Confessor. Ok. I also think that this is the best place to start.

DIALOGUE TWO

ABOUT GOD

Unknown. Yes you are right. Whatever question you take, you will certainly come to the question of God. Therefore, let me lay out before you everything that makes me an unbeliever. Perhaps many things here will not be directly related to the matter and will force us to deviate from the case. But I don't know how to speak any other way.

Confessor. Speak without thinking about the form, and I will try to understand you.

Unknown. First of all, I must tell you in advance that I know all the scholastic proofs of the existence of God -- I think there are seven of them -- I know. Please don't bother to go through them again. I think they have not yet made anyone a believer, least of all those who composed them.

Confessor. Don't bother. In the question of God I shall use less of the logical method than in the question of immortality.

Unknown. So you don't want to prove, but to show the truth?

Confessor. Yes.

Unknown. I will try to consider it conscientiously. Until now, I have seen nothing in the teaching about God, except a fantastic fairy tale, in which, moreover, no one believes for a long time. When I met educated people who, by the way, lived in exactly the same way as all non-believers, and talked about their faith, I involuntarily thought: are they really not pretending? Is it really possible to seriously believe in all these fables?

Confessor. Recognition of each other's unconditional sincerity is a necessary condition for our conversation.

Unknown. Yes, yes, of course. I have mentioned this thought only to illustrate how difficult it is for me to admit the possibility of faith. So, where to start? I will start with the secondary. You are an Orthodox priest and you are convinced that you know the truth. According to your truth, God is threefold in persons and one in essence. You believe in this God and consider any other faith to be a delusion. If I were to go from you to the mullah, he would speak to me about his one Allah and would also claim to know the truth, and he would consider your Trinitarian God to be a lie, completely inconsistent with the teachings of Mohammed. Then I would go to a Buddhist. He would tell me legends about the Buddha and assert that he alone knows the real truth. I'd come to a heathen. He would name me a few dozen of his gods and also claim to know the truth. This multitude of all kinds of religions, often excluding each other and always asserting that only they have the truth, first of all makes us doubt that there is truth in any of them. Logic is powerless in matters of faith, and subjective certainty is obviously insufficient. After all, all the representatives of these different religions have the same subjective certainty, and yet they consider only their own truth to be true. In other words, it is only in their subjective states that they recognize objective significance.

Confessor. Your doubt is like someone doubting the truth of scientific knowledge just because dozens of scientists express different views on each scientific issue. It is clear that one person is right. And for you, the "scientific truth" will be what corresponds to your understanding of this truth. Take, for example, the question of the origin of species. Has complete unanimity been achieved here? To this day, many people completely refute Darwin's theory. Many return to Lamarck. There are both neo-Lamarckians and neo-Darwinists. There are still disputes in science about this basic question of biology. However, you do not say, "Biology does not know the truth, because different scientists consider different things to be the truth."

Unknown. Yes. But there are issues in science that have been solved in the same way by everyone.

Confessor. They are also found in religion. All religions recognize the existence of God. Everyone recognizes God as the first cause of all things. Everyone recognizes the real connection of the divine power with man. Everyone recognizes that God demands the fulfillment of the moral law, everyone recognizes the invisible world except the visible, everyone recognizes life after death. Therefore, one religion excludes the other not unconditionally. There is a grain of truth in every religion. But its fullness really lies in one, in the Christian one, inasmuch as it is revealed and preserved in the Orthodox Church.

Unknown. You see, there is a new division again: since it has been revealed and preserved in the Orthodox Church. And what about the Catholics? Protestants? Anglicans? Calvinists? And what about the many sects of all kinds? Mennonites, Baptists, Quakers, Molokans, Doukhobors, Khlysts -- after all, they all consider themselves to be true Christians, and Orthodoxy seems to them a gross distortion of the Gospel. What to do? Which of you should we believe?

Confessor. No matter how many disagreements there are, the truth does not cease to be the truth. You understand this in relation to science. Understand also in relation to religion. For various reasons, many people recognize partial truth as the full truth, but the full truth exists, and when you see it, you will immediately know.

Unknown. Why doesn't everyone find out?