For the topic of the relationship between the divine and the human, the mystic is very difficult. A certain type of mysticism has a bias towards monism, towards the recognition of only one nature, towards the extinction of human nature in the Godhead. Such is all quietism. For the dialectics of God-manhood, Jansenism is interesting. A classic example of mystical monism is found in the religious philosophy of India. Such is the religious philosophy of Shankara, for whom our soul – Brahman, the One, Sat – is opposed to all origin and becoming. [21] Aurobindo, the most remarkable of India's modern religious philosophers, teaches that we must abandon the idea that we are the authors of our actions, that the universal acts through our personality. Impersonality is a condition of union with the Divine, it is necessary to attain impersonality and indifference. [22] The soul is a particle of the Divine.

Mysticism is often accused of deviating towards pantheism, and this is often abused. This is due to a lack of understanding of the language of mysticism. But it must be said that when pantheism really exists, it is not so much a heresy about God as a heresy about man, a belittling of the significance of man, a belittling of the role of human freedom and human creativity. The fate of European humanism, its internal drama, poses a completely new religious theme. This is the theme of God-manhood.

For the dialectic of the divine and the human, the fate of German mysticism and German philosophy is of great importance. In German thought, the category of fate (Schicksal) plays an enormous role. This word is constantly used in German philosophical books. Nothing of the kind can be found in French and English books. And this is no coincidence. The German people is a tragic people in its fate. This is due to the spiritual qualities of this metaphysical people and to some of their spiritual illnesses. It has become a common opinion that German thought, German mysticism, always inclines towards pantheism, that such are the qualities of the German spirit. Despite the fact that this opinion is too widespread, there is a grain of truth in it, which we will try to reveal. I would say that the fate of German thought is a drama in three acts, and the whole drama is played out on the theme of the relationship between the divine and the human. Kroner, who has written the most remarkable history of German idealist philosophy, says with enthusiasm that the metaphysical renaissance of the early nineteenth century in Germany was prophetic, messianic, eschatological. [23] And this is quite true. Such a spiritual uplift is not to be found in either French or English philosophy. In France, messianic and prophetic ideas were mainly associated with social thought. The spiritual breakdown of German thought lies in the extraordinary difficulty for it to recognize the mystery of God-manhood, the mystery of duality, in which the union of two natures takes place without their displacement. But this means difficulty in recognizing the mystery of personality. Anti-personalism is characteristic of all German idealist metaphysics, with the exception of Kant, who occupies a special place. But it must be admitted that in German thought, in German spirituality, there was a brilliant dialectic that was of great importance for the fate of European consciousness. How to describe the acts of this great drama, not only intellectual, but also spiritual?

Act I. German mysticism and Luther. German mysticism is first of all Meister Eckhardt. He was more complex than previously thought, he was not only a mystic, but also a theologian, although a greater mystic than a theologian. [24] As a theologian he is even close to Thomas Aquinas. But I am only interested in the mystic, interested in when he speaks the language of mysticism and not the language of theology, that was his genius and his significance. And so Eckhardt the mystic had an undoubted inclination towards mystical monism. His teaching was proposed to be called not pantheism, but theopantheism, but this does not change the matter much. Eckhardt stands in the line of Neoplatonic mysticism, he is related not only to Plato, but also to Hindu religious philosophy. This does not in the least doubt Eckhardt's Christianity. I do not at all think that the religious philosophy of Thomas Aquinas is more Christian than the religious philosophy of Eckhardt, who, in any case, went into the depths of spirituality, to the Innerlichkeit.

Eckhardt's deepest and most original is his idea of Gottheit, the Deity, which reveals a greater depth than the idea of God the Creator of the world, and is beyond the opposition of subject and object. God is already secondary, not primary. Gottheit can only be thought of in a completely apophatic way. Eckhardt's failure was not in the fact that he asserted perfect monism in relation to Gottheit, but in the fact that he asserted monism in the relation between man and God, i.e., he was a Monophysite. For him, the creation turns out to be insignificant, devoid of essence and value. Everything created is nothing. The very existence of man is, as it were, a sin. Here the contradiction of German thought is already revealed. The great freedom of man in his movement inward, towards spirituality, towards God, is affirmed, and at the same time the independence of human nature, the freedom of man, human freedom is denied, and mystical determinism is affirmed. R. Otto, comparing the mysticism of Shankara and Eckhardt, says that both seek salvation, existence, and for them knowledge is the path of salvation. [25] In Otto's opinion, Eckhardt's mysticism does not belong to the type of Gnostic, theosophical mysticism, like the mysticism of J. Böhme. The distinction is correctly grasped, but exaggerated, for Eckhardt has a strong metaphysical element which distinguishes it from Christian mysticism, which is concerned exclusively with the description of the soul's spiritual path to God. The theme of German mysticism is always metaphysical and cosmological.

For the existential dialectic of the divine and the human, Luther is very important, who is associated with German mysticism, although he himself cannot be called a mystic. Of particular interest is his book De servo arbitrio, directed against Erasmus. This is a very poignant book. The paradox is that in the struggle for the freedom of the Christian against the power of authority over conscience, Luther completely denies the freedom of man and affirms the exclusive action of God and God's grace in religious life. The only thing that should come from a person is faith. Only faith, which is also of grace, can save us, and this was seen by Luther as liberation from the power of authority. Man has no independence in relation to God, in relation to God there can only be faith. But at the same time, a person can be very active in the world. The traditional Catholic doctrine of free will, with the consequent good works necessary for salvation, seemed to Luther almost blasphemous, encroaching on the omnipotence and majesty of God. He denied not only free will, but also recognized human reason as the devil. He accused Catholicism of Pelagianism. Luther's doctrine of the slavery of the will was often crudely understood, and it was not at all seen what a deep and complex metaphysical dialectic flowed from it. It was difficult to foresee that in the future the German metaphysics of the early nineteenth century would emerge from this. The divine absorbs the human. This is an internal process in which the human is not violated from the outside. But the mystery of God-manhood disappears, as it disappears in Eckhardt.

The last and most interesting phenomenon of Protestantism in Europe, the dialectical theology of Karl Barth and his associates, is in the same line of rejection of God-manhood. For K. Barthes, God is everything, while man is nothing. And here we encounter a paradox in which everything turns into its opposite. K. Barthes is a dualist, not a monist, he asserts the gap between God and man, the abyss separating man from God. But if man is nothing, and God is everything, is the only reality, then this is another, disguised form of monism and even pantheism. In order for there to be no monism and pantheism, it is necessary that man should not be nothing, that there should be dignity and freedom of man in him. In the same way, Calvin was the ultimate enemy of pantheism, but paradoxically it can be said of him that he is a pantheist, because he belittles man and belittles his reality, and for him true being is only God and God is everything. So complex and intricate is the dialectic of the divine and the human, so difficult is it to contain the mystery of God-manhood. This is brilliantly revealed in the German philosophy of the nineteenth century. The only German thinker who was closest to the idea of God-manhood and God-manhood, and therefore the closest to Russian religious philosophy, was Fr. Baader. [26] But he stood aside from the main path, on which the dialectic of the divine and the human was revealed.

Act II of the drama is German idealist philosophy, the most significant phenomenon in European philosophy. What is the connection between Act II and Act I? The connection with Eckhardt was understandable, but it is not immediately possible to understand the connection with Luther. The most profound supermundane influence on German metaphysics was undoubtedly J. Böhme, but this is connected with another topic, not the one that interests me most now. Böhme is associated with all the originality of German metaphysics, its difference from Greek and medieval metaphysics, and a different understanding of the relationship between the rational and the irrational. But in the problem of the relationship between the divine and the human, in the problem of God-manhood, Boehme was much more Christian than Hegel or Fichte, less monistic. It is often said that Luther gave birth to philosophical idealism and that German philosophy flourished on the soil of Protestantism.

At first glance, there is nothing more opposite than Luther and Hegel. The first cursed reason as the devil, the second deified reason. With the first, everything comes from grace, and this is not at all favorable for metaphysical knowledge. From a more internal point of view, one can understand why the denial of reason has turned into a bold affirmation of reason. Luther was not a philosopher, he was a prophetic nature, and he could not and did not want to philosophically comprehend his curse of reason. But Luther's reason is quite different from Hegel's: Luther's reason is human, while Hegel's reason is divine, as is the reason of Fichte and all the idealists of the early nineteenth century. Hegel's reason, which is most interesting for this topic, is not Luther's reason, but Luther's grace. In Hegel it is not human reason that cognizes, but the divine reason, and everything in him comes from grace. The act of cognition, the act of religion, is performed not by the individual man, but by the universal spirit. Likewise, Fichte's "I" is not an individual or human, but a divine, universal "I." In German metaphysics of the early nineteenth century, everything is at the forefront and can fall in opposite directions. Hegel's philosophy, which was a final phenomenon, can be interpreted either as the final absorption of the divine by the human and as an expression of man's pride, or as the final absorption of the human by the divine and as the negation of the human personality. Both movements are possible from Hegel. The revolt of Dostoevsky and Kierkegaard in the name of the individual man was a revolt against Hegel, against his universal spirit, against the tyrannical domination of the universal over the individual. Hegel coined the expression: "die Religion als Selbstbewusstsein Gottes." [27] E. Hartmann, who was inspired not only by Schopenhauer, but also by Hegel, builds his religion of the spirit on this Hegelian understanding of religion and the relationship between the divine and the human. [28] German metaphysics creates a real myth that can be appealed to both optimism and pessimism. E. Hartmann interprets it pessimistically. The unconscious God, in a burst of insane will, created the grief of existence. But in man, the initially unconscious God comes to consciousness and the possibility of liberation from the sufferings of existence is revealed. [29] But even in the optimist Hegel God comes into consciousness in man, and this consciousness reaches its peak in the philosophy of Hegel himself. [30] Thus the theme posed by the most brilliant mystic of the Gnostic type, J. Böhme, was deformed. In the latter, imbued with Christianity and the Bible, from Ungrund, which precedes the existence of the world, in eternity, and not in time, the Divine Birth takes place, the Holy Spirit unfolds. A trinity that already creates the world. [31] In German metaphysics, full of motifs of the old mysticism, the ideal sequence changes. From Ungrund, from the depths of the dark unconscious, the world is created, and in this world God is created. Fichte, Hegel, and partly Schelling teach about the formation of God. The world process is God-stopping, in man God finally becomes conscious. There is both the deification of man and the negation of man. There is no purely human that is different from the divine and stands before God in the drama that is taking place. The consequences of this are clarified in Act III. The main defect of German metaphysics, a brilliant phenomenon of human thought, was its anti-personalism.

Философия Гегеля, стремившаяся к конкретности, но ее не достигавшая, подавлявшая человеческую индивидуальность, вызвала реакцию человеческого против универсального духа. Божественное было понято как выражение порабощенности человека.

III акт драмы начался с Фейербаха, мыслителя очень замечательного.[32] По Фейербаху, человек сотворил себе Бога по своему образу и подобию, отчуждая в трансцендентную сферу свою собственную высшую природу. Отчужденная природа должна быть возвращена человеку. Вера в Бога была порождением слабости и бедности человека. Сильный и богатый человек не будет нуждаться в Боге. Тайна религии антропологическая. Идея Бога заменяется идеей человека, теология переходит в антропологию. У Гегеля Бог приходит к самосознанию в человеке. У Фейербаха достаточно самосознания человека, самосознание Бога в нем есть лишь самосознание самого человека, своей собственной человеческой природы. И там есть всего одна природа. Абсолютное божественное заменяется абсолютным человеческим. Фейербах провозглашает религию человечества. Книга материалиста Фейербаха о сущности христианства написана в стиле мистических книг. Натура самого Фейербаха остается религиозной. Но обоготворение человеческого у него есть обоготворение рода, общества, а не индивидуального человека, не личности. В этом смысле его философия, не менее чем гегелевская, остается философией общего, родового, универсального, он не персоналист. Это переход от Гегеля и Фейербаха к Марксу. Фейербах – важный диалектический момент в соотношении божественного и человеческого в немецкой мысли, мысль остается монистической по своей тенденции, нет богочеловечности. Гегель воздает Богу принадлежащее человеку, Фейербах же воздает человеку принадлежащее Богу. Оба перемешивали божественное и человеческое. И не так труден был переход одного в другое. Уже Хомяков предвидел, что Гегель породит материализм. Фейербах – дитя Гегеля, как потом Маркс. В этом было свершение судьбы этой гениальной диалектики.

Дальнейший шаг был сделан Максом Штирнером и в конце Марксом в одном направлении и Ницше в другом. Макс Штирнер хочет быть более последовательным, чем Фейербах. Он отрицает реальность человека, общества и других общностей, для него реально только собственное «я», Единственный – и весь мир лишь его собственность. Его книга «Единственный и его собственность» также иногда напоминает старые немецкие мистические книги, как и «Сущность христианства» Фейербаха. Но вот что поразительно. Можно подумать, что М. Штирнер – крайний индивидуалист, что для него высшую ценность имеет индивидуально-единичное. Ничуть не бывало, в действительности он такой же антиперсоналист, как и Гегель. Совершенно ясно, что Единственный М. Штирнера не единичный человек, не человеческая личность, а псевдоним божественного. М. Штирнер, как и Фейербах, производит впечатление материалиста, но если глубже вникнуть, то Единственный носит почти мистический характер, и в книге об Единственном звучат ноты старой германской мистики, в которой зачался весь диалектический процесс мысли. Единственный есть универсум, даже не микрокосм, а макрокосм. В желании, чтобы человек обладал всей вселенной, есть что-то верное, но штирнеровская философия бессильна это обосновать.

У Карла Маркса по-другому явится божественно-универсальное и всеобщее – как социальный коллектив, как грядущее совершенное общество, в котором также может потонуть человеческая личность, как она потонула в гегелевском абсолютном духе и в штирнеровском Единственном. Истоки Маркса были гуманистические.[33] Он обличал капитализм, потому что в нем происходит отчуждение человеческой природы, дегуманизация, рабочий превращается в вещь, Verdinglichung. И он хочет вернуть рабочим их отчужденную природу. Это мысль замечательная, которая была распространением на социальную сферу идей Гегеля и Фейербаха об отчуждении. Это я называю объективацией. Но в Марксе обнаруживается один из пределов диалектики гуманизма, в котором он переходит в антигуманизм. Процесс этот имеет глубокие метафизические основы. Когда человеческое утверждается как единственное и высшее и отрицается божественное, то человеческое начинает отрицаться и подчиняться всеобщему, то Единственному Штирнера, то социальному коллективу Маркса. Всегда торжествует антиперсонализм. По-иному, но с наибольшей остротой и гениальностью это обнаруживается у Ницше, в его трагической судьбе. Ницше требует специального внимания. Прежде чем перейти к Ницше, замечу, что Киркегард, который, хотя и не немец, был связан с немецкой мыслью и немецким романтизмом, тоже испытывал затруднение в утверждении богочеловечности, т. е. двух природ. Он как будто бы отрицает человеческую природу Христа.

Жизнь Ницше была жизнью больного и слабого приват-доцента в отставке в горах Швейцарии, жизнью одинокой, без всякой деятельности, кроме писания книг. И в нем вместе с этим трепетала всемирная история, осуществлялась судьба человека более, чем у людей действия. Ницше пишет о последних вещах, о конечных судьбах. Можно было бы так определить основную тему жизни и творчества Ницше: как пережить божественное, когда Бога нет, как пережить экстаз, когда мир и человек так низки, как подняться на высокую гору, когда мир так плосок? Ницше мучился над проблемой религиозного и метафизического характера, тема Ницше была прежде всего музыкальная, в этом он типичный германец. Но его философия находилась в поразительном несоответствии с глубиной его проблематики. То была биологическая философия – скорее Lebensphilosophie, чем Existenzphilosophie, – связанная с дарвинизмом и эволюционизмом. Эсхатологическая идея сверхчеловека обосновывалась биологическим подбором. В России Ницше всегда иначе понимали, чем на Западе, у нас он был прежде всего религиозным явлением, для западных людей он был прежде всего философом культуры.