"Цель и смысл жизни" М. М. Тареев. Тареев - один из представителей Русского религиозного Ренессанса. Более всего он заострял внимание на противостоянии Евангелия и мира сего, на юродстве и кенозисе. Сейчас многие говорят, что Тареев предвосхитил К. Барта, философию жизни, экзистенциализм.

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ЧАСТЬ I. Счастье и совершенство в отношении к цели жизни

ГЛАВА ПЕРВАЯ (вводная). Основное внутреннее противоречие жизни

By nature, man is characterized by two basic strivings: first, the striving for personal happiness and external perfection, and, second, the striving for the heavenly, for union with the Divine, the striving to manifest the divine content in one's life.

In what relation are these two strivings to each other?

The initial possibility here seems to be the possibility of uniting them in their immediately given character. Since both of these tendencies are inherent in man by nature, this union of them is psychologically natural, and therefore the natural man, in the biblical sense of the word, i.e. who lives not by grace, but by nature (secundum naturam suam vivere),a expects happiness and external perfection from religion, and considers the divine in that which is self-satisfied and outwardly perfect.

This religious mood is characteristic of paganism in all its strength, but it is revealed more or less clearly in us, since the "old" man is preserved in the Christian as well.

Among the pagans, who stand at the lower stages of development, this mood is revealed in a naïve form. All happiness and success, even in such matters as are entirely accessible to the natural powers of man, and depend on his own diligence, knowledge, and dexterity, he expects from the gods, from their favor, which he tries to earn by sacrifice. Cultured people know how to appreciate their own strength, and they expect from religion that which exceeds their strength—serene peace and infinite perfection. Such a religious mood of a cultured person can be traced in Zola's novel "Doctor Pascal". The most learned Dr. Pascal believed in human powers, and especially in the power of reason, in science. He thought and firmly hoped that with the help of science he would succeed in regenerating mankind and relieving it of the sufferings with which it was now oppressed. But the aspirations of his niece, Clotilde, were boundless, at any rate they went beyond the means at the disposal of science; Therefore, it turned away from science and began to seek their satisfaction in religion, in Catholicism. Clotilde had long observed her uncle's hopes and the real successes of science; the results to which these observations led her, she frankly expressed to Dr. Pascal. "The years go by," she said to her uncle, "and the sky still does not open up to people. The truth that you want to grasp through your research is moving further and further away from you. You propose to wait and wait, perhaps, for tens of centuries. I don't want to wait. I want to know everything immediately and be happy. Notice that I need to know everything at once, and that I want to be blissful and happy forever! You see, it is precisely this that torments me with the impossibility of rising at once to all-embracing knowledge and resting in the bosom of perfect bliss, unclouded by any doubts or reproaches of conscience. Is it life when you move at a snail's pace in the darkness and cannot enjoy the cheerful hour without shuddering at the thought of the grief ahead? No, no, give me omniscience and happiness at once! Science has promised us this, and if it cannot fulfill its promise, it must be declared untenable." In this conscious striving for the ideal of infinite perfection and happiness and the expectation of these blessings from religion, Clotilde was supported by Catholic preachers...

II

Can such a unification of the basic spiritual strivings in their immediately given character be recognized as solid and reasonable?

No, you cannot. First of all, this question must be answered in the negative, because this unification is not justified by reality. The fact is that religion is not accompanied by a change in the external conditions of human life, does not bring a person external happiness and visible perfection, does not eliminate suffering and humiliation from his life. A vivid expression of this character of the reality of religious life is the suffering and humiliation of the righteous. Man is not freed from the suffering and humiliation of life to the extent of his righteousness and moral innocence. The righteous suffer in common calamities together with sinners. "To all," writes the biblical sage, "and to all is the same: the same fate for the righteous and the wicked, the good and the evil, the pure and the impure, the sacrificer and the unsacrificing, the virtuous and the sinner, both the swearer and the fearful of the oath. And this is evil in all that is done under the sun, that there is one fate for all" (Eccl. IX, 2,3). But this is not enough. Not only do the innocent and the righteous suffer together with those responsible for the common calamities, but they suffer predominantly. Observations lead us to the conviction that suffering befalls the innocent and the righteous not by chance, but according to some law of both natural and human life—the innocent and the righteous suffer inevitably. In the depths of natural life, "does not that in which the features of innocence are more visible suffer? The lamb trembles at the wolf, the meek bird at the predatory"... In the sphere of human history, this law is incomparably more noticeable. We are equally convinced of this by the testimony of the Holy Scriptures and church writers, as well as by secular thinkers and observers of human life. According to the words of Ap. Paul, "those of whom the whole world was not worthy, wandered in the wilderness and in the mountains, in the caves and ravines of the earth" (Heb. XI, 38). "In fact," writes St. John Chrysostom, "consider all those who have only been named in past times, and you will see that they have all acquired boldness to God through sorrows. And first, if you will, let us go to the son of the first-created, the lamb of Christ, Abel: he did no evil, and yet he suffered what the greatest sinners deserve. We endure temptations as a punishment for our sins; and that righteous man suffered for nothing else but because he was righteous and perfect, and yet he endured many, many sorrows, and grievous ones. And what else can be said about Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, the long-suffering Job, Moses, Joshua, Elijah, Samuel, David, about all the prophets who had sufferings in common, and finally, about the righteous men of the New Testament, beginning with Ap. The fact of the suffering of the righteous is beyond doubt. It is equally certain that sinners often prosper, that the sons of this world, whose interests do not go beyond material well-being, are wiser than the sons of light in their kind, and material happiness and outward glory are on their side. "Everything in the world," writes I.S. Turgenev, "good and bad, is given to a person not according to his merits, but as a result of some laws that I do not even dare to point out"... The sufferings of the righteous, in contrast to the well-being of the wicked, have troubled the human mind since ancient times. "Behold, these wicked ones prosper in this world, multiply riches. And I said, Have I not cleansed my heart in vain, and washed my hands in innocence, and subjected myself to wounds all day long, and chastisement every morning?" (Psalm. LXXII, 13,14).