The Religious Nature of Any Moral Attitudes

Young people do not like to be lectured morals, that is, they are given abstract instructions about what is good and what is bad, what should be done and what should not be done. Only small children are quite satisfied with a simple direct instruction on how to act, and a good example. A maturing person already needs reasonable justifications why some actions are good, others are indifferent, and still others are completely sinful. Your youth, or rather, pre-adulthood, rebels of itself against moral axioms or commandments given without justification. A young mind is ready to reject everything that is not explained to it clearly and intelligibly. Young feeling rejects almost everything that is not agreed with it or is inaccessible to it. The young will also does not tolerate anything that does not agree with its desires. Christianity is not an abstract morality; This is not a dry moral code or a simple set of commandments. Christianity is real life with God in Christ Jesus, in the Holy Spirit. While you were taken to church as a child, you saw a fairy-tale world, separated from everyday life. Children are quite capable of living in such a world. But now it is time to rediscover your faith when leaving the childish world of fairy tales, so that all further adult life, with all its real difficulties and sorrows, is built on it.

For example, we can take two common worldviews that may be familiar to you, at least superficially. This is the essence of Marxism and valeosophy. For a Marxist, the answer to the first question is clear: there is no God, and the other two questions are removed by themselves. Monkey and labor gave birth to man, man is the crown of nature, and therefore the measure of all things, and not an individual, but living in a collective. Human society itself is moving towards a bright future, it is, in fact, replacing God. Hence the moral law. His first commandment is devotion to the idea of communism and progressive development. (In all religions, including Marxism, the first commandment is: love God, the only difference is what is meant by this god.) From this it follows that it is bad to kill a person, because it is the crown of nature, but the inveterate reactionary, who is against progress, can and must be eliminated, because he interferes with the communist deity, the advanced humanity. According to this philosophy, collective labor created man - from this comes the moral principle of alignment with the collective. The minority must always submit to the majority, and individual abilities that are not put at the service of the advanced collective (the god of the Marxists) can only be harmful. Man is the measure of all things, therefore the very name of this creature already sounds proud, pride becomes a virtue, if only it is not opposed to the collective. Theft is usually condemned by Marxists because it means an attack on the property of the collective (read: deities), but it is only praiseworthy to rob exploiters and reactionaries. We can continue to analyze the communist commandments, but the main thing is already visible: not a single moral norm is adopted by chance. All of them follow from a common worldview: there is no God in heaven, and a revolutionary progressive humanity ruled by an advanced party is declared to be God. By definition, service and sacrifice to this god are called good, resistance or even indifference to him is evil. Instead of Marxism, the humanistic worldview, in particular the so-called valeosophy, is becoming more and more widespread today. Here, the highest value and measure of everything is still a person, only no longer a collective, but as an individual. The existence of God, as the basis of the foundations of the entire world, is not directly denied, but the Divinity is understood not as a living person, but simply as the totality of all the laws of existence according to which this world exists. Respect these laws, learn them, adapt them to yourself and strive for health and happiness - this is all communion with God. If in Marxism advanced humanity is called God, then in valeosophy it is the health of the individual, that is, of each "I". Hence the moral law is not complicated: what contributes to my health is called good. At the same time, however, it is stipulated that causing harm to another person in some indirect way will be harmful to me as well. It is clear that in this religion such things as murder, theft, immoderate fornication, sexual perversion and other gross sins are not approved. Turning to religious rites, learning the methods of entering a certain spiritual world is not forbidden here (as in Marxism, which denies everything otherworldly), but rather is recommended. In their communication with the invisible world, valeosophists use any religious rites and techniques as a means of healing the body and maintaining vitality. Therefore, there is no special discernment about which church to go to for health. The purpose of any religious cult remains quite earthly and purely practical: I believe in what will help health. For both of the above teachings, there is no personal God who reveals Himself to people, demands worship and obedience from them, and gives them all the blessings of temporal and eternal life. The first commandment for the religions of such a non-existent or dead, impersonal god is human egoism - group (with a slight correction for the individual) in Marxism, or individual (with a slight correction for the collective) in valeosophy. It does not make much difference whether there was no God at all, or whether He served only as the primary cause of the world and the system of equations by which all the world's problems are solved - it is important that in both religions man is placed above all, as the crown of the development of nature. And all the moral precepts of both religions follow from this: first of all, it is pride, respect for oneself, independent building of one's life, whether it is the bright future of all mankind or the personal health of an individual. It is possible to combine these goals within the framework of a slightly different religious movement, and an easy transition from one religion to another. So, here are religions that deny the very existence of a personal God, or believe in a dead god, in an impersonal, abstract principle. All these religions place man himself on the divine throne and, from there, give him the rules of life. But there is also the religion of the true, living, personal God, the Creator of all that exists. Who did not abandon His creation. Who is not indifferent to it, Who performs certain actions in order to give man the opportunity to be in eternal and blessed communion with Himself. This, in brief, is the Christian faith's answer to the three questions posed at the beginning of this chapter. In Christianity, man can no longer be regarded as the measure of all things or as the crown of the development of nature. He is only the highest of God's creations in the material world, moreover, responsible for the state of all other visible creatures. But man in himself is not independent, his Creator stands above him, Who endowed him with freedom and reason and at the same time clearly showed the way how to use this freedom for good. Thus, the philosophical egoism of the man-worshiping religions in Christianity is swept away immediately, even before God utters His commandments to man. Other moral attitudes, as long as we recognize God as a living, personal, good being, acting not only in the past but also now, must be perceived by us from His own word. If, for example, a person can neither speak nor write, then we can only guess from his gestures what he wants, and we will not always understand him correctly. Such a person is like the dead gods of pagans, Marxists, and valeosophists. Those who worship them are forced to make up most of what they have "heard" on their own. But this is not the living God of Christians, and if we want to understand how to live, we must first of all listen to Him Himself.

The Revelation of Holy Scripture (Old Testament)

The Word of God is not hidden from us. This is the Bible, the Holy Scriptures. It tells the main and most important thing about God, about the history of mankind (more precisely: about the sacred history of God's relationship with people, beginning with the very creation of the world and man), about how man must live in order to achieve eternal communion with God - the highest, main and final goal of all earthly human life. But before we speak of the Word of God, it is necessary to understand whether God is really what the Bible says He is, and whether the Bible is really His Revelation. After all, all of us, the great-grandchildren of Eve, at some point (more often in adolescence) hear this fatal question for our foremother: did God really say? In other words: Is it true that it was God who said this, and did He say the truth? Here believers usually say: we believe, and that is enough for us, and non-believers declare that they do not want to blindly believe in anything. Of course, the act of faith for any person is the basis of the foundations of all knowledge. Any science begins with unprovable propositions that are taken on faith - axioms or postulates. Remember how the construction of the geometry course began - namely with axioms and indefinable concepts. Classical mechanics is based on three axioms - Newton's laws, and the theory of relativity - on the assumption that the speed of light is unchanged in all frames of reference. Materialism also begins with the belief in the unprovable assumption that the world came into existence by itself according to its natural present laws. And any religion, including Christianity, proceeds from some unprovable propositions - dogmas. And without trying to prove here that God created this world, and the Bible is His true Revelation to man, let us try to make sure to what extent these statements and conclusions from them agree with our everyday experience and knowledge, with the knowledge that mankind possesses. Of course, the knowledge of all mankind is limited, but the idea of an Omniscient Unlimited God is greater and higher. It is impossible to prove or disprove the smaller one. In the same way, in science, several theorems can follow from one general axiom, and if one of them turns out to be wrong, this does not mean that the initial axiom is wrong, because the error could have appeared somewhere else in logical reasoning. On the other hand, a multitude of obvious and correct consequences, without proving the initial axiom, confirm it indirectly. The same is true of the relationship between science and faith. Here the lesser – human knowledge – can confirm the greater – the biblical faith, and thus the faith of every Christian should not be blind. O ever-doubting youths! Let no one blame you for your doubt, if only you learn to condemn yourself for laziness in your research, for being satisfied with your own doubt. Biblical faith is not afraid of conscientious testing by any knowledge available to man. But in your heart it can collapse from carelessness, light-mindedness, from indifference to the question of truth, from unwillingness to value and cherish the truth. Here is the good advice of one well-known teacher of spiritual life, St. Theophan the Recluse, expressed by him at the end of the last century, when the majority of the reading public (except only for real scientists) was convinced that science completely overthrew the Christian faith: "Everyone should test and be convinced beyond doubt whether the faith he holds is true, and, if it turns out to be untrue, find out where the only true faith is, which truly leads to the true God and grants unquestionably eternal salvation... The Lord does not leave untestimony to Himself (Acts 14:17), as well as His one true faith; but when He allowed other faiths to exist near it on this earth, and to enter into a kind of rivalry with it, He thereby imposed on all of them the obligation to hold on to His faith, not without sense, but for indestructible reasons, for the sake of which all others are rejected with full conviction. By this trial honor is given to faith and the true dignity of man, a person who is reasonable, conscious, and conscientious, is preserved. Our faith in our faith, that is, our conviction in the truth of the Orthodox Christian confession, must be reasonable." Having understood what has been said, never believe anyone who says that the Christian faith is blind faith. And never believe in Christ by blind faith. The best years of human life, beginning in youth, are quite decently and appropriately devoted to the acquisition of seeing faith, or insight in faith. "How then can one be convinced and in what way can one be tested? - continues the saint. "There are two ways to this: one is external, scientific, and the other is internal, the path from faith." This second path of knowledge of God will constitute the main subject of our exposition. The most complete and clear, the most indisputable personal confirmation of the truth of the Gospel is provided by living according to the Gospel, the practical fulfillment of the Gospel commandments. In other words, the clearest, and moreover, accessible to everyone foundation of faith gives life according to faith, as the Apostle said: "He who believes in the Son of God has a testimony in himself" (1 John 5:10). But before proceeding to this internal, practical foundation of faith – to living according to faith – it is necessary to consider at least briefly the external ways of testing faith. The knowledge of God by faith and life according to faith is just as practical experiential knowledge as the scientific investigation of the external world. The difference is that scientific knowledge is obtained by the external senses, while the inner spiritual experience of communion with God comes in a supersensible way. But no one will even strive for the inner knowledge of God if he does not have faith in God, and this is initially based in the majority of people on external experiential knowledge from the most diverse spheres of God. Let us briefly consider only the most indisputable facts recognized by people of various convictions, which testify to the truth of the Bible, and a truth that is exceptional and profound. First of all, let us note that of all the ancient, that is, written down before the birth of Christ, sacred writings of various peoples, only the Biblical Revelation speaks of the Living One Personal God the Creator, Who created heaven and earth out of nothing. The other writings of all other ancient peoples—the Hindus, the Chinese, the Persians, the Egyptians, the Chaldeans, the Aryans, the Greeks, the Romans, the American Indians—consider the world to be generated from an original impersonal being or substance, which then no longer acts independently in history. This primordial principle may in some religions introduce the divine element into the whole of nature, in others it may give rise to many different pagan deities, but it itself no longer manifests itself anywhere, serving only as the first impulse for other things. For this reason, such a primordial deity of all religions not based on the Bible we can quite justly consider dead, or rather, dead in the birth of this world. Thus, biblical Revelation in the history of human thought from the very beginning stands apart from all other attempts to explain the world. Further, it must be admitted that only the data of the natural sciences are best in accord with the Biblical Revelation. There is no consensus among scientists about how the universe, life, and intelligence in it came to be. Nevertheless, science has discovered some objective laws of nature that cannot be disputed. For on the basis of these laws, many technical inventions have been created, which could not work if the laws themselves were not strictly and constantly observed. These laws say that no ordered structure of particles, no "unit of life", no intelligent information ever arises by itself, but on the contrary, at the first opportunity spontaneously tends to destruction. Therefore, neither the miraculous order of the planets of the solar system and the stars in the galaxies, nor life, much less mind and spirit, could have arisen by themselves as a result of the accumulation of accidental changes in nature. This vast and complex issue cannot be revealed in a few words. We will make only one note. The laws of irreversible chaos growth as applied to thermodynamics, chemistry, and information theory have been discovered only in the last 150 years. They were unknown to ancient people. And the most interesting thing is that the creation of the world from nothing, according to the description of the Bible, is quite consistent with these laws. The world could arise once in defiance of these laws, and then only gradually lose its beauty and complexity in full accordance with them. In other words, both the Bible and science offer only one scenario for the development of the world: from primitive order to disintegration and chaos. Meanwhile, ancient pagan revelations believe that the world moves in the opposite direction: from primordial chaos to order, complexity and perfection, or at least cyclically: from chaos to order, then back. Such a movement would be contrary to the existing laws of nature, it is unobservable and impossible in the present world, but the ancients did not yet know the laws of nature as we do now. Therefore, their views on the origin of the world could be based either on a true Revelation from above, or otherwise they could involuntarily turn out to be false. Sometimes it is said that science does not recognize miracles. Indeed, miracles are not the subject of its study. It deals only with reproducible or constantly observable phenomena. But at the same time, everywhere it encounters miracles in the very foundations of the phenomena under study. And he stops at them. A miracle is something that cannot appear without violating the currently existing proven laws of nature. And in this sense, a strictly scientific view of the world stops human thought at least at three main points. The origin of the cosmos is a miracle. The origin of life is a miracle. The origin of the mind is a miracle. None of these three phenomena was reproduced in nature either naturally or artificially. Moreover, none of them can happen spontaneously as long as the known laws of nature are in force. Scientists can either call a spade a spade: the Miracle-worker is God, and His action is a miracle, or go away from the question into an empty phrase, like a shell: science does not know the answer, or invent clearly contradictory and false explanations on the basis of well-known laws. A harsh alternative: miracle or absurdity. We will face the same choice later, speaking about the events of the Gospel. Here we will interrupt our excursion into science. If you have an inquisitive mind thirsting for truth, arm it with a simple and undeceitful heart and a single-minded will, and study the natural sciences, philosophy, and Christian apologetics. You will see that the biblical Revelation is not afraid of such trials, but endures them with honor. The Christian faith "does not withstand" only the tests of pride, conceit, indifference, carelessness, insincerity - in such minds and hearts it does not hold.

Testimonies of the Truth of the New Testament

Here you can recall that the first part of the Bible, that is, the Old Testament, recognizes not only Christianity, but also Judaism and Islam. At the same time, neither the Jews nor the Mohammedans recognize Jesus Christ as God and Redeemer of mankind. In refutation of these two false religions, it is difficult to adduce direct scientific evidence. Here we should rather turn to history. The origin of the world has not been seen by any person, so confirmation of the biblical account of creation can be drawn only partially from natural scientific data. And the coming of Jesus Christ into the world took place in the historical memory of mankind, in an era when there were states, and writing, and the records of historians. Therefore, it would be quite logical to compare the Gospel narrative with the historical and archaeological data known to us from other sources. First of all, let us pay attention to the fact that the very expectation of a special Divine Messenger with the goal of saving the human race from suffering and death was inherent in many peoples of the earth. As for the Jewish people, to whom was given the Revelation of the creation of the world and its early history (the only true Revelation, as we now see), along with this Revelation of the remote prehistoric past of the earth, numerous prophetic predictions were given about the future, relating directly to the coming of the Messiah, the Savior of the world. It is obvious that if God from eternity really determined to send His Son into the world and in Him to save mankind from sin and death, then He also took care to warn people about this in advance, so that they would accept the deliverance given. These prophecies of the Old Testament were, first, quite certainly, uttered several centuries before the coming of Christ; secondly, both the ancient and modern Jewish traditions refer specifically to the person of the Messiah, which excludes any other interpretation of them; thirdly, they were amazingly accurately and fully fulfilled in the person of Jesus Christ, as the Gospel itself bears witness. The prophets predicted the following Gospel events: the place of the Messiah's birth (the city of Bethlehem), His descent from the royal line of David, His miraculous and never-before-seen birth from a Virgin, the time of His going out to preach. They also indicated the circumstances of His death to the smallest detail: the betrayal of the disciple, and the price of this betrayal, and the method of execution, still unknown in Judea at the time of the prophecy, and the sharing of the Messiah's garments by the executors of the execution, and much more. The prophets explain both the meaning of the suffering of the Messiah for the sins of all people, and the spiritual nature of His teaching, which will establish the New Covenant of God with men and the reasons for the rejection of the Messiah by His native people. The prophets also foretold the Resurrection of the Messiah and the eternal glory of His Kingdom. A number of non-Christian historians of the first century, including eyewitnesses of the last days of His earthly life in Jerusalem, also bear witness to the life, teaching, crucifixion, and even the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. There were very many such eyewitnesses, for on the feast of Passover in Jerusalem those who worship the One God from all corners of the world, not only Jews, but also Gentiles who believed, flocked to Jerusalem to worship. No one would invent a fable, showing the time and place of its action in front of a particularly large number of witnesses. No one would have dared to preach such a fable to its witnesses themselves, and at any rate none of the witnesses would have believed in such a sermon if it had really been based on a fable. Meanwhile, the Gospel preaching begins with the disciples of Christ immediately before the eyewitnesses of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, who are puzzled only by the miraculous disappearance of His Body from the tomb. The Apostles testify to His Resurrection, to the fact that He is the Messiah. And in the shortest possible time, this sermon acquires thousands of supporters. Eyewitnesses of those Paschal events in Jerusalem could practically do nothing to object to Christ's disciples to their testimony that their Teacher had truly risen. Crowds of people passed by the Cross on which He was crucified, many saw where and how He was buried. Knowing the prophecies of the Resurrection, the Jews who crucified Jesus sealed the burial cave and placed Roman guards over the tomb to prevent the body of the executed One from being stolen. This unheard-of affair also could not fail to attract the attention of many people. And at dawn on the third day, the whole city saw that the body had disappeared from the coffin, and the burial shrouds had been left in place in a folded form. The Roman soldiers guarding the coffin were divided. Some describe how the stone from the tomb was miraculously rolled away, others incriminate themselves, claiming that the body was stolen by the disciples of Jesus while the guards were sleeping. It is not clear, however, why such witnesses were not arrested and brought before a military court: after all, a Roman soldier was supposed to be punished by death for sleeping on duty. Nor is it possible to explain how a large stone, which could have been moved by several people, was rolled away so quickly and silently that the sleeping guards did not even hear it. Everyone who listened to the preaching of the apostles (like us, modern people) is faced with a choice: either to believe in an unparalleled and salvific miracle, or to believe in a crude, obviously fabricated for money, and not withstanding any test of plausibility, version of the enemies of Christ. Miracle or absurd? Many of those who believed in the miracle later saw the appearance of the risen Christ and could be convinced that this was not a ghost, not a hallucination, but precisely the resurrection of an incorruptible body. Later, passing through various countries, the Apostles met many people who had already heard about Christ or had even been witnesses of His last Pascha. Thanks to this, the preaching of the Gospel in the shortest possible time embraces the entire ancient world. And this was despite the fierce almost universal resistance to it from the Jews, and then from the pagans. The indisputable fact of the rapid and widespread spread of the Gospel cannot be explained if one does not believe in the truth of the Gospel and in the powerful superhuman, divine power of the word of those who preached it, the power of the Holy Spirit given to them. No other religious doctrine in the world has spread so rapidly, so freely and nonviolently, and by such simple and unlearned people, and this with the fierce resistance of virtually all other known faiths. Finally, in addition to written non-Christian testimonies about Christ, including His Resurrection, we have at our disposal a very important material evidence - the shroud (burial garment) of Jesus Christ. For a hundred years now, scientists have been studying this relic in detail. The Shroud is an ancient cloth in which was wrapped the body of a Man who had undergone scourging, carrying a heavy object (a cross) on his shoulder, crowning with a crown of thorns, crucifixion, piercing with a spear in the right side, from which blood and water flowed without mixing. Artistic production of such an image on fabric, that is, fake, is completely excluded. Few doubt that this is the original burial garment of Jesus Christ Himself. The Shroud also bears two amazing, scientifically inexplicable testimonies about the One Buried in it. In the first place, there is a perfectly correct representation of the face on the cloth, which could not be obtained by simple application, because every face is embossed and cannot give a correct flat print. Secondly, the body disappeared from the shroud in an incomprehensible way, without unwrapping the cloth. Any tissue separated from a drying wound also bears traces of such separation. These traces are not on the shroud. Moreover, the body had to disappear from the shroud no later than in two days, otherwise the imprints could not be preserved. Only the One Who was resurrected could leave his burial shroud in this way! However, of course, not all students of the shroud believe in the reality of the Resurrection. Some take these two miraculous testimonies for unsolved mysteries of science. So it should be that the Lord gives place to our faith, for without faith it is impossible to please God (Heb. 11:6). Thus, the coming of Jesus Christ, His teaching, His death on the cross are quite reliable historical facts, which today are not questioned not only by Jews and Muslims themselves, but also by many atheists. The only controversial question remains: Did Christ rise? If so, then there is nothing left but to recognize Him as the God-Man, the Savior of the world, and believing in Him, to have life in His name (John 20:31). And if not? Does this mean that instead of God, we will have to recognize Him as a deceiver, and without believing in Him, have a life in the name of fighting Him? The first path was chosen by Christians. The second path was preferred by the Jews and, to a large extent, by the Muslims. These paths determined the very face of this and the second and third religions, its spiritual problems and interests, which are also useful to compare with each other. What are the questions of the rabbis who tempted Jesus Christ and did not want to believe in Him as the Messiah? - Is it permissible to heal a person on the Sabbath (even if only on that day he could come to the synagogue and meet Jesus there)? Is it possible to rub ears of grain with your hands on Saturday? Is it possible to eat food without washing? If a woman was married to several brothers, whose wife will she be after the resurrection of the dead? All these are not questions invented by us. These and similar problems are dealt with by rabbinic wisdom even to this day. Can such a religion of ritual and bodily actions satiate a soul thirsting for God? Can it give man the meaning of life, can it reveal to man his own soul, can it give him a living experience of communion with God? Decide for yourself. In my opinion, no. Acquaintance with Judaism shows its deadening emptiness. It is not by chance that the Jews who rejected Christ are called God-killers. Not only did they crucify the Incarnate God Himself, they thereby killed in themselves all living religious feeling. Truly, having departed from the Living God, they now worship the dead god of the Talmud, almost like the pagans. Islam reveals a similar spiritual emptiness.

This emptiness is especially noticeable in comparison with the richness of Orthodox spiritual studies. Faith in Christ gives believers the possibility of living communion with God, through which they come to know the human soul and God Himself (as far as He reveals Himself), and moreover, not superficially, not primitively, but deeply and truly. Here our brief review of the external testimonies to the truth of the Christian faith ends, and we come close to the border of the inner knowledge of God. The field of Christian teaching that deals with the analysis of external knowledge is called apologetics can be divided into three parts: 1) natural science, 2) historical, and 3) comparative religious studies. We have outlined only the general plan of all three sections, according to which everyone can and should investigate human knowledge to the best of his ability, which testifies to the superhuman (super-scientific, super-historical, supersensible) truth of Christianity. If someone says: I already believe in Christ, I do not need a scientific, historical, or religious foundation of Christianity, then we will answer him as follows: either your faith is empty and cannot be called faith at all, but only the recognition of some cold and neutral truths that have nothing to do with your life. Or, instead of external evidence, it is necessary to have much deeper internal testimonies, which come not from sensual knowledge of the works of God, but from a supersensible experience of communion with God Himself. Many saints, inexperienced in various areas of human wisdom, but simply having a pure mind and heart, had this inner communion with God. But have you already reached such a spiritual height? On the contrary, our time is characterized by a strong impoverishment of the inner knowledge of God, but for the consolation of believers, the Lord gives us now (as never before) a rich external testimony to the truth of Christianity. It is unwise to neglect apologetics, it most likely testifies to religious indifference. Of course, external knowledge in itself is not enough and can in no way replace the correct supersensible knowledge of God. Nevertheless, the diligent study of apologetics is able to dispose and prepare a person for this more important, properly religious work. Moreover, there is no strict boundary between external and internal knowledge of God. Remember the two disciples of Christ, to whom He Himself appeared on the day of His Resurrection, when they were walking from Jerusalem to Emmaus. The Lord did not reveal Himself to them immediately, but only explained to them the Scriptures that testify to the Messiah. But this, one might say apologetic, conversation touched their hearts very much. And then their mysterious Companion in an incomprehensible way makes them know Himself, to know the truth of His Resurrection, moreover, doing everything without a single word. This is the image of the correct combination of external and internal knowledge of God. Examine the outward evidence of the truth of Christ's faith. May they warm your hearts and prepare them for the inner heart's knowledge of God and fellowship with Him.

The Orthodox Church is a true Christian community

Let us now assume that the study of apologetics has already convinced us of the authenticity and inspiration of the Holy Scriptures. This means that the moral commandments of the Bible are genuine instructions given by God to man. But there are more than one hundred different Christian movements, and they all seem to accept the same commandments. Why did it happen that everyone's understanding of the same Scripture is different? The fact is that God's commandments are not just a set of some instructions that are the same for all occasions in life. Such an understanding of the commandments only to the letter led the Jewish lawyers to the loss of correct spiritual and moral guidelines, to the hypocritical covering of their depravity and inner egoism with the appearance of fulfilling the prescriptions of the law. In fact, as the Psalmist teaches, the Lord's justifications are right, rejoicing the heart, the Lord's commandment is bright, enlightening the eyes (Psalm 18:9). In other words, the goal of all the commandments of the law of God is the purification of the heart, but this cannot be achieved only by the external fulfillment of specific petty prescriptions. On the other hand, the spiritual understanding of the commandments does not mean their arbitrary interpretation. How can we find the golden mean between petty Jewish legalism and the breadth of moral privileges, slyly introduced under the pretext that a person is justified not by works of the law, but only by faith in Jesus Christ (Gal. 2:16)? The answer is that true faith cannot be contained in any book, not even a sacred one. Before the coming of the Messiah, the people of Israel received the legislation written by Divine Revelation through the prophet Moses - the Old Testament. Several centuries pass, and the Lord Himself declares through the prophet Jeremiah that after the coming of the Messiah He will give to those who believe in Him a perfect law, better than any written: "This is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put My law within them, and I will write it on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be My people" (Jeremiah 31:11). 33). And further: "All shall know Me for themselves, from the least to the greatest" (Jeremiah 31:34). The law of the New Testament, written on the hearts, is the inner knowledge of God of which we have already spoken above. It is necessary for every Christian, even those who have a thorough knowledge of science and a deep conviction in the truth of its testimonies about Christ. And this inner knowledge of God and communion with God is transmitted not only by the written word – the Holy Scriptures – but also by living tradition. The guardian of this living tradition is the Church, which the Lord Jesus Christ Himself founded on earth from His disciples and their successors. Let us say even more: the Church, founded by Christ, is more important than the Holy Scriptures. Judge for yourself. In the days of His life on earth, Jesus Christ Himself did not write His Gospel for people to remember. He did not carry with Him among His disciples any secretary-scribe who would be engaged in writing down the Gospel. To all appearances, he did not give the apostles such a commission as the writing of the Gospel, and for the future. He did not seem to be interested in the question of whether any of His disciples could write at all. But about the foundation of the Church He spoke to His disciples directly: "I will build My Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it" (Matt. 16:18). The Gospel, that is, the words and deeds of Jesus Christ, was indeed written in golden letters on the hearts of the disciples, the first members of Christ's Church. But the very first book of the New Testament - the Gospel of Matthew - appeared no earlier than eight years (and according to most historians - 30 years) after the Ascension of Jesus Christ. It was a time when the number of Christians was growing especially rapidly, the Church was there, but the Scriptures were not yet there. And then it was the Church in all parts of the world that collected those books originally known and revered by all her children, which she called the New Testament, while rejecting the spurious books. Thus, of all the Christian societies that call themselves churches, we must find one that inseparably preserves and transmits from generation to generation not only the Holy Scriptures, but also the living, oral and written Tradition, the living spiritual experience. In order to preserve the book of the written law, it is necessary to copy it carefully to a person who understands the language and meaning of the book. In the same way, in order to transmit the content of the New Testament, written by the Lord not on paper, but on hearts, it is necessary to copy from one heart to another to those people who have hearts prepared for this purpose. Such is the importance of the living succession of Church Tradition! Divisions in the Church began quite a long time ago. Sometimes a great many people were drawn into heresies and schisms. But time passed, sometimes whole centuries, and the Lord clearly showed where His Church was, and where the societies that broke away from it were. These societies degenerated spiritually, fragmented into smaller parts and clearly dried up, losing their followers. Almost none of them have survived to this day. This continued until the eleventh century, when the Western Church, having accepted certain dogmatic distortions, separated from the Eastern, in fact, from the rest of the Universal Church. This division has not been overcome to this day, and, of course, the dogmatic distortion has not been in vain for the fallen Latins (or, as they call themselves, the Catholics). Their path to inner knowledge of God is completely incompatible with either the Tradition of the Ancient Church or our Orthodox tradition; moreover, since ancient times, the Orthodox Fathers have regarded it as a false path, the path of demonic delusion. The most important error of Latinism is the substitution of the Living Christ for the Roman pope, whom they consider to be the infallible guardian of the truth, the vicar of Jesus on earth, almost His living incarnation. The Latin Church in the sixteenth century was shaken to its foundations by Protestant schisms. Protestants were initially divided into several large groups, which eventually split into hundreds of smaller groups and continue to fragment to this day. A common feature of all Protestant trends is that they fundamentally reject the entire Church Tradition as supposedly human inventions and recognize only the Holy Scriptures (and even then in an abbreviated form). Their very fragmentation shows that none of these communities can be considered the Universal Church of Christ. What distinguishes Protestants from the Orthodox church tradition is their desire for general religious simplification, both in worship, in theology, in church piety, and in the understanding of spiritual life. Catholics and Protestants make up the vast majority of all those who call themselves Christians, but in becoming acquainted with the enormous spiritual wealth of Orthodoxy, the most honest of them admit that it was the Orthodox Church that preserved and multiplied the heritage of the Ancient Undivided Church in its entirety. Usually, only the most spiritually profound natures from Catholics and Protestants convert to Orthodoxy. The return of the Orthodox to Catholicism or Protestantism usually happens to those who know little about the history of the Church, its teaching and tradition and are indifferent to them. For such people, this is already a step on the path to outright atheism, to the loss of the living Christian faith. It is incumbent upon us to preserve the heritage of the Orthodox Church, the only spiritual successor of the Church of the Apostles, the Church of Christ. The greatest misfortune of modern Orthodox Christians is that we do not grow up to our Orthodoxy, that our hearts remain shallow and impure, not ready to take upon themselves the mark of the New Testament, which, nevertheless, is preserved in the greatest possible fullness precisely in Orthodoxy.

The concept of Orthodox asceticism

Thus, the commandments of God can be correctly preserved and understood only in the Church of the Living God, which leads man to living communion with God. This spiritual experience of the Church, as the fruit of such communion with God, was reflected in the numerous writings of spiritual writers who lived throughout the history of the Church. In order to say a new word in science, the former thorough experimental knowledge of science itself is required. It is necessary to know what is already clearly and firmly established in it, about which only conjectures are made, and what is not known at all. But this is not enough. For any discovery, any scientist needs a special cognitive intuition. A rush of thought into the realm of the unknown is needed, and it is accomplished, as many scholars admit, as if by itself, as if from outside, as a kind of revelation from above. The same is with artistic creativity. And an artist needs a school, a skill, a solid knowledge of his skill. But this is not enough for a brilliant work of art. Inspiration from above, clearly felt by every artist, is also needed. And now think for yourself, how can a person comprehend and convey to people something important from the field of spiritual life? To do this, he will need strong faith and a thorough experience of the Christian life. The crown of this experience should be a certain moral level, a special purity of heart and love for God, tested by many labors and sorrows. This is as necessary for a teacher of the Church as education is for a scientist, and skill is necessary for an artist. But this is not enough. For the clarification, and even more so the utterance of Divine truths, a special action of the Holy Spirit is necessary. Most church teachers have gained spiritual experience through long labors and sorrows and have become living vessels of the Spirit. That is why the Church venerates them not just as teachers, but as holy teachers or holy fathers. The writings of the Holy Fathers can be divided into the following main areas: dogmatics, mysticism, liturgics, and others. Works that reveal the Church's faith in the essence of Revelation, that is, the teaching about God: about the Three Persons of the One Godhead, about the Incarnation of the Son of God, and so on, constitute the field of theology called dogmatics. Dogmas were given to the Church from the beginning, in the Revelation of the Old and New Testaments, but they were revealed and clarified over a long period of time, often in the course of the struggle against incorrect teachings and distorted interpretations of the Holy Scriptures - heresies. Apologetics occupies an important place in the works of the Holy Fathers, as we have briefly considered it in this chapter. It is the substantiation of the authenticity of the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments and the revelation of its meaning by the teachers of the Church in the light of their knowledge of the history, philosophy and natural sciences of their time. The Holy Fathers have works devoted to Orthodox worship, its meaning and significance, as well as the texts of prayers and church hymns themselves. Taken together, these works are called liturgical. There are works devoted to correct spiritual guidance - pastoral works. Recorded, as far as it is possible to describe, is the experience of living communion with God, which has reached high spiritual revelations - this is mystical theology. Our subject will be one of the central subjects of the patristic heritage - the moral teaching of the Church, otherwise called asceticism. What should be the moral character of a Christian, and how should he seek the correction of his soul, his character and behavior? Note that the Lord Jesus Christ taught first of all morality, bringing to a deep and perfect understanding the commandments previously given to people, and communicated dogmas, prophecies, and promises only to the disciples who had already begun to live according to these commandments. Among His instructions, the Savior said the following words: My teaching is not Mine, but Him who sent Me; whosoever will do His will shall know of this doctrine, whether it be of God (John 7:16-17). The meaning of these words is that the commandments of God can be correctly understood only by trying to fulfill them in practice. And so Orthodox asceticism is precisely a whole treasury of practical spiritual experience of Christian life. This experience is not only rich in embracing the multitude of people who labored in the fulfillment of God's commandments, it is also important in terms of the examples of the moral height that they reached. Without the study and application of the ascetic writings of the Holy Fathers, the correct understanding and fulfillment of God's commandments is simply impossible. Ascetic writings in the Orthodox Church begin with the time of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself and His apostles. In the Gospel and in the Epistles of the Holy Apostles, basic moral lessons and guidelines are already taught. Then, throughout the twenty centuries of the history of the Church, the ascetic writings in it do not cease, although all the Fathers interpret in them about the same Gospel commandments, preserving a wondrous agreement among themselves. It would seem, how much can you teach about the same thing, isn't it time to stop? However, we do not encounter such a stop in the history of the Church. It should not exist, because at different times different people come to the Church, with different sins and with different levels of spiritual preparation. The Church on earth lives in the midst of the world and, of course, feels the influence of the world. What is this world? Does he revere Christ, is he indifferent to Him, or is he hostile to Him? The Church's instructions to its children strongly depend on this. In addition, not all Christians live the same lifestyle. There are children in the Church, there are young men, there are those who live in families, there are those who devote themselves to a pure celibate monastic life. The commandments of God are the same for all, and we must all strive to attain the Kingdom of Heaven through their fulfillment. But the specific instructions on the spiritual life for all these different states of believers should be different. It should be noted that some of the ascetic writings of the Holy Fathers are useful and even necessary for any gender, age and social status. Such are the numerous works of St. John Chrysostom, St. Abba Dorotheus, St. John of the Ladder, St. Nicodemus of the Holy Mountain, St. Tikhon of Zadonsk, St. Ignatius Brianchaninov, and St. Theophan the Recluse. Their works can be deservedly called ascetic classics. Much useful can be extracted from purely monastic ascetic writings: St. Anthony the Great, Macarius of Egypt, Mark the Ascetic, and others. Finally, we find an inexhaustible source of spiritual teachings and moral lessons and examples in the lives of the saints, in the patericons and otechniks, the purpose of which was to show examples of a worthy (and sometimes, on the contrary, unworthy) Christian life. It has been noted that the greatest interest among believers is enjoyed by the instructions of those spiritual writers who lived recently and better understood the spiritual world of modern man. Let us especially note the writings of the ascetics of the 20th century: St. John of Shanghai, Metropolitans Macarius of Nevsky and Anthony Khrapovitsky, Archbishops Nikon Rozhdestvensky and Averky Taushev, Bishop Varnava Belyaev, who left ascetic instructions to our contemporaries. Our time has placed on all Christians, especially young people, very special, unprecedented conditions. Therefore, even today the conversation about asceticism is not yet over, and a simple repetition of what the holy teachers said earlier is no longer enough. A fresh modern word is needed, and it sounds in the Church. It is another matter that the authority of living authors cannot, of course, be equated with the voice of the saints of the past glorified by the Church. It is impossible to teach the Christian life simply by referring to the authority of any teacher, even a saint. Our speech is conducted from experience, patristic and our own, and it is addressed to your own spiritual experience. Work hard and check. See for yourselves how right the Holy Fathers are, how well they know the human soul. Once you are convinced of this, follow their instructions.

Chapter 2. The Orthodox Teaching on Man

We have already analyzed the connection between the worldview and morality in the religions of a dead god by examples. A similar connection can be traced in Christian doctrine. Before understanding for oneself and accepting the rules of a pious life, it is necessary to know oneself, what a person is according to the teaching of the Word of God and the Fathers of the Church. In short, man is the highest of God's creations, created in the image and likeness of the Creator Himself, created for the purpose of closer blessed communion with Him and rational good dominion over the rest of creation. But at the same time, it must be remembered that man is a fallen creature, damaged by sin and prone to sin, and therefore has not retained his original virtues. Man still bears within himself the image of God, but already distorted. Let us now try to talk about all this in more detail.