 practice of psychology. I have no argument with psychology – its goal of mental health is important and the relief offered to many is a great mercy. But psychology has long worked with a variety of “inner roadmaps,” in which one theorist’s guess is as good as another’s. Freud’s theories of the human inner world have provided many of the words and concepts of our modern, inner-life. Ego and complex, obsession and projection, introvert and extrovert, and a host of other such words are the legacy of theorists such as Freud and Jung as well as others. Not all of their maps agree (in fact most don’t). They are imaginary accounts of how the mind works – are drawn out of reflection on actual cases but are still the work of imagination. Other “inner” words have even stranger origins. There are words such as melancholy and unbalanced (and others) that are rooted in medieval theories of the bodily humours. These theories seem laughable to the modern mind – but their language persists.
The fathers of the Church – particularly those who strove the most deeply for repentance (found predominantly in the desert tradition of the ascetics) – borrowed the language of their own day, as well as that of Scripture. Terms from neo-Platonism were borrowed and redefined in accordance with Christian tradition. The result is the language of the canons and the patristic writings. Most of the “road map” that is attached to these words is an experiential map. It is a reflection on how the heart changes in practice that dominates the teaching of the desert fathers and the tradition that flows from their labors. Theory is not driven by a priori assumptions about the constructs of man’s inner life. Thus there is no particular account of the mechanics of the inner life, other than a description given from experience – what works.
But the coherence of this patristic language is found in its common assumption that the human heart (nous) – the core of our being – is capable of change and can indeed be conformed to the image of Christ. Thus the goal of repentance is this very metanoia – a change of heart. There is nothing within modern psychology that reflects this particular concern (although some existential theorists come close).
Modern man is not predisposed to think about a change of heart. We think of psychological wholeness or well-being, but we do not have a language of conformity to Christ. We do speak of “hardness of heart,” but we know very little about how such a heart is changed.
This creates difficulties for us. Our temptation is to translate the language of the Church into concepts with which we are more familiar. Those coming to confession often give evidence of our psychologized world. We not only confess our sins, but we often want to give a small psychological analysis of where our sins came from and a progress report on how we are doing. (I have often thought that this makes a confession sound much like a monologue from Woody Allen, the comedian).
So, how do we repent?
The Scriptures give one of the clearest examples of how we should think about repentance. The encounter of John the Baptist with the crowds who came to and heard his message of repentance contain an interesting exchange:
Then he [John the Baptist] said to the multitudes that came out to be baptized by him, “Brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Therefore bear fruits worthy of repentance, and do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I say to you that God is able to raise up children to Abraham from these stones. And even now the ax is laid to the root of the trees. Therefore every tree which does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”
So the people asked him, saying, “What shall we do then?”
He answered and said to them, “He who has two tunics, let him give to him who has none; and he who has food, let him do likewise.”
Then tax collectors also came to be baptized, and said to him, “Teacher, what shall we do?”
And he said to them, “Collect no more than what is appointed for you.”
Likewise the soldi