II. Вера и разум

1. Значение веры в познании мира и человека

Мы изложили в основных чертах христианское учение о мире и человеке, учение, опирающееся на данные Откровения, т. е. являющееся предметом веры. Но на изучение и познание мира и человека претендуют другие силы нашего духа — наш разум, наш опыт. Наблюдение и эксперимент при поддержке разума стремятся познать природу,— и огромные завоевания науки, чрезвычайное развитие техники не свидетельствуют ли красноречиво о том, что именно разум и опыт компетентны в познании природы? Есть ли при этом место для нашей веры, не следует ли связывать веру только с религиозными темами, т. е. с миром невидимым, с горним миром, с Богом? Имеет ли христианство основания развивать свое учение о мире и человеке? Не лучше ли было разграничить область веры и область знания, усвояя вере способность проникать в то, что находится над миром, в сферу вечного и абсолютного бытия,— а познание природы и человека всецело предоставить разуму, опирающемуся на опыт? При такой постановке вопроса не было бы и надобности сопоставлять христианское и внехристианское учение о природе, о человеке... Чтобы разобраться в этом, надо поставить общий вопрос о соотношении веры и разума.

Начнем с того, что самые основы современного знания выросли как раз из христианства. В античном мире, за редкими исключениями, признавали в бытии разные «сферы» — тогда не было ясного сознания единства бытия,— и только христианство с его учением о Боге, как Творце всякого бытия, окончательно укрепило учение о единстве бытия. Отсюда и развилась идея о всеобщем значении принципа причинности, что и определило весь строй современного научного знания. История естествознания говорит нам действительно о постоянном воздействии религиозных и философских идей на развитие науки; научное сознание никогда (т. е. до XIX в.) не отделяло себя от религиозных идей, т. е. от данных веры. Таково свидетельство истории[182],— и этого не могут ослабить случаи преследования деятелей науки со стороны церковных властей, что имело место только в Западной Европе[183]. Конфликт между религией и наукой давно в этом смысле угас, и западное христианство давно признало свои ошибки: сейчас никто и нигде во имя христианства не думает ограничивать права разума и опыта в изучении природы.

2. Оценка разума в христианстве

Entering into the study of the correlation between faith and reason in their essence, let us first of all point out that Christianity values reason so highly that it can be called the "religion of reason": the Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, is called in the Gospel (John, chapter 1, verse 1) "Logos", and "Logos" means both "word" and "reason". Thus, in the troparion for the feast of the Nativity of Christ, the Church sings: "Thy Nativity, O Christ our God, shine forth to the world the light of reason." There is nothing unreasonable in Christianity, and there can be nothing unreasonable, although its truths surpass our reason: they are super-rational, but not unreasonable. But Christianity forcefully raises another question, that of the limits of our reason. This question has become particularly acute since the time when rationalism developed in philosophy (beginning in the seventeenth century) with its claim to the "autonomy of reason," with its self-confident assertion that our reason is the supreme authority not only in the field of knowledge, but also in the field of faith. We are already talking about the fact that modern culture has developed along the lines of secularism, i.e., in isolation from the Church. This was precisely related to the above-mentioned claims of reason, and that is why it is important to understand the limits of reason.

3. The limitations of our mind

Already in the study of nature we often come across what can be called "irrational" or "extra-rational". Goethe wittily remarked that "nature is not completely divided into reason," i.e., that in the rationalization of natural phenomena there is always a "remainder" that does not lend itself to rationalization. There are many examples of this: suffice it to point out those trends in modern physics that speak of the well-known "indeterminism," i.e., of deviations from the principle of strict causality in so-called microphysics (in intraatomic motions). However, we will not dwell on this fact in view of the fact that these latest trends in microphysics are quite often objected to. Let us point out another, already absolutely indisputable fact, which testifies to the impossibility of rationalizing all phenomena in nature—I mean the beginning of individualization in nature. In addition to the fact that in living organisms each individual lives "for himself," possesses, as they say, an "instinct of self-preservation," struggles for his being, i.e., asserts his individuality, the beginning of individualization is even more clearly manifested in the sphere of chemistry, in the qualitative heterogeneity of chemical elements (hydrogen, oxygen, etc.). Matter is qualitatively heterogeneous, it is grouped into "chemical individualities" [185] that have completely different physical and chemical properties (hydrogen burns but does not sustain combustion, oxygen sustains combustion but does not burn, and so on). All this cannot be rationalized; Our mind simply accepts this as an initial fact, studies the various ratios of chemical elements (the famous "periodic table of elements"), but cannot rationally reveal and interpret the very "beginning of individualization" in nature.

But the limitations of our reason appear with particular clarity not in relation to pre-human nature, but in relation to man. There is a great deal of non-rational knowledge in man, i.e., knowledge that is not determined by our reason and does not depend on it, but at the same time is real knowledge that is of great importance in our life. This includes everything that our heart, our feelings, and intuition tell us. Pascal wonderfully expressed this in the words: "Le coeur a ses raisons que la raison ne connait pas" (loosely translated: "The heart gives us knowledge, the foundations of which our reason knows nothing"). In our life, this "knowledge of the heart" (sometimes erroneous, just as the conclusions of our reason are erroneous) occupies an absolutely exceptional place, and we are guided by it for the most part in the most important cases of our life. When we try to rely on our reason in such cases, it is then that it is clear to us how "short-sighted" our reason is, how great its limitations are. When it comes to that which is above our being, "on the other side," then reason is either simply silent or prompts us to irrational things (as the Psalmist says: "When a fool speaks, there is no God").

We must recognize the fact of the dichotomy of the cognitive power in man: next to the mind and its ideas stands the heart with its illuminations, in which the deepest truth can be revealed to us. But apart from the fact of the dichotomy of the cognitive power in man into mind and heart, reason itself, as we have pointed out, is limited even where it could be competent. Here it is appropriate to recall the brilliant discovery by Kant (the famous German philosopher of the second half of the seventeenth century) of the so-called "antinomies" of reason. The antinomies of reason are those contradictory judgments which confront us with equal irresistibility: each member of the antinomies excludes, however, the other which is connected with it. The very content of antinomies, as quoted by Kant (for example, "the world is finite" and "the world is infinite", "the world has a beginning" and "the world has no beginning") has more than once aroused many objections, but the existence of antinomies in our reason cannot be disputed.