Moral theology is the problem of moral perfection. The moral principle in the formation of personality. Orthodox Christian moral theology. introduction

Moral theology aims to reveal the essence of morality, to show the advantages of Christian morality over all other ethical systems, and to prove the universal significance of Christian morality in improving the conditions of human existence as a decisive condition for salvation. In other words, moral theology teaches how a Christian should act and act in earthly life so that the latter becomes a means to achieve eternal blessedness. That is why moral theology is also called otherwise active or practical theology.

By morality, theologians understand the innate inner need of a person, equivalent to instinct. It is based on an allegedly inaccessible root cause that determines the content of general rules and norms of behavior. Awareness of these rules and norms by a person is a reflection in his thinking of an objectively existing God-revealed law or the voice of God himself.

The unity of faith and morality is derived by theologians from their divine origin. The Creator is also the legislator. It is subject to both natural necessity and moral freedom. Man is free to choose between good and evil. But God at the same time limits the vicious and helps the good. In this way, he ultimately affirms grace and grants the eternal possibility of moral renewal. Only through faith does a person acquire moral strength, becomes able to overcome the inevitable moral decline.

Having drawn a conclusion about the supernatural essence of morality, theologians try to derive the criterion of moral and immoral from these positions. The condition that encourages a person to good intentions and actions is, from their point of view, the moral law.

The moral law, according to religious ideas, is something given to man at the moment of creation. Being unchanged in its essence, it appears in various forms in relation to individual consciousness. In the Old Testament, supposedly given by God to a stubborn and cruel people prone to vices and delusions, it is formulated in the form of certain prohibitions (do not kill, do not steal, do not commit adultery, etc.) and restrictions (do not do this, do not do so). In the New Testament, it is formulated not in a negative, but in a positive form: love God and your neighbor as yourself, etc.

Proceeding from the recognition of the divine origin of morality in general and the moral law in particular, theologians draw a mystical conclusion about the universal character of all moral norms. This conclusion is due not only to the formalization of theological logic, but also to the practical interests of the church. Its essence is this. Since God created all people the same, therefore, the rules of morality given to them are common to all. And if so, then believers are in better conditions than unbelievers, because both are equally responsible for the fulfillment of the moral law. God will reward both those and others for the fulfillment and non-fulfillment of his will, and will fully exact from the atheists. Therefore, it is in the interests of man to know the divine law and to adjust his actions and actions in accordance with its requirements.

But how to link the real state of moral actions with ideas about omnipotence, omnipotence, all-righteousness and other qualities of God? Indeed, if morality is from God, then why does amoralism exist? Because it goes against his nature. If God only creates good, then why does evil exist?

To get out of the vicious circle of insoluble contradictions, theologians introduced the concept of free will. Its essence is as follows. God, as an absolutely free person, is capable of performing any action, the motives of which are not amenable to any accounting or scientific analysis. The reality created by God cannot be regarded as an adequate reflection of the divine essence. The creative principle is a rationally free being, living and acting freely. This creature endows a person with free will, which means the ability to choose between good and evil. If a person is guided in his actions by an innate moral sense, he does only good deeds. If he ignores the requirements of religion, he always does evil.

This theological sophistry does not free theology from contradictions. In fact, there are people who strictly follow the requirements of Christian morality, are distinguished by a firm and deep faith in God. According to Christian ideas, this should give them health, longevity, well-being, happiness, peace. Conversely, failure to comply with the moral law can cause illness, premature death, disgrace and disgrace. In the real world, however, this is far from the case. Believers are not spared from illness, suffering, grief, torment. At the same time, vicious people are often distinguished by enviable health, have all the blessings of life, etc. To save the situation, theologians declare the suffering of believers to be the highest joy and feat, and the well-being of unbelievers is illusory.

If the presence of evil on earth is determined by the free will of man, then this conclusion is in no way consistent with the principles of divine predestination, according to which God is the cause of everything that exists, and the cause is absolutely perfect. This cause must, of course, give rise to perfect effects, i.e., give rise to good. But by what cause is predetermined—evil? Theologians are trying to remove this contradiction by the idea of ​​suffering as a blessing. Suffering is declared the main condition of salvation, the highest ideal of the Christian life.

From the general idea of ​​morality as a God-established law, theologians derive concepts that have nothing in common with genuine humanism about the meaning of life, happiness, duty, etc.

In moral theology, Orthodox theologians pay special attention to proving the conformity of Christian moral requirements to the interests of the individual in socialist society. Modern theologians do not focus on the biblical preaching of humility and humility, patience and non-resistance, forgiveness and obedience, but draw the attention of believers to such moments of biblical teachings, where wealth is condemned, the demand for equality, respect for the destitute and oppressed is put forward, idleness and idleness are condemned. At the same time, churchmen “do not notice” that the meaning of these teachings in the Bible is unequal. The decisive place in the biblical moral requirements belongs to those that are alien to the interests of the working masses. In contrast to the collectivism of the working people, biblical morality affirms the principle alien to them "each for himself, one god for all", instead of vigorous activity on the transformation of public life, she calls "to humble yourself before God and in the struggle against sin to be rewarded with the mystery of spiritual life."

Such is the range of basic questions considered in Christian moral theology.

Exegesis

Exegesis is a branch of theology that deals with the interpretation of biblical texts, clarifying the meaning of various symbolic stories contained in the Bible, as well as the so-called "difficult places" in the Old and New Testaments, which are in blatant contradiction with modern scientific ideas. The main task of exegesis is to substantiate the divine origin of "Holy Scripture" and its absolute significance for all time.

In the exegesis of various Christian churches, there is much in common and specific. What is common is that both Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant theologians consider God the only author of the Bible, who gave people "revelation", formulated it in certain human terms, in relation to the conditions of his time and environment. By this they explain the presence in the Bible of anthropomorphic ideas, metaphorical language, repetitions of certain stories in various interpretations, etc. The common thing is the interpretation of the basic biblical ideas about God, his properties and qualities, about the infallibility of revelation, his absolute significance in matters of faith and salvation.

At the same time, different theologians have different approaches to the interpretation of certain passages of the biblical narrative. Some of them show a great inclination to a symbolic understanding of the meaning of individual texts, others to a literal one. Thus, for example, many Catholic and Protestant theologians have long held the view that a symbolic interpretation of "Holy Scripture" is not only possible but necessary.

Orthodox theologians, as a rule, take a special position. They believe that the Bible should be understood in the literal sense of the word, since it is not so much the work of the prophets and apostles, but the work of the spirit of God, who spoke through their mouths.

Strictly speaking, neither of these two tendencies appears in pure form in Catholic, Protestant, or Orthodox exegesis. Both modernism and traditionalism contain elements of a literal and symbolic interpretation of biblical myths.

Orthodox exegetes, defending the idea of ​​the historical reality of all biblical events without exception, widely practice the symbolic interpretation of those Old Testament and New Testament stories that either in themselves have an allegorical meaning, or have come into such conflict with the modern concepts of believers that their content undermines the credibility of "holy scripture". None of the theologians will now say that such biblical moral and social requirements as “let the wife fear her husband” or “servants, obey your masters” should be taken literally. They all say that the word "fear" should be understood not in its direct meaning, but as the reverence of spouses for each other, as a definition of the degree of love. They also propose the word "slave" to be understood in the sense of "worker", "voluntary servant", etc.

Catholic and Protestant theologians, along with the recognition of the need for an allegorical understanding of certain places in the Bible that are not consistent with new scientific, moral and social views, the vast majority of biblical texts are understood in their literal meaning. Moreover, they search for various proofs of the historical reality of the biblical narratives, conduct extensive work on the interpretation of historical documents and monuments in the direction they need.

Of course, all the historical documents and monuments of material culture that theologians pay attention to do not at all testify to the reality of biblical events, but to the broad borrowing and religious understanding of historical events by the authors of the Bible. But the very method of theological argumentation speaks of the desire by any means to confirm the reliability, the truth of the basic Christian ideas, most fully formulated in the "Holy Scripture".

liturgics

This is the name of the branch of theology in which, on the basis of various historical and theological data, the necessity and obligatory nature of worship as the most important means of communication between man and God is proved. At the same time, worship is understood as a set of religious actions that contribute to the education of believers in respect for God and the maintenance of religiosity.

From the general concept of worship, theologians derive its main tasks. These tasks, according to them, are as follows: firstly, dogmatic-ecclesiastical, i.e., aiming to promote the most important Christian ideas and concepts; secondly, moral, which boils down to evidence of the enduring significance of the main categories of Christian morality; and, thirdly, mysterious, that is, requiring strict observance of the sacraments and rites directly related to them as a condition for receiving the grace-filled gifts of the holy spirit.

The central place in Christian worship is given to the liturgy, which is otherwise called Mass in Orthodoxy, in Catholicism and Lutheranism the Mass. It is believed that it was established by Christ and the apostles, and subsequently developed and improved by the "fathers and teachers of the church." Particularly popular in the Orthodox Church are the liturgies composed by John Chrysostom and Basil the Great. These services are conducted by the clergy in a particularly pompous manner. Here, believers are both listeners and participants in religious activities.

Liturgy sets itself the task of substantiating the need for such components of worship as prayers, hymns, reading the Bible, church teachings, and the celebration of the sacraments.

Prayers are considered a particularly important moment of worship. According to their content, they are divided into doxology, thanksgiving and petitions. In doxology, believers repeat all the attributes that characterize Christian ideas about the greatness and perfection of God, in thanksgiving they praise the Almighty as a benefactor, in petitions they beg for help and support. In the Orthodox and Catholic churches, all texts of prayers are canonized. In Protestantism, their improvisation is allowed.

Theologians do not hide the fact that prayer word is the highest form of suggestion and self-hypnosis, contributing to the establishment of religious beliefs. Their inherently magical nature contributes to the education of a person's feelings of helplessness, his inferiority. In prayer, a person begins to see the magical power of the word, capable of evoking the supernatural, the miraculous.

The glorification of God, gratitude to him and petitions form the main content of church hymns, which are another important moment of worship. In this respect, they practically do not differ from prayers. Therefore, the same prayers, such as, for example, "Our Father", are read in one case, and sung in another.

According to their content, hymns are divided into psalms, hymns, spiritual songs. The main purpose of liturgical hymns is to promote church dogmatic ideas. They glorify the resurrection of Christ, sing of his sufferings on the cross, the miracle of God-waving, the Trinity. In addition, the merits of various martyrs for the faith, the exploits of the saints and other church events are sung.

The Church pays great attention not only to the content of liturgical songs, but also to their emotional impact on the faithful. Various polyphonic tunes have become widespread in Orthodox churches. The ways of performing various liturgical songs are different. The akathists are performed standing with the participation of all those present at the service, the antiphons are performed alternately on both kliros, and to perform the final part of the canon, the so-called katavasia, the singers can go from the kliros to the middle of the church.

Various liturgical songs, united by the commonality of their content in relation to a particular holiday, constitute the canon. There are usually nine songs in canon. But there are canons consisting of four, three and two songs. The first verse of each song, the so-called irmos, is always sung, and the rest of the verses following the irmos, the so-called troparia, are both sung and read.

Church services are accompanied by a number of ritual requirements for each believer. The latter is obliged to make the sign of the cross, kneel, bare his head, etc. Moreover, the clergy inspire everyone that any of these ritual actions has a dogmatic or moral meaning. Thus, the connection of the thumb, index and middle fingers during the sign of the cross means, in their opinion, faith in the triune god, and the inclination of the ring finger and little finger to the palm means the unity of the divine and human in Jesus Christ. Bowing and kneeling indicate the blessing and complete dependence of man on God. Even the fact that a man in church is obliged to bare his head, and a woman, on the contrary, to be in a headdress, is interpreted in the sense that the first is the image and glory of God, and the second emphasizes her modesty and chastity.

Worship is the main means of the church in the formation religious beliefs in the minds of believers. Therefore, the clergy pay special attention to ritual practice. At the same time, taking into account the changed ideas of believers, they make adjustments to those aspects of liturgical practice that have come into conflict with the new conditions of their life, and have become an obvious anachronism. A number of prayers and prayers, for example, for the sending down of rain, for deliverance from illnesses and ailments, gradually disappeared from liturgical practice. The Church has abandoned dramatizations for the consecration of new icons, their renewal, does not consider the sinful labor activity of people on religious holidays, etc. But these changes, concerning the minor aspects of the cult, pursue the same goals: to preserve and strengthen religion.

Pastoral theology

This section of theology is devoted to the substantiation of the God-established pastoral ministry, its necessity in the work of salvation. Pastoral theology speaks of the basic qualities of the clergy, which they need in order to be a model for believers of "firm faith and moral virtues." In addition, specific instructions are given to the clergy about the methods and techniques for improving worship services, about raising the level of their emotional and psychological impact on believers, and tells about the most effective methods for conducting preaching and the so-called "care" activities. In other words, pastoral theology contains the whole complex of rules for the behavior of clergy in the church and outside it, and the basic requirements for a priest as a spiritual mentor of people.

The ideal priest, according to the teachings of the church, is obliged to devote his whole life to the highest interests of the church and, without fear of difficulties, persistently fulfill his main mission of saving souls. Under the highest interests is understood the preservation of faith, and under the salvation of souls - the spread of religion among the masses.

In order to fulfill these main tasks, the priest, according to one of the Orthodox theologians, “must create a skill in approaching the soul of a person ... to deepen and expand this skill of communicating with people different ages, sex, spiritual development". Theologians persistently repeat that a child and an adult, a woman and a man, a person who has received an education or an illiterate one, must be approached with different standards, taking into account the peculiarities of his worldview. Moreover, each individual person must be treated with due regard for the peculiarities of his life, which leave a certain imprint on his individual consciousness. In this case, theologians say, a person can be educated in religiosity and spirituality, a stable habit of attending divine services, observing fasts, holidays, performing rituals, that is, mastering the basic Christian ideas.

The personal example of a priest, according to church doctrine, is one of the most important conditions for educating believers in the spirit of a truly Christian life.

In pastoral theology, issues related to the conditions of appointment to the position of a priest, ordination to the dignity (consecration), the main tasks of the activity of clergy in the parish are also considered.

Homiletics

Homiletics is understood as a section of theology that deals with the theory and practice of church Christian preaching. Homiletics includes the history of preaching, which is presented by theologians mainly as an illustration of the sermons of Christ, the apostles, fathers and teachers of the church. These sermons are advertised as examples for study and imitation.

Homiletics substantiates the obligatory need for the clergy to speak to the faithful with "words of piety." But the main thing is to consider issues related to the form of church preaching, its content, and especially with the impact on the listeners. “No matter how good the content of the sermon, no matter how well it was delivered,” the theologians teach, “but if it did not have an effect on the listeners, then it did not achieve its goal.”

In the proper sense of the word, a sermon, according to Christian ideas, is a teaching about salvation, expressed by a living speech before the people. This means that issues of Christian doctrine should come to the fore. A priest can speak about any facts of history or modernity, but at the same time he must never lose sight of the doctrinal aspect of the matter.

Linking the religious content of the sermons to various issues of today, especially such as the education of adolescents and youth, issues of marriage, family, family relations, the task of eradicating immoral phenomena in society, the clergy is trying to convince believers in the ability of religion to lead a person out of the impasse in which he has fallen due to the loss of faith in God. These arguments are shared by a significant portion of believers who are convinced that only through faith can they achieve happiness and prosperity.

Homiletics analyzes the main forms of preaching, the methods of training qualified preachers, the system for developing skills to propagate the dogma.

Patrology

Patrology is a branch of theology dealing with the presentation of the content of the main teachings of the fathers and teachers of the church, especially those of them who are called ecumenical teachers. Patrology of the Orthodox Church seeks to substantiate the exceptional significance for Christianity of the writings of such ecumenical teachers as Basil the Great, Gregory the Theologian, John Chrysostom, Athanasius of Alexandria. In Catholicism, the most popular are the works of Jerome, Augustine, Ambrose. Protestant churches and the vast majority of sectarian associations do not consider their creations to be an expression of divine revelation. They believe that the ecumenical teachers were ordinary religious writers who set forth in their works their own point of view on a number of dogmatic, apologetic, moral and other problems of the Christian faith.

Orthodox and Catholic theologians make extensive use of the writings of ecumenical teachers to protect and substantiate all aspects of Christian doctrine. Along with quotations from the Bible, the decrees of ecumenical councils, ecumenical teachers are widely cited as infallible guardians and interpreters of divine truths. It is difficult to find a theological work that does not contain references to the authority of the "fathers and teachers."

However, speaking about the absolute infallibility of the ecumenical teachers, theologians cannot ignore the fact that they all contain different, sometimes mutually exclusive, statements on the same Christian ideas. In addition, they all tend to have a negative attitude towards science, education, and culture. That is why yi-theologians assert that the indisputable authority of all fathers and teachers does not apply to each of them individually. A different judgment of any teacher in comparison with the judgment on this issue of other teachers should be considered his private opinion. As for the well-known hostile attitude of fathers and teachers to science, here it is recommended to reconsider the traditional patrological ideas. Theologians propose not to consider ecumenical teachers as authorities in the case when they are speaking not about religious problems, but about the tasks of science. In this case, the holy fathers should no longer be considered as ecumenical teachers, but as ordinary scientists, capable of making mistakes, deluding themselves, defending incorrect conclusions. As for faith and morality, here the universal teachers are recognized as the guardians of divine revelation, and their authority is considered indisputable.

The whole life of Christ was spent in beneficence, and thus established the law of people's communication with each other. Everyone can and should do good to everyone. “Poverty or lack of funds does not serve as an excuse for those who do not want to do good,” said St. rights. O. , - “instead of a great gift, let us bring diligence. Have nothing? Comfort with a tear. Great medicine for the ill-fated, when someone regrets him from the bottom of his heart; misfortune is greatly relieved by sincere condolences. How simply, wisely and joyfully the most painful and insoluble social problem on earth would be resolved if this principle of benevolence triumphed in people (below we will indicate why it does not triumph). Can there be a more beautiful, more perfect and more graceful and touching ideal for the moral personality of a person than the crucified Savior of the world?

The character of Christ—comprehensive and universal, universal to all mankind—represents the moral ideal of all times and all peoples.

It is impossible to praise Christ, but you can only reverently glorify, honor, bow before Him with all your soul and love Him wholeheartedly with all your heart, for in Him everything that is worthy of love is concentrated to the fullest extent!

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Let us now turn, after this brief "Introduction", to an overview of the foundations of Christian morality as a system of Christian moral teaching.

Pious reflection on God in His relation to the world and man is the subject of the so-called Dogmatic Theology; pious reflection on man in his relation to God and the world is the subject of Moral Theology. The goal of Dogmatic Theology is the image of God so that a person, having known Him, love Him and strive for Him as his holy Archetype, Creator, Provider, Redeemer and Savior. And the purpose of Moral Theology is the depiction of the truths of moral life, leading a person, through the fulfillment of the will of God, to eternal bliss and deification (by grace). Dogmatic Theology portrays the Frank appeal of Divine Love to man; Moral Theology speaks of reciprocal grateful human love, reciprocal grace-filled "revelation" human soul God. From this it is clear that when presenting the system of Christian morality, it is necessary first to turn to the foundations of Christian doctrine, i.e. consider the dogmatic foundations of Christian morality.

According to Christian teaching (based on Divine Revelation), the world and man were created potentially capable of unlimited perfection. Evil was not in the very essence of the nature of the world. It appeared later, by accident, but of course, this “accident” was provided by God in the Pre-eternal Council Holy Trinity. How did evil come about? The Revelation of God answers us about this in the biblical story about the fall of the first people, the ancestors of the entire human race. Evil is the result of sin! Sin consisted in violating the good will of God - the free will of man.

The first people lived in paradise. It was a blessed life. They knew neither sickness, nor suffering, nor sorrow, and were immortal. The whole world was created for man. He was given a bright mind to comprehend the Truth, a pure heart to love and comprehend the Beauty of the beautiful in its perfection of God's world, the free will of man for the creation of good. Only God the Creator could have free will. But He created the greatest miracle: He gave the creature the image and likeness of the Creator. Man himself has become a creator with free will. But this greatest gift of God-likeness opened up the possibility of abuse, up to the rejection of God Himself and the desire to take His place. Unlimited (better to say, unprotected) freedom could lead to “freedom from God” – the Head of Life – and thus to the loss of life itself, which is possible only in God, i.e. in Love, Truth, Goodness, Beauty and freedom of creativity protected from abuse. Without God, outside of God, the real source of life ceases, and life turns into a process of dying: love is transformed into hatred, truth into lies, goodness into evil, beauty into ugliness, bliss into suffering, rational good freedom of creativity into insane and the evil freedom of destruction, life into death.

According to the omnipotence of His immeasurable love, in order to protect the freedom given to a person from its abuse, i.e. to protect a person from the possibility of evil, suffering and death, the Lord established only one commandment (which was a care and warning): “from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, do not eat from it; for on the day you eat of it, you will die a death” (i.e., you will begin to die yourself and the whole universe with you).

The concept of "freedom" includes an indispensable restriction or, better to say, a fence. Unlimited (unprotected) freedom is unthinkable, because it leads to self-destruction (the unlimited and unprotected “I want” also includes “I want there to be no freedom”).

Moral activity, i.e. activity, conditioned by the attitude to the idea of ​​the Highest Good and setting as its goal the achievement of the Highest Good, - from the believer in Christ receives an absolutely true and unshakable support for the ages in the God-revealed Teaching of the Savior. For each Divine Word of Christ is the God-revealed Commandments of God Himself, given to man for his salvation from sin, evil, suffering and death, and introduction into the Kingdom of Heaven for eternal bliss in free creative service to the triple image of perfection: Truth, Goodness and Beauty, i.e. e. To the triune God Who is (“He who does not love does not know God, because God is love” ().

The second foundation (after faith in Christ the Savior) of Christian life and morality is the Orthodox Church, which was created by the Savior of the world Himself for our salvation. By the descent of the Holy Spirit on the apostles, this Church was created and it was said about her: “I will build My Church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it” (). Having created the Church, the Savior contained in Her everything necessary and sufficient for our salvation and for the moral life leading to this salvation. After the creation of the Church of Christ, all those who believe in the Savior and in the Church founded by Him are already saved through the Church, receiving both the gift of Atonement with the resolution of sins (after repentance) and everything useful for further moral activity. Through the Sacraments of the Church, a Christian receives Divine help and strength for life and piety, in order to fearlessly follow the path of salvation to the eternal Kingdom of Heaven, the threshold of which opens up to the Christian heart already here on earth (“The Path to Salvation” by the ever-memorable Bishop Theophan the Recluse).

According to the teaching of the Orthodox Church, everything that happens in the true and faithful Church of Christ is done according to the good will of God the Father, with the blessing of the Son of God, by the action of the Holy Spirit of God. Having received, after the descent of the Holy Spirit, these gifts, the apostles received at the same time the right and the spiritual duty to pass them on to their successors through the laying on of hands. Therefore, every true Christian is morally obligated to find the true Church of Christ (for there have been and will be false churches in the multitude), to enter into Her and “live in Her,” in Khomyakov’s wonderful expression. All “living” in the bosom of the true Orthodox Church of Christ are reborn to a new life, brought up and growing in the Spirit of Truth, receiving spiritual gifts of grace for life on earth, with the promise of eternal gifts. A stranger to the Church is a stranger to Christ the Savior, and therefore a stranger to salvation, which is possible only in the bosom of the Church. “To whom the Church is not the Mother, God is not the Father” (St. Cyprian of Carthage).

Without faith in Christ and outside the true Orthodox Church of Christ, a true moral life is impossible!

The Church of Christ is the only true path to the Kingdom of Heaven. Not a return to the lost paradise (Paradise Kingdom on earth), but an ascent to the promised new Kingdom (Kingdom in Heaven).

Sometimes the great is known through the small. One can understand the greatness of the sun through the diamonds of dew. Let us also try, through one example from human life, to illuminate the path to understanding Divine Love in the heart.

Long before the revolution, in one extremely poor and simple Orthodox Russian family, which consisted of a widow and five small children, the following event occurred.

A seven-year-old boy has committed some nasty act towards his younger sister. This act became known to the mother, a deeply religious, sensible woman who passionately loved her children and tried to bring them up in a strictly Christian spirit. Horrified by what happened and fearing that a spark of vicious flame could corrupt her son's soul in the future, the mother decides to punish him severely. Explaining the abomination of the perfect in words accessible to children's consciousness, she began to beat the boy with a belt. Hitting him very painfully not only on different parts of the body, but even on the face, she also beat him mentally, saying during the execution that he was no longer her son, but a stranger. The rest of the children witnessed the just, but unusually strong anger of the mother. The guilty man, realizing the seriousness of his crime, cried loudly not only from physical pain, but also from the horror that his mother had separated him from herself, renounced him as from her son. With bitter tears, he begged to forgive him and recognize him again as his son, promising never to repeat his misconduct again. His mother continued to punish him and seemed relentless. Finally, the punishment is over. The whole family sat down to a meager dinner of stew and a piece of black bread. Everyone was silent, understanding the significance of the family event. After dinner, the mother reported that a rich woman had given her children a box of expensive chocolates today. Four children received one candy each. The culprit was left without sweets. Both he himself and the other children well understood that he would not receive, could not, should not receive anything. But now, after a moment's pause, the mother calls him to her and for a long time, intently, silently looks into his face ... "Mommy ... mommy ... Mommy ”... in a barely audible intermittent whisper, with convulsions of soundless sobs, the child repeats, glaring wide-open, full of tears, eyes into the mother’s eyes. Her face looks petrified. But it doesn't last long. She draws her son to her, presses his head to her heart and begins to cry herself, like a son, shaking from muffled sobs. “My dear, dear son,” she whispers softly and brokenly, “my beloved, most beloved ... Do not be angry with me that I beat you so painfully ... I could not help but beat you ... I had to beat , because... I love you... I don't want my good boy to become bad and ugly! I want him to be pure and kind... When you grow up big, maybe you will understand that it was more painful for me to beat you than for you to endure your pain... Don't be angry, dear. .. Forgive me, your mother, for the fact that I hurt you so much ... And so that you do not get angry and forgive me, take all the other chocolates. Here she began to shake again in soundless weeping, then she began to whisper some new, special, affectionate, tender, warm, bright, quiet, fragrant, friendly words dictated by a loving mother's heart. The four children smiled with tears in their eyes, and everyone wanted to give their forgiven brother their candy. And the forgiven little sinner became such a happy and joyful being, which only angels can be...

If this life example touches someone's heart to joyful tears, then this will mean that he felt a particle of the mystery of Divine Love, reflected in human hearts, as the sun is reflected in dew drops.

So, after all, the Lord, so that we “do not get angry” and “forgive” Him our well-deserved suffering, rewards us, after repentance, not by returning to the lost paradise, but opens the “Embrace of the Father” to us in His Heavenly Kingdom. Is not all human suffering redeemed by such unearthly joy?

“Glory to God for everything, especially for sorrows and sufferings,” we repeat after St. Chrysostom.

The final goal is in God, in full communion with Him, completely free, full and joyful. The inexpressible joy in the Holy Spirit, which a Christian can begin to experience on earth, according to St. Seraphim, it happens because the Holy Spirit "will bring joy to everything it touches." The purpose of a Christian's life on earth, according to the same St. Seraphim of Sarov, is "the acquisition of the Holy Spirit."

It is very important to know that full communion with God in the Christian understanding has nothing to do with the Buddhist understanding of the disappearance of the soul in God, dissolution in Him. Ep. Theophan the Recluse says about this: “No, the human soul does not cease to be a soul, a rationally free being, just as red-hot iron, being penetrated by fire, does not cease to be iron”...

People striving to live according to Christian, Christian morality, i.e. with God, in His Church, they are empirically convinced of the deep truth of the words of Abba Dorotheus: “the closer people are to God, the closer they are to each other.”

So, we repeat once again that the final goal of man is in God, i.e. life in God, with God, for God, which at the same time is the true and highest good for man. “Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Before the human free will is a free choice: the will of God or his own will (self-will). The will of God sets a goal for man: the possession of everything in God, eternal bliss in communion with God (ie communion and possession of Truth, Goodness, Beauty, Freedom and Love). In the event that a person freely chooses this goal (life in Christ, deification by grace), the Lord gives, through, the means and help to achieve it, protecting human freedom from temptations that lead to the loss of this freedom. In the event that a person rejects the proposed goal, the Lord, as the Holy Fathers of the Church say, does not interfere with him with His help, providing the person with the desired, in no way limited (and thus not protected by anything) freedom from God, without God, which leads to him into slavery to the sin of his own self-will. It must be clearly understood that by obeying the good, all-powerful and all-wise will of God, human freedom becomes more and more unlimited and no longer needs to be guarded, approaching the absolute freedom of God Himself, through deification by grace.

“Everything is permissible for me,” says the priest. Paul, “but not everything is useful; everything is permissible to me, but nothing should possess me” (1 Corinthians 6:12). Only God can and should possess a person (i.e. only Truth, not lies, Good, not evil, Beauty, not ugliness, not slavery, Love, not hatred, Life, not death).

For this alone is the true Supreme Good. One can show us our path to the true Higher Good, because He alone knows what is for us, created for good, the true highest Good and which path leads to Him. God not only knows incommensurably more about the man He created than man knows about himself, but also loves man incommensurably more than man himself can love. Having understood this, the Christian can no longer help loving God more than himself. This is the fundamental and basic truth of Christian morality: one should love God more than oneself (the first, greatest Commandment of Christ), and then, only then, can a person love his neighbor as himself (the second commandment of Christ). All other commandments and calls of Christ are only an explanation and clarification of the main ones.

“Slavery to God” is true freedom, for God is the ideal one. And “Freedom from God” (i.e., freedom from freedom) is magnify slavery to sin, and through it to the devil.

The complete surrender of one's freedom to God is a sacrifice, the greatest that a person can bring, but also the most pleasing to God. Remembering that “he so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, so that everyone who believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life,” a Christian, in infinitely grateful love for God, in response to His sacrifice, makes his sacrifice, “mite widows", all that he has: his freedom. And then, as a reward, he receives true and complete "freedom in God", and with it the promise of eternal bliss in the Kingdom of Heaven, which is higher than paradise. But to fully understand this seemingly simple truth about God, His Love, and the need for self-denial and self-denial, giving up one’s human freedom in order to receive Divine freedom, and with it, the eternal Supreme Good, to the person himself, without help from Above, is also impossible. All the inexpressible horror of the fall was in the complete corruption of the mind, heart and will of man. Having lost, after the fall, constant communion with God, man hopelessly plunged into sinful darkness. And until this darkness is illuminated by the light of Divine grace, a person cannot even realize his extremely distressed situation. “No one can come to Me,” says Christ, “unless the Father who sent Me draws him” ().

This voice of God, attracting the attention of a sinner, enlightening a darkened mind, warming a cold heart, awakening a sleeping will to a good will, illuminating the sinful darkness with the radiance of the light of Divine Truth, comes sooner or later, and repeatedly, to every sinner. This voice is the voice of conscience.

The voice of conscience is a wonderful gift of Divine mercy after being expelled from paradise, a mysterious mysterious voice of the Divine Truth itself. Conscience is the spiritual umbilical cord that connects the human soul with the nature of God Himself, the last trace of the seal of the Holy Spirit, blown into created man in paradise. The voice of conscience speaks to us, in us, as the voice of our true "I", as the voice of the true image and likeness of God. But this voice of our conscience sounds wonderful and strange in us: it always says, like a reproving voice from outside: "You acted badly." Not “I acted badly”, but “you acted badly” ... As if our “I” talks to itself and says to itself alone - “You” ... Therefore, the voice of conscience cannot be destroyed. It can be silenced, immured, but it cannot be killed! But there is nothing worse than not listening to the voice of conscience, this last guarantee of our salvation! The stronger and more carefully the voice of conscience is muffled in life on earth, the stronger and more terrible it will sound after death. At the Last Judgment, our own conscience will be our implacable accuser.

The nourishment and purification of the conscience occurs through repentance, especially in the great Sacrament of Penance, which is called the "second baptism" or "baptism with tears." After cleansing and nourishing the conscience with repentant tears, you can proceed to the greatest Christian Sacrament of the Eucharist. The great and wonderful meaning of this Sacrament is clearly expressed by the Savior Himself: “He who eats My Flesh and drinks My Blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day” () and “He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him »().

Orthodox Christian Moral Theology. INTRODUCTION

Orthodox Christian Moral Theology is a theological science, which is a systematic Orthodox teaching on Christian morality.

The science of Christian morality has also other names. It is called Christian ethics, Christian morality, theological ethics or morality, practical or active theology, Christian moral teaching, etc. All these names have the right to exist, but the most correct name should be recognized as “Moral Theology” or, more fully and more precisely, “Orthodox Christian Moral Theology. The word "theology" shows the basic character of our doctrine, which distinguishes it from the philosophical doctrine of morality, the so-called moral philosophy. The word “Orthodox” emphasizes that our moral teaching is based on Orthodox principles and therefore differs not only from pagan and other non-Christian religions, but also from Catholic, Protestant and, in general, any non-Orthodox doctrine.

What is morality? Morality is the activity or behavior of a person, due to his attitude to the idea of ​​the highest Good. Every activity has a specific purpose. The goal of moral activity is the achievement of the highest Good. Both theology and philosophy deal with questions about what is the true highest and true highest Good for an individual and all mankind. Ethics is the philosophical science of morality (or the so-called moral philosophy). "Moral Theology" is the theological (Christian) science of morality. Moral theology and moral philosophy proceed from different principles and differ profoundly from each other in the methods of their investigation. Moral philosophy is looking for unknown norms of moral behavior. For moral philosophy, moral norms are the desired, the unknown. It raises the questions: can these norms be and should they be established? How to recognize, establish, prove, substantiate them? What is good? What is a blessing? What is the highest or absolute Good or Good? What is the purpose and meaning of life? Moral Theology, on the other hand, considers all these questions to be completely insoluble by the human mind without help from Above, and therefore puts the Revelation of God given in St. Scripture and in St. Tradition, where all the concepts unknown and sought for by moral philosophy are clearly and definitely disclosed. Based on Revelation, Moral Theology seeks only to understand, with the help of natural human reason, the Truth given in Revelation.

The sources of Moral Theology are: St. Scripture, St. Tradition, the teaching of the Church (creations of the Holy Fathers) and the moral patterns of Sts. devotees. The highest moral model is the personality of the Divine Founder of Christianity, our Lord Jesus Christ.

The relation of Moral Theology to moral philosophy is reduced to the general relation of theology to philosophy. Some researchers tend to merge theology and philosophy together, while others, on the contrary, tend to completely separate them. In reality, theology and philosophy, like science, being different in methods, can be in complete agreement, if only they have as their task an honest search for truth.

Theology is based on faith in the infallible Divine authority of Revelation, and therefore theological truths are beyond doubt; philosophy relies on limited knowledge acquired by the forces of the human mind, on the basis of observations, experiments, reasoning and conclusions of various individual philosophers and scientists, and therefore these truths are only hypothetical and problematic. From this it is clear that the Christian theological doctrine of morality has an advantage over the philosophical doctrine. This advantage becomes indisputable when we remember that not a single philosopher has presented and could not present in his life a truly moral ideal. In the theological teaching, on the other hand, the eternally living ideal of the God-man-Christ is given, and in the diverse host of saints who lived according to the law of Christian morality, various examples of the realization of holiness are given. Every tree is known by its fruits. The fruits of the "tree of life" - the God-revealed Christ's law on morality - ripened in the bosom of St. Churches, pragmatically justify the truth of the method of faith in Divine Revelation.

The significance of Moral Theology is enhanced by the fact that morality has the closest connection with all the phenomena of social, social and political life. Family and school are normal only when they are based on Christian moral foundations. The quality of state laws is also entirely determined by them.

Christian doctrine of morality, developed in Moral Theology in complete system religious and moral outlook, is especially useful and even essential for those people who have a leading role in life: bosses, judges, teachers, scientists, mainly pastors, who will have to answer not only for themselves, but also for those who are led and flocked them.

Faith and morality are inextricably linked. Neither religion without morality nor morality without religion are unthinkable. “Without faith it is impossible to please God” (); “Faith without works is dead” (). Without a correct understanding of God, Creator, Savior and Redeemer, one cannot correctly understand Christian morality. Without feeling prompted to do good deeds in accordance with faith, and without doing them, one cannot have a living, fruitful faith. That is why - "And without deeds are unfavorable to God, and good deeds without pious dogmas are not accepted by God" (Cyril of Yerus., catechetical teaching, ch. IV, 2).

If religion encompasses everything that relates to God, both in Himself and in His relationship to creatures, then morality primarily characterizes man in his relationship to God and to the world. Pious reflection on God in His relation to the world and man is the subject of Dogmatic Theology; pious reflection on man in his relation to God and the world is the subject of Moral Theology. The goal of Dogmatic Theology is the image of God so that a person, having known Him, love Him and strive for Him as his Holy prototype, Creator, Provider, Redeemer and Savior. And the purpose of Moral Theology is the depiction of the truths of moral life, leading a person, through the fulfillment of the will of God, to eternal bliss and deification. Dogmatic Theology portrays the Divinely revealed call of Divine Love to man; Moral Theology, on the other hand, speaks of a reciprocal grateful revelation of the human soul to God.

A Brief Outline of the History of Moral Theology

The principles of morality began to be revealed in St. Scripture Old Testament especially in the Law of Moses.

Our Lord, having offered Himself as a sacrifice for the sins of people, showed in His life and teaching the ideal of morality and the fullness of Christian morality, with all the grace-filled powers and means to accomplish the moral salvation of every believer in Him.

In the Gospel, the foundations of Christian morality are given in the most perfect form in the Sermon on the Mount and in many parables. In the Epistles of the Apostles, the ideal of the Christian life was revealed from different sides. For example, app. James mainly revealed the doctrine of the integrity of the Law of God, so that he who breaks one commandment breaks the whole law (ch. 2, 10). At ap. Peter the main virtue is the hope of receiving blessings, bestowed by the redemptive Jesus Christ (2, 12). Ap. Paul mainly reveals the doctrine of justification by faith. The problem of moral freedom and the superiority of love over all virtues also finds a bright and clear expression in the Apostle Paul. Ap. John, mostly called the Apostle of Love, best of all explains the doctrine of Christian Love, manifested in the condescension of God and given as a new commandment.

In St. There is no name in Scripture for Moral Theology as a science; there this science is called: the Way of God, an undefiled conscience, walking before God, royal law, the words of God, wisdom from above, etc. All these names have the deepest meaning. Moral Theology is indeed the "Way of God", i.e. the path of moral activity indicated by God. Moral theology is really the doctrine of an undefiled conscience and walking before God. Moral theology is really the doctrine of royal laws, i.e. laws established by the King of Heaven Himself. Moral Theology is really Theology, i.e. the words of God, revealing to us the true Wisdom from Above.

Many Fathers and Teachers of the Church have been engaged in exposition of Christian morality since the first centuries of Christianity. One of the most ancient monuments of the Christian Church is the Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, compiled by an unknown author at the end of the 1st century. This work was intended to instruct the new converts in the truths of the Christian faith and to prepare them for the acceptance of Baptism. Being thus the first Christian catechism, the "Teaching of the Twelve Apostles" was at the same time the first Christian Moral Theology, which was based on the commandments of the Love of Christ and indicated sins incompatible with the life of a Christian.

Of the apostolic men who wrote on moralizing topics, one should especially note St. Barnabas, who pointed out that faith must certainly be united with the virtues, and it is not enough for a Christian to confine himself to the morality of the Old Testament. The epistles of Ignatius the God-bearer contain moralizing instructions of an ascetic nature. Justin the Philosopher also proposed the rules of Christian asceticism, in which he demanded that a Christian be filled with special virtues, much higher than natural virtues.

Of the moralizing theologians of the ancient Church, there were the most remarkable: Clement of Alexandria (d. 217), who sought to connect Christian moralizing with Platonic philosophy; St. Basil the Great, who based, on the contrary, Christian morality exclusively on St. Scripture; St. John Chrysostom, who gave in his numerous writings a large number of arguments on moralizing topics; St. Gregory the Theologian, who left deep reflections on sin, on virtue, on the moral nature of man in general; St. Gregory of Nyssa - who wrote about beatitude, about Christian perfection and about many private subjects of Christian piety; St. Cyril of Jerusalem - who composed in a simple and accessible form deep moral teachings for the catechumens.

Great ascetics and teachers of ascetic morality: Anthony the Great, Macarius the Great, Macarius of Alexandria, John Cassian the Roman, Arsenius the Great, Nile of Sinai, John of the Ladder, Barsanophius the Great, Anastasius of Sinai, Isaac the Syrian, Maximus the Confessor, John of Damascus, who wrote "Sacred Parallels" - an extensive collection of biblical and patristic moralizing together with the moral sayings of ancient philosophers; Philotheus of Sinai, Theodore the Studite and many others have provided in their works and examples of their lives the most valuable materials for moral theology. Of the Western Church Fathers, they are especially famous for their moralizing writings: St. Ambrose of Milan, who wrote on the model of Ciceron's "On Duties", an essay on the same topic, in which there are already elements of a systematic Moral Theology, and Blessed Augustine, who developed the system of Christian moral teaching even more widely. In a polemic against the heresiarch Pelagius, who argued that the moral life completely depends on the will of man, and grace only indicates the law of activity, Bless. Augustine, on the contrary, developed the idea that the human will does not have absolute freedom, that it is completely perverted by sin, so that salvation belongs to grace alone. (The true Orthodox Christian teaching on grace does not coincide with the extreme conclusions of Blessed Augustine.)

Bl. Augustine had an enormous influence for several centuries on the theological thought of the West.

In the history of Moral Theology, it is impossible not to mention Tertullian, who preached excessively rigoristic morality (for example, he already considered a second marriage as adultery), his admirer, Cyprian of Carthage, and Origen, who in his moralizing writings on moral freedom, on the highest good, on the essence of virtue and others - he gave many thoughtful teachings, but, having become acquainted with Neoplatonic philosophy, he largely fell under its influence.

From the 6th century, "Collections" began to appear, in which various Christian and pagan moralizing maxims were compared. The most famous are the "Collections" edited by Boethius.

In the Middle Ages, the works of famous scholastics appeared, of which the most remarkable were Peter of Lombardy and, especially, Thomas Aquinas, who built on the basis of Bl. Augustine, a holistic system of moral teaching, which had a huge influence over many centuries on Catholic theology.

Thomas Aquinas opposed Duns Scott. Instead of a theonomic point of view on morality, he took the standpoint of autonomy (self-law). Instead of faith and grace, his theory is full of skepticism and sophism. It subsequently served as a model for the Jesuits, who justified the arbitrariness of human freedom. In addition to the scholastic direction, a mystical direction also appeared in the Middle Ages, in which the main attention was paid to a direct relationship with God and the possibility of communion with God, through which the human soul can rise to complete union with God. The most typical representative of medieval mysticism was Thomas a Kempis, whose work “On the Imitation of Christ” is still considered one of the fundamental moralistic works of Catholic theology. From the point of view of a sound and strict mysticism of Orthodoxy, this work of Thomas a Kempis has elements of subtle and seductive charm. Tauler's sermons were of the same kind.

Along with the scholastic and mystical directions, a third form of moralizing was formed in the Middle Ages - casuistic. Casuists expounded "cases of conscience" in alphabetical order so that you can quickly find answers to every case (casus) of moral life. The beginning of casuistry was laid back in the 8th century, but its heyday dates back to the 13th-14th centuries.

The mechanical attitude of casuists to morality provoked a reaction from Lutheranism. Luther believed in moralizing main idea the doctrine of justification by faith; his associate Melanchthon reduced Christian morality to moral philosophy; Calvin, on the other hand, gave it a practical-legal character.

The Catholic Jesuits in their systems of moral teaching tried to impart a scientific form to some of the Pelagian principles (the dependence of the moral life primarily on the will of man) and, in particular, to the principle of submission to the authority of the Church - the pope.

For some time, Christian moral teaching was considered only as an element of Dogmatic Theology (the moral significance of each dogma was studied as a “moral conclusion”).

Moral Theology acquired the significance of an independent science in the era of the Reformation. The French reformist Dano singled out Christian morality from the dogmatic structure and set it out in the coherent system of "Christian Ethics" (1557). In his work, Dano cited the opinions of ancient philosophers, since he thought that there was not always a disagreement between Christianity and paganism in the field of morality.

Of great importance for the development of Moral Theology were the currents of Pietism and Jansenism. Pietism (which meant piety) of Spener, Arndt and other theologians, whose writings were distinguished by warmth of feeling and strict moral requirements, was a reaction to the excessive abstraction and dryness of Protestant systems of moral teaching. Jansenism, on behalf of the theologian Jansenius, who revived the teachings of Blessed. Augustine against Pelagianism) - was a reaction to the morality of the Jesuits.

The Protestant moralists of the eighteenth century (especially Buddeus and Mosheim) tried to place Moral Theology on strictly philosophical grounds. They found support in the moral philosophy of Kant with his doctrine of autonomous morality and the "categorical imperative".

The reaction against them was the teaching of Schleiermacher, who saw in the moral life of each person an individual, free, creative process, and not the fruit of a general law of inner life. One of prominent representatives this direction was Rote.

Recently, the state of the science of Moral Theology has been characterized by a striving for freedom from the influence of any kind of philosophy, in view of the profound fundamental difference between the methods of Moral Theology and moral philosophy.

For a long time in Russia, Christian moral teaching was not the subject of a special theological science of Moral Theology, but was expounded in the spiritual and edifying works of great ascetics and ascetics, who possessed a rich gift of the highest spiritual wisdom. In the fifteenth century, Rev. Nil Sorsky, one of the most remarkable Russian saints, a pillar of the northern hermitage, equal in spirit to Macarius the Great (according to the definition of Archim. Gabriel), - compiled the Monastic Charter, which represented the first Russian Orthodox Asceticism, i.e. the highest part of Moral Theology, which treats of the most perfect virtues and the ways of achieving them. Most of the other Russian writings on morality before the 18th century were devoted to the description of inner spiritual perfection. These works bore mysterious names: spiritual bridges, ladders, meadows, flower beds, and were distinguished for the most part by their allegorical exposition. The best of these works is “The Spiritual Treasure Collected from the World” by St. Tikhon of Zadonsk, Bishop of Voronezh (d. 1783); Chet'i Menaion of St. Demetrius of Rostov (d. 1709), like his other writings, also provide the richest material for the study of Christian morality.

As for the systematic exposition of Christian morality, it was briefly and in the order of the catechism proposed in the "Orthodox Confession" of Metropolitan Peter Mohyla (d. 1646), in the "Catechisms" of Metropolitan. Platon (d. 1812), Metropolitan Philaret (d. 1867), Metropolitan Anthony (d. 1938), and partly in Russian Orthodox spiritual journals.

School systematic courses in Moral Theology appeared in Russia in the 18th century. Of these, the most famous are: Feofan Prokopovich, archbishop. Feofilakt Gorsky, archim. Hilarion, archim. Methodius, Hieromonk Macarius. Most of them and others like them were first compiled according to Catholic and Protestant models. So, for example, the work of Bishop. Innokenty of Penza (d. 1819) "On the Duties of a Christian" - was compiled according to Buddey and Mozheim. In the writings “On the Knowledge of God and Worship of God” by Nikolsky, “On the Duties of Home Society” by Mansvetov, in the book of Archpriest. Kochetov (1824) - "Features of the active teaching of faith", rich in texts of Holy Scripture, - the influence of the Bible Society, established in the 20s of the XIX century, affected.

These works served as archim. Plato as material for his "Moral Theology", adopted as a textbook in theological seminaries before the course "Moral Theology" by Fr. Solarsky, which was an encyclopedia of morality (in 3 volumes, published in 1860; in one volume, 2nd edition: "Moral. Orthodox. Theology", 1875). On the work of Solarsky, the influence of the Catholic theologian Riegler is noticeable. In addition to these textbooks, the following were also known: “On the Duties of a Christian” by Protopr. V. B. Bazhanova (1845), "Orthodox Moral Theology" prot. Khalkolivanov (1875), "Moral Theology" archim. Gabriel (1884 Tver), E. G. Pyatnitsky "The Experience of Orthodox Moral Theology" (1890), "Orthodox Christian Moral Theology" arch. N. T. Kamensky, (later Bishop Nikanor), (Kazan, 1888). This is one of the best textbooks. Recently, the textbook of prof. M. Olesnitsky - "Moral Theology or the Orthodox Teaching on Morality" (5th edition, Petrograd, 1915). One of the best textbooks for theological academies was "Orthodox Christian Teaching on Morality" by Protopr. P. L. Yanysheva (Moscow, 1887). Of the old works, the “Essays on the Moral Rules of Christian Doctrine” by Prot. Favorov (1880).

The most valuable material for moral theology is provided by the writings of Bp. Ignatia Bryanchaninova, (d. 1867) - "Ascetic Experiences" 5 volumes, and the works of Bishop. Theophan, the Recluse Vyshensky, (d. 1894). His "Letters on the Christian Life" ep. Theophan revised it into a special textbook on moral theology, giving it the title "Inscription of Christian Moral Teaching" (2nd ed., 1895). This inspired work is a deeply thought-out strictly Orthodox higher ascetic system of Christian morality.

Of similar value is the work of St. rights. John of Kronstadt "My Life in Christ" and many letters of the Optina elders, especially the elder Hieroschemamonk Ambrose.

The highest doctrine of Christian morality, the so-called spiritual wisdom about the Christian life and the ways to achieve it, go beyond the school Moral Theology as a science, and is the subject of another theological discipline of Asceticism, accessible to a few. The foundations of this spiritual wisdom about true and full life in Christ can be found in the 5 volumes of the Philokalia and in the Ladder of St. John of the Ladder.

Division of the Science of Christian Morality

From the concept of Moral Theology and the definition of its subject, it becomes clear into what main parts it should be divided. The first part has the task of clarifying the essence of morality in human nature and the essence of God's revealed law of God on the morality of a Christian. The second part should indicate the activity of a person that meets the requirements of the God-revealed Law.

Thus, the first part of the Moral Theology should reveal the inner essence of Christian morality, and the second - the external, practical activity of a person, or his obligations to God, to himself and to his neighbors.

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1. Subject and Sources of Moral Theology

Moral theology is both specific and universal. It relies on the uniqueness of Divine Revelation, but also takes into account the value of philosophical knowledge. Moral theology contains the whole world of moral values ​​and deals with them. theoretical justification and comprehension. Moral theology derives its authority from Divine Revelation, that is, from the Divine will about man, and is therefore based on a higher and final reality. Moral theology considers Christian morality as the fulfillment and completion of natural morality, which is inherent in the experience of every person and requires its improvement and development.

The main source of Moral theology is the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. The main provisions of Christian morality are set forth in chapters 5-7 of the Gospel of Matthew and in the Epistles of the Holy Apostle Paul. The Sermon on the Mount and other speeches of Christ, as well as the most important passages from the Apostolic Epistles, gave Christian teaching a deep ethical character and fiery enthusiasm. Of particular importance are the Gospel narrative of the Last Judgment, at which the justification of a person before God will depend on deeds of love for others, and those passages from the Epistles of the Holy Apostle Paul, which indicate the incompatibility of sin with the moral dignity of a person and his Christian way of life.

The Tradition of the Church is the most extensive source. These include the dogmatic teaching of the Church, the moral-exegetical works of the holy fathers and teachers of the Church, hagiography and hagiology, liturgical texts, homiletic heritage, canonical definitions, and a great deal of moral-ascetic literature.

Moral theology proceeds from the basic doctrinal provisions of Dogmatic theology, which deals with the study of God's actions in relation to the world and man. Moral theology looks at both the actions of God and the actions of man, showing man how to act in accordance with God's calling and how to specifically respond to God's actions, which are the Incarnation and the Atonement.

The importance of the moral-exegetical works of the holy fathers and teachers of the Church is determined by their direct relationship to the texts of Holy Scripture, that is, to the original source. The explanation of the moral meaning of the sacred text acquires strength, depth and ecclesiastical authority in the works of the Fathers of the Church.

The value of monuments of hagiographic writing is determined by the moral examples contained in them from the lives of saints who embodied the evangelical moral ideal in their adherence to Christ.

The significance of liturgical texts as a source for Moral theology lies in the fact that they reflect the ideal forms of behavior and moral virtues revealed by the saints of the Orthodox Church.

The homiletic heritage of the Church contains abundant material, including practical pastoral experience in the religious and moral education of members of the Church.

Canon law is of undoubted value for moral theology, since this is the only area where the moral consciousness of the Church has been expressed in an extremely concrete form in relation to ethical problems. However, Orthodox theology seeks to invoke the canon without being too literal. The changing conditions of the life of the Church do not allow the literal application of patriotic mandates in relation to moral life without taking into account the nature of the new reality.

Moral-ascetic literature points to the paths of active and contemplative deeds that lead a person to moral and spiritual perfection. Asceticism speaks much and in detail about the inclinations of the fallen nature of man, about the struggle with thoughts and sin, about the ways of the moral likeness of man to God, and this is the undoubted significance of asceticism as a source for Moral theology.

From sources not related to Revelation, one should point to various ethical disciplines that are of great scientific and methodological significance. Among them, moral theology is most interested in positive, normative, philosophical and practical ethics.

Positive ethics deals with the description of human behavior in connection with certain moral views in a particular historical era. Positive ethics gives an idea of ​​how people behaved in the past and how they act now. For example, one could write a history of morality in ancient Rome, or a history of some modern country in which, decade by decade, the behavior of people and their attitude to the prevailing moral norms and values ​​would be described.

Normative ethics has as its task the analysis and comprehension of moral norms. Normative ethics develops moral prescriptions for human behavior and specifies what specifically a person should do and what he should not do in the name of observing moral standards.

Philosophical ethics deals with the discussion of metaphysical and metaethical questions of morality, for example, the question of the nature of ethical values. It is a moral philosophy built on a purely unrevelatory basis.

Practical ethics aims to improve people's behavior. These are the moral instructions that a person receives in the family, at school and in society. The ancient Greeks called the ability to observe the norms of moral behavior an art, referring to the ability of a person to lead a worthy, moral lifestyle.

Of these ethical disciplines, philosophical and practical ethics is the ethics of theoretical reflection and execution, and positive and normative ethics is the ethics of the functioning of morality in culture.

Other sources not related to Revelation but of interest to Moral theology include philosophical and medical anthropology, biology, psychology, and sociology.

2. History of moral theology

As a theological discipline Moral theology was formed in modern times. Nevertheless, we can talk about the history of Christian ethics, which arose along with the Christian moral message and passed big way historical development.

The history of Christian ethics is divided into three periods: patristic (I-VIII centuries), late Byzantine (IX-XVI centuries) and modern (XVII-XX centuries).

The beginning of Christian ethics dates back to the epoch when paganism, outlived its historical time, in the struggle against the Christian religion, for its part, exposed the moral truths inherited over the centuries and opposed them to the simplicity of the Christian faith. The criticism leveled against Christians by pagans reflected some important moral issues. The moral teaching of Christianity, as a living reflection in the life of Christians of the most holy ideal, manifested in the person of the God-man, the Lord Jesus Christ, revealed and affirmed the height and superiority of the Christian moral world outlook.

The first attempt to present Christian moral teaching in a definite system dates back only to the end of the 4th century. We have in mind St. Ambrose of Milan, who in three books "On Duties" (De officiis) for the first time expounded Christian moral teaching in a system, contrasting his work with the work of Cicero, also called "On Duties" (De officiis).

Starting from the 4th century, we observe an intensive growth of monuments on Christian ethics. These are moral instructions, sermons and ascetic words containing a great deal of moral and theological material. Of the monuments of the patristic period, the most interesting are: "The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles" ("Didachi"); the writings of the apostolic men - St. Clement of Rome, St. Ignatius the God-bearer, St. Polycarp of Smyrna, Hermas; writings of Christian apologists - St. Justin the Philosopher and the author of the Epistle to Diognet; writings of Saint Methodius of Patara and Clement of Alexandria; the writings of the great Cappadocians, Saints Basil the Great, Gregory the Theologian and Gregory of Nyssa; writings of St. John Chrysostom, Blessed Augustine, Blessed Jerome and the writings of the Holy Fathers - authors of the Philokalia.

In general, the patriotic period is characterized by the fact that we constantly meet with in-depth consideration of ethical issues in the writings of Christian apologists, the early Church Fathers and the great theologians of the "golden age" of Christian writing.

During the second period, from the 9th to the 16th centuries, we have few creative works. Analogies prevail, repeating the moral constructions of the fathers of the patristic period. Like ears of corn after the harvest, the works of the early fathers are gathered and copied. Such holy fathers as Theodore the Studite, Gregory of Sinai, Nikita Stifat and other authors contributed to the development of moral issues during this period, whose writings were included in the Philokalia. The most important and feature This period is a continuation in theology of the mystical tradition begun in the patriotic period by Saints Dionysius the Areopagite, Macarius the Great and Maximus the Confessor. From the writings of late Byzantine mystics, the works of St. Simeon the New Theologian, St. Gregory Palamas and their followers are of value to Moral theology. The ethics of the mystical theologians can be characterized as an ascetic ethic that flourished mainly in monastic life.

The third period in the history of Christian ethics covers the 17th-20th centuries. Here we must pay attention mainly to Russian and Greek authors. During this period, Christian ethics develops as an independent theological discipline, distinct from dogmatic and pastoral theology. At the beginning of this period, the primacy in the development of Moral theology belonged to Roman Catholic and Protestant theologians. In the 18th century in Russia, Archbishop Feofan Prokopovich created a course in Moral Theology, which was included in the program of the Kyiv and Moscow Academies and the Trinity Seminary. Metropolitan Platon of Moscow, in the third part of his work "Abridged Theology" (1765), outlined a system of Christian moral teaching, which was extremely successful and accepted as a guide in the spiritual educational institutions. From Russian theologians XIX - early. In the 20th century, moral theology courses were developed by: Bishop Innokenty (Smirnov) of Penza and Saratov (1821), Archpriest Ioakim Kochetov, teacher of the law at the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum (1824), Archimandrite Platon (Thebesky), Rector of the Vladimir Theological Seminary (1854), Archpriest Peter Solarsky, Archpriest John Khalkolivanov (1872), Archimandrite Gabriel, Archpriest N. Kamensky (later Archbishop Nikanor), Professor Protopresbyter John Yanyshev (1887), I. Pyatnitsky (1890), A. Pokrovsky (1891), Professor M.A. Olesnitsky (1892), S. Nikitsky, Professor M. Tareev (1908). A very special place belongs to the greatest Russian ecclesiastical writers of the 19th century - to St. Theophan the Recluse ("Inscriptions of Christian morality" and "The Way to Salvation") and St. Ignatius of the Caucasus ("Ascetic Experiences"). Assessing the development of the pre-revolutionary school of Russian Orthodox Christian ethics, we must recognize the undeniable correspondence of the courses on Moral Theology created in Russia in the 18th-19th centuries to the demands, needs and nature of their era.

In general, the third period in the history of Christian ethics is characterized by the Western Renaissance trend, which led to the formation of the concept of personality, which has become a key one in modern European culture. In parallel with the influence of Western European enlightenment in Russia, there is a return to the holy fathers of the Church: the translation of the Philokalia undertaken by St. Paisius of Nyametsky and St. Theophan the Recluse, the flourishing of the Optina eldership and the extensive systematic activity of monasteries and Theological Academies in translating and publishing a huge patristic heritage.

At the beginning of the 20th century, in the growing moral anxiety, metaphysical motives are more and more clearly indicated, the question of “ last sense". The task is realized to build a new "doctrine of life" as its justification, to carry out a new moral and theological synthesis, to bring a solid metaphysical basis under the existing building of Moral theology. This task, bequeathed by the pre-revolutionary era, requires its responsible reflection and creative solution in our time.

The current state of Moral theology is determined by the search for a scientific approach to the creation of systems of Orthodox Christian ethics.

In the context of Russia's gradual overcoming of the consequences of spiritual and moral emptiness, it becomes especially obvious that a concept that does not affirm any eternal constants for a person deprives him of being of absolute moral meaning. Without the presence of a higher and sacred beginning in life, human existence becomes humiliation and vulgarity. Overcoming the doom and meaninglessness of personal existence is achieved by a person in communion with the grace-filled life of the Church, which embodies in its being the universal significance of the royal victory of Christ, who recreated man for eternal life in God in its ideal fullness. This mission of the Church is called upon to proclaim and bear witness to the theology of our time. It follows that the main categories of ethics to be studied must be considered as the absolute coordinates of human existence, revealing the personality in its own inexhaustible depth, in the multifaceted perspective of its capabilities and manifestations.

In Greek theology, as Professor S. Harakas notes, three main directions in the approach to ethics deserve attention: the Athenian, Constantinople and Thessalonian schools, each of which is characterized by its own specific method.

Representatives of the Athenian school emphasize that there is no vital difference between Christian and philosophical ethics, since ethics is based on the nature of the human mind. The Athenian school strives to give ethics a scientific and academic character and relies very little on the heritage of the holy fathers, preferring philosophical sources.

Representatives of the Constantinople school consider Christian ethics as a doctrine of the correspondence of the life of a redeemed person to the gospel moral ideal and pay great attention to a person's personal relationship to Christ. The Constantinopolitan school relies mainly on biblical and patriotic sources, especially on the Eastern and Western Church Fathers of the first four centuries.

The Thessalonian school draws material from late Byzantine sources. Its representatives emphasize the existential and personal nature of ethics. They discuss issues of human existence and teach about the attainment of salvation by the individual in the life of the Church.

The task of our modern Russian theology in the field of ethics, as already noted, should be recognized as the development of a universal, strictly defined and deeply ontologized ethical concept and the creation of an integral moral system on this fundamental basis.

3. Development and formation of personality

The Problem of Personality in Moral Theology

In its approach to the problem of personality, Moral theology proceeds from dogmatic premises and data presented by the general science of man.

In the light of the dogmatic teaching of the Church, personality, as the image of God imprinted in man, is inaccessible to all-encompassing and exhaustive knowledge. Personality cannot be an object of scientific study in the same completeness and volume as objects of the external world. It always remains incomprehensible in its ultimate deep essence. In the inaccessible-hidden life and in its manifestation, the personality always remains an original, peculiar, inimitable and therefore the only spiritual structure in the whole world, not reducible to any other existential reality. Holy Scripture, pointing to the dignity of the human soul, implicitly emphasizes precisely this aspect of the uniqueness and uniqueness of the individual. The unique value of the human personality, its high dignity and its exclusive ontological privilege, perceived as an incomparable gift of being, are determined by the fact of its creation by God as the Highest and Absolute Personality and the fact of its deification in Christ.

Personality cannot be explained from any extraneous non-personal elements. That which is personal is no longer composed of anything else that would be more primary than personality, is not divided into anything, is not destroyed - neither in space nor in time. As the image of God, personality does not need any causal-genetic explanation. The only way to explain the personality in the complete indivisibility and indestructibility of its existential structure is to recognize the dogmatic truth about what God created it from nothing.

The second most important premise, which is a fundamental moment in the theological interpretation of personality, is the dogmatic teaching of the Church about the incarnation of God. Moral theology proceeds from the fact that the Son of God in His Incarnation and Resurrection revealed the deepest and most fundamental basis of the essence of man, whom He recreated for eternal life and for communion with the ideal fullness of being.

The human person does not exist by itself, not by virtue of its self-sufficiency, since it does not have a source of being in itself, but exists due to its ontological involvement in Christ. Christ is the metaphysical foundation of every human personality in its real concreteness and in the infinity of the perspective of being that opens up for it.

In the light of the data presented by the general science of man, its empirical aspect comes to the fore in the interpretation of personality. Here, primary attention is paid to how the personality manifests itself, reveals and realizes itself in the complex spiritual and bodily nature of a person. The existence of man is the single and indivisible life of nature and personality. The God-given spiritual and bodily nature of a person is the area of ​​actualization (revealing) of the personality. The soul and body of a person under the influence of personality also become something individual, personal, they also reflect the innermost features of the image of God. In general, in all creation, in every person and the world as a whole, only the many-sided reflection in everything of the absolute wisdom and goodness of God is truly original and therefore valuable.

Moral theology deals with the description of Divine actions and, above all, God's wisdom and goodness in their relation to man as a person, where morality is nothing more than a response of the human person to the blessings of God and its complicity in the fate of one's neighbor, following the example of God's goodness.

From the point of view of the empirical content of life, the existence of a person is the formation, development and formation, taking place in the specific conditions of natural and historical reality, social and cultural conditions. In his biographical framework, each person is immersed in the elements of the world's existence, in the real flow of the cultural and historical process, and in it becomes the bearer of a certain moral worldview, manifested in lifestyle and moral behavior.

Therefore, in approaching the problem of personality, Moral theology proceeds from the fact that it is impossible to separate the individual life of a person from the objective world of nature, social ties, historical and cultural conditions. On the other hand, based on the fact that personality is primarily a phenomenon of the spiritual world, it is necessary to refrain from exaggerating the role of various external determinants in the formation of personality. Moral theology recognizes the freedom and openness of the human personality in relation to new values, to man and society. Moral theology considers a person not as an unchanging and static image, but as a structure, although relatively stable, integral, but at the same time, an open structure, becoming, always in the dynamics of formation, in creative growth, on the way.

The moral principle in the formation of personality

Starting from early childhood, a person's life proceeds simultaneously in three spheres of being: in the sphere of natural existence, in the sphere of socio-cultural life and in the sphere of religious church life. The moral principle, as a universal reality of human life, is present in all these spheres of being and performs the most important ontological function of forming the structure of being. Formation is what opposes the law of decay, which leads to overcoming chaos and to the design of life into a stable and integral structure. Specific factors for overcoming the principle of decay and the formation of life on solid ontological foundations are: in the sphere of natural existence - the mastery of the processes of one's own behavior, in the sphere of socio-cultural life - the implementation of the principles of an ethical attitude towards a person, in the sphere of religious church life - the achievement by a person of supernatural Divine grace .

In the sphere of natural existence, man defines himself in relation to the surrounding cosmos and in relation to his own nature. The formation of each individual human personality here should be understood in the context of the formation of the Earth's ethnosphere, which, according to L.N. Gumilyov, is the key to understanding world history. Nature, climate, landscape and other geographical characteristics are factors in the formation of a national moral character. For example, in the soul of the Russian people there is the same immensity, boundlessness, aspiration to infinity, as in the boundless Russian plain. If a person expresses his attitude to the surrounding cosmos through the perception of the experience of his people and of all mankind in general, then he builds his attitude to his own natural existence on the acquired personal life experience. The moral principle underlying personal life experience is embodied in the principle of abstinence. The ethical meaning of abstinence lies in the fact that a person is guaranteed from immersion in the elements of materiality and in the area of ​​sensual passions, where he ceases to exist as a spiritual person. The principle of abstinence presupposes a rational and creative attitude of man to the possession of the world. Called to a responsible awareness of his activity in the world, a person must reveal the abilities given to him and subordinate them to the fulfillment of the purpose intended by God. It must not be thought that man's ultimate destination remains an absolutely transcendent end. On the contrary, it is carried out in the conditions of earthly human reality, in the freedom of formation and manifests itself in concrete deeds and actions. Mastering the outside world and mastering the processes of one's own behavior is one of the main aspects of the formation of a person as a person.

The socio-cultural environment is the second essential area of ​​personality formation. No matter how perfect the person created in the image of God, revealed to us in the biblical-Christian image of Adam, he cannot realize his formation outside of communion with human environment. The moral nature of man is focused on interpersonal communication and cooperation. Man Adam can be considered complete only when Eve, like him, became his life partner. Consequently, not only the natural world, but also the socio-cultural environment in its diversity and universality is the area of ​​personality formation. Carrying out its formation in the conditions of a certain socio-cultural environment, a person strives to treat everyone ethically and be accepted ethically by everyone. A specific aspect of the formation of personality in a socio-cultural environment is the adherence to the moral principles of justice, duty, honesty and respect for human dignity.

In the field of church-religious life, the system of ethics is based on the foundation of the religious Christian worldview, which contains the immense mystery of the meaning of human existence, and therefore turns out to be active and effective. The modern mind is constantly struggling to understand the unthinkable, its empirical mission is to extinguish the mystery. Therefore, modern thought has never actually been able to offer morality. Even the highest ethics, built on the moral foundations of Christianity, but denying the Divine nature of Christianity and not recognizing the institutions of the Church, dooms itself to failure. With true authority and real success, ethics can only function within the system of the Christian worldview. The area of ​​religious church life is the environment for the formation of a highly moral personality. In the life of the Church, a person is presented not only with the ideal of moral perfection, revealed in the gospel image of the God-man, but also with supernatural grace, which leads a person to deification and holiness and thereby contributes to the fulfillment of the task of his formation and formation as a spiritual and transfigured person who has entered into a new life with Christ.

Stages of personality development

For a large number of people, "life crises" occur at approximately the same age. This provides a basis for dividing and describing the stages of development of a mature personality.

The stages of middle age are preceded by the stages of development of young people. Young people in their twenties deal with the choice of spouse and profession, outline life goals and begin to implement them. Later, in their thirties or so, many of them come to reassess their previous choices and life goals. Finally, the first years after the thirty-year milestone is, as a rule, a time of coming to terms with new or newly confirmed elections.

The first stage of middle age begins around the age of thirty and moves into the beginning of the next decade. Its main characteristic is the realization of the discrepancy between dreams, hopes and life plans of a person with the reality of his existence. Since dreams always have some unrealistic features, the assessment of their divergence from reality at this stage is usually painted in negative and emotionally painful tones. Time is running out and making a gap between dreams and suddenly revealed reality with terrifying sharpness. People aged 35-40 begin to disagree with such statements as, for example: "You still have everything ahead", "You still have enough time to accomplish what you wish." Instead, they state, "It's too late to change anything in my life." At twenty and thirty years of age, they can say about a person that he "gives promise", but after forty years no one will say so. A person must accept the fact that he will never again become a scientist, an outstanding administrator, or even an insignificant writer. Disillusionment is not unusual for thirty-five or forty years of age, but it can be threatening to the individual. A person can feel confusion, his self-confidence suddenly disappears. An analysis of the life of people in creative professions reveals certain dramatic changes in their work somewhere around thirty-five years. Some of them began creative work at this time, while others, on the contrary, lost their Creative skills. One of the reasons for the mid-life crisis of people in creative professions is that the "impulsive brilliance" of youth requires the expenditure of great vitality. At thirty-five and forty, a person who leads a busy life (supervisor or professor) must change the intense pace of his life. In general, the problem of decreasing physical forces arises in the life of a person of any profession. The decline of physical strength is one of the many problems that a person faces during the years of the midlife crisis and beyond. For those who relied on their physical qualities when they were younger, middle age can be a period of severe depression. The decrease in physical strength can surprise people of the widest range of professions with its unexpectedness. University professors recall with regret their ability to go several days without sleep during their student years if an important matter required it. Many people simply complain that they get tired too often. They are more and more attuned not to a new creative work, but to the acquired wisdom and experience. This requires emotional flexibility, the ability to emotional return in relation to new people and new activities. Mental rigidity must also be overcome so that rigid attitudes do not lead to errors and an inability to perceive creative problem solving.

Successful resolution of a midlife crisis usually involves reframing life goals in a more realistic and restrained way, and within the limits of a person's lifetime. Spiritual matters, spouse, friends and children are becoming increasingly important, while the self is increasingly deprived of its exclusive position. There is an increasing tendency to be content with what we have and think less about things that will most likely never be achieved. There is a tendency to feel one's position is quite respectable. All these changes mark a new stage in the development of personality, a period of stabilization. The process of inner renewal eventually leads to a calmer and even more fulfilling life. After the age of fifty, health problems become more pressing and there is a growing awareness that "time is running out." On the whole, the fifties of life can be characterized by the continuation of those new forms of stability that were achieved during the previous decade.

The period after sixty years in rare cases can be a fourth or even a third of life. This period is characterized by the fact that a person leaves the work that he performed in his mature years. However, even during this period, some people retain their mental abilities and continue to engage in administrative or creative activity. In general, this period is the final one in relation to the life path passed. Most people at this age live in memories of the past. For those people who in previous years led their lives according to the institutions of the Holy Church, this period is often marked by new spiritual achievements. A special clarity of mind, the enlightenment of the entire external appearance, simple and spiritualized complacency are at this age visible gifts of Divine grace. As physical strength wanes, when there is nothing left that can keep a person in this world, he turns to God with all the strength of his soul. Believing and confessing that the Son of God revealed in His incarnation the deepest, eternal and essential basis of being, and knowing that the path of earthly human life was really and gracefully traversed by Christ, a person, at the last crucial moment of realizing himself in this world, strives to be pure mind, in freedom from everything earthly, to be rewarded with ascent to the heavenly world. Whoever does not believe in eternal life in Christ is not capable of ascent, for, having decided for himself that eternal life is impossible, he himself blocks the path to the Divine light, remaining in the darkness of “nothingness” terrifying with its abyss. Man is not doomed to non-existence and destruction; he is called to overcome the elements of earthly existence and to eternal life, in which he acquires unconditional justification and meaning for the entire life path he has traveled. Abiding in faith in Christ, in humble hope in the infinite goodness of God, a person at the last decisive moment of life becomes open to eternity and achieves an experience of such inner greatness and peace, with which his entire past, consciously lived life is sanctified.

4. natural moral law

moral personality theology

The Reality of the Natural Moral Law

In the theology of the Orthodox Church, the position is accepted about the reality of the natural moral law as a principle that has an unconditional and universal character and underlies all legal and ethical norms.

In recognizing the natural moral law, the Church proceeds from the universal moral experience, which among all peoples at all times was sanctified by faith in the highest and eternal truth, in the world objective law, thanks to which any evil committed in the world is subject to just retribution. By accepting the natural moral law, the Church confirms its significance as a principle protecting the integrity of the structure of being from moral corruption and decay.

The reality of the natural moral law convinces us that the personal morality of individuals, embodied in the moral culture of both traditional and new societies, is not just an accidental cover thrown over the historical life of mankind, it is the fundamental, deep and mysterious foundation of the human world order. life. To be moral means to prefer and choose a worthy way of existence, that is, to implement the principle that guarantees order in one's own soul and in the surrounding world according to the model of the order that we see in the structure and laws of the physical Universe.

Legal and ethical norms, characteristic of the structures of both patriarchal and new societies and performing the functions of regulating human relations at various levels of personal and social life, are nothing more than a visible manifestation and concrete manifestation of a natural moral law. The main sources of the Church's teaching on the natural moral law are Divine Revelation and patriotic writing, as well as monuments of church law.

The natural moral law in the teaching of the holy apostle Paul

Many New Testament scholars have asked the question: Does the passage in Romans (Rom. 2:14-15) really point to the doctrine of a natural moral law? This very important passage needs to be quoted: “When the Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what is lawful, then, having no law, they are their own law: they show that the work of the law is written in their hearts.”

Some Protestant scholars question the value of this text as a biblical basis for the doctrine of natural moral law. That is why it is necessary to examine the content of this passage very carefully.

This also raises the question of the influence of Stoic philosophy on the thought of the Apostle Paul. Did the apostle Paul use the Stoic teaching that was common in his day to prove his position contained in this passage? Or is the doctrine of the natural moral law such an essential element in the gospel of the apostle Paul that it would still be taught even if there were no philosophical doctrine about it?

So, we should get closer to understanding this fragment. First of all, it should be borne in mind that the main theme of the Epistle to the Romans is the absolute necessity of faith for the justification of man before God.

The first important thesis that the apostle Paul seeks to establish is that all people, regardless of their beliefs, need to be justified through Jesus Christ. The Apostle Paul speaks about all people in general, about the wrath of God for the injustice committed by people, about the universal guilt of people before God, for no one can be justified by the fact that he did not know how to act in his life, and that he did not know about the future Divine retribution and punishment for perfect deeds, since God, through His creation, has revealed His might and presence in the world. The wicked remain without justification, because, despite the opportunity to know God and act in accordance with this knowledge, glorifying and thanking God, they turned away from the knowledge of God and with a darkened mind voluntarily plunged into the darkness of unbelief. The result of this rejection of the natural knowledge of God was that they were deprived of His Divine help and presence, became unable to fulfill their destiny in life and underwent a moral decline. Their guilt for rejecting God is aggravated by the fact that they know that God has determined the punishment for iniquity and that sooner or later they will suffer a worthy retribution for them.

Thus, in the teaching of the Apostle Paul on the natural moral law, the following main provisions can be distinguished. The natural moral law is given by God and is the common property of all people.

This is the law of reason, guiding each person in the choice of good. The knowledge of the good is not only theoretical, but also an internally binding force.

All people are responsible for violating the requirements of the moral law and know that disobedience to the law entails future retribution.

The assumption that the idea of ​​a natural moral law came to the Apostle Paul from the philosophical culture of his time through the medium of the Stoic school cannot be accepted as completely undoubted and generally recognized. In any case, one should point out the essential difference in the doctrine of the natural moral law in Stoic philosophy and in the gospel of the Apostle Paul. This difference is determined, first of all, by the huge discrepancy that exists between the pantheism of the Stoics, for whom God and the Divine law are inseparable from nature, and the monotheism of the holy Apostle Paul, for whom God is the Creator and Legislator. Therefore, it can be argued that the teaching of the Apostle Paul about the natural moral law is a conclusion from his theological speculation, represents one of the aspects of his gospel and, in essence, does not depend on Stoic philosophy.

The Natural Moral Law in the Teachings of the Church Fathers

The Orthodox East connected the doctrine of the natural moral law with deep Christian experience. Here the goal of man's salvation and deification has always been meant. Among Christian apologists, the testimony of Athenagoras deserves special attention, who writes that God created man from an immortal soul and body and gave him reason and an internal law to preserve everything that was given to man by God as something necessary for his existence and life.

Saint Justin the Philosopher should be considered the father of the doctrine of the natural moral law. Saint Justin teaches about Christ as the Eternal Logos. human mind and moral wisdom have their origin in Christ. The main tenet of St. Justin's teaching is that God created man capable of choosing the truth and acting justly. St. Justin the Philosopher expounds his view of the natural moral law most clearly in his Conversation with Trypho the Jew. “God has established what is always and everywhere just, and every nation knows that fornication, adultery, murder, and the like is a sin. And every person who commits such deeds cannot be freed from the thought that he is committing lawlessness, except for people possessed by an unclean spirit or corrupted by bad education and habits.

Another representative of early patristics, St. Irenaeus of Lyon, says that during creation, God put into man the perception of the moral law: He gave him the knowledge of good and evil, and this knowledge consists in believing and obeying God and fulfilling His commandments.

Clement of Alexandria, following St. Justin the Martyr, strives to enrich Christian thought with all the achievements of Greek philosophy. He notes that the knowledge of good and evil is achieved by man through the natural law given by God: "From God, the law of nature and the law of Revelation, which are one thing."

Origen, considering man as the image of God, highlights the ability of man to do the right thing. According to Origen, this ability is inherent in man, thanks to the natural law established by God.

Remarkable reasoning about the natural moral law we find in Tertullian. He writes: "So, before the Law of Moses, written on stone tablets, I affirm, there was an unwritten law, which was usually understood in a natural way and observed by the ancestors."

Tertullian says that the natural moral law is common to all mankind, and teaches that everything done by man against nature must deserve condemnation among people as something shameful and terrible. When asked by the pagans what the law is, Tertullian answers: "You are asking about the law of God - it is common to all mankind and is carved on the tablets of our nature, which the apostle points to."

Saint Methodius of Olympus in his theodicy "On the Resurrection" refers to the natural moral law, which induces our thoughts to goodness.

Thus, even in the pre-Nicene period, we meet the recognition of the natural moral law on the part of the fathers and church writers. It is necessary, however, to mention the fathers of a later period, in order to conclude that the concept of natural moral law was clearly defined by patristic thought.

Bishop Eusebius of Caesarea teaches: "The Creator of all things has given every soul a natural moral law as an assistant and ally in the accomplishment of those things that need to be done."

Saint Athanasius the Great speaks of the justification of the ancient righteous through natural law.

St. Gregory the Theologian writes: “God gave us the prophets before any law, and even before them He gave an unwritten natural law, which monitors the fulfillment of what should be done.”

St. Basil the Great in his "Shestodnev" expresses the idea that the universal order and harmony in the created world is a prototype of order in human life.

St. Cyril of Alexandria, Blessed Theodoret, St. Maximus the Confessor speak about the natural moral law, but St. John Chrysostom spoke most fully of all the Eastern Fathers. For him, the law of nature is the true law, and any other law that contradicts it must be considered false. The law of nature is universal and eternal, it is the moral guide of mankind: "God has put in man an innate law that governs man like a captain of a ship or like a horse rider."

Thus, the patriotic tradition considers the natural moral law as the universal basis of the moral life of man and society. It can be said that the Fathers and Christian writers of the Eastern and Western Churches of the patriotic period preached the morality of natural law. At the same time, the natural moral law was understood only in the light of the truth of Divine Revelation and was closely connected with all Christian experience.

We have already pointed out the indisputable evidence of the patristic teaching, which convinces us of the existence of a natural moral law. Nevertheless, it seems to be a very difficult task to determine the actual content of the natural moral law as the universal principle of universal morality. Recognizing the natural moral law as a universal fundamental ethical principle, we at the same time cannot but notice the wide variety of moral codes characteristic of the moral cultures of various ancient and new societies. It follows that the definition of the content of the natural moral law is reduced to finding a common denominator, which is an integral element among the whole variety of moral norms. Thus, it follows from the testimony of St. Justin the Philosopher that we have cited that the specific content of the natural moral law is reduced to the requirements that prohibit murder, adultery and other moral crimes and which are recognized as necessary moral prescriptions in the life of various peoples. It becomes quite obvious that there is one common source in the light of which the rules and moral prescriptions are developed, which constitute the ethical basis of personal and social life and express the predetermined correspondence between the absolute requirements of the moral law and the moral consciousness of man (Deut. 30:14). Therefore, in general, the patriotic tradition identifies the content of the natural moral law with the ten commandments of the Old Testament. Comparing the natural law with the law written on the tablets, the Fathers of the Church point to the internal connection between them. In biblical and moral theology, the opinion that the revealed law reveals and concretizes the content of the natural moral law can be considered firmly established. In an extremely generalized form, this idea is expressed by Clement of Alexandria: "From God, the law of nature and the law of Revelation, which constitute one thing." The fact that the content of the natural moral law is identical to the moral prescriptions of the Old Testament is evidenced by another important circumstance. The study of world religions convinces us that in terms of human relationships, no religion preaches anything that could contradict the Decalogue.

Thus, the content of the natural moral law coincides with the basic concepts inherent in the moral consciousness of every nation. In the process of cultural and historical development, the natural moral law was clothed in those various concrete forms of expression in which its real content was revealed.

Natural Moral Law and Orthodox Ethics

However highly we place the natural moral law, we must admit that it indicates only the most elementary level of morality and is something like ethics reduced to a common denominator. Christians do not need to resort to the natural moral law, having higher and more perfect ethics in the gospel. From the point of view of evangelical ethics, we cannot call a person morally perfect, based only on the fact that he is not a murderer, not an adulterer, and not a thief. All our ideas and statements about good and evil, about right and wrong, must be evaluated in the light of Eastern Orthodox theology, with its teaching on personal salvation and deification as the main goal of a person's appointment. Nevertheless, in striving for moral perfection and deification, we cannot reject either the natural moral law or the God-revealed Old Testament law identical to it, since the tradition of the Church in its historical development, affirming evangelical ethics, did not completely exclude the moral significance of the teachings of the Old Testament. The Lord Jesus Christ often recalls the law given in the Old Testament. The apostle Paul states that "the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, and just, and good" (Rom. 7:12). The Holy Fathers of the Church declare that whoever wants to live according to the Gospel is obliged to keep all the commandments. St. Gregory Palamas, in a brief essay on the commandments of the Decalogue, says: “Thus, observing them with all your strength and living by them, you will lay a treasure of piety in your soul and will be pleasing to God.”

St. Simeon the New Theologian, speaking of how the soul unites with God, writes: "... The radiance of grace is established in us only after the commandments are kept and virtues are achieved."

Thus, the requirements of the natural moral law and commandments of the Old Testament should be understood as the expression of such a style of life and behavior that leads a person to the fulfillment of his divine destiny. The moral requirements imposed on a person are constantly being improved and elevated. It is noteworthy that the Apostle Paul not only points out the need to fulfill the moral law, but he himself gives Christian communities many new commandments and instructions. The Holy Fathers of the Church, exercising leadership of the Christian life, continued this tradition, leaving us spiritual and moral instructions as a legacy.

All the moral norms and principles that the Church has at its disposal have never been seen as a desire to teach a person to adapt to external forms of behavior. They have always contained the goal of guidance to personal moral perfection, salvation and deification.

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The sixth beatitude. Sobriety 82

Eighth beatitude. Pursuit of truth. 85

Topic 1. Moral theology: meaning, definitions, subjects of study, sources of knowledge.

The globe is inhabited by hundreds and thousands of species of living beings: fish, birds, mammals, insects. And of all the creatures inhabiting the earth, only man has the concept of morality. Is it possible for a dog, for example, to invite a cat to warm up in his booth in winter? And would a cat warn a young dove that it is necessary not only to peck crumbs with greed, but to carefully look around? No, dear ones, that's not possible. Animals act as they naturally do, or as they are taught, for example, by training. But even the smartest of them, like dogs, rats, crows, dolphins, monkeys, have no concept of moral and immoral, and therefore their actions cannot be ethically assessed. Only a person is capable of a moral assessment of his actions and moral actions: his actions are good or bad, good or evil, moral or immoral. Every person knows this and is guided by it. Since ancient times, people have become interested in this phenomenon and began to reflect on the nature of morality. As a result, a whole science has appeared about this.

The army, navy, science, sports, any science, even church life, have their own specific concepts and terminology. And until a beginner learns their meaning, he often finds himself in funny situations. Moral Theology is no exception, so we will start with terms. So, the term "ethics".

First time wordethics found in the writings of Aristotle, who lived in the 4th century BC, dedicated to the problems of morality (“ Nicomachean ethics”, “Eudemic Ethics”, “Big Ethics”). It is formed by Aristotle from the Greek word " it with”, denoting habits, disposition, character.

The equivalent of the term "ethics" is the Latin word " morality"(moralitas), which was used by Cicero when translating Aristotle into Latin.

In Russian, the analogue of the ancient Greek word "ethics" and the Latin word "morality" is the word " moral". The words "ethics", "morality", "morality" are synonyms, therefore, in secular books Moral Theology also called Christian ethics or Christian morality. But there are phrases when the feeling of the Russian language requires giving preference to one of them, for example: “moral principles”, “ethics of the teacher”, “the moral of this fable is this”.

In the modern cultural and linguistic tradition, morality is understood as high and unshakable principles, and morality is understood as changeable everyday norms of behavior. In this sense, the commandments of God are called morality, and the instructions of a pensioner to naughty children are called morality.

Every person, both believer and non-believer, has his own concept of morality, and they differ in some way. Is there a common understanding of morality with which all people agree? It exists.

Morality in general is the coordination of one's will and behavior with the concept of goodness and the voice of conscience.

Christians have their own special understanding of morality.

Christian Morality - this is life according to the law of God, or the fulfillment by a person in his life of the commandments of Christ the Savior.

On the correct Christian life and proper behavior of a Christian in everyday life, one can meet the most diverse, sometimes even exotic, judgments. Moreover, the main thing in the religious and moral life is often overlooked, and secondary things are given excessive importance. This was also noted by St. Basil the Great in the 4th century: “Everyone autocratically passes off his thoughts and positions as the true rule of life, and the strengthened human customs and traditions have made it so that some sins are excused, while others are punished indiscriminately”. Therefore, from the first centuries of Christianity, there was a need to streamline the doctrine of the correct Christian life. So, The science of Moral Theology is a systematic exposition of the doctrine of the moral Christian life. And the subject of the science of Moral Theology is Christian morality..

Where does Moral Theology get the knowledge necessary for its subject matter? Sources of knowledge:

This knowledge can be acquired from Holy Scripture, liturgical texts, patristic writings, lives of saints, conversations and sermons, in mutual communication with Christians and from personal experience. (Name the works of the Fathers who wrote on this topic)

It should be noted that the knowledge of the moral doctrine does not by itself give rise to a moral life. One can perfectly know the doctrine of morality, but not act according to it (Lenin has an A in the Law of God, Stalin is a former seminarian). Therefore, Christ the Savior calls blessed not those who listen to His teaching, but those who fulfill: "Blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it"(Luke 11:28); “If) you know this, blessed are you when you do it”(John 13:17). In order to live morally, it is necessary that will, determination, and desire join knowledge. And this already depends on the person himself. Here is what St. Tikhon of Zadonsk says about those learned theologians who confine themselves solely to the theoretical study of faith and morality: “Many preach the faith, teach, instruct others and show the way to salvation, but they themselves do not follow this path, like pillars set on the path, which from city to city show the way to those who go, but they themselves stand motionless. Therefore, this knowledge, confession and teaching by themselves does not benefit.(M.2003, St. Tikhon of Zadonsk, v. 4, p. 47).

Why is the study of N.B. so important?

The importance of studying N.B.

It reveals the highest meaning and purpose of the life of a Christian person, indicates the path that a Christian must follow in order to achieve this goal.

Simply put, N.B. answers the question of what practically needs to be done in order to be saved. An ordinary situation from Paterik, a monk comes to the elder and asks: “Abba! How can I be saved? The elders usually gave a short answer, important specifically for the questioner. But the priest in his pastoral activity is the spiritual leader of many. Spiritual guidance, advice and direction are expected from him by his parishioners. The priest must understand them, heal, guide, support, lead them to Christ. Therefore, for a priest, the study of Moral Theology is of particular importance.

Speaking of a person, they usually highly value the mind, profession, position in society, worldly prudence and wisdom, external beauty, physical dexterity and strength are highly valued. However, all these values ​​are morally neutral. They can be turned to serve both good and evil. Only in combination with good morality do all human talents (beauty, intelligence, learning, and others) acquire true value and dignity. All these abilities, without a good inner disposition, can easily be turned to evil both to the person himself and to those around him. (For example, a hot-tempered person has physical strength; a depraved person has literary talent; a criminal has a mind and strong will, etc.).

Moral theology is important in the context of solving new ethical problems associated with rapid scientific and technological progress. The latter brought to life many new questions that the Orthodox Church had not had to deal with before. These are, first of all, successes in the field of biological sciences. The Church must give a clear, theologically sound answer to genetic engineering, cloning, resuscitation, transplantation, euthanasia, contraception, sex change, and so on.

The study of Moral Theology is also important for maintaining the moral foundations of society. In the moral sphere, such social problems originate as family breakdown, unwillingness to have children, homelessness, drug addiction, drunkenness, suicide, and corruption. Despite all efforts, it is not possible to solve them by legislative means, because the causes of these phenomena are spiritual. And the first of them is the fall of morality. Even statesmen began to understand this. Compulsory schooling since 2010 decided to introduce the lessons of spiritual culture.

With what other sciences and branches of knowledge is moral theology closely connected?

Moral theology is closely related to dogmatic theology. At the same time, these sciences are independent, since each of them has its own special subject, its own field of knowledge. Dogmatic theology teaches what God has done to save man, and Moral theology teaches what man himself must do in order to be saved. They consider the same issues, but from different angles. For example:

1) the doctrine of Jesus Christ is found in both sciences. But in Dogmatics Jesus Christ is portrayed as the Savior of the human race, and in Moral theology - as a role model in the moral life.

2) In Dogmatic Theology, the Holy Spirit is regarded as a Hypostasis of the Holy Trinity, while in Moral Theology, the acquisition of the Holy Spirit is studied as the goal of Christian life.

3) In one case, the Cross is considered as the Altar, on which the Son of God offered a sacrifice for the sins of the world, and as the Redemptive suffering of the Savior, and in the other, as the sorrows that a Christian must bear for his salvation.

Dogmas and Dogmatic theology are, as it were, a foundation or foundation, and Moral theology and Christian morality are a building erected on this foundation. This is how the Fathers and Doctors of the Church understand the correlation of these sciences. For example, St. Cyril of Jerusalem writes: “The image of piety consists of two parts- from pious dogmas and good deeds. And dogmas without good deeds are not favorable to God, and good deeds without pious dogmas are not accepted by God, for what is the use of knowing about God and shamefully committing fornication.

Closely related to Moral theology: Patrology, Asceticism, Practical guide for shepherds, homiletics. Also Moral theology is close to secular ethics.

And human behavior in the light of the truths of Divine revelation - the dogmas of the fall, incarnation, redemption, salvation, etc. largely determined by the understanding of the relationship between dogmatics and morality, the hierarchical correlation of dogmatic and moral truths. In theological literature, it is customary to distinguish four t.zr. on N.b. and systematization of moral and theological knowledge. Christian is considered and expounded: 1) from v.zr. teachings about virtue and its opposite - sin; 2) with v.sp. ideas of the Kingdom of God; 3) with v.sp. teachings about salvation; 4) with v.sp. the requirements of the moral law of God and the moral obligations arising from it.
N.b. considers the subject in the unity of two principles: the natural moral law, rooted in the rational nature of man, and the supernatural Divine will. This defines three types of moral norms that should guide the fulfillment of moral duties on the path to salvation: 1) norms that coincide with the natural law of the mind (for example, norms about honoring parents, prohibitions on murder, theft, etc.); 2) norms that do not contradict the law of reason, but are not entirely reduced to it (for example, to enemies or non-resistance to evil by violence, which cannot be guided only on the basis of reason and common sense); 3) norms that are not comprehensible by reason (for example, arising from the sacrament of the grace of God as salvation).
The origins of N.b. go back to the Holy Scriptures of the Old Testament and the New Testament, and above all to the Decalogue (the ten Moses commandments) and the Sermon on the Mount of Christ, to the Epistles of the Apostle Paul, as well as the moral and exegetical works of the fathers and teachers of the church, hagiographic, homiletic and ascetic monuments of the Christian, laying the foundations Christian ethics. The main topics of N.b. become at the same time the establishment of the moral duties of man in relation to God and neighbor; and analytics of passions, virtues and vices (sins); natural moral law and its normative functions in unity with supernatural Divine revelation.
In Orthodox Christian morality until the 18th century. limited to ascetic and hagiographic materials borrowed from the writings of ascetics, fathers and teachers of the church and transposed into collections for moral and edifying reading. The Philokalia is one of the first collections of its kind, approaching in method a systematic exposition of morality.
Formation of N.b. As an independent discipline, it dates back to the 18th century, when Feofan Prokopovich created the course "Nb", which was included in the program of the Kyiv and Moscow Academies and the Trinity Seminary. Design of the subject N.b. is influenced by Protestant ethics and Catholic moral theology. So, the seminary curriculum on N.b. under the Charter of 1867 was drawn up in relation to the "system" Chr. Palmer and "Theological Ethics" by R. Rote; at the Moscow Academy adhered to the Christian ethics of Seiler.
This largely determined the main thing in the development of N.b. and theological science in general, which was especially clearly manifested by k. 19th century: between moralism and spirituality, moral experience and spiritual contemplation as the source and basis of theology. Moralism was characterized in general by the reduction of Christian morality to “natural morality”, the secularization of asceticism, the construction of dogmas to moral experience, and, ultimately, the dissolution of all theology into N.B., “all theology into morality” (Antony Khrapovitsky). The principle of spirituality, on the contrary, assumed the original spiritual contemplation in relation to moral experience: "realism" prevailed here over "moral mysticism", "spiritual sobriety" over "moralistic rapture". This was especially clearly expressed in the experience of spiritual contemplation of Russian ascetics (Seraphim of Sarov, Ignatius Brianchaninov, Theophan the Recluse, the Optina elders, John of Kronstadt). The goal of the Christian life was seen in this as the acquisition of the Holy Spirit; acted as such a contraction. N.b. At the same time, it was constructed as a substantiation of the path to salvation and justification of the ascetic life leading to the attainment of grace.
A feature of the development of N.b. (in contrast to Catholic moral theology and Protestant ethics) - lack of relationship with philosophy. ethics, which led, in particular, to its sharp demarcation from Russian. religious and moral philosophy. This significantly affected the conceptuality and systematic nature of the domestic N.b. After all, the systematization of the subject of N.b. in many ways means a turn to philosophy. ethics. So, one of the most systematic courses of N.b. - " Orthodox teaching about morality” I.L. Yanysheva gives a theoretical construction of the moral system through an in-depth analysis of the very idea of ​​morality, and only from here approaches Christianity. It is no coincidence that this is characterized as “rational to proper Christian morality” (N.N. Glubokovsky). The search for “philosophical and theological synthesis” in the field of systematization of moral knowledge in the spirit of Russian is relevant. religious-philosophical. traditions of the 20th century, which attempted to create a philosophy. Orthodox Christian Ethics.

Philosophy: encyclopedic Dictionary. - M.: Gardariki. Edited by A.A. Ivina. 2004 .

See what "MORAL THEOLOGY" is in other dictionaries:

- (moral theology) a theological discipline that sets out the doctrine of morality, moral standards. In Christianity, moral theology outlines and substantiates the norms of Christian ... Wikipedia

Moral theology- Christian doctrine of morality, practical theology, systematically expounding the teachings of Christ, the apostles and fathers of the Church on morality. Here are considered possible human sins (vices) and ways to deal with them. Moral…… Fundamentals of spiritual culture (encyclopedic dictionary of a teacher)

- (Theologia moralis, otherwise Christian fika, or ethics, practical theology) is the subject of a systematic presentation of the Christian doctrine of morality. In the ancient Christian church, as theologians, moralists were wonderful: Clement ...

MORAL THEOLOGY- a theological discipline in Christianity, designed to justify the need for Christian morality as a condition for achieving salvation, to show its advantage over other ethical systems. By definition of theologians, N. b. developed in two... Ethics Dictionary

This article or section needs revision. Please improve the article in accordance with the rules for writing articles ... Wikipedia

THEOLOGY- [Greek. θεολογία]. The concept of Christ. "B." includes: 1) the practice of communion with God, which implies faith and prayerful aspiration to God as an object of faith, hope and love, and activity in accordance with faith. In this sense, B. can be understood ... ... Orthodox Encyclopedia

Theology- The word Theology, borrowed by Christian writers from the ancient Greeks, is currently used in a very broad sense. For the ancient teachers of the church, theology in etymological terms meant: the word about God, the word from God ... Complete Orthodox Theological Encyclopedic Dictionary

THEOLOGY, THEOLOGY- (Greek God, teaching, lit.: teaching about God): a system of disclosure, justification and defense of religious teachings about God, his signs and properties, as well as a set of church disciplines that outline the various components of this system; complex ... ... Eurasian wisdom from A to Z. Explanatory dictionary

- (Θεολογία, theologia) according to its etymological meaning, it is the doctrine of God and, according to the current word usage, denotes the entire composition of the sciences that have as their subject christian religion. This word was not always in use and, having entered into ... ... Encyclopedic Dictionary F.A. Brockhaus and I.A. Efron

Theology- a word borrowed by Christian writers from the ancient Greeks, is currently used in a very broad sense. For the ancient teachers of the Church, “theology” etymologically meant “the word about God”, “the word from God”, while for others it… Orthodoxy. Dictionary-reference