By Prince Evgeny Nikolaevich Trubetskoy

4

The stamp of the truly religious spirit and, in particular, of the folk-Russian religious genius Fr. Florensky sees “not in the cutting off, but in the transformation of the fullness of being” (p. 772), and we cannot but agree with the correctness of the statement of the main religious task here. However, has this task been fully thought out by the esteemed author? Is he clearly aware of all the requirements arising from it? Here I have enough substantial doubts.

This spiritual transformation, which is destined to become bodily in the future age, must encompass the whole nature of man: it must begin in the heart – the center of his spiritual life, and from there spread to the entire periphery. And from this point of view, I decide to put Fr. Florensky a question arising from reading his book. Human nature, in addition to the heart and body, which are about to be resurrected, also belongs to the human mind. Is he also subject to transformation or cutting down? Does Fr. Florensky in the transformation of the human mind, does he recognize in this transformation as a necessary moral task, or does he simply think that the mind must be cut off, like the seductive “right eye”, so that “man” himself can be saved; and is it possible to speak of the salvation of the “whole man”, in case his mind is destined to remain “in the outer darkness” until the end, even if it is only within the limits of this, earthly life. However, this transformation must begin and be foretold here. Must the human mind take an active part in this foretaste, or is it required merely to withdraw from all activity, from that which is its necessary law?

To put these questions to a man whose book is, in any case, a remarkable mental feat seems odd. Nevertheless, I am obliged to set them down: therefore because, paradoxical as it may seem, a writer who has labored so much and so fruitfully at the solution of the task of transforming the mind, does not clearly enough realize what that task consists in. concludes.

In its earthly reality, the human mind suffers from that distressing disorder and that division which are the common stamp of all sinful life; this, as we have already seen, is shown with great brightness and clarity by Fr. Florensky in his chapter on doubt; however, if this is so, then the transformation of the mind must be expressed precisely in the healing of this sinful decay and of this division, in the restoration of its inner integrity in the unity of the Truth. Is this what we see with Fr. Florensky? Unfortunately, it is at this point that the truth, which is generally so clearly realized by him, suddenly turns out to be obscured, literally hidden by a cloud. Instead of a clear solution to the question posed, in his book we find only vague and contradictory answers, like an unresolved struggle of opposing aspirations. This is revealed in his doctrine of antinomianism. Here, in his thought, two not only irreconcilable, but irreconcilable situations collide. On the one hand, antinomianism – internal contradiction – is a property of the sinful state of our reason. From this point of view, it is necessary to seek a reconciliation, a synthesis of contradictory principles – a gracious illumination of the mind, in which the contradictions are removed, although “… not rationally, but in a super-rational way” (pp. 159-160).

On the other hand, in a row of pages of the same book, it is asserted that truth itself is antinomian (that is, “truth” with a lowercase letter, not a capital letter – the truth about Truth), that true religious dogma is antinomian; contradiction constitutes the necessary seal of the true in general. “Truth itself is an antinomy and cannot but be so” (pp. 147, 153).

And accordingly our author wavers between two radically different attitudes to human thought.

On the one hand, it must enter the mind of truth, become whole, like the God-bearing minds of the ascetics (p. 159).

On the other hand, it must be silenced, i.e. simply cut off as fundamentally contradictory and essentially antinomian – the very pursuit of “reasonable faith” is the beginning of “diabolical pride” (p. 65).

Can it be affirmed at the same time that as sin is antinomian, so that truth is antinomian? Does this not mean, in simpler language, that truth is sinful, or that truth itself is sin?

They may, of course, object to me that here we have an “antinomy for the sake of antinomy,” that is, a necessary contradiction. And that is why we must carefully look at the contradictory theses of Fr. Florensky: do we really have in them an objectively necessary antinomy, or just a subjective contradiction of the individual mind?

The thesis of Fr. Florenski, that the antinomies of our reason are in themselves a property of his sinful state, must be recognized as entirely true. “Looked at from the angle of dogmatics,” he says, “antinomies are inevitable.” Since sin exists (and in its recognition is the first half of faith), then our whole being, as well as the whole world, are broken” (p. 159). “There, in heaven, is the one Truth; in our case – many fragments of it, which are not congruent with each other. In the history of the flat and boring (?!) thinking of the “new philosophy”, Kant had the audacity to utter the great word “antinomy”, which violated the decorum of the supposed unity. Even for that alone he would deserve eternal glory. There is no need in case his own antinomies fail – the work is in the experience of antinomies’ (p. 159).

By not sharing this sharp review of Fr. Florensky on the new philosophy, I think that the diagnosis of the disease of human reason was made by him perfectly correctly. From this point of view, however, it would seem that precisely these internal contradictions – this antinomy, represent an obstacle to our thought in achieving the Truth, separate it from God. To my great surprise, however, the antithesis of Fr. Florensky says just the opposite. Truth itself constitutes an antinomy: “only the antinomy can be believed; and every judgment which is non-antinomial is either simply recognized or simply rejected by reason, since it does not exceed the limits of its egoistic individuality” (p. 147). According to the thought of Fr. Florenski, the very salvation of dogma is determined by its antinomianity, thanks to which it can be a reference point for reason. It is with dogma that our salvation begins, because only dogma, as antinomian, “does not narrow our freedom and gives full scope to benevolent faith or malicious unbelief” (p. 148).

To affirm that antinomianism is the stamp of the sinful division of our reason, and at the same time to reason that it is precisely in it that the power that saves us is contained, means falling into a contradiction which is not at all rooted in the essence of the matter and has no character of objective necessity, but should be fully recognized as the fault of Fr. Florensky. Precisely on the question of the “antinomian” of the Revelation, we have the quite unequivocal answer of St. Ap. Paul: “For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, whom I and Silas and Timothy preached among you, was not ‘yes’ and ‘no’, but in Him was ‘yes’, because all the promises of God in Him are ‘yes’, and in Him “amen,” to the glory of God through us” (2 Cor. 1:19-20). How are we to reconcile with this text our author’s assertion that the mysteries of religion “… cannot be put into words in any other way than in the form of a contradiction, which is both yes and no” (p. 158)? I draw attention to the extreme community of this situation. Well, if it is really true that every secret of religion is both yes and no, then we must recognize as equally true that there is a God, and that He is not, and that Christ is risen, and that He was not risen at all. On Fr. Florensky, in any case, has to introduce some limitation in his statement and admit that not all, but only some religious secrets are antinomian, i.e. contradictory in form. But even such an understanding of “antinomianism” does not stand up to criticism.

It asks, above all, what is inherently contradictory or antinomian: the dogma itself, or our imperfect understanding of the dogma? On this matter, the thought of Fr. Florensky hesitates and splits. On the one hand, he affirms that in the Tri-Ray light revealed by Christ and reflected in the righteous, “… the contradiction of this age is overcome by love and glory”, and, on the other hand, for him, the contradiction is “a mystery of the soul, mystery of prayer and love”. “The whole church service, especially the canons and sticharies, is overflowing with this ever-boiling wit of antithetical juxtapositions and antinomian assertions” (p. 158). Moreover, in the book in question there is a whole table of dogmatic antinomies. However, it is precisely from this table that it becomes clear what the main error of the respected author is.

He simply uses the words “antinomy” and “antinomianity” in two different senses. As a characteristic of the sinful state, antinomy always means contradiction – in relation to reason from this point of view, antinomianism denotes internal contradiction. When the author talks about the “antinomian nature of the dogma” or of the church chants, this should mostly be understood in the sense that the dogma is a kind of union of the world’s opposites (coincidentia oppositorum).

It is not particularly difficult to be convinced that precisely this mixing of the contradictory and the opposite is the error in a whole series of examples of “dogmatic antinomies” in Fr. Florensky. In fact, we have no antinomies in them at all.

For example, despite the respected author, the dogma of the Holy Trinity is not at all antinomian, since there is no internal contradiction in it. There would be an antinomy here if we were stating contradictory predicates about the same subject in the same relation. If, for example, the Church taught that God is one in essence and at the same time not one but triune in essence: this would be a real antinomy. In church dogma, however, “unity” refers to the essence, “trinity” – to the Persons, which from the point of view of the Church are not the same. It is clear that there is no contradiction, that is, no antinomy here: “yes” and “no” refer to the same thing.[9]

The dogma of the mutual relationship of the two natures in Jesus Christ is also non-antinomic. There would be an antinomy here if the Church claimed at the same time both the separation and the inseparability of the two natures; and their fusion and non-fusion. But in the doctrine of “inseparability and non-fusion” of the two natures there is no internal contradiction and, therefore, no antinomy – because logically the concepts of inseparability and non-fusion are not at all mutually exclusive, so here we have opposites (opposita), not contradictory (contraria) concepts.

With these examples, it is possible to clarify not only the error in the book under consideration, but also the essence of the correct understanding of antinomy and antinomianism. We have already convinced ourselves that these dogmas are not in themselves antinomies, but to the flat mind they inevitably become antinomies. When gross human understanding makes the three Persons into three Gods, the dogma indeed becomes an antinomy, for the thesis that God is one cannot in any way be reconciled with the antithesis that “there are three Gods.” In the same way, that crude understanding, which grasps the union of the two natures on the model of the material union of bodies, turns the dogma of the two natures into an antinomy, because it cannot in any way imagine how it is possible for two materially conceivable natures to be unite into one and not merge.

Antinomy and antinomianism are generally rooted in the intellectual understanding of world mysteries. However, when we rise above rational understanding, this alone already resolves the antinomies; the contradictions now become a union of opposites – coincidentia oppositorum – and their resolution takes place according to the measure of our elevation.

This essentially concludes the answer to the question of the solvability of antinomies in general and religious antinomies in particular. On this question, Fr. Florensky gives a negative answer. “How cold and distant, how ungodly and hard-hearted, seems to me that time of my life when I thought the antinomies of religion solvable but not yet resolved, when in my proud folly I asserted the logical monism of religion” (p. 163) .

In this community of too sharp a formula, the book under consideration is a combination of truths and fallacies. To dream of some perfect and final resolution of all antinomies in this life is, of course, just as insane as to imagine that we can in the earthly stage of our existence be entirely free from sin. However, to affirm the final unsolvability of all antinomies, to deny the very legality of attempts to resolve them, means in our thought to submit to sin. As the fatal necessity of sin in this life does not exclude our duty to fight against it and with God’s help if possible to free ourselves from it, so the inevitability for us of antinomianism does not take away the duty that lies upon us: to strive to rise above this sinful darkness of our rational consciousness, to try to enlighten our thought by this only inherent light, in which all our earthly contradictions also fall away. To reason otherwise means to affirm flat rational thinking not only as a fact of our life, but also as a norm of what is obligatory for us.[10]

Splitness and contradiction is a factual state of our reason: it is also what constitutes the essence of reason; only that the true and authentic norm of reason is unity. It is no coincidence that even bl. Augustine saw in this search of our mind, in this aspiration of his, his formal godlikeness, a search for connection with the One and the Unconditional, because truly the One, that is God. Augustine quite rightly observes that in all the functions of our reason stands before him the ideal of unity: both in analysis and in synthesis I want unity and I love unity (unum amo et unum volo[11]). And indeed, the ideal of knowledge, realized to a greater or lesser extent in every cognitive act, consists in connecting the knowable with something that is unified and unconditional.

Here it is necessary to explain a paradoxical phenomenon that seems to contradict what has just been said, namely: when man, in the spiritual upsurge of his earthly perfection, begins to approach the Truth, then the amount of contradictions that he notices , is not reduced in the least. On the contrary, as Fr. Florensky, “… the closer we are to God, the more distinct the contradictions become. There, in upper Jerusalem, they are gone. And here – here they are in everything…”. “The more brightly shines the Truth of the Tri-Ray Light shown by Christ and reflected in the righteous, the Light in which the contradiction of this age is overcome with love and with glory, the more sharply the cracks of peace also blacken. Cracks in everything’.

Psychologically, the observations of Fr. Florensky are perfectly correct here; nevertheless, his understanding of “antinomianism” is not only not confirmed by them, but on the contrary – it is refuted. Contradictions are discovered and seem to multiply in proportion to the enlightenment of our mind, not at all because the Truth is antinomic or that it is contradictory – quite the opposite: they are laid bare in proportion to the contrast with the unity of the Truth. The nearer we are to the Truth, the more deeply we realize our sinful division, the clearer it becomes to us how far we still stand from it, and in this is the basic law of both moral and mental enlightenment. In order to realize that you have no garment to enter the marriage hall, it is necessary to see this hall at least from a distance with your mind’s eye. It is the same in the knowledge of the Truth – here, as well as in the process of moral improvement, the higher a person rises from degree to degree, the brighter the Truth, unified and all-encompassing, shines upon him, the more perfectly he realizes its own incompleteness: the inner contradiction of its reason.

To be aware of sin, however, means to take the first step towards freeing yourself from it; in the same way, to be aware of rational antinomies means already to a certain extent to rise above them and above our own rationality and take the first step towards overcoming it.

An important consideration must be added to this. Not only in the future, but also in this life of ours, there are many planes of being and, accordingly, many degrees of knowledge. And so long as the process of our improvement is not completed, so long as we ascend spiritually and mentally from degree to degree, the very antinomies of our reason do not all lie on the same plane. Ascending to the pi-higher degree, with this alone we already overcome the contradictions characteristic of the lower lying degrees; on the other hand, new tasks are revealed before us, and therefore also new contradictions, which were not visible to us while we were in the lower. Thus, for example, for the person who has outgrown that degree of understanding, at which the three Persons of the Holy Trinity are mixed with “three Gods”, the antinomy in the dogma of the Holy Trinity disappears or “takes away” by this very thing. So much more clearly, however, do other profound antinomies of our misunderstanding stand before his mental gaze, such as, for example, the antinomy of human freedom and divine predestination, or of God’s justice and all-forgiveness. Generally speaking, antinomies form a complex hierarchy of degrees and in their degrees of depth represent the multiplicity of differences. On the one hand, Kant’s antinomies remain antinomies only for undeveloped, flat reason, which seeks an unconditional basis for phenomena in the order of temporally determined causes. These antinomies are easily overcome by the independent powers of thought: as soon as it rises into the domain of that which is beyond time. On the other hand, for deep religious understanding such contradictions are discovered, the solution of which exceeds all that depth of knowledge that has hitherto been accessible to man. However, what has so far been inaccessible can become accessible to a person at a different, higher level of spiritual and intellectual ascent. The limit of this rise has not yet been pointed out, and no one should dare to point it out. Herein lies the chief objection against those who affirm the final indissolubility of antinomies.

In the opinion of Fr. Florensky’s reconciliation and unity of antinomian claims is “higher than reason” (p. 160). We could probably agree with this position, as long as it were not ambiguous, that is, as long as the concept of reason was more clearly defined, which would exclude the possibility that the word “reason” itself could be used in different senses. Unfortunately, for our author, as well as for many other adherents of these views, reason is sometimes understood as a synonym for logical thinking in general, sometimes as a thought stuck to the plane of the temporal, which is unable to rise above this plane and is therefore flat.

If we understand reasoning in the sense of the latter, then the thought of Fr. Florensky is perfectly correct; naturally the resolution of antinomies is higher than the plane of the temporal and therefore lies beyond the limits of “reason.” Moreover, in order not to fall on this plane of rational understanding, a certain act of self-denial is required of our thought—that feat of humility in which thought renounces its proud hope of drawing from itself the fullness of knowledge and is ready to accept in itself the Revelation of the superhuman, of the divine Truth.

In this sense, and only in this sense, we can agree with Fr. Florensky that “true love” is expressed “in the rejection of reason” (p. 163). Unfortunately, however, in other places in our book, this same requirement of “renunciation of reason” is received by Fr. Florenski’s other meaning, which from a Christian point of view is absolutely unacceptable.

It requires that for the sake of God we give up “the monism of thinking”, and precisely in this he perceives “the beginning of true faith” (p. 65). Here at Fr. Florensky is far from talking about some metaphysical monism – the logical monism that he rejects is precisely the aspiration of reason to bring everything to the unity of the Truth, precisely in this he sees the “diabolical pride”. According to his thought, “monistic continuity is the banner of the seditious reason of creatures, which is torn from its Origin and root and scatters in the dust of self-affirmation and self-destruction. Quite the opposite: “… dualistic discontinuity is the banner of reason, which destroys itself because of its Beginning and in union with Him receives its renewal and its fortress” (p. 65).

It is precisely in these lines that the fundamental error in the entire teaching of Fr. Florensky on antinomianism. To renounce “monism in thinking” means to renounce not the sin of our thought, but its true norm, the ideal of all-unity and all-wholeness, in other words, the very thing that constitutes the formal godlikeness of our reason; and to recognize “dualistic discontinuity” as a standard means to normalize the sinful bifurcation of our reason.

In general, the attitude of Fr. Florensky’s approach to reason can hardly be seen as something that accords with his essentially Christian worldview. This is clearly revealed when comparing it with this criterion by which St. Ap. John teaches us to distinguish the spirit of God from the spirit of deception. Both for religious life and for religious thought, the absolute norm is given to us in the image of Christ, who came in the flesh (1 John 4:2-3). Does the teaching of Fr. Florensky on the mutual relation of God’s nature and human nature in the knowledge of God?

The reconciliation of the divine and the human, which is revealed to us in the image of the God-man, is not violence against human nature. The basis of our hope lies precisely in the fact that nothing human is cut off here, except sin: the perfect God is at the same time a perfect man, and therefore the human mind also participates in this union without violating its law and norm – it is subject to transfiguration rather than mutilation.

What is an accomplished fact in Christ the God-man must become an ideal and norm for all humanity. As the union of the two natures in Christ was not forced, but free, in the same way the union of the divine principle and the human mind in the knowledge of God must be free; no violence should happen here; the law of human reason, without which it ceases to be reason, is not to be violated, but fulfilled. In the unity of Truth the human mind must find its unity. And no difference between the truth with a small letter and the Truth with a capital letter does not take away from us the responsibility to strive for this very goal: to seek the unity of truth. For this truth, which bears upon itself the stamp of our sinful division, is no truth at all, but a delusion. The monism of thinking in Christ must be justified, not condemned.

And the mistake of Fr. Florensky’s conclusion is precisely that with him the free attitude of the human mind towards the Truth is replaced by a violent one: before us he puts an alternative – or to accept the truth about the Holy Trinity, which from his point of view is antinomic, i.e. contradictory, or die in madness. To us he says: “Choose, worm and nothingness: tertium non datur[12]” (p. 66).

Christ, who wanted to see in His disciples His friends and not slaves, did not address their consciousness in this way. He who in deed revealed the trinity to them, showing, in answer to the doubts of Philip, in His own person the Heavenly Father, made this mystery intelligible to them, intelligible to the lover, because He contrasted it with the love that brings about unity in the multitude: “that they may be one, even as we are” (John 17:11). Such an appeal to human consciousness persuades, not coerces; it heals not only the heart of man, but also his mind, because in it our reason finds fulfillment of its norm of unity; in such a discovery of the trinity for our thought already here, in this life, the antinomy of unity and multiplicity is removed, its multiplicity appears not torn and not split, but united from the inside, connected.

A. Florensky may object to me that this resolution of the antinomy is beyond our reason, but there is also a dangerous ambiguity in this statement that must be removed – I repeat that, if by “reason” we understand thought, which has stuck to the temporary, then Fr. Florensky will be perfectly right, for Truth is beyond time. If, on the other hand, the meaning of the doctrine under consideration is that the resolution of the antinomy takes place only beyond human thought in general, then such a meaning is unconditionally unacceptable, since with this alone the human reason is thrown alone into the outer darkness, depriving itself of participation in the joy of universal transfiguration.

5

The question of the Christian attitude towards the human mind is inseparably connected with the question of the Christian attitude towards the representative of the mind in human society – towards the intelligentsia.

Here, too, I cannot be satisfied with the decision of Fr. Florensky. His extremely passionate, and at times cruel, judgments of the intelligentsia, of what he himself calls “graceless” and “earthly” souls, sound like a sharp dissonance in his profoundly Christian book. In the very immensity of the negation here, one feels a sore point of the considered work and of its author. As we have already seen, Fr. Florensky recalls that “godless and hard-hearted” time in his own life when he intellectually believed in the logical monism of religion. The former intellectual also feels in his fascinating descriptions of the skeptical hell he once experienced. In general, for our author, “intelligence” is an internal enemy, not an external one. In himself there is still that hateful intellectual which he himself denies; and therein lies the reason for this extremity of negation, which excludes the possibility of justice.

In places it even seems that not only the “intellectual”, but even the own human thought of Fr. For him, Florensky is an enemy that he wants to get rid of. It goes without saying that such an attitude to thought and to “intelligence” cannot be crowned with complete victory. Doubts in thought cannot be overcome by a denial of logic, by a leap into the unattainable and the unknowable; in order not to be overcome, they must be thought through. Likewise, the “intellectual” cannot be defeated by negation, but by satisfying his legitimate mental demands. The truth of Revelation must become immanent to thought; only on this condition can it triumph over irreligious thought. Then, when the content of the religious teaching insistently asserts itself as something external, beyond thought, with this itself, thought asserts itself in its state of separation and separation from religion, and thus condemns itself to cruelty. Thinking that has been expelled from the realm that is opposed to religion inevitably remains “intellectual” – in the bad sense of the word: rational, devoid of content.

The original sin of the book of Fr. Florensky concludes precisely in this her dependence on this “intelligence”, which he denies. Precisely “antinomianism” is a point of view that is too typical of the modern intellectual, and that is why it is extremely popular. There is, no more, no less, an unconquered skepticism, a split in thought, elevated to principle and norm. This is such a point of view of thought that asserts itself in its contradiction. Paradoxical as it may seem at first glance, between rationalism and “antinomianism” there is the closest kinship, more than that: an immediate logical and genetic connection. Rationalism exalts in principle the self-sufficient thought, the thought which derives the knowledge of truth from itself, while antinomianism liberates this same thought from its immanent religion and norm, from that commandment of unity which is the likeness of God in it. He proclaims to be the property of truth what in reality is the sin of reason—its inner decay. In practice, “antinomianism” is a purely rational point of view, because it affirms the contradictions of our reason as finally insoluble and invincible – more than that: it elevates them to a religious value.

At Fr. Florensky, as with a deeply religious thinker, this alogism fashionable in our time does not reach its ultimate consequences. Today, a typical representative of this direction is N. A. Berdyaev, who finally broke with the point of view of objective revelation and in the entire teaching of Fr. Florensky sympathized almost exclusively with his “antinomianism,” i.e., with his weakest.

On Fr. Florensky this sympathy should serve as a warning; it contained within itself the instruction that, raised in principle, antinomianism was fundamentally opposed to his own religious point of view. This is a dangerous deviation of thought, the natural end of which has manifested itself in Berdyaev as decadent dilettantism, giving itself the appearance of victory over prudence.

6

Decline is the inevitable fate of that thought which has lost its immanent criterion. Once freed from the logical norm of all-unity, it inevitably falls into captivity, into slavish dependence on illogical experiences: having no criterion to distinguish in these experiences the higher from the lower, the superconscious from the subconscious, such thought gives itself up uncontrollably to all the suggestions of affect, taking them as prophetic intuitions. Elevating the “irritation of captive thought” to a principle of philosophizing is also the most characteristic feature of modern decadent philosophy.

Carried to the end, this trend inevitably leads to a denial of objective revelation, to a rebellion against every religious dogma as such. And this is so for the simple reason that each dogma has its own strictly defined mental, logical composition that anchors the content of faith: in each dogma there is a precise logical formula that strictly separates the true from the untrue, the worthy of belief from delusion. This places a limit on affect in the realm of religious life and gives the believer a firm guide to distinguish truth from falsehood within subjective religious experience. These dogmatic definitions, through which the possibility of mixing the Truth with anything foreign and external to it is cut off for the believer, are often examples of logical elegance and Fr. Florensky knows this – something more: he glorifies St. Athanasius the Great, who was able to express “mathematically precisely” even in a later age the truth about the Oneness that “eluded accurate expression in intelligent minds” (p. 55).

It is understandable that for modern religious decadence, which upholds the freedom of affect against thought, such a subordination of religious feeling to rigid logical determinations is something absolutely unacceptable. Well, precisely because of his worship of the “mathematically accurate” dogmatic formulations of the Church, Fr. Florensky was subjected to fierce attacks by Berdyaev.[13] Undoubtedly, the valuable aspect of the latter’s objections lies in the fact that these objections put Fr. Florensky faced the need to more sharply distinguish himself from this decadence of alogism, a typical representative of which in religious philosophy is N. A. Berdyaev.

Source in Russian: Trubetskoy, E. N. “Svet Favorsky and the transformation of the mind” – In: Russkaya mysl, 5, 1914, pp. 25-54; the basis of the text is a report read by the author before a meeting of the Russian Religious and Philosophical Society on February 26, 1914.

Notes:

 [9] This opponent of mine, who has noticed “Hegelianism” in these words, has apparently forgotten Hegel. It is Hegel who teaches that all our thinking moves in contradictions. From his point of view, the dogma of the Holy Trinity is also contradictory or “antinomic”. While I maintain that there is no contradiction in it.

[10] It is worth noting that even Fr. Florensky, faced with the antinomy of divine justice and mercy, does not remain at the apparent contradiction of thesis and antithesis, but tries to give it a solution.

[11] Cf. my essay: Религиозно-общественный идеал западного христианства в V веке. Миросозерцание бл. Августина, M. 1892, pp. 56-57.

[12] From Latin: “third not given”.

[13] Berdyaev, N. A. “Stylized Orthodoxy” – In: Russkaya mysl, January, 1914, pp. 109-126.

(to be continued)