Eighteen Inches Between Heaven and Hell

I've heard many protestant sermons about the famous "eighteen inches between heaven and hell", the idea that it is one thing to understand intellectually what we need to know to be saved versus internalizing that information into our heart. A verse that is often quoted is St. Paul saying, "If you confess with your mouth, 'Jesus is Lord,' and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved." The place of the intellect in this is probably the most obvious. You have to know what to believe before you can believe, and before you can act (internally or externally) on that belief. The "heart part" is the more difficult one (intellectually and practically). In a protestant sermon it generally refers to somehow internalizing the message of the gospel and then acting upon it. However, any explanation of how this works is generally omitted. There is no precision in explaining how the heart operates. Peter Gillquist, of Campus Crusade for Christ fame, realized (along with hundreds of others from that camp) after many years that there was something wrong with the message. People knew the Bible, they knew many applications of the scriptures that were to enable them to live Christ-like lives. People were taught "spiritual breathing" to appropriate the working of the Holy Spirit in their lives, yet somehow after looking at thousands of examples, it was clear that the "method" was not working. For some reason, the heart was not being touched. His final solution, along with hundreds of others, was to join the Orthodox Church.

Since becoming orthodox, I have learned of the "nous". This is our spiritual receptor, that part of us that allows us to be in touch with the Divine. This is the part of us that allows an affecting of our heart so that we can be changed in the ways that our Triune God wants us to be changed. It seems to me that if our spiritual shepherds do not even know about the nous, and do not know what part it plays in our lives it is very unlikely that these shepherds can aid us in our lifelong quest for life in Christ. These shepherds may have the best of intentions, they may love us, but they don't have the staff to fend off our spiritual wolves.

As Metropolitan Hierotheos has pointed out, "the existence of the true Church is demonstrated by its success in curing man. We know from the teaching of the holy Fathers that the Church is the spiritual health centre, the spiritual hospital that cures man When we speak of illness and cure, we mean that the nous is ill and that it is cured. The cure of the nous is not independent of purification, illumination and deification. The aim of the Church is to cure this cognitive centre, so that man may attain the knowledge of God, which constitutes his salvation. Thus the existence of the true Church is shown by the degree of success by the results of the therapy. If it cures man, if it diagnoses the illness correctly and if it knows the way and method of therapy, then it is the true, not the secular, Church." He points out many examples of success, but this is outside our scope.

My point is this: it is rightly said that there are those important "eighteen inches", but unless one knows how to move across them to the heart, and once there has some idea of what to do, it becomes a futile exercise. It is very much like a doctor announcing that someone needs surgery, but then doing nothing about performing the surgery or recommending one who can. It's not enough just to acknowledge the problem. The result of this is a lifetime of frustration, as one knows that he is not where he wants to be spiritually, but yet he does not know what to do about it.

There has been much written about the nous. There is much that can be said. Google it for starters. Pick up a good book: anything by Metropolitan Hierotheos, or talk with an Orthodox priest or monk. That eighteen inches can be bridged, and it is a lifelong process.