The Western European philosophy of the Middle Ages is a 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 went to Christianity for a long time and painfully - through Manichaeism, skepticism, Neoplatonism. He describes his search in detail in "Confession" - the first work of this genre.

At the age of thirty-three, Augustine converted to Christianity, became an active figure in the Christian Church, an inexorable persecutor of numerous heretics, apostates from the official doctrine.

Augustine's God is an immaterial Absolute, opposed to the world and man. God does not radiate 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 person 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, the Logos-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", patterns of things, turned in Augustine into the eternal thoughts of God the Creator.

Time is a measure of the movement and change of created things, it did not exist before the creation of the world. Eternity is not infinitely lasting time, it is opposed to time. There is no "before" and "after" in it, only a constant "now".

Struggling with dualism, Augustine argued that evil does not exist in itself, evil is only the absence or a small degree of good. This problem - the explanation of the presence of evil in the world with the absolute goodness and omnipotence of the Creator - is called theodicy. The theodicy of Augustine, who declared evil to be a weakened good, is sometimes called Christian optimism.

The human soul, created by God, has a beginning, but cannot have an end. No spatial and quantitative characteristics are applicable to it, it is completely opposed to the body. How the immaterial soul connects with the material body, Augustine failed to explain.

The absolute superiority of the soul over the perishable and transient body requires disregard for all the blessings and temptations of the sensual world. The more things a person neglects, the higher his virtue. The blessings of human life are divided into those that can be enjoyed (love of God) and those that need only be used without being attached to them.

Since the sin of Adam and Eve, which was transmitted to all mankind, 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, so 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 works.

Augustine's concept of history is interesting in that the idea of ​​progress appeared in it. The content of history is the struggle between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of the earth. The kingdom of God is made up of people chosen and led by God, the earthly kingdom is made up of people whose actions are determined by their free sinful will. Progress is manifested in the expansion of God's kingdom. The last epoch 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, a 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 from day to day, the opposition of religious and worldly aspirations was sharply outlined. The world, which had only a few years or decades left to exist, not only did not matter, but could also become an obstacle to the salvation of the soul. This dictated the requirement of ascetic disregard for all the blessings and temptations of the sensual world.

For about eight centuries, Augustinianism dominated Catholic philosophy and, as an ideal, permeated the consciousness of every person. Medieval society, of course, was not ready to implement such an ideal, and tension was created, scissors between the ideal and the possibility of its implementation. This was the reason for turning to the other extreme. The gaze of a person of the XII-XIII centuries began to move from heaven to earth. The pendulum went in the direction of naturalism, which reached its peak in the 18th century.

In the XII-XIII centuries, even among the 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 the life of a person and after his death. Boniface VIII forbids the dismemberment of the body of the 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 on its own, in isolation from the heavenly ("separation" will occur several centuries later), it means that the heavenly for the people of the XII century began to manifest itself through the earthly. Attention is growing to the ephemeral, the fleeting, because in the fleeting expresses itself nothing but the eternal. The spiritual shines through the material. The sphere of the spiritual is expanding, and the material world, which used to be opposed to the spiritual world, now became its symbol or even manifestation. “Looking at the beauty and magnificence 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 the highest beauty” (Guillaume Auvergne). Earthly phenomena are the necessary notes in the chords of the divine hymn Moreover, a sensitive ear for these notes can restore its sound.

Although in the 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 - it was the city of God, paradise, eternal life, etc. In the XII century there is a smooth appeal to the earthly world and its values.

Work from a negative value - punishment - is transformed into a positive one - participation in creative deeds that are pleasing to God. The idea that every innovation is inspired by the devil recedes, technical progress is no longer identified with sin. The attitude towards Christ is changing: interest in Jesus as a person, in the circumstances of his life, is being revived. The attitude towards the human body, the earth, earthly history is changing. Monks in the early Middle Ages accustomed society to the notion that laughter is the most shameful sound that the mouth can 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 XIII century, laughter is seen as a prototype of heavenly joy. In theory, major university theologians dominated, and in everyday practice, the most important model was Francis of Assisi. Francis always appears with a joyful face, and he advises his brethren to be cheerful. The young English Franciscans of the newly founded Oxford monastery followed this advice so zealously that they literally went into fits of frequent insane laughter, causing even anxiety among the leaders of the order.

The figure of St. Francis should be considered in more detail. In his youth, Francesco Bernardone from the Italian town of Assisi was fond of Provencal 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. , earthly beauty - and does not eat; glorifies gold and crimson - and walks in rags; strives for happiness - and for martyrdom. All these riddles are easily resolved in a simple story of any noble love. " Francis was illumined by the radiance of Divine love, and his self-denial was not self-control, but passion, pleasure.

Christ for Francis is God's Being, boundless in time and existing everywhere in space. Francis saw that Christ's stay in the world was not interrupted, he recalled the promise: "I am with you until the end of time." 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 the killing of the lark brothers; love pacifies the evil wolf; preaching 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 the brothers to put out the clothes that have caught fire on him. The hearts of all creatures were opened to him, and the 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, all His creation, both heavenly and earthly, and all their perfections, and degrees, and various orders; and clearly comprehended then, as each creation revealed its Creator, and how God dwells both above, and within, and outside, and around all creations.

Own own body St. Francis good-naturedly and mockingly called "brother donkey" and reproached for laziness and disobedience, but he was ready to listen to the just complaints of this "brother donkey". Once Francis, sick and exhausted, asked a monk how he should be with his flesh, because, exhausted, "she herself no longer asks for anything." The monk asked the saint: did the flesh of Francis obey as long as it was strong? And he answered: we lived in perfect harmony, she and I, and served Christ together. Then the monk said: “Where, father, is your mercy, where is love and indulgence? How could you serve Christ without the help of the body? Is it fair to refuse help to such a faithful friend who did not spare his life for you? this sin on the soul." And having thanked the monk, Francis began to say to his body: "Rejoice, brother of the body, for from now on I will willingly fulfill your desires and hasten to help your sorrows."

Pope Innocent III approved the order founded by Francis, but soon the structure and character of the order changed greatly. It was reorganized on a hierarchical basis, and its head ("general") was appointed by the pope. Francis withdrew 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 beggar. In the future, the Dominicans became the main tool of the Inquisition, the spiritual gendarmerie, they called themselves "dogs of the Lord" (in Latin - domini-canes). Along with the Franciscans, they took up teaching at the 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. "The sacred teaching," said Thomas Aquinas, "uses the human mind not to prove faith, but to clarify everything that is offered in this teaching." Identification, clarification - the defining principle of scholasticism. In order 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 thought. Hence the schematism of scholastic writings.

Scholastic writings had to meet three requirements:

Sufficient enumeration (comprehensiveness),

Sufficient articulation (dividing the text into chapters, headings, paragraphs),

Sufficient relationship.

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 "revealing" and "clarifying" penetrated into almost every mind dealing with cultural problems, turned into a "mental habit". In a treatise on medicine, a propaganda leaflet, a biography of Ovid - everywhere the same obsession with the systematics of divisions and subdivisions, the demonstration of methodology is found. This passion had a direct impact on all the arts. In music, this was achieved by the introduction of time, and in the visual arts, with the help of a precise and systematic division of visual space. In Gothic architecture, the "principle of transparency" dominated: the divisions of the interior could be "read" from the facade.

Scholastic philosophy reached its pinnacle in creativity Thomas Aquinas(1225-1274), who synthesized 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. Against family resistance, he joined the Dominican order.

Thomas Aquinas also defended a positive attitude towards the flesh against the "Augustinian grumblers": neglect of the corporeal principle, he said, is a relapse of Manichaeism. In contrast to the Platonic-Augustinian tradition, which considered the incorporation 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 the soul and body to be a normal phenomenon of being.

The incorporeal 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 a particular body, which it animates. This is due to the special help of God, a special act that preserves her individual essence and in a state of incorporeality. But the incorporeal existence of the soul is defective, because the full substance of a person requires the unity of the soul with the body, which is restored on the Day of the Last Judgment.

Thomas Aquinas finally reconciled the Catholic Church with the teachings of Aristotle. Many provisions of Thomism (the teachings of Thomas Aquinas) are drawn from Aristotle.

St. Thomas rejected the proofs of the existence of God, which proceed from the immediate givenness of His human consciousness, refuting the Augustinians and mysticism, which does not accept the necessity of the Church. There can be only circumstantial evidence - from the 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 is made up of accidents, there must be an absolute necessity.

4. Various degrees of perfection are measured by an absolute limit, therefore, there must be an absolute perfection.

5. The world is purposeful, therefore, there must be a God who sets goals 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.

The passive Aristotelian primordial matter was declared by Thomas to be the product of God's creation "out of nothing". In addition to material forms, there are incorporeal (angels). Spiritual matter, unlike the Augustinians, Thomas did not recognize.

Thomas did not agree with the Augustinian "grumblers" that every phenomenon of 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 tools.

Creation did not happen all at once, but in stages. It was not the work of an impersonal necessity, but of a Divine Person who acts from the inclination of his free will.

Direct divine illumination, intuitive knowledge, which Augustine considered possible for a person, became for Thomas the privilege of angels. But, ironically, in 1272, Thomas himself experienced an insight and learned something in a minute, after which he began to appreciate everything written no more than straw. He did not finish the "Sum of Theology".

Since 1879 it has become mandatory in all Catholic educational institutions teach the St. Thomas (Thomism) as the only true philosophy. As a result, it is not only a historical and philosophical fact, but also an effective force.

Philosophy in Christianity appears in the integral system of human values ​​as one of the most unique spiritual phenomena of culture. Christianity, entering the historical arena in the second half of the 1st century new era, for a long time chained free human thought (mind) to itself, subordinating almost all known ancient philosophical teachings to its interests. Christian thought, itself claiming the role of spiritual philosophy, presented moral and ethical subjects regarding orthodox religion. Therefore, it is equally important for both a sincere believer and a secular person, if he aspires to culture and enlightenment. This, of course, is only about new (but necessarily religious) views on the Universe, society and man himself. In modern Christianity, the world of human thought is presented in a completely different way. It, as before, being entirely and completely mediated by revelation from the Holy Scriptures, strives for freedom of interpretation of the latter.

Christian philosophy has been closely linked with theology from the very beginning. Its subject matter covered existential relations (God - man), that is, all traditional philosophical disciplines - ontology, epistemology, logic, ethics, aesthetics, etc. It took shape historically gradually and difficultly, crystallizing out of the chaos of various ancient teachings, contradictory conjectures 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. However, they were divided into two classes. The first was made up of the Gnostics belonging to the church, who sought to logically and consistently substantiate the Christian faith. The Gnostics, who were not connected with the official church, wanted to link their teachings with the ideals of ancient Eastern mythical ideas about the world and ancient Greek mystical philosophy.

Gnosticism became the first rather critical current of 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, they were not without reason called mystics, since they taught that God himself can only be known through revelation or direct (personal) communication with him. The most famous representatives of 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 ancient Roman apologetics initially became the main mode of existence of philosophical and religious thought in Christianity. Philosophical and religious apologists (Greek apologetes - protector), defending the spiritual interests of early Christianity, appealed to the authorities - the 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 trends, they, nevertheless, outlined a range of worldview 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 I-II centuries, during the formation and beginning of the functioning of the church, apologetics flourished already as a way of rational (theoretical) defense of Christianity. At the same time, developing the basic principles Christian philosophy, apologists actively used the conceptual apparatus and methodology of ancient Greek and ancient 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 a new religious and philosophical trend - 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 reflection. Experts believe that in the interpretation of the Bible, a special attitude is manifested to the Word, or rather, to the biblical text as a 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 the biblical wisdom and the creativity of the ancient Greek philosophers have one source - the divine mind. However, Greek philosophers and early Christians discovered intelligible truth in very different ways. Philo, for example, in contrast to 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 personal attitude. Of course, he places God outside the material (perceived) world, characterizing him as a 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 that he considers necessary. So, he introduced himself to Moses as Yahweh (in the Greek version, Jehovah), which in Russian means “Existing”.

Thus, Philo of Alexandria for the first time in the history of philosophical and religious thought presents a fundamentally new personal attitude towards God. The characterization of God as a person was a significant step forward in the direction of creating the phenomenon of the Christian worldview. However, it did not imply a complete overcoming of the abyss existing in religion between God and God. the real world. Only the Logos as a universal law, as the 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 realm of eternal intelligible ideas, identical to divine thoughts. But, unlike ancient philosophy, in Philo the Logos appears as a spirit created by God, which originally representeddivine mind.

Thus, in the new philosophy of faith, Philo for the first time posed the problem of naming God, to which no previous words and concepts about him are applicable. However, according to Philo, already Moses, having comprehended the truth directly from God himself, was able to clearly present it to people in a language they understand, relying on images and mystical examples. Therefore, for the interpretation of 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 the 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. It was a kind of training of the human mind, which had to be actively involved in the development and development 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 oppose 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. That is why faith was given to man, he argued, in order to perceive literally everything that is above human understanding. Not wisdom, but ignorance is the stronghold of faith. Tertullian was sincerely convinced that only in the uneducated, ill-bred soul of a Christian did truths about God and the Kingdom of God initially exist.

God himself appears to man, says Tertullian, and in the most unreasonable way - in contradiction. So, for example, the birth of Christ, the son of God, came from an ordinary woman. Christ, the true God, is at the same time the true man. Where is the logic? It does not exist, and there is no need to look for any logic where everything seems to us absolutely absurd. “I believe because it is absurd” is the motto of Tertullian. natural state human being is following common sense and pure faith in God. Tertullian's passionate sermon on pure faith, absolutely incompatible with reason, had different influence on many Christian thinkers. Some agreed with him, while others objected no less passionately, such as the Gnostics. And since the teachings of Tertullian and the Gnostics were opposite, it became necessary to develop some intermediate system of views. Starting from these opposite views, the new philosophizing theologians (they were called the Holy Fathers of the Church) formulated special point vision, or rather, developed a fundamentally different religious and philosophical doctrine, the so-called patristics (lat. Pater - father).

2/ Basic principles of religious and philosophical thinking and worldview

Z/ Cognition as likeness to God. Mysticism and scholasticism 4 / Religious intellectualism and religious anti-intellectualism. The problem of the relationship between reason and faith

Christian apologetics: main problems and ideological origins

In historical science, the period of the Middle Ages in Western Europe date back to the 5th-15th centuries. However, in relation to philosophy, such dating is not entirely correct. Medieval philosophy in Western Europe is Christian philosophy. Christian philosophy began to take shape much earlier. The first Christian philosophers - Athenogoras, Theophilus, Irenaeus, Justin, Tatian and others developed and promoted their ideas in the 2nd century. n. e.

The philosophy of early Christianity was called apologetics and its representatives - apologists. They received this name because their writings often bore the name and character of apologies, that is, works aimed at defending and justifying the Christian doctrine and activities of Christians. The early Christians solved two interconnected tasks: directly practical and ideological and theoretical. The essence of the first was the need to protect Christian communities from persecution, defend the right to profess a new religion, strengthen their organizational unity, prevent its adherents from departing from Christianity, and attract wide sections of the population to it. The solution to this problem involved clarifying the relationship of the supporters of the new religion to the state and society, and their religious beliefs - to the state religion and the requirements of civic duties, to public morality, to the fight against rumors spread about Christians as atheists, blasphemers, immoral people who perform cannibal rites. , to prove the advantages of Christianity over other religions, etc. In writings addressed primarily to representatives of power - Roman emperors, governors, Christian apologists convince them of the loyalty of adherents of the new religion.

In the face of constant persecution, the ideologists of early Christianity looked for legal arguments to defend their religion's right to civil existence. At that time, they appealed to natural and civil law, advocated the uniform application of laws to all citizens of the empire, regardless of their religion, demanded the application of the principle of freedom of conscience. Turning to the adherents of Christianity, the apologists sought to encourage them, to inspire the idea of ​​exclusivity, being chosen by God. Often, the ideologists of early Christianity deliberately pushed their "brothers in faith" to martyrdom. Suffering and fanatical self-sacrifice, as a manifestation of the high moral and volitional qualities of the adherents of the new religion, they used as an argument in missionary activity.

Along with solving directly practical problems related to ensuring the normal functioning of Christian organizations and conducting missionary activities, Christian apologists paid much attention to the development and theoretical substantiation of their doctrine. The fact is that Christian apologetics appeared and began to function at the time of the formation of the church. At that time, Christianity still existed in the form of scattered communities or episcopal churches that did not have a single, generally accepted dogma. It was just a matter of creating this creed.

Where did the necessary mental material come from? First of all, the object of comprehension of Christian apologists was numerous mythological images and ideas of empirical religious consciousness, partly borrowed from the Middle Eastern, Greek and Roman religions, partly re-formed in the Christian consciousness under the influence of new social and spiritual factors. Great material for philosophical reflection was also provided by the Hellenistic philosophy of late antiquity. Christian apologists had to streamline all this heterogeneous material, bring it into some kind of system, explain the most important provisions, if possible, make them accessible to the perception of their adherents and protect them from attacks by opponents of Christianity.

When developing the foundations of the dogma, Christian philosophers did not need to re-invent the conceptual apparatus and methodology for operating with these concepts, they could use, and did use, the conceptual language of ancient Greek and Roman philosophy. Researchers of the history of Christianity note that the Hellenistic philosophy of the 1st-2nd centuries was the direct theoretical sources of early Christian philosophy, primarily the system of the Judeo-Hellenistic philosopher Philo from Alexandria and vulgarized Greek, in particular, Stoic philosophy.

Philosophy of Philo was based on the idea of ​​God as a supreme being, standing outside of time and space, transcendent to the world (located outside the world). By virtue of his transcendence, God could not come into direct contact with the world; this requires an intermediary. At the mythological level, this problem was resolved in Christianity through the image of the lamb - Jesus Christ, who accepted the sacrificial death of the three of mankind in the name of his salvation. However, for the emerging Christian philosophy, it was necessary to give a solution to this problem at the theoretical level. On this basis, the so-called Christological problem was formed, which with particular force stimulated theological searches, opened up a wide field for philosophical reflection.

In ancient philosophy, certain approaches have already been developed in solving the problem of overcoming the dualism of the world and its essence. The Pythagoreans, Plato and his followers laid down the basic methodological principles of the doctrine of the spiritual unity of the world. But neither the classics of ancient philosophy nor the Neoplatonists created the concept of a god-person. They interpreted the One as some kind of original, produced from itself all being, as an absolute abstract-impersonal individuality. Personal Understanding of God first given by Philo of Alexandria.

That which is personal, unique and indestructible is not composed of something impersonal, Philo reasoned. An attempt to explain the personality causally-genetically leads to the transition from one element to another, up to infinity. In this fragmentation, personality is lost. Therefore, in order to preserve the personality in all individuality, originality and unity, it is necessary to admit that it can be created from nothing, without any prerequisites. Personality, like God, is without preconditions. If God is an absolute beginning, then He cannot but be a person, for if He is not a person, then something preceded Him, and therefore He is not an absolute beginning. Thus, God is a person, and requires a personal relationship and understanding.

The characterization of God as a person was a significant step forward in the direction of the Christian worldview, but it did not fully bridge the gap between God and the world. To overcome this abyss it was necessary to introduce mediating forces. For this purpose, Philo uses one of the central concepts of ancient philosophy - the concept of Logos. Just as in ancient philosophy, Philo's Logos is endowed with a rational-logical and structural-ordering function. Logos is the world order, beauty and harmony. It is the law that brings all the diversity of things to unity. From him every form, every stability and certainty. Taken by itself, in abstraction from bodily shvy, Logos is the realm of eternal intelligible ideas, identical with divine thoughts. The world is created by God according to the model of these ideas and serves as their reflection.

But unlike ancient philosophy, Philo's Logos appears as a spirit created by God, which is originally the divine mind. After the creation of the real world, the divine mind became immanent in the world. Accordingly, ideas and logos, as divine components, also become immanent in the world. In Philo's view of Logos only his identification with the messiah was missing - Christ. The Logos, identified with Christ, appears shortly after Philo's death in the Gospel of John:

“In the beginning was the Word [in the original Greek - Logos] and the Word was with God and the Word was God” (John 1:1). And then the author of the composition brings Jesus Christ closer to God through the Logos. “The Word became flesh and dwelt in him” (John 1:4). Thus, there is a version that the eternally existing Logos was embodied in Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is interpreted as God, but the concept of "God" is not identical with the concept of "Christ". There is a certain difference between them, for otherwise it is difficult to understand the meaning of the earthly existence of the Logos, its purpose and purpose in the world. God the father is invisible, and the Logos-son must be incarnated among people so that through him they learn about the father.

The doctrine of the divine Logos was also developed by representatives stoicism. However, the main contribution of Stoicism to the formation of the Christian worldview is that it presented to Christianity system of moral values. Stoicism is characterized by the preaching of apoliticalism, disregard for the realities of a particular social life, the denial of the values ​​of the object-bodily and the opposition of the corporeal to the spiritual, as a higher sphere of vital interests. One of the most important tasks of philosophy is, according to Seneca, the task of establishing a special community between people, imbued with an invisible, but the strongest connection, the community of the holy righteous, uniting the divine world and the human world. Such a community, he thought, could be created by people who embodied the ideals of the sage - the Stoics. These people, free from all kinds of passions and needs, are the real masters of themselves, possessing all the virtues, always doing the right thing and having achieved all these qualities by an attitude of non-resistance and religious obedience to the providential order of the world.

Basic principles of religious and philosophical thinking and worldview

The main provisions of Christian doctrine take the form of guiding principles in religious philosophy and theology, which determine the way of perception, comprehension and processing of mental material, that is, the form of the basic principles of religious-philosophical theorizing and worldview.

The dominant idea of ​​the Christian worldview is the idea of ​​God. If the ancient worldview, in its essence, is cosmocentric, then the medieval one is theopentrically. The reality that determines everything that exists in the world for Christianity is not nature, space, and the supernatural - God. The idea of ​​the real existence of the supernatural and the possibility of establishing certain relations with it is one of the essential points of all developed religions, including Christianity. Christian thinkers attach to the supernatural the role of the determining principle in all processes taking place in the world, make the existence of nature, man, and society dependent on it.

The idea of ​​the real existence of the supernatural makes us look at development, the meaning of history and the universe, human goals and values ​​from a special angle, gives them their own special, as it were, transcendent perspective, rising above the final everyday and historical situations, rooting in something eternal, absolute , eternal, beyond everything earthly, relative, temporal, transitory. Such a point of view on everything that happens in the world, fixed in the doctrine and cult practice of religious institutions, takes the form of a guiding attitude in theology and religious philosophy, which determines the way of perception, comprehension and processing of all mental material, acquires the status of the main principle of religious and philosophical theorizing - supranaturalism(from lat. super - above and natura - nature). The principle of supranaturalism is carried out in theology and religious philosophy through the entire system of concepts, worldview schemes and more particular attitudes: creationism, theism, providentialism, etc.

Acting as the most important setting, the fundamental element of the religious philosophical style of thinking, supranaturalism is concretized in Christian theology by a number of other principles. Among these principles, special mention should be made of soterio- logism (from lat. soter - savior) - the orientation of all human life to the "salvation of the soul." Jesus Christ is regarded as the savior of the world and mankind, having atoned for the sins of mankind by his martyrdom on the cross. Salvation itself is interpreted as a process of deification, the union of man with God in the so-called "God's kingdom."

In Christian theology, in accordance with soteriologism, a person is reduced as a subject of activity, cognition and communication to the object and subject of "salvation". The meaning of human existence, from the point of view of Christian theorists, is not in the knowledge and transformation of nature and society, but in unity with God in the so-called "God's kingdom". All aspects of human life with this approach are considered through the prism of religious values, as factors that favor or hinder "salvation". As a result, a person's life in religious concepts gets, as it were, two dimensions: the first is the relationship of a person to God, the second is the relationship of a person to nature and other people.

Of course, one cannot categorically assert that the social activity of a person, his knowledge and transformation of the world completely lose their own meaning for religious thinkers. In various philosophical and theological systems, these aspects of human life are given unequal importance. But the main thing that determines them is given to the first relation, since it is in it that the meaning of human life is revealed, it is here that everything good and moral is acquired. The second attitude acquires significance for a person only insofar as it contributes to the formation of his spiritual world, acts as a means of spiritual ascent to God.

Another important principle of comprehension and processing of mental material in Christian theology is closely connected with supranaturalism and soteriologism - revolutionism, or the principle of revelation(from lat. revelatio - revelation). The transcendence and incomprehensibility of God, the finitude and sinfulness of man - these are the principles of Christian philosophy, on the basis of which revolutionism functions.

The principle of revelation presupposes, first of all, the existence of some “mysterious” that people need to know in order to be saved. But with their mind they are not able to receive this knowledge. It is precisely because the content of revelation is a transcendent being that infinitely surpasses the possibilities of natural cognition that the need arises for such a form of communication between God and man. Communication itself is understood in Christian philosophy as the process of God transferring his “secret” to people, as an act of divine self-disclosure through the prophets and apostles in the Holy Scripture (Bible).

Christian apologetics, which provides for the unfolding of revelation in time, recognizes the possibility and right to interpret its content on the part of the church. And the church itself is regarded as the only and never mistaken interpreter of it. Recognition of the Church's exclusive right to interpret the content of revelation is formalized in the recognition of such a form of revelation as Sacred Tradition, enshrined in Sacred Tradition. This trend has been most developed in ", Catholic Church, where not only the writings of the Church Fathers, the resolutions of the first seven Ecumenical Councils (Orthodoxy), but also the documents of the Pope began to be considered as Holy Tradition. The dogma of the infallibility of the Pope was a logical continuation and completion of this practice.

An important way for God to convey his secret is direct communication, the entry of God into a person through mystical intuition. Revelation in this case is understood as a direct contemplation of God, the assimilation of the "secret" by virtue of its self-evidence. This method of revelation, according to orthodox Christian ideas, is the privilege of the saints, as well as those who, through special efforts, comprehend at some point the state of holiness.

Revolutionism presupposes the attitude of Christian philosophers to the initial mental material not as the result of a theoretical study of man, but as an eternal and unchanging truth received from the outside, ready-made, which people must accept by virtue of the authority of the one from whom it is received - God, the church. Such an approach inevitably leads to an authoritative, dogmatic type of thinking. A characteristic moment of the attitude of Christian ideologists to the content of their mental material is the attitude of faith, which expresses not just trust in authority or agreement with it, but complete submission to it, the elimination of one's own critical thought, the suppression of any possibility of doubt.

Theocentrism, as the most feature Christian worldview permeates all parts of philosophical theory: the doctrine of being - ontology, the doctrine of man - anthropology, the doctrine of knowledge - epistemology and the doctrine of historical development - eschatology. In the field of ontology, theocentrism is revealed through the principle of creationism, in anthropology - through the principle of anthropologism, in epistemology - through the principle of likeness to God, in the philosophy of history - through the principle of providentialism and eschatologism. Let's give brief description these basic points of the Christian worldview.

Creationism. According to Christian doctrine, God created the world out of "nothing", created it by an act of his will, thanks to his power. Divine omnipotence continues to support the existence of the world every moment. The maintenance of the existence of the world is the constant creation of it again by God. If the creative power of God ceased, the world would immediately return to non-existence.

Unlike the ancient gods, who were related to nature and often identified with it, the Christian God stands above nature, on the other side of it, and therefore is a transcendent God. Thus, in the Christian worldview, the active creative principle is, as it were, withdrawn from nature, from the cosmos and transferred to the transcendent force - God. God is treated as an absolute creative principle. All the attributes that the ancient Greek philosophers endowed with being are attributed to him: he is eternal, unchanging, self-identical, does not depend on anything else and is the source of all that exists. However, Christian philosophy, as noted earlier, has a spiritual and moral orientation, orients a person towards the salvation of his soul. Therefore, Christian ontology is built on the principle that God is not only the highest being, but also the highest Good, the highest Truth and the highest Beauty.

Anthropocentrism. In the context religious outlook, is a set of views that affirm the exclusive role of man among the creation of God. According to Christian teaching, God created man not together with all creatures, but separately, a special day of creation was allocated for him. Christian philosophers emphasize the special position of man in the world. If all other material systems are mere creations, then man

The crown of creation. He is the center of the universe and the ultimate goal of creation. Moreover, he is a being that dominates the Earth.

The high status of human existence is determined by the biblical formula "man is the image and likeness of God." What exactly are the properties of God that constitute the essence of human nature? It is clear that neither omnipotence, nor infinity, nor beginninglessness can be attributed to man. Christian theology gives an unequivocal answer to this question: the divine qualities of man are reason and will. It is reason and free will that make a person a moral being and a representative of God in this world, a continuer of divine deeds. Man, like God, is given the ability to express judgments, to distinguish between good and evil. Free will allows a person to make a choice in favor of good and evil. The first people - Adam and Eve

We made this choice badly. They chose evil and thereby committed the fall. From now on, the nature of man turned out to be corrupted, he is constantly affected by the fall. Therefore, Christian thinkers define the nature of man as dual. The duality of human nature is the most important feature of the entire Christian worldview. This bifurcation of man, the greatest medieval philosopher Augustine, called the "sickness of the soul", its disobedience to itself, that is, to the highest principle. According to the Christian worldview, a person on his own is not able to overcome his sinful inclinations. He constantly needs divine help, the action of divine grace. The ratio of nature and grace is the central theme of Christian anthropology - the doctrine of man.

Providentialism and Eschatology. At the heart of the Christian concept of history lies the idea of ​​a constant and necessary connection between man and God. Man is interpreted as being created by God, saved by Christ and destined for a supernatural destiny. The historical process in this approach is

et as the disclosure of the divine-human relationship, characterized, on the one hand, by the decline, regression caused by the fall and alienation of man from God, and on the other hand, by the ascent of man to God. The main mission of history is characterized as salvific, redemptive, testing and edifying. With this approach, the historical process acquires, as it were, two dimensions: horizontal and vertical. The horizontal characterizes the historical process from the point of view of its internal development:

people activities, them struggle for power, for the improvement of well-being, etc. Vertical - characterizes the impact on the historical process of God's action, his intervention in the course historical development. The Christian worldview is fundamentally providential. The world does not develop on its own, but according to the providence of Boyasiy. According to this worldview, the providence of God extends to the entire surrounding world and gives natural and social processes a meaningful and purposeful character. In the philosophy of history, providentialism claims that the divine plan predetermines the history of people, it breaks through all 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 all kinds of punishments.

Providentialism is inextricably linked with eschatology - doctrine of the end of the world. History in the Christian worldview is portrayed as an expedient process directed by God to a predetermined goal - the kingdom of Eschaton ("kingdom of God"). Christian thinkers portray the "kingdom of God" as a true, beautiful and perfect world, in which a person will be in complete union with God. Achieving the "kingdom of God" is the ultimate goal and meaning of human existence. This position is the basis of the Christian worldview and is recognized by all areas of Christian philosophy and theology. Differences between them begin when it comes to the interpretation of this "kingdom" and the paths leading to it. To what extent and under what conditions is it possible to create the "kingdom of God" in earthly conditions, in historical existence. Is a person capable, to some extent, of his own strength, without divine action, to prepare the “kingdom of God”, etc.

Knowledge as God-likeness. Mysticism and scholasticism Since in the Christian worldview the goal and meaning of knowledge is given not by the material needs of people and not by the thirst for self-improvement, but by the need for “salvation of the soul”, the ultimate goal of a person’s cognitive efforts is recognized not

knowledge of the objective world - nature and history, and the acquisition by a person through the process of knowing his original “pre-sinful” appearance, gaining the “image and likeness of God”. One of the most important provisions of Christian philosophy is the interpretation the process of cognition as god-likeness. The Christian theory of knowledge is based on the biblical idea of ​​the radical lack of independence and inferiority of human nature. From the point of view of Christian ideology, only God can be a full-fledged subject of activity and cognition. Man, on the other hand, is a being derived from God, and for this reason alone he is incapable of cognition.

According to the Christian view, even in his original, “pre-sinful” state, man was completely dependent on God. The peculiarity of this “pre-sinful” state, according to the descriptions of Christian philosophers, is that a person did not live on his own, but in a divine way, was in unity with God, was involved in the supernatural. The essence of the fall, in their opinion, lies precisely in the fact that a person separated from God, wanted to live according to his own principles and norms, wished to become equal to God, in other words, a free subject of activity and knowledge. Assimilation to God, the acquisition by a person of a divine image and likeness again is interpreted by orthodox Christian ideology as a person's rejection of his claims, of his subjectivity, of his "I". God-likeness is nothing else than man's self-denial, a complete transition into man's submission to God.

The form of such a transition, according to Christian thinkers, is faith. At the same time, they resort to a rather extended interpretation of the phenomenon of faith. Faith is interpreted by them as a universal dimension of human consciousness, subjectivity, spirituality, which expresses a rationally opaque attitude to reality. Faith is interpreted both as a psychological attitude, confidence, commitment to something, and as a belief in the supernatural, as a religious belief. Using the first meaning of the term "faith", Christian philosophers consider faith as a special, supernatural, cognitive and ideological position of the subject. According to them teaching, faith has deep emotional and volitional foundations and is psychologically primary in relation to discursive thinking. “If you do not believe, you will not understand... Knowledge mediated by faith is the most reliable,” says Clement of Alexandria. Anyone seeking truth, he believes, must proceed from some initial provisions that determine the development of his search, take a certain cognitive and worldview position, believe in something. Faith, as an attitude of consciousness, is identified by Christian philosophers with religious faith. It is interpreted as a form of unity between man and Bo

gom, as a channel through which God influences the cognitive abilities of a person, heals, fertilizes and improves them.

The position about the radical lack of independence of a person, as a subject of cognition, receives the highest expression through the introduction of the action of divine grace into the cognitive process. The characterization of God as mystical Love - grace in Christian systems is no less, and often more significant than the definition of him as Reason. Divine grace appears in Christian epistemology as the main driving principle and regulator of cognitive activity. The need to use this factor in the cognitive process is explained by Christian philosophers by the fact that a person, due to the "sinfulness" of his nature, by himself cannot become like God.

To explain the mechanism of divine intervention in the cognitive process, Christian philosophers often use light symbolism, which is presented in a concentrated form in the so-called theories of enlightenment or insights. This theory was borrowed by Christian thinkers from Neoplatonism and is shared to varying degrees by most schools of Christian philosophy and theology.

According to this theory, the mind, in the end, cognizes the world not by virtue of its own potentialities, but with the help of divine light, a mystical outpouring of a deity that enlightens both the things themselves and human thinking. Without this light, the ideologists of Christianity assert, the essence of the object would remain unilluminated, hidden from the mind. Divine light appears in the systems of Christian philosophers to a certain extent as a figurative representation, a symbol, but at the same time, real, physical meaning is often attached to this symbolic image.

The doctrine of divine penetration into human knowledge is the basis of one of the largest areas of medieval philosophy - mysticism. This doctrine originates in the system of the largest representative of medieval philosophy, Augustine Aurelius (354-430). According to the teachings of Augustine, the whole world is permeated with reason, the logos, which contains the nature of light, since it has a common cause of its occurrence - God. However, Augustine argued, neither things nor the human soul contain light in themselves. They glow with reflected light. Everything is visible, everything is real only through God. God " - it is the Sun-Tse, which is not itself visible, but which makes everything else visible. All knowledge is realized through rays of divine light. The created light makes it possible to know bodily things, the light of reason - intelligible objects, the light of grace - the truth of revelation.

Mysticism found its most striking expression in the Orthodox tradition of John the Theologian, Basil the Great, Gregory of Nyssa;

in the Catholic - Bernard of Clairvaux; Giovanni Fidanza (Bona Ventura).

Mysticism teaches that before the fall, man was a being of a spiritual, luminous substance. The fall led to the fact that he lost his original essence, was cast into the world of sensual existence. Now, in the process of “salvation”, a person must renounce everything bodily, the “world”, and return to his former light spiritual appearance. This process includes three stages: the first is the purification of the soul from sensual passions and attachments (catharsis); the second - the enlightenment of the soul with wisdom - the intelligible light of divine truths;

and the third - illumination, mystical ecstasy, the merging of man with God. All three of these steps are inextricably linked to each other.

Catharsis considered in mystical systems as a precondition for enlightenment. In order for a person to be able to perceive the divine light, he must return from the fallen state to the state of primordial purity. The role of catharsis is to restore in man the divine image obscured by the fall. The purification process requires great ascetic efforts. Ultimately, this process, according to Christian mystics, should be the dematerialization of man, his renunciation of everything earthly. Having thrown off the former bodily coverings, which have become heavy and dragged down, the soul gets the opportunity to put on new clothes of light, which, due to their lightness, will drag it upwards. Thus, a person enters a new stage of god-likeness - enlightenment stage. At this stage, a gradual ascent of the mind from the lower manifestations of "light energy" to higher ones takes place.

In the end, this process must culminate in direct communication between God and man. The external expression of the ever-increasing unity of man with God is mystical ecstasy - divine illumination. In the systems of mysticism, it is treated as a manifestation to the consciousness of truth in its self-evidence. The soul at the moment of illumination contemplates not only the intelligible reality, but also the light itself, that is, it sees God himself - the source of all light - in his incorporeal essence. At the highest stage of the soul's ascent to God, the soul returns to its original form, i.e., "the image and likeness of God." Only then, according to the concepts of the mystics, does a person fully merge with God.

Along with mysticism, scholasticism (from Latin schola, or school) enjoyed great influence in medieval philosophy. And this term can be translated as “school philosophy”, that is, a philosophy that has been adapted for broadly teaching people the basics of the Christian worldview. Scholasticism form

It took place during the period of absolute dominance of Christian ideology in all spheres of public life in Western Europe. When, in the words of F. Engels, "the dogmas of the church became at the same time political axioms, and the biblical texts received the force of law in every court."

Scholasticism is the heir that continues the traditions of Christian apologetics and Augustine. Its representatives sought to create a coherent system of the Christian worldview, where a hierarchy of spheres of being was built, on top of which the church was located. Outperforming the early Christian thinkers in terms of the breadth of coverage of problems and the creation of grandiose systems, the scholastics significantly lost to them in the originality of problem solving and creative approach. One of the most characteristic features of the scholastic style of thinking is authoritarianism. Scholastics, in essence, do not care about the origin of certain provisions with which they operate. The main thing - if only they were approved by the authority of the church.

Authoritarianism - characteristic feature of the whole religious style of thinking. But the representatives of early patristics - apologists - recognized the absolute authority of the "Holy Scripture", they themselves then created the church. Their epigones added to this the authority of the "fathers of the church" themselves. The possibilities for creativity with such double pressure are reduced to a minimum. The creative potential of the scholastics goes into the sphere of formal logical research.

As researchers of the Middle Ages note, a number of factors contributed to the decline in the level of philosophical research in scholasticism. Chief among them is the collapse of the slave system and the establishment of the feudal mode of production. The transition from the slave system to the feudal system in the countries of Western Europe is accompanied by a decline in economic activity. Subsistence farming was established in these countries, handicrafts fell into decay, trade was reduced, populous and lively cities fell into decay. With the decline of cities, regression captured all areas of culture: literature, art, science. Philosophy has been deprived of the nourishing juices that it drew from the development of scientific knowledge. Of no small importance was the fact that the volume of literary, scientific and philosophical sources inherited from antiquity, available to European philosophy of the early Middle Ages, was extremely limited. The main philosophical works of the ancients were either completely lost or forgotten.

A certain role in lowering the theoretical level of medieval philosophy was also played by the fact that ran-Wei patristics and scholastics faced different tasks. Representatives of the early patristics actively participated in the creation of the foundations of the doctrine, constantly entered into polemics with heretics and pagans. The scholastics acted at the moment when the church strengthened its

positions and Christianity occupied an exclusive place in the life of feudal society. During this period, the formation of dogmas was basically completed, and the efforts of the scholastics were aimed primarily at clarifying and systematizing the unchanging provisions of faith, bringing them into such an order that it would be easier to teach and learn.

The development of the philosophy of the scholastics proceeded mainly within the framework of formal logical schematism. Completed in the main parts of the material, they had to process and present in the schemes of Aristotelian-Stoic logic. Scholastic intellectualism brings content in sacrifice form. Its representatives strive to replace the study of reality with the procedure of definitions, they give endless definitions and distinctions. The well-known researcher of ancient philosophy, Windelband, gives the following characterization of the scholastic method. “Scholastics only discuss, systematically prove, deduce consequences ad infinitum, without checking the foundations. All their logic is reduced to a syllogism. The abuse of syllogisms entails pettiness, a passion for divisions and subdivisions, reduces logical reasoning to verbal mechanics, promotes excessive care in the external expression of thought to the detriment of thought itself. (Vindelband V. History of Philosophy.- SPb., 1898.- FROM. 36).

Religious intellectualism and religious anti-intellectualism. The relationship between reason and faith.

The dispute between representatives of scholasticism and mysticism about the most effective means of introducing people to religion at the level of philosophy and theology resulted in a dispute about the best forms and methods for protecting and substantiating the Christian worldview. Different approaches to solving these issues have formulated two main trends: religious intellectualism and religious anti-intellectualism.

In religious intellectualism the desire to rely on the rational principle in human consciousness, to appeal to social and intellectual experience, and common sense is clearly expressed. The goal of intellectualism is to develop in a person a conscious perception of religious dogma, based not only on authority, but also supported by reasonable arguments. Representatives of intellectualism, to a certain extent, allow the participation of reason and the means of theoretical analysis and evaluation associated with it in the religious life of people. They strive to put reason at the service of faith, to reconcile science and religion, to make the most of the possibilities of rational means of influencing a person.

In contrast to religious intellectualism, representatives religious anti-intellectualism They believe that the rational approach to religion, which contains the moment of coercion and obligation for God, excludes in it the creative principle, freedom, arbitrariness, omnipotence. The actions of God, from the point of view of anti-intellectualists, are not subject to the laws of reason. God is absolutely free, his actions are absolutely unpredictable. On the way to God, reason is a hindrance. To come to God, you need to forget everything that you knew, to forget even in general that there can be knowledge. Anti-intellectualism cultivates blind and unthinking faith among adherents of religion.

The struggle between religious intellectualism and religious anti-intellectualism runs like a red thread through the entire history of medieval philosophy. However, at each specific historical stage of history, this struggle had its own characteristics. During the formation of Christian apologetics, it was conducted on questions of attitude to ancient culture in general and to ancient philosophy, as a theoretical expression of this culture, in particular. Representatives of anti-intellectualism took a negative position in relation to ancient culture. They sought to discredit it in the eyes of their adherents as false, contradictory in nature views, leading people away from their true purpose - "the salvation of their souls."

The negative position of anti-intellectualism in relation to ancient culture was partly explained by the fact that in the Christian communities at the first stage, the absolute majority were illiterate, poorly educated people. The position that the truth proclaimed in Christianity - complete and final, sufficient to solve all the problems of human existence - to a certain extent satisfied its adherents and ensured the functioning of Christianity in society. However, the ideologists of Christianity constantly sought to expand the social base of the new religion. They wanted to win over the educated strata of Roman society: the patricians, the intelligentsia. The solution of this problem required a change in policy towards ancient culture, a transition from confrontation to assimilation.

Representatives of intellectualism believed that conceptually rational means of influence should not be cast aside, and even more so left in the hands of enemies. They must be placed in the service of Christianity. As noted by V. V. Sokolov, Justin already outlined a conciliatory line in relation to Hellenistic philosophy (See: Sokolov VV Medieval Philosophy.- M; 1979- S. 40).

Orientation towards familiarization with ancient culture finds its highest expression in the developed by Augustine theories about the harmony of faith and reason. Augustine calls for the recognition of two

ways of introducing people to religion: conceptually rational (logical thinking, achievements of sciences and philosophy) and irrational (authority of the “Holy Scripture” of the church, emotions and feelings). But these paths, from his point of view, are unequal. Augustine gives undeniable priority to irrational means. “Not by human teaching, but by inner light, as well as by the power of the highest love, Christ could turn people to the saving faith.” According to the views of Augustine, religious faith does not imply rational justification in the sense that in order to accept certain provisions of religion, it is necessary to know, understand, and have evidence. In the realm of religious life, one should simply believe without requiring any proof.

At the same time, Augustine is clearly aware of the important role played by rational means of influence. Therefore, he considers it necessary to strengthen faith with the evidence of reason, he advocates an internal connection between faith and knowledge. The healing of the soul, according to him, breaks down into authority and reason. Authority requires faith and prepares a person for reason. Reason leads to understanding and knowledge. Although reason is not the highest authority, the known and clarified truth is the highest authority. Reason obedient to religion and faith supported by reasonable arguments - such is the ideal of Augustinian apologetics. However, it should be noted that the theory of the harmony of faith and reason presented by Augustine does not allow for the possibility, at least to some extent, of making faith dependent on reason. The decisive importance in his system is undoubtedly given to revelation.

Augustine created his theory of the harmony of faith and reason in the IV-V centuries. in the early period of Christian history. AT XI-XII centuries in the struggle for ideological domination in society, the influence that originated in the depths of feudal culture begins to exert an ever-increasing influence freethinking. The emergence of medieval free-thinking is associated with a number of objective factors: the separation of crafts from the peasant economy and the development of cities on this basis, which gradually become an essential factor in medieval life. A secular culture began to take shape in the cities. One of the most important consequences of this factor is that the church has ceased to be the absolute bearer of education and education. In connection with the development of crafts and trade among the urban population, the need for knowledge of law, medicine, and technology is increasing. There are private law schools that are under the control of the church, the city government.

Medieval freethinking takes shape as a movement for the desacralization of certain areas human life , for the recognition of their autonomy in relation to religion and the church. Representatives of medieval freethinking Pierre Abelard (1079 - 1142), Gilbert Porretansky (c. 1076 -1154), Siger

Brabant (c. 1235 - 1282), Boethius Daccia and others did not reject religion. This was impossible in the Western European conditions of that period and did not suit their mood as believing Christians. Therefore, they recognized the existence of a supernatural order under the direction of a supernatural God. In their writings, medieval freethinkers constantly refer to the authority of "Holy Scripture", the "fathers of the church". At the same time, they defend the rights and possibilities of the human mind, the maximum independence of rational-philosophical research and, thereby, objectively undermine the foundations of revelationist dogmatism.

The first steps of medieval freethinking are connected with the penetration of dialectics into the religious dogma as the science of the laws of correct thinking. A prominent representative of this period is Pierre Abelard. During the period of the absolute dominance of theological authoritarianism, Abelard made an attempt to raise his voice in defense of philosophical reason. The initial premise of Abelard's concept is the identification of Christ with the Logos. “Christ is both the Logos (word, reasoning), and the wisdom of the father - Sophia. And just as the name “Christians” arose from Christ, so logic received its name from the Logos. Its followers are the more truly called philosophers, the more true lovers of this higher wisdom they are. This greatest wisdom of the highest stage, when it is clothed in our nature in order to enlighten us from worldly love to love in relation to itself, of course, makes us equally Christians and true philosophers ... The Lord Jesus Christ Himself defeated the Jews in frequent disputes and suppressed their slander both by writing and meditation, by proof to strengthen faith in oneself not only by the power of miracles, but especially by the power of words ... We must attract to faith with the help of reasonable evidence, those who seek wisdom ... " (Abelard P. Objection to a certain ignoramus in the field of dialectics / / Anthology of world philosophy. V4-htt.T. 1.- S. 802). Abelard's assessment of the role of reason in religious life may be even more modest than that of Clement or Augustine, but in the 11th century it sounded extremely revolutionary, and not least for this assessment Abelard was subjected to severe persecution.

The rationalistic moments of the ideology of medieval freethinking found their highest expression in theories of two truths or "dual truth". This theory transfers the problem of the relationship between faith and reason, religion and knowledge, into the sphere of the relationship between theology and philosophy. The main meaning of the theory of "two truths" is to affirm the independence of science and philosophy from the religious dogmas of theology.

In medieval thought, there were various versions of the “two truths” theory. One of them, represented by the Chartres school, was reduced to asserting differences in the subject and methods of theology.

gies on the one hand, science and philosophy on the other. Theology was given the area of ​​the supernatural, science and philosophy - the area of ​​knowledge related to the natural world. The truth of supernatural revelation, by virtue of the authority of "Holy Scripture" and the church, must be accepted on faith. Philosophy in its study relies on reason and experience. The main efforts of the representatives of the Chartres school were aimed at proving the position that there are no contradictions between theology and philosophy due to the difference in their subject areas and methods, although theology was given undoubted primacy.

The version of the theory of "two truths" presented by the Latin Avveroists Siger of Brabant to Boethius of Daccia looks more radical. Representatives of this direction of free conjecture operate in new historical conditions. By this time, the works of Avicenna Alfarabi, Maimonnid, Ibn Gebrol, a number of works of Arabic-speaking science - medicine, astronomy, mathematics, optics - were translated into Latin. An even greater role was played by the translations of the ancient philosophers Plato, Plotinus, Proclus. Of particular importance was the translation of Aristotle's Metaphysics.

Unlike the representatives of the Chartres school, Siger of Brabant and Boethius of Daccia are already fighting, if possible, for the complete autonomy of scientific and philosophical knowledge and come to the recognition of the possibility of a complete opposition of theology and philosophy on a number of important issues. In self-learning about Numetric Unity of Mind Seeger of Brabant put forward the idea of ​​the eternity of the world and the eternity of reason as a natural quality of man. According to Seeger's teaching, the universal and eternal mind provides adequate knowledge of the world to every person, since he is involved in this mind. individual person can err, the mind, as such, never errs. In essence, this expresses confidence in the objective value of human knowledge, accumulated over the centuries and verified by people's experience. The data of science and research of the human mind, according to Seeger, are, as it were, outside the sphere of faith, based on the laws of thought and nature. An important means of substantiating the autonomy of the conceptual-rational sphere was the Latin Avveroists' emphasis on the irrational nature of religious dogma, the impossibility of substantiating it by means of reason, and the opposition to the very principles of science. ,

The Catholic theologians were tasked by the leadership of the church to develop means of counteracting the influence of free thought, and at the same time take into account the increased authority of science and philosophy. In the best way, from the point of view of the church, Thomas Aquinas (1225 - 1274) solved this problem. The teachings of Thomas Aquinas soon after his death were recognized as official

teachings of Catholicism. The cornerstone of the entire vast philosophical and theological system of Thomas Aquinas is a new, in comparison with Augustine, version of the theory about the harmony of faith and reason. Aquinas proclaimed that faith should not contradict reason, that some fundamental provisions of the dogma can be rationally justified. For example, the mind is able to prove the dogmas about the existence of God, about the creation of the world, about the immortality of the soul, etc. Ultimately, the mind and faith are directed to the knowledge of the same Truth - God, but they do it in different ways. Reason rests on science and philosophy, faith on theology. The possibility of harmony of reason and faith is based on the fact that God reveals himself to man in two ways: natural - through the created world and supernatural - through revelation. Science and philosophy by means of reason, knowing the created world, come to the idea of ​​the existence of God and God's control of all processes in this world. Theology, based on supernatural revelation contained in the Bible and the decisions of the church, allows a person to accept the most important truths of the creed.

Recognizing the possibility of coincidence of conclusions to which a person comes on the basis of reason and faith, Thomas Aquinas at the same time emphasized that they cannot and should not contradict each other. Reason and faith are fundamentally different paths to Truth. The basis for accepting the truths of reason is their inner persuasiveness, the evidence of all initial propositions, while the basis for accepting the truths of faith is the authority of God who proclaimed them. The result of the activity of the mind is knowledge. The result of the activity of faith is a creed. Knowledge is the area of ​​obvious and provable truths, and faith is the area of ​​non-obvious and unprovable.

One and the same truth cannot be known and believed in at the same time. A person either knows for sure about something, or he takes it for faith. Agreement with the truths of reason is a consequence of logical necessity, agreement with the truths of faith is an act of free will. Having made a clear distinction between reason and faith, Thomas Aquinas separated science and philosophy from theology and thereby substantiated their relative independence. But relative independence, according to Aquinas, by no means meant a complete separation of faith from knowledge and knowledge from faith. Thomas Aquinas excludes the possibility of recognizing the theory of two truths. According to his teaching, in science and philosophy, that which is false, from the point of view of theology, cannot be recognized as true. In the case of a conflict between Meekdu, the criterion of revealed truths is decisive, which surpasses in their truth and value any rational proof. Thus, Thomas Aquinas recognized the value of scientific knowledge, rational evidence, and at the same time retained the control of theology over science and philosophy.

So, medieval Christian philosophy, while maintaining adherence to the basic principles of the religious philosophical style of thinking and worldview, has come a long way of development. Starting with small in volume and fairly simple in content "Apology" she ended up with the creation of grandiose philosophical and theological systems, in which all aspects of philosophical theory were reflected and developed: ontology, epistemology, philosophy of history, ethics and aesthetics.

Christianity, which arose in the 1st century. n. e in Palestine, the eastern province of the Roman Empire, already by the II-III centuries. was widespread throughout the empire and even beyond its borders. The fact that more recently this faith was called "a temptation for the Jews, madness for the Hellenes and an unlawful religion for the government" was quickly forgotten. and already in 325, by decree of Emperor Constantine, Christianity was declared the state religion of the Roman Empire. It is believed that the emperor himself was baptized as a sign of loyalty, but, nevertheless, along with the new faith, the temples of the ancient gods continued to operate.

Having existed (with varying success) in this role for seventy years, in 395, when, by order of Emperor Theodosius the Great, the so-called pagan religions were banned under the threat of death and all pagan temples were closed, Christianity became a religious monopoly in a vast empire. At the same time, as they would say now, terror begins against philosophers, declared minions of pagan gods and, accordingly, heretics. However, religion itself was not to blame. Then what caused the persecution? There is a famous saying that history is written by the winners. It can be supplemented a little - and supplemented ... Was the Roman emperor sincerely imbued with the preaching of universal love? Hardly. Most likely, it became more profitable for the victorious side to rule the people under the auspices of the new faith. And the introduction (precisely the introduction, not the adoption) of Christianity is not an exception, but only a confirmation of this gloomy rule. So it was in the Roman Empire, so it was in Russia, when Prince Vladimir “baptized” his people with a spear and sword, so it was in the New World, when European missionaries, accompanied by detachments of soldiers, instructed the Native Americans on the “true path”. It is regrettable to admit that the history of mankind is not at all full of stories about mutual love and brotherhood. There are no more ancient philosophers with their craving for beauty and the preaching of universal friendship and unity. And even such a peaceful religion as Christianity, someone manages - and very successfully! - to cover up their inhumane deeds. Let's remember Crusades, remember hundreds of years of the Inquisition, not to mention the smaller sad facts from the history of religions. Of course, the biography of not only Christianity managed to be marked by such bitter moments. It should not be forgotten that the Roman authorities threw the first Christians into circus arenas as food for lions, this also happened. Although such situations do not justify what followed next.

In 529 Emperor Justinian closed the last pagan school of philosophy, the Academy. By the way, what exactly does the word "paganism" mean, which, as a rule, has a negative connotation? It can be assumed that the word "paganism" comes from the word "language", i.e. "that which is in the town", in other words, "what they talk about." Naturally, the ancient beliefs and ancient philosophical systems were exactly what was talked about a lot. So, we see that there is nothing terrible or negative in this word. But history is written by the winners...

The teachings of the Jewish-Hellenistic philosopher Philo of Alexandria had a significant influence on the formation of Christian philosophy. In particular, he proposed a method of allegorical interpretation of the Bible.

But the very first philosophical ideas of Christianity can be found in the New Testament texts: in the Gospel of John and the epistles of the Apostle Paul. Gnosticism, the teachings of Origen, apologetics and patristics can be considered the first attempts at a philosophical understanding of Christianity.

The most important place in Christian philosophy is occupied by the doctrine of salvation, that is, the ways of gaining heavenly bliss and drawing closer to God.

The Gospel of John begins with the mention of the Divine logos - the Word. Jesus Christ as the messiah - the savior of the world - is identified with the Divine Logos.

The letters of the Apostle Paul touch upon the question of the relationship of Christianity to Judaism and paganism. In the Epistle to the Romans, for example, it is said that there is neither Greek nor Jew, that Jesus came to save everyone. In some other epistles, the apostle Paul says that all pagan wisdom and philosophy is nothing before divine wisdom and that pagan philosophy only leads believers away from the true path indicated, of course, in the Bible. But at the same time, the apostle Paul argues that the Gentiles should also be able to reach the knowledge of God. Both positive and negative attitudes of Christians towards pagan philosophy are based on these contradictory statements.

The term "gnosticism" comes from the ancient Greek "gnosis" - "knowledge". Gnosticism is characterized by a synthesis of various religions and philosophies. Arising in the 1st century in Syria or Alexandria, in the II century. Gnosticism became widespread, even rivaling Christianity.

In general, there are three types of Gnosticism: Christian, pagan and Semitic-Babylonian. All are characterized by the idea of ​​a single divine principle, from which, through a series of emanations, a hierarchically organized world arises, extremely remote from God. Sometimes there is also a second principle (for which, probably, Gnosticism was condemned in the first place by the church as a source of heresy), which is the antipode of God, it is either matter, or darkness, or chaos.

The largest representatives of Christian Gnosticism are those who lived in the II century. Basilides and Valentine. Basilides, for example, interpreted the Bible as follows: the Old Testament god Yahweh is only the head of the angels of the so-called lower, i.e., the sky visible to us. He is the creator-demiurge of our world, created from light and darkness (or from good and evil). Man in general is a being of darkness, but some people, who should be called pneumatics, possess souls from the supracosmic sphere.

The coming to earth of the messiah - Jesus Christ was intended precisely so that pneumatics - bright souls - could gain something called gnosis, and free themselves from the shackles of the material world and return to heaven.

The essence of gnosis is difficult both to understand and to explain. As Theodotus believed, it can be comprehended by answering the questions: “Who are we? Where are we? Where we are going? How are we freed?" and so on. The possession of gnosis - which, as we have already understood, is inherent in very few people - allows a person to know his inner Self and restore inner unity with the higher, spiritual, invisible sky.

Lived in the II-III centuries. the philosopher Origen was born and lived for a long time in Alexandria. He studied philosophy at the school of Ammonius, and then he himself headed the philosophical-Christian school in Alexandria, where Clement of Alexandria had previously taught. It is said that in order to avoid sinful carnal temptations, Origen castrated himself. Despite such a zealous attitude towards the faith, in 231 Origen, condemned by two synods, deprived of the title of presbyter, was expelled from Alexandria. After his exile, he moved to Palestine and opened his own school. However, during the anti-Christian unrest, he was arrested and thrown into prison, where he died from torture.

Origen developed the doctrine of three levels of meaning in the Bible. The first meaning is literal, or bodily, the second is moral, or spiritual, the third, the most important, is philosophical, mystical, or spiritual. At the same time, developing his understanding of the spiritual meaning of the Bible, Origen was guided by Stoicism and Neoplatonism, that is, pagan philosophy, in which he tried to find a justification for Christian ideas. The thinker believed that pagan wisdom is the first step on the path spiritual growth a person, the necessary preparation for the perception of Christianity, so he began teaching students in his school with ancient philosophy.

The history of the universe described in the Bible in the understanding of Origen looked something like this: before creating time, God created a certain number of spiritual beings (spirits) and endowed them with moral freedom. One of the spirits loved God so much that he merged with the Logos and became its created bearer. Through this soul, the Son of God was later incarnated on Earth. All other free spirits began to behave differently, as a result of which three types of beings arose: various angels - those spirits who loved God; demons - spirits that have turned away from God; people are spirits in whose souls a balance has been established between love and dislike for God.

The ultimate goal of God's creation is that all spirits find love for God. Since God does not act by coercion, he created the physical world, where the fallen (demons) or the undecided (people) fall. In the physical world, everyone who enters it can feel for themselves what evil is and its consequences, and make their choice in favor of goodness and love for God. Thus, the physical world is a means for correcting those who have gone astray. Our physical world was preceded by an infinite number of such worlds, and in the future there will be more and more, until all the lost spirits love God and return to spiritual world. Thus, Origen affirmed the obligatory salvation for everyone, including the devil, and the temporality of hellish torments.

Since Origen's teaching was very different from the later officially accepted Christian theology, it is not surprising that it caused condemnation of the church, and especially for the ideas of an inevitable salvation for all; the existence of an infinite number of previous worlds; the preexistence of souls; about the soul of Christ as a created spirit, which puts Christ below God the Father, while the official church considered them equal.

In connection with this state of affairs, in 543, by order of Emperor Justinian, Origen was declared a heretic. But, despite this, the teachings of Origen had a considerable influence on prominent figures of the Christian faith, and on medieval philosophy in general.

Now let's talk about apologetics. In ancient Greek, the word "apologetics" means "justification". Apologetics was a trend in Christian philosophy that developed in the 2nd-5th centuries. and aimed at defending the Christian faith. Apologetics was especially relevant until 325, before the moment when Christianity became the state religion in the Roman Empire, and Christians from "unlawful seducers" turned into an example to follow. The defense of the Christian denomination took place in three main directions. The purpose of the first was to prove to the Jews that the coming of Jesus Christ was foretold in the Old Testament and that Christianity was replacing Judaism by God's will. The purpose of the second is to give an acceptable (ie, rational and philosophical) justification for the so-called pagans to the Christian doctrine. The purpose of the third was to prove their loyalty to the government.

As history has shown, to prove to the Jews that the Messiah is Jesus Christ, Christians have not succeeded to this day. As for philosophy, the actual philosophical ideas were found first of all in those apologies that were directed against the pagans. In the process of solving the problem raised in them of the relationship between reason and faith, pagan philosophy and Christianity, two opposing points of view were formed, which persist to this day.

Patristics was the religious-philosophical teaching of the so-called Church Fathers, that is, philosophers and theologians of the period of early Christianity, whose points of view became leading in the formation of orthodox Christian theology. The development of patristics took place mainly in the III-VIII centuries.

The dogmas of the Christian faith were adopted in the course of the fiercest debates at numerous councils (congresses of the church elite). The final approval of dogmas took place on the most important for Christians Ecumenical Councils. Thus, it should be understood that the dogmas of any religion are just the opinions of ordinary earthly people who at some point tipped the scales in their favor.

The main philosophical and theological problems discussed in patristics were as follows: the trinity of God and the relationship between divine hypostases; the nature of Jesus Christ - divine, human or divine-human; the relation of faith and reason, and so on.

Patristics are usually divided into early and mature, eastern and western. Early patristics usually includes those philosophers and theologians whose teachings were later not fully accepted, and whose views were even partially condemned by the church (for example, the views of Origen). Such persons are not called church fathers, but church writers.

As for Eastern and Western patristics, the teachings of the Western Church Fathers played a role mainly in the development of the Catholic doctrine, while those of the Eastern ones played a role in the Orthodox one.

1. Historical conditions for the emergence of medieval philosophy

2. Patristic philosophy. Teachings of Aurelius Augustine the Blessed (354 - 430 AD)

3. Medieval scholasticism. Realism and philosophy of F. Aquinas (1225 - 1274 AD)

4. Nominalism and its essence.

1. Medieval Christian-religious philosophy (like any other) arises in special socio-historical and cultural conditions and circumstances that largely determine, if not the content, then the nature of philosophy and philosophizing. Chronologically, it follows the collapse of the ancient world and ancient culture. The collapse of the ancient world was accompanied not only by the decline of economic life, slavery has exhausted itself, but also by an unprecedented decomposition of the moral and ethical foundations in life, an unprecedented revelry of gross passions and the barbarization of life. ancient world collapsed both under the influence of the barbarian tribes that crushed the Greco-Roman civilization, and as a result of its own degradation. Which gave rise to general chaos, which caused a feeling of inevitable catastrophe. Therefore, the emergence of Christian-religious culture and philosophy was certainly a reaction to this crisis of ancient values. In order to overcome the general crisis, it was necessary to oppose it with a new system of values ​​of a universal nature, which could give a stable character to universal being. The assertion of new values ​​took the form of a merciless and sharp reaction against the general corruption.

The emergence of Christian religious philosophy was also associated with the establishment of Christian ideology, purely religious, as the dominant ideology, which did not tolerate and persecuted all other types of ideology. This ideology was based on the mystical idea of ​​the existence of the One God as the creator of all things, who, before the creation of the World, created Mind and Spirit. The central idea is that God created the world out of nothing. The fundamental moment of the new ideology was the doctrine of Christ, the son of God, who in his person, in his personality, directly embodied the single essence of the Creator, Creator. He is the flesh of the creator's flesh. Therefore, he is the bearer of God the Father, he is the bearer of the Divine mind, he is again the Holy Spirit, but, in addition, he is a person who conveys to us in his teaching, as the message of God the Father, the true essence of God the Creator, enshrined in the sacred Scripture - Old and New Testaments. Of course, this is clearly a mystical idea, the main form of comprehension and affirmation of which can only be faith in the actual Existence of the One God, in Christ - as evidence of this existence, confirmed by his supernatural acts within the framework of earthly existence.

2. The first distributors of the new ideology and worldview were the fathers of the new Christian church, who sought to establish the new faith in its purity, as well as to assert the power of the church, as the only truly divine power. Therefore, the assertion of the Faith, the assertion of a new ideology and the power of the church was of a total and irreconcilable character.

At the same time, the new Christian religion, but especially the church, needed philosophical reflection and theoretical justification a new religious ideology, as well as philosophical comprehension and substantiation of the essence of God, the First Creator and Creator, as a kind of universe. Since the Church Fathers were the first religious, Christian philosophers, at first medieval philosophical thought was concentrated in monasteries, since they had libraries containing the works of ancient and Roman philosophers and thinkers. Therefore, naturally, the formation of Christian medieval philosophy was greatly influenced by the philosophy of Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics, etc. Especially the Platonic doctrine of supernatural entities, the Aristotelian concept of God as the prime mover of all things, the doctrine of form as an organizing force and the Aristotelian concept of the Logos, the Stoic theory of fate with the predestination of human existence. And since the founders of Christian-religious philosophy were the Church Fathers, this period in medieval philosophy was designated patristic philosophy (Patristics)(from lat. Pater - father). Christian-religious philosophy initially acquired the status of official philosophy, focused on the needs of religion and the church. Since philosophy is a form and method of rational explanation and understanding of the world, philosophy was largely used as a method of rationalistic explanation and justification of the mystical, supernatural essence of God. The fulfillment of such a task constantly required an appeal to Reason, and not just to faith. In addition, philosophy has its own subject of knowledge, which cannot fully coincide with the subject of religion and faith. That is why medieval philosophy was characterized by inconsistency, which Christian-religious philosophers, thinkers tried to constantly overcome in the form of dogmas, dogmas - officially recognized and not questioned.

All medieval Christian-religious philosophy, and for patristic philosophy, has a common initial theoretical and methodological principle - principle of theology1. It is the initial basis of all philosophizing in this period. Theology proceeds from 4 postulates-dogmas.

1. Recognition of God as a person, a supernatural subject.

2. The initial basis for comprehension of the essence of God are the dogmas of the "Holy Scripture", understood as axioms.

3. Recognition of creationism, the creation of the world by God from nothing.

4. Faith in the existence of the reality of the Immortality of God, and under certain conditions - faith in the immortality of man.

One of the founders of patristic philosophy was Augustine the Blessed(354 - 430m AD), who also occupied a high church post bishop. He created a doctrine that was called Augustinianism, which existed as the dominant one until the 12th century AD. In his famous work "Confession" he formulates the basic principles and tasks of philosophy, adapted to the needs of religion and the church. The subject of philosophy, according to Augustine, is the comprehension essence of order and unity of the universe as creations of God, and hence the comprehension of the essence of God. And since a person inevitably enters into a relationship with God, then the knowledge of man, his essence and his soul, the search for the true path of man to God also included in the subject and task of philosophy. Therefore, true philosophizing consists in comprehending the truth of God, since truth is God. According to religious dogma, God appears to us as revelation He sends a message to all people that needs to be both understood and interpreted. But first one must find universal form discovering God as a reality, as truly consubstantial, obvious to all. Faith, as a spiritual and psychological phenomenon, is a universal means of establishing God as an object and as a reality. Outside of faith, God is not revealed for the subject, the person like reality. Therefore, the primacy of Faith is naturally affirmed in religious philosophy. But faith in itself does not yet give knowledge, it gives just an object for knowledge. And the Divine essence also needs describe, explain and understand. This goal can only be achieved through Mind, on the basis of whose activity we receive true knowledge about the essence of God. Faith needs reason as a proof and instrument for interpreting the essence of God and his deeds. In the philosophy of Augustine, the problem of the unity of Faith and Reason is stated, which has become fundamental for all Christian-religious philosophy. But Faith necessarily precedes Reason, and therefore it is above reason. Without Faith there is no object for Reason, which he knows. “I believe, therefore I understand” becomes an axiom. Augustine draws attention to the dialectics of Faith and Reason, their interconnectedness and interdependence. Mind Without Faith empty, and Faith without Reason, which gives knowledge of God, blind. The mind, which thinks of God and gives knowledge about him, his invisible essence, must rely on on dogmas and axioms Holy Scripture, so as not to fall into error or heresy. Therefore, the goal of philosophy, according to Augustine, is to create a doctrine of God as the creator of all things.

Augustine formed his theory of knowledge, epistemology, as an activity of the mind based on Faith. But knowledge is a special creative Act, it is the activity of the soul, which is understood as a thinking entity, the activity of which is aimed both at the knowledge of God, and at the knowledge of man of his essence, as a reflection of the Divine essence. The soul is not the life-giving principle of the body, but the ability that the Creator, Creator, God gives us. The subject of cognition is rather not a person, but his soul. Therefore, knowledge begins with immersion in oneself, one finds in oneself a prototype of the eternal truths of God, the contemplation of which, as it were, takes place in the form of illumination, but the very knowledge of truths is achievable only through concepts, categories. (About God, about his essence, about his Being, etc.). And since the thoughts of God precede the things themselves, therefore the goal of knowledge is not the knowledge of the material world, but the knowledge of the thoughts of God.

Augustine creates a fairly universal philosophical system, which reveals all the parameters of the Being of God as a world entity, the order of the world order. Thus, nature appears in the philosophy of Augustine as a naturalization of the ideas and thoughts of God that precede it, and it is itself the act of creation of God. (The world is created from nothing). It is the lowest step of the divine Existence, barely rising above non-existence. And space and time are not objective forms of the existence of nature, but forms of the existence of the soul and spirit. Outside of God and spirit there is neither space nor time. Eternity is an attribute of God, and not of the bodily world; it is an attribute of the human spirit, and not of his body. Therefore, time exists only in the soul and nowhere else. "In you, my soul, I measure time," says Augustine. Time, in essence, is an endless duration of the acts of the free will of God, aimed at the Absolute Good and Good. The symbol of the Divine unity of space-time is the vast sky, the endless path of God to self-fulfillment, in which essence and existence coincide, are identical. "Divine time" can only be found in a spiritual act, a spiritual experience of the past (memory), present (consciousness), future (hope). Earthly and human time is the duration of the free will of fallen man and mankind, his egoism, the duration of man's path to death, at the end of which the eternity of God's existence and the possible eternity of man's existence are revealed to him in the form hope to comprehend the essence of God through Faith and Reason and hope to redeem one's sinfulness through Faith and Reason, which opens the gates of Heavenly Divine Paradise for the salvation of the human soul and gaining eternity.

Augustine seeks to philosophically substantiate the mystical concept of man, as recorded in the Holy Scriptures. Give it the character of an intellectual interpretation that appeals to Faith and Reason. He, in fact, formed the basic principles of Christian-religious anthropology, which in one way or another influenced all subsequent religious and idealistic teachings about man. Man and the human race, according to Augustine, were created by God, endowing them with a body, soul, mind and free will, aimed at knowing and comprehending the essence of the First Creator. But a person falls into original sin, which consists in the service of his corporeality, in the desire to comprehend not the truth of God, but to comprehend the pleasures of bodily existence. It was not the body that became the servant of the soul, but the soul the servant of the body; passions take possession of the human mind. The Fall leads to rebellion against God, the falling away of man from God, he (man) imagines himself to be God. The Fall inevitably leads to evil, which is the absence of the proper Good, Good and Truth, which are in God. The betrayal of Faith in God is the source of evil. Hence the thesis - evil is not in the world, evil is in man, generated by his arbitrary will. God is the creator of good and good, man is the creator of evil. And since people are no longer guided by faith and reason, after the fall they are rather inclined, predestined to evil. The loss of faith involuntarily leads people to create evil, although they subjectively strive for good.. They no longer know what they are doing. The existence and life of a person acquire a tragic and torn character. And on their own, people without the help of God cannot free themselves from evil, interrupt the tragic nature of being. Overcoming the tragedy - in the restoration of unity with God on the basis of holy faith, on the basis of reason, revealing the truth of God and forcing the arbitrariness of the human will. But, since God is Absolute Good and Good, Absolute Mercy, man was initially chosen by the Creator for salvation. God only gives him hope for salvation, but does not predestinate salvation itself. God sends people his son Jesus Christ, who by his example redemption for the salvation of mankind shows the way to salvation. In fact, God sacrifices his son in the name of man's salvation. Christ suffers for all mankind because he is endowed with love to the neighbor. Therefore, the salvation and redemption of people from the fall is possible through the observance of the transcendent feeling of love of each person for his neighbor as his brother, thereby pacifying the feeling of hatred and selfishness, selfishness in the heart and soul. The atonement of sinfulness and the overcoming of evil in oneself requires from a person, first of all, repentance, awareness of their sinfulness, practical redemption. And since Christ sacrifices himself in the name of atonement for the sinfulness of all, so every person must not only repent, not only pray for the mercy of God, but in the name of saving himself must sacrifice earthly passions, earthly blessings in the name of purifying his soul and thoughts, regaining Faith into God, which means gaining hope for salvation. Earthly life is only the preparation of oneself for entry into city ​​of God, kingdom of god, in which a person acquires true happiness after cleansing from the fall. That's why suffering man within the boundaries The earthly city has a humble and inevitable payment for the original fall. The person appears to be faced with a choice between good and evil which he is free to determine voluntarily. But the very realization of human freedom is possible only on the basis of Faith in God and within it, beyond the boundaries of which he is absolutely not free, and therefore beyond the boundaries of Faith, he involuntarily and inevitably falls into sin and is turned to evil. Developing and formalizing the Christian-religious ethics, Augustine comes to the need to create a concept of the organization of society and the state, which found expression in his essay "On the City of God". He identifies two cities of the Divine (civitas Dei), the focus of the Truth, Goodness and Beauty of God and the city of the earth (civitas terrena), the focus of sinfulness, carnal and vain desires, the world of delusions. In the first there are the righteous, in the second - the wicked and apostates from the faith. "At the heart of the heavenly city is love for God, brought to contempt for oneself", at the basis of the earthly one is love for oneself, brought to contempt for God" 1. The divine city is "eternal", no one is born there, because no one dies where true and complete happiness is the gift of God. The earthly city is not eternal, but exists from the beginning of the creation of the world to its end. "The founder of the earthly city, says Augustine, was the fratricide Cain"3. But between them there is no abyss, but there is the ascent of a person from the city of Earth, to the city of God, through the atonement of sin and overcoming evil in himself. The plenipotentiary representative of the city of God in the earthly city is the church, embodying in itself and the ministers of the church the essence of God. She is called upon to fight the wicked, who created a secular state, as the personification of the power of evil. Therefore, history appears as an eternal struggle between Good and Evil. It is possible to defeat evil if you initially defeat evil in yourself, then there is a hope for the possibility of moving from the city of Earth to the city of God. The City of God, as it were, is born from the city of the Earth, but the transition itself requires enormous efforts of the spirit and sacrifices.

Therefore, the history of mankind acquires a tragic character, and the very the rescue appears as miracle, achievable only with the help of the will of God. Thus, Augustine creates a fairly universal philosophical system of the Existence of the world, as the Existence of God and man. It should be noted that the philosophy of Augustine is both a preaching and a philosophical justification of Christian humanism, the essence of which is the mercy of God to man and the mercy of people to each other.

3. From the 11th century until the 14th century, a special period begins in medieval philosophy, called - scholasticism(from lat. scholastica - school, scientist). The so-called dispute about universals served as a direct impetus for the establishment of scholastic philosophizing. Its essence lies in the search for an answer to the question: how does the single essence of God manifest itself - directly in its entirety and in an exhaustive way, or indirectly through individual acts of God's deeds? This dispute was preceded by an earlier conflict between Augustine and Pelagius about the possibility of atonement for original sin. Augustine believed that redemption is available to man only as the grace of God, redemption is granted from above, redemption is an act of the will of God. Pelagius, on the other hand, believed that the atonement of sin is an act of a separate will, a separate (single) individual, achievable in the performance of good deeds pleasing to God. If Augustine has redemption is determined, determined by God, then in Pelagius - redemption is indeterminate, not determined in advance. It would seem that this dispute is just a formal one, about interpretations, but, as it turned out later, it had far-reaching consequences for the development of all subsequent medieval philosophy.

Scholasticism proceeded from the recognition of the truth of the dogmas of faith and theology. The task of scholastic philosophy was to proof through philosophy and reason, the inviolability of the truth of the dogmas of faith, religion and theology, and not the knowledge of the existence of the objective world. Philosophy still remained in line ministry of religion and churches.

Within the framework of medieval philosophy, two competing currents appear, realism and nominalism who claim to be a truer and more authentic interpretation of the essence of God's Existence and its manifestation as a universe.

Realism(from the late Latin realis - material, real), based on Plato's teachings about the original and objective existence of the world of ideas and things, based on the postulate-dogma that God's thoughts precede the act of creating the world. Through thinking, God creates the world, and thinking itself is an attribute of the spirit. (A mystical statement about the creation of the world out of nothing). And since thinking always turns into concepts, concepts exist before things and before the sensually perceived world and contain the essence of things before the things themselves. AT first period scholastic realism takes an extreme form ("Extreme Realism"), an outstanding representative of which was Anselm of Canterbury(1033 - 1109 AD) English bishop. It comes from the idea that general concepts (universals) exist directly in reality, before things. They are the foundation and basis existence of the world of the senses. (The method of ontology is the doctrine of the foundations of the world). A world based on concepts, supersensible, we can only understand but not to know, and it is revealed to us in the form of faith. Therefore, God is such an object, there is something higher than and greater than which cannot be conceived. This is how the dogmatic postulate "I believe in order to understand" (credo ut intelligam - lat.) is born. Faith is higher than reason, but does not contradict reason, since those "truths of the revelation of God" that are through faith, but can be proved through reason based on concepts. By means of reason, for example, one can prove that the world of ideas and the universal essence of God are eternal, necessary and absolute, while the world of things is fluid, non-eternal, relative, finite. Therefore, concepts as universals are real and to prove universality is the task of philosophy. As you can see, here too the fundamental problem for Christian-religious philosophy is solved, the correlation of faith and reason, knowledge, religion and philosophy in favor of faith and religion. Reason and knowledge based on reason, as well as philosophy, remain subordinate to faith and religion.

Second period realism as scholastic philosophizing in the 12th-13th centuries AD. The leading representatives were Abelard(1079 - 1142), Albert the Great(1193 - 1280) and Thomas Aquinas(1225 - 1274). Realism gets more moderate. During this period, interest in secular science and natural science began to be intensively manifested, especially in the form of Aristotelianism, which was largely dogmatized and absolutized. Abelard already admits the existence of universal concepts as foundations in the sphere of human spirit and mind, which are formed by the mind due to the impact of the sensory world on it. But sensory perception is the basis for the cognition of separate, single, not eternal things. But the knowledge of the Universals of God (invisible essence) is available only to the mind, and faith opens object (essence of God) for knowledge. Faith, although preferable, needs a prerequisite in the form of reason. Abelard formulated the postulate: "I understand in order to believe." The mind, as it were, is endowed with a relatively independent cognitive function, but only to strengthen and fund faith (to believe!). Touching upon ethical problems and problems of the will, he treats the essence of sin in a more relaxed way. Sin, according to him, is agreement on the wrong, on the evil, expressed already in intention to act against the will of God. And of course act evil does not add anything new to intention do evil. Intention inevitably leads to action. But both good and evil, sin, sinfulness are available reasonable understanding and therefore control to a certain extent. A person, as it were, is placed before a conscious choice in action. Knowledge of the law of God and his essence, his thoughts must precede the act of will, the action of man. Lack of knowledge, knowledge above all of the Gospel, does not absolve one from guilt, but this guilt not intentional. A person becomes, as it were, a victim of his ignorance. To a certain extent, this is a more tolerant attitude towards human imperfection and, to a certain extent, a protest against religious fanaticism.

A special place in the framework of scholastic philosophy is occupied by Thomas Aquinas. He tried to create a universal system of philosophy within the framework of scholasticism and a religious worldview. His teachings started Thomism, such a trend in philosophy, which, having survived the centuries, occupies an authoritative place in modern, especially Western philosophy. As a philosopher, thinker and as a religious figure, he set himself the most difficult theoretical and practical task - find grounds for the unity of faith and reason, religion and philosophy, religion and science, especially since he brilliantly understood the growing importance of science and scientific knowledge. Justify their harmony and consistency, complementarity in such a way that faith and religion turn out to be above without belittling the positive significance of philosophy and science.

In the dispute about universals, he adheres to the point of view of the triplets of their existence: 1) before things, in the Divine mind, as ideas, 2) in things, as their essence and substantial principle, 3) after things in the human mind, as a reflection of the essence of things in concepts, as a result of abstractions of the mind. Since the world is a hierarchical system consisting of the supernatural world of God as a creative spiritual entity and the world natural things and objects, sensually perceived. The prerogative of faith is the realm of God, who is eternal and original. The task of reason and science is the knowledge and explanation of the laws of the material, natural world, inferior to the world of God. That's why Vera and science do not contradict each other, but complement each other, but faith still turns out to be higher than science, scientific knowledge. It leaves, defines a place for the independent function of science, but severely limits it. Furthermore, Faith as a way to God, Divine truth is available to all, while scientific knowledge is available only to a few. In this he also sees the advantage of faith over science. The vocation of philosophy lies in the interpretation, submission religious truths in terms of reason and in refutation arguments against faith also in the categories of reason. In this refutation of arguments against faith, philosophy can also rely on scientific knowledge. Thomas Aquinas finds, as it were, a great and necessary compromise between Faith and knowledge, between religion and philosophy.

Adhering to the Augustian interpretation of the nature and essence of man, he also tries to find a compromise in man between the divine and the earthly, ordinary. For him, the virtues - wisdom, courage, moderation, justice, faith, hope, love - are aimed not only at uniting and drawing closer to God, but should be present in a simple, everyday worldly life. In the doctrine of the state and society, he also tries to find a compromise between secular state, the personification of which is royalty, and Divine state, the personification of which on earth is the church. Since the secular state is only a temporary and relative part of the kingdom and state of God, the principle of subordination is necessary between them. superior and inferior, a secular state is based on a contract. The existence of a secular state must be authorized ecclesiastical authority and at the same time secular authority should not diverge from the principles of religious dogmas. In a worldly society and a worldly state, all relations should be as unshakable and eternal as in the "Heavenly Kingdom", the kingdom of God, the kingdom of absolute good and absolute good. Within the framework of the earthly kingdom, this is achievable only on the basis of a compromise between the “tops” and the “bottoms”. Thomas Aquinas tries only to rationalize religion through philosophy, while retaining all the virtues of superiority for religion.

4. Within the framework of medieval Christian-religious scholasticism, as philosophizing, another trend is gradually taking shape, called - nominalism(The term is derived from the Latin nominis - name, denomination). In it, as well as in realism, the problem of universals is central. But a different interpretation and a different solution is given. Recognizing the existence of the universal essence of God, the representatives of nominalism believed that it really manifests itself not directly, but indirectly, through individual hypostases of God and through individual things, his universal essence is revealed. It should be noted that the ideas of nominalism date back to the dispute between Augustine and Pelagius regarding the expiation of original sin. Augustine believed that the atonement for sin is determined (determined) by God's grace. Pelagius believes that redemption is the lot of the individual will of man, aimed at doing things that are pleasing to God. Redemption itself comes from the individual, and therefore is not determined from above. Pierre Abelard(1079 - 1142) in his "Introduction to Theology" comes to the conclusion that universals are manifested in sensible things potentially, and not actually. Therefore, at first we experience the impact on us of sensible things, in which the invisible essence of the universe is hidden. Then we must give a name to a thing by means of the concepts of reason. And then, through concepts, the mind comprehends the invisible essence of the Divine universal truths. This is how the principle is born: "To know in order to believe." The cognition of the truths revealed by faith goes from the cognition of individual, separate things to the cognition of the general, the universe through conceptual thinking. Duns Scott(1270 - 1308) and Ockham(1285 - 1349), English thinkers, philosophers and church leaders go even further. They believe that universals outside of thought exist only as names, the names we give them. Cognition, especially scientific knowledge, is aimed at understanding the properties of the sensory-objective world. This defines the scope of reason and science. While the entire realm of God is available to human knowledge, therefore, only faith reveals to us the availability of God. Faith retains a sacred and mystical character, which serves as proof of the authenticity of Divine, and, consequently, religious truths due to their inaccessibility to the human mind. Therefore, it is preferable to blindly trust faith than to try to justify it rationally. In such a peculiar form, in the form of nominalism, the way is opened for the development scientific knowledge as an activity of the mind, thinking in concepts. Faith and science seem to be divorced, they coexist, each retaining its sovereignty. And philosophy is a sphere of compromise between faith and knowledge. Since it serves as a proof of religious dogmas and truths, and it gives concepts to scientific knowledge. It is, as it were, a "science of sciences". But after nominalism, new opportunities for development appear for philosophy, which manifest themselves in subsequent periods.

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