In this hostility of the theologians to the question was concealed the true meaning of the above-mentioned words of the rector – "Dear sir, you will not get along with the abbots": the word "abbot" here implied theological thinking, which, beginning with an answer, does not accept everything that begins with a question. Thus, it is logical that the seminary could not tolerate me, although it had a very positive influence on me – it was for me a school of knowledge and a school of my development. But it could not make me a theologian, that is, a man of the kind of thinking that would calm down when he received an answer. There are a lot of restless seminarians. However, most often they ask questions during breaks in classes and ask these questions not to theologians, professors, but to their fellow students. This suggests that their question is more or less a school question. Therefore, he does not torment them, and they calmly go on their way to priestly service. Meanwhile, in the one who asks the professor a question during classes, the "spiritus contradictionis – the spirit of contradiction" gradually begins to manifest itself: then he either retreats himself or is forced out of the path he has chosen. That's exactly what happened to me. In my case, the seminary authorities suspected that this twenty-year-old young man was created differently from his fellow students, and therefore was not fit to become a spiritual mentor in his priestly ministry. He who asks questions himself cannot lead another, for to lead another means to know the way, without in the least doubting the truth of this path. Bishop of Münster (later Cardinal) S. von Galen, after reading Wust's book Ungewissheit und Wagnis, Doubt and Risk (1936), said to a visiting philosopher: "I have no doubt and no risk." This is an absolutely correct definition of the spiritual structure of a spiritual father. A spiritual mentor never experiences faith as something he doubts and therefore as a risk. Otherwise he would not dare to guide the soul of another, for one can only risk one's own soul, but one must not put another's soul at risk. Those who decide to be a spiritual mentor must be sure that they are not taking risks. I have never had such confidence. For me, faith is a terrible risk.

      Therefore, my religious writings do not contain any attempt to instruct anyone spiritually. (…). In general, moral problems, which primarily concern spiritual mentors, have never particularly attracted me. Knowing that the moral norm of a person's actions is first of all his own conscience (even if he is objectively mistaken), and seeing how this norm is increasingly strengthened in the consciousness of mankind, I have always experienced ethics as a set of artificial rules that have no ontological basis and therefore do not exceed the level of "decent behavior." For the same reason, the so-called "philosophy of values" (M. Scheler, N. Hartmann) has always been alien to me, and very close to M. Heidegger, who asserted that the ascension of God to the rank of "supreme value" was the final blow that killed Him in the soul of Western man. Therefore, the path to the existence of God, which goes through the search for meaning, for the latter is necessary for man in his life and activity (cf. B. Welte. Religionsphilosophie, 1978), I consider it a false path, following which a person inevitably makes a logical leap from "must" to "eat": man needs meaning, and so he is in the form of God.

      The direction of my thinking is not instructive and therefore not theological, for a theology that is not directed toward spiritual instruction is meaningless. Today's effort to turn theology into a "science of faith" is a contradiction in itself: a science based on causal inquiry and a faith based on free self-determination are mutually exclusive. Just as there is not and cannot be a "science of freedom," so there is not and cannot be a "science of faith." Otherwise, astrology would be a science. Theology is one of the forms of spiritual instruction or one of the types of activity of the Church as the fulfillment of her messenger ministry. And if theology tries to free itself from this kind of activity, it will really turn into astrology. It never occurred to me to create such an "astrological theology".

      What, then, are my writings that deal with religious questions? – Aware of faith as a risk and therefore unfit for spiritual guidance, I have been faithful to the Christian religion represented by the Catholic Church all my life. I was not separated from this religion by my conflicts with our hierarchy both in Lithuania and in exile,[4] nor by the mistakes and sins of the hierarchy that it committed in the course of history, nor by the human imperfection of the clergy. As for the teaching of the Church, I feel surprisingly free: dogma has never served as fetters for my thoughts. I have always experienced the Church's answers to the basic questions of our existence as my own answers. It did not seem to me that these answers were imposed on me from above and therefore alien, coercive and suppressive, on the contrary, it seemed to me that they were born in myself and therefore were my own and worthy of further comprehension. I considered and still consider to be fiction the arrogant assertion of theologians that "the object of faith transcends the soul of man" (G. Sohngen). If this were really so, then who would be able to preach the faith and to whom would its content be understood? In the realm of faith, we may not know much, but we can and must understand everything that is preached to us. Otherwise, the belief will turn into a superstition, which is subject to a certain group of people who believe in the positive or negative power of this or that superstition – not to get out of bed on the left foot, not to settle in room number 13 in a hotel, to nail a horseshoe on the door in front of the entrance... None of those who speak to man and man can step over his soul. On the contrary, he must condescend to this soul and submit to its laws. And only such submission fills the speaker's speech with meaning. That is why the Church has never been afraid to put the truths of Revelation into philosophical formulations.

      Thus, it was this experience that gave rise to my religious writings. In them, I translated the answers of the Church into the cognitive plane and turned them into philosophical questions, which I myself am trying to answer. Therefore, all my writings are not subject to the theological method, which is to be based on the Holy Scriptures, the Church Fathers, theologians (especially scholastics), liturgical texts, and, finally, on the official decrees of the Church. However, this does not mean that I did not use all the above-mentioned sources in my writings. This only means that for me they only confirm the authenticity of the issue I am researching and nothing more. The question itself is investigated by the mind – this is the philosophy of Christianity in the true sense of the word, for Christianity, being a historical reality and a unity of certain attitudes, is determined by the laws of logic in the same way as any other cognitive system that requires the mind and is accessible to it: "fides quaerens intellectum is the faith that the mind seeks," as Anselm of Canterbury said in the eleventh century. After all, there is only one logic, namely human. There is no divine logic or super-logic or anti-logic. Divine Revelation was embodied in the forms of human knowledge, and the Divine Word found expression in the human word. Divine truth, embodied in human cognition, naturally falls into the realm of our thinking and becomes the object of our comprehension. Moreover, it becomes the main and primary object of our comprehension, because we have voluntarily accepted it as our own, and by it we have determined our existence. My religious writings are the comprehension of this Divine truth as my own truth and at the same time an attempt to reveal it in one aspect or another to the best of my ability. This is only my own work, which has neither an educational nor a spiritually instructive character: a philosopher does not teach or preach; He only explains.

      Here I will try to answer the question that was raised by Dr. K. Skrupskelis [5] and sounded something like this: "Can Maceina talk about God at all? Does he have enough words, phrases in which he could express God?" But it is justified to some extent. Why? Considering the metaphysics of God to be a failure and a failure not only historical but also essential, I try to speak not of who God is and how He is in Himself, as the metaphysics of God does, but of God in relation to man or of the God of religion. However, K. Skrupskelis seems to be afraid of such an approach to God. He says: "Where we begin with a person, there we end with a person. And man himself can only create an idol." That is why he asks: "When we say that God loves us, that He created us, that He is good, perfect, and powerful, we apply to God the concepts borrowed from this world. Do we not belittle God by doing so? When we say that God is love, do we not identify this love with earthly love? And when we say that He is the Creator, do we not identify Him with mechanics and sculptors? Somewhere here lies heresy, or rather the danger of idolatry."

      I try to answer these questions with the idea of God's kenosis. It is to be regretted that Dr. K. Skrupskelis did not delve into the idea of kenosis, the main idea of my philosophy of religion. And yet only this idea gives us the right to speak of God. We do not belittle God, but He Himself is diminished; We do not make God a man, but He himself becomes a man. And only when we talk about this self-diminished and incarnate God, will our conversation make sense. Scrupskelis's mockery of the advocates of natural theology (theologija naturalis), as if their God was "just like a man," which Scrupskelis picked up, does not really contain any ridicule. The kenotic God is the God Whom alone we can know, and of Whom we can really say that He is "just like man." God the Absolute is God in His transcendence, God outside of relation to man and completely inaccessible to man. Mystical hymns addressed to the Absolute not only do not express Him in the least, but in no way bring Him closer to us. Moreover, the deeper and more beautiful the mystical song, the more images and even meanings it borrows from the world. (…). This suggests that mysticism can "catch" God only on our level. Only when God assumes the state of creation and descends to its level, He becomes close to us ontologically and epistemologically accessible. If God remains in transcendence, He remains beyond any of our categories, as if He did not exist at all.

      Descending to the level of creation, God does not carry any distinguishing ways, means, or forms of action inherent only to Him: at the level of creation, God acts in exactly the same way as the creature itself acts. Otherwise, we would not even feel His action, just as we would not feel His presence. Kenosis is the only and actual state of God and His mode of action. Whoever destroys the ontology of kenosis, considering it to be only a moral idea, denies God reality, but at the same time does not elevate Him, but distances Him so far that we cannot find Him at all, even if we believe, because faith here loses the object, which for it is truth. A God locked in transcendence may be a Power, but we know nothing about Him, and therefore we cannot say to Him, "My God." Of God, who descended to our level, that is, of the kenotic God, we speak of concepts borrowed from the world, because the very existence of God in the world is not ephemeral, it is the very reality of this world, and that is why it can be expressed in our concepts. That is why we speak of God not only by analogy, but literally: anthropomorphisms and our anthropomorphisms are by no means mistakes in relation to the kenotic God, that is, the God who is "just like man." Here it is appropriate to recall the words of S. Kierkegaard, which he wrote in his diary on July 20, 1837: "We desperately fight against anthropomorphisms, forgetting that the birth of Christ is the greatest and most real anthropomorphism." About God, Who is "just like a man", and it is necessary to speak in a completely human way. No one can speak like God. In the face of the Absolute, that is, the abstract God (if only one could be before His Face), only silence, holy silence, and only silence are possible.

      That is why the metaphysics of God, which in its reasoning about God completely excludes His relationship with man, or, as in scholastic metaphysics, even consciously refutes it, is either empty talk, which says nothing about God, because nothing can be said about Him in Himself, or a hidden assumption that God is still a kenotic God, that is, God in relation to man and to the world is God self-diminished and incarnate. – And that is why it is possible to talk about Him without turning the conversation into empty talk. It may be an interesting task for the historian of philosophy to uncover this hidden assumption inherent in the scholastic metaphysics of God, for such an assumption seems to be necessarily contained in it. After all, scholasticism philosophized in the vastness of Christianity, and the Christian God is a completely kenotic God – both as the Creator and as the Savior. Therefore, although kenosis is not mentioned in the scholastic metaphysics of God, it is nevertheless hidden in its foundations as a subterranean source. Otherwise, this metaphysics would have the same value as Aristotle's. However, the development of this theme is beyond the scope of this narrative. I just want to emphasize that my efforts are not to search for God in Myself or to reason about Him as such, but to search for man's relationship with God in order to talk about Him on the basis of this relationship. God in relation to man is a kenotic God, and conversation about Him is always philosophical. This philosophical discourse on God is as effective as it can be in relation to any other reality: it expresses God only from a certain "point of view." For example, in Lithuanian, "God the Father" is by no means identical with the expression "God the Son" or "God the Holy Spirit". The first phrase is linguistically profound, Lithuanian in nature, the second and third are artificial, theologically made to justify the equality of the Persons of the Holy Trinity – "et in majestate adoratur aequalitas"[6].

      The philosophical character of my religious writings was not correctly understood either by church censors or by the majority of readers: both saw in them the teaching of the Church, so they did not use the criteria that are customary to use in evaluating philosophy.

      Those of my books that were published before the Second Vatican Council or almost immediately after it have ecclesiastical approbation. Even such books of mine as "The Grand Inquisitor" (2nd edition, 1950) and "The Drama of Job" have it, which, according to their content, did not need approbation at all, even if the censors in their decisions proceeded from very narrowly interpreted decrees of church law. However, in this case, the publisher Prelate Juras[7] needed approbation, otherwise the books would not have been published. Therefore, I had to make an effort to get it, and I got it. And yet the very receipt of approbation was peculiar, because those who gave it (the corresponding bishops appointed this or that Lithuanian clergyman as a censor) read the manuscript through the eyes of theologians, and the manuscript itself was written by a philosopher. This was the cause of the downright pointless disputes: often the censor behaved as if he had already taken the place of the pope, and could unmistakably determine and understand the meaning of this or that interpretation or this or that statement. (…).

      Poor censor! He tried to ensure that my interpretations would not only not contradict the teaching of the Church (this is the task of the censor), but would also find an appropriate expression characteristic of a theologically thinking person and would not violate the theological tradition. It never occurred to any of the censors that Revelation for a believing philosopher could only be a refutation and never an affirmative prescription. Revelation is affirmative only for the theologian, because it gives him an answer. Yet it only warns the philosopher if the conclusions he draws refute the truth of Revelation. The transfer of Revelation as an affirmative prescription to philosophy causes confusion, for under the pressure of theology philosophy becomes its handmaiden. Something similar happened in the time of Peter Damiani in the 11th century, when this "lady" (theology) demanded that the "maidservant" (philosophy) set the table as the "lady" wished. Our censors were the representatives of this "mistress". They demanded corrections, additions, omissions, clarifications, until all this became across the throat. (…). However, the disputes that arose usually ended peacefully: the censor yielded, and so did I. But the investigation itself did not benefit from this, for the censor's remarks came from above, so that the corrections, as a response to these remarks, became the impoverishment of those thoughts that caused the criticism, and nothing more! For this reason, I consider the establishment of the limits of approbation (excluding the Holy Scriptures, prayer books...) after the Second Vatican Council to be one of the most important achievements of this Council. Since 1970, my books no longer need church approbation: this bear's paw was removed, however, only from lay authors.

      However, it was not only the censors who tried to find the teaching of the Church in my writings, but also many readers. And when they did not find it, they were angry to the depths of their souls. (…).

      So what is my relationship with theology? – If theology is understood traditionally, as a kind of messenger activity of the Church in the field of knowledge (a systematized exposition of doctrine), because only such a theology makes sense, then I am not a theologian and have never been one. Conflicts with the hierarchy, disputes with the censors of my works, with reviewers always revolved around the question of whether I had sinned against the teaching of the Church by interpreting this or that phenomenon. Many people thought that yes, but I myself did not. Accusations of heresy were the most painful for me – in this respect I have always been and remain extremely vulnerable. No one has ever apologized to me for the injustice of such accusations, because this is not characteristic of representatives of the Church at all. They can forget about the accusations thrown – "de memoria delere: erase from memory" (recall the excommunists of 1054 in the Eastern Church), but not remove them. Thus, over time, it was "forgotten" that I was a "born heretic", a "Freemason", a "second Luther"... Only my heart is not yet so petrified that I forget about it. However, in the light of the twilight of my life, I am beginning to understand what the temptation of the answer means. It means to have an answer to one question and assume that you have an answer to everything. I am also beginning to understand the request in the Lord's Prayer – "lead us not into temptation" (by the way, Nashitheologists "corrected" this request as well, because it did not sound orthodox enough to them!). And this request means – do not give me, Lord, such a service for which I am not suitable.