Lev Karsavin about the beginnings

(The Experience of Christian Metaphysics)

CHAPTER ONE

IN WHICH, AFTER A BRIEF INTRODUCTION, THE NATURE OF THE RELIGIOUS ACT IS EXAMINED, AND IN CONNECTION WITH IT, THE CONCEPTS OF ALL-UNITY, DIVINITY AND GOD-MANHOOD, THEOPHANY, CREATION, DEIFICATION, AND FREEDOM IN GOD AND IN CREATION ARE PRELIMINARILY CLARIFIED

1. There are two ways of knowing God. One is direct and active faith, which accepts the Truth without doubt or hesitation, in a childish way; the other is the path of painful searches and doubts, often flaring up into the unquenchable flame of a skeptical "epoche". Doubt is a dark fire, a monotonous silence of languorous vegetation and darkness, only from time to time pierced by the light of the indubitable Truth, which, however, exists precisely by it, for the source of doubt is in the indubitable and the thirst for it. True faith is active. But doubt is also expressed in activity. It boldly tests the Truth with sin, or languishes and burns without burning in its own icy cold.

Someone is moaning in the darkness and cold, screaming in unbearable pain, calling for you. How about you... you do not hear; or you hear, but you don't want to hear, you go further so as not to hear... Now you only remember the screaming and try to forget about it. And you hurriedly slammed your door, as if you did not think whether silent hands were stretched out on your threshold. You are warm and light, although your light is dim and you are not warm for long. You are "doing your job". And instead of a heart, you have a piece of ice that and burns... So no one will hear you when you scream in pain and loneliness, when your hands stretched out in silent supplication tremble..." You are "doing your job"... As if you have a business that would not concern others, as if the torment of others is not your business!

The believer is happier than the one who seeks the Truth in the pangs of doubt. But it is impossible to say which of them is better and which is more righteous before God. "Everyone has their own path and their own task; and one completes the other. How will he who believes doubt, or how will he who doubts? And he who is stung by doubt should not stifle it in himself, should not close his eyes, but should doubt it to the end, not resting in indifferent skepticism and not hypocrisy before himself and God. God does not need hypocritical and forced faith. God wants His free sons to come to Him, one with his free faith, the other with his free doubt. And God's Truth is complete only if it is accepted by all, accepted by childlike faith and through the furnace of doubt. It is necessary to assert the right and duty of doubt fearlessly and with all one's will. It is necessary to doubt to the end. And when a person, having come to God through doubts, ceases to doubt and seek, but rests on external faith in external authority, he betrays himself and God, becomes a lazy and cunning slave. God called him to be a son.

The path of doubt is the path of knowledge, the goal of which is the indubitable. However, under the guise of pious doubt, it is often asserted that it is impossible to comprehend the Divinity, even imperfectly and approximately. With imaginary and selfish profundity, they proclaim: "As limited and relative beings, we cannot think of the Infinite and the Absolute."

Every act of our thought refutes the objection just quoted, and it refutes itself. As you can't say:

"Do not love God," just as you cannot say: "Do not know Him." No prohibitions or advice are valid, being themselves already a certain knowledge of God. Of course, our opponents will first of all accuse us of satanic pride. But we will return this accusation to them. "Isn't it pride to try to put fetters on man and God?" On the other hand, their assertion is false in its very essence. It rests on the preconceived and unwarranted assumption that we are only limited, relative beings. But how do we know this, and how can it be proven at all? How can "only a limited being" say something about God, even affirm His incomprehensibility? For to say that God is unknowable is to say something about Him, and at any rate to go beyond one's limitations.

In trying to approach the Truth, we reject all preconceived hypotheses, and in particular deny that we are only limited beings. We strive to assert ourselves in our Christian self-consciousness, in the self-consciousness of the sons of the sons of B. We do not dream of a knowledge of God that is in any way equal to God's Self-consciousness; and we do not think to deny that we are sinful and prodigal sons. We hope only to approach the Abyss of Incomprehensibility and only to begin an endless immersion in it, which has no end on earth, and no end in heaven, until God Himself completes us to His Fullness. We believe that Christ, having accepted the limitations of the world, overcame it, that we can become His true brothers, and that the Kingdom of God grows within us. Christ overcomes the limitations of the world in us as well. That is why we are aware of it and can move forward endlessly in overcoming it, nowhere and without encountering an absolutely insurmountable limit. True, in our sinful-empirical existence we are not able to exhaust infinity. We believe that it is inexhaustible in general and always, but in such a way that in perfect God's existence, while remaining inexhaustible, it is somehow and completely accessible to us. Even here, on earth, through faith and hope in Christ Jesus, we are already transfigured, we are already entering our innermost place, into the Kingdom of God. The earth is already connecting with the sky, it is already miraculous.

2. Defending the significance of the knowledge of God, the right and religious duty to know God, from those who are gifted with faith, but do not understand the possibility of doubts, and even more so from those who are fearful and hypocritically humble, we defend the knowledge of God that is rationally expressible and partly rationally provable. Here we are confronted with the now fashionable references to the "irrationality" and incomprehensibility of the Divine, to a special "spiritual experience" and mysticism. In fact, mystics constantly speak of the "incomprehensibility" and "ineffability" of what they experience. However, these words are a peculiar way of cognition and expression. To say: "It is ineffable" means to somehow delineate, to define the sphere of what is being said, to point to the "inexpressible". In addition, in the mystics themselves, the words "inexpressible," "ineffable," "ineffable," "incomprehensible," etc., appear as the completion of other, positive, and meaningful words, after much has already been "said" about the "ineffable." With all these words, mystics only "exalt" their statements, removing their definiteness and limitation. If what the mystic sees were absolutely incomprehensible, he would comprehend nothing and say nothing, and we would understand nothing in his words. In speaking of the "ineffable," the mystic is far from considering his speech to be empty idle talk, although he is aware of all the imperfection of his definitions, of all the discrepancy between them and what he is trying to define with their help, although it seems to him that he is not talking about God, but is uttering blasphemy against God. And we, for better or worse, understand the mystics, understand their "revelations," and evaluate them in different ways.

It is very common to identify mystical experience with one of its types, "emotional mysticism." And this limiting identification partly explains the exaggerated estimation of ineffability. In fact, feelings, activity, and cognition can be mystical. And, of course, we must talk about the mystical experience of Plotinus, Eriugena, Nicholas of Cusa, Baader, Schelling, Hegel. However, many mystics are not able and are not able to bring others closer to what they see and experience with the help of rational concepts and techniques. Many mystics are able to designate what they perceive only figuratively, symbolically, or only by emotional quality. But (regardless of the value of what is comprehended, which in all forms of mysticism can be very different) this is not a virtue, but a defect. J. B e m e is a genius not because of his incomprehensibility, but in spite of his incomprehensibility.