But if we understand "theology" literally as a conversation about God, then I am a theologian and it seems that I will be one until the end of my life. (…). God has always been and remains the object of my thinking, and in exile He even became the main object of my thinking, not as He is in Himself, for I have never seriously studied the metaphysics of God, but in His relationship with man, that is, as the God of religion. (…). Most likely, this is the desire to give a stronger logical basis to existential experience and thus to rescue this experience from a purely psychological state, raising it to a metaphysical level. Psychologically, the possible reference to God, or, in the words of K. Jaspers, the cipher of God – regardless of whether we are talking about the world or about man – does not satisfy me: a possible cipher points only to a possible God. I would humiliate myself if I worshiped only possibility. Therefore I seek an immutable indication, logically irrefutable, for an immutable indication requires also an immutable indication. I suppose that I found such an immutable reference to God as immutable in the concept of being as creation. If this concept is applied to human existence, then wide, boundless horizons open up for the study of this existence. Perhaps this analysis would have been more abstract than when I studied the Inquisitor, Job, St. Francis, or the Antichrist, but it would have been more metaphysical, logically stronger, and therefore more convincing to withstand the onslaught of criticism.

      … And I would also like to note that (...) the relationship between philosophy and theology can be understood and resolved only in the aspect of the philosophy of religion. And since in religion, in my understanding, it is not man who rises to the level of God, but God descends to the level of man (kenosis), faith also descends to the realm of knowledge, to put it concretely, to the realm of philosophy, assuming the state and mode of action of the latter. Philosophy becomes the kenosis of faith. Faced with the truth of Revelation, it is not philosophy that changes, but faith under the influence of this truth changes its character, obeying the laws of philosophical thought: Divine truth acquires the form of human truth; moreover, divine truth becomes human truth – "et verbum caro factum est" (Jn 1:14). And the more humane the propositions preached by religion become, the truer they are.

At this point I would like to conclude my introductory remarks, for what the philosopher himself said about his relationship with theology needs no addition.

     I am deeply grateful to the Secretary of Metropolitan Chrysostomos of Vilnius and Lithuania, Fr. Vitaly Karikov, for the help rendered to me as a consultant in preparing for publication the Russian translation of A. Maceina's book "The Lamb of God."

Tatyana Korneeva-Maceinienė

Antanas Maceina

     "A man's alms are like a seal with Him, and He will keep a man's good deeds as the apple of his eye" (The Book of the Wisdom of Jesus, the son of Sirach).

To the deeply revered and dear Benefactor and Friend of the Apostolic Protonotarius Prelate PRANZISKUS M.  YURASU in honor of His glorious 75th anniversary 

AUTHOR'S PREFACE

     Romano Guardini once said that "whoever dares to speak about the person and life of Jesus Christ must first of all find out what he wants and what are the limits of his desires." [8] For there is so much fullness and light in Christ that no pen is able to reveal and comprehend in the totality of all these mysteries. Even St. Ap. John, concluding his Gospel, admits that "many other things did Jesus do: but if we were to write about these things in detail, I think the world itself would not be able to contain the books that were written" (Jn 21:25). Thus, the Gospels are also only grains and reflections of that divine-human fullness that has passed through our earth, doing good, and which draws our hearts to this day.

      Many writers, from Clement of Alexandria, from his treatise Paidagogos (202), in which he portrays Christ as the Teacher of mankind, to Giovanni Papini's Storia di Cristo (1921) and Francois Mauriac's Vie de Jesus (1936), in which the soul of a new, tired and lost man seeks consolation and peace, have chosen Christ, making Him the content of their works, devoting more than one immortal page to Him. And as long as this world stands, the number of those who write about Christ will multiply, but not one of them will be able to boast that he has said everything, leaving nothing to succeeding generations. The life of Christ leads to the will of the Heavenly Father, to divine freedom, where causes, connections, foundations disappear and impenetrable darkness begins. The teaching of Christ, acting in the created, leads to divine existence, to the boundless love between the Creator and the creature, which binds them closely, and ends with a mystery that cannot be solved. The person of Christ leads to the inner relationship of the Holy Spirit. In them finds the final resolution, incomprehensible to the human mind. No one can go all the way to the end with Christ. Therefore, everyone must know where he should stop, interrupting his thoughts.