The Hesychastic Controversy

You might say that I'm a Charismatic Apologist. I have done a fair amount of study and prayer on the subject and while I don't feel the need to break fellowship with my Cessationist brothers and sisters I do believe that they are in error. It is my belief that the notion that the Gifts of the Spirit ceased in their operation after the lives of the apostles is a way of thinking that comes from Enlightenment tendencies and is utterly Unbiblical. The only attempt I've heard from Cessationists to validate their theory involves what I would consider to be a very "liberal" use of 1 Corinthians 13:8-10. Where instead of acknowledging the "perfect" as the state of humanity and the universe after the Return of Christ, the perfect for them is rather the completion of the Bible. 

 They are obviously correct in saying that the Bible is perfect but there is not reason to infer that 1 Corinthians 13:8-10 is referring to the New Testament. Furthermore they feel comfortable using this reach of an interpretation of one passage as the means to invalidate a large number of passages in the New Testament that speak about the Spiritual Gifts. For a group that I admire for their love of and stand for the Authority of the Word they seem to be purposefully invalidating directly communicated Truth from within it. They deny what Scripture clearly says and uphold their own opinions about what the Holy Spirit decided to do. 

Controversies about the Spirit of God not entirely new to the Church. One controversy that took the Eastern Church by storm was the Hesychastic Controversy. Hesychasm was a method of prayer that became popular with Eastern monks starting around the 1000s. It involved a monk reciting the prayer, "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me." They would first speak this with their mouths and then would repeat it over and over again in their hearts. The monks who practiced this thought it best to get into a physical rhythm as the prayer was repeated and would breathe in as they recited "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God" and would breathe out as they spoke "have mercy on me." The goal of this practice was to by constant repetition position the person to encounter God. The particular encounter of God that the Eastern Church emphasized was to touch the God of Light. The monks of the East had testimonies of experiencing the supernatural Light of God - similar to what Peter, James and John saw on Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration (Matthew 17:1-2) - and as such had an expectation for this to occur in their lives. For example it was reported  Simeon the New Theologian’s (949 - 1022) face would shine as he prayed.

A controversy over this brewed in the Eastern Church when in the 1330's Barlaam of Calabria (who was against Hesychasm) clashed with Gregory Palmas (who was for Hesychasm). Barlaam claimed that not only was the Hesychastic physical breathing pattern absurd but on a more important note that "the soul could not enter into a direct personal experience of God." Palmas countered by essentially saying that the soul could in fact experience God and that the Bible clearly taught that Christians became united with God through Jesus Christ. There was much debate in this but after a series of church councils and political upheaval Gregory Palmas and his theology were received into the mainstream of the Eastern Church.

 John 14:23b says, "If anyone loves Me, he will keep My Word; and My Father will love him and We will come and make Our abode with him." This verse, among others, makes it very clear that God intends for us to experience Him directly, for how could God the Father and God the Son make their abode with us and we not know it? It strangely comforts me that those who believe God to be One who we can experience and know by communion in our souls have over the course of history had conflicts with those who believe reason is supreme and that God can only be known in the way one would know facts about geology or math. I'm comforted not because I think conflict is good but rather because there is nothing new under the sun (Ecclesiastes 1:9-11)