The problem of the spiritual and ideal in the relationship between God and man (according to the works of St. Theophan the Recluse)

Annotation. This article is devoted to consideration of the problem of the spiritual and ideal in the theological heritage of Theophan the Recluse. This problem is considered as methodological in relation to theological knowledge. Theological knowledge itself, theology is understood in an experiential way. And in all its fullness it is possible exclusively as communion with God in Christ. Within the framework of this problem, Saint Theophan is located in the context of the patristic tradition. There is an obvious continuity with the ascetic writing of the ancient ascetics of the Christian East. Theophan the Recluse writes on this issue from a soteriological perspective. The ideal and the spiritual, according to Saint Theophan, are correlated in Christ and the experience of life in Him. The ultimate goal is the deification of man, achieved through communion with God. Thus, the problem of the spiritual and ideal acquires in the theology of St. Theophan the Recluse important features for understanding salvation. Abstract. This article is dedicated to the problem of the spiritual and the ideal in the theological heritage of Theophan the Recluse. This problem is considered as methodological in relation to theological cognition. Theological knowledge itself, theology, is understood in an experimental way. And in all its fullness it is possible only as Communion with God in Christ. Within the framework of this problem, St. Theophan is in the context of the patristic tradition. There is an obvious continuity with the ascetic writing of the ancient ascetics of the Christian East. Theophan the Recluse writes on this issue in a soteriological perspective. According to St. Theophan, the ideal and the spiritual are correlated in Christ and the experience of life in Him. The ultimate goal is the definition of man, achieved by communion with God. Thus, the problem of the spiritual and the ideal acquires important features for understanding salvation in the theology of St. Theophan the Recluse. There are contradictions in science that have already become classic, but need to be updated. For example: between the real and the ideal and between the material and the spiritual. You can imagine it in another way: the real is spiritual, the ideal is material. But in the proposed reflections we will be interested in the ideal option - the spiritual. The ideal, in relation to the spiritual, can perform the function of the soul. But at the same time, the spiritual also has its own ideal. The spiritual unites the ideal and the material. This is the ideal-spiritual - that which is permeated with the Tabor light of the Transfiguration. The spiritual is infinite, it is infinity itself. The opposite of spiritual is carnal, understood as sinful. “The first man is from the earth, earthy; the second person is the Lord from heaven. As is the earthy, so are the earthy; and as is the heavenly, so are the heavenly. And just as we bore the image of the earthly, we will also bear the image of the heavenly. But I tell you this, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God, and corruption does not inherit incorruption” (1 Cor. 15:47–50) 1. According to the thought of St. John Cassian the Roman: “There is strife in our members, as we read in the Apostle: the flesh lusts against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh: but these oppose one another, so that you do what you will (Gal. 5:17). The word flesh in this place should not be taken in the sense of man as a being, but in the sense of the carnal will, or bad desires: equally, by the word spirit we must not understand any personal being, but the good and holy desires of the soul. The Apostle himself defined this meaning, saying this: walk in the Spirit, and do not commit carnal lusts: for the flesh lusts after the Spirit, and so on (Gal. 5:16-17)” [3, p. 15]. For further research, it is necessary to clarify the terminology used. The ideal comes from the concept of idea, defined at the pinnacle of classical thought - the philosophical system of Wilhelm Hegel - as one of the moments of the Absolute (along with nature 2). The spiritual comes from the concept of spirit, according to the same Hegel - the Absolute mediated by its own reflection into itself [5]. The reference to Hegel in the context of this work is by no means accidental and is due not only to the finite nature of his thought in relation to classical European philosophy. In our opinion, Saint Theophan the Recluse was, in a sense, under the theoretical influence of the great German thinker and was guided, among other things, by the latter’s methodological developments. The ideal can maintain neutrality, be neutral in moral and ethical terms. Can be ambivalent in the issues of good and truth to the point of indifference [see. and compare: 1, 4, 6]. The spiritual in this context is strictly polarized and defined. In its own concreteness, the spiritual is not only exclusively good, but exceeds and grounds it, being the source of truth. Of course, evil spirits can and do exist, but we cannot call their existence spiritual. And they are a falling out of or falling away from the truly spiritual. The spiritual is close to Heidegger's Da-sein. This is presence here and now, outside of time and space. The spiritual is the medium through which God interacts with man and the rest of the created world. Something close to the understanding of energy in palamism, only on the contrary, inside out. At the same time, the spiritual is immediate. It is rather the very interaction of the Creator and His creation, God and man (and through man and the rest of the world). Divine energies in their pure form [8]. The contexts of the spiritual and the ideal require different methodological approaches, and the transition from the first to the second is carried out through the apophatic purification of the conceptual apparatus. According to the thought of Saint Theophan the Recluse: “As for the soul, here is the law: destroy your soul, and you will save it; you will not destroy it, you will destroy it; so the Savior commanded. This destruction is already accomplished in the work of the new birth; for where the whole is, there is also a part. <...> Everything in oneself must be sacrificed and raised to God as a sacrifice for sanctification, or the perception of true life. So, a) Devour your mind to God in order to become wiser. Let it happen who wants to be wise, says the apostle (1 Cor. 3:18). A mind devoted to God is filled with true wisdom from Him” [10, p. 625–626]. And further: “It is clear that a Christian, by purpose, is a true philosopher, taught from above” [10, p. 627]. The concept of the spiritual in Christian thought is closely intertwined with the concepts of supernatural knowledge of God, mystical theology / mysticism / deification. In eschatological completeness - completeness - the spiritual absorbs the ideal as apophatic, connecting it with the cataphatic. In this case, the same “purification” of concepts that was discussed above (and which is necessary for the language of theology) occurs. Here the Divine economy - oikonomia - is theology itself. And eschatology always becomes available – here and now, leaving the “otherworld”. “This means,” according to the thought of St. Gregory Palamas, “that if a true philosopher ascends to the Creator, then the one who does not ascend is not true, does not possess wisdom, but some kind of deceptive ghost of true wisdom: not wisdom, but the negation of wisdom, and is it possible to call the negation of wisdom divine wisdom?” [2, p. 33]. The ideal is the possession of thinking (in the context of the Cartesian cogito), while the spiritual is the effort to be comprehended, understood, deified by the Lord Jesus Christ Himself [7]. Saint Theophan the Recluse, in his meditation “Life in God and with God,” writes about this: “What do the words of the Apostle mean: I live not for this purpose, but Christ lives in me? 3 That he no longer has his own desires and thoughts, but only the desires and thoughts of Christ are of quality; only the powers of the body and spirit were the apostles, and Christ was the agent. How did this happen? Simple: the apostle renounced his own will and completely submitted to the will of God. Just as a branch lives not by its own sap, but by the sap of the tree, so we, if we want to live truly, must live not by our own, so to speak, movement, but by movements emanating from Christ the Savior. His holy will must become the law of our life, excluding any other outside influence that enters into us and takes on the quality of a ruling and determining law. The act of determination to such submission to the will of the Lord is the grafting of us to Him as to the tree of life; and remaining in such obedience is remaining in grafting to Him, in the communion of His life, or in such a relationship with Him, according to which all Divine powers, even to the belly, 4 unhinderedly pour out from Him into us” [9, p. 215–216]. I would like to add only the words of the Apostolic Epistle: “for the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men” (1 Cor. 1:25). The ideal, according to St. Theophan, appeals to the ideal - Christ Himself. This is an iconic image in the life of man and humanity of the Incarnate God, God entering history, defining and embracing it. Image by means of His grace. The Vyshensky Recluse, beginning his speech by addressing God as Other, as “You” of dialogue/prayer, finds the foundations of being and himself not in the mythological nothingness of the Absolute, but in the Living, simple and undialectical God of the Gospel - God the Word, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). The Lord became incarnate – the One about whom it is said that “God is spirit” (John 4:24), and therefore the Divine is the spiritual. He is the beginning and foundation, “the stone that the builders rejected” (Matt. 21:42), “and on this rock I will build My Church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it” (Matt. 16:18). Spiritual - having its foundation in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, having God as its beginning, root and soil. Thus, Saint Theophan avoids the viscous and unstable soil of myth - as a construction fixated on one’s self. Are other ways of establishing the spiritual possible? The ideal and the spiritual, according to St. Theophan the Recluse, are correlated in the act of living virtuous faith, the act of prayer, participation in the holy sacraments of the Church and deification - as the eschatological goal of human existence and the entire universe. The fundamental point here is the combination of apophatic and cataphatic methods of knowledge of God and communication with God, which is classic for Christian theology. The patristic context of the study of the identified problem is that the Invisible God - the Spirit in His Incarnation is depicted in the eschatological fullness of being and is partly comprehended by man (in all its integrity, by grace). Liturgical theology, in turn, speaks of the experience of man’s knowledge of God as communion with Him to the fullest extent possible. The eschatological aspect postulates the spiritual as space, an organ of communication with God, leading man to unity with God the Father in Christ by the grace of the Holy Spirit, absorbing the ideal as apophatic. So, according to Saint Theophan the Recluse, the spiritual is space, the organ of knowledge of God as the relationship between God and man, the purpose and meaning of life. The ideal is the condition for such knowledge of God. 1. Arslanov V.G., Lagurev A.S. Mikhail Lifshits. – St. Petersburg, 2021. 2. Gregory Palamas, saint. Triads in defense of the Holy Silent. – M., 2018.D 3. The Philokalia, supplemented by Saint Theophan the Recluse, in five books with quotations from the Holy Scriptures in Russian in the Synodal translation. Book II. – M., 2018. 4. Ilyenkov E.V. Dialectics of the ideal // Dialectics of the ideal: collection. op. T. 5. – M., 2021. pp. 16–85. 5. Hippolyte J. Absolute knowledge as identity and contradiction. Idea, Nature, Spirit // Logic and existence. Essay on Hegel's logic. – St. Petersburg, 2006. pp. 150–169. 6. Lifshits M.A. Completeness and development in science. Once upon a time achieving a classical form // Arslanov V.G., Lagurev A.S. Mikhail Lifshits. – St. Petersburg, 2021. pp. 197–233. 7. Manoussakis J.P. God after metaphysics. Theological aesthetics. – Kiev, 2014. 8. Mark, Archbishop of Ephesus, syllogistic chapters against the heresy of the Akindinians on the distinction between the Divine essence and energy // Losev A.F. Nikolai Kuzansky in translations and commentaries. In 2 volumes. T. 1. – M., 2016. P. 301–311. 9 . Theophan, the Recluse of Vyshensky, saint. Life in God and with God // Contemplation and reflection. Brief teachings. – M., 2003. P. 215–223. 10. Theophan, the Recluse of Vyshensky, saint. Outline of Christian moral teaching. – M., 2005. For Hegel himself, of course, it is Nature, as well as the Idea and the Spirit.