Clive Lewis

B. Pascal. "Thoughts".

If a few years ago, when I was still an atheist, someone had asked me why I didn’t believe in God, I would have answered something like this: “Look at the world in which we live. Almost all of it consists of empty, dark, unimaginably cold space. There's so little in it celestial bodies and they themselves are so small in comparison with him that, even if they were all inhabited by the happiest creatures, it is not easy to believe that the power that created them had their happiness and life in mind. In fact, scientists believe that very few stars have planets (perhaps only our Sun), and in solar system Apparently, only the Earth is inhabited. And moreover, there was no life on it for millions of years. And what kind of life is this? All its forms exist, destroying each other. At the very bottom this leads to death, but higher up, when the senses are included, it gives rise to a special phenomenon - pain. Living beings cause pain when they are born, and live through the pain of others, and die in pain. At the very top, in man, there is another phenomenon - the mind; he can foresee pain, foresee death, and in addition, he is able to imagine much more pain for others. We took advantage of this ability to great effect. Human history full of crimes, wars, suffering and fear, and there is just so much happiness in it that while it is there, we are painfully afraid of losing it, and when it is gone, we suffer even more. From time to time, life seems to get better, civilizations are created. But they all die, and the relief they brought to them is completely balanced by new types of suffering. It is unlikely that anyone will argue that in our civilization this balance is achieved, and many will agree that it itself will disappear, like all the previous ones. And if it doesn’t disappear, so what? We are doomed anyway, the whole world is doomed, because, as science tells us, the Universe will someday become uniform, shapeless and cold. All plots will end in nothing, and life will turn out to be just a fleeting, meaningless smile on the idiotic face of nature. I do not believe that all this was created by a good and all-powerful spirit. Either there is no such spirit at all, or he is indifferent to good and evil, or he is simply angry.”

One thing did not occur to me: I did not notice that the very strength and simplicity of these arguments poses a new problem. If the world is so bad, why did people decide that a wise Creator created it? Perhaps people are stupid - but not that much! It is difficult to imagine that, looking at a terrible flower, we will consider its root good, or, seeing an absurd and unnecessary object, we will decide that its creator is smart and skillful. The world known to us by the evidence of the senses could not become the basis of faith; something else must have generated and nourished it.

You will say that our ancestors were dark and considered nature better than we, familiar with the successes of science, consider it. And you will be wrong. People have long known how monstrously large and empty the Universe is. You've probably read that in the Middle Ages the Earth seemed flat to people and the stars seemed close; but that's not true. Ptolemy said long ago that the Earth is a mathematical point compared to the distance to the stars, and this distance in one very old book is determined to be one hundred and seventeen million miles. And then, from the very beginning, other, more obvious things gave people a feeling of hostile infinity. For prehistoric man, the neighboring forest was large enough and just as alien and evil as it is alien and evil for us cosmic rays or cooling stars. Pain, suffering and the fragility of human life have always been known to people. Our faith arose among a people squeezed between great warlike empires, subjected to invasions, taken into captivity, who knew the tragedy of the vanquished, like Armenia or Poland. It is absurd to think that science discovered suffering. Put this book down and think for five minutes about the fact that all great religions arose and developed for many centuries in a world where there was no anesthesia.

In a word, at any time it was difficult to deduce the wisdom and goodness of the Creator from observations of the world. Religion was born differently. Now I will describe the origin of faith, and not defend it itself - it seems to me that without this it is impossible to correctly pose the question of suffering.

In all developed religions we find three elements (in Christianity, as you will see, there is also a fourth). The first of these is what Professor Otto calls “the sense of the sacred.” For those who have not encountered this term, I will try to explain it. If they tell you: “There is a tiger in the next room,” you will be afraid. But if they tell you that there is a ghost in the next room and you believe it, you will be scared differently. The point here is not the danger - no one really knows why a ghost is dangerous, but the fact itself. Such fear of the unknown can be called horror or horror. Here we touch on some boundaries of the “sacred”. Now imagine that they simply tell you: “There is a powerful spirit in the next room.” Fear and sense of danger will be even less, embarrassment will be even greater. You will feel a discrepancy between yourself and this spirit and even an admiration for it, that is, a feeling that can be expressed in the words of Shakespeare: “My spirit is crushed by it.” This is reverent fear of what we called “sacred.”

There is no doubt that from very ancient times man has felt the world as a receptacle for all kinds of spirits. Probably, Professor Otto is not entirely right and these spirits did not immediately begin to evoke “sacred fear.” This cannot be proven, because the language does not really distinguish between fear of the sacred and fear of danger - we still say that we are “afraid of ghosts” and “afraid of rising prices.” It is quite possible that once upon a time people were simply afraid of spirits, like tigers. Another thing is certain: now, in our days, the “sense of the sacred” exists and we can trace it far into the depths of centuries.

If we are not too proud to look for examples in a children's book, let's read a passage from The Wind in the Willows, where the Rat and the Mole come closer and closer to the Island Spirit. “Rat,” the Mole whispered barely audibly, “aren’t you afraid?” - "Afraid? - asked the Rat, and his eyes shone with unspeakable love. - Well, what are you talking about! But still... oh, Mole, I’m so afraid!”

Moving forward a century further, we find examples in Wardworth in a remarkable passage from the first book of the Prelude, where he describes his sensations from a ride in a shepherd's boat, and even further in Malory, where Sir Galahad “trembled, for mortal flesh touched him invisible." At the beginning of our era, we read in Revelation that John the Evangelist fell at the feet of Christ “as if dead.” In pagan poetry we will find in Ovid a line about the place where “numen inest”; and Virgil describes the palace of Latina, which “was surrounded by a grove ... and was considered sacred (religione) from ancient times.” In the Greek fragment attributed to Aeschylus, we will see the word about how the sea, land and mountains tremble “under the terrible eye of their master.” Let’s move on further, and the prophet Ezekiel will tell us about the heavenly wheels that “they were terrible” (Ezek. 1:18), and Jacob, getting up from sleep, will exclaim: “This place is terrible!” (Ge. 28:17).

We don't know how far further we could go. The most ancient people almost certainly believed in things that would evoke such a feeling in us - and it is only in this sense that we have the right to say that the “sense of the sacred” is as old as humanity. But it's not about the dates. The fact is that once, at some stage, this feeling arose, and took root, and did not go away, despite all the progress of science and civilization.

The sensation we are talking about is not generated by exposure visible world. You can say that for ancient man surrounded by countless dangers, it was quite natural to invent the unknown and the “sacred.” In a certain sense, you are right - and in this sense: you are a human being, just like him, and it is easy for you to imagine that danger and confusion will cause such a feeling in you. There is not the slightest reason to believe that in another kind of consciousness the thought of wounds, pain or death will lead to such a sensation. Moving from bodily fear to “fear and trembling,” a person jumps into the abyss; he learns what cannot be given in physical experience and in logical conclusions from it. Scientific explanations themselves need an explanation - say, anthropologists derive the above-mentioned feeling from “fear of the dead”, without revealing to us why such harmless creatures as the dead cause fear. We emphasize that horror and horror are in completely different dimensions than fear of danger. No enumeration of physical qualities gives an idea of ​​beauty to someone who does not know it; so it is here: no enumeration of dangers gives even a small idea of ​​the special feeling that I am trying to describe. Apparently, only two points of view logically follow from it: either it is a disease of our soul, which does not correspond to anything objective, but for some reason does not disappear even from such full-fledged souls as the souls of a thinker, poet or saint; or is it a sensation of real, but extra-natural phenomena, which we have the right to call revelation.

However, “sacred” is not the same as “good,” and a terror-stricken person, left to himself, may think that it is “beyond good and evil.” Here we come to the second element of faith. All people about whom there is even the slightest evidence recognized some kind of system of moral concepts - they could say “I must” about something, “I can’t” about something. This element also cannot be directly deduced from simple, visible facts. It’s one thing “I want”, or “I’m forced”, or “it’s beneficial for me”, or “I don’t dare”, and completely different - “I have to”.

As in the first case, scientists explain this element by saying that it itself needs to be explained, say (like the famous father of psychoanalysis), some kind of prehistoric parricide. Parricide created a feeling of guilt only because people considered it evil. Morality is also a leap over the abyss from everything that can be given in experience. However, unlike “fear and trembling,” it has another important feature: moral systems are different (although not as much as they think), but they all prescribe rules of behavior that their supporters do not follow. It is not someone else’s code, but its own that condemns a person, and therefore all people live in a feeling of guilt. The second element of religion is not just awareness of the moral law, but awareness of the law that we have accepted and do not fulfill. This cannot be deduced either logically or in any other way from the facts of experience. Either this is an inexplicable illusion, or it’s still the same revelation.

Moral feeling and “sense of the sacred” are so far from each other that they can exist for a very long time without touching. In paganism, the veneration of gods and the disputes of philosophers are often not connected with each other. The third element of religious development arises when a person identifies them - when the awe-inspiring deity is also perceived as the guardian of morality. Perhaps this too seems natural to us. Indeed, this is characteristic of people; but “of course” this is by no means obvious. The world inhabited by deities does not behave at all as the moral code tells us - it is unfair, indifferent and cruel. The assumption that we just want to think so will not explain anything - who would want the moral law, which is not easy in itself, to be invested with the mysterious power of the “sacred”? Without a doubt, this jump is the most amazing, and it is no coincidence that not everyone made it; non-moral religion and non-religious morality have always existed, and they still exist today. Probably only one people accomplished it completely; but great personalities of all countries and times also committed it at their own peril and risk, and only they were saved from the obscenity and savagery of an immoral faith or from the cold complacency of pure morality. Logic does not prompt us to take this leap, but something else attracts us to it, and even in pantheism or paganism, no, no, let the moral law appear; even through stoicism some reverence for God will appear. Perhaps this, too, is madness, natural to man and for some reason bearing wonderful fruits. But if this is Revelation, then truly in Abraham the tribes of the earth were blessed, for some Jews boldly and completely identified that terrible thing that lives on the black mountain tops and in thunderclouds with the righteous Lord, who “loves righteousness” (Ps. 10:7 ).

The fourth element came later. Among the Jews a Man was born who called Himself the Son of a terrible and righteous God. Moreover, He said that He and this God are one. This claim is so terrible, so absurd and monstrous that there can only be two points of view on it: either this man was a madman of the most vile kind, or He was telling the pure truth. There is no third option. If other evidence about him does not lead you to accept the first point of view, you are obliged to accept the second. And if you accept it, everything that Christians claim will become possible. It will no longer be difficult to believe that this Man was resurrected, and His death in some incomprehensible way changed His better side our relationship with a terrible and righteous God.

By asking whether the visible world looks like the creation of a wise and good Creator or rather like something meaningless, if not evil, we dismiss everything that is important in religious issues. Christianity is not derived from philosophical debates about the birth of the Universe; it is a shattering historical event that crowned long centuries of spiritual preparation. This is not a system into which the fact of suffering must somehow be squeezed into; This is a fact that any of our systems have to reckon with. In a certain sense, it does not solve, but poses the problem of suffering - there would be no problem in suffering if, living in this world teeming with troubles, we did not believe that the ultimate reality is full of love.

I tried to talk about why faith seems justified to me. Logic does not force it. At any stage of development, a person can rebel, in a certain sense, violating his nature, but without sinning against reason. He can close his eyes and not see the “sacred” if he is ready to break with half the great poets and all the prophets and with his own childhood. He may consider the moral law a fiction and cut himself off from humanity. He may not recognize the unity of the Divine and the righteous and become a savage, deifying sex, or death, or power, or the future. As for the historical Incarnation, it requires a particularly strong faith. It is strangely similar to many myths - and not like them. It defies reason, it cannot be invented, and it does not have the suspicious, a priori clarity of pantheism or Newtonian physics. It is arbitrary and unpredictable, like the world to which modern physics is gradually accustoming us, a world where energy is in some tiny clumps, where speed is not limitless, where irreversible entropy gives direction to time, and the Universe moves, like a drama, from the true beginning to the true end. If a message from the very heart of reality can reach us, it seems to have that unexpectedness, that stubborn complexity that we see in Christianity. Yes, in Christianity there is precisely this sharp aftertaste, precisely this overtone of truth, not created by us and not even created for us, but striking us like a blow.

IN lately Among Orthodox believers, the book of Prof. Veinika V.Y.: “Why I believe in God” (Minsk, 1998). Reprints from this book are regularly circulated by such publications as “Save Our Souls”, “SOS”, and in Minsk this book was reprinted. On the back page of the book it is designated: “religious edition,” and although the author is a physicist, his work touches on many aspects of the dogmatic theology of the Church. Let us consider here some characteristic fragments of Viktor Veinik’s book.

Explaining his doctrine of God’s creation of the world from nothing, the professor writes: “How can you make something “out of nothing”? To understand this, let us cite other similar phrases from the Bible: “He... hung the earth on nothing” (Job 26:7); “from what is invisible came what is visible” (Heb. 11:3); These phrases are quite enough. Now we know that the words “on nothing” in the first quote refer to an invisible and imperceptible, very subtle material gravitational nanofield. Therefore, the whole point is not in the absence of a building substance, but in its invisibility, and the word bar specifically emphasizes the origin of the visible from the invisible. The second quote leaves no doubt about this. Consequently, the visible material heaven and earth were created by God from invisible substances, but precisely from substances, that is, in fact everything in the world is material, materially. This is another crushing blow to naive materialism, because even the very name used by atheists to contrast the material with the spiritual loses its meaning” (pp. 130-131). First, note that the quotation from Heb. 11.3, with the help of which prof. Veinik substantiates his teachings, taken out of context. The full phrase reads like this: “By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that what is visible was made out of things that are visible,” i.e. What is meant here is that since faith is “the evidence of things unseen” (Heb. 11:1), it is by faith that we understand that the visible world was created by the invisible God, His word. This can be seen more clearly if we turn to the more accurate Slavic translation: “by faith we understand that the word of God will come into being through the ages from those who are not visible.” Secondly, God’s creation of the world from nothing implies an absolute creative act, creation precisely from nothing at all. In patristic writing, the phrase “ek to onton” - slav was used for this. “from non-existent” - i.e. from something that does not exist as such, so when Victor Yozefovich questions this fact: “How can you make something out of nothing?”, he questions God’s omnipotence. St. John Chrysostom writes: “With great gratitude let us accept what was said (by Moses), without going beyond our boundaries, and without experiencing what is above us, as the enemies of truth did, who wanted to comprehend everything with their minds, without thinking that human nature cannot to comprehend the creation of God... And what excuse can you have, what excuse, when you are so crazy and dreaming of what is above your nature? To say that everything came from a ready-made substance, and not to admit that the Creator of the universe produced everything from nothing, would be a sign of extreme madness” (Conversations on the book of Genesis, II, 2).

God, being an absolute Person, did not need any material, neither visible nor invisible, to create the world, and He created the entire world at the behest of His will. St. Theophilus of Antioch says: “What is great if God created the world from ready-made matter? And a human artist, if he receives a substance from someone, makes of it what he wants. The power of God is revealed in the fact that out of nothing he creates what he wants” (Epistle to Autolycus II, 4).

The beginning of the world was also the beginning of time: - day one, day two, etc. Before that there was neither time nor any matter, there was only one eternal God. Therefore, saying that the verb “bara” used in the first lines of the book of Genesis indicates God’s use of an invisible “building substance”, Prof. Veinik asserts the co-eternity of matter with God - a false teaching of antiquity long condemned by the Church.

Now let's move on to another aspect of Prof.'s teaching. Veinika. About the time of the creation of angels, Viktor Yozefovich writes: “It is generally accepted that the indicated army (ministering spirits, or angels) was created on the first day. But the Bible does not say this anywhere” (p. 132), - the professor further points to the origin of spirits on the sixth day of creation. It is interesting that Viktor Yozefovich, adhering to the concept of natural scientific accuracy of the Biblical picture of the world (p. 16), arguing that it was “literally embedded in the brains” of the writer down to its last detail (p. 30), makes such a gross mistake. Yes, indeed, Scripture does not say that angels were created on the first day, but if Veinik had read it more carefully, he would have seen that angels were generally created before the entire visible world. In the book of Job, the Lord says: “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell me if you know? or who stretched the rope along it? On what were its foundations established, or who laid its cornerstone, when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?” Let us note that the professor’s writings show that he not only does not take into account the entire picture of the world presented by the Holy Scriptures, but is also very poorly acquainted with the patristic tradition. So, for example, St. Gregory the Theologian writes: “Of the worlds, one was created first. This is another heaven, the abode of the God-bearers, contemplated by a single mind, bright (mysterious chants, Homily IV). St. Basil the Great says: “Even before the existence of the world, there was a certain state befitting the supermundane forces, transcending time, eternal, ever-lasting. In it, the Creator and Creator of all things created creations - mental light, befitting the bliss of those who love the Lord, rational and invisible natures and all the ornaments of intelligible creatures that surpass our understanding, and that it is impossible to invent names for them. They fill the essence invisible world, as Paul teaches us, saying: “For by this all things were created, whether visible or invisible, whether they were thrones, whether they were dominions, whether they were principalities, whether they were powers” ​​(Col. 1:16), both the armies of angels and the rulers of Archangels” ( Conversation on Shestodnev, 1).

St. Simeon the New Theologian says that angels were produced by God long before the sun, stars, earth and everything else (Divine Hymns, XL). They said the same thing. Irenaeus of Lyon, St. Dionysius the Areopagite, Athanasius the Great, Epiphanius of Cyprus, John Chrysostom, Ambrose of Milan, Gregory the Great, St. John of Damascus, Anastasius of Sinai and others.

Contrary to the teachings of the Church, Victor Josephovich makes his assumption: “The Lord used the spirit of His mouth only on the sixth day, when it was necessary to create a spirit for man. Therefore, we can assume that all other spirits (armies) were also created on the sixth day... Providentially, the need for an army could arise only on the sixth day, when man (and animals and reptiles) was created. A slight hint of this is contained in the words: “The serpent was more cunning than all the beasts of the field that the Lord God created” (Genesis 3:1), in them the main spirit of evil - the devil - is identified with the serpent, the reptile, and the reptiles were created precisely on the sixth day (p. 132). Here we see a whole palette of false teachings, let’s look at them in a little more detail:

1) In the words of Holy Scripture: “By the Word of the Lord the heavens were made, and by the spirit of His mouth all their host” (Ps. 33:6), - the Church sees an indication of the Three Persons of the Holy Trinity: the Father, the Word and the Spirit, each of which received participation in creation. The Spirit of the mouth of God and the Spirit that hovered over the waters are one Person who acted at every moment of creation, and not just on the sixth day, as Veinik claims.

2) The devil is not at all identified with the serpent, but entered into it to tempt man. St. John Chrysostom writes: “Having found this beast, i.e. the serpent, which was superior in meaning to other animals, which Moses also testified with the words: the serpent was the wisest of all the animals that are on earth, which the Lord God created, - using him as an instrument, the devil through him enters into a conversation with his wife, and draws him into his deception is the simplest and weakest vessel" (Conversations on the book of Genesis. XVI, 127). By identifying the devil with the serpent - a reptile created by God on the sixth day, Viktor Yozefovich makes God the culprit of evil, because according to him, it turns out that God created the devil as such, rejecting the Christian teaching that the highest angel became the devil (Greek - slanderer) of his own free will, having fallen away from God.

3) From the above quotation it is clear that the human spirit is, as it were, identified by Veinik with disembodied spirits, this is clear from the construction of the phrase: “...Spirit for man...all other spirits” - such an identification is for the professor one of the grounds for his position on the creation of angels in sixth day. In reality, it is impossible to identify disembodied spirits, created “in the beginning” from nothing, and the spirit of man, which is part of his nature and, like the entire human composition, was created from the dust of the earth. St. Seraphim of Sarov says: “For example, many interpret that when the Bible says: “God will breathe the breath of life into the face of Adam, the first created and created by Him from the dust of the earth,” as if this meant that Adam had no soul before and the human spirit, but there was only one flesh, created from the dust of the earth. This interpretation is not correct, for the Lord God created Adam from the dust of the earth in the same composition as Father, the Holy Apostle Paul states: “May your spirit, soul and flesh be all-perfect at the coming of Our Lord Jesus Christ.” And all three of these parts of our nature were created from the dust of the earth” (Conversation with Motovilov).

Sin in Veinik’s teaching is understood not as the tragedy of a violation of a person’s personal communication with God as a result of the former’s betrayal, but as a mechanical breakdown, a failure in the system of automatic influence of spiritual laws on natural ones. Carrying out his extrasensory teaching about “special channels” in a person, “under which streams of positive and negative chrons continuously circulate,” the professor writes: “clogging one of the channels or a section of it leads to a failure in the regulatory system, and the person gets sick.” Thus, “spiritual laws automatically govern natural ones” (quoted from “SND No. 2 (17), 2000, pp. 20-22). “In the human body, the Creator has installed automatically triggering mechanisms that, during a sinful life, cause spiritual and physical illnesses” (p. 51). Veinik teaches that “there is a direct, automatic connection between the nature of sin and the type of disease” (p. 189). But spiritual laws cannot automatically govern natural ones. We believe in a personal God. His work is always directed towards man as an individual. The Lord knows the secrets of the human heart and takes a direct part in his life. The statement that spiritual laws automatically govern natural ones is characteristic of the pantheistic religions of Hinduism with their impersonal absolute and the doctrine of karma; or for deism, with its self-governing world, but not for Orthodoxy. If we turn to the Holy Scriptures, we will see that it says a lot about the illnesses of the righteous and the prosperity of sinners; let us at least remember the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. There are also many examples in the lives of saints that refute the teachings of Veinik. We will only mention here Pimen the Many-Sick, the Kiev-Pechersk miracle worker, who was born and raised sick, lived his whole life holy and healed illnesses himself.

Explaining his teaching about human nature, Veynik deprives him of the ability to think, he states, “That among the talents bestowed on man, the gift of creating thoughts, that is, the gift of thinking, is completely absent. It’s a stunning discovery, but it is what it is, and nothing can be done about it” (p. 150). God, according to the teachings of Veinik, created man “incapable of thinking independently: he can only choose from what is offered to him in ready-made form from God and Satan” (p. 108). “A person does not have the organ of thinking that creates thought” (p. 51). “In fact, the original source and creator of all thoughts is only God (and to a certain limited extent the devil, or Satan)” (p. 101). However, if a person’s mind is incapable of giving birth to a thought, then it is no longer a mind, at least not the mind of a person created in the image of God.

Archim. Cyprian (Kern), expounding the teaching of St. fathers about man, writes: “The spiritual life of man in the ability to think and speak reflects the intra-trinity life of the Divine” (Anthropology of St. Gregory Palamas. M. 1996. p. 251).

Citing here quotes from St. fathers, let us make a reservation that the Greek “logos” (thought, word, mind) in Russian tests is translated as “word”. Rev. Simeon the New Theologian writes that man “truly is in the image of God who created him, since he has a rational, mental and immortal soul, gifted with mind and word. Whoever does not philosophize in this way probably exposes himself that he is insane and dumb, i.e. has neither mind nor words... A mind that does not give birth to words cannot henceforth accept words; for how is it possible from now on for someone to hear a word who has himself become deaf and dumb and has stepped out of the order of his nature? just as we naturally have within ourselves a breathing spirit, by which we breathe and live, so if we stop breathing, we will immediately die: so our mind naturally has within itself the power of words, with which it gives birth to the word, and if it is deprived of the natural generation of the word, so , no matter how he is divided and cut by the word that naturally exists in him, then by this he will be killed and become useless for anything. Thus, our mind received from God its natural ability to always give birth to words, which it has inseparably and is always united with itself. If you take away the word, then along with the word you will take away the mind, the origin of the word” (Word, LXI).

Blzh. Theodoret writes: “The mind gives birth to the word; with the word comes the spirit, which is not born like the word; but always accompanying the word, emanating, along with the born word” (quoted from: Cyprian (Kern), archimandrite. Op. p. 193). St. Photius says that man “has within himself a rational and life-giving principle, the mind gives birth to the word, the spirit comes with the word, but is not born like the word, but always accompanies it. All this is in man as the image (of God - Ed.)” (quoted from: Ibid., p. 252). They say the same thing: St. Gregory of Nyssa, St. Gregory Palamas, St. Anastasy Sinait and others.

Victor Veynik states: “It is naive to believe that we think for ourselves. All our sensations, feelings, desires, impulses, thoughts, words, actions, memories, dreams, etc. - all this is given to us from the outside” (quoted from: “SND” No. 2 (17), 2000, p. 21). And St. John of Damascus in the chapter “On the Thinking Ability” writes: “The thinking ability (of a person - Ed.) is characterized by decisions, approval, and incentives that guide action, and deviations, and escape from activity” (Exact presentation Orthodox faith, book II, 19).

Depriving a person of the ability to think prof. Veinik naturally deprives him of the ability to create: “Obviously, the Almighty cannot be the Almighty if He transfers the right to create to His creation” (p. 106). However, St. The fathers saw the ability to create as one of the highest manifestations of the image of God in man, which (manifestation), in contrast to the teachings of Veinik, makes him “more in the image of God” than the angels. St. Gregory Palamas writes: “More than angels, we are created in the image of God. And not only because it transcends any kind of knowledge. In fact, we alone of all creatures have, in addition to mind and reason, also feelings. What is naturally connected with reason reveals a diverse variety of arts, sciences and knowledge: agriculture, building houses, creating things out of nothing - of course not out of complete non-existence, for this is already the work of God - all this is given only to people" (qtd. by: Cyprian (Kern), archim. op. p. 364). Archimandrite Cyprian writes: “In man, in his spiritual essence, those features are revealed that most closely connect him with the Creator, i.e. creative abilities and talents. It is given to man to create, though not out of nothing, as the Creator Himself creates, but still to create something that has not happened before” (Ibid. p. 368-369). They said the same thing: St. Anastasius Sinait, St. Photius of Constantinople, bl. Theodoret and others.

Veynik distorts in the most terrible way Orthodox teaching about the sacraments. He writes: “The SD substance is used to charge (bless) water, prosphora, oil, artos and other substances in the church” (p. 165). As the professor explains, “under the abbreviation SD I have hidden the substance of the Holy Spirit” (p. 164). It is impossible not to notice that the mind of a scientist crawls in the field of scientific, pseudo-spiritual mechanics. Having converted to Orthodoxy, instead of renouncing his sinful way of thinking and changing his mind, subordinating it to the revealed Truth, the professor, on the contrary, approaches the Church, theology and the Sacraments with his own arshin: “I previously established that one prayer “Father our" increases the radius of the nanochronal ellipsoid by thousands of times, and an hour's stay in an Orthodox church during worship - by hundreds of thousands and millions of times. Then, over the course of a week or two, the acquired energy is gradually wasted on all sorts of sins, and the radius returns to its daily level approximately according to the exponential (logarithmic) law. U an ordinary person The radius of the ellipsoid is several meters; for psychics it reaches many kilometers, as it was for me. Now it turns out that communion exponentially increases this radius. In addition, each subsequent communion increases the overall intermediate level energy. For example, on one Saturday before communion, the radius was equal to one followed by 56 zeros meters (1056 m). Participation in Saturday evening worship increased it a billion billion times (up to 1074 m). It was multiplied by approximately the same number of times on Sunday by the pre-communion morning prayer(up to 1091 m). And Sunday communion itself raised the radius to values ​​exceeding one with 252 zero meters (10252 m) - I no longer had insulating sheets of polyethylene on hand (each sheet reduces the measured radius by 10 times, so all measurements are carried out within the room; the radius found - a relative value; it makes no sense to compare it with the radius of the Universe). Amazing result! With this quantitative example, the extremely important role of communion became clear” (p. 163).

Without going into a discussion of the blasphemy of the experiments conducted by the professor, we note that Divine grace cannot be measured because it is uncreated and is the Divinity itself - the nature of the Trinitarian God. Grace cannot be identified with the help of any devices; it is known by a contrite and humble heart as it is cleansed from passions.

The fragments of the teachings of Prof. Veinik's teachings are far from exhausting the entire heretical teaching of this unfortunate man, but they are characteristic features of the picture of the universe he paints, imbued with scientific rationalism and undoubtedly being an alternative to patristic, Orthodox theology.

7 Reasons Why I Believe in God (A.K. Morrison)

Famous American scientist former chairman New York Academy of Sciences, A. Kressm Morrison, proves the existence of God in his brilliant article: “Seven Reasons Why I Believe in God.”

"We are still only at the dawn scientific knowledge" says K. Morrison. “The closer to dawn, the brighter our morning, the more clearly the creation of an intelligent Creator becomes clear to us. Now, in the spirit of scientific humility, in the spirit of faith based on knowledge, we come even closer to unshakable confidence in the existence of God.

Personally, I count seven circumstances that determine my faith in God. Here they are:

1. A very clear mathematical law proves that the universe was created by the Greatest Intelligence.

Imagine that you are throwing ten coins into a bag. Coins, in order of value, range from one cent to ten. Then shake the bag. Now try to pull out the coins one by one in order of their value, putting each coin back again and shaking the bag again. Mathematics says that we have a one in ten chance of drawing a one-cent coin the first time. To pull out a one-cent coin, and immediately after it a two-cent coin, our chances turn out to be one in a hundred. To pull out three coins in a row in this way, we have one chance in a thousand, etc. For the fact that we pull out all ten coins given order, we have a one in ten billion chance.

The same mathematical arguments suggest that For the emergence and development of life on earth, such an incredible number of relationships and interconnections are necessary that without reasonable direction, simply by chance, they could not have arisen. The speed of rotation on the surface of the earth is defined as one thousand miles per hour. If the earth rotated at a speed of one hundred miles per hour, our days and nights would become ten times longer. For have a long day the sun would burn out all living things, and during the long night all living things would freeze to death.

Then - The sun's temperature is 12,000 degrees Fahrenheit. The earth is removed from the sun as much as necessary for this " eternal flame"properly warmed us, no more, no less! If the sun gave half as much heat, we would freeze. If it gave twice as much, we would die from the heat.

The slope of the earth is 23°. This is where the seasons come from. If the slope of the earth were different, evaporation from the ocean would move back and forth, south and north, piling up entire continents of ice. If the moon, instead of its present distance, were 50,000 miles away from us, our ebb and flow of tides would take on such enormous proportions that all continents would be under water twice a day. As a result, the mountains themselves would soon be washed away. If earth's crust would be comparatively thicker than now, there would not be enough oxygen on the surface, and all living things would be doomed to death. If the ocean were relatively deeper, carbon dioxide would absorb all the oxygen, and all living things, again, would die. If the atmosphere enveloping the globe were a little thinner, then the meteors, millions of which burn up in it every day, falling to the ground, would fall on it in their entirety and would cause innumerable fires everywhere.

These and countless other examples indicate that there is not one chance in many millions for the random emergence of life on earth.

2. The wealth of sources from which life draws strength to accomplish its task is in itself proof of the presence of a self-sufficient and omnipotent Mind.

No man has hitherto been able to comprehend what life is. She has neither weight nor size, but she truly has strength. A sprouting root can destroy the rock. Life conquered water, land and air, took possession of their elements, forcing them to dissolve and transform their constituent combinations.

Life is a sculptor who gives form to all living things, an artist who carves the shape of every leaf on a tree, who determines the color of every flower. Life is a musician who taught birds to sing songs of love, who taught insects to make an innumerable number of sounds and call each other with them. Life is a subtle chemist, giving taste to fruits, smell to flowers, a chemist changing water and carbon dioxide into sugar and wood, and at the same time receiving oxygen necessary for all living things.

Here before us is a drop of protoplasm, an almost invisible drop, transparent, jelly-like, capable of moving and extracting energy from the sun. This cell, this transparent lobe of dust is the germ of life and has within itself the power to communicate life to large and small. The power of this drop, this speck of dust is greater than the power of our existence, stronger than animals and people, for it is the basis of all living things. Nature did not create life. Rocks split by fire and freshwater seas would not be able to meet the requirements that life imposes for its emergence.

Who put life into this speck of protoplasm?

3. The intelligence of animals indisputably testifies to a wise Creator, who instilled instinct in creatures that would otherwise be
completely helpless creatures.

The young salmon spends its youth in the sea, then returns to its native river and follows it along the very same side along which the eggs from which it hatched were carried. What guides him with such precision? If he is placed in a different environment, he will immediately feel that he has lost his way, he will fight his way to the main stream, then go against the stream and fulfill his destiny with due precision.

More big secret you hide the behavior of an eel within yourself. These amazing creatures mature age travel from all ponds, rivers and lakes, even if they are in Europe, travel thousands of miles across the ocean and go to deep sea off Bermuda. Here they perform their act of reproduction and die. Little eels that seem to have no idea about anything that could get lost in ocean depths, follow the path of their fathers, to the very rivers, ponds and lakes from which they began their journey to Bermuda. In Europe, not a single eel that belongs to American waters has ever been caught, and in America, not a single European eel has ever been caught. The European eel reaches maturity a year later, allowing it to make its journey. Where is this guiding impulse born?

A wasp, taking a grasshopper, hits him exactly specific place. The grasshopper “dies” from this blow. He loses consciousness and continues to live, representing a kind of canned meat. After this, the wasp lays its larvae so that the hatched little ones can suck the grasshopper without killing it. Dead meat would be deadly food for them. Having completed this work, the mother wasp flies away and dies. She never sees her cubs. There is not the slightest doubt that every wasp does this work for the first time in its life, without any training, and does it exactly as it should, otherwise where would there be wasps? This mystical technique cannot be explained by the fact that wasps learn from one another. It is embedded in their flesh and blood.

4. Man has more than animal instinct. He has reason.

There was and is no such animal that could count to ten. It cannot even understand the essence of the number ten. If instinct can be compared to one note of a flute, with a beautiful but limited sound, then we must accept that the human mind is capable of perceiving all the notes not only of one flute, but also of all the instruments of the orchestra. Is it worth mentioning one more point: thanks to our mind, we are able to reason about what we are, and this ability is determined only by the fact that a spark of the Mind of the Universe is embedded in us.

5. The miracle of genes - a phenomenon that we know, but which was not known to Darwin, indicates that care was taken for all living things.

The size of genes is so incredibly small that if all of them, i.e. genes that make all people live globe, would be collected together, they could fit into a thimble. And the thimble wouldn't be full yet! And yet, these ultramicroscopic genes and their accompanying chromosomes are present in all cells of all living things and are the absolute key to explaining all the characteristics of humans, animals and plants. Thimble! It can contain all the individual characteristics of all two billion human beings. And there can be no question of doubt about this. If this is so, then how does it happen that a gene even includes the key to the psychology of each individual creature, fitting all this into such a small volume?

This is where evolution begins! It begins in a unit that is the keeper and carrier of genes. And the fact that several million atoms included in an ultramicroscopic gene may turn out to be the absolute key directing life on earth is evidence proving that all living things are cared for, that someone has foreseen for them in advance, and that the foresight comes from the Creative Mind. No other hypothesis here can help solve this riddle of existence.

6. Observing the economy of nature, we are forced to admit that only an extremely perfect Reason can provide for all the relationships that arise in such a complex economy.

Many years ago in Australia, certain species of cactus introduced here were planted as hedges. In the absence of hostile insects here, the cactus multiplied in such incredible numbers that people began to look for means to combat it. And the cactus continued to spread. It got to the point that the area he occupied turned out to be more area England. He began to force people out of cities and villages, he began to destroy farms. Entomologists have searched the whole world in search of measures to combat the cactus. Finally, they managed to find an insect that fed exclusively on cactus. It reproduced easily and had no enemies in Australia. Soon this insect defeated the cactus. The cactus retreated. The number of this plant has decreased. The number of insects has also decreased. There are only as many of them left as needed to keep the cactus under constant control.

And this kind of controlling relationship is observed everywhere. Why, in fact, did not insects, which multiply so incredibly quickly, suppress all living things? Because they breathe not with their lungs, but with their tracheas. If an insect grows, its trachea does not grow in proportion. This is why there have never been and cannot be insects that are too large. This discrepancy holds back their growth. If it were not for this physical control, man could not exist on earth. Imagine a bumblebee the size of a lion.

7. The fact that a person is able to perceive the idea of ​​the existence of God is in itself sufficient evidence.

The concept of God arises from that mysterious faculty of man which we call imagination. Only with the help of this power, and only with its help, is man (and no other living creature on earth) capable of finding confirmation of abstract things. The breadth that this ability opens up is absolutely immense. In fact, thanks to the perfect imagination of man, the possibility of spiritual reality arises, and man can, with all the obviousness of his goal and goal, determine the great truth that Heaven is everywhere and in everything, the truth that God lives everywhere and in everything, that He lives in ours. hearts.

And so, both from the side of science and from the side of imagination, we find confirmation of the words of the psalmist:“The heavens declare the glory of God, but the firmament declares His handiwork” (Ps. 18:2).

Famous surgeon, former prof. University of Cologne, Bonn and Berlin, Augustin Beer says: “Even if science and religion happened to fall into conflict, harmony in their relationship would soon be restored through mutual penetration on the basis of more accurate data.”

Let's end our conversation with the words of the scientist A.K. Morrison again: “Man recognizes the need moral principles; where does the sense of duty live; from this stems his faith in God.

The flowering of religious feeling enriches human soul and elevates her so much that she allows her to perceive the Divine presence. The instinctive exclamation of a person: “Oh my God!” quite natural, and even simplest form prayer brings a person closer to the Creator.

Respect, sacrifice, strength of character, moral principles, imagination - are not born from denial and atheism, this amazing self-deception that replaces God with man. Without faith, culture disappears, order is destroyed and evil prevails. Let us unswervingly believe in the Creator Spirit, in Divine love and to the brotherhood of man. Let us lift up our souls to God, fulfilling His will as it is revealed to us; Let us maintain the confidence inherent in faith that we are worthy of the cares with which the Lord surrounds the creatures He has created.” To these words of A. Morrison we will add the words of the psychiatrist and theologian Prof. I. M. Andreeva: “True knowledge is incompatible with pride. Humility is an indispensable condition for the possibility of knowing the Truth. Only a humble scientist, like a humble religious thinker, who always remembers the words of the Savior - Without Me you can do nothing and I am the way and the truth and the life - are able to go the right way(method) to the knowledge of the Truth. For God resists the proud, but gives Grace to the humble.”

A. K. Morrison

Why I believe in God (Study of manifestations of the spiritual world) Veynik Victor

Victor Veynik Why I Believe IN GOD Study of manifestations of the spiritual world

From the book Book 11. Questions and answers, articles, lectures, conversations (old edition) author Laitman Michael

Melodies of the spiritual world A Kabbalist is a person who, through the study of Kabbalah, has achieved a sense of the spiritual world, who directly communicates with the Creator, who simultaneously feels our world and the spiritual world, “living” in both worlds, and therefore clearly comprehends the cause and purpose of all creation.

From the book Essay on Orthodox Dogmatic Theology. Part I author Malinovsky Nikolay Platonovich

I. About God the Provider existing world spiritual. The entire spiritual world was initially created perfect. But Holy Scripture reveals to us that a great revolution once took place in this world. Some of the spirits have fallen away from God and make up the dark world, the world of evil and spiritual death,

From the book Indisputable Evidence. Historical evidence, facts, documents of Christianity by McDowell Josh

WE HAVE THE RIGHT TO EXPECT SUPERNATURAL MANIFESTATIONS IN THE FORM OF MIRACLES FROM GOD, WHO HAS INCARNATED INTO HUMAN "... go, tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear. The dead are raised, and the poor are preached with good news..." (Luke .

From the book Mahakalagni Kula Tantra by Bhairavananda

Manifestations of God and the laws of the pattern of manifestations Bhairavananda said: “O magical ones, please tell about the great manifestations of God in our marga, about their properties and functions, about their help in deifying oneself as Samarasya.” Bhairava said: “Listen, O son, for this is important

From the book International Kabbalah Academy (Volume 2) author Laitman Michael

Rice. 15.1. Stages of comprehension of the spiritual world. The fusion of natural sciences with Kabbalah contributes to their development, which is possible only in integration with this system of knowledge. Today, all possibilities for studying the world around us through absorption have been exhausted -

author Author unknown

From the book Missionary Letters author Serbsky Nikolay Velimirovich

Letter 145 to a student, on the question of the influence of the spiritual world on the earthly world. According to Christian teaching, spiritual world, in addition to the Lord Creator, are inhabited by Angels and the souls of dead people. You ask: “Does the spiritual world influence people and the events of our world as a whole?” Everything Sacred

From the book Acquiring the Holy Spirit in Paths Ancient Rus' author Kontsevich I. M.

Introduction. The hierarchy of the spiritual world and the place of monasticism in it Christianity was born in persecution and suffering. At any moment, the believer had to be ready for martyrdom. The highest tension of all spiritual forces and renunciation of the world were required of him.

From the book Elder Silouan of Athos author Sakharov Sofroniy

About the unity of the spiritual world and the greatness of the Saints, the Elder recognized the LIFE of the spiritual world as one, and by virtue of this unity, every spiritual phenomenon inevitably affects the state of this entire world, and if the phenomenon is good, then the entire world of holy spirits, “all heaven,” rejoice and

From the book Mind for God: Why are there so many believers among smart people by Timothy Keller

“I Believe in a Loving God” During college and in my early twenties, I, like many others, questioned the Christian faith in which I was raised. My doubts had subjective reasons. Christianity just didn't seem real to me from a point of view

From the book Explanatory Bible. Volume 10 author Lopukhin Alexander

46. ​​Which of you will convict Me of unrighteousness? If I speak the truth, why don’t you believe Me? 47. He who is from God listens to the words of God. The reason you don't listen is because you are not from God. Christ confirms His strict judgment about the Jews by referring to the fact that none of them could convict Him of

From the book Jesus Christ and the Bible Mysteries author Maltsev Nikolay Nikiforovich

5. Life as a mechanism of God for the production of spiritual harvest God takes from the Universe only those quanta of the spirit that are completely freed from residual energy and in the process of repeated and consistent passage through all types of plants and animals, including

From the book Why I Believe in God (A Study of the Manifestations of the Spiritual World) author Veynik Victor

Chapter XIV. Practical Application research into manifestations of the spiritual world 1. The most important application is that this research directly and inevitably led me to the Lord God, and to Orthodoxy from Catholicism. It happened as follows.

From the book 300 words of wisdom author Maksimov Georgy

II. Realities of the spiritual world Evil and sin 39. “A lie is a delusion of the mind, and evil is a delusion of the will. The sign by which one and the other is determined is the judgment of God himself... what He teaches a person is truth, what He commands to desire is good, and [everything] that contradicts this is

From the book Great is Our God author Saint John Patricia

I. I TRUST IN GOD...Who loves me like a father (See Luke 15:11-32) 1. White handkerchief Near the road, next to the bus stop, a man sat and looked intently at the stones of the pavement. His unshaven face, drooping shoulders and broken shoes attracted the attention of those crowding

From the author's book

III. I BELIEVE IN JESUS, WHO DIED ON THE CROSS TO SAVE THE WORLD AND ME Jesus died to save me from eternal death (See Rom. 5:6-9) 9. A Safe Place Summer was in full swing, and there was a temporary lull on the farm: the bread has already been collected and placed in stacks, but it’s not time to pick fruit yet

Veinik A.I., “Why I believe in God. A study of the manifestations of the spiritual world”, Minsk: Publishing House of the Belarusian Exarchate, 1998. 320 pp.
Book text -

Opening remarks.
From the publisher.
Preface by the author.
Chapter I. What questions do journalists ask?
Chapter II. Religion and Science.
Chapter III. Two worlds - two sciences.
1. The genius Ivan Ilyin was sentenced to death.
2. Rational science resembles a country patchwork quilt.
3. What is science, such are the criteria for its evaluation.
4. The brilliant Thomas Kuhn was “chatted out.”
5. Implementation of the Russian idea in science.
6. The genius Ivan Panin was “silenced.”
7. General Theory (OT) of nature.
Chapter IV. Secrets of human nature.
1. Hunting for mirages.
2. Spirits of good and evil.
3. The law of free will.
4. Mechanisms of influence of spiritual laws on natural ones.
5. “Ask and you will receive.”
6. Humble yourself, you proud ones!..
7. Heaven and hell.
Chapter V. About the secrets of health.
Chapter VI. Secrets of thinking.
1. Error I.M. Sechenov and I.P. Pavlova.
2. The drama of the great scientist.
3. The brain is not an organ of thinking.
4. Does a person think with his heart?
5. Only the Almighty creates thoughts.
6. Does the human soul think?
7. The main secrets of thinking.
Chapter VII. Mysteries of the creation of the world.
1. What does atheism stand for?
2. What is time.
3. Six days of creation.
4. The Flood.
5. What is space.
6. Creation “out of nothing.”
7. The collapse of evil atheism.
Chapter VIII. About the structure of the universe.
1. The first bricks of the universe.
2. Briefly about space.
3. Dimensions and number of universes in the universe.
4. Briefly about time.
5. Parallel world.
6. Subordination of worlds.
7. The Bible - Attomir's message to our world.
Chapter IX. Secrets of a miracle.
1. Where does a miracle begin?
2. What is a true miracle.
3. Creed.
4. Seven sacraments.
5. The creation of thought is a miracle.
6. Man is a miracle computer.”
7. Where is civilization going?
Chapter X. Demons are infinitely inventive.
Chapter XI. Mysteries of superstition.
1. What the authorities say.
2. True faith and superstition.
3. How does superstition arise?
4. Examples of superstition.
5. Now it’s up to the Bible.
6. About the mysteries of superstition.
7. How to make your life not boring.
Chapter XII. Love and demons.
1. “I’ll help you bewitch your beloved man!”
2. Brownies and spirits, hello!
3. Bewitchment mechanism.
4. Is it possible to resist demons?
5. Retribution to the bewitcher
6. Consequences for the dried one.
7. What does the Bible say about this?
Chapter XIII. The East is coming.
1. Two significant facts.
2. What does science say?
3. The main spiritual law.
4. War is not for life, but for death.
5. Eastern passions.
6. What is happening to us?
7. What to do?
Chapter XIV. Practical application of the study of manifestations of the spiritual world.
1. The most important application.
2. Violations of some laws of mechanics.
3. Violations of the second law of classical thermodynamics of Clausius.
4. Application in metallurgy.
5. Stimulation of vital activity.
6. The admonition of the Lord.
7. A warning to researchers.

Applications.

An obsession called UFO.
Take care not of your spacesuit, but of your soul.
Ecology of the spirit.
1. The incredible things of the invisible world.
2. Intercession of the Mother.
2.1. Let's remember the soul.
2.2. What does science say?
2.3. “House of the Blessed Virgin Mary.”
2.4. Tatar invasions.
2.5. Troubled times.
2.6. Great Patriotic War.
2.7. Belarus is pagan.
The tragedy of Belarus (Spiritual Chernobyl).
1. Let's think about the following facts.
2. Facts of a different kind.
3. New physical phenomena have been discovered.
4. Human nature.
5. What is tragic about the situation?
6. A few beneficial facts.
7. Is society obligated to protect the human soul?
Information madness.
The spiritual world is proven from the standpoint of reason.
The spiritual world and man in the concepts of cybernetics.
1. Let's start with statistics.
2. Computer analogy of thinking.
3. Cybernetic analogy of thinking.
4. How the spiritual world controls a person.
5. Reasons for the harmful effects of computers on humans.
6. Keep children away from the computer!
7. Something apocalyptic.
Science, art and the evil one.
1. Almost everything in the sciences and arts is a gift from the evil one.
2. The main lie of the devil is atheism.
3. Exposure of evil materialism and evolutionism.
4. Crafty disguise of lies.
5. Retribution for refusing to follow a lie.
6. Diabolical bacchanalia in the arts.
7. What is the way out of this hell?
Faith and Science.
Protection from hidden coding and targeting of the population is necessary.
Notes