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.

The Image of God and His Likeness in Man

Man is created in the image and likeness of God. This direct teaching of Divine Revelation (Gen. 1:27) is revealed by the Holy Fathers on the basis of their spiritual experience. When we pronounce these words themselves, "image" and "likeness," their direct meaning indicates that there must be something in man, so to speak, similar to God. And so the Holy Fathers show us these similarities. First of all, they pay attention to the royal dignity of man among all other creatures. Man was created last and was placed to possess the entire material world by the will of God, rationally, kindly-heartedly. All other creation, living and inanimate, was created for man's help and edification. Man uses some creatures for his life, and looking at others, he comprehends the wisdom and goodness of his Creator. Thus, all of God's creation is useful to man for soul and body, and man himself is the master of God's world, in the image of the Almighty Himself, Who is in full and excellent measure the Lord of all creation, including angels and men. Another important feature of the image of God in man is the ability to create independently, even the inclination and craving for it. A rare person does not want to create any object for his own benefit, any artistic image or scientific idea, in other words, such a thing that is based on his own original thought. We will single out these two features separately, as inherent only in God and man. Of course, the concept of the image of God in man is not exhausted by them. The Creator has communicated to man a rational spiritual essence, an immortal soul in the image of the eternity of God Himself. Man is given the freedom of moral choice in the image of God's infinite freedom, that is, the opportunity to independently choose the path of pleasing God or the path of resisting Him. The qualities of our soul: its uniqueness in each person, its freedom and immortality, the mind capable of abstract thinking, the senses capable of perceiving God's holiness and beauty – all these are undoubtedly the features of God's image. But they are also characteristic of other moral creatures of God, namely angels. The dominion over the visible creature and the ability to create are left to the exclusive use of man alone. Angels are not appointed to rule over the world or to create anything on their own. The Holy Scriptures say of them: "Are they not all ministering spirits, poured out to serve for those who have to inherit salvation" (Heb. 1:14). In this sense, man, according to the Creator's plan, was called to be even higher than them. The aspects of the image of God that we have mentioned do not yet exhaust this concept completely. Neither the Bible nor the Holy Fathers have listed all these traits for us point by point. There is something else in man from this image that is generally incomprehensible to us. The image of God is given to man inalienably, once and for all. And at the same time, the similarity, the unity of man with God was not originally complete and perfect. Man had to freely choose the path to God and work for himself in order to become like Him. This possibility of the development of the image of God in the human soul for the better is called the likeness of God. Image is a static concept, and similarity is dynamic. If this phrase is not clear, then you can put it more simply. Likeness differs from an image, as a harvest from planted seeds, as a finished product from raw materials. Without seeds, there will be no harvest, but a harvest is more than the seeds themselves. In the same way, an image is something that is given from the beginning and is not taken away, and likeness is something that a person could achieve, something with which he could adorn the original image in himself - by means of a virtuous life. But the first people in paradise chose the path of disobedience to God, and the likeness of God had to be forgotten for a long time. And the image of God, although it did not disappear, was distorted in man beyond recognition. After all, the features of the image of God still say little about the dignity of man, all of them can be turned into evil, into unseemly deeds. And so it happened. Man's dominion over the world turned into a struggle with God's creation, into its desecration and destruction. The mind, capable of comprehending spiritual objects and communicating with the Creator, turned to communication with the fallen angels and was able to learn many bad things from them. Creativity turned to many malicious inventions in the field of science, technology and culture. So darkened and distorted is the image of God in us. But the Lord Jesus Christ, having suffered for us, restored this image for all mankind as a whole. And each of us is given the opportunity for this restoration by faith in Christ and the grace of the Holy Spirit. We have the opportunity to receive the fruits of our redemption, to restore the darkened image and to regain the lost likeness of God. The Orthodox Church knows many examples of how this is achieved. Such are all our saints. Looking at their lives, we can see what a person restored in Christ is. He not only avoids all sin, but also regains the qualities that Adam had before the fall. For example, our Russian miracle-workers Sergius of Radonezh and Seraphim of Sarov, who attained such purity of heart that wild bears obediently obeyed them. Saint Gerasim of Jordan was served by a lion, whose sick paw was healed by this hermit. Such ascetics are usually called venerables, because they, becoming like the Lord in their lives, restored in themselves the likeness of God. This assimilation has no limits: man can draw infinitely near to God, attaining deification or communion with the Divine nature (2 Pet. 1:4). Can you imagine this: a person who is limited by nature and moreover sinful receives the opportunity to unite by grace with the Unlimited and Holy God Himself? And this is precisely the purpose of man. And the saints reached it. Many of them have spiritually felt this union with God, and even if we do not yet have such an experience, we will nevertheless remember the purpose for which we were created, and strive for it in the way indicated to us by Christ and His saints.

Spirit, Soul and Body

Speaking of image and likeness, we try to judge a person by his Creator. It is also possible to look at man in another way: from the point of view of his own nature. And this approach is also given in the Scriptures. A person consists of a soul and a body. He is placed by the Creator on the border between visible and invisible, material and immaterial nature, being in some ways similar to an animal, and in some ways to an angel. Our body is quite material, it was once created from the earth by a special creative action, just as all other animals according to their kind were created from the earth. (Here we note that these words have a completely direct scientific meaning. The theory of the origin of man from an ape is incomprehensible even to those who invented it. And the history of the search for various "ape-men" is the most shameful page in science - there were so many fakes, falsifications, strained explanations, irrepressible imagination of artists and popularizers of this godless idea!) The human body bears a resemblance to the body of animals, but this in no way means that it originated or was produced from the body of any animal. This only means that man in his body belongs to the world of living nature. The soul is invested in a person by a special inspiration - it means that a person is something more than his body. Do animals have a soul? Eat. And this is what both the Scriptures and everyday experience tell us. The Scripture says: And God said, Let the earth bring forth a living creature after its kind, cattle and creeping things, and beasts of the earth their kind. And it was so (Gen. 1:24). In other words, by Divine plan and command, the souls and bodies of animals arose from the earth in their mysterious union. Both experience and science tell us that in any living body there is something greater than this body. If we collect all the molecules that make up a living cell in the correct sequence, we will get a dead cell. No life exists without every living being wanting to live and behaving accordingly. Even the amoeba tends to swim out into the water that suits it best. In the same way, all other plants and animals are not indifferent to the fact of their life, and as far as they are given the opportunity, they strive to approach more advantageous conditions of existence and avoid unfavorable ones. This manifests a certain vital force inherent in all living things and inaccessible to our senses or devices. It is also manifested in the desire of every living thing to produce offspring similar to itself. This vital force is not a property of the complex molecules of living organisms. It is something more, and in essence unknown to us. In Scripture, the words "soul" and "life" are often used interchangeably. In addition, highly organized animals show certain mental abilities, feelings, desires, and character traits: the fox is cunning, the dog is loyal, the donkey is stubborn, the cat is affectionate, the wolf is angry, and the hare is cowardly. Children also know this. Even among dogs and cats, different "character traits" can be observed, as well as different mental abilities. All this: from simple vital force, instincts of self-preservation and multiplication of the species to the character of the animal - all the properties of the living, irreducible to the biochemical processes of its organism, belong to the spiritual side of animal life. The soul of animals is essentially unknown to us - let us repeat this once again, but we know that in essence all the features of the soulfulness of an animal are inherent in man, since he is also a living being, created by the same Creator from the same earth. But, of course, the human soul is higher than the soul of animals. It was not produced from the earth, but was specially placed in the body by God at creation. That is why it is able to bear within itself the image and likeness of God. What distinguishes the human soul from the souls of animals is first of all a great and insurmountable difference in their common features: in reason, in feelings, in intentions. In the same way, the human body, being somewhat similar to the bodies of animals, differs from them by qualitative, insurmountable differences. Animals are able to think, and humans are able to think abstractly. For example, a monkey can distinguish two bananas from three, but it is incapable of rising to the concept of number by adding one to two in its mind, and in this arithmetic without remembering bananas. The number 2 exists for her if only she sees these bananas or oranges in front of her. A person is able to think in more abstract concepts. Animals are able to communicate with each other with sounds and signs. But not being able to think in abstract concepts, they are incapable of grammatical construction of their speech. And a person is capable of this. That is why animals have long been called wordless, not in the sense of their lack of their own language, but in the sense of their inability to express their thoughts in abstract words. It should be noted that the human body is adapted to have a verbal, thinking soul living in it. The human brain has speech centers, and the jaws are perfectly adapted for articulate speech. The complex structure of the inner ear allows a person to keep balance on two legs, and the structure of the hand allows you to perform very delicate work. All these are unique features of the human body only. But the main difference of the human soul is qualitative. The human soul is a moral creature, capable not only of thinking and speaking in abstract concepts, but also of rushing into the realm of speculative, supersensible being. The human soul is able to know its Creator, to communicate with Him, to understand His will and to judge its intentions by it, whether they are good or bad, good or evil. Just as the body of an animal is qualitatively different from that of a human, so the soul of an animal is qualitatively different from that of a human. The word "qualitatively" in both cases means the same thing: man has something, and the animal has nothing at all. And this main, qualitative difference between the human soul and the animal soul, this higher side of the human soul, which is completely absent in animals, is usually called spirit. The spirit is an ineradicable religious principle that lives in man. By the spirit man finds his god (whether true or false), by the spirit he worships him, by the spirit he solves the question of the meaning and purpose of his life. Animals never ask all these questions. We have already said that there are no completely non-religious people at all. Any atheist believes in the absence of God, in the great creative power of matter, worships the creature instead of the Creator, but he really believes in it in his spirit, worships it, and sometimes devotes many years of his life to his faith. Yes, strange as it may seem, it is to this "belief in unbelief," to this "god-not-god" that many and expensive sacrifices are made, a kind of spiritual life, but this is precisely the life of the spirit, and not of the animal soul. The holy sense of the Divine in the human spirit is directly subordinated to conscience, which dictates to man what is in accordance with the will of his divinity and is subject to fulfillment, and what is contrary to this will and is forbidden. Conscience is often able to guide human actions, and even more often it evaluates our actions after they have been committed and either approves, comforts us, or, on the contrary, mercilessly gnaws at us with its reproaches. Thus, conscience for a person is an internal source of external power: legislative, executive, and, especially, judicial. A slightly unusual, paradoxical definition: "an internal source of external power." You may ask: what is conscience: our inner spiritual organ, or some external one? In the spirit of man, as in his highest part, the gates to the world, higher than the earthly, are already opening. In human freedom, however, there remains a choice on which side to open them: to God or to the devil. This choice will determine the voice of conscience. He will be external to us, coming to us from our god (true or false). And this voice itself is to some extent in our power. Just as the voice of a radio receiver can be muffled or amplified, so can the voice of conscience in the spirit. Thus, conscience turns out to be an internal source of external power, an external voice that we ourselves are able to influence. Losing spiritual manifestations, a person increasingly loses his properly human appearance. If he is not guided by conscience at all and nothing sacred remains for him, then it is said of him that he either becomes brutalized or bestial, that is, approaches the animal state. Such a person also loses his unique personality. At the same time, he is able to preserve the features of the soul - thoughts, feelings, desires, which are also characteristic of animals. If the spirit in it could die out completely, we would have a new kind of bipedal animal.

The Three Forces of the Soul

Having now understood what the human spirit is, we will already more easily understand the composition of the lower part of our soul. This lower part of the soul, or the soul proper, has everything that the higher animals have in embryo and that still remains even in completely unspiritual, unscrupulous people. There are three powers of the soul: reason, feelings and will, or thoughts, experiences and desires. In all these three respects the human soul is superior to the animal soul created from the earth: the objects of our thoughts, feelings, and aspirations can and must be higher than earthly objects. Practically all the thinking abilities of animals are tested and developed on a purely material stimulus: the animal must receive a food reward for its ingenuity, and, having eaten its fill, it will no longer strain its cerebral convolutions. In the same way, the feelings of animals are usually determined by external reactions: a man is affectionate to a dog - it is faithful to him, a cat is warm on the stove - it purrs with pleasure, birds are happy to return to their nests in the spring and celebrate weddings - they glorify God with their songs, but they themselves do not realize it. Finally, the desires of animals are almost completely reducible to carnal needs. Of course, it happens that they play, but their game is just a bodily pleasure. Such is the mental activity of animals. And can the human soul limit itself to only such manifestations? Or does she need something more?

The needs of the spirit, soul and body of a person and their activities