From Plato to Maximos: Defining the Well-Ordered Soul
by Joshua Alan Sturgill
A group of fellow readers has been slowly reading through the second volume of The Philokalia, and we’ve come across this frequent theme in the writings of Maximos the Confessor: the soul has three powers or energies which must be tamed and rightly directed if we are to make progress in our labor toward union with God. Other early and Eastern writers make use of this idea as well. What do they mean?
These three powers go by various names, but generally they are called the Appetitive, the Incensive and the Intellective. We might briefly describe them as 1, the power of desire and assimilation, 2, the power of vigilance and generation, and 3, the power of intuition and contemplation. The idea of grouping the soul’s activity this way is usually credited to Plato, though the idea is common to many ancient writers, and has an important parallel in Genesis, as we will see.
In Plato’s Phaedrus, the human soul is imaged as a winged chariot. The chariot driver and his two horses — one obedient and one disobedient — gives us a colorful picture of the three powers working together. The charioteer is the Intellect, the obedient horse is the Vigilance and the disobedient horse is the Appetite. (Incidentally, Plato calls the disobedient the “dark horse” and this is where our English phrase comes from: referring to someone’s “dark horse” means the part of his or her life which he must constantly fight to keep in check.)
In Plato’s Republic, the three powers of the soul are metaphorically described as a well-ordered city: the rulers are the Intellect, the army is the Vigilance and the laborers are the Appetite.
In either dialogue, it is clear that when each of the powers is functional and established in its proper hierarchy, the life of each person progresses in wisdom and the culture prospers.
Following Plato and the Greek philosophers, the Fathers of the Church believed that the well-ordered soul will naturally seek the highest and best things, and will readily embrace God when God chooses to appear. On the other hand, a disordered soul — for instance, one dominated by Appetite — will seek nothing further than physical comforts and will not recognize God or acknowledge Him as creator. Disorder leads to deeper disorder, so that when a soul becomes so confused as to be “upside down,” the Appetite is the master. Then the Intellect serves the Appetite, finding more (and more unnatural) ways to get pleasure, and the Vigilance is tasked with defending any pleasure-seeking behavior.
We should note that the Fathers assume Revelation is still required for the soul to achieve union with God. Unaided, even the most well-ordered soul cannot unite itself to the Divine. But they insist a soul properly configured will more readily embrace God and will better understand what this union signifies. St. Paul tells us we should “think on these things” because meditation on truth and beauty prepares and maintains a soul in good order. St Paul himself had been raised to think on whatsoever is good, pure, noble, etc., and this made him ready to receive the Parousia of Christ when the Lord appeared to him on the Damascus road.
The Fathers resist both a strict “total depravity” and a possible “natural salvation.” This may seem beside the point, but it must be mentioned, since we live in an age of reductionism and in a culture that wants to know all the “facts” before it will make a commitment. We want causes and effects, guarantees, lists and rules — rather than the difficulties of education and relationship. In other words, the ordering of the soul and its encounter with God are mysteries beyond what we can predetermine summarily.
The question may be asked, “this schema of a three-part soul is found in Plato; is it also Biblical?” The soul having basic or intrinsic energies is common to many ancient cultures, not least of which is the ancient Hebrew. Perhaps the most obvious example is from Genesis, in Eve’s reaction to the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. When tempted, Eve first looked at the fruit and saw “…that it was good for food, pleasing to the eyes, and desirable to make one wise…”
Here, the three energies of the soul are shown being misused or put out of order: Appetite aroused by hunger; Vigilance distracted by appearance; Intellect tempted by a quick route to wisdom. Eve was not wrong in her assessment of the fruit, and taken separately, each of the powers of her soul was acting in accordance with its purpose. But when the Intellect turned away from the God who is wisdom and the vigilance ceased meditating on the commandment, then the appetite could not be held in check by those higher faculties. She forgot, she reached out, she ate.
This story also illustrates why fasting is the necessary prerequisite to feasting. We fast to bring the lower powers into alignment with the higher, so that by the time of the Feast, all the powers of the soul can have their full share in a lawful indulgence. The forty days of Lent, for instance, strengthen the Vigilance through the rigors of additional liturgical services, enliven the Intellect through meditation on the transcendent truths of the Resurrection, and chasten the Appetite through a restricted diet. Then, when the Appetite is once more allowed to resume its function, it can express outwardly the inner Feast which has been taking place for several weeks. Eating becomes an adornment of the Feast, rather than its main object.
Finally, we might step out from our focus on the individual soul and its powers and look at the history of the Church. Here we see the cumulative effect of generations of well-ordered people. Marriages of properly ordered individuals produce properly ordered communities; communities of properly ordered souls become properly ordered cultures; properly ordered cultures produce Saints. Saints, in turn, teach us how to order our souls.
Of course, this same history also gives us a warning: knowledge of the powers of the soul and how to use them correctly can be lost. There are many societies that go by the name “Christian” yet do nothing to help their members become Christ-like. America in particular seems continually prey to organizations claiming to teach truth, even as the leaders of these groups are exposed as having disordered souls. What do disordered communities look like? Where the Incensive Power is placed foremost, we find anger, secret lust, moralism. If the Appetitive Power takes over, we find a culture of indulgence, neglected doctrine and false liberality.
In this contemporary confusion, repentance and humility are required of all of us. Becoming a right-side-up person starts with humble prayer and continues with meditation on Scripture, confession and study of the Fathers within a right-side-up Tradition.
All poetry and supplementary material: copyright 2024 by Joshua Alan Sturgill. All rights reserved.
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