Particularities of the conception of the Catholic philosophy in the works of the representatives of spiritual and academic theism of the late XIXth - early XXth centuries

          Abstract. This article presents the results of the thesis on the theme "The Catholic philosophy in the interpretation of the Russian Orthodox spiritual and academic theism of the late XIXth - early XXth centuries". The attention to this period due to the fact that by this time the spiritual and academic thought was almost 300 years of its development, having considerable experience in understanding the Roman Catholic philosophy. The followers of spiritual and academic tradition in the post-revolutionary era often characterized the period of the turn of XIXth - XXth centuries as an attempt of radical liberation of the Orthodox theistic thoughts from "Latin captivity (domination)", which has its roots going back to the very beginning of the formation of theological academies. On the base of unique archival materials, the author tells about how spiritual and academic theists of the specified period estimate various components of the Roman Catholic metaphysics with philosophical positions.

          1.    From the second half of the XIXth century until the time of the closing of theological academies, the representatives of the Russian Orthodox theistic traditions significantly deepened the philosophical understanding of Catholic metaphysics in comparison with the level of confessional polemics in the preceding period. Primarily, in this respect, spiritual and academic theism acted as the successor of the Byzantine-Russian polemical heritage, being the bearer and the expression of an established philosophical attitude to the Roman Catholic doctrine with Eastern-Christian position. At the same time, historical and cultural circumstances of the XIXth - beginning of the XXth century in Russia and abroad have created conditions for some update of traditional approaches to the criticism of the non-Orthodox worldview. In this period the academic community actives in the study and publication of anti-Latin works of the past, starting with the first attempts of the Byzantine-Roman polemics and ending with the monuments of the Western-Russian origin of the XVIth-XVIIth centuries. To the second half of the XIXth century, the natural reflection of the spiritual-academic tradition also went to a new level over its confessional specificity and its scholastic background. Until the time of the closing of theological academies, the courses of the accusatory (polemical) theology have been developing, in particular, due to the methodological turn towards historicism. However, it is worth noting that the elements of criticism of the Catholic thought were present in the system of spiritual and academic teaching since the days of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy. Orthodox theists evaluated the Roman Catholic philosophy in connection with the ideological currents outside the spiritual and academic community, in line with Slavophile critique of Western metaphysics and University research of the Catholic thought, as well as producing an ideological contrast to procatholic leanings of some part of the Russian society. Also, the update of the format of confessional evaluation of the philosophy of the Romanism was determined by significant events in Roman Catholicism of the XIX - early XX centuries (especially the emergence of new dogmas and of the Old Catholic Church, and the development of the neo-Thomism and of the modernism).
           2.      A paradigmatic analysis of metaphysical foundations of the Roman Catholic philosophy has a particular importance for its evaluation by the representatives of the spiritual and academic community. On the one hand, Orthodox theists of the second half of the XIXth - early XXth centuries sought to identify objectively historical and nationally cultural determinants of confessional specifics of Catholic metaphysics. According to academics, in addition to the objectively historical and geographical circumstances (the barbarian invasions in Rome, the remoteness of the Christian West from the East, and so on), a significant difference between the philosophical traditions of Eastern and Western Christianity was dictated by the mental difference between speakers of Latin (Roman-Germanic) and Greco-Byzantine (and also Russian) cultures. In this case were distinguished such features of the "Latinism", as pronounced practicality and ceremonies, legalism and juridism, attention to issues of disciplinary-organizational character, priority of national, socio-political, household-economical, ordinary, material, outside interests before the inner, spiritual and metaphysical ones, as well as an intellectual "rudeness" and a down-to-earth, formally logical and rationally discursive type of rationality (as opposed to a noetical and contemplative one), which, in turn, was reflected in the superficial perception of the world, in the trend towards earthly and sensual interpretation of philosophical questions, in the requirements of an evidence-based illustration and of a schematic convenience. In addition, Orthodox theists stated that in Catholic philosophy there has not been a fully overcome of the pagan and the Old-Testament models of perception. According to some academics, Catholic metaphysics largely resembled to the stoicism, the Manichaeism, the sophistry and the Aristotelianism, not fully cleared from paganism. At the same time the representatives of spiritual and academic theism did not perceive the national and cultural factor as a definitive determinant of confessional differences at the level of metaphysics, speaking about the possibility of their prevention and overcoming in line with ethical and anthropological question formulation about the causes of internal divisions within Christianity. According to academics, each national mentality, language and culture is designed to the unique expression of the same religious and philosophical content of Christian doctrine, and the adequacy of this expression will depend on the unity and love between different cultural groups. The division of Christian thought in two ways (in accordance with the principles of Orthodox ethics) here is understood as a non-determinated act of free choice of the Roman Church in favor of the sin of separation, selfishness, and national and cultural pride. This model allowed some theists to say about the Messianic significance of the Russian Orthodox metaphysics in relation to the heterodoxy, which was particularly relevant in the context of discussions on the accession of Old Catholics and Anglicans to the Russian Church at the turn of XIXth - XXth centuries.
                     3.   Also, Orthodox theists carried paradigmatic analysis of Catholic philosophy outside of the historical and cultural context, identifying fundamental differences between religious traditions through their comparison at the level of doctrinal metaphysics. This method of evaluation has been explicitly or implicitly accompanied by an indication on such a number of speculative and theoretical advantages of the metaphysical paradigm of the Russian Orthodox thoughts face to its Western Christian (and Catholic) analogue.
                 Generalizing the judgments of the Orthodox theists on this account, it is possible to reconstruct the structure and the key components of the metaphysical paradigm of spiritual and academic philosophy. Firstly, it is a setting on the definition of formal and substantive scope of rationally analytical, logical and empirical method and speculative and dialectical method, in relation to the religious and philosophical content, and in this regard, a recognition of the fundamental indivisibility of the metaphysical "core" of the most fundamental religious and philosophical questions with the help of the rational and categorically conceptual tools. Secondly, in the opinion of Russian theologians, just the understanding of the cognitive limitations of the mind creates a necessary basis for the implementation of the higher synthesis of polar, opposite to each other, metaphysical principles or solution options of one or another religious and philosophical problem in a harmonious and "organic" connection and interpenetration when there is a removing of the dialectical "tension" between extreme positions in contrast to the attempts of their external and mechanical coupling or retention. The opposing beginnings should, ideally, "require" and internally assume the presence of each other within a certain integrity. Thirdly, the reconciliation of metaphysical polarities must be done and balanced at the level of the middle position, absorbing the moments of truth of each of the opposing sides, which requires an extreme exaltation of the philosophizing mind on possible solutions of a religious and philosophical problem. In general, the inner side of this paradigm will be distinguished by a synergism, and the external one by an integrity. In this case, a genuine synergism will not be feasible without holism, while the holism without synergism will also be infertile. Orthodox theists believed that it is the historical and cultural commitment to the dogmatic foundations of Eastern Christianity (internal equilibrium in the ideas of the Trinity, of the Incarnation, and so on) which substantiates the presence of an organic, harmonious, holistic metaphysical paradigm under the auspices of the academic philosophy. At the same time, the academics assumed that the holders of Western Christian mentality can autonomously come in a line with this paradigm (for example, some of the Christian mystics of the middle ages, some of the scholastics, A. Rosmini and V. Gioberti, Old Catholics and Anglicans at the turn of XIXth - XXth centuries).
           4.    Developing the logic of the academics in terms of the hermeneutics (and away from the theological and ethical approach about the causes of confessional divisions), we can say that the gap between Latin thoughts from a living connection with Eastern Christianity was, in fact, similar to the loss of the fullness of the contextual reading of religious and philosophical content of Christian doctrine. An act of the confessional separation in this case is understood as a free choice of the Latin world in favor of the violation of harmonic unity between the national interpretations of the original Christian metaphysics. This brought the Roman Catholicism to the closure of Christian discourse on national and cultural patterns of Latin mentality with their subsequent suppression of the original metaphysical paradigm of the Christian religion. The original paradigm was preserved by Eastern Churches due to the implementation of the other hermeneutic position, when different national interpretations of Christian philosophy, figuratively speaking, "balance" their tendencies to different interpretation of the original philosophy in the desire to preserve the unity of love with each other. The separation from the East, thus, has led Western Christianity to a fundamental loss of the principle of the median balance between the metaphysical extremes, which in the works of Russian theologians have called "the fall in the unilateralism". It got its expression at different levels: firstly, at the level of the tense mutual denial of the Catholic and the Protestant doctrines; secondly, on the level of the metaphysical hesitations within the Roman Catholic philosophy (and within the world view of some Catholic philosophers, such as Aquinas); thirdly, on the level of the deviation of some Orthodox thinkers in the extremes of the Catholicism, and, as for their opponents - in the extremes of the Protestantism. Considering the last point in the context historically applied to the Russian spiritual and academic theism, you can see some similar variations from its original Catholic and scholastic origins to the Protestant motives in the subsequent period. The integration of the samples of heterodox metaphysics in the spiritual and academic philosophy has caused a reproduction of similar issues within the framework of Orthodox theistic traditions. It received its expression in the attempts of Russian theology of mechanical folding of positive intuitions of both heterodox denominations, which, ultimately, led to the attempt of some theologians to radically depart from the paradigm itself of Catholic and Protestant discourse closer to the second half of  the XIXth - early XXth centuries, having received further development in the spiritual and academic traditions of the XXth - beginning of XXIst centuries. Some academics openly acknowledged a certain amount of metaphysical instability of the religious and philosophical discourse in their own traditions, noting at the same time that within it lacked any fundamental "damage" similar in scope to the situation in the heterodox doctrines. In other words, the results of a certain "hesitation" (inevitable within the rational perception of the world, limited by nature), according to theists, did not change the "core" itself of Eastern Christian philosophy in Russian theology.
               5.    In the spiritual and academic thought, there are allocated at least six of the most significant and typical for the classical Catholic philosophy deviations from the principle of harmonious balance within the following oppositions: 1) the integer (total) and the partial (personal and individual); 2) the external (formal, quantitative) and the internal (meaningful, qualitative); 3) the subjective (conscious and free) and the objective (required, determinated); 4) the natural (conditional, finite, sensual, material and human) and supernatural (unconditional, infinite, supersensual, heavenly, divine); 5) the reason and the faith; 6) the objective reality and the thinking. The academics were sometimes noting the fact of the fall of Catholic metaphysics once in two opposite extremes of one or the other of the oppositions with the simultaneous retention of these metaphysical deviations within the same religious and philosophical doctrine. Marked manifestations of the loss of the metaphysical equilibrium (as a stable phenomenon that defines the confessional specificity of the Catholic thought), anyway, were noted by Orthodox theists at all major levels of religious and philosophical doctrine of the Catholicism.
             6.    In the Catholic doctrine of the Absolute, Orthodox academics have noted the loss of the discipline of the essential and hypostatic discourse and of the essential and energical one, that, in their opinion, was expressed in the mixture of views about the value of the temporary (energical) and the timeless (essential and hypostatic) modes of existence of the Absolute. In the thinking about the inner life of an absolute being, spiritual and academic theists (in the spirit of their metaphysical paradigm) have sought to bypass the extremes of the antipersonal essentialism, on the one hand,  which "dissolves" the hypostasis of the Holy Spirit in the common essence of the Father and of the Son, or in the relations between them, or, in general, in the grace, common to both persons). On the other hand, they also escaped the antiessential personalism, certains forms of which can be seen in modern spiritual and academic traditions of the XXth – XXIth centuries. Some academic have sought to occupy the median position between the extreme anti-filioquism of the “Photian line” and the classical filioquism of the Roman Catholic scholasticism in the context of the dialogue with Old Catholics.
             Russian theologians also sought to circumvent the extremes of the antiessential energetism and of the antienergical essentialism. On the question of the ontological status of energies of the Absolute, the academics (in the spirit of palamism) also occupied a median position between the possibilities to separate divine actions from the divine nature and not to distinguish them from the divine essence, following Chalcedon principles of "inseparable differences" and of the "indivisible unity". Attempts were done to reconcile the "theology of forgiveness” and the scholastic "theology of punishment” in organic synthesis on the level of the principle of internal balance of the divine qualities of love and truth. The question about the purpose of the creation of the world has been solved by some academics as a recognition of the unity of two (sometimes opposing each other) positions: "for the good of creatures" and "for the glory of the Creator".
              7.      At the level of anthropology, some academics have made attempts, firstly, to evade the intellectualism of Thomas Aquinas and the voluntarism of Duns Scotus. Secondly, in the Orthodox theistic tradition we can detect an attempt to reconcile the two extreme positions - the Catholic doctrine of the creation of the new soul of the descendants of Adam "from nothing" without substantive connection with their parents’ essence (unconditional creationism) with the concept of Tertullianus of "hatching" the new soul from the souls of its parents, by analogy with the biological process. In contrast to the opinion of the Catholic supporters of the idea of the immaculate conception, there was argued the idea of one-time appearance of the soul and of the body in the new man, in this case. Thirdly, the academics unanimously rejected the Catholic doctrine of the primitive state of the forefathers, seeing in it a lack of the synergetic approval of the supernatural (grace) and of the natural (human nature) beginnings, where the first suppresses the past. In the Catholic affirmation of the need of divine support to inhibit the activity of the detrimental beginning in the nature of an original man, Orthodox theists found an inacceptable attraction to the recognition of the material body and of its Creator as beginnings of evil in the world, as well as the justification of the Jesuit conception of non-silfulness of the natural lust laid down in the nature of Adam before the fall by the Creator. Fourthly, the academics opposed the "negative" conception of the original sin as a privation of an original blessed gift from the nature, which contains in itself is, by definition of the Creator, the beginnings of life of sin and of ontological inferiority, offering to just consider the act of the fall as the original source of the corruption of human nature. In this regard, the academics debated about the extent of legal schemes and categories of guilt, debt and so on, in connection with the concept of the original sin. An extreme objectivism has been seen also in tendencies of the scholastic metaphysics to the recognition of the concept of the absolute determinism, while at the same time, many authors have noted the fundamental indeterminism in the Jesuit doctrine. In particular, the doctrine of free will as "no-qualitative”, unlimited and independent ability of choice has been criticized, which also testifies of the escape of the Orthodox theists from extremes of the radical indeterminism, which is inclined to excuse involuntary sins and the sins committed in ignorance. Thus, the academics saw in the Catholic philosophy a simultaneous holding of two mutually exclusive concepts: the pelagianism and the augustinism, trying to bypass them through the recognition of the incomprehensibility of the principle of synergy between freedom and grace as opposed to the attempts of scholastic authors to interpret this question in "unilateral" and rationalistic manner.
                     8.       The question of the viability of scholastic and legal discourse rose most sharply during the critical study of the metaphysics of Christian salvation. A number of academics have insisted on the full exception (sometimes even on the conceptual and terminological level) of the legal model of the doctrine of the redemption and of Christian ethics, while their opponents in this case sought to show a full or partial validity of the teachings of Anselm of Canterbury and of Thomas Aquinas. There have also been attempts to reconcile Western Christian (legal and satisfactional) and Christian (natural and ontological) model of salvation so that both theories will mutually compensate the "unilaterality" of each other. In addition, the academics indicated the presence of two extreme positions: of the objective and legal concept of the redemption as of the moral and psychological one. Some academics encouraged to keep in the Orthodox soteriology a scholastical and legal discourse as a propaedeutic to the ontological concept of the supreme religious and philosophical realities. The critics of the juridism noted that an excessive emphasis on legal interpretations leads to the substantivation or to some ontological legal relationship between the Absolute and the man, creating a kind of ontological "superstructure" over the natural ontological reality and causing to considering the justice as a being separated from the person of the Absolute. According to some Orthodox theists, the satisfactional theory of the redemption introduces complexity and changeability in the Absolute, and consecrates him to the need, destroys the harmony between the properties of divine love and truth.
                      9.     The Orthodox theists believed that in the Western Christianity there has been a loss of the idea of unity as a principle of harmony between the subjective side of Church life (conscious and free expression of the individual) and its objective party (the necessity of obedience to public and administrative staff). The Catholicism and the Protestantism in this model were a metaphysical roll, respectively, in the direction of the objectivism and the subjectivism. An extreme objectivism was also noted by academics in the Catholic metaphysics of the sacraments, where the passivity of the recipient of grace is emphasized and the moment of a personal and subjective participation is belittled. A number of Orthodox theists subjected to critical review the substantial and accidental discourse of the scholastic Aristotelianism in the context of the metaphysics of the sacrament of transubstantiation. The critics of the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation sought in this case to overcome an excessive rationalism and an overly sensual understanding of the ontological change of bread and wine. The Catholicism, in its ethical teachings, has been criticized for its formalism, juridism, casuistry, use of the “mathematical” discourse, and also for the prevalence of a subjectively human and active beginning over the objective and gracious beginning (the Pelagianism). Some theists spoke about the necessity of overcoming the legal approach to Christian ethics, as it has not been possible to resolve the dispute between Catholics and Protestants about the importance of faith and good works, and the importance of Christ's grace and personal merits. The Jesuit morality has been particularly criticized. The academics have noted the inconsistency of the socio-political program of the Catholicism in prioritizing of the cooperation with various forms of government and social movements.
                         10.     We can find different estimates of the Catholic philosophy from the representatives of spiritual and academic theism of the second half of the XIXth – the early XXth centuries: from apology and recognition of its adequacy to requirements to completely get rid of the scholasticism in the Orthodox philosophy at the substantive as at the formal conceptual and terminological levels. Some authors occupied a median position in this respect, pointing to the naturalness of the manifestations of scholastic elements in any developed religious and philosophical tradition and subjecting to criticism only the abuse of the scholastic method. Orthodox academics did not lead the resistance to rationalistic extremes of the scholasticism to the denial of the formal discipline of the thought. The similarity of the "negative programming" of the Catholic and the Orthodox philosophizing in the fight against unbelief, in a dialogue with heterodoxy and in the resistance to the Protestant thought was also noted. The criticism of Catholic thinkers Klee, Perrone, Bellarmino, Berlage was popular and unanimous in the spiritual and academic environment. Different opinions have been expressed in respect of some of the academics. The academics paid special attention to the experience of the ideological convergence of some Catholic thinkers and currents with the paradigm of Orthodox metaphysics: as in Middle ages (some mystics, Thomas Aquinas, and so on) and in the New time (A. Rosmini, V. Gioberti, the Old Catholics). However, different opponents of the ultramontanism in the Western Christian world had different measures of approximation to the principles of Orthodox spiritual and academic thought: the Old Catholicism was mostly closer to the Eastern Christianity, than the modernism, for example. You can say that by the end of the XIXth – in the early XXth centuries, spiritual and academic theists have extended the framework of the criticism of the Catholic thought and put new ideological emphasis in its interpretation. In this period, the theistic thought significantly deepened the understanding of the confessional specificity of the personal philosophical discourse.