THE EPISTEMOLOGY OF HOLINESS

HOW GOD’S SPIRIT IMPARTS SPECIFIC REVELATION, BUT NOT GENERAL KNOWLEDGE

A Western Orthodox Reflection on Scripture, the Fathers, the Councils, and the Canons

By Bp. Joseph (Ancient Church of the West)

INTRODUCTION

It is one of the deepest ironies of the Christian tradition that while we are taught to seek wisdom above gold, and holiness above fame, we have so often confused these with knowledge itself. For holiness is not omniscience. Sanctity is not scholarship. And the Spirit of God, though He breathes truth, does not breathe certainty about all things into all those who love Him. Indeed, it is precisely this misunderstanding (conflating inspiration with information, or sanctity with scientific acuity), that has led to many of the epistemic confusions in the long and winding history of the Church. This confusion has often led to inexcusable violence, abuse, and un-Christlike behavior on the part of those who have created a false epistemology of certainty, and believe themselves to be without error, sin, or in need of repentance. 

THE BIBLICAL WITNESS: SPECIFIC, NOT UNIVERSAL REVELATION

The Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, is replete with specific revelations: visions, dreams, and divine messages that speak into moments, situations, and individual lives. But these are not general theories about the cosmos. They do not explain gravity, nor do they formulate equations. Noah is told to build an ark. Abraham is told to leave his country. Moses sees a bush that burns. Isaiah beholds a vision of seraphim. Paul is struck blind on the road to Damascus. And in each case, the revelation is particular, not general. It is immediate, direct, and localized.

Even in moments of immense grandeur, like the Transfiguration or Pentecost, there is no revelation of the mechanisms by which God created the world, nor the workings of the stars or the secrets of the atom. Instead, we are given knowledge of God’s will, not His world, His Person, not His processes. And so, in this way, the Holy Spirit does not make men into encyclopedias. He makes them into prophets, lovers, and martyrs.

Even the Apostles, inspired as they were, did not walk the world with divine certainty on every topic. St. Peter himself was corrected by St. Paul (Galatians 2:11–14), a moment that shows us how two holy men, full of the Holy Spirit, can come to opposing conclusions, and one of them (the elder in the faith and the one who knew Jesus on earth in his younger life) was in error. Nor did the presence of the Spirit at the Jerusalem Council (Acts 15) prevent “much debate.” The Spirit guided the decision, yes, but not in a way that eliminated the tension of discerning it.

THE PATRISTIC STRUGGLE FOR CLARITY AMID CONTRADICTION

This limitation of holiness becomes even more evident in the writings of the Fathers. St. Maximos the Confessor, in his Ambigua, labors to reconcile contradictory sayings from earlier Fathers; not least the towering figures of St. Gregory Nazianzen and St. Dionysius the Areopagite. He did not pretend there was easy agreement, nor did he suggest that the Spirit’s indwelling necessarily led to uniformity. Rather, he approached these tensions as a theologian, philosopher, and spiritual reader, working to harmonize what was never uniform to begin with.

In truth, the Patristic tradition is riddled with disagreement. The Cappadocians disagreed with the Antiochenes. St. Cyril of Alexandria thundered against St. John the Patriarch of Antioch, let alone Nestorius, who himself appealed to older theological patterns. Even within the Alexandrian school, interpreters varied widely in their Christological speculations and exegesis. These were not squabbles of wicked men. These were disputes between bishops, monks, saints, and martyrs, and often on key doctrinal matters, and sometimes leading to schism, anathema, or worse.

COUNCIL AND CANON: UNITY WITHOUT UNIFORMITY?

The Ecumenical Councils were convened not because everyone agreed, but because they did not. And while they forged creeds and canons, they did so in contexts of deep disagreement, political tension, and even outright coercion. The Council of Chalcedon (AD 451), for example, created a Christological formula that alienated nearly half the Christian world, especially those of the Oriental Orthodox communion, who to this day reject it not because they deny Christ’s divinity or humanity, but because they reject the formula used.

This raises a crucial question: if holiness guarantees true doctrine, why did the holiest men of the East and the holiest men of the non-Chalcedonian tradition disagree? How did the holy men of the West, the great monks and clerics of the West, fall into the papal schism? Why did conciliar decisions sometimes lead to greater schism rather than healing? How can a canonical church fall into schism and heresy, when it is built on monasticism, fasting, prayer, and outward displays of holiness? If holiness leads to perfect knowledge, of course, this historical tendency to fall into schism and disagreement would be impossible. 

Canon law, too, bears witness to contradiction. The canons of the Councils sometimes contradict local synods or other ecumenical rulings. Even more disturbing, in the Byzantine East, late medieval misinterpretation and deceit led to a canonical principle that interpreted recent canons as more important and authoritative than ancient canons. The codification of canon law in both East and West has always been a post-facto project, attempting, like the Scholastics after them, to make tidy what was never tidy to begin with.

THE ASCETIC AGE: WHEN HOLINESS DESTROYED KNOWLEDGE

This discontinuity becomes culturally catastrophic when holiness is mistaken for insight into the created world. The rise of radical monasticism in the late Roman period, though admirable in its zeal, had disastrous effects on the continuity of worldly knowledge. Medicine, agriculture, architecture, astronomy, and all these disciplines suffered in the wake of a monasticism that regarded worldly inquiry as distraction or vanity. Monasticism demonstrably does not lead to a greater grasp of the facts of the outer world, even though it can lead to great psychological insight and true goodness in the realization of the human person. 

While monastic scribes preserved many texts, they often did so selectively, guided by spiritual utility rather than scientific preservation. Entire fields of ancient knowledge, especially those of the natural sciences and practical engineering, were lost, undermined or mistrusted. The fall of the Western Roman Empire was not solely due to barbarian invasions. It was also due to the internal corrosion of a society in which the peasantry, inspired by religious fervor, overthrew the cultural hierarchy that had preserved classical knowledge.

There is a strange kinship between the iconoclastic zeal of early monasticism and the present-day “Woke” movement. Both embrace moral outrage over tradition, both distrust inherited authority, and both elevate identity (whether spiritual or social) above continuity and order. In both, we see the danger of holiness (or perceived holiness) being wielded against wisdom. Purity spirals exist in many religions and societies, and every time they occur, they accomplish similar ends!

PROPHECY, NOT PHYSICS: THE LIMITS OF DIVINE INSIGHT

Throughout the hagiographies of East and West, we find stories of miraculous foreknowledge. St. Seraphim of Sarov predicting visitors and St. Columba seeing visions across the sea, and many others. These are instances of specific revelation, not general knowledge. They are signs given to encourage, rebuke, or guide, and not textbooks of chemistry or metaphysics.

Why does the Holy Spirit not reveal the laws of thermodynamics? Why did no saint develop germ theory, or explain planetary motion, or discover the principles of electricity? Why, indeed, did Christ never speak of such things, though He knew all? Because revelation is not concerned with general knowledge. Revelation concerns salvation, not speculation. It unveils the meaning of history, not its mechanisms.

THE HUMILITY OF NOT KNOWING: WHY THE SPIRIT IS NOT AN ENCYCLOPEDIA

This teaches us something essential: that knowledge, unlike wisdom, can puff up. And as Lord Acton, who is often misquoted but rightly heeded, observed, “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” The same could be said of knowledge. Too often, the claim to total knowledge has fueled tyranny, both ecclesiastical and scientific. The wise soul, however, learns to live with limits. He knows, as Ecclesiastes reminds us, that “in much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow” (Ecclesiastes 1:18).

Thus, two men may be holy, and yet disagree. They may both possess the Spirit, and yet argue, like Sts. Peter and Paul, like Sts. Augustine and Jerome, like Sts. Photius and the Pope Nicholas I. The Spirit binds them in love, but not always in logic. And in this mystery, we are taught to be humble, not only before God, but before each other.

CONCLUSION: THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH AND THE BURDEN OF EPISTEME

In the end, we must distinguish between wisdom and knowledge, between revelation and science, between sanctity and certainty. Christianity has lifted up the poor, ennobled women, and eventually (though only after great strife) birthed a culture of freedom and inquiry that has relieved the suffering of all mankind. But in its early and Patristic form, it led not to scientific progress or epistemic continuity, but to disruption, division, and dogmatic warfare in which Christians killed Christians, the Byzantines enslaved the Copts, and the Copts painted icons of their fathers stomping on the faces of the East Syriac Fathers. And even in its highest mystical insights, it did not bring knowledge of the world, but the knowledge of the Cross, a wisdom that confounds the wise, and undermines human claims to knowledge, power and absolute authority.

Let us then not seek to confuse holiness with omniscience, nor the Spirit with philosophical syllogisms. Let us instead live with the paradox, love one another in disagreement, and seek the One Truth who is not an idea, but a Person - the Lord Jesus Christ! 

A COLLECT FOR HUMILITY IN THE PURSUIT OF KNOWLEDGE

O Lord of Light and Giver of all wisdom, who hast made man in Thine image, and yet hast not made him all-knowing; grant us grace to seek Thee not in vain curiosity, but in holy fear; that we, confessing our ignorance, may be filled with Thy peace, and walking in the lowliness of Thy Son, may be led by Thy Spirit into all truth as it pleaseth Thee to reveal. Through the same Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the Holy Ghost, one God, world without end. Amen.