Catholic dogma of the Immaculate Conception of Our Lady

Faith in the personal sinlessness of the Mother of God in Orthodoxy is, so to speak, a fragrant incense, a prayer cloud, thickening from the incense of Her pious veneration in the Church. If you ask yourself the question of what exactly it means, how to express the power and meaning of such veneration in theological language, then exactly these or similar dogmatic formulas involuntarily suggest themselves. However, such formulas, inevitable in theology, still remain in Orthodoxy in the position of private theological opinions, theologumena, they have not been the subject of broad church discussion. In this case, as in many others, the Church, while containing true veneration of the Mother of God, and, consequently, the correct teaching contained in it, did not proceed to the dogmatic identification of this teaching. The need for it can arise either due to the reverent penetration of the mind into the mysteries of God, due to the needs of Christian contemplation and speculation, or due to the practical needs of the fight against false teachings and heresies. Apart from the ancient heresy of Nestorius, already defeated and condemned by the Church, that Mary was not the Mother of God, but the Mother of Christ, new heresies about the Mother of God appeared only recently, initially in Protestantism, which completely rejected the veneration of the Mother of God. This heretical teaching is the cause, and at the same time the consequence, of the distortion, impoverishment, and drying out of Christian piety in Protestantism. Indeed, what a deep and comprehensive change would occur in our entire religious life if we were to remove from it all those thoughts, feelings, experiences, and attitudes that are associated with the veneration of the Mother of God, with the living, experienced knowledge of the Mother of God’s presence in the world. Christianity with one Christ, but without the Mother of God, is, in essence, some other religion than Orthodoxy, and Protestantism is separated from the Church not by its private false teachings and arbitrary cuts, but first of all and most significantly by its insensitivity to the Mother of God. How such insensibility arose and became possible in the Christian world is the mystery and mystery of Protestantism, or rather, of all Western Christianity. In Catholicism, the veneration of the Mother of God, in general, is no less than in Orthodoxy, but here, too, it was subjected to that general spiritual oppression that weighs on the entire Catholic world. The need to demonstrate and feel the absolute power of the pope in everything, in particular in matters of faith, to dogmatize from above, to issue dogmatic laws where life does not require them at all, was reflected here too. Just such a law, not caused by anything other than the need for dogmatic rule, was the new Catholic dogma of 1854, issued by Pope Pius IX, which de facto anticipates in it the dogma of the future Vatican Council on papal infallibility in matters of faith. True, the bishops were formally surveyed by mail and telegraph and, of course, their consent was obtained, but, in general, on this dogma lies the shadow of future events, cast back, namely, the Vatican Council with the Vatican Dogma. The dogma of 1854 was not caused by any vital necessity (except for the voices of church parties or the visions of individual pious souls who do not yet represent dogmatic authority). For Catholicism, there was a time when the need for the dogma of the veneration of the Mother of God was truly present; this was precisely when the Reformation rejected it. However, having not done this in a timely manner, it no longer had this need - now that the church rivers had entered the banks, and the Protestant denial of the Mother of God was exposed in its complete unchurchliness. And in any case, the new dogma has no significance for the fight against Protestantism. The dogma of 1854 was in this sense the self-inflicted doctrinaire of individual parties and voices and reflected all their influence with its one-sidedness. In general, Catholic dogma is an incorrect expression of the correct thought about the personal sinlessness of the Mother of God, and it does this by completely unsuitable means. Namely, he introduces problematic and even downright incorrect teachings as the main elements of dogma and completely incorrectly formulates the thought itself, completely denying the power of original sin in the Mother of God 1 . It is in itself a dogmatic misunderstanding and even just a mistake. But he forces Orthodoxy to clarify the true dogma, the vital content of Orthodoxy, about the veneration of the Mother of God as the sinless, Most Pure, Immaculate Ever-Virgin. Unfortunately, Orthodox polemicists, with excessive zeal, began to deny not only the false dogmatic formula, but also this very truth, and began to talk about the imperfection of the Mother of God. Catholic dogma of 1854 states that the Blessed Virgin in primo instante suae conceptionis fuisse singulari omnipotentis Dei gratia et privilegio intuitu meritorum Christi Jesu Salvatoris humani generis ab omni culpae labe praeservatam immunem, that is, from the first moment of Her conception by the special grace of Almighty God and by virtue of the special privileges, in consideration of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Savior of our race, were preserved free from every stain of sin. The subject of the immaculata conceptio [immaculate conception] is the Mother of God from the first moment of Her conception or, according to the interpretation of Pope Alexander VII (Const[itutio] "Sollicitudo omnium ecclesiarum" [Constitution "Care of all Churches" 1661]), at the moment of the creation and infusion of Mary's soul into the body. At the same time, there is no question of the integrity of the procreative activity of the parents at the moment of marital union, conceptio activa [active conception], more precisely, generativa [generative], but also the very conception of the child (conceptio passiva [passive conception]) is not an object of privilege. For if we understand that concupiscentia passiva [passive concupiscence], which is the direct product and content of the generative principles of the conceptio seminis, conceptio carnis, conceptio inchoatae personae [reception of the seed, the conception of the flesh, the formation of the imperfect individual] and in time, or at least in nature, precedes the infusion (Eingiessung) of the rational soul, then it does not yet contain the personality of Mary. In any case, privilegium [privilege] corresponds only to that passive conception, which later theologians call conceptio passiva adaequata et consummata [passive, corresponding and perfect conception], and by early defenders is called conceptio germinis [formation of the fetus] (as opposed to conceptio seminis) and conceptio spiritualis sive personalis [spiritual, or personal conception], and sometimes vitalis sive animalis [vital, or animate] (as opposed to conceptio carnis [formation of flesh]) and coincides with nativitas personae in utero [birth of the individual in the womb]. In this case, purity is attributed to the product of birth, not due to the method of origin, but in spite of it, by a special Divine action through which the soul of Mary was created and poured into the body 2. In relation to human conception (conceptio humana) this is designated as conceptio divina [Divine conception], that is, a Deo [from God]. The Immaculate Conception signifies that freedom from original sin, which is given at Baptism and is, therefore, the Baptism of Mary even before Her birth, and, therefore, before the birth of Christ. The dogma under consideration in its theological formulation is associated with two prerequisites: 1) the Catholic teaching about the action of original sin in man in connection with the doctrine about his original state; 2) the doctrine of the origin of human souls through a new creative act - creationism. In the light of these two teachings, it is only possible to understand the main idea of ​​​​the dogma and evaluate it on its merits. Indeed, what we are talking about here is precisely the fact that during the creation of Mary’s soul, the gift of justitia originalis [original righteousness], taken away from man during the Fall, was returned to Her, in the form of a special grace-filled exception. Her body came about in the usual way, but this is not an obstacle to the “immaculate conception,” because the body itself is not damaged by sin. The whole power of the latter lies precisely in the taking away of the gift of original righteousness, which is why its return alone is sufficient for the immaculate conception. It is this unique and, of course, very controversial teaching that determines the content of the dogma of the virgin birth, thus introducing scholastic doctrine into the very heart of dogma and thereby demonstrating an example of scholastic doctrinalism. With the elimination of these school teachings, nothing will remain of the dogma except the general pious and completely correct thought about the sinlessness of the Virgin Mary. Nevertheless, some gaping contradiction in the dogma cannot help but be seen even with these premises. It was Mary’s body, conceived under natural conditions, that for some time, even in an embryonic state, remained unpurified and unblessed. It is said about the body that it is “a dirty and spoiled vessel and, like a lead weight, weighs down and binds [the soul?].” However, let us examine both prerequisites in more detail 3. The Anselmian-Duns-Scotian doctrine of the original nature of man and original sin, associated with the theory of satisfaction and representing the so-called semi-Pelagianism, triumphed in the Catholic church doctrine not only thanks to the proclamation of the dogma of 1854, but also the condemnation of the teachings of Bayus (XVI century) by the resolution of the Council of Trent (5th meeting, 1,2,5). What was Adam like before the Fall and what did he lose in it? The answer that is given by Catholic doctrine, with all the mitigations and reservations, is this: human nature itself has not changed, only the supernatural help that graciously regulates human nature has been taken away, as Bellarmine says about the integrity of the first man: “integritas illa, qua primus homo conditus fuit sine qua post eius lapsum homines omnes nascuntur, non fuit naturalis eius conditio, sed supernaturalis evectio... fuisse donum supernaturale" ["this integrity with which the first man was created and without which all people are born after his fall was not his natural state, but a supernatural elevation... a supernatural gift"] 4. The newest theologian directly says that man, due to the weakness of the body, infirmitas carnis, not due to his fall, but by his very creation, is inherent in the character of animal life with all its imperfections. In other words, man is an animal, and, like all animals, he is subject not only to the possibility, but also to the necessity of the reduction and cessation of life, if only the food created for him by God did not protect him from this forever 5, which is why the presence of the tree of life in the middle of paradise was required for this purpose 6. In other words, man’s tendency to sin and the weakness of his nature arise from his union with the body, which darkens the image of God in man 7 . This reveals a peculiar combination of practical semi-Pelagianism with Manichaeism, which penetrated into Catholicism through Augustinianism, a characteristic insensibility of the body as the completeness of the image of God in man. Human nature, according to this view, is defective due to its connection with the body; it is not characterized by primordial, immanent harmony and natural grace, which is based in the sophia of man. Therefore, it can only be supported by an external influence, transcendentally, by supernatural grace, an act, so to speak, of Divine arbitrariness, deus ex machina, not in conformity, but in incongruity, contrary to human nature. Moreover, this very nature, in its contradictoriness, is also an act of Divine arbitrariness, which brought into existence a being that is obviously defective, self-dividing, in this sense inferior not only to angels, but also to animals. And, of course, it is completely incomprehensible that such a being is placed at the head of all creation and is given dominion over the entire animal and plant world; that it is diminished by a little from the Angel 8 and is joy for the Wisdom of God 9. The same act of Divine arbitrariness, which has no basis in the very nature of man, is the Incarnation, which becomes completely incomprehensible given the internal and irremovable defectiveness of the human being. Therefore, in the Incarnation, what is accomplished is not the revelation of true nature, the fulfillment of human nature with the outline of the fullness of the image of God in man, but again some violence through an external action on human nature. The Incarnation becomes an internally contradictory act; Catholic anthropology undermines the very foundations of Christology (and soteriology). Naturally, the Incarnation itself becomes a kind of accident caused by... the fall of Adam, the merit and fruit of this fall: “O felix culpa, quae talem ac tantum meruit habere Redemptorem. O certe necessarium Adae peccatum" ["O blessed guilt that has acquired such a great Redeemer! O truly necessary Adamic transgression"], as the Catholic Church sings. “Hereditary sin can be attracted here only to the extent that thanks to it the garment of grace is removed, which insufficiently covered it and prevented [its] manifestation,” and in any case, it “can only be attracted as a meritorisher Grund [the basis for merit], while the physischer Grund [physical basis] must still be sought in the union of the soul mit dem korruptibeln Leibe [with the body subject to corruption].” The body is now essentially structured no differently and connected to the soul no differently, as it was with the first man (Ibidem). The union of the soul with the body constitutes the main defect - Mangel, on the basis of which is sinfulness (peccatum habituale [predisposition to sin]), from which peccatum actuale [active sin]. “One cannot be surprised that man, despite the exceptional complexity of his nature from high and low, making him the center and connecting link of creation, is by his nature less able to satisfy his special position and calling, like purely spiritual beings above him and animals below him. Therefore, it would be very arbitrary and criminal to wish, in the interests of the honor of the Creator, that man, by virtue of the structure of his nature, should be such as to satisfy on his own the full implementation of his idea” 10. On the contrary, its complexity and imperfection allow the Creator to show special gracious help to it and magnify it more than the Angels. In their understanding of grace in relation to man, Catholics primarily emphasize its supernatural, supercreative character, the moment of Divine descent as a deifying force, but they underestimate the grace-filled creation itself, God's image in man, real, living, and therefore accepting and, one might say, attracting to itself - with its natural grace, the very image of its nature - heavenly grace. Hence the mechanicalness and crudeness of the view of Catholic theology regarding status naturae purae, elevatae, lapsae [the state of nature pure, exalted [by God], fallen]. According to this doctrine, by Divine assistance, adjutorium divinum, Adam had balance in his nature and original righteousness (iustitia originalis); he also curbed the disorderly lust inherent in him, like the rider of a horse. But if the power of man was not in his special God-bearing nature with its inherent inalienable freedom, but in the donum superadditum [additional gift], in a certain sense, violating, changing human nature, giving strength that is not characteristic of it, then it becomes incomprehensible: how could a person sin, reject this violence of grace? Or was grace itself powerless? Lacking a convincing answer to this question, Catholic theology is forced to understand original sin, in essence, as carentia [lack of possession] or nuditas iustitiae debitae [deprivation of due righteousness], that is, a mechanical and equally arbitrary taking away of the donum superadditum. If it can still be interpreted with a stretch as a punishment for Adam, then in relation to his descendants this is a matter of pure arbitrariness, which is confirmed by the dogma of the Immaculate Conception: what was arbitrarily taken away could be just as arbitrarily returned. Catholic doctrine introduces dualism into anthropology and, as a consequence of it, mechanically understands the union of the Divine and the human in man: this is its Manichaeism. And his semi-Pelagianism is that there is no distinction made here between the state of natural and fallen man, except in quantitative terms: that vulneratio [vulneration] of nature, which the scholastics talk about, consists in the weakening of human powers, but not in changing the very image of humanity in man. According to the Orthodox understanding, a sin committed by a person in his freedom affects him immanently in his nature, depriving it by force of its [own] perversity of the knowledge of God and the direct acceptance of His gifts. Punishment for sin is also not imposed from outside, but only confirmed by the Divine will by the self-determination of human nature, a consequence of sin. It acquires an ontological meaning, just as God’s commandment to man was ontological, although it had a deontological form: it was clothed in a command. Its observance was an ontological condition of human humanity, and its violation was an ontological catastrophe, introducing a new law and new life into a person, in a certain sense unnatural, not meeting the ontological norms and tasks of man. For Catholics it is just the opposite: status iustitiae originalis [the state of original righteousness] is unnatural for man, even in the sense of his supernaturalism, and, conversely, status naturae lapsae [the state of fallen nature] is more consistent with status naturae purae [the state of pure nature]. The state of man before and after the Fall is here determined from the outside, as a law, transcendental to his nature, as an act of the omnipotent will of God, not in man, but above man, or about man, first as mercy, and then as judgment and judgment, punishment; What is essential here, therefore, is that the state of man changes in his relation to grace, but not he himself. The Catholic Church expressed this idea in its condemnation of Baius' teachings in a bull of Pope Pius V in 1957. Bayus taught about the original state that it was the status naturae debitus [proper state of nature] (as opposed to indebitus [improper]) and all the advantages of the first parents in paradise were associated with this primordial human nature 11. All human suffering, even death, are punishments for sins, and this applies even to the Virgin Mary. This teaching was condemned in the form of a series of anathematized theses, 12 and it was established that man can be created by God in the same state in which he is now, and regardless of guilt, and therefore, the grace of the original state is supernatural, that is, superhuman, man is more an object of the influence of grace than its subject. The second time a similar doctrine was condemned in the 19th century by Hermes and Gunther, who also argued that the original state was not of grace, but of a natural character: Divine goodness and wisdom would not have allowed the creation of man without original justice, by which is meant the subordination of sensuality to reason. These glimpses of the doctrine of the primordial sophia of man were condemned at the provincial Council of Cologne 13 (c[anon] 15). So, the currently accepted teaching of the Catholic Church on original sin and the original state considers sin as a privatio [taking away], a withdrawal of grace, which, by the will of God, can be returned to a person, and thereby he is restored completely and entirely to the original state. Therefore, the Mother of God is completely and completely likened to Eve before the Fall. Here, a kind of deus ex machina, a reference to Divine arbitrariness, is used to such an extent that the entire human side of the preparation for the Incarnation becomes insignificant and unimportant. In essence, the genealogy of Christ the Savior is abolished in its meaning. Indeed, with this understanding, this act of returning iustitiae originalis [original righteousness] could occur at any moment in history, and not in the fullness of time; and in general, history as a common cause of humanity, as a single and coherent act, with the Incarnation as its center, does not exist at all with this understanding. All the mechanicalness of the Catholic view is manifested in this anti-historicism, which abolishes the power and meaning of the Old Testament preparation of humanity for the Incarnation and, in essence, denies freedom for humanity. It turns out that the holiness of the Virgin Mary is inherent in Her not because of Her personal and hereditary righteousness accumulated over centuries in Old Testament humanity. It was not She who attracted to Herself the extraordinary, exclusive gifts of the Holy Spirit, but a unilateral act of Divine election, even before Her birth or at Her very birth, which placed Her in a privileged (privilegium), an exclusive position in which She could no longer sin by Her own power. And by this, human freedom and dignity, which are so inviolably preserved in Orthodox teaching, are humiliated 14. To this we must also add the fact that the idea of ​​anticipating the “merits” of the Savior in order to redeem Mary from original sin also suffers from crude legalism in the understanding of salvation. Of course, if we understand salvation as a redemption on “merits”, as the payment of a due debt, then perhaps it is also possible to imagine a credit transaction in which the debt is offset before its actual payment. True, this is injustice, partiality, which, if shown to one, could be shown to all, and thereby the consequences of Adam's original sin would be prevented for the whole world. Here there remains only a reference to the omnipotence of God, Who is free to forgive and have mercy, that is, a direct path to Calvinism with its doctrine of arbitrary predestination. But the very possibility of such a preliminary amnesty destroys the entire ontology of original sin, according to which it is as much a wine (peccatum actuale) as a state (peccatum habituale). It is this ontology that resolutely opposes the Catholic thought of redemption on credit, the previously accomplished redemption of all. This latter is not a legal act of imputation of merit, but, first of all, a real change in the entire human nature through the Incarnation; it is the grace-filled creation of man anew, which is realized for everyone in Holy Baptism. Therefore, the anticipation of redemption, which the Catholic dogma of 1854 speaks of, even if it can still be thought of as an amnesty, that is, as a legal act, cannot be understood at all as the deepest degeneration of human nature. This cannot be anticipated [anticipated] before its actual occurrence. In this sense, Baptism is not anticipated, and the idea that the Blessed Virgin was, as it were, baptized before the establishment of Baptism, that is, before its very possibility, is internally contradictory - there is no place in ontology for privilegium, the very thought of which exposes the anti-ontological jurisprudence of Catholic theology. And the dogma considered from this side is an ontological misunderstanding, an attempt with means that are inapplicable for the given case, that is, unsuitable. But it also has another dogmatic premise. It lies in the doctrine that souls at the birth of people are created by God each time through a special creative act, and in this act they are already deprived of the extraordinary sanctifying grace iustitiae originalis. Because of this, they are born children of wrath, aggravated by original sin (although it would seem that if this is so, then there is no personal guilt in this deprivation, and it is not clear why those who are deprived of this super-due gift should also bear personal responsibility for this deprivation). It is assumed, according to this general thought of creation, that man is born of God in relation to sin as a tabula rasa [blank slate, i.e. pure, untouched], free from any sinful attack, but in need of a special gift for protection from it, which he does not receive. In this case, the only source of sin is the body, and bodily birth is already the beginning of sin. But this role of the body contradicts to a certain extent the Catholic view of the absence of changes in the nature of Adam after sin. On the other hand, this inevitably leads to the assumption that the body had to infect the soul of Mary with original sin, even if free from original sin by virtue of its privilegium. But then Her immaculate conception turns out not to be realized. However, all these are just partial inconsistencies and ambiguities of the dogma, which was carried out hastily by administrative-dogmatic order of the pope and bears traces of this haste. Essential is its one-sided focus on the doctrine of the creation of souls directly by God Himself, from which it is dogmatized (of course, without any internal necessity for this and without sufficient motives) and this doctrine is quite controversial and, in any case, incompletely clarified. The cumbersome question about the image of the origin of the soul, intertwined here, has its own complex and long history, determined mainly by the struggle of two views: according to one, souls are directly created by God - creationism (here is also added Origen's pre-existentialism, condemned by the Church, according to which souls existed before incarnation, and this latter is a consequence of their burden or falling away from God). According to another view, souls are born from parents - generationism or traditionalism - as a result of the power invested by God during the creation of man: be fruitful and multiply 15. In church literature there was no shortage of opinions expressed in favor of both creation and the birth of the soul, although still the majority speaks out for the first 16. In the Western Church, creationism has decisively triumphed; in Orthodoxy, also some theologians (Metropolitan Macarius, Archimandrite Sylvester [later bishop]) see it as the norm of Orthodox teaching, which, however, does not prevent others (for example, Archbishop Philaret of Chernigov) from expressing a completely opposite opinion 17. The Word of God does not provide a decisive answer, therefore the texts cited by the defenders of both opinions, in essence, do not confirm them at all, as they themselves admit. For traditionalism is given: Gen. 1:28; 2:2,23. Against him: Isa.57:16; 32:15 ; Prem.8:19; Eccl.12:7. Even less decisive are the arguments from reason, which clearly expose the impossibility of rationalizing thought to comprehend the mystery of its own birth or the origin of the soul. The main argument against the possibility of the birth of souls from parents, after Thomas Aquinas, is the simplicity, indivisibility and uncomplexity of the soul, which is contradicted by the idea of ​​the birth of the souls of children from the souls of parents. On the contrary, generationists point out that the thought of a new creation of souls breaks the unity of the human race, the transmission of hereditary sin becomes incomprehensible, and all heredity is generally eliminated. In addition, parents find themselves here providing only meat, or flesh, for their children and, in essence, are no longer parents. Others point out that the thought of unceasing creation violates the peace of God's sabbath after the end of the worldmaking and, as it were, subordinates the creative will of God to human lusts and conceptions. Considerable difficulties arise for creationism in the doctrine of the Incarnation, which in this case turns out to be the adoption of only one body. The conclusion is that the Mother of God cannot be called by this name, for She gave only flesh to Her Son. Finally, this question is sometimes complicated by the question of the dicho- or trichotomous structure of human nature: whether a person consists of only two parts, flesh and spirit, as is directly stated in many texts, or of three: spirit, soul and body (to which the following texts can also be cited: 1 Thess. 5:23; Heb. 4:12). The prejudice against trichotomy is partly explained here by the fact that its [i.e. This teaching] was adhered to by Apollinaris, who based his heretical Christology precisely on this teaching 18 . Given the trichotomous structure of man, it is natural to think about the origin of only the spirit directly from God, and the soul and body from the parents. With a dichotomy, it is more convenient to think that the soul is created from God, and only the body is created from parents. However, this question is not brought into such a connection in the history of dogma, although it arises naturally and, as it seems to us, inevitably. So, should we necessarily speak out in favor of one or the other school teaching, make a choice in favor of creationism or generationism (traditionalism), or is there a third outcome possible here, completely freeing us from choosing between both points of view, therefore, leaving the possibility of seeing a number of misunderstandings here? The matter appears to us in precisely this way: the whole question received an inappropriate, anthropomorphic formulation as a result of the application of the category of time to the life of the Divine. The choice between generationism and creationism in this sense would mean one thing: when and how does God create the souls of people? But this is when, when applied to the work of God, there is already a misunderstanding, because the category of time is not applicable to God. Everything that God creates, He creates from eternity and in eternity, and only for creation, for man it is revealed in time, as concrete filled time. It is wrong to think that time has its own limiting power for God, and therefore to assume, for example, that there was a time before the creation of the world, when God was not yet the Creator. This is the same question that Blessed Augustine irritably brushed aside: what did God do before the creation of the world? There can be only one answer to this: in God there is no when, and every when in Him is pre-eternal, super-temporal, and therefore does not exist and never: everything that unfolds in time abides in God from eternity. Therefore, on the one hand, it is said that God created the world in six days and then rested from His works, creating the world in its entirety; but at the same time, according to the testimony of the Word itself: My Father works until now, and I work 19. This does not at all mean the continuation of acts of creation in time, as theologians usually imagine, but its eternity: every temporary creation (and all creation is temporary, for it is in time) is eternal in God. This does not at all mean that Origen’s doctrine of the pre-existence of souls is condemned by the Church, for Origen’s teaching distinguishes precisely two times and places another, pre-earthly time before our earthly time, that is, it simply lengthens and somewhat complicates earthly time. Meanwhile, our thought refers to that which has power before time, or rather, over time, as its basis. God has pre-eternally with Himself the world in its prototypes, and the world is Sophia’s eternity, reflected in the flow of time. Thus, every being from God proceeds in eternity and develops in time, once caused by a creative act: let it be. For God, nothing comes into being, but everything exists pre-eternally. Thus, the truths of creationism and generationism in their most general sense are completely compatible: that is, as the doctrine of the continuous emergence, as if always continuing, although once accomplished, a creative act - creationism and about the autonomous, immanent formation or development of the created created world, which has received in itself the fullness of the creative powers of being - generationism. In dogmatics, both sides are distinguished as the creation of God and the Providence of God, which is an unceasingly ongoing act of creation, once identified in all its originality and diversity: follow Thy spirit, and they will be created... take away their spirit, and they will disappear and return to their dust 20 . In addition, although everything arises in time, therefore, is limited by its framework, but at the same time it pre-emerges before its manifestation. Everything is seeded in everything and is maintained in its existence by a one-time, supra-temporal creative act. This is in general, applied to the general foundations of existence. Now let us consider the same question regarding the creation of man. Man occupies a special place in the universe. On the one hand, he was created together with the whole world, everything is from the fullness of the Divine, and in this sense he is one with the world. On the other hand, God Himself breathed into him the breath of life and honored him with His image. The latter is, of course, not just a similarity, a “property,” but an essence, ens realissimum [the most real essence] in man, who is a created god, in the image of the existing God. In what concepts, philosophical and theological, this inspiration of a living soul into Adam by God Himself should be expressed, this can and should constitute a special theological problem. There is no doubt, however, that from such an origin the spirit of Adam does not cease to be a created, created spirit. He is a creation, just like the Angels, the “second lights” poured out from the one, first Ever-Essential Light. Through this origin Adam does not acquire any participation in the pre-eternal life of the Most Holy Trinity. But as the image of God and, in a sense, a repetition of the Divinity Himself in the world, arising not only from creation with the word: let it be, but also from the mysterious internal secretion from the depths of the Divinity, through the “breathing in” of the soul, Adam is a premium, eternal being in the world. In other words, in a sense, Adam is created and uncreated, but brought forth by God, he is a created and uncreated being, temporary and eternal, a world and an unworld, a superworld, a god in the universe, a citizen of this world, and through this its ruler. Thus, in his very composition (in whatever terms we express it: dichotomously or trichotomously, for this does not belong to the essence of the question) a person is dual, ontologically complex, two-part. He, as a citizen of the world, was created in the world and together with the world and in this sense does not have a special person, does not require a special creation. But it arises from God through a special act not of peacemaking, but of “breathing in,” bringing out. This duality, or two-partness, of a person (dichotomy) is the metaphysical basis of his being, which is invariably reproduced in every person: he receives his hypostasis, his face, his “I” from God as His image, as a mirror of the Divine, in which It reflected His face. All these images, in a certain sense, merge into a single image of Adam, the old, and then the New, for there is one Divinity, defining this image by Himself. But at the same time they are actually multiple, for each has in itself a reflection of the entire Divinity, has His image and through this is ens realissimum, like many reflections of a single sun in plurality. These are the foundations of human nature, reproduced in every person. And it is inappropriate, immodest and even naive to ask: was it enough for God to once breathe a living soul into Adam’s body and thereby reflect His image in it, or is this repeated many times? After all, both are already contained in a single creative act of human creation. In it, every human person has existed for God from eternity, and does not arise accidentally or spontaneously, as a result of the play of world forces. Thus, the truth of creationism is that in the composition of man, in his very nature, there is a supra-mundane principle, which cannot occur by world forces, even by the force of heredity, but presupposes the direct participation of the Divine: like Adam, or together with Adam and in Adam, each person is specially created by God, there is a repetition of His image as a God-like and God-emanating spirit, as a hypostasis, in itself bearing the seal and knowledge of its eternity and its Divine origin. However, this does not relate to chronology, but to ontology: we are not talking about the fact that God “infuses” some kind of spiritual essence at a certain, specific moment in the development of the embryo into this latter. This is what the Latin theologians think (and partly the Eastern patriarchs seduced by them) 22 . On the contrary, in each birth the form is realized, the pre-eternal dwelling of God and the plan for every person are fulfilled. In God and for God there is one image of Him, one person in the person of the primordial Adam, but in this image all the images of this [His] image are given, all of its individual as, realized in time as individuals. So, the question about the time of “infusion”, about its method - a deliberate, one-time creative act or a general one-time creative act - is simply inappropriate, it is a kind of misunderstanding, because here it is only possible to ask what, and not how. Creationism simply expresses in a crude and naive form the truth about the super-mundane origin of the human hypostasis. The truth of generationism is that, just as in Adam God breathed the breath of life only after He created his body from the “earth,” that is, the world, so in the sons of Adam the image of God, the Spirit, the hypostasis, is realized only in man born from the world nature, from the tree of Adam. In other words, by natural conception and birth, which is as incomprehensible an action of the omnipotence of God as the birth of a soul, a body is created, and not only the body, but also the animal soul that inspires it. For in fact: what is the living body of man, thirsting and waiting for the seal of his divine spirit? Is it just a bunch of bones and meat? Is it really smaller and lower than animals, which in their “blood” have, according to Moses, a living soul, and this special animal soul has within itself not only power over the body, but also its own, albeit lower, spiritual energies, and its own mind, and its own body, and its own character? But the body of a person with his animal soul is also imprinted with his innate, hereditary character; a person is not born tabula rasa. His hypostasis, his divine spirit, the image of God, inhabits a certain church, and, as we tried to explain above, the soul agrees to this installation, deigns it, accepts it, as if making it by its act and becomes responsible for it. This is where genealogy and heredity come into play. If expressed dichotomously, then it must be said that a living, fulfilled human body is born from the seed of parents, and a soul moves into this body. If we express it trichotomically (which is essentially the same thing, which is why in the word of God we find both dichotomous and trichotomous expressions - the latter see: Heb. 4:12; 1 Thess. 5:23), then it must be said that not only the body is born from the parents, but also the animal soul, of an empirical nature, and into this union of body and soul the spirit is infused 23 . The birth of only a body from parents, firstly, would humiliate a person even before animals: a person’s place at the end of the six-day period presupposes for him complete possession of everything created in the previous days. Six days is human ontogenesis. He is, first of all, a perfect all-animal, having in himself everything that animals have, in particular the living animal soul. Secondly, the separation of body from soul and the origin of both separately, one through birth, the other through creation, is in any case no less incomprehensible than the birth of a soul from the souls of parents. Strictly speaking, both are equally incomprehensible in their how, and are the mystery of God’s creativity, a miracle. The metaphysical necessity of separate origin really exists, but not in relation to the body and soul of an animal, but in relation to the body in conjunction with the soul or simply to the living body, on the one hand, and the spirit, hypostasis, image of God, on the other. For the first form the cosmic, animal principle in man, while the second forms the Divine. And, of course, they cannot be mixed in the sense that one can come from the other. But at the same time, there is a certain connection, conjugation, correspondence between them - there is the individuality of body and soul, the corresponding individuality of the spirit. And if creationism wants to abolish or weaken this connection, destroy these bonds, then it encounters one obstacle, completely insurmountable for it, which confused St. Augustine, namely, original sin and heredity in general. Since creationism includes this principle, it becomes discolored. It loses its main strength - the opposition of soul and body as independent principles. The statement of radical creationism about the complete independence of the created soul from the body being born would lead to a complete denial of heredity and genealogy, the unity and connection of the entire human race, original sin and the entire Old Testament economy with the genealogy of the Savior inclusive. For the meaning of the latter is reduced at most to the preparation of the body of the Savior, detached from all spiritual power. Creationism in this sense is a crude and naive occasionalism and atomism in the understanding of human destinies; each person arises separately, has his own destiny, is separated from his own kind through his origin, by virtue of a new creative act. When carried out consistently, this teaching breaks all of Christology and soteriology as the teaching of a single Adam, Old and New. To the extent that creationism is ready to include a pre-established relationship between the spirit created by God and the body born from parents, it actually loses its position and represents only a kind of traditionalism. The same occasionalism affected the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of the Mother of God in the dogma of 1854. It was necessary to introduce this controversial, dark and undeveloped teaching into the very core of dogma, to perform such an imprudent and unwise act because in this way it seemed easiest to implement the sinlessness of Mary as a privilegium given on credit, in an extraordinary manner, and thereby resolve all the dogmatic difficulties associated with the issue of veneration of the Mother of God. Mary is removed from the general order at the creation of Her soul. In it, the donum superadditum [additional gift], taken away from everyone, is returned to Her. But, since this is an act of unilateral Divine arbitrariness, this privilegium, it seemed, would be possible for all the descendants of Adam. This, in essence, undermines the entire inexorable power of original sin, which unites everyone not only in devotion to God, but also in salvation. Thus, this imprudent dogma shakes the very foundations of Christian dogma, and moreover deprives the Most Pure Virgin of Her own merit in sinlessness, for in advance, freely, as a privilegium, it endows Her with immunity in relation to sin. So, although this dogma pursues a good goal - the glorification of the Most Pure One, it does this by completely unsuitable means and is an example of dogmatic arbitrariness and haste. According to Catholic dogma, the “immaculate conception” of the Mother of God simply means a different creation of Her, in contrast to all other people: She is endowed with a special gift that other people are not endowed with, that’s all. And this really corresponds to an advantage understood in the sense of privilegium: here we have an example of a mechanical coarsening of theological concepts with the elimination of human freedom in favor of arbitrary predestinism [belief in predestination], the improper application of the principle ex opere operato [of a perfect action]. Removed from original sin, Mary would have been removed from all humanity, separated from the tree of the old Adam, and yet it was through Her that a new branch was to be grafted into it. The extraordinary, unique outpouring of the gifts of the Holy Spirit both at conception, and in the conception, and in the birth of the Blessed Virgin was the Divine replenishment of human weakness. It was, firstly, for the sake of the already revealed righteousness and holiness of the Godfather Joachim and Anna and the entire godly series of their ancestors, and the holiness of the parents corresponds to the holiness of birth. Secondly, it was for the sake of holiness and the Most Pure Virgin Herself, revealed even at Her earthly birth, in Her pre-temporal and pre-mundane self-determination. And as far as we can talk about the “immaculate conception” and the birth of the Most Pure and Most Immaculate, here too grace does not automatically or mechanically choose for itself an object that remains passive in this election, but responds to the oncoming movement of human nature itself. The Mother of God gains freedom from personal sinfulness, retaining in Her nature all the power of natural sin and her weakness. And it is wrong to talk about Her Baptism before the birth of Her and Her Son. The Mother of God was baptized along with all the apostles on the day of Pentecost. And, besides, according to the law of sin, She tasted death. She did not have freedom from death, which for our first parents was associated with the absence of original sin. In a word, from all sides the newly invented dogma seems unnecessary and contrived. In essence, this is the point of view held by a number of medieval Catholic theologians: Paschasius, Radbertus, Anselm, Petrus Lombardus, Bernard, Bonaventure, Albertus Magnus, Thomas Aquinas. Schwane. Dogmengeschichte. Bd.3, §94 [Shvane. History of dogmas. T.3, §94]. Article Immaculee Conception // Dictionnaire de Theologie catholique [article “Immaculate Conception” // “Dictionary of Catholic Theology”]. Wetzer und Welte. Kirchenlexikon. Bd.IV.456: Unbefleckte Empfagniss [Church Dictionary / Ed. Wetzer and Welte. T.4. P.456: “Immaculate Conception”]. Scheeben. Handbuch der katolische Dogmatik. Bd.II, §203. C.660 [Sheeben. A Guide to Catholic Dogmatics. T.II]. Bellarmini. De gratia primi hominis, 2. Ibidem. 5 [Bellarmine. On the grace of the first man, 2 and 5]. Scheeben. Dogmatik. II,216. “The mortality of man, both regarding the possibility and necessity of his death, is a consequence of the structure of his nature, a natural attribute of his body as a corpus animale [animal body]; it therefore has a root in nature itself, and not just in sin (!), as if through it it was first founded.” On the contrary, God only restrained it while man abstained from sin. The same is true with the possibility and necessity of illness-related disorders of this life, illnesses of birth, as well as excitability and susceptibility to sensuality and sexual lust (ibidem. 218–224). “Human concupiscibilitas [predisposition to concupiscence], passing into activa concupiscentia [active concupiscence], is, although not a special gift of God (Pelagians), but Mangel und Uebel der Natur [flaw and disease of nature], like mortality and death. They are not from God, who leaves them bloss bestehen und entstehen [simply to continue and arise [in every new person]], just like death and sin, but on the basis of the “constitution” of human nature.” (Hence, still from God?) (225). “Die geistige Seele hat von Natur nicht nur die Kraft das animalische Leben des Korpers vollkommen zu vergeistigen und zu durchherrschen oder die infirmitas carnis aufzuheben und sich von der Notwendigkeit sie zu dulden, zu befreien. Auch fur ihr geistiges Leben selbst ergiebt sich aus der Verbindung mit dem corruptibeln und passibeln Korper eine gewisse von Haus aus ihr anhaftende Unvollkommenheit und Schwache, oder eine infirmitas mentis" ["The soul endowed with spirit has by nature not only the ability to completely spiritualize and lead the animal life of the body or to overcome the weakness of the flesh and be freed from the need to endure it. Likewise, due to the connection with the body, subject to corruption and suffering, spiritual life turns out for the soul to be some kind of inherent imperfection and impotence, or weakness of the mind"] (Ibidem, 227). This is clear, for example, from Propositio 21 condemned by the Catholic Church: humanae naturae sublimatio et exaltatio in consortium divinae naturae debita fuit integritati primae conditionis, et proinde naturalis dicenda est et non supernaturalis [the greatness and elevation of human nature to participation in the Divine nature was due to [this] integrity original [its] state and therefore should be considered natural and not supernatural]. Denzinger. Enchiridon Symbolorum, 1001 Sqq [Denzinger. Collection of religious definitions, 1001 pages]. A veritate catholica eos aberrasse asserimus, qui docent Dei sapientiam et bonitatem exegisse, ut homini gratiam sanctificantem a concupiscentia aut immortalitatem corporis conferre; vel qui assertant immunitatem a consupiscentia necessarie pertinere ad ipsius hominis ideam seu naturam; denique qui dona Adamo collata propterea solum supernaturalia vocanda esse dicunt, quod homini a Deo creante et non ab homine sibi ipsi collata sunt [We declare that those who teach to reject God's wisdom and goodness have deviated from the catholic truth, in order to attribute to man the grace that cleanses from lust, or the immortality of the body; as well as those who assert that immunity from lust is an indispensable property of the idea, or nature, of man himself; and, finally, those who say that the gifts given to Adam should be called supernatural only because man did not provide them to himself, but by God who created him] (Simar. Lehrbuch der Dogmatik, 86.89. S.390-391.409 [Simar. Textbook of Dogmatics, 86.89. P.390-391.409]). Compare, for example: John of Damascus, St. An Accurate Statement of the Orthodox Faith. Book 2, ch. 26 and 27, also in the Orthodox Confession of the Eastern Catholic Church: “although the human will was damaged by original sin, yet even now it is in the will of everyone to be good and a child of God, or evil and the son of the devil” (Orthodox Confession. Part 1. Question 27 [// Dogmatic Epistles... P. 29]). In the Message of the Eastern Patriarchs we read: “every fallen person has the nature with which he was created, and a free, living and active natural force, as a result of which by nature he can choose and do good, flee and turn away from evil” (Sylvester, archimandrite. Experience of Orthodox Dogmatic Theology: [In 5 vols.]. Vol. 3. Kyiv. pp. 448–450 [Cf.: Message Patriarchs of the Eastern Catholic Church on the Orthodox Faith. Member 14 // Dogmatic Epistles... pp. 166–167]). Among the church writers who speak out for the birth of souls are Tertullian (De anima. P. 27 [On the soul. Ch. 27]), Rufinus (in Jerome: Adversus Rufinum. P. 2, paragraph 8 [Against Rufinus, book 2, chapter 8 ff.]) and Saint Macarius the Great (Conversation 30.1: “earthly parents give birth to children from their own nature, both their bodies and souls”). On the contrary, the majority is for the creation of the soul: Clement of Alexandria (Stromata [Stromata] IV,26; VI,16), Saint Athanasius the Great (Against Apollinaris. Book 1, part 4. Contra gentes I,I [Against the Gentiles I,1]), Saints Gregory the Theologian, Ephraim the Syrian, John Chrysostom, Cyril of Alexandria, Gilarius, Ambrose of Milan, Blessed Jerome. St. Augustine took a wavering position and finally admitted his powerlessness to give a satisfactory answer to this question. In Augustine's dispute with the Pelagians, the latter naturally inclined towards the hypothesis of creationism as being more consistent with their teaching about the absence of fundamental corruption in human nature. On the contrary, Augustine, in his defense of the doctrine of original sin, was forced to lean more towards traditionalism. In the end, Augustine admitted: “ego adhuc inter utrosque ambigo et moveor, aliquando sic, aliquando autem sic” [“I myself am still divided between one and the other and waver here and there”] (De genesi ad litteram libri XII, 21, 37 [On the book of Genesis word for word XII books, X, 21, 37]). Following Augustine were his disciples Fulgentius, as well as Pope Gregory the Great, Eucharius and Isidore. Over time, creationism triumphed in the Western Church during the period of scholasticism: Thomas Aquinas and others. Pope Benedict XII condemned the teaching of the Armenians, which denied it (Denzinger. Enchiridon Symbolorum [Denzinger. Collection of Definitions]. P. 218, note 533). See the presentation of the issue in Scheeben's dogma. Also: Kleutgen. Die Philosophie der Vorzeit. Munster, 1863. Bd.II [Kleutgen. Philosophy of antiquity. Munster, 1863. T.II]; Stoeke. Die speculative Lehre vom Menschen und ihre Geschichte. II Bd. Wurzburg, 1859 [Stecke. Theoretical doctrine of man and his history: In 2 vols. Würzburg, 1859]; Klee. Katholische Dogmatik. II Bd. [Klee. Catholic dogmatics: In 2 vols.]. Of the Orthodox, for the most complete outline, see Archimandrite. Sylvester: Experience of Orthodox dogmatic theology: [In 5 vols.]. T.3. Apollinaris distinguishes three parts of man: νους, ψυχή and σωμα, and the Logos accepted only flesh, interceding with Himself the human spirit. Apollinaris is also inclined towards generationism, believing that souls will be born from souls, as bodies from bodies. On the general question of dicho- and trichotomism, the opinions of the fathers generally differ, although the majority is on the side of trichotomism: Justin the Philosopher and Clement of Alexandria speak of both dicho- and trichotomy; Irenaeus and Tertullian – about dichotomy. Athanasius the Great also wavers between both, like Saint Ephim the Syrian; Saints Basil the Great, Gregory of Nyssa, Epiphanius, Ambrose, Cyril of Alexandria and others speak about body, soul and spirit. Chrysostom, Nemesius, and John of Damascus speak dichotomously. After Apollinaris, dichotomy is sometimes considered one of the dogmas of Orthodoxy. Here is an analogy with the Eucharistic sacrifice, offered once, but repeated many times in the liturgy, with a sacrificial lamb, united and, however, always slain again, always divisible and not fragmented: the multiple repetition merges into a single Divine act of a single accomplishment. “The soul is given from God when the body is formed and becomes capable of receiving it, and when it enters, it spreads throughout the whole body, like fire in a red-hot iron” (cf.: Orthodox Confession of Faith of the Catholic and Apostolic Church of the East. Issue 28 [p. 30]). Here the Christological question is significant and even decisive: how should we understand the Incarnation of God, to what principle does the Logos in the God-Man correspond? Blessed Augustine expresses himself about the origin of the soul of Christ: “unde Adam quam de Adam” [“[rather from where Adam’s [soul] came from than from [Adam himself]"] (De genesi ad litteram libri XII,X,18,33), that is, indefinitely, and the question of whether the soul of Christ comes from Mary, together with the body, or was created by God (in accordance with strict creationism), and, therefore, Mary gave only the flesh remained open, and the rejection of the error of Apollinaris, according to which the Logos replaced precisely the soul and spirit, does not provide guidelines. According to the conciliatory formula of the Third Ecumenical Council (433), according to the Antioch Symbol, it is also impossible to confidently determine the teaching of the Church. Here it was said: [God perfect and Man perfect, from rational soul and body]. Here, then, the trichotomous view is adopted, and the being of Christ consists of “a perfect God and a perfect Man, consisting of a rational soul and body.” What is the origin of this intelligent soul, there is no indication. But it seems consistent with the spirit of the entire Old Testament and the Gospel genealogy that the rational soul of Christ was born of the Virgin Mary, who is His Mother in the full sense of the word, like every human mother who gives birth to a person carnally.