body being lighter in earlier yugas. Obviously, the impure souls will not be part of this resurrection to the Primordial State.

The Relation of Body and Soul

Gregory claimed that

the study of the soul and its relation to the body is of primary importance, since the knowledge of the soul and the manner in which it operates in the body has a profound bearing on the ideas of perfection and salvation, as well as on man’s well-being and thinking.

If that be so, then why does no one in the West consider it very important? Only in the East, do some men continue to map out the intricacies of the soul If Gregory is correct, then we understand why Protestantism is so destructive, since salvation, for it, involves little more than responding to an altar call.

Unlike the pagans, like Plotinus for example, who regarded matter as inherently evil, Gregory saw the origin of sin in man’s will, not in the body, per se. Nevertheless, the lower forces, which as we pointed out earlier arise from the outside of man, must be overcome. Specifically, men in the flesh must separate or detach from such forces. This does have an effect on salvation:

if anyone is entirely preoccupied with the things of the flesh and uses every movement of the soul and all its energy for his fleshy desires, he will not be separated form experiences involving the flesh, even when he is out of it.

Gregory has an interesting understanding of the senses:

Since the senses are more akin to the coarseness and earthiness of the body than to the soul, they are subject to errors. They are termed windows through which death enters, for they lead men to the life of the passions and bodily pleasures.

Men today are in basic agreement, except that for them life enters through the senses. Sensuality is considered normal and good. For the moderns, the purpose of the intellect is to think up ways to improve sensual experience: the body desires and the soul tries to satisfy it. For Gregory, the reality is reversed: the body is the instrument of the soul. The soul commands and the body executes. This is not life denying, since the intent is not to cause the body to suffer, but rather to improve the life of the soul. The desires of the body are never fully sated, so men today are anxious, angry, fearful and seek to hide from them through the pursuit of “good” experiences. Rather, the soul should learn to be ordered, just as the macrocosm is ordered.

The Faculties of the Soul

The Platonic Element

Gregory follows Plato’s naming of the three powers of faculties of the soul:

• Nous. The rational power consisting of intellect and will.
• Thymos. The spirited or striving faculty.
• Epithymia. The appetitive faculty of desire.

Gregory says the inclinations of thymos and epithymia are harmful or good, depending on how they are applied. Although they are beast like, they cannot be reduced to instincts, presumably because instincts are mechanical and, as such, are beyond ordinary conscious control.

When under the dominion of the nous, of the two lower faculties, one gives courage and the other the desire to participate in the good. Otherwise, disorder sets in. Gregory’s teaching is summarized in this table:

Faculty	Virtue	Illness
Rational	Contemplation of the divine Discernment between good and evil Clear and unconfused knowledge of physical nature	Impiety Lack of sound judgment concerning the truly good False opinion regarding the nature of things
Spirited	Hatred of evil The struggle against passions The urging of the soul to courage	Envy Hatred Malice
Appetitive	The virtuous motion toward what is worth desiring An erotic impulse towards virtue	The love of money Sensuality

Disorders of the Rational Faculty

Although most people focus on the illnesses of the spirited and appetitive faculties, it is actually the illness of the intellect which is more serious and the most difficult to eradicate. A man who is disordered in his spiritedness or appetite can learn to overcome them, provided his intellect is still sound. Unfortunately, a man with a disordered intellect is not even aware of this disorder; hence, he has no incentive to change. These types of men make communication difficult.

It is worth the effort to update Gregory’s symptoms. Now, as then, impiety is a common illness of the rational soul. Impiety means the denial of the existence of any higher, spiritual influences; moreover, any such teachings are simply mocked.

Lack of judgment of the good leads to regarding the disorders of the lower faculties as good, rather than the bad that they really are. Or things that are necessary are regarded as evil. This leads to a strange kind of neo-Puritanism. Although I’m not an advocate of Puritanism, at least their intent was to establish order and lead to salvation after death. Neo-Puritanism, on the contrary, seeks to abolish death, an obvious absurdity. This leads to public attacks on smoking, the right to bear arms, and even on what the populace is allowed to eat and drink.

The disease of misunderstanding the nature of things leads to decision-making base on sentimental motives or wishful thinking, rather on how things really are. Anyone who opposes such beliefs is shamed, ostracized, or even worse, if they hold positions of power.

As we have pointed out, the roots of these errors go deep and are based on the rejection of one or more metaphysical principles. For example, we have shown how the rejection of final or formal causes leads to specific sorts of errors. The rejection of order, i.e., impiety, leads to Marxist-like plans to overturn the established order.

The Aristotelian Element

Alongside the Platonic understanding of the soul, Gregory also draws on Aristotle. For him, they are not in contradiction. Gornahoor would say that the Platonic understanding is founded on interiority and is proved by the dominion of the rational soul.

The Aristotelian perspective starts from the senses and leads inward. So he accepts the understanding of the soul as encompassing three elements:

1. The vegetative soul, which controls growth and increase and the activities of life.
2. The sensitive soul, which governs sense activities.
3. The rational soul, or intellectual power

Gregory writes:

The perfect life in the body is seen to be in the rational nature of man, being nourished and perceived by the mind, participating in reason and governed by the mind.

In keeping with the outer orientation, the nous, or rational soul, exteriorizes its activities in matter. Thus, the nous is united to power, which is the ability to bring ideas and plans into manifestation. Since the soul is beautiful, what it makes manifest will also be beautiful.

Free Will and Virtue

In the final chapter, Mr. Cavarnos addresses Gregory’s teaching on the will. He defines freedom:

freedom is choosing freely the object desired. Will is a faculty exempt from servitude, free, residing in the independence of our reason. Free will is the essential foundation for virtue, for if it is lacking, then there can be no virtue, no praise, no blame for human conduct.

The consequences of this teaching are hard, and few are willing to accept it. Gregory explains:

The soulless or irrational beings are led by an external will. If a rational and thinking nature discards freedom, it also loses the right for thinking.

Obviously, a multitude of spiritual influences abound, whose goal is to implant themselves in unaware minds, thus controlling their wills in a very real sense. Isn’t this far too obvious to deny? For example, in the USA, almost out of nowhere, a movement arose to infringe the right to bear arms. Suddenly the nation was mobilized, the media focused on the topic, the populace talked about it, and so on. The “debates” on the topic are almost always reduced to swapping slogans or making sentimental arguments. I saw one woman saying, in all seriousness, that women don’t need a gun for self-defense since she “feels” safe even when walking in bad neighborhoods. Apparently, any argument — whether pro or con — is unnecessary, since her feelings trump any such argument.

I am not trying to adjudicate that issue here, but to point out how external ideas take hold in a mind. This irrationality is considered “soulless” by Gregory. As you go through the day, can you tell which beings that you encounter actually have a soul and which are soulless?

According to Gregory, God endowed human nature with the principle of all that is beautiful, and the most precious and beautiful good is the gift for being independent and free. Necessity and compulsion negate man’s being the image of God.

Hence, when a man makes a bad choice, he must accept the consequences of that choice. This is the natural result and not a special act of divine retribution as some are inclined to think. The conclusion from this is clear, as was shown in Guido De Giorgio’s meditation on death. God does not directly punish a soul, or send it to hell or whatever other place or state; rather, man himself chooses his own ultimate state.

Mr. Cavarnos does not draw any conclusions from this; nevertheless, Gornahoor thinks there is a clear and important conclusion. If all this is true, then the salvation of the soul requires the development of the rational faculty or nous. This is measured in several ways:

• The rational soul becomes the master of the lower faculties.
• It contemplates the divine
• It discerns between good and evil
• It has clear knowledge about physical nature
• It exteriorizes itself in a life of virtue and beauty

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⇐ Part I