Wanted to talk a bit about the flowering of faith — the stairway to heaven — found in the additions of faith passage this morning. I’m sipping my tea at Think in the Financial District (have some errands to run at City Hall for a wedding I’m officiating for a fashion designer this fall). But it’s the progress of faith, how it grows from mere mental assent to actual a life of habits oriented around faithfulness to that very idea. That the stairway to heaven from faith — that issues forth from faith — is:
- Virtue (Nicomachean Ethics) — the good life, good habits: do you have prudence, temperance, patience, etc? Are you practicing them and following good mentors who have them?
- The search for wisdom (in theology and philosophy: specifically the search for wisdom, not in being right, but true knowledge — the heart of the intellectual life)
- Self control (using virtue and wisdom-hunting to master your desires and passions)
- Longsuffering (persevering with mastering your desires and passions until whatever bitter end you meet)
- Godliness (a possession of that divine nature, here on this earth)
- Liking other people (a sort of affection that sees — truly sees — every human you meet as a brother or sister)
- Dying for them (until you get to the point where you could give yourself up for all of them, each to each)
This all issues from the assumption that Jesus walked this very path for you and liberated you from the household of death.
And for this (participating in the divine nature in v.4), you — right here, right now — hurry to minister to your faith with additions: the virtuous life; and to virtue, the hidden knowledge of theology and moral philosophy; and to theology and moral philosophy, self-control of your passions and desires; and to control over the passions and desires of your self, a longsuffering constancy on this path — come what may; and to that long-suffering path — come what may — reverent godliness; and to reverent godliness, the ability to like other people; and to the ability to like other people, the benevolent love that wills their good, come what may. For these things existing and superabounding in you all make you neither idle nor unfruitful into the precise knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ
— 2 Peter 1:5-8
καὶ αὐτὸ τοῦτο δὲ σπουδὴν πᾶσαν παρεισενέγκαντες ἐπιχορηγήσατεἐν τῇ πίστει ὑμῶν τὴν ἀρετήν, ἐν δὲ τῇ ἀρετῇ τὴν γνῶσιν, ἐν δὲ τῇ γνώσει τὴν ἐγκράτειαν, ἐν δὲ τῇ ἐγκρατείᾳ τὴν ὑπομονήν, ἐν δὲ τῇ ὑπομονῇ τὴνεὐσέβειαν, ἐν δὲ τῇ εὐσεβείᾳ τὴν φιλαδελφίαν, ἐν δὲ τῇ φιλαδελφίᾳ τὴν ἀγάπην. ταῦτα γὰρ ὑμῖν ὑπάρχοντα καὶ πλεονάζοντα οὐκ ἀργοὺς οὐδὲ ἀκάρπουςκαθίστησιν εἰς τὴν τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ ἐπίγνωσιν:
— 2 Peter 1:5-8
It’s not the sort of thing you typically hear in church, but it’s interesting that twice in this passage the author uses the very word for gnostic knowledge, reframing it within a broader, embodied context.
Photo by Gavin Spear on Unsplash
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