On the need to introduce social sciences into the curriculum of a theological school

Brothers! Do not be children in your mind: be infants in evil, but be adults in your mind (1 Cor. 14:20). Test everything, hold on to what is good (1 Thess. 4:21). Finally, the question of reform of both higher and secondary theological schools has been raised. Its unsatisfactoriness and inconsistency have long been recognized in interested areas, but only now, together with the renewal of our entire life and at the same time with profound changes in the external situation, as well as the spiritual state of the Russian Church, this question of school reform is being raised as one of the most important and burning issues of church renewal. So far the question is being raised within the limits of only external changes - about the autonomy of the councils, about the new charter, etc., but there is no doubt that this is only the beginning of the reform, it must go deeper and rebuild the school from the inside, change its very spirit, make it truly a hotbed of spiritual enlightenment and free it from the features of restraint institutions of the Jesuit-medieval model. Bearing in mind this spiritual revival of our theological school, both secondary and higher, I allow myself to raise my voice from the outside in order to bring before the consciousness of those concerned a question of paramount importance, which, however, so far, as far as I know, has not yet been raised in the relevant field. This is a question about the need to introduce social sciences into the teaching of both secondary and higher schools. I know that this thought will meet with old prejudices and arouse in some people a panicky fear, perhaps, of the introduction of secular and godless teaching into the theological school, as we are accustomed to consider social science. In response to this fear, I must point out that with my project I mean just the opposite - to extend the influence of Christianity into new areas and to deprive its enemies of one of the strongest and most dangerous weapons, arming themselves in turn with this weapon. The motive of this project is the sole and exclusive desire for the disclosure of Christian truth and the triumph of the truths of Christianity in modern society. But for this, first of all, it is necessary that the representatives of Christianity themselves be at the height of their position and do not hold on with incomprehensible stubbornness to the dubious privilege of being “babes in mind,” which the apostle warns against, at least in the field of social relations. After all, even a blind person can see how complicated and refined social life has become. The thunder of ongoing events, widespread strikes, have now instilled even the deaf with the knowledge that we live in some new, capitalist world, where the relations of labor and capital represent some complex, painful question of public conscience, regarding which it is a sin to limit ourselves to some pharisaical nods of the head, but which must first of all be scientifically understood. Both the upcoming political transformations and the powerful flow of the liberation movement must now destroy even the most hardened prejudices that there is only one, forever given form of political life, and, therefore, all those who rebel against it are sinners and self-willed people. Now, when the whole of Russia is being rebuilt anew, and the church, whose external position will undoubtedly undergo profound changes, is being drawn into this restructuring, if not voluntarily, then by force, it becomes necessary and obligatory for everyone, including church people, first of all to understand what is happening and, only having thoroughly understood, pronounce judgment - to bless or condemn. It is necessary, according to the words of the apostle, to test everything, and only after such a test is it possible to consciously and firmly hold on to what is good. All this, I believe, is so clear at present that there is no need to insist much on it. But there is only one way of a conscious attitude towards everything that happens in all its complexity - the path of social science, illuminated, of course, by the eternal light of the Gospel. It should be known to everyone that a whole series of socio-philosophical teachings are now circulating in society, in most cases hostile to Christianity and any religion in general. These teachings are already penetrating widely and deeply into the masses of the people, and the falling away from Christianity is taking on or will soon take on massive proportions; Not only has the intelligentsia left the church long ago and almost completely, but the people have also left. One of the sure reasons that this falling away occurs with such ease and almost without a struggle must be seen, undoubtedly, not in the irresistible attraction of new teachings, but in the powerlessness and unpreparedness of modern representatives of the church. When they speak to the masses of the people about their urgent needs, enter into their everyday life, financial situation, organize them, and all this is done in the name of anti-religious ideals, then representatives of the church either remain silent, because they do not know how to understand what is happening, or, even worse, openly take the side of force, not truth, and oppose the people. Meanwhile, if they were well prepared and were able to truly penetrate the needs of the people and implement with modern means those commandments of practical love that will be asked of us on the day of judgment, if they were competent for serious criticism and moral exposure of one-sided and false teachings and for revealing the social truth of Christianity, of course, they would not have to suffer defeat from any speaker whose entire spiritual baggage consists, perhaps, of several propaganda pamphlets. It is not the strength of their teaching, their anti-religious doctrines, but the vitality of their preaching and the relative truth of it (we mean, of course, their general aspirations, and not the means they recommend for the struggle, which aspirations are often contradicted) attracts the heart of the people to them, and, in addition, the complete absence of competition, the absence of a channel for the Christian community, to the creation of which everyone who believes in Christ must now strive. 1 The current insolvency of the representatives of the church has a common cause, of course, its entire external situation under the autocracy, that “paralysis of the Russian church” about which Dostoevsky wrote. But, in particular, our theological school is primarily to blame here, which took every care to caulk not only the windows, but also the cracks from fresh air, and, keeping its students in a semi-monastic casemate, sent them to be leaders and leaders of the people, teachers of life. Is it now possible to ask the parish priest to explain to his parishioners how they should approach the sometimes complex political, economic and social doctrines that they hear at rallies and read in newspapers, when this pastor himself knows less than them? Perhaps he was once ruined in the seminary for his inappropriate inquisitiveness towards forbidden science, and now he must guide his flock in its matters and protect them from anti-religious influences based on social science. Review what has been said and written in preaching literature on social issues. After all, if we exclude a significant number of works of a clearly apologetic nature in relation to the actions of those in power (also of an extremely poor style), then in the rest one finds such holy simplicity, such primitive ideas corresponding to the economic structure of the patriarchal period that only complete ignorance can explain such a superficial attitude towards difficult and complex issues of life. After all, imagine that a priest serves in a factory parish, everyone is talking about strikes, cash registers, workers' organizations, he could easily become the spiritual center of workers' organizations, but he has no idea about the capitalist system, about the workers' question, in his spiritual everyday life there are only a few general formulas that he does not know how to connect with life. As a result, the flock is plundered. The position of the village priest is even more helpless. The elections to the State Duma are approaching, which will become a common occurrence in the life of the country, repeating every few years. No matter how the representatives of the clergy themselves feel about participating in elections, undoubtedly, they will have to give advice to the peasants, to be experts on political issues - otherwise, the same theft will occur here as in the cities - but what do these experts know, who received their training in seminaries, where the word “politics” was the most terrible, forbidden, where interest in political issues was persecuted and punished in the most cruel way. This ugly, unnatural state of affairs must end. On average, seminarians are sufficiently prepared to grasp the rudiments of the general theory of law and political economy, which are successfully taught, for example, in commercial schools. The curriculum of schools preparing the clergy, whether these are theological seminaries or any special classes, must necessarily include the basic principles of social sciences (after all, in seminaries there is such a subject of teaching as “pastoral theology”; social sciences will make up its applied department). An intelligent priest, armed with modern knowledge, at the height of the demands of life and therefore capable of fighting for the souls of his flock, represents the most urgent need for the church; Our clergy must be renewed and stop standing behind the flock, as at present, and, of course, for this it is necessary to reform and spiritually emancipate the school. But even more indisputable is the need to introduce social sciences into the teaching of higher theological schools, into our theological academies. At the present time, higher schools provide as little equipment for life as secondary schools, and religious academicians display the same virginity in social matters as their seminary colleagues. Meanwhile, without reforming the higher school in this regard, it is impossible to carry out the reform of the secondary school, which is spiritually nourished by the higher one. The need to include social sciences in the teaching of theological academies seems to me so clear and indisputable that I positively refuse to find even one serious and, most importantly, sincere reason why they should and could be excluded from this teaching. Perhaps, when meeting them only by hearsay, this idea seems scary and impractical, but this prejudice should dissipate upon closer acquaintance with them. The history of literature and general history are included in the teaching of theological academies, but for some reason, for example, political economy, without which teaching history is now impossible, is missing; It is considered necessary and useful to acquaint students with how people lived under Xerxes and under Charlemagne, but no information is given about what is happening around us now. If we look even for narrow and completely practical motives, we can point out that in both apologetic and pastoral matters, the teaching of social sciences has become absolutely necessary. After all, the main arguments of the deniers of religion are now drawn not from philosophy (with which very little is currently known and of little interest), but from social science, from political economy; after all, from here came the most widespread account of economic materialism, which declares religion to be only a superstructure over the economic foundation, because from here came Marxism, which reduces the entire content of social life to the class struggle and declares class interest to be the highest and only norm of behavior. So where is the consistency, if it is considered necessary in courses of basic theology and philosophy, to introduce anti-religious theories that now bother few people and are of only historical interest, and leave without attention the main stronghold of the current opponents of religion, which not only cannot be considered invincible, but, in fact, is much more easily accessible to attack than all the previous ones. We have already spoken sufficiently above about the importance of social sciences for pastoral purposes. But, in addition to these external and utilitarian considerations, there are also those that force us to insist on the inclusion of social sciences in the circle of Christian, theological education for the sake of higher ideological interests related to the very essence of the matter. In modern Christian consciousness, the truth is increasingly being established that the task of Christianity is not only personal, but also social salvation, not only the impact on personal, but also on public conscience, the triumph of the Kingdom of God not only in personal consciousness, but also in public relations. The Church, the keeper of the revealed truth, is called upon to be the conscience of humanity, the all-salting salt, and, therefore, the norm of social life. The tasks of the Christian community (or, in the words of V.S. Solovyov, Christian politics) are necessarily included in the activities of the militant church, and if until now these tasks have not clearly appeared in the church consciousness, now they are persistently set by life, and if representatives of the church refuse them, then its enemies come and take away the flock. You cannot look at the existing religious decay with pharisaical complacency and conceit, but you must accept it on your conscience, as the fruit of your own inactivity, connivance, lack of faith, as the sin of the teaching church. And if the consciousness of the full responsibility of the historical moment and the new responsibilities it imposes awakens in the church, then it will be necessary to include, among other responsibilities, the study of social life. Even in order to learn the simplest craft, you need to turn to a specialist, all the more necessary is this here, where there is already a whole branch of knowledge in charge of public life. Social sciences, generally speaking, consist of two kinds of material: from objective observations, a kind of historical data, precisely established facts and practical prescriptions based on them - all of this, of course, must be learned and used for one’s own purposes - and, on the other hand, from generalizing ideas, from a general worldview that unites and glues these facts and even seems inextricably linked with them, although in fact it is introduced to them from the outside and, to a certain extent, artificially. This general worldview and these ideas, we must directly admit, are non-Christian, partly extra-Christian, pagan, partly even anti-Christian, human-divine. The reasons why they acquired such a character are completely clear. It is not at all connected with the nature of the social sciences, but with certain external historical conditions. Social sciences, in particular political economy, grew and strengthened mainly in the 19th century, mostly outside of religious and Christian influences, and partly in conscious antagonism to Christianity. Who was to blame for this state of affairs, we will not examine now, the only fact is that the church did not carry out here what it was called to do, did not care about developing the norms of social life, others came and took its place, but began, of course, to do their own, opposite thing - the same thing happened that, thanks to the passivity and inaction of church representatives, is now happening to the entire Russian people. A Christian community was not created, so an anti-Christian or simply secular, religiously indifferent policy was created, the preaching of freedom, equality and brotherhood in the name of Christ and according to His covenants was not heard, and we see the same ideals without religious sanction. What constitutes a necessary conclusion from the Gospel teaching was turned into a weapon against it, and that positive goodness and justice in social relations, which should have been introduced into life by representatives of the church, began to be introduced by people alien to it. All these are facts, obvious to everyone, and there is no way to dispute them and there is no need to dispute them. You need to admit your sin and your responsibility and step out into a new ministry. And in particular, it is necessary to create a social science imbued with the principles of the Christian faith, it is necessary to create Christian political economy, Christian jurisprudence, Christian politics. Our opinion, therefore, boils down to the fact that theological academies (or theological faculties, generally higher theological schools), along with other tasks, should set themselves the task of cultivating social science on the basis of a Christian worldview. This is not only absolutely necessary for Christian consciousness, but it will, without a doubt, turn out to be extremely fruitful for social science itself, which in its best, most conscious representatives is experiencing an ideological crisis, but in the hands of ordinary, craft representatives is characterized by ideological emptiness. The fact is that social science is still primarily social technology, that is, applied science, which does not and cannot create within itself higher guiding ideas, and when, without understanding its nature, it begins to do this, it comes to conclusions that are either completely devoid of general meaning outside the specialty or are still borrowed from outside. Lacking its own spiritual nutrition, it feeds from the spiritual source of the general philosophical and religious worldview, and languishes when the latter becomes impoverished. It must be noted that this source is currently completely depleted. As for the science of law, it has seen better times, when it was fertilized by an inextricable union with German classical idealism. But since philosophy lost its credit, and superficial positivism became the current worldview, the general theory of law has completely lost its course and even ceased to arouse interest in itself. In modern times, half-hearted attempts at the restoration of idealism seek to resurrect old traditions and past times, but so far have been unsuccessful due to their internal impotence. Christian philosophy is undoubtedly capable of accomplishing the task that the restored “subjective idealism” of Kant cannot do; a union of theology, philosophy and jurisprudence would be the most fruitful for the general theory of law. As for political economy, the ruler of the thoughts of modern society, it never even knew the heroic period that was known to jurisprudence. Having arisen in England, among a practical and non-philosophical people, it immediately fell into some kind of banking atmosphere, prosaic and wingless businesslikeness, and in this regard, the socialist movement did not introduce new general ideas. As far as actual study and accumulation of material are concerned, the merits of modern political economy are very great, but in the field of general ideas, in the so-called “theoretical” part, its lack of ideas, childish helplessness, sometimes reaching the point of insignificance, are amazing. This is not surprising if we take into account that it is developed for the most part by people without a general education, without philosophical training; In Russia, it is taught at the Faculty of Law, which does not have a philosophy department at all, and people with almost a gymnasium training specialize in political economy, not even realizing how unprepared they are. This explains, by the way, the unhindered spread of the most strange, controversial, and non-philosophical teachings (even economic materialism) and in the most dogmatic, naive, and ugly formulation. In general, ideologically, political economy, or more precisely what can be called its philosophy, is in its infancy (and not only here, but also in the West), so that here, too, the theological and philosophical training given by academies could prove extremely useful in the sense of the ideological progress of social science. Therefore, we precisely insist that the need for teaching social sciences in theological academies should be satisfied not mechanically, by inviting teachers from outside, from university law faculties, but organically, by cultivating this science in our own ideological atmosphere. Persons with a higher theological and philosophical education, and at the same time solid knowledge in the field of social sciences, could form a cadre of teachers of social sciences in a secondary theological school, and at the same time, produce fully prepared priests who stand at the height of the times, who are so necessary for the reconstruction of parish life. Finally, they could also develop into Christian publicists, who are so necessary now and whose absence is so painfully felt by Russian life. Look at this sea of ​​newspapers, brochures, leaflets, pamphlets, now pouring out into the people - all of this, with all the different shades, is invariably anti-religious. Christian literature, which would explain the true Christian foundations of the public, would defend people's freedom and labor in the name of the highest truth, is completely absent, and what’s more, there is no strength to create it, there are no workers who are sufficiently competent and at the same time imbued with a Christian disposition, so that only the Black Hundreds rant and blaspheme, spewing blasphemy and slander against Christianity with their leaves. In this regard, we must directly admit that difficult times found church people unprepared. But this cannot and should not continue like this, we need to get down to work and, although now, learn what we should have known a long time ago, and do what should have been done a long time ago. The issues of the Christian community must become so familiar to the Christian conscience, so familiar that self-determination in this regard is natural, self-evident, the former carelessness and ignorance in this regard has become unacceptable, and some manifestations of the Christian community sui generis, which are cultivated in the Greenmouth newspaper and, to our shame and grief, are sometimes associated with the names of prominent official representatives of the church, were treated by the church as direct obscenity, violence, blasphemy. We want to believe that the principles of the Christian community will enter the public consciousness and will be proclaimed by the voice of the general church conscience, which can only come from a church council. This is the church ideal, in the name of which we are now defending such a practical measure as introducing the teaching of social sciences into theological schools. It would be premature to develop this project practically, although if necessary, I would be ready to present my thoughts on this subject, both regarding programs and the general organization of teaching. In theological academies it would be necessary to introduce two new departments - the general theory of law and political economy, and in case of only extreme necessity it would be possible to temporarily dispense with the first of these departments (in view of the fact that the elementary concepts of law are presented in the introduction to the course of church law, which could be expanded, and in parallel with this, when teaching the history of philosophy, more attention could be devoted to the history of the philosophy of law). The teaching of political economy seems to us absolutely necessary, and the sooner this need is recognized, the better. The time when the theological school was fenced off by a high wall from the world and life has passed irretrievably; we must now begin to destroy this wall, and the powerful battering ram breaking the already half-destroyed wall will, of course, be political economy. And those who are frightened by this prospect, who are afraid of losing some of their current adherents, let them not forget that under new, free conditions, some will go into the “world” along the same road, but others will come from there, bringing with them the freshness of the fields and the breath of life. I have devoted a number of articles to this issue in recent years, see in particular “An urgent task” in Issue. Zhiz., 1905, IX.