Познание, мораль и политика = Cognition, morality and policy. Учебное пособие

are disclosed as Revelation; this is a tree with three branches: religion, philosophy, and art. They are united by the phenomenon of the spiritual that, however, is manifested in three different ways, based on various intrinsic forces of the person, his abilities, and his potentialities.

Strictly speaking, the phenomenon of the spiritual is not the property of culture in the sense that it is culture that arises on the basis of spiritual acts. From the spiritual, the cultural is created. In culture, the movement of the spiritual is objectified. Culture alone is capable of preventing the degradation of a person to a barbarous condition, and even then it is not always within its power. A person who has tasted the spiritual is always in opposition to prevailing views, whether he be a philosopher or a religious reformer, an art worker or a mystic. Culture lives on spiritual acts which, without culture, would be incomprehensible and useless. But, after having generated settled, objectified knowledge, culture can become hostile to any appearance of really spiritual creativity – a creativity which challenges established traditions and outlooks. However, at the same time there is also a way back – from a spirituality objectified in culture towards the spiritual as such.

Nietzsche is the best representative of one who struggled with a culture, with settled spiritual values. He alone has stepped up to struggle, face to face, against the might of a longestablished thousand-year culture, but, eventually, it destroyed him. Gains of the spirit are not given to a person as a gift; one must pay in blood. F.M. Dostoevsky has shown very well the animosity of culture to any real display of the spiritual in the novel The Brothers Karamazov (especially in the tale of the Grand Inquisitor, where the established religious image became more important than its original source). The spiritual is always unknown, and it demands from a person his total self – the willingness to risk, struggle, and rebel.

The phenomenon of the spiritual, when present as a process of selfcognition during which the essence of a person is de-

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veloped, manifests itself in the increasing degree of the humanizing of the person. Basic moral precepts arise as revelations in the deep experience of self-knowledge. And this means that spiritual knowledge is directly connected to morals. Spiritual knowledge develops humanity in a person, because it can come to light only through its own efforts. In this connection, Heidegger wrote: «The humanity of a person ... is based in his essence». And further: the «non-humane», «not humanistic» is the person «who has broken away from his essence» (M. Heidegger)1. 8 From this it is possible to draw the conclusion that a person in his essence, by his spiritual nature, is good-natured and that he becomes malicious only when he forgets himself, deviating from his essence. Out of such forgetfulness by the person himself, grows the spiritual crisis of humankind – the loss of humanity by a person, the loss of humanism, and the loss of his own countenance. Heidegger writes: «It starts to seem to the person that now only he appears everywhere, while actually he does not meet with himself anywhere». A person‘s essence is hidden from himself both by technology and by his own notspiritualized sensuality. From spiritual knowledge also grows true humanism, which is the intrinsic characteristic of the spiritual phenomenon. Heidegger, examining the ontological roots of humanism, thinks of it as the humanity of a human being which has an affinity with being.

Persons find freedom and dignity in spiritual creativity. Spiritual acts give rise to real values, social and juridical rules, and morals. The person, being an extremely versatile essence, nevertheless is compelled to make his way to the integrity of spiritual knowledge through the absolutization of one of his intrinsic forces. As a result, there appear various spheres of demonstration of the spiritual that, despite their intrinsic unity, are inconsistent: reason may be opposed to belief, and mind to feel-

1 Problems of the Person in Western Philosophy. Moscow, 1988, pp. 318–

319.

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ing – but these contradictions stimulate spiritual development, and humanity along the way of the creation of the complete person.

In ordinary consciousness, the spiritual is frequently identified with ethics and moral norms that do not correspond to the truth. As we have seen, however, the spiritual knowledge that arises from the disclosing of the essence of a person is a way of finding humanity. Morals are essentially connected with the spiritual. Morals are moral only then when they are born from the depths of the spiritual, instead of being postulated from the outside and prevailing over a person. Morals, having their basis in the spiritual, are based not so much on the law, but on blessedness, from which the laws derive. Spiritual love is the supreme legislator and entails a duty.

Basic moral precepts, then, arise as revelations from within the depth of the experience of self-cognition. So, for example, the precept “Don’t kill!” has been known for thousands of years, even though wars continue and many countries include the death sentence in their legal codes. All this reminds us of the spiritual level of the person who does not understand that the life of any person is beyond price, and that nobody has the moral right to take it away. It is not well understood that evil cannot overcome evil, but only goodness is capable of transforming it. Lev Tolstoy‘s sermon of non-resistance to harm by violence was not understood even in his homeland, and Mahatma Gandhi was killed by people to whom he had devoted his life. The existence of murder, regardless of whatever «plausible excuse» it is based on, means that humanity has not yet entered the spiritual phase of its development.

After the preceding analysis of some of the intrinsic characteristics of spiritual phenomena and an explanation of some of its manifestations, for greater clearness we also need to define what is not spiritual and what it is frequently identified with by ordinary consciousness. We also need to move further to the analysis of mysticism and its relations with the phenomenon of the spiri-

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tual. This is a very challenging issue to ordinary consciousness, especially when it is not supported by the old traditions, and when we have today a huge number of all possible kinds of psychics, parapsychologists, sorcerers and preachers, many of whom characterize their activity as spiritual. Even many serious people place mysticism entirely in the area of imagination and superstition. Therefore, first of all, it is necessary to define the term.

In classical Greek, mystical means «mysterious». This term may, however, simply mean ‘what is unknown’. While the mysterious is unknown and even incomprehensible, there is nothing intrinsically unnatural in it. Mysticism always deals with the mysterious, always looks with skepticism at what is already known. This stimulates a person to search for new knowledge. New types of cultures and knowledge arise within this mystical frame, and then slowly transform to a certain rationality. Heraclites and Pythagoras were closely connected with priests and all sorts of diviners; the archetype of Christianity has been developed in the mystical philosophy of Philo Judaeus (of Alexandria), Origen, St. Gregory of Nyssa and Maximus the Confessor; Meister Eckhart’s and Jakob Boehme’s mysticism served as the catalyst of thought for German classical philosophy; and so on. Thus, it is clear that, from within a mystical shell, the spiritual itself acts – though intuitively and not in a clear shape, because it is not illuminated yet by light of consciousness. Eventually, the mystical is the root of religious views – as we have seen already in Ibn Sīnā (Avicenna). Even metaphysical philosophical categories reflect this, as first many of them are mostly postulated, and only later proved. Mysticism in a positive sense is a constant openness of a person to the unknown; this means constant inquiry and searching. In other words, we have, again, the presence and realization of a spiritual phenomenon.

But mysticism can also have other meanings. It can be understood as extrasensory perception and parapsychology, or simply as something that deals with other levels of reality. The problem, however, is not that all these things are only imagi-

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nary; perhaps they are not. It is that all this has no relation to the spiritual. In the above case, mysticism is only an expansion of usual ways of human knowledge, although in ways that are unconventional for modern culture. The problem is that spiritual knowledge is not quantitative expansion of what we know through empirical observation. It differs qualitatively from all other methods of knowledge. It is deeper. While perception of any kind, scientific or extrasensory, is distributed horizontally, the spiritual introduces a vertical dimension – not knowledge that relates only to the abilities of a person and his properties and their development, but knowledge of personhood or knowledge of essence, ego, and human nature. The spiritual person is not so much anxious about the development of his abilities or the expansion of the horizon of his knowledge, but is anxious about his essence or the perfection of his nature, i.e., moral purification. He is interested in, first of all, how to dispose of that which he already has in the proper way.

The aforesaid understanding of spiritual does not coincide with the anthropology of Ludwig Feuerbach. The latter reduced all understanding of the spiritual to love – and here, mostly the sensual rather than the spiritual. In the process of bringing the transcendental down to earth, he ignores the importance of the essence of the person to disclose itself through the process of transcendence, without which the birth of the spiritual is impossible. Love, as the strongest and deepest experience, irrespective of object at which it is directed, already comprises in itself an element of transcendence, self-rebellion and moving beyond itself. For this reason Descartes said: «my perception of ... God, is in some way prior to my Spiritual Cognition in Different Cultures perception of ... myself»1. This short phrase contains more wisdom than in all purely anthropological statements. The above statement suggests that a person is born spiritually from the supreme idea, original pattern, and transcendence, and is not purely

1 Descartes R. Selected Works. Moscow, 1950, p. 363.

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a natural being. «The pure concept» – explains Descartes in another place – «is that there is a God»1. Only as understood in this way is the person is able to engage in spiritual cognition, which creates his essence. By means of this cognition, a person pulls himself out of an animal life – like Munchausen pulled himself by his hair out of a bog. In this sense, a person has his origin either from God or from human being, depending on what conceptual system we shall select. As to traditional anthropology, Heidegger re marked, that on «such an interpretation, the person basically already knows what he is, and consequently is never able to be asked the question of what creature he is»2.

However, despite everything that has been said above, spiritual knowledge, as constructing or developing the essence of a person, should nevertheless be studied in anthropology, i.e., by the science of the human person, or, in this case, if possible, in ‘spiritual anthropology.’ The latter should not study a person as something that is unchanging or as a static concept. Even when a person thinks about himself and describes himself using the pronoun I, I is only its name and – I is nothing more than a symbol of something of infinite depth. The essence of a person is not something static; each day, the creative person is capable of recognizing himself as something other. The essence of a person is developed during the process of spiritual self-cognition that leads a person to the Person, to perfection, and to an ideal that is to open the spiritual archetype of humankind to the fullest. This process itself is the supreme kind of spiritual creativity whereby a person creates not something alien to itself or something auxiliary to his existence, but his very essence.

Up to now we have succeeded in our attempt to clear away a place for the concept of the spiritual as something different from all others. But, having done so, we inevitably gave birth to a word. Heidegger remarks that «everything that occurs in the «lo-

1Lyatker A.J. Descartes. Moscow, 1974, p. 184.

2Heidegger M. What is Metaphysics? Moscow, 1986, p. 117.

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gos» is the task of «Sophia», i.e., philosophers»1. 12 Thus we have a vicious circle. If we try to separate the problem of the spiritual from religion, philosophy, and other spheres, and start to regard it as independent, it becomes impossible to avoid logos and sophia. And if the love of an object of research – philosophy being the love of ‘sophia’ – is present, then all characteristics of philosophy remain. It seems to be ineradicable. Thus, those who break the established stereotypes and opinions about philosophy are the true philosophers. That is exactly what happened with Pascal and Kierkegaard, with Camus and Kafka. The true philosophy (re)appears as meta-philosophizing, for which there are no boundaries. Then the analysis of the problem of the spiritual becomes an attempt to express all its intrinsic manifestations in logos, and these manifestations are not limited by the sphere of traditional philosophy, but also include both ancient mysteries and the latest scientific research about persons.

The ideal of Eastern Christian anthropology can be expressed through the concept of theology2 (derived from the

Greek. – theosis – that is, characterized by the ecstatic experience of direct uniting with the Absolute). Though a historical analogue and prototype of deification can be found even in

1Heidegger M. Main Concepts of Metaphysics. «Questions of Philosophy», № 7. 1989, p. 136.

2For more on this thematic, see the following materials: Hilarion Alfeyev, St Symeon the New Theologian and Orthodox Tradition (Oxford Early Christian Studies, 2000); Life and doctrine of Saint George Theologian (Moscow, 1998); Macarius the Egyptian (the Great), Spiritual talks of Saint Trinity Sergio Monastery (1994); Mythical theology (Kiev, «Way to the truth», 1991); Gregory Palamas, Triads in Defense of the Holy Hesychasts (Moscow, 1995); I.V. Popov, The Idea of Divinity in the Ancient Eastern Church (1909); Saint Simeon the New Theologian, The deity anthem (Sergiev Posad, 1989); Kern Kiprian, The Anthropology of St Gregory Palamas (Moscow: «Palmer», 1996); G.V. Florovsky, Gregory Palamas and divinity // Dogma and history (Moscow, 1998), pp. 386–393; S.S. Horougiy, The Phenomenology of Austerity (Moscow, 1998); N. Russell, The Concept of Deification in the Early Greek Fathers (D.Phil. thesis. Oxford, 1988).

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ancient times in shamanism – in orgies and cults that aimed at removing the distance between man and the Gods (or the world of spirits) – nevertheless deification in the true sense of the word exists only when spiritual cognition comes to concept of a transcendental Personality – i.e., personalist theism.

Deification is not just a «moral» unity with something that is the utmost limit or the achievement of perfection, but an ontological unity. At the same time, it does not mean identity with God. This is impossible in personalist theistic traditions of a transcendental type. In these traditions, there is the following problem: How can one speak of the ontological deification of a man and yet retain the transcendental incomprehensibility of God? The source of the deification of a man is not his essence (nature), but is a grace of God-blessing energy. This grace of the spirit is distinct, but it is not separated from one’s essence. Thus, the presence of divinity becomes possible, despite the absolute transcendence of God. Today’s basic postulates that define deification were approved by the councils held at Constantinople of 1341 and 1351 (sometimes called by Orthodox Christians the Fifth Council of Constantinople and the Ninth Ecumenical Council), and connected with the activity of St. Gregory Palamas (1296–1359) who defended the doctrine of Hesychasm (from the Greek ἡσυχάζω or hesychazo: «to keep stillness»). In Russia, hesychasmist ideas of deification were developed by St. Sergius of Radonezh (ок. 1315–92), Nil Sorsky (St. Nilus of Sora, 1433– 1508), Blessed Paisius Velichkovsky (1722–1794), St. Seraphim of Sarov (1760–1833), the Optina monastery Elders (startzy), St. John of Kronstadt (1829–1909) and others.

Deification is the transformation of a man as a biological being into a man as a spiritual creature; it does not diminish or destroy humanity but enriches it (see J. Meyendorff). It is realized through a transcendence of real existence, and means a break with natural being and reason on the basis of religious-existential experience. At the same time, not only does the identity (personality) of the person remain, but there also occurs a fundamental

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self cognition that leads to deployment of man’s essence and revelation of a spiritual archetype of humankind. Deification not only keeps human personality intact (holism) but, for the first time at the ontological level, it establishes it – it is not just the soul but also the body that is glorified. Thus, the doctrine of deification is expressed in the anthropological ideal of Eastern Christianity which, to some extent, was the foundation for Russian philosophy – contrary to the substantiality of the I, by Kant and Hume, based on a metaphysic of faith; contrary to personalization in Hegel; and different from the account of the origin of personality in Feuerbach.

The spiritual phenomenon can also be defined through the concept of transformation. The spiritual comes to exist when a certain essence is transformed in the Person. Further, this process can acquire its own symbols and terms, depending on how it is accomplished: through religious, philosophical, or other creative materials. But in its essence, the spiritual act is only spiritual. When asking a question about the spiritual, we inevitably find ourselves involved in a thousand-year cultural tradition. To reach spiritual knowledge, a person requires some levers which would enable him to release him from himself. Here, we inevitability enter the three spheres mentioned above; each has language in which and by means of which spiritual knowledge is gained. Certain methods of spiritual knowledge are developed appropriate to the specifics of the spheres of its realization: philosophizing on the basis of thinking, and religious belief on the basis of the ability of the person to reach the highest emotions. According to the young Karl Marx, «the originality of each intrinsic force»1 14 of a person creates «the original way of its objectification». The process of spiritual knowledge has results in different areas and, through these channels, allows a person to create himself. The phenomenon of the spiritual cannot be separated from its manifestations in the material, but it is also impossible to reduce it to

1 Marx K., Engels F.: Early Works. Moscow, 1956, p. 593.

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them. The spiritual shows itself only in an image. Only then can it can be seen by a person – but an image can also disguise the spiritual as such. Jesus said: «Images appear to the person, and the light that in them is latent. In an image of light of the father, it (light) will open, and his image is in shadows due to the light»1. Identifying images of the spiritual with what is, limits the person and, thus, deforms his own essence, and runs into narrow dogmatism and fanaticism. However, like living in a world of alienation, in the world of the spiritual the person is compelled to proceed by way of trial and error.

We say that the spiritual is, but it is nothing in the common world. The spiritual is boundless, both in breadth and in depth, but manifests itself only concretely. A person cannot cognize himself directly; it would contradict his position in the world. Doing so would either eliminate his consciousness or make him into God. He is capable of cognizing himself only indirectly, through manifestations of his essence and its symbols. And though the spiritual essence basically cannot be objectified, it is possible to know it only in and through its existence. The cognition of the spiritual can be carried out only through what it does. A less direct way can turn out to be the shortest way, just as a road winding uphill is easier to take than trying to climb straight up. Therefore, everything that is created in culture is a mediated way to the spiritual. And each person chooses a way appropriate to him, which appeals to him and to his essence. It is wrong to say that A. Pushkin’s aesthetic creativity was not a spiritual way, compared to St. Seraphim of Sarov’s method of prayer2. For the writer or the poet, artistic activity is a form of spiritual creativity, and the appropriate method for disclosing one’s essence. From this point of view, it is probably difficult to determine what has most importance or prior-

1See the Gospel of Thomas.

2A.S. Pushkin is a great Russian writer, while Seraphim of Sarov is a famous saint of Russian Orthodox Church. They lived at the same time at the beginning of the XIX century.

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