III. Философия жизни: её состав 37

...What is now, according to sad tradition, known under the name of moral theology should be the moral teaching of Christianity, which has a bright future ahead of it. The moral teaching of Christianity - this name indicates the method of science, the subjective method of Christian philosophy, in contrast to the objective method of dogmatic teaching. The past of theology was a time of undivided dominance of dogma, stood under the banner of objective scholastic thought; the future of theological science will fall under the banner of the subjective method of religious philosophy, the ethical-mystical study of Christianity 38 . Our science is the science of the future. Substantively speaking, the moral teaching about Christianity is the teaching about Christian life. In its full form, our science consists of two parts, closely interconnected: the moral teaching of Christianity, or the teaching of Christian life, and moral philosophy. At the same time, it, as part of both its parts, postulates, as its final whole, the Philosophy of Life. The mutual relationship between the two parts of moral teaching, i.e., the teaching about Christian life (the theological part) and moral philosophy (the philosophical part), as their inextricable connection, is revealed very easily. At the same time, starting with one part or another is completely indifferent. Let's start with moral philosophy. Moral philosophy in the broad sense of the word is the same as philosophy of life. In the narrow sense, as this name is usually used, otherwise, moral philosophy, or ethics, is a special scientific and philosophical teaching about moral life, a theory of morality. This teaching can be developed in a purely positive spirit or on the basis of a priori principles of practical reason, or on the principle of everyday teleology, that is, assessment of the results of behavior and the pursuit of goals that do not extend beyond the earthly horizon. And in the circle of positive thought, morality is considered the highest product of historical evolution - in positive literature, even more than representatives of other directions, they pay attention to the task of substantiating morality. Let us at least remember August Comte and Spencer. And this task in scientific ethics is fulfilled quite satisfactorily. Examples include the works of Wundt, Geffding, Paulsen and many, many others. Morality is rooted in the interests of life, mainly social: it, at least in its lowest form, can be fully justified regardless of any metaphysical constructions and religious motives, can be considered a completely autonomous area, a completely human phenomenon. Apologetic insinuations that reason, left to itself, inevitably comes to deny the moral foundations of life, represent a sad misunderstanding. The weak side of positive morality lies elsewhere. Positive, conditional, utilitarian, earthly morality, no matter how firmly it is based on prudence, has nothing sacred in itself, nothing absolute, nothing ontologically valuable: it is justified by the needs of life, but does not bring into life anything that exceeds conventional appearance, does not serve as a justification for life. Morality acquires such significance only if the religious-mystical, Christian principle is included in its sphere: only in this case does ethics become a moral philosophy. Christian spiritual experience is the highest phenomenon in the broad sphere of morality, which itself is subject to criticism under the rays of this highest experience. Christianity forms the religious and historical basis of morality. Philosophical meaning is given to morality not by the metaphysical frame of utilitarian experience, but by the inclusion in the sphere of ethics of new content, namely religious and mystical. Therefore, theology, or Christian philosophy, has in its possession the keys to the final solution of the ethical problem. No matter how deep the philosophical genius goes into the study of the formal a priori prerequisites of human experience, no matter how sophisticated science is in the analysis of the psychological and social laws of life, neither on one nor the other path the mystery of life is resolved, the depressing vulgarity of existence is not overcome, or a philosophy of life is built. And when we see numerous efforts to erect a philosophical ethics by means of pure rationalism or empirical science, we are present at one of the most severe tragedies. Failure here is clearly associated with insufficient theological education: the Kants and Solovyovs knew Christianity poorly, and this was their Achilles heel. In the laboratory of Christian philosophy a sword is forged that can cut all the knots of an ethical problem. The moral teaching about life must embrace, as its most important part, the teaching about Christian life, and the latter is not exhausted in cursory notes, but is comprehended in a unique science that uses specific techniques. On the other hand, the moral and philosophical angle of view is of decisive importance for theology. Moral philosophy deals with the a priori principles of spiritual life. Here comes a transcendental form into which various human experiences are poured and which makes psychic experiences perceptible to us. This lays the foundations for a strictly scientific study of the entire evolution of the human spirit, all its new stages. On this path, Christianity stands in the face of universal moral consciousness. You can see what requests of the human heart it meets halfway, into what soil it throws its seeds. Of all types of criticism, moral criticism is the most decisive, and at the same time, here a justification of Christianity is given - jointly accessible to everyone, and the most intimate. The moral-philosophical method is a method of subjective, or - as they say otherwise - subjectivizing, subjective attitude towards the subject of knowledge. Using this method of cognition (which becomes knowledge), Christianity is comprehended not from the objective side, as a historical fact accessible to scientific study or as a series of dogmatic formulas, but as life, as a fact of inner experience, as a spiritual good, as a value. This is the overcoming of both Gnosticism and historicism and psychologism. Finally, a moral and philosophical consideration of a subject is a consideration of it from the point of view of life, concrete human life - and since the most characteristic feature of human life is sociality, then - from a social point of view. And to Christianity, from this point of view, questions are attached: what does it provide for life, what biological and especially socio-historical value does it have, what does it bring to humans, how can it be used for the earth. Christianity, in its intimate side, enters into the broader mainstream of mystical experience, which in all its forms, at all levels, is comprehended intuitively and experienced as a religious good. In the concept of mystical knowledge, however, there is no criterion by which it would be possible to introduce into the “diversity of religious experience” a difference in the value of experiences. The bliss of evangelical love, the contemplation of Plotinus, the painful experiences of the whips, yogis, mystical states artificially induced by taking drugs - all these are formally phenomena of the same order. The theory of mystical knowledge is completely powerless to make any choice between them. Even the painful ones, it cannot deprive the value of the results achieved 39 . The theory of mystical knowledge, remaining within its own boundaries and developing consistently, can only come to pluralistic conclusions, as James does. Aestheticism, akin to mysticism, finds itself in the same position. All attempts by supporters of mysticism to find a criterion for evaluating mystical phenomena within itself inevitably fail, because they contradict the very idea of ​​mystical or aesthetic space. True, there is an internal logic of religious evolution, which gives one of its moments, the evangelical experience, culminating significance, at least in the circle of Christian thought. However, this is not a scientific judgment, a justification of a religious peak before universal human reason. Only moral philosophy raises the question of value in general, contains a general theory of value, and only it, in the principle of life evaluation, establishes a criterion for judging the types of mystical experience. For her, evangelical mysticism, as spiritual (ethical), stands out among all mystical paths as the truest path. Such is the inner connection between the doctrine of Christian life and moral philosophy. However, this relationship between them cannot be understood in the sense of their natural or evolutionary association. Mystical Christian experience cannot be derived from the mind of human morality, cannot be rationalized in its terms: it is an inexplicable mystery, a revelation, something given. Moral philosophy indicates only the a priori form into which it fits, by which it is recognized, but not predicted. It outlines the area of ​​immediate knowledge in the human heart, which serves as the basis for mysticism, clarifies universal human quests and tasks that are resolved at the pinnacle of religious good, but does not predetermine the content of the latter. The transition from moral consciousness to Christian revelation is dialectical. Likewise, Christian life has a specific religious content, which does not change in the slightest from a moral and philosophical point of view. The moral and philosophical criterion belongs only to the choice in the diversity of spiritual experience, but not to its processing. Christian experience enters the sphere of morality, as pure spirituality, as an element wholly religious, possessing irrespective truth, original value - enters the sphere of morality, raising it to itself, but not degrading it in the slightest 40. It was a deep mistake of the old moral theology that it considered its content parallel to natural moral teaching, as if there were natural morality and Christian morality. But there is no Christian morality. Moral theology considered its task to contrast the philosophical teaching about family, economic and state life with the Christian teaching about family and state responsibilities. This was an optical illusion: Christianity teaches about the relationship of a Christian to property, family, and state, but there is no positive teaching about family, property and state in Christianity. Under the guise of Christian teaching about family and state duties, moral theology set forth the same rules of prudence that are included in the content of utilitarian morality. Thus, religious-Christian significance was attached to that which has an earthly nature, and this led, on the one hand, to the substitution of the true Christian content, spiritual life, with the rules of everyday prudence, and on the other hand, it shifted the structure of living life from the soil in which its roots are nourished, from the soil of natural love of life, the natural desire for happiness. To try to turn Christianity into the service of the practical interests of life is to attempt sacrilege, which cannot be successful. Christianity is valuable for life, but it is valuable primarily for its specific, religious content. Christian truth is included in the scope of moral philosophy, philosophy of life, in its own religious form, without the slightest adaptation to the practical tasks of moral teaching, and this is all the more so since Christianity is a historical fact, has historical origin: Christian truth provides a religious-historical justification for moral philosophy. The whole point is that the philosophy of life, its subjective method, overcomes abstract dogmatism and positive historicism in the understanding of Christianity, which for the philosophy of life is valuable as a spiritual experience. But the intimate, mystical teaching about Christianity preserves in the system of moral philosophy all the divine originality of Christian experience, all its antitheticalness to human experience within the boundaries of the earthly horizon. ethics. It is not this that adapts to moral philosophy, but moral philosophy that takes care of Christian teaching, opens its arms to it, wide enough to accommodate all of Christianity. Christianity is applied to life in a double antithesis: firstly, it is revealed to consciousness as an antithesis to the positive content of life, and secondly, it returns the believer, with the fullness of spiritual content, to the forms of worldly life. The philosophy of life opens with the first antithesis, or its predominant advance, since it cannot be completely isolated, without the risk of falling into erroneous one-sidedness, from the second. Moral philosophy prepares human consciousness for the perception of Christian experience, but this preparation is revealed only retrospectively and must come to the fore in the last phases of the philosophy of life. In order for moral philosophy to become possible, for the moral structure of life to become possible, human consciousness must rise from practical moral tasks to religious experience, from earthly, natural goals of existence, self-preservation and growth, to the divine content of life. This process occurs with every person in his rebirth, and it is experienced by all humanity in the advent of Christianity. Christian experience throws leaven into the human dough, which begins to ferment, to leaven, it introduces a living rhythm into the matter of human existence, historical and mental, it awakens the dormant Adam, historical humanity, it for the first time makes it possible to pose the very problem of the earthly in contrast to the revealed heavenly, the problem of the human in contrast to the divine 42. So, the first section of the philosophy of life has a theological, religious-philosophical character, and is compiled by the science of Christian experience, the moral teaching of Christianity. These are the Fundamentals of Christianity. The dogmatic boundary of Christian theology is not explored here, although it is assumed and even serves as a starting point: the proper subject of the Foundations of Christianity is the experiential content with which the dogmatic formula is filled. And the Christian experience here is taken not in individual diversity, not in mental discovery, as a description of the subjective side of salvation according to various documents of the Christian soul, but in a historical and fundamental basis, as the life and word of Christ, which gives scientific and critical strength to the moral teaching of Christianity: only the historical and fundamental basis of Christianity is studied, the life and word of Christ, from the side not of the external scientific, but mystical, is studied by a subjective method. Here is the content of the Basics of Christianity. Volume One Christ contains two studies - The Humiliation of Christ and the Philosophy of Gospel History. The humiliation of Christ has the following content. Explanation of the last Phil.2:5–11. The question of kenosis in Christian writing for the first three centuries. 4th century teaching on the self-abasement of Jesus Christ. The teaching of Cyril of Alexandria on the self-abasement of Jesus Christ, in connection with the Christology of Theodore of Mopsuestia. The Christology of Theodoret of Cyrus from the point of view of kenosis. Data for the doctrine of kenosis in the dogmatic epistle of Leo, Pope of Rome. The doctrine of the self-abasement of Jesus Christ in the dogmatic epistle of Sophronius of Jerusalem. Explanations of the doctrine of the self-abasement of Jesus Christ in the dogmatic letter of Agathon, Pope of Rome. John of Damascus on the issue of the self-abasement of Jesus Christ. The preface to the study clarifies its position in the “system of religious thought.” Between the Gospel image of Christ and our concepts stands the apostolic-patristic dogmatic teaching, which obscures the simplicity of the Gospel truth from us. In general, this barrier leans towards the predominance of the theological side in the work and teaching of Christ over the human-historical side. Dogmatic formulas, in their conventional understanding, make the Gospel truth in its historical purity inaccessible to many. Meanwhile, in the essence of the matter, dogmatic Christology, understood correctly and in sufficient depth, returns our thought to the gospel fact and leads our heart to the living Christ. This is precisely the meaning of the apostolic-patristic thought about the self-abasement of Christ, curled up in church Christology, but not included in dogmatic formulas. We need to begin with dogmatic Christology, but the direct task of the philosophy of Christological dogma is to bring to light this idea of ​​self-abasement inherent in the depths of dogma, which extended to the subordination of Christ to the laws and conditions of human existence. From the consideration of church teachings on the humiliation of Christ, at the end of the study, our “right to transfer the feat of humiliation into the God-son self-consciousness of Christ, to understand the ideology of kenosis as the feelings and inner experience of the historical Christ” is deduced, so that “the doctrine of the humiliation of Christ” serves as “an introduction to the philosophy of gospel history.” In the preface to the Philosophy of Gospel History, the unsatisfactory nature of the usual explanations of Gospel history - scientific-historical, archaeological and rationalistic - is clarified and a new method of explanation is outlined. “Based on the fact that the Gospels are not historical chronicle material, but a religious and creative image of Christ, that - further - the life of Christ testifies to His exceptional originality and represents complete symbolism, giving His miracles an ideological structure, I believe that it is impossible to write, on the basis of the Gospel narratives, the historical life of Christ, that His life is hidden from us behind the subjective and ideological nature of the Gospel transmissions and behind the symbolism of His deeds - that, however, we are given the opportunity to understand the “feelings” of Christ, His soul. The Gospels introduce us to the real depths of the most original human soul, without having as their goal to give a historically objective outline of its life. The Evangelical Christ is the only Man who lived entirely for the cause of God, the heavenly man is a soul filled with one religious idea,” this is only the Son of God, almost not touching the earth, almost without historical and everyday coloring, without the slightest earthly dust. The gospel story is the revelation of Christ, the symbolic vestment of the gospel idea. Therefore, we put forward a new method of explaining the Gospel story - revealing its internal consistency, its reason, its laws, its spirit. This technique can rightfully be called the philosophy of gospel history. The purpose of the gospel narratives is indicated by the evangelist to ensure that readers believe in the sonship of Christ (John 20:31) - to reveal the gospel idea. But the evangelists achieve this goal not by their own discussion of the gospel story, but by the transmission and grouping of its events, so that the meaning of the gospel story in their narratives turns out to be its spirit, and not its letter. To capture this spirit, this logos of the Gospel story and express it in reasoning, in logical formulas—this is the task of the philosophy of Gospel history.” Next, the general meaning of the gospel story is formulated. “The life of Christ is divine, spiritual, eternal life, He revealed the Heavenly Father to the world: in Him life appeared, eternal life, which was with the Father (1 John 1:2). Christ Himself recognized His life as a revelation of the Father. This self-awareness of Christ was not His self-deception or an abstract thought, an invention. In Him this self-consciousness was immediate, natural, and it was so real that it determined His entire life. Then - it did not pass without a trace for history: the feelings of Christ, the form of His relationship to God were instilled by Him in humanity, He became “the leader and finisher of the spiritual life of Christians. We affirm this not as a dogmatic truth, but as a historical truth... Christ created a work of exceptional originality and universal significance: He created a new attitude of people towards God. Why is the revelation of spiritual divine life in the conditions of earthly existence the main meaning of Christ’s earthly life, both in the essence of His personality and in His historical significance.” This meaning of the life of Christ is revealed in the following plan of the Philosophy of Gospel History. The Nativity of Christ is the revelation of the divine life in Him. Self-awareness of Jesus Christ. The first period of Christ's ministry: the favorable year of the Lord. The second period of Christ's ministry: crisis. The third period of Christ's ministry: the blinding of the Jews and their judgment. Volume Two: The Gospel (Faith and Living the Gospel). The preface explains the method of “religious thinking”, the religious reproduction of the Gospel teaching, the task of an internally harmonious and immanently convincing reproduction of the Gospel of Christ. “The Gospel is not a logical fabrication, but a fact of religious creativity, to which a living, experiential relationship is possible, establishing between it and the researcher an internal affinity similar to that which exists between an artist-critic or commentator and an artist-author.” The contents of the volume are as follows. A. The Old Testament basis of the gospel. Jewish monotheism. The originality of Jewish monotheism. Jehovah's Jealousy. The universal greatness of Jehovah. The insignificance of the pagan gods. The concept of the glory, holiness and spirituality of God. Old Testament. The concept of the covenant and its purpose. Faith and justification, sin and punishment. Particularism of the Jewish religion. Limitations in ideas about God and His moral relations. Cult. Angel of Jehovah. Word of God. Holy Spirit. Wisdom of Jehovah. Old Testament priesthood. Cult and covenant. The concept of religious slavery (slavery - ransom; circumcision, firstborns, firstfruits; blood) and the consciousness of sin. Priestly ministry and atoning sacrifice. Kingdom (theocracy). The meaning of the people according to the idea of ​​the covenant and the meaning of the kingdom that grows from here. Historical significance of kings. Theocracy. Messiah-king, bearer of theocracy. Two sides of messianism: anointing as the basis, and anticipation of the future fulfillment of goals. The relationship of the kingdom to the priesthood. Prophecy. The meaning of prophecy in the theistic religion of Jehovah. Three periods of prophecy. Historical basis of Old Testament prophecy (comparison with pagan mantle). The struggle between true prophecy and false one. The later signs of true prophecy are moral in nature). What revealed the moral character of prophetic ministry (historical basis, internal basis and living attitude to the fate of faith and unbelief). Ethical prophecy. The concept of truth and mercy as the religious basis of prophetic ethics. Its social content (Isaiah, Hosea, Micah, Ezekiel, Zechariah). Faith and obedience. Prophetic judgment on people's life - cult and social system. Prophecy as the basis of the law. Prophecy is the culmination of Old Testament religion and its dual relationship to subsequent history. The content of the Old Testament law: the moral foundations of the social structure of the Jews. Its national limitations: particularism and externalism. The temporality of prophetic ethical monotheism: the objective limitations of the religious contemplation of the prophets and the subjective limitations of religious experience (the youth of God). The quantitative insignificance of prophecy. Legalistic Judaism. The Relationship of Legalistic Discipline to Prophetic Preaching. “Jehovah's Day” is the day of judgment, as a historiographical frame for prophetic preaching. Social truth, as a condition for the salvation of the people, and the resulting goal of social ethics. Social law. Individual Morality in Jeremiah and Ezekiel. Kagal. The virtues of the law. The nature of the law, jurisprudence. Heavenly justice and human truth. Law as a condition of justification. The good and the weight of the law. Matters of personal mood (prayer, fasting, charity) Bookish scrupulousness. Ethical pessimism and moral complacency. Hypocrisy. Pharisaic conceit. Jewish afterlife, messianic and eschatological beliefs: a) Ancient Sheol. Requirements of nomism. Negative conclusions of Ecclesiastes and Jesus son of Sirach. Positive belief in the afterlife in the Wisdom of Solomon and in the book. Enoch CII, 4 – CIV, 8. The positive and negative meaning of this faith. The forms of afterlife existence are the immortality of the righteous, the uprising for eternal life and bodily resurrection. It's time for judgment. b) Messianic expectations of Judaism and their difference from prophetic ones. The reign of Israel. Daniel's vision. The symbol of the sheep in Enoch. Wisdom of Solomon and book. Yubileev. Personal certainty of messianic expectations and their secondary significance. Nationalism and political narrowness. 17 ps. Solomon. Ethical traits. Additional Messianic Conceptions. Pre-existence of the Messiah. c) Cosmological-eschatological expectations. Scheme of two centuries. The idea of ​​Antichrist and chiliasm. Gnosticism. Heavenly Father (gospel love). Theological premises of the gospel teaching. The divine-absolute love of Christ as the first fact of the gospel experience. Its epistemological significance. Evangelical sonship. Its intimacy. Its versatility. Features of terminology (“My Heavenly Father”, “your Heavenly Father”, “our Heavenly Father”). The difference from the Old Testament is in the ideas about the Father: Christianity = divine fatherhood = divine sonship. The absoluteness of gospel love. The reality of gospel love as love for people. Evangelical faith. The Old Testament idea of ​​divine omnipotence in the initial and final moments of the kingdom of God. The difference between New Testament anthropocentrism and the Old Testament idea of ​​cosmological anthropocentrism and people's chosenness of God. Natural-historical pattern. Overcoming fatalistic pessimism with the idea of ​​the universal love of God and the idea of ​​complete self-denial. Spiritual righteousness and Old Testament law. The New Testament principle of life, in contrast to the Old Testament law. Spiritual righteousness. New Testament righteousness and Old Testament righteousness. The Gospel principle transfers the old law from society to the individual and raises it to absoluteness. The absoluteness of personal principle and the impossibility of absolute law. Commandments about non-anger, about chastity and indissolubility of marriage, about oaths, about non-resistance to evil, about non-judgment, about love and patriotism. New Testament fulfillment of the law. The Relation of New Testament Righteousness to Religious Customs and Ritual. About holidays (Saturday), sacrifices and liturgical worship in general. About Levitical uncleanness. About almsgiving, prayer and fasting. On the attitude towards tax collectors and sinners. Freedom for the sons of the kingdom. Confidence and gradualism in revealing the gospel principle. Righteousness and reward. Religious and legal language of the Old Testament in the Gospel. Quantitative disproportion between a good deed and a reward - from the subjective and objective side. The reward is like mercy. The qualitative correspondence of the gospel reward with a good deed is the gospel reward as fruit. A look at external goods; bliss in humiliation. Spiritual objectivity of the gospel good. Eternal life. Old Testament concept of life. Evangelical-spiritual understanding of eternal life Eternal life is divine spiritual life: absolute love, faith, righteousness, knowledge, freedom, bliss (as the bliss of freedom and communion with God). The reality and incomparability of the good of eternal life. His inner spirituality. Revival. The relation of eternal life to external goods and forms of worldly life. The gospel has a twofold view of worldly life - from a natural point of view and in relation to eternal life. Difference from dualistic asceticism. Natural blessing of life. Christian asceticism. The negative significance of external goods for eternal life: the temptation of sorrows and the deception of wealth. Charity. The irrelevance of the gospel to issues of social economy. Worldly activities. Family, state, nationality. The predetermined linkage of the gospel good with death. Gospel teaching about sin. Jewish concepts of righteousness and sin, their assessment in the gospel. Evangelical ethical norms are evil, like anger (in content) and duty (in form). The concept of natural anger, weakness and ignorance. Evaluating them in the gospel. Dynamics of evil, blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. The power of the gospel sin is unbelief in the Son of God. New ethical classification of people. Teaching about the sinful world. Christ the Savior. The doctrine of the Savior, as the central point of the Gospel teaching about salvation, departs from Old Testament soteriology. Jewish system of messianic naming: b) son of David and king of Israel, c) Son of God and Son of Man. The sonship of Christ as the basis of the entire work of salvation - its idea, motives and method of implementation. The impossibility of bypassing these aspects of salvation in compromise under the pretext of trusting the teaching authority of Christ and trusting in His power. Christ as the Son of man. The saving significance of Christ's death and His resurrection. Explaining the saving power of Christ's death: a) according to the essence of His spiritual life (love) and b) according to the historical form of its revelation (Christ the Judge). The coincidence of both sides. Matthew 20:28, Mark 10:45 (λύτρον ἀντὶ πολλῶν), words of the Last Supper of bread and wine εἰς αφεσιν αμαρτιων (religious slavery, sin and atoning sacrifice, the redemptive meaning of the righteous and the renewal of the covenant). The Resurrection of Christ and the sending of the Spirit. Kingdom of God. The term “Kingdom of God” as the most general designation of the subject of Christ’s teaching. The Old Testament teaching about the kingdom of God in theocratic-political and apocalyptic lines: its reflection in the gospel. The Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of Christ. The Kingdom of God and the benefits of sonship with God. Kingdom of God and righteousness. Kingdom of God and eternal life. The Kingdom of God and the Church. Christian eschatology. In the third volume of the Christian worldview, the gospel idea is inserted into the framework of the natural conditions of human life - the purpose and meaning of life and into the perspective of historical evolution - the Temptation of Christ in connection with the history of pre-Christian religions and the Christian church. The introduction to the first treatise notes “the main internal contradiction of life” - between “two main aspirations inherent in man by nature: firstly, the desire for personal happiness and external perfection and, secondly, the desire for the heavenly, for union with the deity - the desire to manifest divine content in one’s life.” Next, imaginary ways to solve this basic problem are criticized, and the true way to solve it in Christianity is indicated. Criticism of eudaimonism. Eudaimonism has no basis in nature and history. The idea of ​​happiness cannot be the guiding principle of activity. Happiness is unattainable. Criticism of the idea of ​​natural perfection. It has no basis in nature and history. It cannot serve as a principle of activity. Natural perfection is unattainable. Spiritual perfection and external humiliation, bliss and suffering are in Christianity. L. Tolstoy's view of life and Christianity; his criticism. Christianity does not free a person from suffering in life. Three periods in the life of a Christian. God-given Christianity. Its condition is a person’s awareness of his natural insignificance, his helplessness. The combination in Christianity of spiritual perfection with visible humiliation and bliss with external suffering. The purpose of life is the glory of God. The glory of God is the life of God. The world as a manifestation of divine life in nothingness. The creation of the world is like God's self-abasement. The glory of the world is like the glory of God in nothingness. This goal is necessarily achieved by the very fact of the existence of the world. The glory of God as the principle of our activity. The glory of God as an ideal. Spiritual life, as the highest form of revelation of divine life in the world. Unjust Suffering and Natural Development. The inadequacy of the legal view of suffering. The life of a sinner is like a new condescension of God. The purpose of suffering is the glory of God. The meaning of suffering for human consciousness. Degrees in the patience of sorrows: consciousness and freedom of patience. Enduring unjust suffering. Goodness and suffering. Unjust suffering is like the highest duty. A note on the cult of suffering. Tolstoy and Solovyov's view of natural development. The true meaning of natural development. The most Christian idea, in connection with this train of thought, that is, as a solution to a life problem, is considered (briefly repeated) in the following paragraphs. Spiritual life. Jesus Christ. Repentance. Prayer. Fast. Christian foolishness. Resurrection from the dead. Eternal bliss. Kingdom of heaven. The plan for the second half of the volume of The Temptation of Christ in connection with the history of pre-Christian religions and the Christian church is outlined in the opening lines of the preface. “We have clarified the purpose and meaning of life, shown its religious significance in the extreme limits of human vocation - in the initial creative predestination, in the culminating height of spiritual perfection and in the final eschatological aspirations. Now we will trace how the purpose of human life was understood and achieved in the ways of world history, we will reveal the meaning of historical evolution from a Christian point of view. To illuminate world history from a Christian point of view means to place at its center the face of Christ, the idea of ​​gospel history, to indicate the place of the Christian idea in world evolution. But the idea of ​​the gospel story and the deepest essence of Christ’s face are revealed in His temptations: they give the specimen totius status exinanitionis Christi, they reveal the meaning of His humiliation and victory over the world. Just as the face of Christ stands at the center of world history, so the essence of the gospel history is expressed in the temptations of Christ, therefore, the temptations of Christ clarify the meaning of world evolution and contain the philosophy of human history. We will consider the temptations of Christ in connection with the history of pre-Christian religions and the Christian church: from the history of the temptations of Christ we will extract only that ideological content that throws light on the universal destinies of mankind, and we will outline world history in terms of this ideological content. In schematic form, this gives a consistent history of human temptations: the temptations of primitive man, the temptations of pagan peoples, the central temptations of Christ and the temptations of Christian peoples.” The fourth volume of Christian freedom in two parts: I. Truth and symbols in the realm of spirit and II. The Christian problem and Russian religious thought. Here one of the aspects of evangelical Christianity is specifically examined - its attitude to natural-historical necessity, which deserves a comprehensive review in view of modern trends of thought. The general content of the volume is outlined in the preface. “The subject of this volume is the question of the attitude of Christianity to life in the fullness of its natural needs and historical development, to modern family, social, and state tasks. This issue is resolved here according to the principle of Christian freedom - the freedom of the absolute religious spirit from the conventions of historical forms and the freedom of natural-historical life from the external claims of religious authority. Natural-historical life, revealed in the tasks of family, social and national ones, appears to me in the form of a system of circles embracing a single center - personal religious creativity, where the natural-historical plane, moving within the boundaries of conditional development, falls into the depths of absolute aspirations. The innermost of these circles, adjacent to the central sphere, is morality, one side turned to internal absoluteness and the other to socio-utilitarian convention: it serves as a link between the Christian religion and socio-historical convention. A free religion must be based on free natural and historical development - this, first of all, means that religious absoluteness must be clothed in moral and cultural clothing. Therefore, the central idea of ​​a free spirit and free flesh is expressed in a more concrete image of ethical religion. On this path, two extremes meet - historical asceticism and immoral aestheticism, equally far from our idea: absolute love for God should become a real force in love for man, and this connects religion with social life. But, on the other hand, social-utilitarian tasks should not plunder all the spiritual strength of a person; they should give place to the personal-religious absoluteness of the spirit, which gives the highest justification to life. To free spiritual religion from its symbolic shell and introduce it into living life - this is our task.” Here the issues of family, social and state life are not resolved, the original principles of these spheres are not revealed: all attention is focused on Christianity, on clarifying its essence, on the idea that in Christianity there is no code of family, social and state welfare, that Christianity presupposes freedom of social structure, only a Christian-antithetical justification for the originality of worldly life is given. This idea in the first half of Truth and symbols in the field of spirit is revealed fundamentally in three chapters: Types of religious and moral life, Religion and morality, Spirit and flesh, and in the second half the Christian problem and Russian religious thought is critical, and it is the concepts of Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Bukharev, Solovyov, Rozanov that are reviewed. The fifth volume, Religious Life, is additional both in terms of topics and meaning 43 44. Church teaching (teaching about the principles of church life) The moral teaching about Christianity is the teaching about Christian life. But the Christian life has two aspects: evangelical, personal, mystical, intimate, and church. There is personal, mystical, spiritual Christian life, and there is church Christian life. That both are closely intertwined, since the church in its genesis is rooted in the spirit of Christians, and its final goal is to return the spiritual children of God, it is enough to mention this; with all this, the church form of Christian life, churchliness in a specific sense does not coincide with the spiritual life of Christians and is comprehended as its antithesis. Therefore, a complete philosophy of the Christian spirit not only does not constitute an obstacle, but even constitutes a necessary condition for understanding church life and church teaching. On the contrary, it was an irreparable error of traditional moral theology that it presented the gospel and church teaching systematically, in general schemes. The specific significance of the church is that, along with the personal-spiritual, religious-absolute life, it forms the socio-historical, earthly, militant face of Christianity; it solves temporary, conditional tasks 45. It embraces everything intimate, mystical Christianity, does not change anything in it, but at the same time it, and precisely the church (church-social organization!), in its sphere, creates a different system of life, designed to achieve the special tasks of the church. What is especially important here is that the church positively recognizes the forms of natural-social life, family, property, state, and recognizes secular Christianity. However, the church does not offer its own teaching about family, property and the state; it recognizes the forms of natural-social life with its positive attitude towards them. The Church is a living organism, and it lives according to known principles. There is no church teaching about family, property and the state, but there is a principle of the church’s relationship to the forms of natural and social life. What we call church teaching in relation to popular ideas is, in the strict sense, a teaching about the principles of church life. We have noted what is most characteristic in the moral concept of the church, in the moral teaching of the church. But the matter needs to be imagined more broadly. “Church teaching” refers to the historical area of ​​Christianity. Following the gospel history and gospel teaching, which have a completely fundamental, fundamental, absolute, ahistorical meaning in Christianity, the history of Christian experience and Christian understanding of life began. In this story, partly the absolute content of Christianity is revealed from new and new sides, and partly one-sided, locally and temporarily determined concepts of Christianity are revealed. The most important thing in Christian history is the ascetic understanding of Christianity. For the moral teaching about the church, it is important already because the church teaching about worldly Christianity is given together with the teaching about asceticism, as a teaching about two paths of Christianity. This is church teaching in the broad sense of church history. Church teaching is part of Christian history, but it has more than historical significance. The Church is an authority for all its members. And church teaching is not just a social teaching about family, property and the state. Church teaching in the strict sense of the word is dogmatic teaching, as one of the most important functions of the church body. Then the composition of church life includes, as its integral element, the charismatic moment and the mystery practice of the church. The moral teaching about the church must also embrace these aspects. Thus, the content of Church teaching comes down to the following points. History (ecclesiastical) of Christian experience and Christian understanding of life. Asceticism. Defining the concept and composition of “church teaching” negatively by comparing it with the Gospel and positively by clarifying the concept of the church and its tasks. Church and church-historical phenomenology. The dogmatic teaching of the church and its moral significance. Mysterious practice of the church and its relation to spiritual life. Church teaching about two paths of Christian life - monastic and secular. The moral and social teaching of the church is 1) about marriage, 2) property and 3) the state. The practical significance of the scientific presentation of church teaching. (Scientific coverage of modern problems of churchliness). Comparing Church teaching with the Fundamentals of Christianity, as with the teaching of mystical Christianity, we can easily see that the latter has an exclusively philosophical character, the character of disinterested wisdom, while Church teaching is of predominant practical interest. Therefore, for “moral theology” we can recommend Church teaching as a narrow, special content. Justification for life. (The Rationale for Ethical Mysticism) The moral teaching about Christianity, or the teaching about Christian life, in its two parts: Fundamentals of Christianity and Church Doctrine, constitutes the religious and historical basis of moral philosophy. But the foundation of moral philosophy needs to be expanded. It is necessary to push into the gap between the Fundamentals of Christianity and Church teaching a new support for the moral and philosophical structure. The foundations of Christianity are religious and philosophical in nature. In terms of the Philosophy of Life, they should be followed by a purely philosophical treatise: Justification of Life - Justification of Ethical Mysticism (in two parts: Part 1 Philosophy of Pure Spirit and Part 2 Spirit and Life). In the deepest sense, in the subterranean secrecy, at the point to which philosophical intuition descends, at which there is a “touch” of our spirit with real being, at that “single point” that Bergson speaks of, the “single thing” that the thinker manages to discern, the Justification of Life is the same as the Foundations of Christianity. But all attention shifts from religious-historical soil to exclusively psychological soil, from theological to philosophical, although this is not pure psychology, just as in the Foundations of Christianity there was no place for pure scientific-historical research, although here, as there, the fundamentally subjective method applied in Justification of Life to the psychological field is preserved. At the same time, the methodological problem of the Philosophy of Life, which could not be avoided before, 46 is unfolding throughout the entire expanse, so that from this side the Justification of Life comes to the fore. Here the Philosophy of Life gives itself a full account of the method of its construction, of its paths. And yet this is not the new center of gravity. Of the two antitheses by which the area of ​​moral philosophy, the breadth of human life, is connected with religious mysticism, namely the antithetical transition from life to religious-mystical experience and the antithetical transition from the mystical peak to the broad real life, for the Foundations of Christianity its own is the first antithesis, and for the Justification of Life - the second. And in the Fundamentals of Christianity, the second antithesis, always assumed to be the first, if the whole structure is guided by a reliable architectonic taste, appears with complete certainty (Christian freedom), however, the second antithesis is outlined here rather from the negative side, by denying the moral-practical nature in Christianity and postulating a free worldly life, than from the positive disclosure of the original principles of the latter. On the contrary, in Justification of Life the second antithesis dominates, although here too, in the psychological field, the path of the first antithesis is repeated, and here the concept of pure spirituality is at the center. In general, the Fundamentals of Christianity are directed along the ascending path - Via ascendens ad Deum, and the Justification of Life along the descending path - Via descendens. The main task that is being solved here is to find in the very concept of pure spirituality, within the mystical experience itself, the roots of the affirmation of life, taken not in the form of some kind of falsification, but in all the colorfulness of its concrete content. An exclusively psychological soil, without the introduction of historical supports, turns out, from the point of view of this task, to be more difficult, responsible, and, proportionately, the most fruitful. The problem is posed and solved here in all its nakedness: this life, so sweet, so sweet with all the harshness that dominates it, with all the dirt that fills it, with all the inexorability of its guiding laws, beckoning with its self-sufficiency and repelling with its helplessness - does it have a justification? The philosophy of life wants to differentiate itself from the philosophy of death along the entire line, and poses a decisive challenge to it: the struggle must be carried to the end, without the slightest self-pity in the means of struggle, without the slightest mercy in its outcome. The hydra of seductive aestheticism must be crushed, annulled: its complete illusory nature must be exposed. We are not talking about a rational justification of life, not about defending optimism against pessimism, not about arguments and calculations in favor of the idea that life is good, that it is worth living - we are talking about introducing a justifying principle into life. Life is justified by mystical experience, mystical beauty. In the absence of a mystical element in life, in the absence of sacredness in it, it becomes vulgarized and becomes disgusting, like overpowering salt. The shrine improves life precisely by its sublimity, its spirituality, to the extent that it is not exchanged for everyday usefulness. But this is only half the idea. The mystical principle, justifying life, in this function also finds its justification: mystical beauty is the justification of life, nothing more than the justification of life. She is the highest element of life, but the highest serves the lower. Substance is not justifying beauty, but justifying life. The roots of beauty are in life, without them it turns into dead aestheticism. The ontologizing meaning of life is the main idea of ​​ethical mysticism, this is the pathos of the Philosophy of Life. The color of being must contain the germs of life so as not to be an empty flower. Aestheticism is a barren flower. Ethics, as a justification for life, rebels against aestheticism. Good, i.e. Freedom and Love, is good only because there is beauty in it - beauty and mystery, but Beauty must be fought, fought - in the name of life. You need to be a God-fighting Israel. Life is the only thing in the name of which one must fight Beauty. Thus, the values ​​of life are raised again after they have been devalued in the face of the Spirit. – they are rehabilitated, and religion is again filled with ancient content... The foundations of Christianity and the Justification of Life constitute the religious and philosophical foundation of moral philosophy. Justification of life fulfills its task in principle, provides a fundamental and general justification for life. Here the affirmation of life is derived from the nature of the spirit itself, so that only a place is cleared for its original principles. The work of Justifying life must be completed by works that apply the same principle to particular areas of life and put forward for each of them specific original principles, which together make up the entire fullness of life. They can be called the applied part of Justification of Life, practical ethics, not devoid of philosophical interest insofar as it completes the work of affirming life. This is the essence: Church teaching, which has already been mentioned, Socialism (Morality and Economics) and the Philosophy of Happiness. Socialism. (Morality and Economics) Church teaching sets out the moral teaching about the church; in other words, it interprets the affirmation of life that follows from the nature of church society. Socialism (Morality and Economics) solves the same problem when applied to socio-economic life, to society in the broad and very real sense of the word, therefore, it gives the doctrine of the socio-economic beginning of life, of its socio-economic laws. Why, in my teaching about society, I proceed not from the state-legal form of society, but from the economic lower classes of social life, and solve a socio-economic question, this is sufficiently clarified in the theory of historical materialism, a review of which is included in the content of the book. Why I merged the consideration of this issue inextricably with the discussion of the theory of scientific socialism is also quite easy to understand: the theory of Marxism is the most radical, frank and complete formulation of the socio-economic question. I join the opinion of those thinkers who, both the socio-economic question in general and, in particular, the theory of scientific socialism, consider it a touchstone for our knowledge and for our conscience. In my deep conviction, whoever does not descend to the bottom of the socio-economic problem in its socialist formulation, who has not looked with impartial eyes at the backyard of human life, the kitchen and the market, does not know life, he has no right to judge it. Nowhere is the prevailing pattern in human relations, so characteristic of society, more evident than in this area. Here the body of humanity is formed, in which human evil is embodied, thereby becoming extremely evil, and here the salvation of man must be embodied. Only that philosophy has true dimensions, is built on a real scale, which includes the economic sphere in its horizons. And the only aspect in which this area is directed toward philosophy is the relationship of morality to economic law. This issue has a complex history and at first glance seems extremely confusing. “It crosses the diverse needs of the spirit and the interests of practical life. Here we meet religion, which elevates the human spirit above the earth, and the church, which sanctifies the fullness of life, and the personal spirit, yearning for freedom from any economic bondage, and sectarian radicalism that does not know any compromises, and bright faith, imbued with love for life, and the obvious inevitability of earthly conventions, which serve as a means for every aspiration, and the reverse influence of earthly goods, earthly culture on spiritual progress. It is also true, apparently, that the economic field is uniquely governed by its own laws, and it is also true that it is so permeated with moral interests that it seems impossible to draw a boundary line between morality and economics. There seems to be no hope for reconciliation between extreme views, between the views of those who do not see a grain of ethics in political economy, and the views of those who even trace the influence of religious beliefs in agricultural practices. And most of all I would like to avoid the casuistic path of discussion, in which final decisions cannot be reached. More than anywhere else, Ariadne’s thread is needed to get through this labyrinth.” Such an Ariadne thread in this case is the distinction between two types of morality - absolute, religious, personal-spiritual morality, and conditional-social morality. The latter is integral to socio-economic life, but economic morality is a conditional morality, in its very genesis entirely dependent on social evolution; on the contrary, absolute morality, that is, religious-spiritual, mystical life, cannot be the rule of the socio-economic structure. And, nevertheless, the conditional moral and legal system serves the highest goals of the spirit, serves in its independence, by its very conditionality. Everything instills in us the idea of ​​the spiritual and symbolic meaning of a socio-economic pattern. And this brings us back to the basic principle of Justification of Life, to the center from which not a single private area can tear itself away from it, in particular, the most persistent affirmation of the socio-economic principle of life. Introduction. The problem of poverty and socialism. Part one. Scientific socialism; his economic and historical-philosophical teachings. I. History of socialism: utopian and scientific socialism. II. Types of socialism in relation to the plan for the future society. Utopian element in Marxism. III. Economic teachings of Marx. Presentation of the theory (the labor theory of value, the theory of accumulation and concentration of capital, the theory of crises, the theory of the impoverishment of workers and the theory of social revolution). The criticism is factual. The criticism is fundamental. IV. The theory of historical materialism. Presentation of the theory Analysis of the theory of historical materialism: the idea of ​​the predominant importance and social life of material productive forces. Historical materialism and philosophical materialism. Historical materialism and materialist dialectics. Freedom and necessity. Historical materialism as a social theory. Class struggle. Evolution of the theory. The main disadvantage. Part two. Religion and ethics in socialism. Atheism and immoralism of Marx and Engels. Criticism of proletarian ethics from the subjective and objective sides. Analysis of experiences in building socialist ethics. Anthropo-theistic direction of socialism. Criticism of the collectivist justification of ethics. Analysis of the socialist thesis: religion is a private matter. Part three. Morality and economics. The third section of the specific part of the Philosophy of Life, more than the first two, can be considered a continuation of the Justification of Life, since here earthly feelings are affirmed and carnal life is rehabilitated. Pure spirituality with its absoluteness is not forgotten here either; The view taken here of earthly joys and tasks is not the direct view of primitive man, the unregenerate soul. No, this is a return to earth from heavenly exaltation, a return from the highest kingdom of the Son to the wide kingdom of the Heavenly Father, the kingdom of nature. This is predominantly palinode. Here a lot of things enter into the horizon that would be out of place in the first part of the Philosophy of Life “One can say that the whole method of philosophical worldview consists in distinguishing points of view, and all the confusion of thought that interferes with our mutual understanding stems from the confusion and unawareness of different points of view. We will look at morality - at the single highest moral principle - from the side of a happy life, i.e. through the eyes of a person who desires happiness, in other words, let us outline the path of bright happiness, as true, genuine happiness, liberating from the illusion of dirty, dark, sick happiness. From the highest principle of spiritual life it is impossible to extract, as logical conclusions, practical rules of life, just as it is equally impossible to build this principle, taking happiness as a self-sufficient foundation; but through the idea of ​​happiness, one can apply the highest moral principle to life, as a system of such rules, clothe it in their concrete image... This application does not change anything in the very principle of spiritual life; the path of bright happiness in no way cancels or replaces the internal - direct, immediate implementation of this principle in human life, what is called spiritual feat, spiritual freedom: the theory of happiness around this core draws an outer shell, puts a broad background under it. After all, even a feat can be interpreted in terms of happiness, as long as this interpretation is regressive and not progressive. One can use spiritual life in the interests of happiness, although one cannot build the highest principle of life on the basis of happiness, as a result of which eudaimonism and utilitarianism must be declared false theories. In this way we take the broadest point of view. Moralists, according to one modern philosopher, were reproached for always being interested only in wise men: there is some truth in this reproach. Only a sage can comprehend the depths of life. But wisdom must have a word for many, for everyone: there must be a porch at the church, you can pray in the open air. The philosophy of happiness is a moral philosophy in a publicly accessible, generally understandable form: it examines life from an aspect common to all times, all ages, all characters” 47 . The following topics are discussed in the Philosophy of Happiness. Ghosts of old age and death. Happiness and spiritual freedom. Loneliness and solidarity. Friendship Systematic course of moral philosophy We have reviewed the religious and philosophical area of ​​moral teaching: what else can the Systematic Course of Moral Philosophy (Ethics) add to this? In terms of the importance of content, this work cannot be compared with those previously named: ideologically, it is a repetition of them. Its significance is that it gives the philosophy of life a scientific character, draws its content into scientific forms. She achieves this primarily through the doctrine of the a priori principle of morality. It prepares a scientific educational system for the philosophy of life, a place among educational subjects. After all, the Philosophy of Life can only be created in the form of a creative construction, an original system. She doesn't care about academic boundaries. A systematic course of moral philosophy, rejoicing in the Philosophy of Life as a found pearl, a precious beauty, renders this service to her, proactively opens a hive for her golden swarm, introduces her, a free wanderer, into the cozy family of school disciplines, himself feeding on her honey. In other words, so to speak. Every flying bird is not constrained by earthly boundaries, but each bird descends and lands in its own way: one lands on a tree, another on a building, a third on a mountain, a fourth on a field. For the Philosophy of Life, the science of morality is a method not of how it flies, but of how it descends to the ground, since in its heavenly form it rises above the boundaries of religion, morality, aesthetics, law, etc. Descending to the ground, the philosophy of life as a religious thought, as a spiritually experiential worldview, and receives a specific relationship to the science of morality in contrast to “philosophy,” i.e., Gnostic philosophy, which is educationally embodied in logic. For the philosophy of life, being among all the sciences of life and theological sciences precisely philosophy, and not science, at the same time, as a religious-mystical thought, as a spiritual-experiential understanding of life, for which realiora is a value, is not philosophy proper, as a theory of thought, ideas (idealism), knowledge. Therefore, the educational type of philosophy of life is not logic, but the doctrine of morality. A systematic course in moral philosophy is a modest, educational garb for the philosophy of life, by which every schoolchild recognizes it, although it perhaps more conceals its true content. This latter is here involved in a complex chain of scholastic definitions, casuistic questions, apologetics, and polemics. The philosopher, starting to compile a systematic course of moral philosophy, condescends to the interests of the school. Here is the course program. Introduction: the concept of morality and moral philosophy Part (first) fundamental I The a priori principle of morality. II Concrete principles of morality A) positive-empirical B) religious-mystical. (Here is the place for the Fundamentals of Christianity and Justification of Life) III Problems of the ethical system: IV Review of untenable moral theories: immoralism, evolutionism, etc. Part (second) applied (practical ethics). I Morality of the Church (Here is a place for Church teaching). II Morality is socio-economic. (Here is the place for Socialism, Morality and Economy). III Eudaemonology (Here is the place for the Philosophy of Happiness). Of the works mentioned here, some have been published either in full (Fundamentals of Christianity) or in part (Socialism issue 1 and several journal articles), the rest is contained in manuscripts prepared for publication. I intend this review mainly as a guide for students when listening to my lectures, as well as for all my readers. For them, I believe, this review will be useful now and, especially, during the subsequent printing of my manuscripts, which are unlikely to be published in the order indicated here. Delivered – with abbreviations – on September 18, 1915, as one of the inaugural lectures. The ethical-mystical construction of the Christian idea does not go against the objective presentation of this idea, the dogmatic knowledge of Christianity, but against objectivism, or dogmatism. Not to mention the fact that for the direct mind the objective representation of Christian truth is as inevitable and natural as for the direct eye the sun seems to move across the sky - and for methodical thinking, along with the moral teaching of Christianity, an abstract dogmatic concept of it is also permissible. The Christian idea can be expressed both mystically and logically, and the possibility of its logical expression does not serve to the detriment of the ethical-mystical teaching. Obviously, the ethical-mystical path has an advantage in philosophical terms, while in church use it turns out to be very useful and the only possible abstract-logical teaching and precisely in dogmatic formulation. But the mystical truth of Christianity allows, along with itself, its logical definition only to the extent that the abstract dogmatic formula covers spiritual experience and does not serve as a special source of the content of the idea, does not serve to satisfy specific intellectual needs or curiosity. In the latter case, we are already dealing with Gnosticism and scholasticism, with which mystical truth cannot be reconciled. Generally speaking, we are not talking about an exclusive application, but about the dominant (namely in Christian philosophy) position of moral teaching, about the tone of theology, about its direction. Dostoevsky talked about “minutes” and “moments” at the beginning of epileptic seizures (in The Idiot) as follows: “Thinking about this moment later, already in a healthy state, he (Prince Myshkin) often says to himself: that after all, all these lightning flashes and glimpses of higher self-awareness and self-awareness, and, therefore, higher being, are nothing more than a disease, a violation of the normal state... And yet, he still came to an extremely paradoxical conclusion: what is wrong with the fact that this is a disease? What does it matter that this tension is abnormal, if the very result, if a minute of sensation, recalled and considered already in a healthy state, turns out to be extremely harmony, beauty? and so on. And W. James (The Variety of Religious Experience) distinguishes between the origin of religious phenomena and their value. He writes: “As for the psychopathic origin of most religious phenomena, it should not confuse us: after all, this origin did not prevent them from ancient times from being considered the most significant type of human experience. Isn’t mental instability the root of that emotional sensitivity that constitutes a necessary condition for moral sensitivity? Is it not in this mental imbalance that we acquire that intensity and swiftness of feeling, which are the basis of real moral strength? Is it not from her that we draw a love for the depths of the otherworldly and mystical, which distracts our thoughts from the surface of the sensory world? With the help of our psychopathological properties, we can penetrate into the realm of religious truth, to those mysterious outskirts of the world, where the self-satisfied philistine, proud of his health and not knowing anything higher than his bodily well-being, has no access.” Therefore, to attach importance only to morality in Christianity, as Tolstoyism and all sorts of “ethical movements” do - to moralize religion, to replace it with morality - all this is a pure lie. Therefore, the moral teaching about religion (Christianity) and about life in general has nothing in common either with utilitarianism or with the moral-practical theory of religion and, in particular, Christianity. The philosophy of life begins with the Fundamentals of Christianity, that is, it begins from the middle, and not from the natural beginning. Based on the natural principles of life, from the theory of knowledge, from the laws of life and, in particular, the laws of society, it is impossible to build any philosophy of life. The very problem of life arises only when the peace and quiet of natural existence is disrupted by a catastrophe, a new creation. World evolution knows several such catastrophes, or new creations: the emergence of life, the emergence of intelligent beings, the birth of spiritual life. Before each new catastrophe, all earlier catastrophes lose their supernatural character and are absorbed by it. From the point of view of the rational soul, biological life is simply nature, and from the point of view of spiritual life, rational, socio-historical existence is only nature. The last new creation, the historical emergence of Christianity and personal rebirth into spiritual life, is the true beginning of the philosophy of life. Several attempts have been made to present the Fundamentals of Christianity in a formal, schematic or logical system. I cannot consider all these experiments successful, and I have a negative attitude towards the very possibility of such a system. All the individual topics included in my philosophical system are radii, which all come out from a single center, but cannot be stretched into one straight line. All of them have the right to the relative independence of “organic systems” (the respiratory system and the like) - and the philosophical system of thought is precisely an organism, and not a logical, formal system. Moreover, this note remains valid when applied to the entire philosophy of life with its departments and phases. Recognizing everyone’s right to unsystematically use everything that I have published in journal articles and individual publications, which were later included in the Fundamentals of Christianity, I recommend for familiarization with the system of my thought only this publication - the Fundamentals of Christianity, where all parts included in it received my latest edition. Church life gives rise to many new, compared to spiritual Christianity, sides of the Christian religion, and a number of issues find the correct solution only in illuminating the church idea. These are questions about external prayer, about fasting, about dogmas, etc. Arguments, for example, in defense of external prayer, based on the provisions that a person consists of soul and body, and the like, have no force. We will get a correct understanding of these things only if we start from the idea of ​​the church: we need a church, we need external prayer, we need dogmas, etc. Therefore, not only is there no need to combine the doctrine of spiritual Christianity and church teaching into one system, but the whole point is in which department to classify this or that question, in what place, in what connection, in what light to pose and solve it. In the introduction to Volume II of the Fundamentals of Christianity and in the treatise The Method of Spiritual Science. I’ll say it again: a philosophical system of thought should not be a scholastic, schematic, logical system, a system of generally valid schemes, rubrics, categories; it must contain living movement, must breathe the rhythm of transitions, must embrace different phases, must have various recesses. A schematic system is death to the philosophy of life. If you look at these phases, at these transitions with a static eye, in a flat perspective, then they will seem to be contradictions, which inevitably must exist in spiritual philosophy from a static, schematic, logical point of view. But philosophical contradictions (as opposed to simple logical contradictions) are resolved in a philosophical system that embraces the rhythm of transitions and phases of development. The main art, the basis of the method of spiritual science, lies in the decomposition of a philosophical problem into different phases. The beauty of a philosophical system, of philosophical thought, lies in the embrace of rhythmic transitions. Its main nerve is a return to the starting point, the affirmation of what was previously denied. That there cannot be a bare return, that a bare affirmation of what was previously denied - in the sense of a logical contradiction - is unthinkable, this is indisputable. You return to the starting point from the other side, the newly affirmed has a different appearance, the separate edge must remain. But the perfection of a philosophical system is that this line should be as thin as possible, sharper than a razor blade...