Virtue as Therapy
Modern therapeutic approaches are less concerned with actually healing a person, and more concerned with providing the patient with coping skills. One can obtain insight, coping techniques, and prescriptions from a therapist or psychiatrist, but rarely is one completely restored. In other words, one can’t attain perfection and sanctity from these. Real transformative therapy starts with the soul and ends with God. As Evagrius said, “People become better as they come nearer to God.” Therefore true therapy is the process of re-linking one’s soul to God, which ends in communion with God. Through God we can be fully restored.
In a nutshell virtue therapy is the active practice of the spiritual life that consists in training oneself to practice the commandments and virtues as put forth by Christ and the Apostles. In living a life that is in accordance with virtue a whole new world opens up to a person.
It is important to understand that the practice of virtue is a form of healing of the soul. Sin makes us sick in mind, heart and desire, while virtue restores us and makes us healthy in mind, heart and desire. As we uproot vice and sin, and replace these with various virtues, we are healing our inner selves. Spiritual health can effect the body as well. When the senses are subject to the virtues, the soul is not in a state of discord. This is the secret to inner harmony and peace. As St. Maximus the Confessor said:
“Virtue and spiritual knowledge bring the body into harmony with soul.”
Virtue therapy is aligning the 3 powers or aspects of the soul with their true natures and with God. This is the natural state of the soul; when ones mind is trained on God, when ones will is in accordance with the will of God, and when the heart is filled with the indwelling of God. As St. Thalassios said in the Philikalia:
"If you combine the powers of the soul with the virtues, the soul will be freed from the tyranny of the passions."
It’s interesting to note that the Church Fathers never put forth one specific formula for curing the soul in this way. There are no specific steps that work in a succession with a predictable outcome. This is because no two souls are the same, therefore sickness is new and different with every soul. However the Fathers did draw a correlation with the 8 passions and their corresponding virtues: gluttony vs moderation (self control), lust vs chastity (self control), avarice vs liberality (generosity), anger vs patience, discontent vs diligence, despondency vs charity, despair vs hope, pride vs humility, and so on. As St. Dorotheos saids:
“For Christ is the doctor of souls, and He knows everything and applies the right remedy for every sickness. For example: for vainglory, the commandment about humility; for love of pleasure, temperance; for avarice almsgiving. In short, each disease of the soul has a commandment which is its appropriate remedy.”
As we alter our souls in this way, God makes His home inside of us. Our souls must be altered and changed from their present condition to another condition, and a divine nature, and be made new instead of old--that is, good and kind and faithful, instead of bitter and faithless, and being thus made fit, be restored to the heavenly kingdom. This was the purpose of the Lord's coming, to alter and create our souls anew, and make them, as it is written, 'partakers of the divine nature' (2 Peter 1:4)”
Although virtue may not come easy, especially for those who are attempting to seriously practice them later in life, the virtues are in fact the natural desired actions of the soul. On this St. Dorotheos said:
“Virtue and vice are formed in the soul by repeated actions, and ingrained habits bring peace or punishment with them. We speak of virtue bringing rest to the soul and vice bringing punishment—why the difference? Because virtue belongs to the nature we possess; the seeds of virtue are ineradicable. I say, therefore, that insofar as we carry out what is good we generate for ourselves a habit of virtue—that is, we take up a state proper to our nature, we return to a state of health which belongs to us."
And from the Philokalia, St. Maximus the Confessor confirms,
"Just as the soul and body combine to produce a human being, so practice of the virtues and contemplation together constitute a unique spiritual wisdom."
Also from the Philokalia,
“Whether we think, speak or act in a good or an evil manner depends upon whether we cleave inwardly to virtue or to vice.”
-- St. Thalassios the Libyan