XXIX. Заметки о троичности (к стр. 50, 223).

The question of trinity was touched upon several times in the text, but in passing, because a thorough discussion of it would require a separate treatise. Postponing this until a more favorable time, we will outline several mental moves that will loosen the idea of ​​trinity for understanding. It was said earlier about the essential impossibility of deducing the trinity of the Divine Hypostases; but, at the same time, some kind of attempt was made at this deduction. How should such an attempt be understood? – First of all, not as deduction in the strict sense of the word. We did not at all intend to prove that there can only be three Hypostases, no more, no less. This number is an “infinite fact”, comprehended in the ever-existing mental light, but not deduced logically, for God is above logic. We must firmly remember that the number “three” is not a consequence of our concept of the Divine, deduced from there by methods of inference, but the content of the very experience of the Divine, in His transcendental reality. The number “three” cannot be derived from the concept of Divinity; in our heart’s experience of the Divine, this number is simply given as a moment, as a side of an infinite fact. But, since this fact is not just a fact, but an infinite fact, then its givenness is not just a givenness, not a blind givenness, but a givenness with infinitely deep rationality, a givenness of a boundless intelligent distance. 1020. Until an infinite fact is given, there can be absolutely no anticipation of it other than a formal one, namely, that it is a fact and that it is infinite; a priori we cannot say anything about it. But when it is already given, we can comprehend its content and discover its infinite intelligence. We then try to peer into its meaning, to deepen our understanding of it. And since its meaning is infinite, then our understanding of this infinite meaning itself can unfold infinitely 1021 - however, being in each of its moments also infinite. This is the rationality of Infinity, that everything in it is reasonable and everything is infinite. To perceive the uncreated Light is the first stage of understanding; to see in it multiple unity and singular multiplicity is the second step; to see in this single multiplicity multiplicity as trinity - this is the third step; to understand the meaning of the number “three”, its meaning, its spiritual difference from the numbers “two” and “four”, etc. - this is the next step, etc. But, again, one cannot think that each new step is abstractly deduced, logically and rationally deduced from somewhere outside, rather than the contemplation of Light itself. Each stage is only a concrete dismemberment, disassembly, differentiation of what is implicite contained in the contemplation of the 1022 unapproachable Light of the Trinitarian Divinity. So, our “deduction” is only a new way of expressing what has already been expressed - nothing more. So, from a high peak peering into the blue distance, we discover more and more new details in it and then express them with exclamations of joy and surprise; but can a series of these exclamations be called a “deduction” of this blue abyss of air? Numbers in general turn out to be indeducible from anything else, and all attempts at such deduction suffer a decisive failure, and, at best, when they apparently lead to something, they suffer petitio principii. A number can only be derived from a number, and not otherwise. And since the deepest characteristic of entities is connected precisely with numbers 1023, the Pythagorean-Platonic conclusion naturally suggests itself that numbers are the basic, beyond-empirical roots of things, a kind of thing in itself. In this sense, the conclusion again suggests itself that things, in a certain sense, are phenomena of absolute, transcendental numbers. But, without going into these complex and subtle questions, we will only say that the number three, which in our mind characterizes the unconditionality of the Divine, is characteristic of everything that has relative self-conclusion - is inherent in the types of being contained within themselves. Positively, the number three manifests itself everywhere, as some basic category of life and thinking. In space, which contains everything external, and therefore subordinates everything external to its nature, we distinguish three dimensions. It is, of course, abstractly and logically permissible to talk as much as you like about n-dimensional spaces and study them 1024 , and then apply the theorems found to mechanics, physics and other areas of science 1025 . But, nevertheless, the projected n-dimensional space, the concept, and the real three-dimensional space, the given, are incomparable with each other, and one cannot speak of them as something homogeneous. Even if perceptions of n-dimensional space are developed or will be developed; there will still remain a deep gap between this natural and common three-dimensional environment of life for everyone and the clever, moment-by-moment, individual perception of those spaces. The spatial reality with which we are dealing is three-dimensional, and everything that is in space is also three-dimensional. But, let us add, all attempts - numerous and persistent attempts 1026 - to deduce the three-dimensionality of our space have led to nothing and, even with a cursory review of them, it is not difficult to see that they prove the three-dimensionality of space no other way than on the assumption of this three-dimensionality. The same thing applies to time. Past, present, future - here again the revelation of the triple nature of time. And this trinity for time is so significant that even abstractly and logically no one tried to invent time with a large or any other number of divisions, just as was done for space. However, even here, for time, attempts to deduce 1027 its trinitarian nature do not achieve their goal, and the trinity of time remains a simple given. In any case, it is of paramount importance. Not only the physical world, but also the mental world is contained in the form of time and, therefore, both one and the other receive its trinity from time. If so, then, through space and time, everything is marked by the number “three”, and trinity is the most general characteristic of being. But not only the general designation of trinity is characteristic of being. Each layer of it, each kind of it has its own special trinity. Without going into details here, we will only note what seems to us the deepest ontologically. Three grammatical persons 1028, no more and no less, are a phenomenon common to the most heterogeneous languages, and it serves as an expression of the basic fact of sociology. Perhaps it is based on a biological fact, since every simplest family seems to be threefold: father, mother, child. In fact, since it is the child who serves as the center and meaning of the family, with another child, or with another wife, we are actually dealing with a different triad, with a different family. And, in its purest form, the family is limited to the persons of father, mother and child. Both language and society, thus, have the beginning of trinity in their roots. An individual personality is again built threefold, for she has three, and no other number, directions of life activity - bodily, mental and spiritual - and each of her mental movements is threefold in quality, so that it contains a relationship to the mind, to the will and to feeling. Whatever psychologists say against the theory of three mental abilities or three forces, the fact remains indisputable that everyone sees a significant difference between mind, will and feeling and their irreducibility to each other. Probably the most relevant understanding of them will be to understand them as three coordinates of mental processes, and each real process certainly has characteristics in all three directions. But even if it were not so, then something threefold still remains in the structure of mental life; and this fundamental fact of the triplicity of the psyche, although not subject to deduction, despite all efforts, remains, however, indispensable and indisputable 1029. Delving deeper into the structure of man, we find everywhere, again, a threefold principle - both in the structure of his body and in the life of his soul. The life of the mind, in its dialectical movement, pulsates with the rhythm of thesis, antithesis and synthesis, and the law of the three moments of dialectical development applies not only to reason, but also to feeling and will 1030. From this it is clear that every work of human reason, feeling and will, in which the dialectical rhythm of its emergence has not been artificially erased, is itself inevitably imprinted with the trinitarian division. Trichotomy, as a method of argumentation, as a manner of classification, as the beginning of a system, is too common 1031 to be considered something accidental; we must believe that in it we again have before us the revelation of some kind of trinity inherent in the soul, although even here we are not able to deduce this trinity. But the most significant number is “three” in religion, both in dogma and in cult, and even in superstitious rituals of everyday life. It is difficult to find strong enough expressions to adequately express the breadth of the spread of the beginning of the trinity in the world of ancient religion. “I would like,” writes Usener in his article on the question of divine triads, “to try to give a clearer idea of ​​​​the wide distribution and importance of this form of view. This is not meant to say anything new. Phil. Butman judged this phenomenon with complete clarity, and Ed. Gerhard called the divine triad the center of almost all religions 1032. But it seems timely to me, through a collection of scattered traces, to provide proof that the divine triad was a form of view of antiquity that was firmly rooted and therefore possesses the power of the driving forces of nature" 1033. The material collected by Usener, as well as Neidgart, with extraordinary clarity proves the universality of the concept of triad deities 1034. Usner even admits that the widespread, “among most, perhaps all peoples of antiquity,” desire to represent the deity in the form of a triad, acted with the force of law nature 1035 . In the same way, the entire cult of the ancient world is permeated by the beginning of a threefold repetition of rituals, a threefold proclamation of invocations; the ternary number, in direct or intensified form, i.e., as 9, 12, 27, etc., is most characteristic of all liturgical actions. But, despite all the indisputable evidence and with all the overwhelming number of facts confirming the all-human religious significance of the number “three,” “the most beloved,” as Lüttich put it, “of all significant numbers,” attempts to deduce this meaning from the general principles of knowledge, or at least explain them culturally and historically, do not lead to anything decisive 1036. Very correctly, A.I. Sadov insists on the primacy of this inclination towards triads and sees in it an innate human indistinct attraction to the supersensible world, a vague desire for the Triune 1037. But this “explanation” is nothing more than a conscious refusal to explain, for it leads the explained fact of human culture to the fact of the Divine Trinity, which is no longer subject to deduction. So, no one said why there are three Divine Persons, and not another number. The non-randomness of this number, its inner rationality is felt in the soul, but there are no words to express this feeling. In any case, we cannot consider the countless attempts to deduce the Three Hypostasis of the Divine 1038 successful. Let it serve as a consolation and edification for philosophers that even the numbers of dimensions of space, divisions of time, persons of grammar, members of the primary family, layers of human life, coordinates of the psyche, etc., etc., they did not deduce or even explain its meaning. Not only that. One feels that there is some kind of deep connection between all these trinities, but what kind of connection always escapes understanding, precisely at the moment when you want to nail down the almost found connection with a word. The vast majority of philosophers and those of the saints. fathers who, like bl. Augustine 1039, were involved in philosophical thinking, and dealt with this issue. But what did they all give? - Analogies, - behind which, again, a deeper affinity is felt, - only a similarity, - in a word, instead of explaining what they wanted to explain, they multiplied what was being explained, for they showed that the same difficulty is contained in countless other objects of thought. Cp. words o. Joanna Kron... This is why the doctrine of the Trinity should be, and half-consciously often was, the basis of philosophizing. “The doctrine of the Holy Trinity attracts my mind not only because it is the highest concentration of all the holy truths communicated to us by revelation,” he wrote on October 2. 1852 to A.I. Koshelev I.V. Kireevsky, - but also because, while writing about philosophy, I reached the conviction that the direction of philosophy depends, in its first beginning, on the concept that we have about the Holy One. Trinity" (N. A. Elagin, - Materials for the biography of I. V. Kireevsky "Complete collected works of I. V. Kireevsky in two volumes", edited by M. Gershenzon. "The Path", M., 1912, T. I, p. 74). Schelling's “Philosophy of Revelation” is one of the few attempts to carry out philosophizing on consciousness. accepted dogma. Trinity. Philosophizing about. Serapion Mashkina is another. Then you can name the names of Fr. Baadera, Vl. S. Solovyova, A. N. Schmid and how much more. Most philosophers did not take the trouble to initially determine their attitude to this dogma. Imperishable Light is living light and all is Life, intelligent light. But his intelligence can be comprehended even more. – That partial intelligence might. directly discoverable even in sensory experience - about this, see N. O. Lossky. Putting aside now the fundamental justification for this statement, let us note for now the remarkable fact that the deepest philosophers, especially at the heights of their reflections, have always gravitated towards speculation over numbers; Let us at least recall the names of Pythagoras, Plato, Plotinus, Iamblichus, Proclus, Augustine, Nik. Cusansky, Kant, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, V. Solovyov, etc., not to mention the mystics of all countries and peoples. See... Without burdening the books with a bibliography. however, I consider it my duty to note one very worthy of the historian’s attention, a book by a richly and comprehensively gifted thinker who died fruitlessly; this is named after: H. [A.] Gulak [- Artemovsky]. – An experience in geometry about four dimensions. The geometry is synthetic. Tiflis, 1877, 150 pp. René des Saussure, – Théorie des phénomènes physiques et chimiques (“Archives des sciences hysiques et naturelles”, 1891, Nos. 1, 2). – Leo Königsberger , – Die Printipien d. Mechanic. 1901. (Mechanics of multidimensional space). They were made in German. idealists - Fichte, Schelling and Hegel; see also: R. H. Lotze, – Syst. d. Philos., Thl. II: Metaphysics, 1879; his, – Grundzzüg d. Metaphysics, 2 Aufl. Lpz. 1887. Gust. Teichmüller, – Real and apparent world. Per. with him. E. Krasnikova. Kazan, 1913, book. 2nd, ch. 1st. P. N. Strakhov’s powerlessness to rationalize the three-dimensionality of space is very characteristic, - The World as a Whole, St. Petersburg, 1872, p. 246. - Latest. raising the question of the dimension of space. associated with the so-called “the principle of relativity”: Ger. Minkowski, – Space and time. Per. I. V. Yashunsky, St. Petersburg, 1911, “Physice”. Special see him. idealists, in Lotze, in Teichmüller, book. 2nd, ch. 2nd. As far as I know, there is no language where the number is gram. there were other persons than three. Although they have done it several times. attempts to reduce mental life to one of the principles - to idea, to will or to feeling. It was this formal similarity in the development of each of the three coordinates of mental life that served as a tempting reason for trying to reduce any two to a third. Interesting examples of this were collected by A.I. Sadov, but their number could be increased many times. (Characteristic is the predilection of Kant and subsequent idealists for trichotomy, which serves as the spring of their dialectics). Buttmann in Mythologus I, 29; Gerhard in Griechische Mythologie, I, 141. H. Usener, – Dreiheit (“Rheinishes Museum f. Philologie”, N.F., Bd. 58, 1903, SS. 3–4). User, id., SS. 1–47, 161–208, 321–362. – Th. Neidhard, – Ueber Zahlensymbolik der Griechen und Römer, I. Th., Die Drei und Neunzahl (“Progr. d. k. Progymnasiums in Fürth., 1895, S. 1–40). – Material, collected. named in both. work., formed the basis of the study: A.I. Sadov, - Significant numbers (“Christ. Read.”, 1909, Oct., November, Dec., 1910 Feb. About the number three - Oct. 1909) right there, on pp. 1313–1315 and in November, p. 1458, lit., although incomplete. - Named. research is also available in the department. reprint., St. Petersburg, 1909 – Taken from it [1049–1051]. See also.. Usener, id., S. 35, cp. S. 161. Some of these attempts are outlined in Sadov, id., V, 1909, Dec., pp. 1581–1594. id., 1910, Feb., p. 196. We find them already among the Neoplatonists and, perhaps, even in Plato. There are numerous attempts of this kind among St. oo., e.g. at Afanasy V., at yours. In, both Gregorievs, etc., etc. In modern times, many mystics, like J. Boehm, Pordage, Baader, etc., and philosophers, especially German, were especially engaged in such deduction. idealists and among them predominantly. Schelling in his Philosophy. Revelations", Fr. von Baader, S.-Marten, Vl. Soloviev, Arkhim. Serapion Mashkin and others. From little-known works. on this topic we will call: Dogma of the Holy Trinity and complete knowledge, Sergiev Posad, 1904. Deep thoughts about the Trinity were expressed by N. F. Fedorov and A. N. Schmid. [T. e. 3, N.V.] Bl. August. , – About trinity. Augustinian similarities, which clarify the mystery of the Trinity, are collected in the book: Th. Gangauf, – Augustinus Speculative Lehre von Gottem dem Dreieinigen, SS. 204–295. See also P.I. Bereshchatsky, – Plotin and bl. Augustine in their attitude to the Trinitarian problem. Kazan, 1911 – Book. E. N. Trubetskoy, – Rel. total Western ideal church in the 11th century. Worldview bl. Augustine. M., 1892. A. [P.] Oplov, – Trinitarian views of Ilarius Pictov., Serg. Pos., 1908. - I. I. Adamov, - The Doctrine of the Trinity of St. Ambrosia Med., Serg. Pos., 1910.