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Does The Devil Work Through Sense Experience?


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Ian VanHeusen — August 30, 2017

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6 Comments

  1. Katie
    August 30, 2017 at 3:14 pm — Reply

    Hi Fr. Ian,

    I totally think the devil works through sense experience, however I am not sure that is the only way in which he works. I guess I am unsure if this is the only way he can get in. Questions of, what about temptations to pride, especially spiritual pride come to mind. Does our enemy have to gain access to us through our senses only? I do think the answer is yes but I am unsure as to the details of this process.

    Love the videos and posts, keep them coming!
    -Katie

    • Ian VanHeusen
      September 3, 2017 at 6:16 pm — Reply

      That is a great question… I believe in the philokalia the Eastern Fathers would say that pride is aroused by sensible means. For example, we imagine ourselves being famous, or receiving honors, or being praised. And, I think pride does have a certain bodily component. There is a certain rush of adrenaline and other biomarkers of pleasure. This is a total brainstorm. Feel free to shoot me down.

  2. Aileen O
    September 3, 2017 at 11:20 am — Reply

    I’m interested in following this thread. I think it would help pop the bubble of emotional experience to concentrate on prayer if I can realize more often that there is a spiritual attack & when or even how to combat it vs something related to health …

    Agree with Katie, love the posts and videos.
    Paz de Cristo

    • Ian VanHeusen
      September 3, 2017 at 6:14 pm — Reply

      Thanks… I will most likely do more content on strategies to fight the enemy.

  3. Paul Rodden
    September 4, 2017 at 2:48 pm — Reply

    I’m wondering how much Descartes and Freud have altered things, in the ‘Turn to Subjectivity’, and it’s relation to sin being ‘incurvatus in se’? Whether the problem might be one of ‘virtuality’ and where ‘Metaphysics’ is a dirty word?

    We now live in a world dominated by logocentrism and testimony – ideas, ‘speech acts’, and ‘virtue signalling’ – rather than things we’ve experienced or though for ourselves. We learn from testimony of teachers, scientists, the media, where we have what Stephen Colbert termed ‘Truthiness’, ‘Fake News’, and what’s being called a ‘Post Truth’ world.

    Many people today suffer from ‘mental illness’ which seems to be a sort of existential and ontological lostness. They are trying to find, to experience, their ‘real self’ (which they assume will be ‘naturally’ both happy and good) which seems fluid and evanescent. A mental construct of many layers, rather than a Being, as if there isn’t a self inside, but just vague levels of ‘meaning’, rather than anything concrete, dictated by the environment, giving years of work to so-called therapists to reconstruct their consciousness – as if ‘it’s all in the mind’ – rather than accepting having a real essence. Value in and of themselves through being.

    Is the devil then, today, getting to us through ideological viewpoints opposed to the true nature of the human person?
    More Hume than Heaven?

    After all, we ‘hear’ words, which is the sense experience, but is what then takes place – through the lens of a warped/erroneous hermenuetical framework of Post-Enlightenment thinking and values – seem to be the Devil’s new access point?

    After all, in St Bernard’s time, the Devil was attacking Metaphysics, and it seems today, he’s doing the same thing, but through the medium of Epistemology where even ‘Empiricism’ isn’t sense experience, but a construct of ‘clear and distinct ideas’, rather than Things. For, it seems we talk about ‘beliefs’, more than Being, even within the Church these days, apart from as an obscure area of study for theologians, rather than being called to an earthy reality. A call back to sense experience, away from ideology, ‘virtual realities’, and mental constructs.

    • Ian VanHeusen
      September 16, 2017 at 10:55 pm — Reply

      Makes sense… I feel like you would have to write a dissertation to unpack what you said haha

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Father Ian VanHeusenAbout

Father Ian VanHeusen is a Catholic Priest of the Diocese of Raleigh, NC. He specializes in researching and teaching on prayer and meditation.
Copyright © 2014 Ian VanHeusen. All rights reserved.
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