Delusion-free Decision-making

“[The devil] was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.” -John 8:44

If there is but one absolutely critical need for Orthodox leaders in turbulent times it is for them to see things as they really are, free of illusion and delusion. This is true when leaders examine themselves as part of the life of repentance, but I’m not speaking solely of confession (although every Christian leader should regularly participate in that Mystery). Rather, an individual in leadership must consider his own state—his motives, his wounds, and his sins—in every decision and in every act.

The danger is to be found in the encounter with the sin of prelest. Prelest has no exact English equivalent, being variously translated as “spiritual delusion” or “spiritual deception.” St. Ignatius Brianchaninov (1807-1867) gives the following definition: “Spiritual deception [prelest] is the wounding of human nature by falsehood.”

Rather than commenting further, I’ll provide a couple of helpful paragraphs from St. Ignatius and Unseen Warfare. May we all be delivered from the father of lies and may all our words and deliberations be free of prelest.

In an article translated from the Serbian edition of his writings, found in the highly recommended Orthodox Life, July-August, 1980, St. Ignatius Brianchaninov writes as follows (taken from the full article):

Spiritual deception is the wounding of human nature by falsehood. Spiritual deception is the state of all men without exception, and it has been made possible by the fall of our original parents. All of us are subject to spiritual deception. Awareness of this fact is the greatest protection against it. Likewise, the greatest spiritual deception of all is to consider oneself free from it. We are all deceived, all deluded; we all find ourselves in a condition of falsehood; we all need to be liberated by the Truth. The Truth is our Lord Jesus Christ (John 8:32-14:6). Let us assimilate that Truth by faith in it; Let us cry out in prayer to this Truth, and it will draw us out of the abyss of demonic deception and self-delusion. Bitter is our state! It is that prison from which we beseech that our souls be led out, that we may confess the name of the Lord (Ps. 141:8). It is that gloomy land into which our life has been cast by the enemy that hates and pursues us. It is that carnal-mindedness (Rom. 8:6) and knowledge falsely so-called (I Tim. 6:20) wherewith the entire world is infected, refusing to acknowledge its illness, insisting, rather, that it is in the bloom of health. It is that “flesh and blood” which “cannot inherit the Kingdom of God” (I Cor. 15:50). It is that eternal death which is healed and destroyed by the Lord Jesus, Who is “the Resurrection and the Life” (John 11:25). Such is our state. And the perception thereof is a new reason to weep. With tears let us cry out to the Lord Jesus to bring us out of prison, to draw us Forth from the depths of the earth, and to wrest us from the jaws of death! “For this cause did our Lord Jesus Christ descent to us,” says the venerable Symeon the New Theologian, “because He wanted to rescue us from captivity and from most wicked spiritual deception.”

The means whereby the fallen angel brought ruin upon the human race was falsehood (Gen. 3:13). For this reason did the Lord call the devil “a liar, and the father of lies.., a murderer from the beginning” (John 8:44). We see that the Lord closely associated the notion of falsehood with the notion of murder; for the latter is the inevitable consequence of the former. The words “from the beginning” indicate that from the very start the devil has used falsehood as a weapon in murdering men, for the ruination of men. The beginning of evil is in the false thought.

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