Experience, Freedom, and Canon in the Work of Gregory of Nyssa

Abstract

This article explores the notion of experience in the work of Gregory of Nyssa. It examines the nature of the qualified empiricism of the Cappadocian Father and its relation to some of the basic assumptions of the school of Medical Empiricism. Its main thesis is that the key reason for Gregory’s valorization of experience as an inevitable step to one’s moral maturation was his conviction that only through the exercise of their free will might humans learn to be virtuous. The article also examines in what sense experience conferred authority on the spiritual guide and Gregory’s debt to the Greek philosophical tradition in his understanding of the notion of the ‘canon.’