N. A. BERDYAEV (BERDIAEV)
ATTEMPT AT A PHILOSOPHICAL JUSTIFICATION
OF CHRISTIANITY
(1909 - #158(4))
(Concerning the Book of V. Nesmelov “The Science
of Man”)
The question
about the possibility of faith, about its permissibility afront
the judgement of reason, stands acutely again before human consciousness.
The will and the heart of man draw him towards faith, but contemporary
reason quite opposes itself to faith, as once formerly the pagan
reason opposed itself, and for which the matter of Christ was
folly. But is the matter of Christ genuinely, or is it facetiously
in the court of reason, and is this reason indeed genuine, which
would invest itself with the almightiness of the supreme court?
People of a positivist mind consider it beyond doubt, that the
matter of faith is facetious (ultimately) and that the religion
of Christ ought to be repudiated even in the event, where the
human heart might pine in longing for it and the human will strive
fully towards it. And for the contemporary world, as once formerly
for the pagan world, the matter of Christ continues to be a “temptation”
and a “folly”. The contemporary reason, having condemned
the religion of Christ as irrational and folly, -- this is all
but the old pagan reason, and essentially in its objections it
makes use of all the themes of the old pagan arguments. But the
traditional theology fights feebly against the temptations of
pagan reason, and serves sooner as a support for the hostility
to faith, than for faith itself. The spiritual baggage of contemporary
“teachers” of the Church in a majority of cases is
so wretched and deplorable, that with it there is no conquering
the stormily blustering elements of this world. And it does not
suffice to reminisce the old teachers of the Church, who converted
the whole of pagan wisdom into a weapon in defense of the faith
afront the court of reason, who with genius discerned that selfsame
Logos in the philosophic presentiments of the pagan world, which
in Christianity is manifest as the Logos in the flesh. Now ought
anew ought to be continued the work of the great teachers of the
Church, afresh there ought to begin a time for a philosophic justification
of faith, and the very work of reason for the new history ought
to be transformed into a weapon of defense of the Christian faith.
The Logos in the history of the new thought is that selfsame eternal
Logos, once but incarnated within world history. But philosophy
cannot give faith or be a substitute for faith. Gnosticism is
no less dangerous, than a [hellish-dark] (obscurantist) denial
of reason. For faith it is impossible to go the philosophic path,
but after the experiential act of faith, a Christian gnosis is
both possible and necessary. For a philosophic justification of
faith there is needed quite a freedom of spirit and quite a breadth,
such as is rather difficult to meet with among traditionalist
apologetes of Christianity. Usually those apologists, long since
bereft of the bond with the spirit of life, having lost the fire
of soul, quite simplistically and with ease obliterate the recent
history, they negate the work of reason and uproot it with an
impassable chasm betwixt the religion of Christ and world culture
and world reason. The official, the externalised Christians too
often -- are pagan in their life and pagans in their consciousness,
and for the sinful pagan world they provide not the opportunity
to access the mysteries of the Christian religion. It is as though
they intended, so that ultimately there should not be revealed
to the world, that the mystery of the Christian religion is a
mystery both of every human heart and the [intellectual] (spiritual)
nature of man. The matter of the defense of the faith is posited
in a position of being the opposite to the natural: the irrationality
of history has set adrift this matter into poor hands. To justify
the faith in Christ it cannot and ought not to be a matter in
the everyday sense of this “spiritual-clergy” world,
in which long since already has been quenched the Spirit of life,
and that “secular” world, which is full of life, with
the Spirit yet insufficiently comprehended. In Russia there have
always been “secular” people with a deep religious
thirst, with an authentic spiritual life, people inspired, and
from them it is necessary to search out religious thought, the
comprehension of faith.
I want
to turn attention to a certain remarkable, “secular”
in his make-up a religious thinker, but outwardly by virtue of
his position belonging to the “spiritual-clergy” world,
one who is mindful of the old teachers of the Church and who genuinely
serves the revealing of this faith, in that the matter of Christ
is a matter in the utmost sense rational, rather than folly. I
speak about V. Nesmelov, author of the large work “The Science
of Man”, a modest and little known professor of the Kazan
Spiritual Academy [trans. note, i.e. higher level seminary].
1 Nesmelov is very bold, very deep and original a
thinker. He continues anew the matter of Eastern [mystical] theology,
with which he unites a faith in the divineness of human nature,
a faith foreign to Western theology. 2 In certain regards he is more interesting than Vl.
Solov’ev: he has not suchlike a scope nor brilliance, but
there is a depth, an wholeness, an originalness of method and
a vital sense of Christ. He is a singular thinker, standing afar
off from life. His nobility of style and integrity are amazing
for our tousled and fragmented era. In Nesmelov is the charm of
his inner tranquillity, an organic consciousness of what is right
and the majesty of his work, the independence from whatever the
petty powers of the times of his interests and breadth. In the
restrained style of Nesmelov one senses the spirit of the extra-temporal,
an orientation towards eternity. In him there is not that overwrought
and fragmented feel, which one senses with people too caught up
in our epoch, in its shifting moods, in its wickedness of the
day. Nesmelov is totally absorbed by the wickedness of eternity,
and therefore he did not squander his spiritual powers, he gathered
them for a certain task. But these traits of Nesmelov make him
foreign to the people of our generation. It is difficult to throw
across a bridge from him to the contemporary restlessness in soul.
He is altogether unknown of and unappreciated, and for the contemporary
world he mustneeds be discovered and investigated.
Nesmelov called
his two-volume work “The Science of Man”. This --
is an unique in its kind attempt of a philosophic construct of
religious anthropology. This work is broken down into a teaching
about the essence of human nature, and derived from this teaching
the necessity of redemption. Nesmelov gives to philosophy a redemption,
strikingly profound and original, and he constructs it upon his
teaching about man, which he regards as strictly scientific. Nesmelov
begins his work with an investigation of the question about the
tasks of philosophy. Does philosophy have its own autonomous sphere,
its own purpose, distinct from the purposes of all the other remaining
sciences, or disciplines? If in philosophy there be viewed the
teaching about the universal, then the boundaries, separating
philosophy from the other sciences, become obscured, and it is
deprived of its own specific object. But, according to Nesmelov,
there is one object in the world, which in genuine manner cannot
be investigated by any particular science and it presents an impenetrable
mystery for the scientific manner of looking at the world. This
object -- is man, and the mysteries are those lodged within his
nature. This view has little in common with that which sees the
task of philosophy in the gnosseological investigation of the
subject and of the nature of cognition. The mystery of human nature
is an ontological mystery, and not gnosseological, and the object,
which philosophy proposes to investigate, is a fact of being,
and not of intellect, a living mystery of the human being, and
not a mystery of the knowing subject. The method of Nesmelov can
be called ontologic-psychological, for he all the time starts
out from lived facts, and not from cognition and ideas. 3 The abstract dialectic of concept is totally foreign
to Nesmelov and it seemed to him scholastic. In this he quite
differed from Vl. Solov’ev -- a dialectician foremost. This
may seem strange, but as a thinker, as an apologete, Nesmelov
has much in common with L. Feuerbach and he says straightoff,
that the point of departure of Feuerbach is correct, and that
he goes the same path that Feuerbach does, but arrives elsewhere.
With Feuerbach, Nesmelov conceives of an identical understanding
of the essence of all religion, and the Christian religion foremost.
Just like Feuerbach, Nesmelov sees this essence in the enigma
concerning man. Religion is the expression of the mystery
of human nature, the reflection of the enigmatic-ness of human
nature. “For man there does not exist in the world any sort
of enigmas, besides man himself, and man himself is manifest for
himself an enigma only in this sole regard, that the nature
of his person in regard to the given conditions of his existence
be rendered ideal. If it were possible to reject this sole
regard, then together with it quite reasonably it would be possible
to reject in the world both every wonder, and all mystery”.
4 “To realise oneself however in one’s own
natural makeup of one’s unique person, not one man is in
a condition to, in actual fact”. 5 And further on: “The image of unconditional
being is not created by man in any sort of abstractive thoughts,
but in reality is given to man by the nature of his person”.
6 “Through the very nature of his person, man
necessarily images his own unconditional essence and at that selfsame
time he actually exists, as a simple being of the physical world”.
7 This twofold aspect of human nature is also a great
mystery, which ought to be investigated by philosophy and it ought
to lead to religious anthropology, since positivist anthropology
is not concerned with the fact of man’s belonging
to another world. Out of the things of the world man is unique,
and man -- is the image and likeness of unconditional Being, of
the Absolute Person-ness. This is the undoubtable initial truth,
upon which all religion rests, and Nesmelov grounds it upon a
scientific objectivism without anything of the fantastic.
It is from the
fact of human nature, and not from the concept of
God that Nesmelov comes to the awareness of God. He anthropologically
posits the being of God and by this positing he philosophically
affirms the objective verity of Christianity. God awareness is
a given by the ideal nature of the person as the image and likeness
of God. The idea of God “is actually a given for man, but
not only is it not a given to him from somewhere outside, in
the capacity of a thought about God, but factual-subjectively
it is realised in him by the nature of his person, as a living
image of God. If the human person were not ideal in
regard to the real conditions of its own particular existence,
man would be incapable of possessing the idea of God, and no sort
of revelation would ever be able to impart to him this idea, since
he would be in no condition to comprehend it. And if man had
not consciousness by virtue of the ideal nature of his person,
he would then be incapable of possessing any sort of consciousness
about the real being of the Divine, and this consciousness would
be unable to lodge within him any sort ever of a supernatural
actuality, since by his human consciousness he would be susceptive
only to the reality of the sense world and the reality of himself
as a physical part of the world. But the human person is real
in its being and ideal in its nature, and by the very fact of
its ideal reality it without mediation directly affirms the objective
existence of God as true Person-ness. 8 “The possibility of the consciousness of God
is determined by the fact of the inner contradiction between the
conditional being of man and the unconditional character of his
person”. 9 In such manner, Nesmelov decisively and victoriously
refutes the mechanistic understanding of revelation, as something
foreign and external to the inner nature of the human person itself.
His method of discerning the being of God is more powerful and
persuasive than all the discernments from intellect, and his proof
-- is factual. But the fact of an higher nature of man
is unprovable and positively inexplicable. Man as a person is
conscious of himself as of an higher order, and not a thing of
the natural order, and this consciousness cannot originate from
a world of things, from the order of a lower nature. The consciousness
of one’s God-likeness is a consciousness not from this world,
it is a consciousness, begotten from another world.
Within
man, alongside his animate life, with his life as a thing of this
world, there is alive a consciousness of life true, perfect,
and God-like. “The moral consciousness springs forth
for man from the ideal nature of his person, and therefore it
leads man not to the concept about the good of life, but exclusively
only to the concept about the truth of life”. 10 The consciousness of his belonging to another, to
a Divine world, the consciousness of his vocation-call to a true
and perfect life is the source of a tormenting dissatisfaction
with this imperfect and false life. Man realises, that his unworthiness
-- of God-like existence -- makes for the life of a simple thing
of the natural world. Out of this is begotten the consciousness
of guilt, the impossibility to be reconciled with this false and
imperfect life, the thirst for the redemptive atonement of guilt
and the attainment of the utmost perfection. For man is necessary
not a pardoning of guilt, not an armistice with God, which would
grant the hope for a semblance of a forgiveness, but rather the
redemptive atonement of the guilt, the transfiguration of his
nature in accord with the image of God, the attainment of perfection.
Man himself cannot pardon himself his sin, his life in accord
with the law of the animal world, he cannot reconcile with this
his own God like nature, his own consciousness of true life. And
Nesmelov subjects to a deep analysis the idea of salvation, which
is rooted in the depths of human nature.
The idea of salvation was not foreign to the pagan world, it was
promulgated by the nature religions, but therein it was altogether
different than in the Christian consciousness. The natural pagan
religions were unable to arrive at the consciousness of true life.
They looked upon God and the gods as means for the attaining of
earthly happiness, as an help for their own purposes. True religion
however requires the free assimilation of likeness to God. “The
striving of man towards the justification of his existence upon
the earth, amidst that hostile to the God-like life, gives rise
to a juridical relationship to God and by this it directly and
decisively negates the truth of religion, and the possibility
of morality, since that in the grip of this relationship religion
is transformed for man into a simple deal with God, and like an
ordinary worldly deal, it necessarily becomes subordinated to
the principle of the happiness of life”. 11 Such is the idea of salvation in natural religion.
And this juridical theory was carried over also into the Christian
world. In Catholicism (indeed in Protestantism also) the juridical
understanding predominates. The (radical) surmounting of it comprises
the chief service of Nesmelov.
The pagan salvation
is a seeking of help and the fulfilling of wishes, and the pagan
relationship to the Divinity is a juridical contract with Him,
a deal. Christian salvation is a transforming of man, the attaining
of perfection, the realisation of God-likeness. The pagan idea
of salvation Nesmelov sees not only in the pagan world, but also
in the Christian world. Far too many a “Christian”
understands the idea of salvation in the crudely pagan manner,
they see in it only an heavenly projection of earthly greed, of
earthly egoism. Man finds himself serving heaven, and imploring
God, in atonements for his lower nature, and the attainment of
blissful well-being. But the higher, the God-like nature of man
calls him not to well-being, but to perfection, not to a life
of making reparations, but to true life. The relationship of man
to God ought to be defined by his thirst of perfective, of true
life, by his ineradicable need to realise his eternal image, and
not by his thirst for well-being and satisfaction. Therefore the
relationship of man to God cannot be a juridical contract, it
is impossible to cajole out of God forgiveness and well being,
God cannot be given hurt feelings by man, wherein either to pardon
or to punish him. Christ revealed the truth about God-manhood,
about sonship to God, about the God-likeness of man and He called
people to this, -- that they should become perfect, as their Heavenly
Father is perfect And God is not moreover Power, to be terrified
of, which can either punish or befriend, and which it is necessary
by bloody sacrificial offering to win well-being in life. God
wants but the perfection of His children, and they themselves
desire this perfection, this likeness to their Father. Herein
there is no place for superstitious fears and terrors, for a contract,
for pardons or punishments, of the crude transference of the humanly-relative
to the Divinely-absolute. This great truth which is Christ’s,
Nesmelov investigates and establishes, and he does a great service
for the liberation of Christianity from pagan superstition.
Nesmelov recognises the possibility of an intellectual basis of
the ontological significance of salvation, of a philosophic construct
of an ontology of salvation. But his religious ontology is wholly
based on religious anthropology, and religious anthropology is
based on a scientific analysis of human nature, “on the
psychologic history and critique of the fundamental questions
of life”. In such manner, Nesmelov attempts to provide a
scientific-philosophic justification of the truth of Christ. Nesmelov
-- is a remarkable psychologist, and he provides to psychology
transcendent depths [and extremes] of the soul life. His psychology
of the fall into sin is striking. The higher human nature is positively
inexplicable, it remains an enigma for positive science, which
acknowledges only the manifestation of the nature, only as a thing.
Within human nature there is hid an enigmatic twofoldness, in
man -- one of the things of the world, one of its phenomena, there
is the image of absolute person-ness, there is the striving towards
true and God-like life.
But there is a certain vagueness in the profoundly thought out
teaching of Nesmelov. The dualism of human nature, the dualism
of an higher nature in man, of a nature not of this world, and
of a lower nature which is of this world, the dualism of God likeness
and beast-likeness is not a dualism of soul and body, or of the
spiritual and the material. It is indeed incorrect to say, that
man in soul belongs to the Divine world, but in body to the animal
world, and that everything in him spiritual is of another world,
whereas everything material is of this world. The soul and body,
the spiritual and the material duality in man belongs simultaneously
to two worlds. In his God-likeness man is transformed not only
in his body, but also no less in his soul; the lower, the evil
principle lies not only in the material sphere, but also in the
spiritual sphere. The source of evil -- is in spiritual pride,
and of hence is begotten the evil of the material fetters. But
Nesmelov (sometimes) tends to express it, as though in the spirit
he sees the sign of man’s God likeness, but in the body
man’s belonging to the animal world. Nesmelov in the results
of his analysis [correctly] arrives at this conclusion, that only
a spiritualistic teaching about man withstands the test of philosophic
and scientific demands. [Spiritualism is the sole true philosophy,
and this is so.] But spiritualism can be varied, and least of
all satisfactory for us is the dualistic [medieval] form of spiritualism.
A spiritualistic monism is [far and above] more satisfactory a
form of metaphysics. Together with this, a spiritualistic monism
transfers the centre of gravity of the dualism of human nature
from the area of philosophic ontology to the area of the religio-mystical.
Philosophy can comprehend human nature [only] spiritually, but
lodged within it is not so much the ontological dualism of soul
and body, as rather the dualism of another order, the dualism
of man’s singular and complex spirit-(soul)-bodily nature
belonging to two worlds -- to a world Divine and free, and to
a world bestial and of necessity. This is a dualism foremost
of freedom and necessity, the dualism of one’s consciousness
of belonging to a necessitated world of things, and one’s
consciousness no less of belonging to a free world of God-like
existences. Man -- is a thing in the world and both in his
soul and his body he is subject to the necessity of the natural
order, and man also -- is a free being, and he belongs both in
his soul and in his body to the Divine world. 12
With Nesmelov
there is not fully shown the character of the dualism of human
nature. But here arises the possibility of yet other vagueness,
connected with the ideas of D. S. Merezhkovsky. Merezhkovsky repudiates
the metaphysical truth of spiritualism, on the basis that he wants
to surmount the dualism of spirit and flesh, with which Christian
history and Christian culture have been infused. This mistake
is rather greater, than is the vagueness of Nesmelov, but it has
the same root. Spiritualism is not a denial of flesh and the earth,
and it does not have any sort of relation to the religio-moral
or religio-cultural problem of “flesh”, to the problem
of an ascetic or non-ascetic relationship to the world. Spiritualism,
or panpsychism, is but an understanding of the nature of man and
the nature of the world as being spiritual, as comprised of living
monads [from spiritised substances].The question about the religio-cultural
dualism of spirit and flesh has therefore nothing in common with
spiritualist metaphysics, because the principle of “flesh”
in the moral, the cultural-historical and religious sense has
nothing in common with matter, with the empirical, etc. The spiritual
exists not only in Heaven, in an other world, but also upon the
earth, in this world. It ought decisively to be stated, that the
vulgar distinction between soul and body, the spiritual and the
material, is neither possible to be identified with, nor to be
brought into harmony with, a dualism between an other world and
this world, a dualism of an higher and a lower, etc. Nesmelov
is unable to detect the mistake of Merezhkovsky, since he himself
but vaguely posits and resolves this question. “Spirit”
thus indeed belongs to “this world”, as also does
“flesh”, and in “spirit” there can however
be a “lower”, -- just as also in “flesh”.
The ontological dualism of spirit and matter does not at all exist,
but the moral and cultural dualism of “spirit” and
“flesh” finds resolution in the religion of God-manhood;
in the deification of mankind and the world in Christ. 13 Therefore the hostility of Merezhkovsky towards
spiritualism is a simple misunderstanding, a vagueness of philosophic
consciousness, and the association by Nesmelov of the twofoldness
of human nature of soul and body -- this likewise is a misunderstanding.
With the question
about human nature is closely connected the question about immortality
and the resurrection. Nesmelov sees in this question a tremendous
difference between the naturalistic, pagan mindset and the Christian
mindset. For the pagan mindset there sufficed but the idea of
a natural immortality, of a naturalistic passing-over from this
world to another world. Death also appears as such a naturalistic
passing-over. But the naturalistic teaching about immortality
says nothing about the salvation of man nor does it point out
a path of salvation. Upon the basis of such an idea of immortality
there cannot be affirmed the meaning of life, nor can there be
posited the purpose of life. Only the Christian teaching about
resurrection provides this meaning and leads to salvation. The
teaching of the natural religions about immortality only shows
the impotence of man to save himself. Nesmelov very keenly discloses
the impotence of natural religion and its fatal subordination
to the principle of happiness, rather than truth and perfection.
II
“Christianity appeared in the world, as an incredible teaching
and an incomprehensible deed”. 14 The human mind -- is pagan, and the naturalist temptations
of the mind -- are pagan temptations. The naturalist human mind,
left to its own devices, in natural religion readily reduces itself
to this, that “the religion necessarily transforms itself
into a simple implement for the attainment of its wishes, and
the natural transference of the idea of a physical salvation
onto the soil of religion necessarily is expressed for it only
by the invention of a supernatural method towards the attainment
of the purely physical interests and ends of life”.15 With a [striking] (great) depth of psychological
analysis Nesmelov traced out, how in context of paganism people
accepted the deed of Christ. Both Jews and pagans readily submitted
to the preaching of Christ and the charm of His Person, but the
mystery of this Person and the significance of His deed they were
unable to grasp, misinterpreting it altogether. People awaited
an earthly king, the establishing of an earthly kingdom, the saving
of the physical life of people in accord with their interests,
with their thirst for well-being. But Christ taught: “Be
ye perfect, even as your Heavenly Father is perfect”; Christ
said: “My kingdom is not of this world”. The deed
of Christ was salvation of another kind, a salvation incomprehensible
for people, immersed in this world and having neither perfection
nor happiness. Nesmelov says, that at the present time a tremendous
multitude of the people, “Christians” namely, are
situated in a stage of religious superstition, a pagan-Jewish
superstition. The people have religion, since they think about
their salvation, but not about their perfection, the fear of perdition
disquiets them, but not the thirst to realise their God-likeness.
People of a pre-Christian consciousness, “understanding
their own salvation as a natural result of their own proper merits
before God, would concern themselves and actually did concern
themselves only about this, to discern for sure the will of God
and for sure to define, what is particularly acceptable to God
and what is unacceptable to Him, what might please God and what
might anger Him”. 16 Upon this soil is begotten a juridical understanding
of salvation, i.e. the interpretation of the Saviour’s death
on the Cross as a ransom payment for the sins of people, as the
appeasing of an angry God.
Religious
anthropology, having under it a purely scientific foundation,
leads to a rational realisation of that great Christian truth,
that man himself, by his own limited powers is unable to save
himself. The world was created for the perfective God-likeness
of the creation, for the free realisation of the Divine perfection
of mankind, and not for the egoistic and greedy aims of people,
and not for God to lord it up in dominion over us. Nesmelov penetrates
to the intimate depths the psychology of sin and the psychology
of salvation and redemption, [and he has a grasp of transcendent
psychological mysteries, as but few have had]. People cannot themselves
forgive sin, they cannot themselves make peace with their falling-away
from God. “They thought not about that they had come to
ruin, but only about this, that they -- were guilty before God,
i.e. in other words, they thought not about themselves, but only
about God; it came to be, they loved God more than themselves,
and therefore they were not able to forgive themselves their transgression”.
And once there was such a psychology of sin, then also the psychology
of redemption had to be included in the striving to merit the
mercy of God, the forgiveness of sins, in the reconciliation with
God from the fear of perdition. Nesmelov with indignation rejects
the conceiving of God as an egoistical holder of power, and in
such a view of God he sees the basis of the diabolical temptation.
“God did not threaten punishment for the transgressing
of His commandment, but beforetime forewarned man about what would
necessarily follow, if His given commandment be transgressed
by them. Consequently, the fulfilling of the commandment was necessary
not for God, but only for people in the interests of their moral
perfecting, and consequently, by the transgressing of the commandment,
man could bring to ruin only himself, since by this transgression
he was however altogether unable to convey an infinite affront
to God”.17 God cannot be indignantly insulted by man and therein
either punish man, or pardon him. The will of God is in this,
that man become perfect, like his Heavenly Father, to become likened
unto Him, and it is altogether not in this, that man be made obedient
to His formal will. Wherein therefore sin ought to be annihilated,
and not merely pardoned, annihilated in the name of perfection.
Man himself, conscious of the God-like nature within himself,
recognises himself unworthy of forgiveness and thirsts to become
perfect. The meaning of Christ’s sacrifice -- is not in
the ransom for sin, not in the appeasing of God the Father, but
in a miraculous transformation of human nature towards perfection.
The juridical teaching about redemption is an affront both to
man, and to God. For Nesmelov, in what is the essence of the sin,
and why have people, in gnawing the apple from the forbidden tree,
committed transgression? Nesmelov provides a [profound] psychology
of the primordial transgression. He always makes use of the psychological
method, rather than one of abstraction. A “psychology of
living facts”, and not a “logic of concepts”
-- in this is the originality of the method of Nesmelov in his
religious anthropology.
People “desired,
that their exalted position in the world should not be dependent
on the free developement by them of their spiritual powers, but
rather by their physical eating of certain fruits, it means that
they essentially wanted this, that their life and fate should
be defined not by them themselves, but by external material principle.
And this desire of theirs they realised in actual fact. They actually
turned for help to the forbidden tree in that particularly full
confidence, that the somehow magical power of its fruits, without
any effort on their part, mechanically would render them all the
more perfect. In these calculations of theirs they were of course
crudely mistaken, but the fact of fulfilling their intention they
nonetheless accomplished; and therefore the undoubtable mistakenness
of their calculations does not itself in the least degree alter
the actual significance and meaning of their fatal course of action:
by their superstitious course of action people voluntarily subordinated
themselves to external nature and themselves voluntarily destroyed
that world significance, which they could and should have had
in accord with the spiritual nature of their person”. 18 People went their own particular godless way, reckoning
to attain by this path a Divine condition, but they fell into
a bestial condition, subjecting themselves to a restrictive material
nature. Therefore the Biblical account about the fruits of the
forbidden tree has deep metaphysical significance. Nesmelov emphasises
especially, that the essence of the fall into sin -- is in a superstitious
attitude towards material things as a source for power
and knowledge. The [deep] truthfulness of this psychology of the
fall into sin finds itself experientially confirmed in the consciousness
of modern man, in the personal fall into sin of each of us. People
“subordinated their soul life to the physical law of mechanistic
causality, and it means, they put their spirit into common bondage
with the world of things. In consequence of this, they can now
essentially live only that life, which exists and is proper to
the particular nature of the physical world, and under these conditions
death appears inevitable. It means, that death is not something
from somewhere from the outside that has come upon people,
in punishment, for example, God’s punishment for sin;
it has come upon them from them themselves, as a natural and
necessary consequence of that transgression, which people
committed. In actual fact, this world, in which people wanted
to live and in which they actually entered by fact of their transgression,
God did not create and did not want to create, and all the appearances
which exist in this world, as in a world of transgression,
exist not in accord with the creative will of God, but rather
in accord with the mechanistic forces of physical nature. That
world, which actually was created by God, man spoiled by his transgression”.19 Why did God permit the mutilation of His creation?
“By virtue of His almightiness, God undoubtedly was able
to not permit the fall of the first people, but He did not want
to stifle their freedom, since He would not distort His own image
in mankind”. 20
“The holy human
life of Jesus Christ speaks but to this, that despite the existence
of evil in the world, the world nonetheless comes to realise
the Divine idea of being. It means, by fact of His immaculate
life, Christ manifested only the justification of God in
His creative activity, and not a justification of people before
God in their deviation away from God’s law of life”.
21 “Sin never and in no case can be excused
man, since every pardoning of sin can only be a becoming reconciled
with it, and not at all a liberation from it. For this, that man
actually should be delivered from sin, he ought invariably annihilate
it within himself”. 22 But the salvation of man is bound up with the salvation
of the world, and man himself even with a martyr’s death
cannot deliver the world from sin. Nesmelov understands Christianity
as an universal deed, and not an individual one, and he affirms
the religious meaning of history. The righteousness of Christ
is also for him the righteousness of human nature in common. The
appearance of Christ was a continuation of the creation. “Recognising
Christ’s resurrection as the efficacious basis and first
expression of a general law of the resurrection of the dead, we
ought obviously to recognise in Christ suchlike a Man, Who being
a true possessor of human nature, did not bear only an individual
human person-ness, since that His righteousness was the righteousness
not of a separate man, but the righteousness of human nature,
completely independent of those who in particular partially possess
this nature”. 23
Christ
is also the appearance in the world of the God-like Man, a revealing
of the religious mystery of the human being. The redeeming of
the world by Christ is as it were a new creation: man comes to
be in that position, in which he was situated before the fall,
but enlightened and deified with experience. The Person of Christ
is also a God-revelatory answer to the enigma of man: Christ is
absolute and the Divine Man, the praeternally existing image and
likeness of the Father. But the appearance of Christ in the world
and His death on the Cross do not of themselves save, but rather
only create the conditions for the possibility of salvation. Salvation
is a deed of the will, and not of coercion by God. 24 Christ cleanses from sin those, who freely desire
to be cleansed by Him, those who love in Him the image of the
existent Divine perfection, to which man was fore-ordained.
“The
death of Jesus Christ in actuality is not a ransom-payment to
God for people’s sins, but rather the sole means towards
the possibility of the cleansing of people’s sins,
and furthermore not only of people’s sins, but of the sins
also of all the transgressive world in general. It actually and
unconditionally cleanses all and every sin, yet still the sins
of only those sinners, which Christ the Saviour seeks out, and
He seeks out only those sinners, which acknowledge the need in
the redemption of their sins and who believe in the actuality
of the redemptive sacrifice of Christ. Whoever does not acknowledge
the need in redemption, that one also cannot ultimately desire,
that his sins be taken from him by Christ, and therefore he likewise
remains in his sins. At the opposite, whoso desires the redemption
of his sins and believes in the actuality of Christ’s sacrifice
for sin, and turns himself towards the saving help of Christ,
that one, even though he should emerge from amidst the hosts of
fallen angels, and even though he be Satan himself, it is all
the same -- he can be cleansed and saved by the holy blood of
Christ; since that even the devil likewise -- is a creation of
God, since that he likewise was created by God not for perdition,
but for life eternal in the radiant world of God’s saints”.
25 According to the noble teaching of Nesmelov, there
can be cleansed and saved both pagans, and the dead, and even
the fallen spirits. With a pervasive power of psychological intuition,
Nesmelov repudiates the fear of hell’s torments and the
terror of perdition as un-Christian feelings, although (eternal
perdition he does not deny) also he defends the Christian character
of fear of its own non perfection and terror of its own beast-likeness.
He saves the thirst for perfection, for God likeness, he saves
the love for Christ, the love for the Divine in life, but not
the thought about punishment, chastisement, hell’s torments,
etc. “Whoso actually believes in Christ, and for whom the
living source of moral energy in every instance is lodged not
within thought about the Dread Last Judgement of Christ,
but in the thought about the love of Christ beyond intellection,
such that he would fear Christ’s Judgement over himself
only in this one regard, that with his own sinful impurity he
might be manifest unworthy of Christ, and Christ might separate
him off from living communion with Himself. This separation off
for him is more terrible than any punishment, since the life with
Christ is higher than any reward, and since he can conceive of
his own life in Christ, evidently, not as a desire for heavenly
rewards and not in terror of hell’s torments, but exclusively
and only through the moral imperative of his own pure and reverent
love for Christ. Such a man, reasonably, never would permit the
immoral thought to this effect, that people might sin in hope
on God’s mercy, since that in this hope he could
affirm only the undoubtable truth of his faith, that through the
great mercy of Christ the Saviour that people should be saved
from sin. Consequently, whoso recourses to God’s mercy
on the path towards licentiousness, such an one knows Christ not
at all and thinks about the mercy of God not at all, -- he simply
commits sacrilege through the ignorance of foolish people,
and already it is reasonably apparent, that to put oneself upon
the path of truth and render oneself virtuous is not a matter
set upon the future threat of universal judgement, but only one’s
spiritual enlightenment by the ethical light of Christ’s
truth”. 26
Nesmelov raises Christian consciousness to an high degree, he
cleanses the Christian consciousness from admixtures of crude
paganism, from dark superstitions, from degrading fears, for those
seeking the truth of Christ. Nesmelov teaches, that the eternal
truth of Christianity is identical with the eternal truth of the
ideal and God-like human nature.
III
From the time of the infancy of mankind to our own time pagan
idolatry and pagan superstition have been part of religious life.
Paganism, ultimately, is not identical with idolatry and superstition,
in paganism there was also a positive truth, a genuine sense of
God, but the residue of paganism in the Christian world customarily
bears an idolatrous and superstitious character. The strangest
thing of all is this, that the most external aspect of Christianity,
the most official ecclesiality not only does not heal this ulcer
of religious life, but rather irritates it the moreso and intensifies
it. The consciousness of the extra temporal and ideal values is
frequently strengthened in the mystic, in art, in creativity,
outside the circle charted out by the official ecclesiality, and
the organ of its conscious expression is found in the heights
of philosophy, which by this serves no little in the matter of
the cleansing of the religious consciousness of mankind. The theoretical
God-knowledge and the practical God-communion have taught about
the higher, the God-like nature of man, while at the same time
the representatives of the official ecclesiality and the official
religiosity have fallen too often into an heavenly utilitarianism
-- this as a projection of earthly utilitarianism. The pagan experiences
within Christianity teach man to be guided by his own interests,
they sustain within him the sense of fear and terror and by this
they corrupt man, they evoke within him an indifference to the
truth and the right. The rightful truth however of the eternal
Gospel within the human heart and consciousness, the reflection
of light from Christ teaches man to be guided by the thirst for
perfection, by the striving towards God-communion and towards
God-likeness, and it liberates from superstitious fears and terrors.
The pagan superstition within Christianity is recognised wherein
God is worshipped as an idol, rather than as the source of perfection,
of truth, of true life, of value. And towards the Living God there
can be an idolatrous and superstitious attitude, and it always
is so, when the superstitious fear of perdition or the superstitious
hope, that the interests of man be satisfied, takes precedence
over the reverent love towards God and the striving towards that
absolute perfection, which is reflected in the nature of man himself.
The will towards the realisation of perfective value, towards
the God-like manner of being is also the source of an authentic,
a free, a non superstitious and non-idolatrous religious life.
The will towards value, towards the extra-temporal in regards
to its own significance, the will towards the Divine, towards
the true and the free is at the basis of life of all the great
people as regards religion, of all the saints, the apostles and
the prophets. Within their soul love hath conquered fear, the
striving for perfection hath conquered private interests. The
consciousness of extra temporal values, the consciousness of their
own higher nature provides deliverance from the pagan superstitions
and fears, which abase and pervert the Christian faith. We cannot
yet believe, that a man, deprived of consciousness of values,
a man, never sensing in the depths of his nature the reflection
of God, of filial sonship to God, -- that such a man by a superstitious
and idolatrous falling to the levels of the external ecclesiality
by this itself yet frees himself from guilt and sin and is rendered
a member of the Divine world order, of the Kingdom of God. Nor
can we likewise believe, that a man with a rare escaping out of
the ranks here by a consciousness of values, and having discovered
within himself the Divine nature, is excluded from the Divine
world-order, if he transgresses some aspect of the official ecclesiality.
Nesmelov deeply understands this problem, and he says straight
out, that everything of value, and true, and good in life is saved
for eternity. 27 Nesmelov with a noble indignation repudiates the
superstitious-magical attitude towards the sacramental-mysteries
of the Church. The sacramental-mystery is not a conjuring, a magic
spell, it is not a relict of the pagan darkness, and towards it
there cannot be a mechanical attitude. A man, the whole life of
whom is beast-like, does not become God like through a mechanical
communing of the mysteries. The partaking of the sacramental-mysteries
is connected with an inner rebirth into new life, though the sacrament
itself is independent of anything human. Evil-doers, who hope
to receive pardon and absolution through a mechanical touching-upon
by the Church, and who go to the sacramental-mysteries as a means
to continue with their beast-like life and therein be freed of
the fear of perdition and punishment, suchlike a malefactor does
not participate truly in the sacramental-mysteries nor get truly
into the Church. The Church is the world soul, conjoined with
Christ the Logos, it is the congregate Divine consciousness of
mankind, as a centre of the world, and it comprises all the positive
fullness of being. The mystical essence of the Church cannot be
confused with the historical sins of the empirical Church. The
abomination of desolation can also be in the place of the holy.
[About this one ought to bear in mind both the “right”
and the “left” in the church question]. The Church
has preserved the image of the Crucified Christ and for the sacramental-mystery
of communion to it -- only in this also mustneeds be sought the
mystical sanctity of the true Church. Nesmelov -- is a pious member
of the Orthodox Church, and yet is a merciless critic of the official
religiosity, the exposer of the lie of the state church. The book
of this faithful son of the Orthodox Church helps to surmount
the crude paganism within “Orthodoxy”.
“Be ye perfect, even as your Heavenly Father is perfect”,
i.e. realise within yourself the image of God. Herein is the eternal
essence of Christianity, a setting in opposition to every pagan
superstition and idolatry the thirst for a perfect, true, eternal
and full life. But this essential core of Christianity cannot
be transformed into moralism. Only through Christ, manifest as
Person in the Divine truth of human nature, is to be attained
God likeness. By a path exclusively human man cannot attain to
a condition of the Divine. Without the concrete truth about man,
the abstract truth of idealism -- is dead and is not realism.
The pretensions of a philosophic knowing to substitute for religious
faith ought to be, not only religiously, but also philosophically
repudiated. And the book of Nesmelov brilliantly lays bare the
pagan limitedness of contemporary philosophy and of the whole
contemporary mindset, for which the faith in Christ is folly and
seduction. Nesmelov succeeded in philosophically showing, that
faith in Christ is reasonable, and that only this faith is reasonable.
Nesmelov speaks all the time about the “scientific”
basis of faith, and his work he calls the “science”
about man. This is not altogether precise. It would be more correct
to speak about the philosophic justification of faith and about
the philosophy of human nature. Nesmelov is very contentious against
any scholasticism, he strives for a living knowledge and is proud
of that his science of man is based on facts, and not on
concepts. The tremendous merit of Nesmelov might in brief
be expressed thus: the fundamental thought of Feuerbach about
the anthropologic mystery of religion is transformed by him into
a weapon of defense of Christianity. People come to religion
through the twofoldness of their nature, through a lodged within
them God-likeness alongside with a beast-likeness or nature-likeness.
Man cannot be reconciled with this, not on the strength of his
subjective desires, but only on the strength of his objective
nature. Positivism, in the broad sense of the word, makes
this point as regards another, a perfect world, this thirst of
a Divine and absolute life, and for the subjective desires it
is something which ought with caution to be explained positively.
Positivism is correct, when it says, that the subjective desires
never get accomplished fully, that essentially the world is not
bound to be, such as we would wish to see it. But actually this
manner of speaking addresses not the subjective desires of man,
but it is rather about objective nature, and this objective nature
proves itself much objectified, this nature is positively inexplicable,
a mystery. Man -- is the member of another, a Divine world-order,
he is not only of the natural world, and this -- is a fact, a
mysterious fact, demanding another explanation. God, as Person,
is perceived only anthropologically, within man; but in nature,
cosmologically -- He is perceived as an impersonal creative force.
A synthesis though of the cosmologic revelation of paganism and
the anthropologic revelation of Christianity has religiously yet
neither been investigated nor found. In this religious synthesis,
which lies beyond the horizon of Nesmelov, 28 and there ought to be revealed the not yet revealed
Christian mystery of God’s creation.
Nesmelov reveals a new method of detection 29 of the being of God -- psychologically, or (more
accurately) anthropologically. This detection is distinct from
the old ontological proof, which was based upon an intellectual
concept and beyond the limits of intellectual concept it does
not go, and it is distinct also from the rather newer moral demonstrative
proof of Kant, which is grounded in subjective duty. Nesmelov’s
detection is grounded upon the objective fact of human
nature. This, certainly, is not a new discovery of Nesmelov, for
the whole religious and philosophic developement of mankind prepared
this religious anthropology, it opened up the way to God. Furthermore,
the teaching of Kant about the moral-rational nature of
man and about its intelligible character has hidden within it
the possibility not only of “religion within the bounds
of reason”, but also an authentic Christian religious anthropology.
But Nesmelov gave clear and deep expression to the truth of religious
anthropology. 30 The consciousness of person, as the image
and likeness of God, the consciousness of his belonging to a true,
perfect and free world objectively demonstrates also the
being of God, and the necessity of the redemption of the world
by the Son of God. The pathway to a Christian consciousness lies
through a mysterious self-awareness of being a person. And there
cannot be an understanding of Christianity for one in whom the
person, -- the image of the Divine being, is still asleep, is
still dissolved within fated being. But when man has become aware
of his own person, he becomes conscious within himself of an higher
being and a vocation to an higher life, and then there stands
forth the image of Christ and nowise more can it be obscured.
For modern
man at the vanguard of awareness, and especially for Russian man
among the Intelligentsia, it is (very) difficult to accept Christianity,
there are obstacles waiting at every step, obstacles both of mind
and of heart. This man has consented at times to accept each religion
that pleases him, whatever a form of paganism, the religion of
Babylon or Dionysianism, Brahmanism or Buddhism, even Mahometanism,
but only not Christianity. In this turning away from Christianity
is something strange and mysterious. And the man of our era is
quite willing to become a pantheist, if the religious need has
not ultimately gone numb within him. Pantheism and pantheistic
mysticism is esteemed whether by the positivist, the atheist,
the Marxist, or whatever the teaching of the contemporary time.
Only Christian theism is esteemed by no one, and modernity does
not accept it. Modern man thinks, that under pantheism he preserves
his person, and that for mankind it betokens a tremendous significance,
and freedom, and also other fine things, would result under it,
but that here under Christianity the person is enslaved, and freedom
vanishes, and mankind comes to naught. What s strange aberration!
In actuality it is all just turned around backwards. Only the
Christian consciousness is grounded in the sense of person, only
it acknowledges the divineness of human nature and gives a central
place in the world-order to mankind, only this consciousness affirms
the freedom of man, his worth and his higher nature. Pantheism
ultimately abolishes person, and freedom, and mankind, dissolving
everything ultimately into the world’s life, and imperceptibly
passes over into naturalism and materialism. Pantheism cannot
comprehend of our thirst for perfect and true life nor has it
the ability to explain our higher nature and the twofoldness connected
with it. Only Christianity acknowledges an absolute significance
for man and his eternal destiny and no wise is he dissolved away,
to nothing is he enslaved. And the profound self-consciousness
of man is a Christian self-consciousness: in the depths of his
self-consciousness man finds Christ -- the resolution of the enigma
of his nature. [But the Christian self-consciousness ought to
be cleansed from paganism, the consciousness of person ought to
be set off from the consciousness of the impersonal genus. And
a sublime philosophy, like Nesmelov’s, serves towards this
important task.] The renewed and eternal Christianity transcends
the relationship to God as idol, and man recognises within Him
the absolute source of his thirst for Divine perfection,
and within Christ the praeternally realised, Divinised humanity.
Nikolai Berdyaev
1909
© 1999 by translator Fr. Stephen Janos.
(1909 - 158(4) - en)
OPYT PHILOSOPHSKOGO OPRAVDANIYA KHRISTIANSTVA.
(O knige V. Nesmelova “Nauka o cheloveke”).
Russkaya Mysl’, sept. 1909, ctr. 54-72.
Included thereafter in 1910 book “Dukhovnyi krizis
intelligentsii”, Spb, sect. II-6.
(sic) #158(4) is Berdyaev article #158, book #4.
Reprinted by YMCA Press Paris in 1989 in Berdiaev Collection:
“Tipy religioznoi mysli v Rossii”,
(Tom III), ctr. 302-328.
1
It is likewise impossible to deny the talent and originality of
a professor of the Moscow Spiritual Academy, M. Tareev, who recently
published a four-volume collection, “The Foundations of
Christianity”. [But his interpretation of Christianity is
but one of the forms of a Protestant individualism. The
impotence of religious thought on the soil of Protestantism is
clearly evident from a recently appeared booklet of
R. Aiken, “The Fundamental Problems of the Contemporary
Philosophy of Religion”.]
2
Of the great teachers of the Church it was, evidently, St. Gregory
of Nyssa who had the greatest influence on Nesmelov, and who allotted
a large place to religious anthropology. (Nesmelov has written
a book about St. Gregory of Nyssa.) [Brilliantov has written an
interesting book, “The Influence of Eastern Theology upon
the Western in the Works of J. Scotus Erigena”, and
adeptly points out a distinction of Eastern theologising from
that of the West: Eastern theologising is objective and it starts
from the absolute givenness of the Divine, whereas the Western
-- is subjective and starts from the human.]
3
In the first volume of his work, Nesmelov gives a gnosseological
basis to his religious philosophy, but gnosseology does not appear
to be his very strong or original side. With an accurate instinct
Nesmelov binds together gnosseology with ontology, but in this
he is inferiour to Solov’ev, whom unjustly he ignores. With
Nesmelov there is a stronger psychological side.
4
Vide: “The Science of Man” (“Nauka o cheloveke”),
Tom I, p. 241.
5
Ibid., p. 242. 6
Ibid., p. 246.
7
Ibid., p. 246. 8
Ibid., p. 256-257.
9
Ibid., p. 261. 10
Ibid., p. 286.
11
Ibid., p. 296.
[ 12
The principal dualism of spirit and flesh, as of the good and
the evil respectively, is a teaching not so much Christian, as
rather Manichaean and Gnostic. Manichaeanism was ultimately a
product of Persian dualism, of two opposed gods, and Gnosticism
taught, that matter is created by another, by an evil god, and
that matter cannot become deified. Christianity however teaches
about deification, transfiguration, the resurrection of the worldly
flesh. For Christianity the consciousness of the materiality chaining
us down is the result of the sinful corruption of the world, but
there is no especial material principle that is of itself evil.
This likewise distinguishes Christianity from Platonism. Vide:
“The Collected Works of St. Ireneius of Lyons”, 1900
[Russian edition]. [Trans. note: for St. Ireneius in English,
vide Vol. I of “The Ante-Nicene Fathers” Series, which
is also now Online on the Internet.] St. Ireneius of Lyons
with great strength reveals, that it is Christianity namely that
saves worldly matter and leads to the resurrection of the flesh,
which all the while the Gnostic heresies with their pseudo spiritualism
would but suffer and consign to perdition -- all the fleshly world,
all the earth. From the Incarnation of God, the Enfleshment
of God, St. Ireneius deduces the inevitability of the salvation
of the flesh. St. Ireneius was an ardent defender of Chiliasm.
Vide Bk. 5 of his “Against Heresies” (“Adversus
Haeresis”),
p. 445-548.]
13
Already in Justin the Philosopher it is possible to find an excellent
explanation of the Christian teaching about resurrection and the
repudiation of a fleshless spiritualism. Vide: “Works of
St. Justin”, 1902, p. 479-484 [in English: Vol. I of Ante-Nicene
Fathers].
14
Ibid., Tom II, p. 7. 15
Ibid., p. 25.
16
Ibid., p. 248. 17
Ibid., p. 249.
18
Ibid., p. 251-252. And in the source-springs of history evil is
all rooted in this superstitious attitude towards material objects.
19
Ibid., p. 257. 20
Ibid., p. 268.
21
Ibid., p. 305. 22
Ibid., p. 306-307.
23
Ibid., p. 350.
24
To Nesmelov was foreign the teaching of Bl(essed) Augustine about
grace, which denigrated human freedom. But it would be unjust
to accuse Nesmelov of this, that he belittles the significance
of grace and falls into Pelagianism.
25
Ibid., p. 337. 26
Ibid., p. 420.
27
Catholics make a distinction between the soul of the Church
(anima Ecclesiae), in which belongs everything that is of a will
towards the good and towards Divine life, and the body
of the Church, to which belongs all the faithful, subject to the
hierarchy of the Church and in communion with its sacraments.
(Vide the fine book of Abbot Perй, “Entretiens sur l’Eglise
Catholique”, Tom II, p. 504-509).
[ 28
Just like Orthodoxy in general, Nesmelov -- is an opponent of
Chiliasm. His exceptionally pessimistic view on the end of world
history stands in contradiction with his avowal of the meaning
of history and the necessity of history for redemption.]
29
I say detection (“obnaruzhenie”), since this
word is a demonstrative proof, strictly speaking, and is
not applicable to the being of God. In acknowledging the being
of God there is nothing logically compelling.
30
I am myself given to think, that the “Critique of Practical
Reason” is of Kant’s greater merit, than is his “Critique
of Pure Reason”. But the religious rationalism of Kant weakened
his profound teaching about the twofoldness of human nature and
about man’s belonging to the realm of freedom.
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