The Silver Age ”of Russian religious philosophy. What is religiosity Ilyin about religion

The philosophy of religious experience in the work of I.A. Ilyina

On the eve of the anniversary of the death of the Russian philosopher Ivan Aleksandrovich Ilyin (12.21.1954), hieromonk, teacher of the Tobolsk Theological Seminary Varlaam (Gorokhov) devotes his next publication to him.

One of the attempts at an atheistic interpretation of religion can be considered the desire to present religious phenomena as a certain sum of subjective sensations, whether it be an individual person, a people, or even a civilization. The very purpose of religious life in this case turns out to be subjective and illusory: "everyone believes in his own."

Nevertheless, one should take into account the fact that the derivation of the principle of religion from religious experience has a long history, and it is among religious thinkers. In particular, the Lutheran pastor, theologian and religious philosopher F. Schleimacher (1768-1834) in his "Speeches about Religion" explained that the basis of religiosity is the inner experience of a person, which he defines as a feeling of absolute dependence on the circumstances of life (mortality, vulnerability, sense of justice etc.), but in essence, from the Creator. Another German thinker R. Otto, the author of the work Sacred (1917), which received a wide response in the religious studies of the 20th century, showed that the sacred evokes in a person not just a feeling of dependence, but the experience of something completely different, alien to man. God is the Mysterium tremendum, sacred awe. The theme of these German religious studies, in which the religious experience is interpreted, is similar to the theme of the works on the religious studies of our outstanding compatriot Ivan Aleksandrovich Ilyin.

Ivan Aleksandrovich Ilyin (1883-1954) - the great Russian philosopher, lawyer, religious thinker and public figure; can rightfully be called one of the major representatives of religious studies. In his multifaceted work, this theme is represented by such works as The Path of Spiritual Renewal (1935), The Crisis of Atheism (1935), Axioms of Religious Experience (vols. 1-2, 1953). In them, he gives a detailed picture of the origins of religion.

The very concept of religion I.A. Ilyin defines it as follows: “Religion is an all-life (in the sense of the scope) and living (in the nature of action) the connection of man with God; or otherwise: a human subject with a divine Object. This Subject is not necessarily an object of cognition or knowledge; It can also be an object of feeling (love), contemplation, will and even active fulfillment (Kingdom of God). But He remains under all conditions and in all religions - sought after, acquired, desired, contemplated, felt, affirmed by faith, rejected in unbelief, inspiring love or fear, or reverence - an objectively existing Otherness. "

At its core, human religiosity has a religious experience that is not reducible to any manifestation of human activity: “Every religious belief and every religious activity is based on a religious experience. This experience differs from everyday observation and scientific experience. "

The nature of religious experience, according to Ivan Ilyin, is synergistic, that is, it combines divine and human elements: “From God comes spiritual revelation, which must be freely and completely accepted by man. From a person comes a living, unforced and sincere acceptance (contemplation, love and faith), which ascends to God in the form of prayer and deeds that agree with it. "

According to the thinker, such an acceptance of religious experience belongs to a special organ that catches and senses the sacred - the human spirit, or the eye of the heart: “The sacred is revealed only to the spiritual eye and, moreover, to the eye of the heart. It does not open to bodily sensations, or to the understanding reason, or to the playing or constructing imagination, or to empty, even if violent in its stubbornness, will. Therefore, the one who is deprived of the spiritual eye, whose heart has died out, does not know anything sacred and cannot object to a nihilist. "

I.A. Ilyin says that "religious experience will be born from a free love for Perfection: at the heart of every spiritual religion lies reverence for the Sacred, a living sense of responsibility and free acceptance of the objectively correct rank." From this, he deduces the basis for distinguishing the types of religious experience and determining which of its types are spiritually healthy, positive and valuable: “Love for perfection is not at all an empty word, an affected phrase or sentimental invention, but a living reality, and, moreover, the greatest driving force the human spirit and human history. All the founders of great religions - Confucius, Lao Tzu, Buddha, Zoroaster, Moses - were moved by this feeling. And for a Christian it is enough to open the Gospel and start reading it in order to make sure that all those who turn to Christ by faith recognized Him by the ray of this feeling. "

Analyzing the nature of the wrong religious choice, the philosopher dwells on the relationship between the concepts of faith and belief. Ilyin writes: “It is remarkable that the Russian language gives the idea of ​​faith two different meanings: one connects faith with the need to believe, and the other with the ability to believe. Believe - all people, consciously or unconsciously, maliciously or good-naturedly, strong or weak. Far from all believe, because belief presupposes in a person the ability to cleave with his soul (heart and will, and deeds) to what really deserves faith, what is given to people in spiritual experience, which opens up a certain “path to salvation” for them. They believe in cards, in dreams, in fortune-telling, in astrological horoscopes; but they believe in God and in everything divine. "

The human need “to believe in something”, which is characteristic of all people, including atheists, is associated by Ilyin with a life attitude, value-semantic choice: “To live in the world means to choose and strive; he who chooses and strives serves some value in which he believes. "

Faith of a person has the most direct impact on his character and activity. Ilyin says: “Faith is the main and leading gravitation of a person, which determines his life, his views, his aspirations and actions ... If a person believes only in sensual pleasures, taking them as the most important thing in life, then he himself gradually turns into a enjoying animal; and it will be expressed in his face and in his gait, looking out of his eyes and directing his actions. If a person believes in money and power, then his soul will gradually dry up in hungry greed, in a cold thirst for power; and an experienced observer will read all this in his eyes, he will hear it in his speech, he will not be mistaken, expecting appropriate actions from him. "

It is precisely the absence of love for Perfection, thirst for God and holiness in modern European society that Ilyin explains his worldview and cultural crisis: “Man has healed with such organs of the soul that are powerless in addressing the sacred. This way of life arose from the fact that a person was blinded by the regularity of matter, the harmony of reason and the strength of formal will; and gave them the central feeling of his spirit, and the inertia of the soul and the evolution of technology completed the rest ... Humanity has lost its shrines. They have not disappeared or ceased to be; they are still real. But a person does not see them, does not tremble and does not rejoice at the spiritual touch of them, spiritual love has dried up in him, that is, love for Perfection, and without this a living religion is impossible. That to which the mass of modern mankind is drawn is not sacred; and she walks past the sacred - now indifferently, now with a blasphemous grin on her lips. Religious blindness has become the criterion of enlightenment. And life, devastated from the shrine, became, little by little, the real kingdom of vulgarity. "

It is not difficult to verify the truth of these words. Watching the daily news bulletin, you are amazed at how much evil, violence, and hatred between people in the world. All over the planet there are economic and political wars in which people destroy each other. What are the windows and bookshelves of shops filled with, what are television programs and videos, these channels of modern culture? Before our eyes are full of pictures of murder, violence, sex. Several generations were brought up on the delusion that the author of the moral law is not God, but man, and he has the right to change this law at his own discretion.

All this was foreseen by Ivan Aleksandrovich Ilyin when he wrote: “Without God, the whole culture of mankind loses its meaning and significance. And if she does not grieve at once and in all respects, it is only because passive unbelief is able to hold on for a long time with the secret breath of the Divine principle, which has entered the human soul and leads it in the order of the often unnoticed, but still life-giving tradition. Faith is gone, but the way of the soul, created, educated and ennobled by the Christian faith for thousands of years, lives and does its job. "

Now more and more people realize that only a return to God is the only thing that can indicate a way out of this situation. And on this path the thought of I.A. Ilyin, concerning the axioms of religious experience and showing the way to the spiritual renewal of the individual and society, can become for us a kind of beacon, illuminating our path, giving us the right direction.

Varlaam (Gorokhov), hieromonk

If Russian philosophy still wants to say something significant, true and deep to the Russian people and humanity in general, after all the wanderings and downfalls it has experienced, then it must first of all ask itself what its vocation is, what subject it deals with and what is its nature. the right way (method)?

She must yearn for clarity, honesty, and vitality. It should be a compelling and precious study of spirit and spirituality. If she does not change her mind, does not stop imitating foreign and especially Germanic models and does not try to start her Russian national business from the depths of the Russian national spiritual experience, then she will soon turn out to be a dead and unnecessary burden in the history of Russian culture ...

And above all, Russian philosophical thinkers must abandon the deliberate invention of philosophical systems. A philosopher is not obliged to invent and teach any system at all. This is a purely German prejudice, from which it is high time to get rid of. This task belongs to the imaginary tasks of culture, and one should not imagine that it is implied by itself ...

One of two things: either philosophy is a work of personal fantasy that develops a subjective point of view; then it is not obliged to take upon itself the task of creating a completely rounded and internally consistent system; on the contrary, everyone gets the right to fantasize, following their ability and inclination. Or philosophy is a subject-related research with subject-based conclusions, and then it has no right at all to impose on itself a systematic harmony and logical consistency; then every philosopher is obliged to unswervingly and indefatigably test the object under study and thus describe, expound, depict it as it really is.

Indeed, how could we know from the very beginning that the object that we experience and study all our lives is itself systematic and lives according to the laws of our human logic? Who gave us the right to pass off the maximum demands of our rational rationalism as the laws of being of the object itself?

Where does this confidence come from that the subject of philosophy really lives and acts in the way we needlessly achieve from our rationalistic world outlook? It is possible and probable that the subject of philosophy is reasonable, but it can be reasonable with such Intelligence, in comparison with which our ordinary intelligence is sheer foolishness ... Indeed, the existence of the object is not obliged to obey our rational thinking ...

So, a philosopher is not at all called upon to invent a system. It is enough if he does everything possible to contemplate and think objectively. And he must calmly leave the systematic structure to the subject itself: if his subject is in fact a system, then his philosophy will faithfully convey and depict it; but if an object is an incoherent totality, then this will also be revealed in his objective philosophy. The investigating philosopher does not dare to command the subject; he does not dare to distort it in his image. A philosopher who imagines himself to be an accountant putting things in order, or a non-commissioned officer building a line of concepts, is ridiculous and pathetic. He does not dare to anticipate and predetermine the gift of God that is given to him for research, be it the world, or nature, or history, or spirit, or art ...

He cannot point to his subject; it is not given to him to know in advance or to know better; he is not called upon to mend gaps or inconsistencies in the subject with his rationalistic inventions. How many distortions have been introduced into philosophical research by such pretentious undertakings! How many arbitrary definitions and empty constructs arose from this! ..

Therefore, Russian philosophers who want to say their correct and weighty research word must get rid of the obsession with the philosophical system. It is necessary to investigate honestly, responsibly and substantively, and not to invent or construct. It is necessary to implement and improve the philosophical experience and philosophical contemplation, and not to create in a deductive manner an invented abstract edifice. In philosophy, as in all areas of knowledge, the law of research operates: the easiest, most unproductive and most appealing to many ordinary people is deduction (deduction of a system from a general logical concept or law); the most difficult, most modest and creatively significant that makes a person a real researcher is contemplative induction (an experimental description of an object in its single discoveries). The philosopher is called upon to experience his subject in its objective reality, to check the contents he experienced, to describe them and show them to other people. At the same time, he remains a researcher, completely regardless of whether he expresses his learned content in terms of professional philosophy with a lot of quotes and notes, or in a simple vestment of everyday words, without obstructing the reader with an impressive basement of notes that emphasize rich knowledge in small print (petit).

The question of whether philosophy is a science should not be resolved in either a positive or a negative sense. If it is a science - and it can be a science - then it is a science that requires from a person a special spiritual and religious experience and a special descriptive art. But here it is enough for us to establish that a philosopher is acting correctly and intelligently if he considers his work as research and thereby assumes the responsibility of a researcher, the will to be objectified and the burden of proof. Let him just not care about what will come of it: monism, dualism or pluralism, realism or idealism, rationalism or intuitionism ...

Heuristically, i.e. in the matter of seeking and finding, this sensation should guide him, in spite of the fact that in further testing and investigation it may turn out that this sensation was only an illusion. However, it may not be an illusion at all, and then he will be able to establish that God's ray is in fact given to people in different ways and in different ways. All such genuine phenomena and experiences can be denoted by the words spirit and spirituality. And so the spirit breathes in nature, in man, as well as in what man himself creates with God's help. So, for example, the beginning of the spirit - this real subject of philosophy - is revealed to us in a flower and in a mountain range. We also experience it in a state of evidence, which brings us the contemplated truth.

It takes possession of us in the experience of true love and conscience. It is revealed to us in visions of artistic art created by man himself. We will heed him, comprehending our freedom and experiencing the calls of legal awareness and patriotism. He shines to us from the sources of religious revelation. And each time it demands from us an experimental act with a different structure; and we must each time carry out such an act with a sense of responsibility and with great care. Anyone who wants to investigate the knowledge of truth and establish what is correct knowledge of the subject, devotes himself to the problem of evidence and proceeds to the theory of knowledge; he must realize and accumulate a vast and varied experience of evidence. A person who has never experienced the obvious, who does not know how this peculiar experience is composed and verified and how it looks internally, will create in the theory of knowledge only a game of dead concepts and empty constructions. In addition, the evidence is given to a person in more than one theoretical thinking. It is experienced differently in religion than in science; it is formed in art on other paths than in moral life; and in different sciences the act of evidence has a different structure (for example, in logic, mathematics, chemistry, astronomy, history, jurisprudence, philology). In any case, outside of this really experienced and tirelessly collected experience of evidence, the theory of knowledge is dead and empty. A philosopher who could not tolerate spiritual culture and did not work as a researcher in any science, and perhaps generally denies the act of evidence (as a skeptic, agnostic or nihilist), is unacceptable and unbearable as an epistemologist (i.e. theorist of knowledge) no matter how many thousands of pages he read, wrote and printed in the traditional, professional jargon of abstract thought. For the act of evidence requires from the researcher the gift of contemplation, and, moreover, diverse contemplation, the ability to feel, a deep sense of responsibility, the art of creative doubt and questioning, a stubborn will to final confirmation and a living love for the object. So the philosopher must educate himself for spiritual evidence. Likewise, one who wishes to turn to morality, virtue and goodness as a researcher must first of all deepen and expand his moral experience. Morality can neither be comprehended nor depicted in abstract constructions and speculations; here the matter is not at all reduced to theoretical considerations and definitions of concepts. The moral must be really experienced by the researcher. A philosopher who talks about love, about joy, about virtue, about duty, about good and evil, about willpower, about free will, about character and other similar subjects - from other people's books or hearsay, does not know anything, he only imagines something - then about some kind of spiritual fossils or mummies. Moral experience requires the whole person: he needs his love, his passions, his decisions and deeds.

A person must give this experience his entire personality - his life force, his life success, his destiny. He must appear before his conscience; he must surrender to it and actively heal from it; carrying out these acts, he must see before him a threat to life, look death in the eyes and overcome his fear of death. Moral experience is not given to one who sits motionless in his room, who indulges in idle fantasies, who is a deserter of his calling and duty. Whoever wants to write ethics must have behind him a living experience of love, struggle and suffering; he must know what it means to despair and in despair to pray, and also what it means to have success in life and observe modesty and humility in success.

He must experience in his own experience the wondrous, binding and liberating, rooting and cleansing power of the act of conscience; he should know that a conscientious person risks everything, goes to death and, if he is saved, he himself is amazed at this more than anyone else. Only to those who will survive all this, and others connected with this, will only open up to him the moral dimension of things and people, only he will understand the subject of ethics. So the philosopher must educate himself for the act of conscience. According to this, a researcher who devotes himself to the philosophy of art must acquire in this area an extensive and deep experience of contemplation. It is especially important here to break through the sensory-formal crust of an external aesthetic phenomenon, open up access to the organic belonging of mature images of art and make sure that subjective taste is by no means the last word in evaluating works of art. At the same time, it is very important that the philosopher himself, in some way, participate in artistic creation: his experience will receive a completely different kind and a different meaning if he tries to independently experience the process of conception, gestation, struggle for the idea of ​​an object, clothed it in the fabric of images and gaining artistic forms, for then he will contemplate art not only from without, but also from within.

A snob who views art formally will never become a philosopher of art; cold observation and pursuit of the exciting, teasing, obsequious, popular, unseen will never replace the artistic experience. Art is a sublime service to the human spirit and pure joy to the Divine. Therefore, the study of art, carried out by the philosopher, presupposes a long ascetic work on his own taste, which must be ennobled; he assumes further a sensitive religious heart and a whole culture of feeling and contemplative thought. So, the philosopher must educate himself for artistic contemplation and experience. This is of particular importance in the field of religious philosophy.

Here the researcher must endure a real religious experience, a living religious contemplation, which will allow him to feel into every foreign religious experience, both genuine and imaginary, empathize with it and test it. The unbelieving researcher, devoid of religiosity, will collect at best, like William James, a dead collection of other people's experiences. On the other hand, a fanatical believer, inclined to religious exclusiveness, intolerant and contemptuous, will do the right thing if he confines himself to deductive religious theology and leaves the vast field of alien (false) religious teachings immeasurably alone. For a researcher in the field of philosophy of religion needs a special contemplation of alien (especially false and perverted) religious views: this contemplation must be tolerant, capable of feeling, psychologically flexible and calmly wise, for only then will it open up for him access to those innermost depths where religious beliefs arise in people, and to that wondrous diversity in which humanity perceives and refracts the rays of God given to it. A person who does not see colors cannot investigate light and colorful shades; what will he say about their extraordinary wealth, which has no names in the human language, if he himself perceives only one single color, and rejects the rest of the shades as false? The heart of God is larger and wider than a religious teaching, for it not only tolerates other confessions, but also knows that a single true confession is not within the power of all nations and that it is better for a meager spirit to have at least some kind of God-contemplation than none. ..This is why the philosophy of religion requires tolerance, sensitivity and heart. And, of course, above all - an independent and genuine religious experience. It is clear, finally, that the philosopher of law must also find his own special experience and subject and enter into direct, research communication with them; and for this he must endure the correct experimental act and systematically carry it out. This act could be described as a healthy and normal sense of justice.

The essence of this act and its occurrence can be described as follows. Each person has an instinct for self-preservation with all his passions and aspirations, an ineradicable and vital instinct. But his claims must have a limit and recognize it. This limit is set for them by the personal spirit of a person, the most important and precious power of the human person, which gives meaning and indicates the purpose of our life. And the instinct is called upon not to be at enmity with the spirit, but to accept its law and voluntarily obey it. In its mature state, the human soul reveals voluntary law-abidingness, or, what is the same, an autonomous will to free loyalty. This will is the living basis of legal consciousness. Thus, all the forces of a human being participate in the life of free legal consciousness: creative instinct, love and respect for neighbors, love for the homeland, contemplation, experiencing spiritual depths, loyal will and formulating thought; all this is in a vital and life-ordering plexus and, moreover, rooted in the spirit, which always and in everything demands the best from a person. Three great axioms underlie a healthy sense of justice: self-esteem, the ability of a free person to self-rule, and mutual respect and trust between people. It is on these foundations that the legal consciousness of the coming Russia will be built. It is clear that the philosophy of law is impossible without substantive legal experience. So, in general, as well as in all its branches, philosophy is a science that grows out of spiritual experience. And her first task is to grow and strengthen her experienced act. Once Socrates posed the question to the ancient world: is virtue studyable and definable? This question still retains all its significance, and, moreover, for all of philosophy. And the answer that he had in mind and which he tried to put into his listeners' hearts had the same meaning as the question itself: a person can only investigate the essence of virtue insofar as he himself will live by it and realize it. In this sense, one could say: a person who is affirmed in the spirit is for himself the measure of all spiritual things. In other words: a philosopher who wants to successfully investigate his subject must experience it realistically and thereby realize it. Otherwise he cannot and does not dare: he must transform his soul and his life into the organ of his objective experience. Only having become an instrument of the spirit himself, he will be able to experience and cognize the essence of the spirit. This means that a professional philosopher undertakes to work constantly and tirelessly to purify his soul (catharsis).

He must lead a lifelong struggle to achieve his object, or, in other words, he must educate himself so that the object becomes available to him. Thus he must purify and strengthen his evidence, test and certify it; he must master the austerity of the power of judgment; he must refine his contemplation and give it precision; he must master his passions; give your perception flexibility, adaptability and diversity; he must strive for completeness and achieve the final. Further, he must strengthen his act of conscience and make sure of his loyalty and strength, trust him, purify his soul for his sake and surrender to him. He must act in life according to conscience and from conscience, in its rays to cultivate a spiritual character.

He must educate and purify his aesthetic contemplation and his artistic taste. In every work of art, he must learn to seek and find its innermost meaning. He must accustom himself to observe the asceticism of his aesthetic judgment and until then exercise in artistic identification with the best works of art, until art becomes for him the language of the gods, or, better to say. God's hieroglyph. In religion he must learn contemplation and prayer. Prayer gives him spiritual root, and it teaches him to reject and refute all analytical, skeptical, nihilistic and derisive arguments of godlessness. He must experience in his heart the action of God's fire and acquire a kind of red-hot coal of faith for the rest of his life. This coal will reveal to him the living essence of religion and give him a living organ for understanding all the religions of the world. Finally, he must grow, strengthen, cleanse and deepen his sense of justice. He must put him in the ray of God and find his last, noblest and purest sources; and religiosity will force him to subordinate all this to the will for perfection. He must introduce his sense of justice into immediate life, act out of it, loudly confess its nature, fight for it and learn to interpret his intuitions and implement his demands. He must put himself at his disposal and become his faithful instrument. This is the true path (or method) of the philosopher. On this path, the future Russian philosophy will be renewed and flourish, and then it will cease to idly speculate and indulge in seductive constructions.

From the discerning point of view of Ilyin, a general national convulsion is coming in Russia, which, according to Ilyin, will be spontaneously vengeful and cruel. “The country will boil with a thirst for revenge, blood and a new redistribution of property, for indeed not a single peasant in Russia has forgotten anything. they will not have a creative and substantive national idea. " The events in Russia over the past ten years, unfortunately, have confirmed the warnings of the Russian thinker.

Moreover, with a brilliant prophecy, Ilyin foresaw the disintegration of historical Russia, which took place in 1991, largely, as he himself said, thanks to the "world behind the scenes." However, as a result of this disintegration, the whole world suffers in many ways, for the power that would have opposed the West (and, in particular, the United States) is being destroyed. In the article "What does the dismemberment of Russia promise the world?" he notes the following: “The dismemberment of the organism into its component parts has never given and will never give either recovery, or creative balance, or peace. On the contrary, it has always been and will be a painful decay, a process of decomposition, fermentation, decay and general infection. epoch, the whole universe will be drawn into this process. " Further, he describes the situation in Russia itself as follows: "The territory of Russia will boil with endless strife, clashes and civil wars, which will gradually develop into world clashes." This escalation will in many ways be completely inevitable "due to the fact that the powers of the whole world (European, Asian and American) will invest their money, their trade interests and their strategic calculations in the newly emerged small states." The latest events in Iraq, as it were, fully confirm this largely ominous forecast of Ivan Alexandrovich.

In order to overcome this national convulsion, which we are all experiencing today, Russian nationally and patriotically thinking people must be ready to generate this idea in relation to new conditions. First of all, it should be state-historical, state-national, state-patriotic. This idea should, first of all, speak about the main thing in Russian destinies - both the past and the future, and first of all it should shine forth on an entire generation of Russian people.

The main thing, according to Ilyin, is the upbringing of a national spiritual character in the Russian people themselves. It was because of his lack of intelligentsia and the masses that Russia collapsed during the revolution. "Russia will rise to its full height and grow stronger only through education in a people of this nature. This education can only be national self-education, which can be carried out by the Russian people themselves, that is, by its loyal and strong national intelligentsia. For this, a selection of people, selection spiritual, quality and strong-willed ".

In religious philosophy, Ilyin did not belong to the galaxy of V.S. Solovyov, with whom many usually associate the Russian religious and philosophical renaissance. The subject of his main attention was not only this or that Christian dogma, inner, insensible experience, but also what is called spirit. Ilyin expressed all these nuances in his classic work Axioms of Religious Experience (1953, vols. 1-2). This is, first of all, the doctrine of the balance and combination of spirit and instinct, as well as the laws of nature and the laws of the spirit, which is central to his religious philosophy. And in this respect, the very aesthetic attitude of Ivan Alexandrovich seemed to run counter to the rest of the Silver Age and had a largely different source. At the forefront, he put art, the process of birth and embodiment of the aesthetic image, and at the top of the artistic perfection, which outwardly may be deprived of "beauty". Ilyin raised all these questions in monographs and lectures about our great writers, poets, singers, composers, actors such as Pushkin, Gogol, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Bunin, Shmelev, Merezhkovsky, Metner, Rachmaninov, Chaliapin.

But the most important subject for Ilyin's philosophical research, for the sake of which he wrote everything else, is Russia itself and its constituent Russian people. The following works are devoted to these main themes of his entire life: "The Essence and Uniqueness of Russian Culture" and "The Coming Russia". Ivan Alexandrovich wrote a lot about the history of Russia, as if predicting its future, as well as about the strengths and weaknesses of the Russian people. Religious attitudes and primitive phenomena of the Russian Orthodox soul, which, according to Ilyin, are “heartfelt contemplation, love for freedom, childlike spontaneity, a living conscience, as well as the will to perfection in everything, faith in the divine formation of the human soul. These primitive phenomena are: prayer; eldership; Easter holiday; veneration of the Mother of God and saints; icons ".

3. To the question of the relationship between morality and law in the philosophy of Ivan Ilyin

Before the revolution, the problems of social philosophy were, as it were, on the periphery of the philosophical interests of the Russian philosopher. However, the dramatic events that took place in the country after the October coup dramatically changed his preferences and aspirations. The very first significant work in this direction, which in many respects turned Ivan Alexandrovich to social problems, was the work "On Resistance to Evil by Force" (1925), which posed largely moral problems and caused widespread controversy both in Russia and abroad. To numerous questions: "Can a person striving for moral perfection resist evil with force and sword? Can a person who believes in God, accepting His universe and his place in the world, not resist evil with sword and force?" The Russian philosopher answers these questions as follows: "... physical suppression and compulsion can be a direct religious and patriotic duty of a person; and then he has the right to evade them."

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N.L. SHEKHOVSKAYA, (c)

More than half a century ago, foreseeing the essence of the upcoming transformations in Russia, the philosopher-teacher I.A. Ilyin wrote that the new Russia will have to work out a new system of national education for itself and its future historical path will depend on the correct solution of this task. "The coming Russia," the thinker argued, "will need a new, substantive nourishment of the Russian spiritual character." Ivan Aleksandrovich Ilyin urged his contemporaries to prepare for the new Russian generations that material of "conclusions and guidelines" that would help them cope with their difficult task. Not only did he call on others, but he also worked on the creation of such material.

“When we think about the coming Russia,” he wrote, “we must, first of all, put before ourselves the main question: on what will we build the coming Russia - on the individual or on the depersonalization of man. This determines and predetermines a lot, the main thing, maybe everything. " According to Ilyin, the upbringing of a spiritual, morally mature personality is the central pedagogical task: "a person as a natural organism must become a spiritual personality." The philosopher-teacher was convinced that it is the spiritual principle that gives a person something that makes it worth living, it is worth educating oneself and others, and suffering. “There is a jewel here that is worth living and for which it is worth dying. She comprehends life, suffering, and death. "

Philosophical and pedagogical analysis of the past and the present led I.A. Ilyin to the assertion that spirituality is always concrete and always personal: if a person tried to define himself as “this body”, “this is a living body”, “this is an animated body”, not a single from such characteristics he could not designate and comprehend his main nature - spirit. “Man is a personal spirit”, - IA Ilyin stated aphoristically and extremely succinctly. He advised “to find the beginning of spirituality in oneself”, in that “subjective” depth, which itself asks, experiences, desires, thinks, imagines and feels. And in this “subjective” depth of his person is a living, personal spirit ”“. Spirit is the most important thing in a person, Ilyin tirelessly repeated, being firmly convinced that the spirit is the power of personal self-affirmation, a living sense of responsibility, the will for Perfection - and also for improvement - in itself, in its deeds and in the external world, spirit there is the gift of evidence and freedom, the power of personal self-government, the ability to selfless love and selfless service. “In reality, there is a spirit - all this at once,” he summed up.

In the opinion of this philosopher-teacher, a person is spiritual insofar as he lives not only with external, sensory-material, but internal experience and knows how to distinguish what is pleasing, pleasant, giving pleasure from what is actually good, objectively beautiful, truly, moral. artistically just, perfect, divine, and, distinguishing these two series of values, he knows how to “stick” to the perfect, prefer it, plant it, achieve it, serve it, take care of it and, if necessary, die for it.

Spirituality, which determines the meaning, the very essence of human existence, is life-giving, creative; lack of spirituality, on the contrary, is destructive, destructive, pushes the personality towards self-destruction. "A person who has eradicated or corrupted the spiritual in himself," wrote the philosopher-teacher, "will not perceive God."

Personality in a person dies as his spirituality decreases, emptying the soul, as immoral, base feelings are objectified, objectified in his behavior and actions. “A person dies not only when he becomes poor, starving, suffers and dies, but when he weakens in spirit and decays morally and religiously, - asserted I. A. Ilyin, existence, but when he lives humiliatingly and dies shamefully; not when he suffers or suffers hardships and troubles, but when he indulges in evil. "

The paradigm of personal spirituality in the philosophical and pedagogical concept of Ilyin organically "flows" into the mainstream of the humanistic tradition of Russian pedagogical thought, the best representatives of which viewed spirituality as the dominant of the moral maturity of the individual. The above judgment of I.A. Ilyin is very consonant with the reflections of K. D. Ushinsky about spirituality as the meaning-forming basis of personality. Long before Ilyin, he wrote: “Surround a person with all these benefits (meaning the benefits of civilization. - N. Sh.), And you will see that not only will he not get better, but he will not even be happier, and one of two: either it will be weighed down by life itself, or it will quickly go down to the level of an animal. This is a moral axiom, from which a person cannot wriggle out. The seed of his being, his immortal spirit requires other food and, not finding it, either languishes with hunger, or leaves a person alive. "

In historical action, in cultural creativity, personal spirituality, according to Ilyin, manifests itself as a creative, actively humanizing force that predisposes society to both tolerance and the preservation of identity. The philosopher saw the fact that Russia did not know the inquisition system and the extermination of heretics as a manifestation and merit of personal spirituality, which Orthodoxy brought up as “free breathing in the field of faith,” that is, as an assertion of faith in a personally immortal and personally responsible soul.

The philosopher-teacher viewed personal spirituality as a "perpetual motion machine" of social, state, economic, cultural construction, as a source of the power that created Russia. He especially emphasized that personal spirituality in Russia built a family, raised children, nurtured and endured Russian art, from Orthodox icon painting to Russian music of our days; created Russian science, "found a special expression in the Russian army", "manifested itself in local, estate and church self-government, in cultural (musical, theater and school) organization, in the economic work of the Russian peasant, merchants and nobility." In the upbringing of personal spirituality, I.A. Ilyin saw the path on which “a Russian person will have to turn from an“ individual ”into a person, from a tempted connecting rod into a character, from a“ burdensome ”and a“ rebel ”into a free and loyal citizen” [ibid. , With. 316].

IA Ilyin recommended starting upbringing with the awakening of a child's soul to the national spiritual experience, with the formation of a sense of their own spiritual dignity, without which, in his opinion, there is no spiritual personality. Personal spirituality, he stressed, gives a person “an individual creatively free form” [ibid., P. 309]. Ilyin revealed the dialectics of upbringing personal spirituality in the following way: “From childhood, a person perceives into his soul the stream of someone else's upbringing will; even when the power of evidence had not yet awakened in his soul and the power of love had not yet been spiritualized in him for self-education, the will of other people seemed to flow into his soul, aimed at defining, shaping and strengthening his will; not yet being able to build himself independently, he built himself with an authoritative will, imposed on him by the will of others - parents, church, teachers, government - by learning the correct, firm direction of will ”. The influence of an external source, the philosopher believed, has always been and will always be one of the most powerful means of human education. And the more authoritative this "other" is, the more definite and adamant his will is, the more powerful this means is. In this process, the formation of the spirituality of the individual begins and is accomplished, but it continues most fruitfully, never being completed, in self-education, in the self-aspiration of the individual to perfection.

And again, the closeness of the educational concepts of I.A. Ilyin and K.D. Ushinsky is revealed.

Konstantin Dmitrievich Ushinsky did not think of the development of the personality of the pupil otherwise than under the influence of the personality of the educator. And this influence turns out to be the stronger, the higher the spirituality of the educator's personality, the greater the vital force of his convictions. The external influence, about which IA Ilyin wrote, is, first of all, the educational influence of the personality, and the authority and inflexibility of its "will" is determined by nothing more than conviction.

“Only in the personal influence of the educator on the pupil,” wrote KD Ushinsky, “and only in him is the source of the strength of the initial upbringing hidden”, “the child is brought up, mentally and morally developed under the direct influence of the human personality ... This is a fruitful ray sun for a young soul, which cannot be replaced by anything. "

At first glance, the similarity of the positions of IA Ilyin and KD Ushinsky regarding the choice of means, school subjects and other "materials" for the upbringing of a spiritual and moral personality appears to be accidental, but upon in-depth consideration of the natural, conditioned by the common Christian-humanistic worldview.

They were also unanimous in the fact that spirituality is not acquired by a person through the teaching of one or two special, "religious" subjects. Spirituality becomes an immanent personality only when it permeates the entire educational process, when each subject in its own way, with its inherent specificity, implements the task of spiritual and moral education. “Education without upbringing,” Ilyin wrote, “does not form a person, but unbridles and spoils him ... formal“ education ”outside of faith, honor and conscience (outside of spirituality - N. Sh.) Does not create a national culture , but the debauchery of a vulgar civilization. " KD Ushinsky compared education without upbringing with a headless freak and argued that with a proper approach “it is possible to develop humanity in a person with arithmetic and chemistry, and even literacy can be made humane ...”.

IA Ilyin and KD Ushinsky are closely linked by the idea of ​​spiritual education of the individual on a national basis. Ilyin saw him in such a way that “all the beautiful objects that awaken the spirit of a child for the first time were national, in Russia - nationally Russian: for children to pray and think in Russian words; so that they feel the blood and spirit of their Russian ancestors in themselves and accept with love and will - the whole history, fate, path and vocation of their people ... ". Ushinsky proposed making the Russian language, Russian geography, and Russian history the main subjects in the Russian school, around which all the rest would be grouped.

In the upbringing of human spirituality, according to Ilyin and Ushinsky, it is especially valuable and important to use the images of folk heroes, military leaders, and historical figures. They will awaken in the pupil, according to Ilyin, the will for valor, generosity, the thirst for achievement, and "the Russianness of the hero will give him unshakable faith in the spiritual strength of his people." "The national hero," Ilyin remarked, "leads his people even from behind the grave." Ushinsky, criticizing the shortcomings of teaching history in gymnasiums, lamented that students only after studying the biographies of prominent figures of Ancient Greece and Europe would learn about Peter I, that they did not see the difference between Ivan III and Ivan IV, and it was precisely in teaching Russian history on the basis of actual In the material of the life of its creators, he found the right way to make Russian schools truly Russian.

The upbringing of personal spirituality in the course of teaching history excludes nihilism in assessments of the past and present, national self-abasement and self-flagellation, as well as false exaltation of merits, painfully exaggerated national narcissism. Objectivity and honesty, truthfulness and self-criticism, according to Ilyin and Ushinsky, should be formed during education by history as attributive qualities of personal spirituality.

“A teacher of history,” wrote IA Ilyin, “must not hide from the student the weaknesses of the national character, but at the same time he must show him all the sources of national strength and glory. The tone of latent sarcasm towards one's people and their history should be excluded from teaching. History teaches spiritual succession and filial fidelity; and the historian, standing between the past and the future of his people, must see his fate himself, understand his path, love him and believe in his vocation. Then only he will be able to become a true national educator ”.

To love the Motherland not only in the moments of its triumph, victories and prosperity, but also in the hours of historical bad weather, troubles and humiliations, to love not only its beautiful image, but also to see the shortcomings, mistakes and defeats, K. D. Ushinsky demanded from everyone who pretends for the role of educator of youth with history. He condemned those who tried to show that "everything in our history is worthy of ridicule and contempt", who strove to prove "with fascinating fervor that neither in our past nor in our present there is nothing that a young soul could stop at. with love and respect. " Such an approach, Ushinsky argued, presupposes not the upbringing of the soul, but rather its destruction. “This is a truly Vandal, everything that destroys, does not save anything and does not create anything,” he wrote. nationality "[ibid., p. 53 - 54].

At the same time, according to KD Ushinsky's conviction, there is much more patriotism in sober, sound, in modern terms, constructive criticism than “the whole host of odes and honeyed praises”. Knowing full well that such criticism is sometimes mistaken for hatred, K.D. Ushinsky exclaimed: "There are examples of hatred for the homeland, but how much love there is sometimes in this hatred!" ...

Both Ilyin and Ushinsky defended the need to educate spirituality on the intimate, richest material of national poetry, music, songs, fairy tales, and legends. In a comparative analysis, the judgments of both of our classics about these spiritual and educational means of influencing the personality turn out to be mentally and sensory close. The conclusion of IA Ilyin that “the language contains in a mysterious and concentrated way the whole soul, all the past, the entire spiritual structure and all the creative ideas of the people”, in retrospect of the pedagogical tradition is quite consonant with the thoughts of KD Ushinsky that that, learning the language, the child “drinks spiritual life and strength from the dear breast of the native word”, that “the word is the flesh of the spirit” [ibid., p. 112]. “The word is the only sphere for the development of the spirit,” wrote Ushinsky, “and“ all teaching and development should be based on the possession of this sphere ”.

Figuratively speaking, the world can be changed from the nursery, I.A. Ilyin argued that “a child should hear a Russian song while still in the cradle,” because “singing brings him the first soulful breath and the first spiritual groan”; that “as soon as the child begins to speak and read, so the classical national poets should give him the first joy of poetry and gradually reveal to him all their treasures ...” [ibid., p. 205]. The educational power of poetry, according to Ilyin, is multiplied by the synthesis of philosophy and music in it. “The Russian people,” he wrote, “has a poetry unique of its kind, where wisdom is clothed in beautiful images, and images become sounding music ...” [ibid.]. “Our beautiful Russian songs and our marvelous Slavic motives, which Beethoven valued so much,” KD Ushinsky considered the life-giving source of Russian spirituality, which should never dry up. National education, Ilyin argued, is incomplete without a national fairy tale, which teaches the child courage and loyalty, gives the first sense of the heroic, awakens and captivates the dream. Ushinsky, finding a whole storehouse of spiritual wisdom in fairy tales, wrote them himself, and in addition - stories for children on biblical topics.

Spirituality built Russia, and we must not forget the warning of I.A. Ilyin that only the upbringing of personal spirituality will help Russia avoid repeating past mistakes, keep it from new ones. “By educating the Russian person for spirituality and freedom,” he wrote, “by educating him as a personality, independent character and dignity, one can overcome all the burdensome legacy of the totalitarian system and all the dangers of“ National Bolshevism ”.” These words are surprisingly modern and relevant.

LITERATURE

1. Ilyin IA Our tasks // Sobr. cit .: In 10 volumes. Vol. 2. Book. 2.M., 1993.

2. Ilyin IA Our tasks // Sobr. cit .: In 10 volumes. Vol. 2. Book. 1.M., 1993.

3. Ilyin I.A. On resistance to evil by force // Sobr. cit .: In 10 volumes.Vol. 5.M., 1996.

4. Ilyin I.A. Axioms of religious experience. M., 2002.

5. Ilyin IA Crisis of godlessness // Sobr. cit .: In 10 volumes.Vol. 1.M., 1996.

6. Ushinsky KD Labor in its mental and educational meaning // Ped. cit .: In 6 volumes.Vol. 2.M., 1988.

7. Ushinsky K.D. The project of the teachers' seminary // Ped. cit .: In 6 volumes.Vol. 2.M., 1988.

8. Ushinsky K.D. Pirogov's pedagogical works // Ped. cit .: In 6 volumes.Vol. 2.M., 1988.

9. Ilyin I.A. The path of spiritual renewal // Sobr. cit .: In 10 volumes.Vol. 1.M., 1996.

10. Ushinsky K.D. On the moral element in Russian education // Ped. cit .: In 6 volumes.Vol. 2.M., 1988.

11. Ushinsky K.D. On nationality in public education // Ped. cit .: In 6 volumes.Vol. 1.M., 1988.

12. Ushinsky K.D. Native word // Ped. cit .: In 6 volumes.Vol. 2.M., 1988.

13. Ushinsky K.D. Pedagogical trip around Switzerland // Ped. cit .: In 6 volumes.Vol. 2.M., 1988.

Appendix

Reader

Annex 1

2002 Christmas Readings

Ilyunina Lyudmila Alexandrovna

editor-in-chief of the journal "Orthodox Chronicle of St. Petersburg"

IVAN ILYIN ABOUT UPBRINGING AND EDUCATION

Ivan Ilyin, who spent most of his life away from Russia - in exile, devoted all his thoughts and aspirations to the future of his homeland. In his projects for the organization of life in Russia after the fall of the Bolshevik regime, an important place is occupied by reflections on the new Russian school and on the upbringing of children in general. And now the time has come to turn to the advice of I.A. Ilyin. Often, our teachers begin to get involved in Orthodox pedagogy outside the context of time - that is, they try to experience the experience of pre-revolutionary Russia in the current circumstances, forgetting that we live in completely different conditions.

And the experience that Ivan Ilyin offers us is much closer to us.

Ilyin proceeds from the terrible experience of freedom that people got in the twentieth century. In our time, morally even more free than that which we experienced in the recent past, this experience cannot be ignored. Modern children cannot obey unquestioningly this or that instruction, it is not enough for them to be explained that they "are obliged to do this and not otherwise, because their duty is holy obedience, and this is the essence of Orthodoxy." The child, at best, outwardly agrees with this statement, even learns to “do as it pleases adults,” but internally he will rebel until, in adolescence, this rebellion turns from internal to external.

And in the worst case, especially among children with a strong character, the constant pressure of the "moral imperative" over them already at a young age causes rejection from the Church, if you dictate endless "mustn't" or "you must" dictate to them. Often, parents, in order to call their child to obedience, use punishments, even turn them into a panacea for all ills. In Ilyin we find a remarkable warning against the thoughtless use of this form of education. In his book of reflections and hopes "Looking into the distance" the third part is devoted to education, one of the chapters he called "The Punished Child". In it we find a warning: "Punishment is an alarm signal for the parents themselves that they have such mistakes and mistakes that should not take place ... Punishment education is an unhappy upbringing, it is a constantly smoldering struggle, it is a secret civil war in the family. ... It is here that one should look for the fundamental principles of later revolutionism and anarchism, the source of nihilism and godlessness. "

In the book "The Path to Evidence", many pages are devoted to the tasks of education. Generally, these tasks are formulated as follows: "so that the child has access to all spheres of spiritual experience; so that his spiritual eye opens up to everything significant and sacred in life; so that his heart, so tender and receptive, learns to respond to every manifestation of the Divine in the world and in people. ". That is, the child needs to be helped to learn to see God's presence in the world, in life, and not to "stuff" him with memorized book formulas, even if they relate to sacred objects. Together with the child, one must learn to notice the breath of the Spirit of God in nature, in works of true art, in compassion and love for creatures, in human relationships.

Ilyin is not talking about "Orthodox education" in general, he is talking about the upbringing of a believing Orthodox person "of the last times", and here he has a formula, unexpected, perhaps for some pious people: to respect oneself internally and to assert one's spiritual dignity and one's freedom - a spiritual person, before whom all the temptations and temptations of modern Satanism would be powerless. " That is, Ilyin calls not to hide from life, but to go towards it. Only up to 5 or 6 years old, a child should be brought up "in a greenhouse", he must be protected from everything that can frighten him or break him, or get dirty. Then, during the school period of life in children, it is necessary, first of all, to educate will, courage, the ability to seek and find in all the phenomena of life a certain higher meaning. An irreplaceable basis in this matter, according to Ilyin, is knowledge of one's ancestors, the history of one's people. "From the spirit of the family and clan, from the spiritual and religiously meaningful acceptance of one's parents and ancestors, a sense of one's own spiritual dignity is born and affirms in a person, this is the first basis of inner freedom, spiritual character, and healthy citizenship."

But all this does not mean that from children it is necessary to raise "ideologists of Orthodoxy, Autocracy and Nationality", for children in general, any ideology is disgusting. Ilyin's favorite thought, which is present in many of his works, was the idea of ​​the spirituality of instinct.

He often wrote about this in connection with the secret of man in general, but in the book "The Path to Evidence" he touched upon this topic, discussing the upbringing of children. We quote his words: “Whoever wants to raise a child must awaken and strengthen the spirituality of his instinct in him. all the difficulties and temptations of the coming life: for the “angel” will stay awake in his soul and a person will never become a “wolf.” But if this does not take place in childhood, then subsequently all persuasions, proofs and punishments may turn out to be powerless, for instinct with all its attracts, passions and addictions will not accept the spirit and will not become akin to it: he will not recognize and recognize it, he will see him as an enemy and a rapist, he will hear only his prohibitions and will always be ready to rebel against him and fulfill his desires. that instinct asserts a "wolf" in itself; it does not know the "angel" and responds to its appearance with distrust, fear and hatred. "

In the book "Looking into the distance" it is said about the same with just one phrase "it is necessary to educate in the child a taste for goodness and love." That is, to open for the child the joy of choosing good and doing things out of love, and not out of dislike. And at the same time, it is a conscious choice that should be made, and it is necessary to educate in the child not the "psychology of a slave", not the one who has enough intelligence only to understand other people's thoughts, but educate a free person who believes consciously and acts not mindlessly, but giving himself and God are accountable for what he is doing. In short, this can be summed up in the word - responsibility.

Ilyin, philosophically comprehending the revolutionary crisis that took place in Russia, believed that it had matured as a result of missing these correct foundations of education: spirituality was sometimes revealed and inculcated in children not at the level of instinct, but at the level of ideology. As he wrote, “the future culture must understand this mistake and renew its pedagogical art,” if this does not happen, then all spiritual values ​​will remain for the child only imposed from the outside. And, inevitably, in the period of maturation, in adolescence and in adolescence, he will begin to rebel against them. Here is another quote from the book "The Path to Evidence": "Upbringing a person begins with his instinctive roots. It should not be reduced to ranting or preaching; it should inform the child a new way of life, the main task is not to fill the memory and not to educate" the intellect "and in the kindling of the heart ... Everyone must find their own door leading to the kingdom of the Spirit; everyone must find it himself and independently cross its threshold. And it is extremely important that this step be taken in the earliest childhood." A practical technique here can be as follows - you need to teach children to ask questions correctly. One should never stop life, but be a person asking: “To live is to ask,” writes Ilyin. from fear - about protection. We ask because we cannot live without an answer. So the real question is the struggle, the call, and the request. " And we must not be afraid of the questions that children ask about our faith, but be glad that they know how to think, that they want to understand for themselves what they are being taught, and translate into their own language what adults teach them in an unnecessarily boring language. ...

I.A. Ilyin in "The Path to Evidence", we will find specific recommendations regarding different periods of childhood - in what ways you can awaken the spiritual instinct: in infancy it is maternal love and affection, at the age of three it is a special attention to nature, at the age of five or six it is admiration before heroic deeds, and then this is the ability to feel the reality of someone else's suffering and learn to feel into it in order to regret and help and go to active help. And at the same time, at all school ages, it is necessary to strengthen the will to perfection in the child.

Reflections of I.A. Ilyin about the spirituality of instinct today is as topical as possible. Most adults who came to faith at a conscious age and perceived spiritual life as something that opposes natural life (for them, spiritual life is primarily a law that must be followed, breaking oneself, struggling with all the sinful burden that has been accumulated for their entire previous life) are also trying to educate their children. Faith is presented to children at a very early age, as a system of prohibitions, everything that we preach to our children, as "moral theology" can be expressed in one word, written in huge letters - NOT!

Let's listen to the definition of I.A. Ilyin: “spirit is the highest nature of instinct, and instinct is an elementary, but organically expedient force of the spirit itself. The spirit of man is called to living creativity; it must awaken, induce and lead the human instinct ... For the human spirit is the spirit of instinct; and human instinct is instinct spirit ".

And Ilyin ends this formulation with a truly apocalyptic warning: "Will people understand this law, accept this truth and follow this path. The entire future of our culture depends on this." But I think that you will agree that in order to understand this, in order to bring up children in such a creative spirit, the teacher himself needs to be a whole person, you need to be a spiritually ardent person, seeking, developing, not standing still ... Children can be truly captivated, sparked in them by an interest in spiritual things, only a person who himself tries to constantly spiritually comprehend everything that happens around, constantly be a "fresh person" who has not turned his Orthodoxy into a warm and cozy refuge, but who remembers a different image - walking on the waters. And not with the help of quotes and someone else's experience, making this image their spiritual property. Here it is already necessary to talk not only about the upbringing of children and the self-education of the teacher, but also about education.

On the pages of Ilyin's books, we will find reflections on what the education system should be in post-Bolshevik Russia. Ilyin notes that one of the "most difficult and dangerous legacies of the revolution in Russia" was the loss of the real level of education. And the task of believing Russian people is not only to educate children in the Orthodox spirit, but also to return the proper level of education to schools and higher educational institutions. In the chapter "Struggle for the Academy" from the book "The Path to Evidence" Ilyin formulates the educational tasks of the school as follows: "Understanding should become active reflection, the child's horizon should become wider from year to year, memory should be strengthened and enriched ... The teacher should inform students rules and methods of thinking, exercise them in the application of these rules, correct their mistakes and give them instructions ... A talented teacher will try to kindle a thirst for knowledge in his students; he will put so much sincere fire into teaching that the students, without noticing it, will begin to live by active force judgments - to compose their own tastes, views and beliefs, and most importantly - to strengthen and apply the spirituality of their instinct. " And the more the child grows and develops, the more it is necessary to take care that he learns to think independently, "to deepen the power of judgment, to perceive and explore the subject." And higher school, according to Ilyin, "should impart to a person the art of thinking from the object itself, the power of holistic contemplation (intuition) and strict analytical observation (deduction)."

Always, when it comes to education, Ilyin has in mind the need to search not invented, but real harmony between knowledge and faith. And he emphasizes that faith concerns, first of all, the field of will, volitional decisions of a person, and knowledge should support and help these volitional decisions, but this does not mean that it should be dogmatic, given once and for all. Living faith, according to Ilyin, can and should be nourished by living, creative, always seeking knowledge. Knowledge should be a constant "struggle for truth", a struggle that is carried out in different ways in each era. But for all epochs one definition of Ilyin is true: "conscientious knowledge" - which means the acquisition of humility, which is inherent in every true scientist.

This is one of the most remarkable paradoxes of Ilyin: the higher, the deeper the knowledge, education, the more genuine humility. "A real academician knows his limits and the limits of his knowledge; and therefore he is not arrogant and does not suffer from pride. An intelligent academician knows perfectly well where his" stupidity "begins, and never considers himself the smartest of people. He feels in himself an eternal student, who will always know not enough and who has only been given the happiness of deciphering the world created by God as a kind of God's hieroglyph - always being in a struggle and not hoping to exhaust his subject. "

Thus, what we need to fear is not education (as we observe in many modern neophytes), but semi-education, ignorance, sometimes aggressive and spiritually-destructive.

In this report, we have just outlined the main ideas of I.A. Ilyin concerning upbringing and education. In his works, we can also find practical materials - one can say whole special courses on the history of world and especially Russian culture, essays on Orthodox psychology, which are quite applicable to use in solving pedagogical issues. We would strongly advise every Orthodox teacher to independently turn to the works of the great Russian philosopher - in them he will find a surprisingly harmonious combination of the patristic, evangelical foundation of the worldview with the solution of modern problems, and the solution of not abstract, but practical.

Appendix 2

I.A. Ilyin. Thoughts on parenting:

A Russian child should feel and understand from the very beginning that he is a Slav, a son of a great Slavic tribe and at the same time a son of a great Russian people, who have behind them a majestic and tragic history, who have endured great suffering and collapse and emerged from them more than once to rise and flourish. It is necessary to awaken in the child the confidence that the history of the Russian people is a living treasury, a source of living learning, wisdom and strength. The soul of a Russian person must reveal in itself a space that contains the whole of Russian history, so that his instinct takes into itself the entire past of his people, so that his imagination can see all its centuries-old distance, so that his heart will fall in love with all the events of Russian history ... We must master by the will of our past and by the will to design our future. We must feel the inspired words of Pushkin: “To be proud of the glory of our ancestors is not only possible, but also must; not to respect it is shameful cowardice. And one more thing: "I swear to you on my honor that I would never agree to change my homeland or have a different history than the history of our ancestors, which the Lord sent us, for anything in the world." At the same time, the national well-being of the child must be protected from two dangers: from nationalistic conceit and from all-laughing self-humiliation. The history teacher should not at all hide from the student the weaknesses of the national character: but at the same time he must show him all the sources of national strength and glory. The tone of latent sarcasm towards his people and their history should be excluded from this teaching. History teaches spiritual succession and filial fidelity: and the historian, standing between the past and the future of his people, must see his fate himself, understand his path, love him and believe in his vocation. Then only he can be a true national educator.

Check how you learned the biography of I.A. Ilyin: Biography

Ilyin studied the first 5 years at the 5th Moscow gymnasium, the last 3 years at the 1st Moscow gymnasium. In 1901 he graduated from high school with a gold medal, receiving a classical education, in particular knowledge of Latin, Greek, Church Slavonic, French and German.

In 1906 he graduated from the Faculty of Law at the Imperial Moscow University and stayed to work there. He also lectured at the Higher Courses for Women in Moscow.

In 1909 - assistant professor of the Department of the History of Law and the Encyclopedia of Law.

In 1918 he defended his dissertation on the topic "Philosophy of Hegel as the doctrine of the concreteness of God and man" and became a professor of jurisprudence. Official opponents are Professor P.I. Novgorodtsev and Professor Prince E.N. Trubetskoy.

During the years of the first Russian revolution, Ilyin was a man of radical views, close in his family ties both with intelligent Jewry (Lyubov Gurevich) and with the leadership of the Cadet Party, being married to S.A. Muromtsev's niece Natalya Vokach. After 1906, he turned to a scientific career, and politically migrated towards the right wing of the Cadet Party.

In 1922 he was expelled from Russia along with 160 other philosophers, historians and economists for anti-communist activities.

Dear friend!

It is not at all so easy and simple to answer the question that you put to me with such inexorable severity. After all, this is one of the most subtle and deepest questions concerning the human being. Here we are talking about the most intimate sphere of the inner world, where much turns out to be so "airy" and elusive, silent and avoiding words, where the most fragrant turns out to be ineffable and indescribable, so that sometimes it seems completely impossible to approach the subject under study, not to mention its logical definitions and their exhaustive accuracy. Further, between faith and unbelief, between religiosity and non-religiousness there are many peculiar intermediate states in which a person remains hesitant, indecisive, uncertain, doubting and unstable, and from these states there are paths leading to genuine faith, and other paths leading to the blind bitterness. Sometimes, under the crust of theoretical unbelief, real and deep religiosity lives in secret; and vice versa, often, pronounced church piety hides behind itself a completely unspiritual soul with its completely dry and heartless mental mechanisms, known in science as "obsessive" or "panic" ... Look: there are many religiously numbered, but unbelievers in the world people - "Christians" who do not believe in God at all and are not able to tell their children anything true about Christ. And who knows whether and when a living religious feeling will awaken in these people ...

Therefore, it is impossible to demand in this area quick and demanding logical definitions! And if someone offers such a definition, then we have every reason to treat him with distrust.

But I will try to give you some essential, exploratory-grooving indications by which you can sometimes recognize a religious person.

The most important thing is that religiosity is not something partial, but holistic. She has an amazing ability to internally unite a person, to give him spiritual wholeness or "totality". This totality of instinct, soul and spirit, disparate drives and the main, main stream of life is achieved in different ways in different religions. But it is present everywhere, where religion retains its spiritual dignity. A religious person is like a "monolith". And strictly speaking, a person should only be called religious if and insofar as he succeeds in becoming a spiritual unity. It so happens that a person becomes such a united spirit only during the most difficult hours of his life; but then it is during these hours that he turns out to be truly religious. But the matter can also develop in such a way that only in the last hours of his vulgar or even criminal life will he ascend to the inner, soul-spiritual totality, like those “child-shoppers” about whom Victor Hugo (“L'homme qui rit”) narrates: In the open ocean, they are overtaken by a storm, they are shipwrecked, for the first time in their life they say the Lord's Prayer and drown on their knees. If a person is spiritually weak, split or confused, then this means that his religiosity is just emerging or, conversely, is decaying and dying. Then he cannot pray; and the one who tried to pray in such a state knows well that it was an attempt to get together, spiritually concentrate and ascend to wholeness, to become, at least for a moment, a spiritually total being ...

Therefore, one could say: religious is the one who able to pray. But praying does not mean getting into a prayer position and uttering certain words. Prayer does not mean asking at all. There is a prayer of wordless contemplation, silent gratitude, self-loss in heavenly goodness. You can pray in the form of questioning; you can pray by a strong-willed decision; crying for help, listening to new, grace-filled, praying music; simple actions; tireless exploration. And such a prayer fulfillment always retains its religious character: it is the ascent of human fire to God's Fireplace and the illumination of human twilight with divine Light.

The essence of religion in general consists in the fact that Revelation is given to a person and takes possession of a person. There is supreme illumination, final and true vision - obviousness. But this is not the kind of "insight" that touches one gaze, barely touches the cold gaze and fruitlessly slides off it. Revelation is not given to the curious eye of the imagination; it does not touch the dead surface of the soul, but enters deeply into the inner world in order to capture the innermost feeling. It is not like a tangent line, but a secant. It penetrates to the deepest hearts, to the source will and illuminates gloomy spaces like lightning instinct. His a ray penetrates the soul to her instinctive spirituality. Like a bright ray, it awakens the eye of the instinctively hidden spirit to make it happy and shine back from its depths. As a flame, it kindles the fire of the will, and the will begins to desire spiritual life, so that from its strengthening and blessing, this will would enter into union with God's flame. This is what Macarius of Egypt, this living flame of God, called "fusion." And religiosity is life from this, freely and sincerely accepted, mysterious and blissful union.

Figuratively speaking, it could be described as follows. Lightning falls from the sky - and the oak lights up with a powerful fire; the higher the tree, the closer the lightning is to it, the farther the flame that engulfed it shines. Or else: lightning falls into a dormant volcano, and the volcano responds with an eruption, which now will never end. After the reception of the revelation begins new life: and this new life is religious a life. Permeated with a ray of Grace, a person becomes one and whole. And prayer is nothing more than a striving for this meeting, or - the opening of the spiritual eye to meet the ray, or - a call directed to the divine flame.

Therefore, religiosity is not some kind of human "point of view", or "outlook", or "dogmatically obedient thinking and knowledge." No, there is religiosity life whole life and moreover creative life. She is new reality, held in the human world in order to creatively invest in the rest of the world. It is the contact of the world with God and, moreover, in this new, personal-human point. And more than that: it is a new entry of God's "energy" into the human world, a new "clotting" of divine Light, divine Goodness and Power in a new human heart. In general - an Event of world history in the process of the emergence and strengthening of the Kingdom of God.

People who approach this event from the outside know little about this reality and talk about a change in the "subjective point of view", about the "personal appeal" of a given person. But the renewed person experiences something different. He feels in himself a new reality that owns him, unites his personality and incorporates him in a new way into a new world. He feels in himself, like Ilya Muromets, a new power that seems to him boundless. This power is, to a certain extent, "he himself" - hence his increased responsibility, and at the same time she is much larger and more powerful than him - hence his sincere humility. And indeed, a new Power and Power lives in him, which makes him much more powerful than he was in himself and than he dared ever hope. And now his greatest concern is to prove himself worthy of this Power and Authority and to keep himself in proper purity ...

The inner reunion that he experiences consists in the fact that within his own limits arises a new, imperious center. This center shines on him in his inner life now as a quiet glow of a hot coal, now as a victorious and joyful flame. This luminous radiance is like a prayer that, once begun, does not stop anymore. A religious person can carry out his life affairs, can, apparently, indulge in his studies, perceptions and hobbies until absorbed and not think about his luminiferous source - but the light does not disappear, it remains and lasts, it shines, shines and leads. Sometimes it seems that he only bestows light, but continuously, quietly, benevolently and imperiously. But sometimes it seems that he is calling - sometimes in a whisper; then "signifying" and warning, as in Socrates; then demanding and involving in decisions and deeds, as in the case of the Christian righteous; sometimes in the form of conquering love, like Isaac the Syrian and Seraphim of Sarov; then opening the inner eye and granting contemplative evidence, as in the great philosophers and natural scientists. And when a person returns from his worldly enterprises and earthly attractions to himself, to his personal-spiritual depth, he becomes convinced that his stay "outside the center", in the earthly forest, where he left his temple, did not separate him from his sacred center and that the fire of his divine altar was not extinguished. This is experienced as great joy and encouragement. Returning to an already established and stable center gives it a flame cleansing power; and each time this is renewed, the spiritual centering of a person becomes more powerful and defining. Thus, a person gets the opportunity to constantly feel in his soul-spiritual depths some incessant secret prayer - wordless, quietly shining like a lamp - and not leave the central ray even in such life situations that are, apparently, "indifferent" or "Peripheral" ...

This is how the character of a religious person is built. Gradually, his spiritual center - where he finds God's Energy in himself or where he “loses” himself in His rays - becomes in him ubiquitous. This is not at all expressed in the fact that he now and then takes a pious look, annoys everyone around him with his empty sanctity, keeps prim and unctuous, or constantly conducts theological and moral conversations. No, his centrality remains intimate and personal, and, moreover, completely genuine in its intimacy, and completely quiet, unseen for all its authenticity. But everything in him glows and shines. Light is poured into all his states of mind, plans, works and enterprises. His eyes shine, his gaze shines. His smile was bright. The sounds of his voice are singing; his gait is harmoniously natural. He himself becomes a clear and transparent "environment" for his center, an obedient and faithful "organ" of his radiating heart. And the whole atmosphere of his soul is likened to the morning air, washed out by the night shower with a storm. Sometimes I want to say about such people: “he is as pure as a glass of God” ...

Or in other words: the spiritual center of such a person continuously sends out its "waves" and "rays". These rays illuminate his inner space in his solitude; they shine outside, proceeding from his works; they penetrate from it into the outside world. And the world should be happy and proud, having in its composition such a freely sincere and spiritually transparent person.

That is why a religious person is not inclined to lie. Disgust for insincerity there is a wondrous and sure sign of religiosity. Given the presence of serious spiritual motives, such a person can, of course, force himself to remain silent about known events and hide known states of the soul. Life is complex and varied; and the naked truth is not always spiritually appropriate and beneficial in life. But a religious man never lies in front of face his Center, never in anything, just as he does not lie about his Center and from him. He cannot utter a lie or commit a betrayal in the face of God by virtue of the mere fact that he does not leave his central ray and himself serves him as a faithful and transparent environment. But this is precisely why every shameless liar is irreligious and alienated from God; and the church, which permits and practices lies, loses its sacred meaning and becomes an instrument of opposing power.

All this could be expressed as follows. It is not difficult to recognize a religious person by the rays of light that emanate from him into the world. One shines with kindness; the other by his art; the third - by its obviousness, or by pacifying peace, or wondrous singing, or simple but noble deeds. This is what the Gospel means: "You will know them by their fruits" (Matt 7:16)... This light of living religiosity is difficult to hide or not notice, because it penetrates through all matters and "shines on the world." (Matt. 5:14); and only completely bitter and heart-blind people can walk past him without noticing anything. The inner life of a religious person should be revealed and strive to go out into the outer world. It is natural and true to drink water from a spring spring. Spring air is given to people to breathe; and the light of God should shine on people (cf. Matt 5:16)... And living religiosity is the spirit of God's spring, blowing in an awakened heart; and there is water from God's spring, which mysteriously made its way into the blessed soul; and there is the light of God, which is recognized to radiate freely and unhindered into the world.

A religious person is recognized by these properties, and inclinations, and manifestations. There is a breath of spirit in him; it has the singing of the soul; light is emitted from it. And he is always more than himself; and he is always internally rich, so much so that he himself does not always know the measure of his wealth. For what he carries in himself and what he radiates is the Kingdom of God, of which he is a secret participant.

« L "homme qui rit"(Fr.) -" The man who laughs. " The title of the novel by V. Hugo.
Macarius of Egypt(The great (301-391) - Christian ascetic, ascetic. In his youth he was a shepherd. At thirty he settled in solitude in a remote desert in Egypt, devoting himself to prayers to God. The glory of his righteousness spread very widely, attracting a lot of people to him. he was ordained a presbyter and left behind writings of a moral character.
Issak the Sirian(Nineveh) (? - end of the 7th century) - Syrian ascetic-moralistic writer. His works are devoted to the issues of mystical self-absorption and the struggle with passions.

§ 4 § 5 § 6 Chapter 6. Object of religious experience.§ 1 § 2 § 3 § 4 Chapter 7. The act of faith and its content§ 1 § 2 § 3 § 4 § 5 Chapter 8. The Immediacy of Religious Experience§ 1 § 2 § 3 § 4 § 5 Chapter 9. On the religious method§ 1 § 2 § 3 § 4 § 5 § 6 § 7 § 8 Chapter 10. About miraculous and mysterious§ 1 § 2 § 3 § 4 § 5 Chapter 11. The opening eye§ 1 § 2 § 3 § 4 § 5 Chapter 12. On Religious Doubt§ 1 § 2 § 3 § 4 § 5 Chapter 13. The religious meaning of vulgarity§ 1 § 2 § 3 § 4 § 5 § 6 Chapter 14. On the Degeneration of Religious Experience§ 1 § 2 § 3 § 4 § 5 Chapter 15. On Religious Cleansing§ 1 § 2 § 3 § 4 § 5 Chapter 16. Lights of Personal Life§ 1 § 2 § 3 § 4 § 5 Chapter 17. Gifts of the Church§ 1 § 2 § 3 § 4 § 5 § 6 Chapter 18. On Religious Integrity§ 1 § 2 § 3 § 4 § 5 § 6 Chapter 19. Of Religious Sincerity§ 1 § 2 § 3 § 4 § 5 § 6 Chapter 20. About Lies and Betrayal§ 1 § 2 § 3 § 4 § 5 Chapter 21. On Sin and Suffering§ 1 § 2 § 3 § 4 § 5 Chapter 22. About Prayer§ 1 § 2 § 3 § 4 § 5 Chapter 23. About Unity§ 1 § 2 § 3 § 4 § 5 § 6 Chapter 24. On humility and sobriety§ 1 § 2 § 3 § 4 § 5 § 6 Chapter 25. Involvement in the Light§ 1 § 2 § 3 § 4 § 5 § 6 § 7 Chapter 26. On the Power of the Spirit§ 1 § 2 § 3 § 4 Chapter 27. Tragic Problems of Religious Experience§ 1 § 2 § 3 § 4 § 5 § 6 Afterword

Indeed, the pagan world had its own, in time and distance, who had not yet seen Christ, contemplators, prayer-books and righteous men, whose virtues were by no means "brilliant prophets." The pagan peoples were not at all a godless, spiritually mortal and doomed multitude, but had their own measure of revelation, their inspired wisdom, their living religiosity and virtue. It is not for nothing that Justin Martyr, already in the second century, spoke of that “seed of the Word” which is “innate to the whole human race,” so that all who lived in accordance with this Word were Christians before Christ. No wonder Clement of Alexandria reproduced in his "Educator" the thoughts of the Stoic Mouzonius Rufus, St. Ambrose compiled Posidonius and Cicero, Tertullian ranked Seneca as almost a Christian (saepe noster), Lactantius glorified him, recognizing his words "almost divine", and Blessed Jerome directly entered it "in catalogum Sanctorum". It was not without reason that the ancient Church sometimes placed images of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle in the vestibules of their temples. The great religious contemplators of the pre-Christian era, as it were, were preparing the way for the Revelation of Christ: rarely - in the sphere of dogma, often - in the sphere of religious experience and act.

And in our time, every religious person should be prepared for the fact that other people of various religions and confessions, and especially non-believers altogether, will ask him about the sources and foundations of his faith, for we live in such an era when sources appear, apparently "discredited" - and these grounds are rejected and outraged. The basis of any religious faith is the personal religious experience of a person, and the source is the Revelation experienced in this experience. Modern man has no right to stand before his religious experience in helplessness and bewilderment: he must actively and responsibly build it and own it as the right path leading to God; he must know where he is going, how he navigates in the fog of disparity and temptations, what his path is and why he considers his path to be the right one; he must be able to respond to the questions of the difficult and helpless and rush to help them. In other words, he must master his religious act in order to protect him from temptations and attempts and to help others who have not yet endured their religious act.

These others may be, as said, people of a different confession and of a different religion; they can be people who are religiously “unborn”, spiritually asleep, or “half-dead”; they can be enemies of all faith and militant atheists. A modern religious person should have in his experience a word of help and advice for everyone, especially for those who have been captured from above by a wave of blind atheism and, spiritually choking, are calling for help. The naive time has passed when people, who are not whole in their religious experience and are timid before their non-wholeness, preferred not to touch on “these questions”, foreseeing that the “word”, as an instrument of “reason”, would undermine and destroy the last foundations of their religiosity. Indeed, a blind, idle, and irresponsible word, accustomed to serving abstract and blind rational thought, could damage an aimless and timid religious experience. But this time has been outlived: all the idle and irresponsible words that the blind mind has accumulated in the era of the so-called "enlightenment", i.e. real spiritual obscuration. - spoken long ago, printed and distributed throughout the universe. That which could have been destroyed has either already collapsed, or, on the contrary, has grown stronger and established itself. We have entered a new era. The time has come for a lack of faith, spiritual and self-directed religiosity, emanating from the heart, built by heartfelt contemplation, affirming its certification and rationality, knowing its own path, whole-hearted, leading a person through humility and sobriety to unity with God. It is this faith and this faith that my research wishes to serve.

But only the text of my book itself can give a complete explanation of all this.

It consists of two parts: of the main chapters, number 27, setting out the results of my research, almost without quotations and references; and from the "Literary Supplements" to each chapter separately, where interesting judgments on the merits of the issues are given in the original texts, instructive historical phenomena and events are indicated, and sometimes explanatory and polemical remarks on my behalf are inserted, remarks that have not found a place in the main text ...

And so I earnestly ask serious and responsible readers of my book, firstly, to read after each chapter the Literary Supplement referred to it, and, secondly. to judge a book only by reading it in its entirety, for it is integral from the title to the last line. Let us also recall the wise rule that Basil the Great left us: "Whoever judges a composition, with almost the same reserve should begin the matter as he who wrote it" (Letter 196 to the Neocaesareans).

If the very limitation of the topic, which I have borne out and implemented here, seems to someone inappropriate, then let him investigate in his own way, but let him not think that the problem of "pneumatic actology" is not essential and that it can be simply bypassed.