In the same way, Orthodoxy is not recognized from his theoretical teaching. Abstract propositions and formulas, by their very abstraction, are equally incomprehensible, incomprehensible to man, whether they are Catholic or Orthodox. Can direct logical absurdity reveal the inconsistency of the heterodox system? As an expression of objectively given truth, Orthodoxy is most and most profoundly known where it is most directly in contact with this objective truth, with the realm of real being: in its description of man's real life, in its definition of the purpose of life, and in the teaching of personal salvation based on this last one. Only by finally assimilating the Orthodox teaching on life can one be fully (not only logically) convinced of the immutable, unconditional truth of Orthodoxy – it is possible to understand, to visually comprehend this truth. After that, all those theoretical propositions, all those dogmas which previously seemed only indifferent metaphysical subtleties, will receive their deep, full-life meaning. All this will be one and the same doctrine of true life, united in spirit and idea, only this time life is considered not for man, but in its objective givenness, in itself.

I had to be convinced of these elementary truths in practice when writing my work. At first I approached the question of personal salvation with a purely theoretical interest. I wanted to clarify this question for myself, simply as a dark, confusing point of doctrine, difficult to define. How can we more accurately express our doctrine of salvation? It is known that an Orthodox cannot speak as the Catholics say; That he can speak even less as the Protestants say, this is also beyond all doubt, but how should he speak?

The Significance of the Patristic Writings for the Clarification of the Orthodox Teaching on Salvation

In order to give myself an account of this, I began to read the works of Sts. Fathers of the Church. I read them not only because I accepted them, so to speak, canonical authority, not only as an obligatory church tradition for every Christian. My thought was somewhat different: I searched in the works of Sts. The Fathers describe and explain the life according to Christ, or the true, proper life. We know that Jesus Christ brought us first and foremost a new life and taught it to the Apostles, and that the work of Church tradition is not only to transmit teaching, but to transmit from generation to generation precisely this life conceived with Christ, to transmit precisely that which is not transmitted by any word, by any writing, but only by direct communion of persons. Theoretical teaching only generalizes and systematizes this doctrine of life. That is why the Apostles chose as their successors and substitutes people who were the most successful, who most consciously and firmly assimilated to themselves the life of Christ proclaimed to them. For this reason, the Fathers of the Church are not those of the Church writers who were the most learned and the most well-read in Church literature, but the holy writers, i.e. those who embodied in themselves that life of Christ, which the Church received as its inheritance to preserve and spread, are recognized as Fathers of the Church. If so, then it is possible to form a correct understanding of Orthodoxy not by analyzing its fundamentally positive, abstract teaching, but by observing this real life according to Christ, which is preserved in the Orthodox Church. And since the recognized bearers, the embodiments of this life, this life tradition were Sts. The Fathers, who in their writings interpret this life in detail, then it is natural to turn to them for observation. I did so.

The Opposition of the Christian Patristic Worldview to the Juridical, Western Worldview

The more I read Sts. It became clearer and clearer to me that I was moving in a very special world, in a circle of concepts that was far from resembling ours. I began to understand that the difference between Orthodoxy and non-Orthodoxy lies not in some partial omissions and inaccuracies, but right at the very root, in principle, that Orthodoxy and non-Orthodoxy are opposite to each other, just as self-love, life according to the elements of the world, the old man - and self-sacrificing love, life according to Christ, a renewed person are opposite. I was confronted with two completely different worldviews, irreducible to one another: legal and moral, Christian. I called the first legal because the best expression of this worldview is the Western legal system, in which the individual and his moral dignity disappear and only separate legal units and relations between them remain. God is understood mainly as the First Cause and Lord of the world, closed in His absoluteness - His relationship to man is similar to the relationship of a king to a subordinate and does not at all resemble a moral union. In the same way, man is represented in his separateness: he lives for himself and only by the external side of his being comes into contact with the life of the general, only he uses this general; even God from the point of view of man is only a means to achieve well-being. The beginning of life, therefore, is self-love, and the general sign of existence is the mutual alienation of all living things. Meanwhile, according to the thought of Sts. Being and life in the proper sense belong only to God, Who bears the name "This" – all the rest, all created things exist and live exclusively by their participation in this true life of God, this longed-for Beauty, in the words of St. Basil the Great. God, therefore, is not connected with His creation by an absolute "let there be," God literally serves as the center of life, without which creation is as inconceivable in its present existence as it is inexplicable in its origin. Translating this metaphysical proposition into the language of moral life, we get the rule: no one can and should not live for himself - the meaning of life of each particular being is in God, which practically means: in the fulfillment of His will. "I have not come to do my will, but the will of the Father that sent me." Thus, the basic principle of everyone's life is no longer selfishness, but "the love of truth" (2 Thessalonians 2:10). Faithful to this law, man in his relations to God, the world, and to people is no longer guided by a selfish thirst for existence (the conclusion from this would be the struggle for existence), but by an unselfish hunger and thirst for truth, as the supreme law, to which he sacrifices his being. In the legal understanding of life they sought happiness, here they look for truth. There, moral goodness – holiness – was considered a means to attain blessedness, here true existence is ascribed only to the moral good incarnated in God – and the blessedness of man, therefore, is considered identical with holiness.

I. Legal Understanding of Life in Catholicism and Protestantism

The origin of legal life understanding

Western Christianity from its very first historical steps came into contact with Rome and had to reckon with the Roman spirit and the Roman way or way of thinking; ancient Rome, in fairness, is considered the bearer and spokesman of law. Law (jus) was the main element in which all his concepts and ideas revolved: jus was the basis of his personal life, and it also determined all his family, social and state relations. Religion was no exception - it was also one of the applications of law. In becoming a Christian, the Roman tried to understand Christianity from this point of view, and in it he sought first of all legal consistency.

This method of external understanding of salvation at first could not be dangerous for the Church: all its inaccuracies were more than covered by the faith and ardent zeal of Christians; even more, the possibility of explaining Christianity from the legal point of view was useful to him in some respects: it gave faith a scientific form, as it were, affirmed it. But this was during the heyday of church life. It was not so later, when the worldly spirit penetrated into the Church, when many Christians began to think not about how they could fulfill the will of God more perfectly, but, on the contrary, about how to fulfill this will more conveniently, with fewer losses for this world. At that time, the possibility of a legal formulation of the doctrine of salvation revealed its disastrous consequences.

Characteristic features of a legal union

A legal union arises when one person or family is unable to fight with the world around him. In order to secure a certain share of well-being, a person enters into an agreement with another person in the same position. They make mutual commitments and work for the common good. But this communion is not at all a communion of love, not a moral union; These people serve others only because otherwise they will not get what they want for themselves. The purpose of their life is not society, but their own self. The legal order, therefore, has as its task the juxtaposition of several selfishnesses, so that they do not interfere with each other and that each of them receives its due share. As such, the legal system can only benefit selfishness. - His first benefit is that instead of a living union, he offers a cold, external one. For the state or my fellow citizens it is not particularly important what my inner mood is, for them only my external behavior is important, because only the latter concerns their well-being, expresses my attitude towards them. This, of course, degrades the individual, turning him into a soulless screw in the social machine, but it also gives man such freedom, or rather such arbitrariness in his spiritual life, as he cannot obtain under any other system, especially under the moral one. The moral union demands conformity to the moral, penetrates with its demands and instructions into the very sanctuary of human conscience. The legal system never penetrates there, being content with observing the external agreed framework and leaving man as a complete master within itself.

This arbitrariness is increased by the consciousness of complete independence or non-obligation to anyone for one's well-being. For if others serve a man in any way, he knows that they serve not out of affection for him, but out of necessity or from a desire for the good of themselves. For this service, they receive the same amount from his side: the relationship is equal, and consequently he does not have to consider anyone his benefactor. True, this dooms a person to terrible loneliness, but self-love is loneliness in essence. The consciousness of independence, that vague specter of identity, is more valuable to the sinful self as such.

At the same time, all those services, even the most insignificant, which he renders to his allies, acquire the highest importance in the eyes of man. These services are made, in fact, apart from desire, not out of love for an ally, but simply out of a desire to receive equal reward. Therefore, a person demands this reward for himself, demands it as a matter of course, and will consider himself entitled to take revenge if this reward does not follow. Feelings of gratitude in the proper sense cannot be found in the soul of a self-lover.