Philosophy in Christianity appears in the holistic system of values of humanity as one of the most unique spiritual phenomena of culture. Christianity, having entered the historical arena in the second half of the 1st century AD, chained free human thought (mind) to itself for a long time, subordinating almost all known ancient philosophical teachings to its interests. Christian thought, itself claiming to be a spiritual philosophy, presented moral and ethical themes regarding orthodox religion. Therefore, it is equally important for both a sincere believer and a secular person if he strives for culture and enlightenment. We are, of course, talking only about new (but necessarily religious) views on the Universe, society and man himself. IN modern Christianity The world of human thought is presented completely differently. It, as before, being entirely and completely mediated by the revelation of Holy Scripture, strives for freedom of interpretation of the latter.
Christian philosophy from the very beginning was closely associated with theology. Its topics covered existential relations (God - man), that is, all traditional philosophical disciplines - ontology, epistemology, logic, ethics, aesthetics, etc. It developed historically gradually and difficultly, crystallizing from the chaos of various ancient teachings and contradictory speculations that arose in individual Christian societies. The first systematic philosophizing associated with Christianity (but not yet Christian philosophy) is considered to be the works of the so-called Gnostics (Greek gnosis - knowledge). Gnostics were those who did not want to be content with blind faith in God, but sought to understand and deepen their faith in him. At the same time, they were divided into two classes. The first was made up of Gnostics belonging to the church, who sought to logically substantiate the Christian faith. The Gnostics, who were not associated with the official church, wanted to link their teachings with the ideals of ancient Eastern mythical ideas about the world and Greek ancient mystical philosophy.
Gnosticism became the first rather critical movement philosophical thought in early Christianity, where the teachings of Christ and the secular wisdom of ancient philosophers were combined in a very original way. But the most important thing was that the Gnostics boldly opposed the “enlightened” knowledge of God to ignorant faith. However, it was not without reason that they were called mystics, since they taught that God himself can be known only through revelation or direct (personal) communication with him. The most well-known representatives Christian Gnosticism were Clement (late 2nd-early 3rd century) and Origen of Alexandria (c. 185-254), founded in 331 BC. Alexander the Great (356-323 BC).
However, the main way of existence of philosophical and religious thought in Christianity initially became ancient Roman apologetics. Philosophical and religious apologists (Greek apologetes - defender), defending the spiritual interests of early Christianity, appealed to government officials - Roman emperors, governors, convincing them of the need for loyalty to the new religion. At the same time, they put forward as intellectual supports the philosophical principles of the main ancient Greek philosophical systems - Platonism, and much later - Aristotelianism. Without creating their own philosophical directions, they nevertheless outlined a range of ideological problems, which later became the main ones for all Christian philosophers. These were questions about God, about the creation of the world, about the nature of man and the meaning of his life, and some others. In the Middle Ages, Christian philosophers created a powerful system for the protection of Holy Scripture and Tradition, designed to protect the truths of faith.
And in the 1st-2nd centuries, during the formation and beginning of the functioning of the church, apologetics flourished lush color already as a way of rational (theoretical) defense of Christianity. At the same time, while developing the basic principles of Christian philosophy, apologists actively used the conceptual apparatus and methodology of ancient Greek and Roman philosophy. The greatest role in the formation and development of apologetics as the first philosophy of faith belongs to Philo of Alexandria (20 BC-54 AD). He is considered one of the outstanding representatives of the new religious and philosophical movement - exegesis (gr. exegesis - interpretation), that is, interpreters of religious texts. At that time, the main condition for comprehending divine truth was the interpretation of the hidden meaning of the Bible. According to Philo, the interpretation of the Bible, on the one hand, is divine grace, and on the other, philosophical understanding. Experts believe that the interpretation of the Bible reveals a special attitude towards the Word, or more precisely, towards the biblical text as the bearer of divine truth.
The word of a wise man (philosopher) is only a reflection of the divine Word. In this regard, Philo points out that biblical wisdom and creativity ancient Greek philosophers have one source - the divine mind. However, the Greek philosophers and the early Christians discovered intelligible truth in very different ways. Philo, for example, unlike the ancient philosophers who saw in God an absolute monad, which, being indecomposable and indivisible, represented an abstract integrity, saw in God a personality, to which, among other things, there must be a personal relationship. Of course, he places God beyond the limits of the material (tangible) world, characterizing him as transcendence, but he is confident in his special personal self-expression. God, according to Philo, himself, if necessary, appears to man, but in the form he considers necessary. So, he introduced himself to Moses as Yahweh (in the Greek version Jehovah), which in Russian means “Existent.”
Thus, Philo of Alexandria, for the first time in the history of philosophical and religious thought, presented a fundamentally new personal attitude towards God. The characterization of God as a person was a significant step forward towards the creation of the phenomenon of the Christian worldview. However, it did not imply a complete overcoming of the gap existing in religion between God and real world. Only Logos, as a universal law, as world order, beauty and harmony, was able to bring all the diversity of the world to unity. According to Philo, it is the Logos that is the kingdom of eternal intelligible ideas, identical to divine thoughts. But, unlike ancient philosophy, in Philo the Logos appears as a spirit created by God, which was originallydivine mind.
Thus, in the new philosophy of faith, Philo first posed the problem of naming God, to whom no previous words and concepts about him are applicable. However, according to Philo, Moses, having comprehended the truth directly from God himself, was able to clearly present it to people in a language they understood, relying on images and mystical examples. Therefore, to interpret divine truth, human reason became necessary, capable of making divine revelation understandable to people. Philo called the human mind a reflection of the universal rational world order, or Logos. In this regard, he himself did not see anything reprehensible in the fact that ancient philosophers sought to comprehend the secrets of the world order with their minds. This was a kind of training of the human mind, which needed to be actively involved in the development and mastery of the refined field of Christian teaching.
The use of first Platonic and later Aristotelian philosophical principles and ideas was necessary to prove that Christian truths are not simple deformations of the philosophical thought of the great Greeks, since they do not contradict the foundations of the human mind. On the contrary, in them reason finds its fullest realization. But this is one of the many versions about the dialectic of the relationship between reason and faith in the Christian religion. There are other opinions that are opposite to this. Thus, Quintus Tertullian, an original Christian thinker, assured that faith in God and human reason are not only incompatible, but, moreover, mutually exclusive. Tertullian's faith is the antipode of reason. This is why faith was given to man, he convinced, to perceive literally everything that is above human understanding. It is not wisdom, but ignorance that is the stronghold of faith. Tertullian was sincerely convinced that only in the uneducated, uneducated soul of a Christian do the truths about God and the Kingdom of God initially exist.
God himself appears to man, Tertullian argues, and, moreover, in the most unreasonable way - in contradiction. So, for example, the birth of Christ, the son of God, occurred from an ordinary woman. Christ, the true God, is at the same time a true man. Where is the logic? There is none, and there is no need to look for any logic where everything seems absolutely absurd to us. “I believe because it is absurd,” is Tertullian’s motto. The natural state of man is following common sense and pure faith in God. Tertullian's passionate preaching of pure faith, absolutely incompatible with reason, had various influences on many Christian thinkers. Some agreed with him, while others objected no less passionately, for example the Gnostics. And since the teachings of Tertullian and the Gnostics were opposite, it became necessary to develop some kind of intermediate system of views. Starting from these opposing views, new philosophizing theologians (they were called the Holy Fathers of the Church) formulated a special point of view, or rather, developed a fundamentally different religious and philosophical teaching, the so-called patristics (lat. pater - father).
Western European philosophy of the Middle Ages is Christian philosophy. In the first centuries, Christian philosophy existed in the form of apologetics - the justification of Christianity. The first bright Christian thinker who systematized Christianity was Aurelius Augustine, whom the Catholic Church elevated to the rank of Blessed.
Augustine the Blessed(354-430) lived half a century earlier than Proclus, and in his philosophy there are many ideas of the Neoplatonists, but the spirit of his philosophy is very different from the spirit of ancient philosophy.
Augustine was born in North Africa, his mother was a Christian. He himself walked towards Christianity long and painfully - through Manichaeism, skepticism, Neoplatonism. He describes his quest in detail in “Confession,” the first work of this genre.
At the age of thirty-three, Augustine converted to Christianity and became an active figure in the Christian Church, an inexorable persecutor of numerous heretics and apostates from official doctrine.
For Augustine, God is the immaterial Absolute, opposed to the world and man. God does not emit the world from himself, as in Plotinus, but creates the world out of nothing (this idea is called creationism). God is not an impersonal unity, but a personality who created the world according to his voluntary inclination, and who creates it continuously. If God takes away his productive power from things, they will immediately disappear. Augustine presents the divine being in accordance with the dogma of the trinity established by the Council of Nicaea. He considers the second hypostasis, God the Son, Logos the Word, as the self-consciousness of God the Father and as that “let it be”, as a result of which the world appeared. Plato's "ideas", samples of things, turned into Augustine's primordial thoughts of God the Creator.
Time is a measure of movement and change of created things; it did not exist before the creation of the world. Eternity is not an infinitely lasting time, it is opposed to time. There is no “before” and “after”, only a constant “now”.
Fighting dualism, Augustine argued that evil does not exist in itself, evil is only the absence or a small degree of good. This problem - explaining the presence of evil in the world with the absolute goodness and omnipotence of the Creator - is called theodicy. Augustine's theodicy, which declared evil to be weakened by good, is sometimes called Christian optimism.
The human soul, created by God, has a beginning, but cannot have an end. No spatial or quantitative characteristics are applicable to it; it is completely opposed to the body. Augustine was unable to explain how the immaterial soul is connected to the material body.
The absolute superiority of the soul over the corruptible and transitory body requires disregard for all benefits and temptations sensory world. How big amount things a person neglects, the higher his virtue. The benefits of human life are divided into those that can be enjoyed (love of God) and those that need only be enjoyed without becoming attached to them.
Since the sin of Adam and Eve, transmitted to all mankind, has distorted and weakened the human mind, it must rely on divine revelation. A person learns by drawing from the depths of his own spirit, although sometimes it seems to him that from the outside world. The soul did not exist before birth, therefore only God can be the source of eternal and unchanging ideas in the depths of the soul.
Augustine distinguishes between science and wisdom: science is the knowledge that allows us to use things, and wisdom is the knowledge of spiritual objects and divine affairs.
Augustine's concept of history is interesting because it introduced the idea of progress. The content of history is the struggle between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of earth. God's kingdom consists of people chosen and led by God, the earthly kingdom consists of people whose actions are determined by their free sinful will. Progress is manifested in the expansion of God's kingdom. The last era of human history, which began with Christianity, corresponds to the sixth day of creation, followed by a day of rest. So on the day of the Last Judgment, the chosen part of humanity will separate from the overwhelming majority of sinners with whom it has been mixed throughout human history, and will unite with God. The wicked will be united with their decayed bodies and cast into eternal fire.
In the first centuries of Christianity, when the second coming and the end of the world were expected any day now, the opposition between religious and worldly aspirations became sharply apparent. A world that only had a few years or decades left to exist was not only unimportant, but could also become an obstacle to the salvation of the soul. This dictated the requirement of ascetic disregard for all the benefits and temptations of the sensory world.
For about eight centuries Augustinism dominated Catholic philosophy and permeated the consciousness of every person as an ideal. Medieval society, of course, was not ready to realize such an ideal, and tension was created, a scissors between the ideal and the possibility of its implementation. This was the reason for the turn to the other extreme. The gaze of a man of the 12th-13th centuries began to move from heaven to earth. The pendulum swung towards naturalism, which reached its peak in the 18th century.
IN XII-XIII centuries Even among cardinals and the papal curia, the body is no longer considered a “vile shell of the soul” (in the words of Gregory the Great), it is treated with respect - during a person’s life and after his death. Boniface VIII prohibits the dismemberment of the body of a deceased king, although even after the death of Saint Louis this procedure was considered common.
All this does not mean that the earthly is valued in itself, in isolation from the heavenly (the “separation” will occur several centuries later), it means that for the people of the 12th century the heavenly began to manifest itself through the earthly. Attention to the ephemeral, fleeting is increasing, because in the fleeting nothing other than the eternal expresses itself. The spiritual shines through the material. The sphere of the spiritual is expanding, and the material world, which was previously opposed to the spiritual world, now became its symbol or even manifestation. “Looking at the beauty and splendor of the world, you will understand that it is like a beautiful hymn and everything that is created on earth, in its diversity, sounds in unison, forming a chord of supreme beauty” (Guillaume of Auvergne). Earthly phenomena are necessary notes in the chords of the divine hymn Moreover, a sensitive ear for these notes can restore its sound.
Although in early middle ages The immediate goal of the struggle was usually earthly goods, earthly power, but the values in the name of which people lived and fought were not earthly - the city of God, paradise, eternal life, etc. In the 12th century there was a smooth turn to the earthly world and its values.
Work from a negative value - punishment - is transformed into a positive value - participation in creative deeds pleasing to God. The idea that every innovation is inspired by the devil recedes; technological progress is no longer identified with sin. The attitude towards Christ is changing: interest in Jesus as a person and in the circumstances of his life is being revived. The attitude towards the human body, the earth, and earthly history is changing. Monks in the early Middle Ages indoctrinated society into the idea that laughter was the most shameful sound the mouth could make. The Gospels do not say that Jesus laughed at least once in his earthly life, therefore a person should not laugh, but mourn his nature, spoiled by original sin. But in the 13th century, laughter is seen as a prototype of heavenly joy. In theory, major university theologians dominated, and in everyday practice, the most important example was Francis of Assisi. Francis always appears with a joyful face, and he advises his brethren to show cheerfulness. The young English Franciscans of the newly founded Oxford monastery followed this advice so zealously that they literally burst into frequent fits of insane laughter, even causing concern among the leaders of the order.
We should dwell on the figure of St. Francis in more detail. In his youth, Francesco Bernardone from the Italian town of Assisi was fond of Provençal poetry. He later called himself a troubadour. Like most great mystics, his faith was not like a theory, but like falling in love. From this point of view, the writer Herbert Chesterton explains the asceticism of St. Francis: “Tell the life of Francis as the life of a troubadour, mad in the name of love, and everything will fall into place. It will not surprise anyone that the poet picks flowers in the sun and stands idle at night in the snow; extols the bodily , earthly beauty - and does not eat; glorifies gold and scarlet - and walks in rags; strives for happiness - and for martyrdom. All these riddles are easily resolved in the simple story of any noble love. Francis was illuminated by the radiance of Divine love, and his self-denial was not self-control, but passion, pleasure.
Christ for Francis is the God-being, limitless in time and existing everywhere in space. Francis saw that Christ’s presence in the world was not interrupted; he recalled the promise: “I am with you until the end of the age.” He showed that it is allowed to love not only God, but also the created world. The love of Saint Francis extended to all animate and inanimate creatures. He wanted to go to the emperor and beg him to forbid killing the lark brothers; with love he pacifies the evil wolf; preaches to the birds; collects worms from the road and takes them to a safe place. He feels such love and reverence for the fire that he does not allow his brothers to extinguish the clothes that caught fire on him. The hearts of all creatures were open to him, and legend says that nature had a reciprocal love for Francis.
He saw the world as not separate from God. A story has been preserved about how one of his monks once “was so exalted in God that he saw in Him, the Creator, His entire creation, both heavenly and earthly, and all their perfections, and degrees, and different orders; and then clearly understood how each creation revealed its Creator, and how God abides above, and within, and without, and around all creations."
Saint Francis good-naturedly and mockingly called his own body “brother donkey” and reproached him for laziness and disobedience, but was ready to listen to the just complaints of this “brother donkey.” One day Francis, sick and exhausted, asked a monk what he should do with his flesh, because, exhausted, “she herself no longer asks for anything.” The monk asked the saint: did Francis’s flesh obey while it was able? And he answered: we lived in perfect harmony, she and I, and served Christ in harmony. Then the monk said: “Where, father, is your mercy, where is your love and forbearance? How could you serve Christ without the help of your body? Is it fair to refuse help to such a faithful friend who did not spare his life for you? Don’t take it, father, this sin on the soul." And having thanked the monk, Francis began to say to his body: “Rejoice, brother body, for from now on I will willingly fulfill your desires and will hasten to help your sorrows.”
Pope Innocent III approved the order founded by Francis, but the structure and character of the order soon changed greatly. It was reorganized on a hierarchical basis, and its head (the “general”) began to be appointed by the pope. Francis stepped away from the leadership of the ossified order, which, as a result of numerous donations from believers, quickly ceased to be mendicant.
Simultaneously with the Franciscan Order, the Order of St. Dominic was founded, which also declared itself a mendicant. Subsequently, the Dominicans became the main instrument of the Inquisition, the spiritual gendarmerie, they called themselves “dogs of God” (in Latin - domini-canes). Along with the Franciscans, they began teaching at universities, taking over the leadership of some of them.
XII-XIII centuries - this is the heyday scholastics ( from lat. schola - school). Scholasticism is not a theory, but a style of philosophizing, a style of thinking. “Sacred teaching,” said Thomas Aquinas, “uses human reason not in order to prove faith, but in order to clarify everything that is proposed in this teaching.” Identification, clarification is the defining principle of scholasticism. To clarify faith through reason, it is necessary first to clarify the system of thought itself. This was helped by a special organization of written presentation, revealing the very process of unfolding thoughts. This is where the schematism of scholastic writings stems.
Scholastic writings had to meet three requirements:
Sufficient enumeration (comprehensiveness),
Sufficient articulation (dividing the text into chapters, headings, paragraphs),
Sufficient interconnection.
This does not mean that the scholastics thought more orderly than Plato or Aristotle, but they considered it necessary to clearly identify the orderliness and logic of their thought. Scholasticism had a monopoly on education, so the passion for “identification” and “clarification” penetrated into almost every mind dealing with cultural problems and became a “mental habit.” In a treatise on medicine, a propaganda leaflet, a biography of Ovid, the same obsession with the taxonomy of divisions and subdivisions and the demonstration of methodology is revealed everywhere. This passion had a direct impact on all the arts. In music this was achieved by introducing a beat, and in fine arts– through a precise and systematic division of pictorial space. In Gothic architecture, the “principle of transparency” prevailed: the divisions of the interior could be “read” from the facade.
Scholastic philosophy reached its peak in creativity Thomas Aquinas(1225-1274), who carried out a synthesis of Aristotelian philosophy and Christianity.
St. Thomas was the son of Count Aquinas, whose castle was located in the Kingdom of Naples. For six years he studied at the University of Frederick II in Naples, then in Cologne and Paris. Despite family resistance, he joined the Dominican Order.
Thomas Aquinas also defended a positive attitude towards the flesh against the “Augustinian grumblers”: neglect of the bodily principle, he said, represents a relapse of Manichaeism. In contrast to the Platonic-Augustinian tradition, which considered the infusion of the soul into the human body as a kind of punishment for it and saw inferiority in the bodily existence of the soul, Thomas considered the union of soul and body to be a normal phenomenon of existence.
The disembodied soul is created by God for a given individual body and is always proportionate to it. But the human soul does not lose its individuality even after the death of the specific body that it animates. This happens thanks to special assistance God, a special act that preserves her individual essence even in a state of incorporeality. But the incorporeal existence of the soul is flawed, for the full substance of man requires the unity of the soul with the body, which is restored on the day of the Last Judgment.
Thomas Aquinas finally reconciled Catholic Church with the teachings of Aristotle. Many provisions of Thomism (the teachings of Thomas Aquinas) are drawn from Aristotle.
St. Thomas rejected the evidence of the existence of God, which comes from the immediate reality of His human consciousness, refuting the Augustinians and mysticism, which does not accept the necessity of the Church. There can only be indirect evidence - from consequences. There are five such proofs.
1. Everything that moves has something else as the cause of its movement. Therefore, there must be a prime mover.
2.Everything in the world has a reason. There must be a first reason.
3. The world consists of accidents; there must be absolute necessity.
4.Various degrees of perfection are measured by an absolute limit, therefore, there must be absolute perfection.
5. The world is purposeful, therefore, there must be a God who sets purposes for everything that happens in nature.
Following one of the five paths, the human mind becomes convinced of the existence of God.
In God, essence and existence are one. For the rest - from an angel to a stone - the essence does not determine the entire concreteness of their existence. For it to appear, an act of a merciful God is necessary.
Thomas declared the passive Aristotelian primordial matter to be the product of God’s creativity “out of nothing.” In addition to material forms, there are incorporeal ones (angels). Thomas, unlike the Augustinians, did not recognize spiritual matter.
Thomas did not agree with the Augustinian “grumblers” that every phenomenon in the world is the result of the direct intervention of a supernatural God. God does not act so primitively; He uses natural (“secondary”) causes as His instruments.
Creation did not happen all at once, but in stages. It was not a matter of impersonal necessity, but of the Divine Person who acts based on the inclination of his free will.
Direct divine insight, intuitive knowledge, which Augustine considered possible for humans, became the privilege of the angels in Thomas. But, ironically, in 1272 Thomas himself experienced an epiphany and in a minute learned something, after which he began to value everything written no more than straw. He did not finish the Summa Theologica.
Since 1879 it has become compulsory in all Catholic churches. educational institutions teach the system of St. Thomas (Thomism) as the only true philosophy. As a result, it represents not only a historical and philosophical fact, but also an effective force.
Christianity
Christianity (from Greek word christos - "anointed one", "Messiah") originated as one of
sects of Judaism in Palestine. This original affinity with Judaism - extremely important for understanding the roots of the Christian faith - is also manifested in the fact that the first part of the Bible, Old Testament, - the holy book of both Jews and Christians (the second part of the Bible, New Testament, is recognized only by Christians and is the most important thing for them). Spreading among the Jews of Palestine and the Mediterranean, Christianity already in the first decades of its existence won adherents among other peoples.
The emergence and spread of Christianity occurred during a period of deep crisis in ancient civilization and the decline of its basic values. Christian teaching attracted many who were disillusioned with the Roman social order. It offered its adherents a path of internal salvation: withdrawal from the corrupt, sinful world into oneself, into one’s own personality; strict asceticism is opposed to rough carnal pleasures, and the arrogance and vanity of the “powers of this world” are opposed to conscious humility and submission, which will be rewarded after the advent of the Kingdom of God on the ground.
However, already the first Christian communities taught their members to think not only about themselves, but also about the destinies of the whole world, to pray not only for their own, but also for the common salvation. Even then, the universalism characteristic of Christianity was revealed: communities scattered across the vast expanse of the Roman Empire nevertheless felt their unity. People became members of communities different nationalities. The New Testament thesis “there is neither Greek nor Jew” proclaimed the equality before God of all believers and predetermined the further development of Christianity as a world religion that knows no national and linguistic boundaries.
The need for unity, on the one hand, and the fairly widespread spread of Christianity throughout the world, on the other, have given rise to the conviction among believers that although an individual Christian may be weak and unsteady in faith, then the unity of Christians as a whole has the Holy Spirit and God’s grace.
Man, according to Christian teaching, was created as a bearer of the “image and likeness” of God. However, the Fall committed by the first people destroyed man's godlikeness, placing on him the stain of original sin. Christ, having suffered on the cross and death, “redeemed” people, suffering for the entire human race. Therefore, Christianity emphasizes the purifying role of suffering, any limitation by a person of his desires and passions: “by accepting his cross,” a person can overcome evil in himself and in the world around him. Thus, a person not only fulfills God's commandments, but he himself is transformed and ascends to God, becomes closer to him. This is the purpose of the Christian, his justification of the sacrificial death of Christ.
The stage of patristics in medieval philosophy. Teachings of St. Augustine
The Middle Ages occupies a long period of European history from the collapse of the Roman Empire in the 5th century to the Renaissance (XIV-XV centuries).
The philosophy that took shape during this period had two main sources of its formation. The first of these is ancient Greek philosophy, primarily in its Platonic and Aristotelian traditions. The second source is Holy Scripture, which turned this philosophy into the mainstream of Christianity.
The idealistic orientation of most philosophical systems of the Middle Ages was dictated by the basic dogmas of Christianity, among which the most important were the dogma of the personal form of God the creator, and the dogma of God’s creation of the world “out of nothing.” In the conditions of such a cruel religious dictatorship, supported state power, philosophy was declared the “handmaiden of religion”, within the framework of which all philosophical issues were resolved from the position of theocentrism, creationism, and providentialism.
Patristics
Patristics (from Greek πατήρ, Latin pater - father) is the philosophy and theology of the church fathers, that is, the spiritual and religious leaders of Christianity until the 7th century. The teachings developed by the church fathers became fundamental to the Christian religious worldview. Patristics made a huge contribution to the formation of ethics and aesthetics of late antique and medieval society.
There are Roman and Greek directions of patristics. Historically, the following division is traditionally carried out:
- Apostolic men adjacent directly to the apostles.
- Apologetic (defending) fathers of the 2nd century, who tried, in particular, to prove the compatibility of Christian teaching with Greek philosophy, and sometimes they presented Christianity in the form of a new philosophy (Justin, 100-167, then Athenagoras, second half of the 2nd century). By the 2nd century. refers to the dispute with the Gnostics, to whose position Tatian goes (second half of the 2nd century). Tertullian ends this period.
- III century and beginning IV century characterized by the first attempts at systematization in the field of theology and the raising of the question of Christ, which gave rise to numerous attempts to solve it. Contradictory positions were embodied, on the one hand, in the thesis of Athanasius (295-378), who asserted that Christ is divine, and on the other hand, in Arius’s denial of his divinity. While the philosophy of Clement of Alexandria was not yet systematized, Origen, who borrowed from the Greek. philosophy of its concepts and largely agreed with the ideas of the Neoplatonists, created the first theological system of Christianity.
- In the 4th century. and beginning V century Christianity begins to explore its history for the first time. The dogma of the Trinity soon receives its final formulation. Eusebius of Caesarea, who was inclined towards Arianism, wrote the first history of the church and its dogmas; he argued that Plato and Greek philosophy in general influenced—through the Old Testament in particular—Moses. The Three Great Cappadocians were engaged in systematizing theology in opposition to Arianism.
- From the end IV century, that is, with the completion of the process of formulating dogmas and with the strengthening of the church, especially after its recognition in 313 by Emperor Constantine the Great, the ecclesiastical and political nature of patristics is already strikingly evident. After Hilary of Pictavia, the "Athanasius of the West" (310-367), and Ambrose of Milan, the "Latin Philo" (340-397), Augustine prioritizes practical church theology and its claims to the guidance of souls and holy mediation. With his teaching about the divine state (“city of God”), he lays the foundation of historical metaphysics. Pelagius is believed to have fought against this doctrine.
In Rus', the works of the “church fathers”, theologians and preachers were known and enjoyed high authority: John Chrysostom, Gregory of Nazianzus, Basil the Great, Gregory of Nyssa, Athanasius of Alexandria, etc. Homiletic writers (authors of teachings and sermons) were highly valued throughout the Russian Middle Ages ). John Chrysostom (d. 407) enjoyed the greatest authority.
Augustine the Blessed
Augustine the Blessed (lat. Aurelius Augustinus Hipponensis; November 13, 354, Tagast, Numidia - 28
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| St. Augustine |
Augustine's teaching on the relationship between human free will, divine grace and predestination is quite heterogeneous and is not systematic.
God created matter and endowed it various forms, properties and purposes, thereby creating everything that exists in our world. The actions of God are good, and therefore everything that exists, precisely because it exists, is good.
Evil is not a substance-matter, but a deficiency, its corruption, vice and damage, non-existence.
God is the source of existence, pure form, the highest beauty, the source of good. The world exists thanks to the continuous creation of God, who regenerates everything that dies in the world. There is one world and there cannot be several worlds.
Matter is characterized through type, measure, number and order. In the world order, every thing has its place.
About grace
The force that largely determines a person’s salvation and his aspiration to God is divine grace. Grace acts upon man and produces changes in his nature. Without grace, human salvation is impossible. The free decision of the will is only the ability to strive for something, but a person is able to realize his aspirations for the better only with the help of grace.
Grace in Augustine's view is directly related to the fundamental dogma of Christianity - the belief that Christ has redeemed all humanity. This means that by its nature grace is universal and should be given to all people. But it is obvious that not all people will be saved. Augustine explains this by saying that some people are not able to accept grace. This depends, first of all, on the capacity of their will. But as Augustine had to see, not all people who accepted grace were able to maintain “constancy in goodness.” This means that another special divine gift is needed that will help maintain this constancy. Augustine calls this gift “the gift of constancy.” Only by accepting this gift will those “called” be able to become “chosen.”
Speaking about the actions of God, thinkers emphasized his omnibenevolence. But there is also evil going on in the world. Why does God allow evil?
Augustine argued that everything created by God is, to one degree or another, involved in absolute goodness - the all-goodness of God: after all, the Almighty, in creating creation, imprinted a certain measure, weight and order in the created; they contain an extraterrestrial image and meaning. To the extent that there is goodness in nature, in people, in society.
Evil is not some force that exists on its own, but a weakened good, a necessary step towards good. Visible imperfection is part of world harmony and testifies to the fundamental goodness of all things: “Every nature that can become better is good.”
It also happens that the evil that torments a person ultimately turns out to be good. So, for example, a person is punished for a crime (evil) in order to bring him good through atonement and pangs of conscience, which leads to purification.
In other words, without evil we would not know what good is.
Augustine had a strong influence on the dogmatic side of Christian teaching. The impact of his preaching was felt over the next several centuries not only in the African but also in the Western church. His polemics against the Arians, Priscillians and, in particular, against the Donatists and other movements, found many supporters. Augustine left numerous works that had a significant influence on the anthropological side of teaching in Protestantism (Luther and Calvin). Developed the doctrine of St. Trinity, explored man's relationship to divine grace. He considers the essence of Christian teaching to be a person’s ability to perceive God’s grace, and this basic position is also reflected in his understanding of other dogmas of faith. He founded several monasteries, some of which were subsequently destroyed.
The stage of patristics in medieval philosophy. Teachings of Thomas Aquinas
Scholasticism (Greek σχολαστικός - scientist, Scholia - “school”) is a systematic European medieval philosophy, centered around universities and representing a synthesis of Christian (Catholic) theology and Aristotelian logic.
By its general nature, scholasticism represents religious philosophy not in the sense of free speculation in the field of issues of a religious and moral nature, as we see in the systems of the last period of Greek philosophy, but in the sense of the application of philosophical concepts and methods of thinking to Christian church doctrine, the first experience of which represents the patristic philosophy that preceded scholasticism. Having in mind through such an application to make the content of faith accessible to reason, scholasticism and patristics differed from one another in that for the latter this content was Holy Scripture and for the dogmatic formulation of the revealed teaching itself, it used philosophy - while for scholasticism the content of faith lay in established fathers applied dogmas and philosophy primarily to the understanding, justification and systematization of the latter. There is, however, no absolute opposition between scholasticism and patristics, because even in patristic times, along with the gradual formulation of dogmas, there was a justification and bringing them into the system, and on the other hand, it cannot be said that even in the period of scholasticism the system of dogmas was a on all points a complete whole: in the field of theological and philosophical speculation, dogmatic teaching underwent some further development.
The relationship between scholasticism and patristic philosophy can be more precisely defined as follows: the former realizes and develops what has not yet reached realization and development in the latter, although it was in it as an embryo.
The general task was to assimilate what was learned from ancient world monuments of philosophical thought and apply them to the needs of the time. The philosophical teachings of antiquity gradually became the property of the Middle Ages; At first, only meager excerpts were known from them. At first, therefore, the task was to fill the gaps in the philosophical tradition, and then it was necessary to reconcile the philosophical authorities of antiquity that did not always agree with each other. In addition, it was necessary to apply philosophy to theology, define and justify the relationship of reason to faith, find a reasonable explanation for the truths of faith, and ultimately create a philosophical and theological system. All this stimulated medieval thought mainly to formal work, although, of course, it also led it to new material conclusions, why in the philosophizing of the scholastics it is unfair to see only one repetition in different ways of what Augustine and Aristotle said.
Thomas Aquinas
Thomas Aquinas (otherwise Thomas Aquinas, Thomas Aquinas, lat. Thomas Aquinas, Italian. Tommaso
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| Thomas Aquinas |
5 Proofs of the Existence of God by Thomas Aquinas
- Proof by motion means that everything that moves has ever been set in motion by something else, which in turn was set in motion by a third. In this way, a chain of “engines” is laid out, which cannot be infinite, and in the end it is necessary to discover an “engine” that moves everything else, but is not itself driven by anything else. It is God who turns out to be the root cause of all movement.
- Proof through an efficient cause - this proof is similar to the first. Only in this case it is not the cause of movement, but the cause producing something. Since nothing can produce itself, there is something that is the first cause of everything - this is God.
- Proof through necessity - every thing has the possibility of both its potential and real existence. If we assume that all things are in potency, then nothing would come into being. There must be something that contributed to the transfer of a thing from a potential to an actual state. This something is God.
- Proof from degrees of being - the fourth proof says that people talk about varying degrees perfection of an object only through comparison with the most perfect. This means that there is the most beautiful, the most noble, the best - this is God.
- Proof through the target reason. In the world of rational and irrational beings, there is a purposefulness of activity, which means there is a rational being who sets a goal for everything that is in the world - we call this being God.
Where is the truth? On what path can you look for it? If I simply assert, they say, “Emelya’s shallows are your week.” I'm trying to prove that everyone is laughing. Why? Even with correct logic, my premises seem empty. On what basis did Hegel assert that all this being is the development of an idea? He simply asserted and that’s all, then his logic was good and correct. No wonder he wrote an entire book, “The Science of Logic.”
So, what did human thought face? Before complete failure in trying to find, approve and, if you want, prove the truth through our rational research. From this “ashes” of philosophy a new idea emerges. I say “idea” because, unfortunately, it never developed. This is the idea of Alexey Stepanovich Khomyakov, Ivan Vasilievich Kireevsky. These are the fathers of Slavophilism, amazing in intelligence and erudition. They put forward an idea that could only be the only one. All previous philosophical systems lacked a solid foundation. Do not be seduced by impeccable logic; it does not provide truth if the foundations from which our reasoning proceeds are incorrect.
What did Khomyakov and Kireevsky claim? They said that we must admit that there is One whom we can call reason, love, truth. Khomyakov called this “inspiring mind.” We must recognize and study the One who is called God. This is already evidenced not only by the entire historical experience of life, because not a single atheistic tribe was found, despite all the desperate efforts of the 19th-20th centuries to find one.
We must then understand that the existence of this "willing mind" is confirmed not only by history, but also by the amazing personal experience countless people. Its existence is confirmed by the study of the external world itself, the so-called teleological proof. The recognition of “willing reason” has enormous grounds, contrary to everything we had in philosophy. And if we take this as the basis for our reasoning and conclusions, then here we can solve the question of why this “willing reason” is the truth and what is the meaning of human life. Here we can find both truth and meaning. Khomyakov and Kireevsky argued that it is on this premise that we can build a truly reasonable, well-founded system of thought, a philosophical system.
What is philosophy? Ultimately, building a worldview. What do we see in history? One philosopher contradicts another. Whatever a philosopher, he has his own statement, and one that has a basis. Each of them tries to give a worldview to a person, and, as we see, these worldviews failed both ontologically and rationally.
What is different about Christianity, which the Slavophiles paid attention to? They said that only with the recognition of God as a truth with enormous grounds for acceptance can we truly build an intelligent system of thought in which our search for truth and the search for the meaning of human life will find justification.
Christianity gives a person a worldview that answers all the most pressing questions of human life. It answers precisely, and precisely in the case where we accept the existence of God as truth as the beginning of everything. The Slavophiles argued that if we do not accept this, the entire history of philosophy is just worthless disputes between philosophers.
The Christian worldview, if we consider it from the point of view of the search for truth and justification of its statements, then it gives an affirmation of being as God, not a relative being, not some “first element”, but asserts that this being is primarily a Personality. Christianity reveals even more - the depth of the inner being of God, the trinity of this God. Firstly, it reveals the existence of God, and any person can verify it; this being is a fact from which no man can escape when considering this question intelligently. Christianity appears as a kind of integral worldview.
Take, for example, Pascal’s famous “Thoughts,” which remained in the form of unformed sketches. He set himself the goal of creating such work that all skeptics and atheists would be silent forever. In “Thoughts” he has an interesting conclusion. If we admit that there is a Christian God, then the person who recognizes this loses nothing: neither the joy of life (neither drug addicted, but healthy whole), moreover, this gives a person peace of conscience, peace of mind, strength of life attitudes and - if God is - opens the gates of a worthy eternity for him. If there is no God, then what a person loses if he lives according to the laws of Christianity, according to the laws of conscience, he loses nothing. But not believing God, not following Him, he loses everything, if God exists. This is Pascal's famous wager. The believer wins everything: both here and there. The unbeliever already loses most here and loses everything there.
In this sense, the Christian worldview is justified not only from a philosophical, but also from a practical life point of view.
When I believe that the unpleasant things that happen to me in life are an act of God's love towards me. He is a Doctor, and doctors do unpleasant things to make me healthy, and I know that this is good. If there is no God, then what happens to you? Just coincidences? actions evil people? A person lives in constant fear, because he cannot foresee anything. His life is completely dependent on chance - how terrible! Even from a purely psychological point of view, how much Christianity gives to a person when he firmly believes that a hair from his head will not fall without the will of the One Who is Love. What benefit does a person acquire even in this life? Anyone who does not believe in this turns out to be a toy of chance, a toy of evil people: haters and envious people. Hear what a huge advantage Christianity gives already here, in this life.
Abba Agathon said: even if the sky falls on my head, my soul will not tremble. Of course, this was said by a saint who had reached great heights. But every believer should remember this, and especially when what we call tribulations occurs. This is the advantage of what we call the Christian worldview.
Christianity answers the basic questions of a variety of directions: both ontology and epistemology, two main aspects of philosophy. He answers, and he answers intelligently, he answers in a way that gives vitality. Imagine if we believe that there is a God who is Love, and a hair will not fall from our head without the will of this Love. We completely forget about this, my friends.
Transcript: Yulia Podzolova.
1. Features of medieval philosophy.
2. The period of patristics (Augustine Aurelius).
3. Scholasticism (Thomas Aquinas).
4. Basic principles of the Christian worldview.
Medieval philosophy represents that period in the history of European philosophy that is directly related to the Christian religion. Christianity arose in the 1st century AD. in Palestine, and then spread throughout the Roman Empire. From the end of the 4th century it became the dominant religion of Rome. This leads to dramatic changes in the relationship between religion and philosophy. If in Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome religion and philosophy coexisted together without encroaching on each other’s independence, then in the Middle Ages philosophy became completely dependent on the Christian religion. The Christian Church at this time becomes a complete monopolist in the field of education and culture. Therefore, all social, spiritual and scientific life proceeded under the direct and strict control of church authorities.
The most important feature of medieval philosophy was that all the philosophers of this period were clergy. Their main specialization was theology and theology. And they turned to philosophy for only one purpose: with its help, to rationally confirm the Christian doctrine and cult, and thereby strengthen the position of Christianity.
The first period of development of medieval Christian philosophy was defined as patristics (5th-8th centuries). The term “patristics” comes from the word “pater” - father, meaning the holy father of the church. The main task that the church fathers solved was the task of developing the foundations of the Christian worldview. In order for this worldview to become accessible to wide sections of the population, it was necessary either to create new terminology to reveal the most important provisions of the Christian religion, or to rely on existing ones. To solve this problem, the ideologists of Christianity turned to the philosophy of Plato and Neoplatonism, since it is closest in nature to the Christian faith.
Prominent representatives of patristics were Basil the Great, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Origen and others. But the greatest contribution to the development of Christian philosophy of the patristic era was made by Augustine Aurelius or the Blessed (354-430).
Augustine accomplished what his predecessors had only planned - he made God the center of philosophical thinking. God is the highest essence, he created the world out of nothing, i.e. not only order and structure, but also matter itself. God not only created the world, but also constantly preserves it, which means that the process of creation continues.
Augustine interprets the human soul in the spirit of Plato's ideas. The soul does not contain anything material, it only has the function of thinking, will, memory, but has nothing to do with biological functions. The soul differs from the body in perfection. This understanding also existed in Greek philosophy, but Augustine was the first to assert that this perfection comes from God, that the soul is like God and immortal. He was one of the first to raise the question of human personality. A person is not just a “servant of God,” he is a person connected with God. Man is the likeness of God, which means he can have a will and direct it to faith or unbelief, to good or evil. Evil is a lack of goodness and is rooted in human nature. God is not to blame for the existence of evil. God is the highest grace, love and goodness. After the martyrdom of Christ, every person is given the opportunity of salvation if he believes in God, turns away from evil and directs his will towards good.
Augustine Aurelius, in agreement with Hellenistic philosophy, believed that the goal and meaning of human life is happiness. Happiness can only be achieved in God. A person can come to God through reason (knowledge of God) or through faith, manifested in the human will. Faith and reason mutually complement each other: “Understand so that you can believe, believe so that you can understand.” But the mind is still unreliable and prone to errors, so faith is higher than reason.
Augustine also stood at the origins of the “philosophy of history.” He rejects the ancient understanding of history as an eternal repetition, a whirlwind of historical processes. History is determined by divine providence, it has meaning and direction towards an ultimate goal. Movement towards the final goal is a movement from the “earthly city” (state) to the “city of God” (the kingdom of Christ, the prototype of which is the church). Historical progress is expressed in the increase in people who turned away from paganism and came to Christianity. The history of mankind will end with the second coming of Jesus Christ, the Last Judgment and the establishment of the Kingdom of God.
The second period of development of medieval philosophy is called scholasticism (9-15 centuries). The term “scholasticism” is derived from the Latin word “schola” (school) and means school educational philosophy. All those who studied science and especially philosophy were called scholastics at that time.
Representatives of scholasticism understood that Plato's philosophy, which Augustine Aurelius and most medieval philosophers adhered to, led to a confrontation between spirit and nature. And this, in turn, led to the formation of heresies (Manichaeans, Albigensians, Waldensians, Cathars, etc.), which argued that human nature and the body are the creation of Satan. Scholastics saw the theoretical roots of heresies in deviations towards Platonism. But it was possible to criticize the great Plato based on no less significant authority. Therefore, scholastics turn to Aristotle as the first and greatest critic of Plato. As a result of this, the influence of Plato's philosophy begins to fall and the influence of Aristotle, with his clearly expressed position of realism and developed logical thinking, begins to spread.
Prominent representatives of this movement were Eriugena, Benaventura, Anselm of Centebria, Roscelin, Abelard, Albert the Great and others. However, the greatest contribution to the development of scholasticism was made by Thomas Aquinas (1225 - 1274).
The entire philosophy of Thomas begins with the category “ens” (real being). And this real existence is the way it is given to a person in his sensations. Things may change, but existence does not change, it simply takes on different forms. For example, water becomes steam and ice. In essence they are the same thing, but different in form. It follows that real being includes the following proposition: a thing is what it is + what it can become. Things are constantly changing, which means they are not complete, but all things are part of something complete, a whole, some kind of ultimate fullness of being. This ultimate fullness of being is God. God is the ultimate reality, His powers are constantly in action.
Based on this concept of being, Thomas Aquinas clearly separates the areas of faith and science. The task of science comes down to explaining the laws of the world (real being). The source of knowledge of the world is not involvement in divine ideas, but experience and sensory perception. The human mind processes the information received through the senses and arrives at the truth. And although sensory knowledge is objective and true, it covers only the real physical world. The whole fullness of being, i.e. God can only be known through faith. Theology must study this supernatural world. Philosophy should serve theology, by explaining religious dogmas in the categories of reason and logically refuting any arguments against faith. This is where its role should be limited.
Based on reason, Thomas Aquinas believed, one can even prove the existence of God. In his works, he provides five logical proofs of the existence of God.
1. In this world everything moves, and every thing is set in motion by something else. However, this series cannot be continued indefinitely, because in this case there would be no primary mover, and therefore, that which is moved by it, since the next moves only because it is moved by the first. This determines the necessity of the existence of the first mover, which is God.
2. There are a number of active causes in the world. But it is impossible for something to be an efficient cause of itself, because then it would have to be before itself, and this is absurd. In this case, it is necessary to recognize the first efficient cause, which is God.
3 . The third proof follows from the relationship between the accidental and the necessary. When studying the chain of this relationship, you also cannot go to infinity. The contingent depends on the necessary, which has its necessity either in another necessity or in itself. In the end it turns out that there is a first necessity - God.
4 The fourth proof is the degrees of qualities, following each other, which exist everywhere, in everything that exists, therefore there must be the highest degree of perfection, and again it is God.
5 .The basis of this proof is the utility manifested in all nature. Everything, even what seems random and useless, is directed towards a certain goal, has meaning, usefulness. Therefore, there is an intelligent being who directs all natural things towards a goal, and this is God.
Thomas Aquinas, being a follower of Aristotle, was interested not only in the “city of God”, but also in the “city of earth.” The center of his interests was not only spiritual, but also social problems. Like Aristotle, he identifies society and the state. The state exists to provide for the common good. But he resolutely opposes social equality, society should be class-based, all people should be divided into masters and subjects. Subjects must submit to their masters; obedience is their main virtue, as is that of all Christians in general. Best form states are a monarchy, the Monarch must be in his kingdom what the soul is in the body, and God is in the world.
The main goal and meaning of human existence is to achieve heavenly bliss. It is no longer the state that leads a person to it, but the church. The role of the church is higher than the role of the state, and therefore the rulers of the secular world must be subordinate to the hierarchs of the church, in particular the Pope.
Having done enormous intellectual work, Christian philosopher-theologians created an integral religious picture of the world. This worldview has embraced most of the civilized world and had a decisive influence on the further development of mankind. Let us consider the main features of the Christian worldview.
Creationism and theocentrism. According to Christian doctrine, God created the world from “nothing”, created it by an act of his will, thanks to his omnipotence. Divine omnipotence continues to support the existence of the world every moment. Maintaining the existence of the world is God's constant creation of it again. If the creative power of God ceased, the world would immediately return to oblivion.
Unlike ancient gods, which were practically all identified with nature, the Christian God stands above nature, on the other side of it, and therefore is a transcendent God. He is credited with all the attributes that ancient philosophers endowed existence with: God is eternal, unchangeable, vast, self-sufficient, etc. But the main difference between the Christian God is that, despite all this, He is a Person. Therefore, God is not only the highest being, but also the highest Reason, the highest Truth, the highest Love, the highest Good and the highest Beauty.
Anthropocentrism. The essence of this teaching lies in the affirmation of the exclusive role of man among God's creations. According to the Bible, God did not create man along with all creatures, but on the sixth day of creation in “His own image and likeness.” Hence the conclusion that man is the crown of creation, he is the center of the Universe and the ultimate goal of creation.
What exactly are the properties of God that constitute the essence of the human person? It is clear that man outwardly has nothing in common with God. The divine qualities of man are contained in the spiritual sphere - these are reason, conscience, and will. Man, like God, is given the ability to think, distinguish between good and evil, and experience. Free will allows a person to make a choice in favor of good or evil. The first people (Adam and Eve) made this choice poorly. They chose evil and thereby committed the Fall. From now on, human nature turned out to be corrupted, and the Fall constantly affects him. With his own strength, a person is not able to overcome his sinful inclinations. He constantly needs divine help, the action of divine grace. This help can only be received in the Church of Christ, which is a mediator between God and people.
Providentialism. The world does not develop on its own, but according to God's providence. God's providence extends to the entire surrounding world and gives natural and social processes meaningful and purposeful. In the philosophy of history, providentialism asserts that the divine plan predetermines the history of people, it breaks through all historical events and facts. It remains for people to either contribute to the implementation of this plan, and thus work for the salvation of the world and man, or to oppose it, for which God subjects people to various punishments.
Eschatologism. To what goal is the course of human history directed? The ultimate goal of the historical process is the Kingdom of God. Christian theologians depict this kingdom as a world of true, beautiful, perfect, in which man will be in complete unity with God.
When will humanity achieve this goal? Then, when the end of the world comes, the second coming of Jesus Christ, the resurrection of the dead and the Last Judgment will take place. Only the one who receives forgiveness from God will find eternal life in the Kingdom of God.
How can a person be saved and reach the Kingdom of Christ? According to Christian doctrine, even in his original, pre-sin state, man was completely dependent on God, being in complete unity with him. The essence of the Fall lies precisely in the fact that man separated from God, wanted to become equal to God, wanted to live according to his own principles and norms. Having lost contact with God, people became mired in sins and vices.
It follows that a person can be saved in only one way - by returning to his original, pre-sin appearance, through the new acquisition of the “image and likeness of God.” And this can only be accomplished through faith and the acquisition of divine grace. Grace is poured out only on those who not only believe in God, but also strictly fulfill his commandments, as well as the sacraments and rituals of the Christian church. Faith without works is dead!
Questions and assignments.
1. What are the features of medieval philosophy?
2. Describe the philosophical views of Augustine Aurels
3. Describe the philosophical views of Thomas Aquinas.
4. What is the essence of creationism and theocentrism?
5. What is anthropocentrism?
6. What is the essence of prosidenciolism and eschatology.