Orthodox Ethical Discernment Requires Humility, Not Certainty
12:25
Fr. Sampson Nash, a professor at the University of Ohio, explains that Orthodox ethical discernment begins with humility before Christ rather than rigid certainty. He illustrates this with a clinical ethics case from the COVID Delta wave: a 26-year-old pregnant woman on ECMO developed irreversible pulmonary fibrosis and was not a candidate for lung transplant.
Her care team debated whether to withdraw ECMO support to save a transplant-eligible patient. The team never withdrew the machine; she delivered her baby, held it, and then died. Nash contrasts this concrete suffering with theoretical debates at his seminary about government overreach, public health guidance, and whether resistance showed lack of faith.
An older seminarian wept during the presentation, and that relational encounter shifted the student conversation. Nash argues that Orthodox ethics cannot be reduced to an algorithm or a set of abstract rules applied from a distance. It is a royal pathway that avoids both rigorism and self-will, requiring prayer, community, spiritual authority, factual expertise, and willingness to encounter the person rather than reduce them to a theoretical case.
He acknowledges many COVID overreaches but advises listening to bishops unless they violate dogmatic truth. The royal path between antinomies is not the Aristotelian mean but the path of Christ, as Father George Florovsky writes about the antinomies of empire and desert. Askesis is not only putting off a good for a time but also the particular cross each person bears.
Orthodox ethics is personal, mindful of the weaker brother, and includes absolute prohibitions that must never be crossed. Even the most advanced artificial intelligence cannot produce Orthodox discernment, ethos, or phronema.
Key moments
- At the seminary, COVID controversies were debated on a theoretical level: the extent of government overreach, whether public health guidance was evidence-based, and whether resisting it showed lack of faith in God's healing grace.
- The speaker was consulted during a six-hour drive about a 26-year-old pregnant woman on ECMO (extracorporeal membrane oxygenation) whose lungs had developed severe pulmonary fibrosis during the Delta wave; she was not a candidate for lung transplant.
- The woman delivered her baby and held it, yet she was still not expected to survive, and the ethics question was whether to withdraw ECMO to save a transplant-eligible patient.
- An older seminarian wept during the presentation, and this relational account shifted the conversation among students.
- The speaker acknowledges many COVID overreaches but advises listening to bishops unless they violate dogmatic truth, and respecting episcopal authority.
- The royal path between antinomies is not the Aristotelian mean but the path of Christ; both desert fathers and saints engaged in complex urban life are glorified, as Father George Florovsky writes in the antinomies of empire and desert.
- Orthodox ethics cannot be systematized or turned into an algorithm; even the most advanced artificial intelligence cannot produce Orthodox discernment, ethos, or phronema.
- Askesis is not only putting off a good for a time for soul improvement but also the particular cross each person bears; Orthodox ethics is personal, mindful of the weaker brother, and includes absolute prohibitions that must never be crossed.