Acedia and Moral Unconsciousness: Archetypal Disorders of Our Century

Abstract

Acedia and Moral UnconsciousnessArchetypal Disorders of Our Century Christopher M. Reilly (bio) Acedia, Sloth, spiritual depression, Moral Unconsciousness, Evagrius, Aquinas It seems that the twenty-first century will be a radically transformative period for humanity. The common appraisals of our hyper-technological times are either wildly positive or dismally bleak, and although the Christian sage may enjoy spiritual hope and steady confidence in the goodness of our Lord, the Christian evangelist's experience of the state of this world justifies anxiety over the spiritual welfare of our neighbors. This article therefore examines, from the perspective of the theologian-philosopher, two consequential, pervasive, and spiritual maladies in this time: the sin of acedia, as analyzed by St. Thomas Aquinas, and the related, yet distinct, condition of the morally unconscious person, as described by the philosopher Dietrich von Hildebrand. The contemporary forms of both acedia and moral unconsciousness arise out of two phenomena that appear to be unrelated but have a causal association: 1) widespread reluctance to engage in the kind of radical personal transformation that accompanies a loving relationship with God, through Christ, and 2) domination by the pervasive social, cultural, and ideological structures of instrumental rationality that are prevalent in a hypertechnological society. Acedia and moral unconsciousness each describe very real, spiritual struggles in the disordered wills of persons who remain somewhat attuned to [End Page 17] what is intrinsically good yet turn away from the Christian transcendence that is their own salvation. We can usefully draw on both von Hildebrand's philosophical observations and Aquinas's moral theology to better understand the spiritual infirmity of our age. If we listened only to the futurists, who imagine a world saved by the technological triumphs of human ingenuity, we might overlook the spiritual disorders besetting our neighbors. The futurists tell us, with breathless anticipation, of a near horizon brightened by such developments as artificial intelligence (AI) programs powering brain-controlled devices and robotics, virtual reality applications enabling isolated persons to achieve the semblance of presence through visual holograms or nerve-triggering "haptic" wearables, and, in the field of biotechnology, highly consequential novelties like laboratory-produced human "mini brains" and xenobots—animal cells that can be programmed like robots to play video games and much more. Transhumanists take all of this a step further, imagining a merger of human and machine that will upgrade nature itself in a variety of ways, including some form of material or digital immortality. If we, however, turn our gaze toward the ensouled human beings who are subjects of and subjected to such technological progress, we too often find them afflicted with sorrow, anxious restlessness, and withdrawal from a conscious relationship with God. Our theological and philosophical attention to such conditions is greatly needed. One reliable study found that the prevalence of depression among the U.S. population not only rose during the COVID–19 pandemic but had already increased 30 percent between 2005 and 2019.1 This rise in unhappiness is replicated worldwide, and it may be closely associated with technology use, having an even greater effect on younger people.2 The portion of Americans saying they have no friends has quadrupled over three decades.3 Sorrow does not always manifest as a listless or apathetic vaporization of the vital energy with which we were born. Such affective energy may reappear in a disordered way as restlessness, agitation, distractibility, frivolity, and lashing out against real and imagined [End Page 18] enemies. The prevalence of anxiety among young adult Americans nearly doubled in the decade prior to 2018.4 One of every six U.S. Millennials may be afflicted with problematic anger.5 Most upsetting for Christians—both those who are ailing and those who love them—is the increase in secularization, atheism, paganism, and nihilism. Just between 2007 and 2020, the portion of U.S. Christians declined by one-fifth, and "the nones"—those who claim no religious affiliation—nearly doubled to almost three out of ten Americans.6 This shift in religious faith is not only an indication of secularization; for example, the number of self-declared practitioners of magic (witches or Wiccans) in the United States has grown dramatically—according to one...