What is the relationship between the human mind and the spirit of discernment?

God gave humanity a mind and granted us the gift of discernment so that we might live as rational beings who understand matters around us and seek the knowledge of God. God — who loves humanity — wills that we live in the spirit of understanding and discernment, including in our worship of Him.

Origen the Scholar says, “and as the eye naturally seeks the light and vision, and our body naturally desires food and drink, so our mind is possessed with a becoming and natural desire to become acquainted with the truth of God and the causes of things. Now we have received this desire from God.”⁷⁶⁸

765 St. John Cassian, The Conferences 2.1 (NPNF II/11:308).

766 St. Augustine of Hippo, Confessions 10.35(52) (FOTC 21:309).

767 St. Augustine of Hippo, quoted in Fr. Tadros Yacoub Malaty, Divine Love (Arabic), (1967): pp. 74–75.

768 Origen of Alexandria, De Principiis (On First Principles) 2.11.4 (ANF 4:298).

Beautifully, St. Jacob of Sarug tells us about the significance of the mind in the life of every person. He compares the mind located in the head to the exaltedness of God who dwells on high in the heavens. He says, for example, “Suppose someone say now that the mind has its abode in the brain … God, too, is seated in glory above the heavens.”⁷⁶⁹ He also says, “Let him who comes to church not come without discernment, like a beast in whom there is no understanding. No one visits the physician’s surgery out of mere habit, but only when illness compels him to visit seeking healing.”

The mind plays the role of controlling the human will in a person’s life. Thus, St. Jacob of Sarug cautions us against neglecting to sanctify it. If we sell ourselves into the slavery of bodily desires, the mind will be darkened and the soul will decline and become a slave of the body, such that it will seem to be physical: “The mind is darkened by desires, that it may not understand … He who is no more than his food has lowered his soul to become flesh.”