The philosopher, theologian, and pastor is most interested in the ideal, spiritual side of man. And on this side lie all those intractable knots that make up the inner mystery of man. Let's try to outline at least some of the most important ones.

1. Personality. In this sphere, the Christian religion has given the fullest revelation of the unique principle inherent in man, which is different from any other man. The identity was not revealed in the ancient pagan world. Hellenic thought, which rose to the heights of philosophical consciousness, did not even find expression for the individual, which was especially acute during the period of theological disputes that were conducted around the Trinitarian and Christological dogmas. Christianity established the divine origin of the person. The Trinitarian controversy provided a theological foundation for the human face by realizing the Person, the Hypostasis, in the Godhead. The Greek language, in the writings of its higher philosophical minds, Plato and Plotinus, was satisfied with the pronoun ekastos, "each," characterizing it as a member of the ekastos, i.e., thus giving it a strict individuality. Only theology, the concept of "hypostasis" as an independent "being in itself," was able to fill the void in language which in modern vocabulary is replaced by the word "person." It is not only the "individual," as a part of the species, as a product of the biological birth process, as something mortal, as a number of the naturalistic series, not as a whole. quite repeatable. Personality is the imprint of the Divine Person, a creation of God, and not at all the offspring of the race. Personality is spiritual and belongs to the spiritual world first of all. This is the supreme value of spiritual existence.

To all these differences between the individual and the personality, so vividly realized in Berdyaev's philosophy, must be added his remark that "man is not a fractional part of the world, he contains the whole riddle and solution of the world" (On the Purpose of Man, p. The human person is not a product of society, or of the natural world, or even of the clan and family. In a spiritual sense, every human being is a direct creation of God. That is why man does not depend in his origin on the whole, on the race or the world. The human spirit is higher and broader, and most importantly, more primordial than the species, society, and the world. It is not these fellowships that have given birth to the spirit of man, and therefore this spirit is not a part of this race, society, and world. On the contrary, he embraces them, accepts them or rejects them. The genus and society are composed of human individuals, but the spirit of man, his personality, is not an integral part of this genus and society. The human spirit may depend on them as much as it pleases, but it is by no means the property of these social organisms and not their slave. The individual is above society, more primary, more important than it. In addition, no person is unique and cannot be replaced by another "same" person. There is no such thing as the "same" person. There are "the same" impressions, prints, serial numbers, as the products of some machine, but every person, no matter how many billions of them the historical process generates, is the only one. A pastor must know all this, take it into account, and always remember it.

2. Freedom. And in this quality of his, man reflects his divine origin. In man there is a glimpse of divine freedom. Inasmuch as all other beings, being part of species, genera, families, societies, herds, packs, etc., obey, whether they like it or not, the laws of nature by which these groups are constituted and live; A person may want to rebel against these laws of natural existence (e.g., monasticism) or submit to them more or less unquestioningly. It is always given to man, by virtue of his divine origin and the reflection of the divine freedom in him, not to accept this nature and its laws. A person may not go along with society and the tribe, he may oppose himself to it in a way that neither bees, nor ants, nor other animals can do. But in speaking of human freedom, it must first of all be clearly remembered that theology does not speak of the political freedom which the tribunes of the people advocate and which lives in the dreams of the young rebel in the period of his "storm and impulses." Its aim is not social or political independence, but the liberation of the human spirit from all that degrades it and deprives it of its divine foundation. This freedom is not arbitrariness, which the anarchist and rebel dreams of, it is not arbitrariness, but the liberation of one's spirit from that which can humiliate its primacy and replace its primacy from other, non-spiritual values. This freedom is not subject to the power of evil, sin, worldly or other temptations, but it is also freedom from the absolute power of the tribe and society over the religious independence of man. The primacy of freedom is perhaps the most deeply rooted feeling in man, but at the same time it is the most paradoxical.

A) In the first place, man may have no conception of freedom at all, for this concept is a rather complex product of the development of thought, but he cannot be without the consciousness of freedom, because in fact he acts only in the name of this consciousness.

B) In addition, no matter how unconditional the primacy of freedom over everything else in man is (the sense of kin, family, society, etc.), this freedom is given to man by force. A person is not asked at birth whether he wishes to be born a free spirit, or a slave, or a part of a herd, herd, beehive, etc. Our freedom is given to us without our free will. This may be the greatest paradox of freedom.

(B) Freedom, however much all those who dream of it may desire to acquire it as soon as possible, is at the same time such a great burden, because it is always connected with the consciousness of responsibility, that man easily renounces it. Dostoevsky understood this, and the subtle inquisitors of souls, who love to shepherd through the "dictatorship of conscience," which can easily be called eldership, although it has nothing in common with real eldership. And this is what the pastor must know and understand.

3. The moral dignity of man is also one of the problems of Christian anthropology, which is not subject to any simplification, however tempting these simplifications may be for many. In man, as in the image and likeness of God, there is a striving for holiness and purity, but at the same time all life experience teaches us that it is impossible to attain this ideal. There is a longing for our heavenly homeland, a longing for a lost paradise, but at the same time there is a heavy burden in us that drags us to the valley. Nobody is better than ap. Paul, in Romans 7, did not express this in his teaching on the two laws, the law of the mind and the law of the flesh in us. His words, which constantly rebuke us, are the experience of life, not only of himself, but of all mankind, striving for the realization of the law of the mind: "I do not what I will, but what I hate, I do."

It is to the overcoming of this antinomy of the two laws and to the realization of the ideal of moral purity that all Christian asceticism strives. But here both the ordinary layman or monk and the pastor, their leader, are faced with the same dangerous pitfalls. Asceticism should not be reduced to something only negative. This means that if monasticism can be recognized as the highest moral aspiration of the Christian spirit (which does not at all mean that monks are always ideal Christians), then this aspiration has protected itself with three well-known precepts of monastic life: non-acquisitiveness, obedience, and abstinence. This means not to have one's own property, not to marry, and not to indulge in the pleasures of the body at all, and not to have a will of one's own. But these three "don'ts" cannot really be regarded as the ideal for all Christians of spiritual activity, since they in themselves require only not-doing. This applies only to the first part of the psalm, "Turn away from evil," but ignores the second, "And do good." Man is called to do good, and this good is not only the creation of moral values alone. Man is commanded to be a creator who bears the image of the Creator who created him. And so, this Creator must here on earth, in obedience to his Creator and Creator, produce and create all kinds of good, both in the realm of moral virtues and in the spiritual, intellectual, artistic, scientific, etc. This is how the most thoughtful theologians among the writers of antiquity looked at the words of the Bible "in the image and likeness": St. Gregory of Nyssa, St. Gregory of Nyssa, St. Gregory of Nyssa, St. Gregory of Nyssa, St. Gregory of Nyssa, St. Gregory of Nyssa, St. Gregory of Nyssa, St. Gregory of Ny Theodorite, Basil of Seleucia, venerable Anastasius of Sinai, St. Photius of Constantinople, St. John of Damascus, Venerable Gregory Palamas.

Man must do good, not just refrain from not doing evil. In his activity, man rises above ordinary imitation. In the field of this creativity, the pastor must be especially wise and thoughtful, since in this he has the richest educational and healing means in his pastoral nourishment of souls.

In the creative instinct inherent in man, a sure weapon can be found in the struggle against many temptations. Man's innate powers of creativity can be used for evil and lead him to misuse them, but they can also prove to be a salutary means for transfiguring one's bad instincts and impulses aimed at the base. The "sublimation" of the forces resting within us, of which modern psychoanalysis is aware, is particularly applicable here. And here the pastor can awaken the spirit of the creator and artist in a person, a slave of passions and vices, and save him from despondency and hopelessness.

Plotinus said in antiquity: "But man is not really harmony," and this must be understood first of all by the shepherd who wishes to shepherd his flock wisely and save it from all modern dangers and paradoxes. Man cannot be defined as a sinner or a righteous person, since there is much in this mysterious hieroglyph that goes beyond the boundaries of moral theology, but requires thoughtful Christian moral psychoanalysis.

On Pastoral Ministry in General

What has been rendered in the previous chapter is the ideological justification for pastoral ministry. Let us briefly recall these prerequisites for pastoral care, which does not take place in the wilderness, but in the world and among people.