About world evil and the saving Church

Regarding the article by N.A. Berdyaev “On Christian pessimism and optimism” in No. 46 “Paths” 1. I am very glad that with my letter I gave N.A. Berdyaev an opportunity to speak out once again and with new details on such deep and important issues of the Christian worldview as questions about the essence and source of world evil and about the Church, about the purpose of Its existence in the world. And, besides, I am very grateful to N.A. Berdyaev for the fact that he treated my letter with such attention and devoted a large and interesting article to answering it. This gives me the courage to continue my own interview with N.A. and ask him for further clarification, in the hope that these clarifications will be useful and interesting not only for me, but also for other readers of The Path. At the same time, I must make a reservation that, being neither a philosopher nor a theologian, I do not conduct any philosophical or theological polemics with N. A. Berdyaev. I am just an ordinary Christian believer, looking to find in a calm and friendly exchange of thoughts an explanation of the perplexities that arise in me, perhaps from a theological or philosophical point of view and not worthy of special attention, but for me very significant and important. N.A. Berdyaev’s article “On Christian Pessimism and Optimism” did not answer my main question posed to him: does the work of Christ, the overcoming of world evil, continue to this day on earth, and if it continues, then where and through whom it is being accomplished. But it still gave me some satisfaction. I found words in it that gave me great satisfaction. These words are as follows: “I have a very strong and painful feeling of the evil of life, the bitter fate of man, but I have an even stronger belief in the highest meaning of life” (my italics). “I was amazed that Fr. S. Chetverikov was left with the impression from my book that God does not act in history, God has left the world. In fact, everything I say in my book makes no sense if there is no action of God in history” (Italics mine). “Man is placed before the abyss of being or non-being. And he cannot master this abyss only on his own, he needs help from above. This is a divine-human work. And if in our era the very existence of the human image is endangered, if a person decays, it is precisely because he relied exclusively on himself and his own strength.” “Man is now going through perhaps the most dangerous period of his existence” (italics mine). I read all these words with great satisfaction. They fully correspond to my own thoughts. They affirm the truth that on earth there really is God’s help to people in the fight against evil. And it seemed to me that a direct and necessary conclusion from these words should be the conclusion that this help in an organized form is concentrated in the Christian Church. This is clearly seen from the words of Christ the Savior. In his last prayer for the disciples before his suffering, Jesus Christ says: “When I was with them in the world, I kept them in Your name, Those whom You gave Me I have kept. Now I come to You and speak to myself in the world, so that they may have My complete joy. I do not pray that You take them out of the world, but that You keep them from evil” (John XVII: 12-15). From these words it is clear that, leaving His disciples, Jesus Christ gives them joyful hope that even without His visible presence with them they will be saved from evil. And those who believe will also be preserved from evil according to their word. The instrument of this salvation is the Church of Christ. If N.A. Berdyaev had noted this significance of the Church of Christ in his book, or at least in his answer to me, there would have been no reason to reproach him for one-sided and hopeless pessimism. But he did not do this, and the question of the means of salvation from evil and of God’s help to people in this salvation remained not fully clarified, and in this I saw and see the shortcoming and incompleteness of N.A.’s very interesting book. In his article “On Christian Pessimism and Optimism” N.A. Berdyaev says a lot about the Church, but what he says about Her only causes new and even greater bewilderment. Imaginary or real errors or inaccuracies of historical Churches fill the attention of N.A. to such an extent that behind these errors he ceases to see the true activity and true significance of the Church of Christ in the world. His judgments about the Church become biased and unfair. Meanwhile, his article also contains a correct definition of the Church, but he does it somehow in passing and does not dwell on it. The definition is as follows: “The Church is the mystical Body of Christ, a spiritual organism, as it were, a continuing Incarnation of God.” From this definition of the Church, N.A. did not draw any specific conclusion, did not explain what the meaning and what the result of this “continuing Incarnation” are. In his assessment of the Church, N.A. Berdyaev presents all its properties and actions in a distorted and incorrect form. He, for example, attributes to the Church a “smooth, prosperous, non-tragic understanding of Christianity”, “the division of the world into those who are saved within the fence of the Church, where everything is prosperous, joyful and bright, and those who are perishing in the world, where everything is unfavorable, painful and dark.” There is truth in these words, but truth that is misrepresented. Of course, where Christ dwells, where the grace-filled gifts of the Holy Spirit operate, that is, in the Church of Christ, there “everything is joyful, bright and prosperous,” but is it possible to see in this a discrepancy between the spirit of the Church and the spirit of the Gospel, as he claims? Isn’t it this property of the Church that lies in its attractiveness and saving power for souls tormented and suffering in the world? And, on the other hand, outside the Church of Christ, in alienation from Christ, everything naturally becomes “dysfunctional, painful, dark.” And it would be strange if it were otherwise. Further, N.A. Berdyaev, continuing the incorrect coverage of the Church, writes: “Following the path of Christ leads to the fact that we will be with tax collectors and harlots, with those perishing in the world and writhing in torment. It is difficult to understand how one can calmly and safely feel saved within the fence of the Church and not share the terrible sorrow and torment of the world. The danger of pharisaical complacency always lurks.” In these words of N.A. Berdyaev, everything is again extremely confused. From the Gospel we know that tax collectors and harlots (repentants) go ahead of the Pharisees into the Kingdom of God, that the publican is justified more than the Pharisee, that Zacchaeus was honored to receive the Lord into his house. The Church says the same thing. From this it is clear that publicans and harlots (penitents), they are precisely those who are in the fence of the Church, and it is said about the self-righteous Pharisees that they will be “cast out.” N.A. Berdyaev completely arbitrarily and incorrectly excludes publicans and harlots (penitents) from the fence of the Church, and includes self-righteous Pharisees in it. This does not correspond to either the teaching of the Gospel or the teaching of the Church. N.A. Berdyaev especially unsuccessfully refers to the parable of the prodigal son, citing a strange interpretation by Andre Gide. The prodigal son left his father’s house not at all in search of “truth and righteousness.” He left in order to, using the part of the estate he received, live prodigally for his own pleasure. And if he “suffered,” then there was nothing valiant in his suffering; he suffered because, having squandered his property, he began to suffer deprivation in everything, and was forced to become a swineherd and eat the food of pigs. And only then did he “come to his senses,” repent and decide to return to his father. And this return to his father, to his father’s house, that is, to the Church, brought him inner satisfaction and gave him constant joy. Those who leave their father’s house, the Church, in search of “truth and righteousness,” who even are, like Job, a “god-fighter,” God does not reject them, as can be seen from the example of the same Job. In my letter I did not claim that “the participation of a loving God in human life applies only to those within the boundaries of the Church.” I had another thought, that the very existence of the Church in the world speaks of God’s love for the world, since the Church is entrusted with the mission of enlightening the world with the truth and sanctifying the world with the grace of God. I wrote in my letter: “Jesus Christ founded his Church on earth as the power and truth of God, which the “gates of hell” will not overcome and which will forever remain “the pillar and foundation of the truth.” The Church does not dissociate itself from the world, leaving the evil to “writhe” in torment, “which is what they deserve,” and gathering the “good” into the fence of the Church, “where they experience satisfaction.” The Church has a different approach to the world. After all, the greatest part of sorrows, torment and suffering in the world depends, perhaps, precisely on the fact that the world has moved away from Christ and has forgotten about Him. And it is the duty of the Church to go into the world, speak to it about Christ, attract it to Christ and thereby save it from the suffering and torment it experiences. And therefore N. A Berdyaev’s thought is incorrect that the attention of Christians to those who left their father’s home and are experiencing the “agony of the world” cannot consist in efforts to convert them to Christianity and return them to the Church. This is exactly what many need most. If Jesus Christ, the Head of the Church, took upon himself the sins and sorrows of the world and suffered from them, then the Church, the Body of Christ (and N.A. Berdyaev recognizes it as such), cannot have a different attitude towards the sorrows and suffering of the world. The call to repentance and the grace-filled restoration of human souls is the mission of the Church, which it fulfills! And if N.A. Berdyaev disputes this and condemns the Church, then I think only because the true or imaginary errors of the visible Church prevent him from seeing the true essence of the Church and its saving action in the world. Beneath the external forms of the Church, he does not see its mysterious essence. This is exactly what I wanted to point out both in my letter and in this note. In conclusion of this note, I want to say a few more words about N.A. Berdyaev’s explanation of the source of evil in the world. There is a lot that is incomprehensible to me as a non-philosopher in this explanation. N.A. speaks of “extra-existent and uncreated freedom,” which he considers the source of evil. What is this “existent and uncreated freedom”? This is an area where God's omnipotence does not apply. This is something that exists outside of God, next to God, independent of Him and not subordinate to Him. The result is dualism, a dual beginning of life, denial of the One God. God as the Creator and Sustainer of the world is recognized, but next to the world He created and Himself, some other principle, not created by Him, is also recognized. Christian thought does not tolerate such teaching. She recognizes the single beginning of everything that exists, and this single beginning is God. Christian thought does not recognize any other principle that exists next to God and does not receive its existence, its life from Him. Explaining his view, N.A. Berdyaev says: “It is difficult to come to terms with the fact that God is made responsible for evil. Everything is in the hand of God, God acts everywhere, God uses evil for the purposes of good, no one and nothing has freedom in relation to God. From here Calvin drew a consistent and radical conclusion in the doctrine of predestination. Does God work both in and through evil? If so, then responsibility for the evil and suffering of the world rests with God. If not, then there is freedom from God and in relation to God, which limits the sovereignty of God, makes God as if powerless (I understand the limitations of the language used here) in relation to the freedom of evil. Most of the theodicies, from St. Augustine to Leibniz, are not only unsatisfactory, but also directly offensive to God and to man. One can, of course, take a purely agnostic point of view and admit that here we are dealing with an ultimate mystery that cannot be rationally comprehended. This view is better than rational theodicies, but in theology and metaphysics it has never been fully maintained and has always ended up with theories offensive to the sensitive conscience. Many teachers of the Church, as is known, taught that evil is non-existence. But, having thought this through to the end, we have to admit that the sources of evil lie outside of existence, to which the omnipotence of God extends, that is, in extra-existent and uncreated freedom (my italics). This is only a philosophical interpretation and a philosophical expression of the ultimate mystery associated with freedom and evil." The last words seem to show that the conclusion about “extra-existent, uncreated freedom” must be understood only as one of the assumptions explaining the source of evil. Why was such an assumption needed? So that responsibility for the evil that exists in the world does not fall on the Creator of the world, God. N.A. Berdyaev believes that if the source of evil is the abuse of the freedom given to them by God by creatures created by God, then responsibility for this evil inevitably falls on the one who granted freedom to the creatures created by Him, that is, on God. To avoid this conclusion, he admits the existence of a certain non-existent, uncreated freedom independent of God, which, in his opinion, is the source of evil in the world created by God. It does not seem fair to me that God is responsible for the abuse of the given freedom of creatures created by God. If freedom were granted to them only to commit evil, then indeed the responsibility for the evil they did would fall on the One who gave them this freedom to do evil. But with the same, even with greater, grounds, one can assert the opposite, that freedom was granted to the creatures created by God so that they could freely and voluntarily do good, and if they chose to do evil, then this freedom of choice no longer depends on the One who gave them freedom, but on their own discretion and decision. They received freedom for good, but used it for evil. Responsibility for this choice no longer falls on God, but on them, for they made this choice freely and not under God’s compulsion. On the other hand, N.A. Berdyaev’s assumption about “uncreated freedom,” although, apparently, removes responsibility from God for the evil that exists in the world and transfers this responsibility to “uncreated” freedom, but this is only apparently. After all, the Creator of the world and the Author of its existence, and in the opinion of N.A. Berdyaev, is God. When creating the world and the creatures living in it, God either did not know, or knew that these creatures would receive their freedom from some mysterious depths of “extra-existent freedom.” If God did not know this, then this limits not only the omnipotence, but also the omniscience of God. And if He knew and created the world and the creatures living in it, then He is not exempt from responsibility, if not for the fact that He endowed the creatures He created with freedom, then for the fact that He created them, knowing that they would receive freedom from somewhere outside to do evil. The blame for the evil that exists in the world still remains with God, although He is not the source of this evil. Further, if we allow, together with N.A. Berdyaev that the source of world evil is independent of God, “extra-existent, uncreated freedom,” then we find ourselves faced with the terrible fact of the existence in the world of a dark force of evil that is insurmountable to God and independent of Him, which has the constant ability to desecrate and even destroy the work of God in the world, the creation of goodness, truth, and holiness. From a Christian point of view, such powerlessness of God before the power of evil is completely unacceptable. God is absolute and omnipotent good, and there is no such evil force in the world that could oppose Him, and oppose itself to Him, and be insurmountable by Him. But why, in this case, does God allow the existence of evil in the world? Why does He tolerate it? Why does He allow evil to triumph? Because God, possessing omnipotence and power, which cannot be limited by anything existing outside of God, voluntarily limits his omnipotence and his power, allowing next to him the creatures created by Him, endowed by Him with freedom. Freedom, which is one of the main features of the image of God in rational beings created by God and their highest good, was given to them not for evil, but for the free doing of good, and this is their highest perfection. God does not take away this freedom given to creatures from them even when they turn it into evil and against God. The reason for God’s long-suffering is that “God wants everyone to be saved and to come to the understanding of truth.” And this is confirmed by the parable of the wheat and the tares. I outlined, as best I could, the perplexities and thoughts that N.A. Berdyaev’s article “On Christian Pessimism and Optimism” aroused in me. I can add one more thing: I understand and accept the tragedy of life that I. A. Berdyaev writes about, but at the same time I rejoice that in our world there is a place where I meet God, where I feel solid ground beneath me. This place is the Church of Christ - “the pillar and foundation of the truth.” In it I do not dissociate myself from the suffering of the world and do not close myself in the circle of those who are complacently saved, but I receive help and strength to overcome the suffering and evil of life or to endure them patiently. N.A. Berdyaev said very well: “The way out of evil is in the suffering of God himself, that is, Christ, not in God the Almighty, but in God the Redeemer, the God of sacrificial love. I think this is the essence of Christianity." This truth about God the Redeemer, overcoming the evil of the world with his sacrificial love, is also confessed by the Church, which, being the Body of Christ, participates in this sacrificial feat and obliges all its faithful members to it. But this latter is no longer the area of ​​theory, but of the practice of Christianity. My present note, like my preliminary letter to N.A. Berdyaev, is caused not only by interest in the book “The Fate of Man in the Modern World” and the thoughts contained in it, but also by other practical considerations. As a priest, I often have to meet and talk with people who are completely depressed by the evil existing in the world, who have lost faith in the power of goodness and truth, in the very existence of the God of love and justice, who have reached complete hopelessness and despair, to the point of losing all desire to live. I constantly have to encourage such people, dissuade them, prove to them the strength and indestructibility of good, its predominant importance in the world. This task is not easy, since you come up against an insurmountable stubborn wall of convinced, hopeless pessimism. It is not enough for such people to talk about God at all, but they need to be shown His action in the world, visually and undeniably. This is achieved primarily by pointing to the Lord Jesus Christ and His Gospel as the undoubted, obvious manifestation of God's love in the world. But this is not enough. Jesus Christ lived on earth almost 2000 years ago. For many, this is an almost forgotten, and perhaps even dubious, fact of the distant past, which has no relation to modern reality. They need to be shown that the work of Christ has not ceased on earth, that God is still active in the world, and the best, most visual and tangible confirmation of this is the existence on earth of the Church of Christ with Her grace-filled gifts of the Holy Spirit, which we perceive in churches, in prayer, and especially in the sacraments of repentance and communion of the Holy Mystery. In this way, through the Church, a person can now enter into the same direct and close communion with the Lord Jesus Christ as the apostles and other contemporaries of Christ were. Through the Church, one can experience Bohr’s living presence in the world and feel the solid ground of confidence in His closeness to us and in His help. This is the vital consideration that prompts me to remind you of the saving Church of Christ as the indestructible power of God existing on earth among us. You might be interested in: