Suffering Freely Sought: The Philosophy of Christian Asceticism

Catherine Nolan

If any man would come after me,
let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me.

Matt. 16:24

Introduction.

The Christian tradition has long affirmed the value of habitual, unnecessary self-denial.¹ During Lent, in particular, one is encouraged to go without unnecessary luxuries and to give to the poor the money one would normally have spent on oneself. The reasons for incorporating voluntary suffering into one’s philosophy of life go far beyond mere finances, however; a closer examination of Christian ascetic theory shows it to be deeply rooted in a developing understanding of the will² and the human person.

Self-denial pervades every aspect of the Christian life. The liturgical year balances seasons of penitence and days of fasting and abstinence with seasons of rejoicing and feast days. The freely embraced celibacy of Roman priesthood and the religious life has always perplexed the worldly, as witnessed by a mystic in the fourteenth century: “The ardor of these young God-seekers baffles them. They cannot understand how these young people can cast aside careers and opportunity and set out in simple goodness and sincerity to be God’s special friends.”³ Christian marriage demands similar self-denial and abstinence, as the Church has constantly condemned the secular ideal of sex for self-gratification. Asceticism is also encouraged by spiritual directors in fighting vice:

“He who habitually struggles with everything, however harmless in itself, that tends to get too much hold on him, checking and mortifying his appetite, denying himself in things he likes, foregoing the use of that which he might legitimately have, that he may not allow these things to encroach beyond their proper place, who trains his will to use the material things which he needs only as a means to an end, never allowing them to become an end in themselves — he is not likely to fail under the temptation to unlawful pleasure.”⁴
Mystics, too, have often advised their followers to “renounce and remain empty of any sensory satisfaction that is not purely for the honor and glory of God.”⁵ The Catechism states that ascesis is the way of the Cross, which Christians must take up freely in order to follow Christ.⁶ To take the Church seriously means to seriously consider the self-denial she encourages in every state of life; we are called to embrace suffering.⁷

Of course, theology gives many reasons for electing to suffer: penance, uniting oneself to Christ, offering one’s mortifications for other souls; these are all valid. This paper will focus, however, on the personal, rather than the theological, aspect of asceticism. Once theology and history have revealed the state of affairs, we may turn to Christian philosophy — or, perhaps more properly, to the philosophies of Christianity — to ask why fasting and abstinence, mortification and self-denial, are so prominent in Catholic thought, and how they fit into the Catholic understanding of the person in the created order. This paper will begin by introducing the foundations, philosophical and cultural, from which the early Christians developed their theories of asceticism. Next, it will point out several erroneous philosophies that lead to mistaken notions of asceticism. Turning then to human experience, we can examine first the non-ascetic life and identify the dangers of self-indulgence. After noting the negative effects of personal self-indulgence, we can then look at the positive effects of personal self-denial. Such self-denial is not an end in itself, though, and we must put it into the larger context of conversion. Finally, we will examine recent philosophical insights which understand creation as gift — using the hermaneutics of the gift to explain personal relations — and how the ascetic tradition is fully compatible with new developments. The Catholic practice of mortification and self-denial is not a haphazard accident, nor is it rooted merely in economic justice or environmental stewardship, to which it is sometimes reduced. There are deeper philosophical foundations for Christian asceticism, which this paper proposes to explore.

¹ Self-denial means refusing to satisfy one’s desires, while asceticism refers to a habit or life of consistent self-denial. Mortification means “killing” one’s desires by refusing to satisfy them. Abstinence is avoiding an available good.

² In this paper, “appetites,” “desires” or “passions” will refer to physical or emotional attractions. The “will” is not an appetite but the person’s power of decision, using Karol Wojtyla’s distinction between “horizontal transcendence,” when the person actualizes potential outside himself (the executive capacity), and “vertical transcendence,” where the will determines the person’s self (c.f. The Acting Person, p.124). The “self” refers to a person’s will, intellect and passions, though not each of these is experienced as equally part of the person. The will, for instance, is much closer to the person’s being than the passions are, and when I speak of “self-denial” or “self-indulgent” and “self-possession” or “self-mastery,” self is used in two different ways — the first referring to the passions, and the second to the whole person. The “intellect” or “reason” is the person’s power to know and think.

³ Unknown Author, The Cloud of Unknowing, p.64.

⁴ Fr. B.W. Maturin, Self-Knowledge and Self-Discipline, p. 123.

⁵ St. John of the Cross, The Collected Works of St. John of the Cross, p.148.

⁶ The Catechism of the Catholic Church, par. 2015.

⁷ Ibid., par. 1615, 2029.