This book was written "in one breath" - during the Great Lent of 1992. In its original form, it was a collection of materials for lectures on dogmatic theology that were not intended for publication. The book was published in 1996 on the initiative of a group of students of St. Tikhon's Orthodox Theological Institute. Soon English and French translations appeared. Giving the Russian text into the hands of translators, the author made changes, reductions and clarifications to it every time. This is how the present, second edition was born.The book is not a systematic exposition of the dogmatic theology of the Orthodox Church. The genre of the book can be defined as a personal commentary of the author, an Orthodox priest, on the dogmas of the Orthodox Church. Therefore, the book raises questions rather than gives answers. Since the book is addressed to a wide range of readers interested in the teaching of the Orthodox Church in its historical development and in its relation to contemporary problems, the author considered it necessary to give readers the opportunity to hear the living voice of the teachers of the Church and some of its leading theologians, and therefore quoted literally their statements regarding the basic dogmas of the doctrine. It means an immutable truth, accepted on faith and generally binding for Christians (from the Greek dogma - "law", "rule", "decree") [1]. Dogmas are divinely revealed, because they are based on Holy Scripture, although they were finally formulated in a later era. They are the property of the entire Church as worked out by her conciliar mind. In contrast to dogmas, heresies (from the Greek hairesis - lit. "choice", "withdrawal") are theological opinions opposed to church teaching, as if removed from its context. All dogmas were formulated in response to the heresies that arose. In turn, heresies were born out of perplexities on the main points of doctrine. The centuries-old history of Christianity is filled with a constant struggle against heresies: in this struggle, the consciousness of the Church was strengthened, formulations were honed, and theological thinking developed. The system of Orthodox dogmatic theology is the result of the entire two-thousand-year history of Christianity.In the modern world, such a view of religion is widespread, in which dogmas are considered as something optional and secondary, and moral commandments are recognized as primary. Hence the religious indifference and indifference to theology. However, the Church has always been aware that dogmas and commandments are inseparably linked and one cannot exist without the other. "Faith without works is dead," says the Apostle James (James 2:26). And according to the Apostle Paul, "a man is justified by faith, apart from the works of the law" (Romans 3:28). There is no contradiction in these two phrases: works are necessary, but they are not salvific in themselves, without faith, because it is Christ who saves people, and not their own virtues." And you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free," says Christ (John 8:32), Who Himself is the only Truth, Way and Life (John 14:6). Each dogma reveals the truth, shows the way and introduces to life. And each heresy moves away from the truth, closes the path to salvation for a person and makes him spiritually dead. The struggle for dogmas that the Church has waged throughout its history has been, as V. Lossky shows, a struggle for the salvation of man, for the possibility of communion with true Life, unity with God and eternal bliss [2].Orthodox theology has never possessed such a complete and exhaustive set of doctrinal truths as for the Catholic West was the "Summa Theologica" of Thomas Aquinas, where an attempt was made to systematize the entire Christian doctrine in the form of questions and answers. The work of Aquinas predetermined the development of theological thought in the West for many centuries, which became more and more rational and scholastic. By the will of historical circumstances, Orthodox theology in recent centuries has been strongly influenced by Western "school theology," which is reflected, in particular, in Russian textbooks on dogmatics written in the nineteenth century. Detachment from real spiritual life and speculation, characteristic of the "school theology" of the Catholic Church up to the Second Vatican Council, are to a large extent inherent in Russian dogmatic theology of the last century. It was only in the 20th century, through the efforts of such theologians as Vladimir Lossky, Archpriest George Florovsky and others, that an end was put to the scholastic dominance in Russian theology and a general direction was worked out for further theological search, the slogan of which was "forward to the Fathers." In saying this, we recall the "father of scholasticism" Thomas Aquinas, to whom, as his biography relates, Christ appeared shortly before his death, after which he unexpectedly ceased his literary activity, leaving his "Summa" unfinished. "After what I have seen, everything that I have written seems to me like straw," he said to his disciples [3].Theology should not contradict religious experience, but on the contrary, proceed from it; this was the theology of the Church Fathers over the course of twenty centuries - from the Apostle Paul and the Hieromartyr Ignatius the God-Bearer to St. Theophan the Recluse and St. Silouan the Athonite. In our book, we have tried to base ourselves on the teaching of the Holy Fathers, taking into account, however, not only what all church writers had in common, but also those particular theological opinions (theologoumena) that were introduced by individual authors into the treasury of Christian doctrine. The main criterion of theological accuracy is, according to the Orthodox understanding, the so-called consensus patrum - "the agreement of the Fathers" on the main questions of doctrine. However, this consensus cannot be understood as something artificial, created as a result of cutting off from each author all that is individual and most vivid, as a kind of "common denominator" of patristic thought. It seems to us that the "agreement of the Fathers" implies their commonality in the main with possible disagreements on certain points. Therefore, many of the private opinions of the Holy Fathers, being the fruits of the spiritual search of divinely enlightened men of faith, should not be artificially cut off in order to create a simplified scheme or "sum" of theology. Orthodox dogmatics is not a monument of Christian antiquity: it requires a living perception and modern commentary, taking into account the experience of man of the twentieth century. For example, in expounding the dogmatic teaching of the Church, it is impossible to pass over in silence the views of such outstanding theologians as Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh or Archimandrite Sophrony (Sakharov), who, while remaining faithful to the patristic Tradition, were able to answer the burning questions of today's man, questions that by no means always coincided with what was of interest in the fourth century. Orthodox dogmatics cannot be reduced to a simple repetition of what was said by the ancient Fathers. It is not a question of rethinking dogmas, but of rethinking them in such a way that the experience of the modern Christian becomes part of the dogmatic system.Based on spiritual experience, alien to rationalism and scholasticism, Orthodox theology remains alive and effective in our days no less than hundreds of years ago. The same questions have always been and are always facing man: what is truth? What is the meaning of life? how to attain true knowledge of God and blessedness in God? Christianity does not seek to dot the i's and dot the i's, having exhausted all the questions of the human spirit. But it reveals another reality, so surpassing everything that surrounds us in earthly life, that when a person encounters it, he forgets his questions and perplexities, because his soul comes into contact with the Divinity and falls silent in the presence of the Mystery, which no human word can express. The Greek word "dogma" with the stress on the first syllable, feminine, entered the Russian language and in common speech has a negative connotation of something frozen and lifeless (just like the word "dogmatic"). The masculine word "dogma" with an emphasis on the second syllable goes back to the Slavonic liturgical texts: "As the royal adornment of the Church, we all praise Basil, the treasure of dogmas is not scarce"; "The Church celebrates today the honorable triumph of the teachers of the three, for they have confirmed the Church with their divine dogmas" (Service to the Three Saints: Menaion Festive. Moscow, 1970, pp. 295-296) ^ V. Lossky. Dogmatic Theology; An Essay on the Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church. Moscow, 1991. Ss. 10-11 ^ La vie et l'oeuvre de saint Thomas d'Acquin: Thomas d'Acquin. Somme theologique. Paris, 1990. P. 24 ^

Chapter I. The Search for Faith

This book was written "in one breath" - during the Great Lent of 1992. In its original form, it was a collection of materials for lectures on dogmatic theology that were not intended for publication. The book was published in 1996 on the initiative of a group of students of St. Tikhon's Orthodox Theological Institute. Soon English and French translations appeared. Giving the Russian text into the hands of translators, the author made changes, reductions and clarifications to it every time. This is how the present, second edition was born.The book is not a systematic exposition of the dogmatic theology of the Orthodox Church. The genre of the book can be defined as a personal commentary of the author, an Orthodox priest, on the dogmas of the Orthodox Church. Therefore, the book raises questions rather than gives answers. Since the book is addressed to a wide range of readers interested in the teaching of the Orthodox Church in its historical development and in its relation to contemporary problems, the author considered it necessary to give readers the opportunity to hear the living voice of the teachers of the Church and some of its leading theologians, and therefore quoted literally their statements regarding the basic dogmas of the doctrine. It means an immutable truth, accepted on faith and generally binding for Christians (from the Greek dogma - "law", "rule", "decree") [1]. Dogmas are divinely revealed, because they are based on Holy Scripture, although they were finally formulated in a later era. They are the property of the entire Church as worked out by her conciliar mind. In contrast to dogmas, heresies (from the Greek hairesis - lit. "choice", "withdrawal") are theological opinions opposed to church teaching, as if removed from its context. All dogmas were formulated in response to the heresies that arose. In turn, heresies were born out of perplexities on the main points of doctrine. The centuries-old history of Christianity is filled with a constant struggle against heresies: in this struggle, the consciousness of the Church was strengthened, formulations were honed, and theological thinking developed. The system of Orthodox dogmatic theology is the result of the entire two-thousand-year history of Christianity.In the modern world, such a view of religion is widespread, in which dogmas are considered as something optional and secondary, and moral commandments are recognized as primary. Hence the religious indifference and indifference to theology. However, the Church has always been aware that dogmas and commandments are inseparably linked and one cannot exist without the other. "Faith without works is dead," says the Apostle James (James 2:26). And according to the Apostle Paul, "a man is justified by faith, apart from the works of the law" (Romans 3:28). There is no contradiction in these two phrases: works are necessary, but they are not salvific in themselves, without faith, because it is Christ who saves people, and not their own virtues." And you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free," says Christ (John 8:32), Who Himself is the only Truth, Way and Life (John 14:6). Each dogma reveals the truth, shows the way and introduces to life. And each heresy moves away from the truth, closes the path to salvation for a person and makes him spiritually dead. The struggle for dogmas that the Church has waged throughout its history has been, as V. Lossky shows, a struggle for the salvation of man, for the possibility of communion with true Life, unity with God and eternal bliss [2].Orthodox theology has never possessed such a complete and exhaustive set of doctrinal truths as for the Catholic West was the "Summa Theologica" of Thomas Aquinas, where an attempt was made to systematize the entire Christian doctrine in the form of questions and answers. The work of Aquinas predetermined the development of theological thought in the West for many centuries, which became more and more rational and scholastic. By the will of historical circumstances, Orthodox theology in recent centuries has been strongly influenced by Western "school theology," which is reflected, in particular, in Russian textbooks on dogmatics written in the nineteenth century. Detachment from real spiritual life and speculation, characteristic of the "school theology" of the Catholic Church up to the Second Vatican Council, are to a large extent inherent in Russian dogmatic theology of the last century. It was only in the 20th century, through the efforts of such theologians as Vladimir Lossky, Archpriest George Florovsky and others, that an end was put to the scholastic dominance in Russian theology and a general direction was worked out for further theological search, the slogan of which was "forward to the Fathers." In saying this, we recall the "father of scholasticism" Thomas Aquinas, to whom, as his biography relates, Christ appeared shortly before his death, after which he unexpectedly ceased his literary activity, leaving his "Summa" unfinished. "After what I have seen, everything that I have written seems to me like straw," he said to his disciples [3].Theology should not contradict religious experience, but on the contrary, proceed from it; this was the theology of the Church Fathers over the course of twenty centuries - from the Apostle Paul and the Hieromartyr Ignatius the God-Bearer to St. Theophan the Recluse and St. Silouan the Athonite. In our book, we have tried to base ourselves on the teaching of the Holy Fathers, taking into account, however, not only what all church writers had in common, but also those particular theological opinions (theologoumena) that were introduced by individual authors into the treasury of Christian doctrine. The main criterion of theological accuracy is, according to the Orthodox understanding, the so-called consensus patrum - "the agreement of the Fathers" on the main questions of doctrine. However, this consensus cannot be understood as something artificial, created as a result of cutting off from each author all that is individual and most vivid, as a kind of "common denominator" of patristic thought. It seems to us that the "agreement of the Fathers" implies their commonality in the main with possible disagreements on certain points. Therefore, many of the private opinions of the Holy Fathers, being the fruits of the spiritual search of divinely enlightened men of faith, should not be artificially cut off in order to create a simplified scheme or "sum" of theology. Orthodox dogmatics is not a monument of Christian antiquity: it requires a living perception and modern commentary, taking into account the experience of man of the twentieth century. For example, in expounding the dogmatic teaching of the Church, it is impossible to pass over in silence the views of such outstanding theologians as Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh or Archimandrite Sophrony (Sakharov), who, while remaining faithful to the patristic Tradition, were able to answer the burning questions of today's man, questions that by no means always coincided with what was of interest in the fourth century. Orthodox dogmatics cannot be reduced to a simple repetition of what was said by the ancient Fathers. It is not a question of rethinking dogmas, but of rethinking them in such a way that the experience of the modern Christian becomes part of the dogmatic system.Based on spiritual experience, alien to rationalism and scholasticism, Orthodox theology remains alive and effective in our days no less than hundreds of years ago. The same questions have always been and are always facing man: what is truth? What is the meaning of life? how to attain true knowledge of God and blessedness in God? Christianity does not seek to dot the i's and dot the i's, having exhausted all the questions of the human spirit. But it reveals another reality, so surpassing everything that surrounds us in earthly life, that when a person encounters it, he forgets his questions and perplexities, because his soul comes into contact with the Divinity and falls silent in the presence of the Mystery, which no human word can express. The Greek word "dogma" with the stress on the first syllable, feminine, entered the Russian language and in common speech has a negative connotation of something frozen and lifeless (just like the word "dogmatic"). The masculine word "dogma" with an emphasis on the second syllable goes back to the Slavonic liturgical texts: "As the royal adornment of the Church, we all praise Basil, the treasure of dogmas is not scarce"; "The Church celebrates today the honorable triumph of the teachers of the three, for they have confirmed the Church with their divine dogmas" (Service to the Three Saints: Menaion Festive. Moscow, 1970, pp. 295-296) ^ V. Lossky. Dogmatic Theology; An Essay on the Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church. Moscow, 1991. Ss. 10-11 ^ La vie et l'oeuvre de saint Thomas d'Acquin: Thomas d'Acquin. Somme theologique. Paris, 1990. P. 24 ^

Call

Faith is the path along which God and man go towards each other. The first step is taken by God, who always and unconditionally believes in man. He gives man a sign, a presentiment of His presence. Man hears, as it were, the mysterious call of God, and his step towards God is a response to this call. God calls man openly or secretly, perceptibly or almost imperceptibly. But it is difficult for a person to believe in God if he does not first feel the calling. Why does one person respond to the call and the other does not? Why is one, having heard the word of God, ready to receive it, while the other remains deaf? Why does one, having met God on his way, immediately abandon everything and follow Him, while the other turns away and goes aside? "And as he passed by the sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon who was called Peter, and Andrew his brother, for they were fishermen. And he saith unto them, Follow me... And straightway they left their nets and followed Him. From there, going on, He saw two other brothers, James of Zebedee and John... And he called them. And straightway they left the boat and their father, and followed him" (Matt. 4:18-22). What is the secret of this readiness of the Galilean fishermen, abandoning everything, to follow Christ, Whom they see for the first time in their lives? And why did the rich young man, to whom Christ also said, "Come, and follow me," not respond immediately, but "departed with sorrow" (Matt. 19:21-22)? Is it not because they were beggars, and this one had "great possessions", they had nothing but God, and this one had "treasures on earth"? And the Lord says: "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven" (Matt. 4:3). In the ancient copies of the Gospel of Luke, it is even simpler and more direct: "Blessed are the poor, for yours is the kingdom of God" (Luke 6:20). Blessed are those who feel that they have nothing in this life, even though they possess much, who feel that no earthly acquisition can replace God for man. Blessed are those who go and sell all their wealth in order to acquire one pearl of great price, faith (Matt. 13:45-46). Blessed are those who have come to know that without God they are beggars, who have thirsted and hungered for Him with all their souls, minds, and wills. But in our time, people are so absorbed in the problems of earthly existence that many simply do not have time to hear this word and think about God. Sometimes religiosity boils down to the fact that they celebrate Christmas and Easter and observe some other rituals just in order not to "tear themselves away from their roots", from national traditions. Somewhere religion suddenly becomes "fashionable", and people go to church in order to keep up with their neighbors. But the main thing for many is business life, work. "Business people" are a special generation of people of the 20th century, for whom nothing exists except their own function in some kind of "business", business, which absorbs them completely and does not leave the slightest light or pause necessary to hear the voice of God. This call, perhaps, is not always identified with the idea of the Divine and subjectively is often perceived simply as a kind of dissatisfaction, inner anxiety, search. And only years later, a person realizes that his entire previous life was so incomplete and flawed because there was no God in it, without Whom there is no and cannot be the fullness of being. "Thou hast created us for Thyself," says Blessed Augustine, "and our heart is restless until it rests in Thee."1 God's call can be likened to an arrow with which God, like an experienced hunter, wounds the soul of man. A bleeding and non-healing wound makes the soul, forgetting about everything, look for a doctor. The soul of the one who feels the call becomes obsessed with a burning attraction to God. "And the thoughts of such a soul," writes St. Macarius of Egypt, "burn with spiritual love and an irrepressible craving for ever more glorious and radiant beauties of the spirit, languish with irrepressible love for the heavenly Bridegroom and... they yearn for the most sublime and greatest, which can no longer be expressed in words, nor comprehended by human reason... Through great labors, efforts, long asceticism and perfect struggle... such souls are always enraptured by the heavenly spiritual mysteries and carried away by the diversity of God's beauty, seeking in great thirst for the best and greatest. For in the Divine Spirit there is contained a varied and inexhaustible, ineffable and inconceivable beauty, which opens itself to worthy souls for joy and delight and life and consolation, so that the pure soul, languishing hourly with a strong and ardent love for the heavenly Bridegroom, will never again look back at earthly things, but will be wholly embraced by attraction to Him [2]." Augustin. Confessions 1, 1 ^ Macarius of Egypt. New spiritual conversations. Moscow, 1990. pp. 49-50 ^

Multiple paths

People come to God in different ways. Sometimes an encounter with God is sudden and unexpected, sometimes it is prepared by a long path of searching, doubts, and disappointments. In some cases, God "overtakes" a person, taking him by surprise, in others - a person finds God, turns to Him himself. This conversion can occur sooner or later, in childhood and adolescence, in maturity and old age. And there are no two people who would come to God the same way. And there is no well-trodden path along which one could go instead of another. Everyone here is a pioneer, everyone has to go all the way on his own and find his personal God, to Whom we say: "God, You are my God!" (Psalm 62:2). God is the same for all people, but He must be revealed by me and become mine.One example of the sudden conversion of a person is the Apostle Paul. Before his apostleship he had been an orthodox Jew and hated Christianity as a harmful and dangerous sect: "breathing threats and murder," he went to Damascus, intending to do much harm to the Church. And as he was approaching the city, "suddenly a light from heaven shone upon him; and he fell to the ground, and heard a voice saying to him, Saul, Saul, why persecute me? He said, Who art thou, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus, whom thou persecutest" (Acts 9:1-5). Blinded by the Divine light, Saul lost his sight - for three days he did not see, did not eat or drink. And then he accepted Baptism, regained his sight and became an apostle of Christ - the one who was destined "above all" to labor in the preaching of the Gospel (1 Cor. 15:10). And immediately after his Baptism, he went to preach the Christ Who revealed Himself to him personally, Who became his God. As a child, he was an unbeliever, and what he heard about Christ did not arouse any sympathy for Christianity. One day, indignant at a priest's sermon, he decided to see if Christianity was really as unattractive as it was portrayed in sugary stories. He took the New Testament, chose the shortest of the four Gospels so as not to waste much time, and began to read. "While I was reading the Gospel of Mark," he tells himself, "between the first chapter and the beginning of the third, I suddenly felt that on the other side of the table before which I was sitting, Someone was standing invisibly, but absolutely perceptibly. Looking up, I saw nothing, heard nothing, I had no sensory sensations, but I was absolutely sure that Jesus Christ was standing on the other side of the table... This was the beginning of a whole revolution for me... I felt that there was no other task in life than to share with others the life-transforming joy that had opened up to me in the knowledge of God and Christ. And then, as a teenager, at the right time and at the wrong time, at school, in the subway, in children's camps, I began to talk about Christ as He revealed Himself to me: as life, as joy, as meaning, as something so new that it renewed everything... I could have said with the Apostle Paul: "Woe is me, if I do not preach the gospel" (1 Cor. 9:16). Woe, because not to share this miracle would be a crime before God, who performed this miracle, and before people who all over the earth are now thirsting for the living word about God, about man, about life. .. [1] "Less sudden, but no less unexpected, was the conversion to religion of the French yachtsman Bernard Moitessier. As a participant in round-the-world single races, the winner of which was waiting for a huge cash prize and world fame, he confidently moved to the finish line and had every chance to count on victory - a solemn meeting was already being prepared for him in England. Unexpectedly for everyone, he changed the route and directed the yacht to the shores of Polynesia... Only a few months later, it was possible to find out why he was out of the game. Being alone with the ocean and the sky for a long time, he thought more and more deeply about the meaning of life, and the goal that he had to achieve - money, success, fame - seemed less and less attractive to him. In the ocean he felt the breath of eternity, felt the presence of God and no longer wanted to return to the usual worldly vanity.Of course, turning to God is not always sudden and unexpected: more often a person searches for a long time before he finds. Blessed Augustine had to go through many errors and trials, read many philosophical and theological books, before he realized at the age of thirty-three that he could not live without God. In our time, some people begin to seek abstract and abstract "truth" through books, and come to the revelation of God the Person. Sometimes people come to Christianity in a roundabout way - through Eastern religions and cults, Buddhism, yoga. Others come to God after experiencing a catastrophe: the loss of a loved one, sorrow, illness, frustration of hopes. In misfortune, a person feels his poverty, understands that he has lost everything and has nothing but God. Then he can call out to God de profundis - from the depths (Psalm 129:1), from the abyss of grief and hopelessness. Christ said: "Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify the Heavenly Father" (Matt. 5:16). If Christians shone with divine light, if divine love were reflected in their eyes, this would be the best testimony to God and proof of His existence. A certain young man decided to dedicate his life to God after seeing a priest who was transfigured before his eyes, like Christ on Tabor, and shone with heavenly light... There is also what seems to be the most natural path to God: a child is born into a religious family and grows up to be a believer. And yet, faith, although it can be received from ancestors, must be comprehended or suffered by the person himself, must become part of his own experience. There are cases when atheists came from religious or even priestly families: suffice it to recall Chernyshevsky and Dobrolyubov, who both came from the clergy, but broke with the religiosity of their ancestors... Believers are not born. Faith is given, but it is given through the efforts and podvig of the one who sought it. Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh. Conversations about Faith and the Church. Moscow, 1991. Ss. 3 covers and 308-309 ^

Philosophy seeks the Creator of the universe

As long as a person lives on earth, he has always been characterized by the desire to find the truth, to comprehend his existence. In ancient Greece, philosophers were engaged in the study of the universe and its laws, as well as man and the laws of his thinking, hoping on the basis of this to achieve knowledge about the first causes of all things. Philosophers not only indulged in reasoning and logic, they also studied astronomy and physics, mathematics and geometry, music and poetry. Studying the visible world, philosophers came to the conclusion that there is nothing accidental in the Universe, but each detail has its place and performs its function, obeying strict laws: planets never deviate from their orbits and satellites do not leave their planets. Everything in the world is so harmonious and expedient that the ancients called it "cosmos", that is, beauty, order, harmony, as opposed to "chaos" - disorder, disharmony. The cosmos seemed to be a huge mechanism in which one never-breaking rhythm, one never-losing pulse operated. But every mechanism must be created by someone, every clock must be designed and wound. In this way, philosophers dialectically arrived at the idea of a single Organizer of the Universe. Plato called Him the Creator, the Father, God and the Demiurge - the latter term means the Worker, the Master. "Everything that has arisen needs a certain cause for its origin," writes Plato. - Of course, the Creator and Father of this universe is not easy to find, and if we do find Him, it will be impossible to tell everyone about Him... The cosmos is beautiful, and the Demiurge is kind... The cosmos is the most beautiful of all things that have arisen, and the demiurge is the best of causes... Being good, He took care of all visible things, which were not at rest, but in disorderly and disorderly motion; He brought them out of disorder into order [1]."Plato lived in a country where polytheism reigned supreme: people deified the elements and forces of nature and worshipped them. In Plato's cosmology, the gods perform functions somewhat similar to those of the angels in monotheistic religions: the demiurge created and commands them, and they serve His will. Wishing to create people, the Creator addresses them: "Gods of gods! I am your Demiurge and Father of things, and that which comes forth from Me will remain indestructible, for such is My will." Then He gives them the primordial matter and instructs them to create people from it... In fact, ancient philosophy, in the person of its best representatives, overcoming polytheism, approached the truth about the one God.Philosophers also spoke of the Logos (Greek logos means "word", "reason", "thought", "law"), which was originally perceived as a kind of eternal and universal law, on the basis of which the whole world is arranged. However, the Logos is not only an abstract and abstract idea: it is also a divine creative force that mediates between God and the created world. This is what Philo of Alexandria taught and the Neoplatonists. In Plotinus, a representative of the Neoplatonist school, philosophy is almost transformed into a religion - he emphasizes the transcendence, infinity, limitlessness and unknowability of the Godhead: no definitions can exhaust Him, no properties can be ascribed to Him. Being the fullness of being, the One (as Plotinus called God) gives rise to all other kinds of being, of which the first is the Mind, and the second is the Universal Soul; beyond the circle of the Universal Soul lies the material world, that is, the Universe, into which the Soul breathes life. The world, therefore, is a kind of reflection of the divine reality and bears in itself the features of beauty and perfection. The One, the Mind and the Soul together make up the Divine Triad (Trinity). Through purification, catharsis, a person can rise to the contemplation of God, but God still remains incomprehensible and unapproachable, still remains a mystery.Ancient philosophy, through dialectics, comes close to those truths that will finally be discovered in Christianity - about the one God, the Creator of the world, about the divine Logos the Son, about the Holy Trinity. It is no accident that early Christian writers called philosophy "Christianity before Christ." "Although Hellenic philosophy does not contain truth in all its greatness... nevertheless, it clears the way to Christ," said Clement of Alexandria [3]. Many Fathers and teachers of the Church came to Christianity through the study of philosophy, or at least always treated it with great respect: the Hieromartyr Justin the Philosopher, Clement of Alexandria, Blessed Augustine, St. Gregory of Nyssa, St. Gregory the Theologian. In the narthex of ancient Christian churches, along with martyrs and saints, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle were depicted as forerunners and heralds of the truth... Plato. Timaeus 28c-30b ^ Plato. Timaeus 41a ^ Clement of Alexandria. Stromata 1, 1-1, 5 ^

Revealed religion

Most of the peoples who inhabited the pre-Christian world lived in the darkness of polytheism. Even if there were some bright minds, like the Greek philosophers, capable of breaking free from the captivity of polytheism, nevertheless their insights about the one God remained most often only the conjectures of a speculating mind, and God the Creator appeared distant and abstract. Some even thought that God only arranged the Universe, only launched, so to speak, the mechanism, and no longer interferes in people's lives, leaving everything to the will of fate - fate.However, there was one chosen people to whom God entrusted the secret knowledge about Himself, about the creation of the world, about the meaning of existence. The ancient Jews knew God not from books or from the reasoning of sages, but from their own centuries-old experience. They left behind the Great Book, the Bible, which is not man-made, but given from above by direct revelation from God. Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Elijah, many righteous men and prophets did not just think about God, prayed to Him - they saw Him with their own eyes, talked with Him face to face. "... And the Lord appeared to Abraham and said to him, "I am God Almighty, walk before me and be blameless; and I will establish my covenant between me and thee... And Abraham fell on his face. God continued to speak to him and said, "I, behold, I am calling with you: you will be the father of a multitude of nations... I will be thy God, and thy descendants after thee" (Gen. 17:1-4, 7). The Jews called God "the God of the fathers," that is, the God of the ancestors, and sacredly preserved the covenant entrusted to their fathers. God reveals himself to man not as an abstract force, but as a living Being - speaking, hearing, seeing, thinking, helping. "And the Lord said unto Moses, Behold, I will come unto thee in a thick cloud, that the people may hear how I speak unto thee, and that they may believe thee for ever. On the third day, when morning came, there were thunders and lightnings, and a thick cloud over the mountain, and the sound of the trumpet was very strong; and all the people trembled... And Mount Sinai was all smoking because the Lord had descended on it in fire; and smoke went up from it like smoke from a furnace, and the whole mountain shook violently; and the sound of the trumpet became stronger and stronger... Moses spoke, and God answered him with a voice... And God spake all these words, saying, I am the Lord thy God... thou shalt have no other gods before me... And the people stood afar off, and Moses entered into the darkness where God is" (Exodus 19:9, 16, 18-19; 20:1-3, 21). Darkness and cloud in this case mean mystery: God, although He appears to man, nevertheless remains mysterious and incomprehensible. No man was to approach Mount Sinai "lest he die" (Exodus 20:19), for "man cannot see God and live" (Exodus 33:20). That is, although Moses saw God, His essence remains inaccessible to human vision.In the life of the people of Israel, God takes a living and active part. When Moses leads the people out of Egypt into the Promised Land, God Himself goes ahead of the people in a pillar of fire. God dwells among people, communicates with them, lives in the house that they have built for Him. When King Solomon finished building the temple, he called on God and asked Him to live there. "... A cloud filled the house of the Lord; and the priests could not stand in the service because of the clouds, for the glory of the Lord filled the temple of the Lord. Then said Solomon, "The Lord has said that he is pleased to dwell in darkness; I have built a temple in Thy tabernacle... Truly, is it for God to live on earth? Heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain Thee, much less this temple which I have built... But look to the prayer of Thy servant and to his petition... Let Thy eyes be opened to this temple day and night, to this place of which Thou hast said, "My name shall be there"... in every prayer, in every petition that shall come from any man in all Thy people Israel, when they shall feel distress in their hearts, and have stretched out their hands to this temple, Thou shalt hear from heaven, from Thy dwelling place, and have mercy" (1 Kings 8:10-13, 27-29, 38-39). And God, Who dwells in darkness, that is, in mystery, Whom heaven and earth, that is, the visible and invisible world, cannot contain, descends to people and lives where they want Him to live, where they have given Him a place. that they can call him "our God" and "my God." And this is the gulf that lies between the revelation of God and all the achievements of human thought: the God of the philosophers remains abstract and inanimate, while the God of revelation is living, close and personal. Both paths lead to the understanding that God is incomprehensible and that He is a mystery, but philosophy leaves man at the foot of the mountain and does not allow him to climb further, while religion leads him to the summit, where God lives in darkness, it leads him into the cloud, that is, above all words and rational reasoning, it reveals to him the mystery of God...

Anthology of Holy Texts

Here is the mystery: there are souls who have come to know the Lord; there are souls who have not known Him, but believe; and there are those who not only do not know, but also do not believe... Unbelief comes from pride. A proud person with his mind and science wants to know everything, but he is not given to know God, because the Lord reveals Himself only to humble souls... Both in heaven and on earth, the Lord is known only by the Holy Spirit... And among the pagans, the soul felt that God exists, although they did not know how to worship the true God. But the Holy Spirit taught the Holy Prophets, then the Apostles, then our Holy Fathers and Bishops, and thus the true faith has come down to us... O people, God's creation, know the Creator. He loves us. Know the love of Christ and live in peace... Turn to Him, all the peoples of the earth, and offer up your prayers to God; And the prayer of the whole earth will go to heaven, like a beautiful quiet cloud, sanctified by the sun... Know, O nations, that we were created for the glory of God in heaven, and do not cleave to the earth, for God is our Father, and loves us as dear children. is an obvious and embodied reflection of the true teaching, a gift that was sent down to the Greeks from God. And it does not distract us from faith... on the contrary, we protect ourselves with philosophy as a kind of strong bulwark, discovering in it an ally, together with whom we then substantiate our faith... Before the coming of the Lord, philosophy was necessary for the Greeks to achieve a kind of righteousness... She was the same guide for the Greeks as the Law was for the Jews, and brought them as children to Christ (Gal. 3:23-24)... Without a doubt, there is only one way to the Truth, but streams flow into it, some on one side, others on the other, joining in its bed into a river that already flows into eternity.Clement of AlexandriaReading the books of the Platonists made me search for the incorporeal truth: I saw "the invisible, understood through creation," and, thrown back, I felt that, in the darkness of my soul, contemplation was impossible for me. I was sure that You existed, that You were infinite, but not spread out in space... And so, I eagerly grasped at the venerable books dictated by Thy Spirit, and above all the epistles of the Apostle Paul... I began to read and found that everything true that I had read in the books of the philosophers was also said in Your Scriptures... (But in the books of the philosophers) there was no form of this piety, no tears of confession... "a contrite and humble heart" (Psalm 50:19), there was not a word about the salvation of the people, about "a city adorned like a bride" (Rev. 21:2), about "the earnest of the Holy Spirit" (2 Corinthians 1:22), about the Chalice that redeemed us. No one there sings: "Is not my soul subject to God? From Him is my salvation..." (Psalm 61:2). No one will hear the call, "Come unto me, ye that suffer." They (philosophers) will contemptuously turn away from Him Who is "meek and lowly in heart" (Matt. 11:25-28). To those who love God, who are called according to His will, all things work together for good. For whom He foreknew, He also predestined (to be) like the image of His Son... and those whom He predestined, He also called, and those whom He called, He also justified, and those whom He justified, He glorified. What can be said to this? If God is for us, who is against us?Apostle PaulFaith in Christ is a new paradise. For this reason God foresaw before the foundation of the world all those who believed and should believe in Him, whom He called and will not cease to call until the end of the world, and glorified and glorified, and justified and justified, clearly showing them to be conformed to the image of the glory of His Son through holy Baptism and the grace of the Holy Spirit, mysteriously making them sons of God and restoring them from the old to the new, from mortal to immortal... St. Symeon the New Theologian

Chapter II: God