Some Thoughts on Three Representations of the Antichrist

From time to time, one finds Solovyov’s description of the Antichrist, as found within his work, War, Progress, and the End of History, used in a homily or sermon by one preacher or another. When this is done by someone famous, their homily is usually given a sensationalistic interpretation. Recently, Cardinal Biffi’s lenten homily, as was delivered on March 4, 2007, presented aspects of Solovyov’s description of the Antichrist. What sparked the interest of many here was when Biffi’s said, “The Antichrist will be a ‘convinced spiritualist’ Soloviev says, an admirable philanthropist, a committed, active pacifist, a practicing vegetarian, a determined defender of animal rights.”

It did not take long before reflections were written, saying that if the Antichrist is to be a philanthropist, a pacifist and a vegetarian, then there must be something inherently bad about these qualities.

Few people have actually read any Solovyov, and they do not know how and why Solovyov described the Antichrist in this fashion: they were the beliefs and practices of one of Solovyov’s theological and philosophical opponents, Leo Tolstoy. Solovyov did to Tolstoy similar to what Dante did to his enemies: he represented Tolstoy in a vilified form. But there is more to the story, more to the point than this (one can say the central point of War, Progress, and the End of Human History was a refutation of Tolstoy’s unbending ways; but the story of the Antichrist was only the ending of the work, using the Antichrist as an allegory for what can go wrong with Tolstoy’s vision –and what this is we shall see later).

Solovyov did not want to suggest that these (or similar like-minded) characteristics were evil. Separated from a holistic good, they are, certainly, but the same can be true with many other goods. Instead, because there is good in these qualities, Solovyov was showing how and why the Antichrist will not appear on the scene as if he were evil incarnate. Indeed, he will do a considerable amount of good, and that good is what will attract followers. This does not mean we should do the opposite of what the Antichrist does, but rather understand how his actions only apparently follow good, moral behavior; they do so only in a manipulative fashion: one could rather say he abuses the moral laws rather than follows them. Not only will the Antichrist appear good, he might even intend to do what he believes is good, but what he ends up doing will only be a perversion of that good.

We live in a time when speculations about the end of the world are popular, and many people look for signs and wonders which prove to them they are living at the end of human history. This is not a new phenomenon; looking back, we see it is a common theme in Christian thought. While there is some sort of temporal hubris involved (we often want to think that we live at the end of history, meaning, that we live in one of the most significant human eras ever), there is much more going on. There are reasons why our desires seem to be met: because the forces of the Antichrist continually to exist side by side with Christendom. It is easy to see the work of the Antichrist around us. Many believe that these forces will only be seen at the end, and therefore, if we see them, we must be nearing that end. There is a truth in this – from the time of Christ on, we are living out that end, however, we must not expect that the final events of history are going to be seen in our time.

In his textbook on Eschatology, Pope Benedict XVI provides us some significant insights on the antichrist. There will be a series of antichrists, living in different ages, each representing an aspect of the dark forces at work in the world; however, there will also be one final Antichrist, the culmination of all that has gone before him. The first hints of the Antichrist come from Daniel 11:36 and Ezekiel 28:2, but they are first and foremost descriptions of individuals living in the times of Daniel and Ezekiel; but these people (Antiochus Epiphanes and the Prince of Tyre) are also types of the final Antichrist. “The fact that the future antichrist is thus described with features which originally belonged to two other figures from the distant past naturally deprives him of any very well defined uniqueness. It situates the antichrist of the End within a series where a long line of predecessors have already nursed the evil that comes to its supreme intensity in him.” Joseph Ratzinger, Dogmatic Theology 9: Eschatology. Trans. Aidan Nicholas (Washington, DC: CUA Press, 1988), 196.

Literature and theological speculation on the final Antichrist is difficult to write because of the rather vague description we have of him. Yet, such reflection is important. An individual author may not be able to perceive the whole of the Antichrist, but they can represent aspect of him to us. Usually they do so, like Solovyov, by raising a philosophical or theological question, and having it played out in their writings.

Within some circles, this kind of story has become very popular, and anyone writing it with a semblance of literary merit and a sufficient amount of advertising and self-promotion becomes a best-selling author. There is a now considerable amount of such literature out there, most of them are quite bad, like the Left Behind series, and for some reason or another, the best of them are often neglected. Even an author like C. S. Lewis, who is otherwise popular, has had his insights ignored by the current generation (perhaps because they do not like how his story challenges their beliefs about what the Antichrist will be like).

One of the most unusual, and most obscure, presentations of an Antichrist (the story does not decide if he is the final one or not) is in Charles Williams’ novel, Shadows of Ecstasy (Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans, 1980). Here is a story about a man, Considine, who is a superman – he has found a way to extend life indefinitely – he does not age, but he can die if shot or harmed in some similar fashion. He learned how to extend his life through esoteric means while living in Africa, but he believes them to be entirely natural, entirely human. It requires us to transform the passions we have, to keep a hold of them, and use the energy of them to preserve our life. “When your manhood’s aflame with love you will burn down with it the barriers that separate us from immortality. You waste yourselves, all of you, looking outwards; you give yourselves to the world. But the business of man is to assume the world into himself. He shall draw strength from everything that he may govern everything”(72). Through some sort of tantric-like manipulation of love and desire, we can transform the energies associated with our passions; by this method, Considine suggests that we even have the power to conquer death. “Why does a man die but because he had not driven strength into the imagination of himself as living?” Considine asks one of the heroes, Sir Bernard (73). But of course in this reshuffling, desire becomes all and nothing, it kills the spirit within while life remains within its shell. It can never be transfigured, it can only live on.

One can only live so long in this state before wanting more. Thus Considine and his followers believe that just as there is a way to extend life, death must be overcome by man. “Because I live, men shall live also. But they shall do greater works than I, or perhaps I shall do them – I do not know. To live on – that is well. To live on by the power not of food and drink but of imagination itself recalling into itself all the powers of desire –that is well too. But to die and live again, that remains to be done, and will be done” (75). Until that point, man must preserve and conserve themselves, and life becomes a living death, where one should not “waste” one’s power on because one first needs to use that power to discover and control oneself. But in the conquest of death, everything changes. “It’s possible to make out of the mere superfluity of power greater things than men now spend all their powers on. The dropping flames of that fire are greater than all your pyres of splendour. And when death itself is but a passion of ecstasy, we will make music such as you couldn’t bear to hear, and we will be the fathers of the children who shall hear it” (80).

Until it is done, Considine is training his followers (and himself) in the art of living and dying, with the belief that one follower will find the right way to overcome death itself. Considine, ever the manipulative gentleman, controls key figures throughout the world, protecting him and his experiments – experiments which require people to commit suicide and to attempt the conquest of death in themselves. One such man, Simon Rosenberg, nearly succeeds – there is a scene, days after his suicide, where his body begins to stir, and signs of life are seen by Considine’s followers: then it is over, and death claims its victim. In the end, Considine is himself killed, but we are left wondering: will he be the one – and in this fashion become the ultimate representation of man against God, that is, will he be the final Antichrist? Or does he and his followers just represent one great step along the path which leads to the Antichrist, and someone greater is yet to come?

Charles Williams, like Vladimir Solovyov, wrote upon what he knew and understood best. This, the first of his novels, perhaps best represents one of the central themes of his supernatural thrillers: the dangers of esoteric knowledge and how it can be abused. Williams, one of the Inklings, was a scholar in the field of the occult, at once intrigued by it, even drawn to it, yet with a Christian sensibility to know the danger which lurks behind it. Thus Williams’ representation of the Antichrist best represents the charismatic, hypnotic powers of such a man, and the darkness which consumes one who tries to be a humanitarian superman. It’s every bit a condemnation of the nihilism of Nietzsche as it is a condemnation of the occult, and it shows how the two ultimately are one and the same.

C. S. Lewis in The Last Battle (New York: Collier Books, 1978) represents a different approach on the Antichrist. The theme of the work is more about the significance of the end of history and what happens after we reached that end than it is a discussion of the Antichrist. Yet, it presents to us a rather unique picture of the Antichrist, in part, because it represents many of Lewis’ eschatological speculations. Lewis, like George MacDonald before him and Balthasar after him, held a high hope for the salvation of all – although, unlike MacDonald, he did not believe one can know if this hope will be achieved. Is it realistic for one to possess this hope? Won’t the Antichrist, the personal culmination of evil in the world, be too far gone to be saved? Lewis answers this question in the negative.

Despite its fantasy nature, Narnia is seeped in allegory, and it is very easy to spot whom Lewis made as the Antichrist and whom he made as the False Prophet. But there is a twist in the tale here: while one thinks of the Antichrist as being the one in charge, in Narnia, it is the False Prophet, the talking-Ape Shift who has the Antichrist, the talking-donkey Puzzle, as a figurehead under his control.

Puzzle was a rather decent, but easily manipulated, creature; he did whatever his friend Shift told him to do. But throughout the story, one can tell that Puzzle is always a bit perplexed, and his compassionate, good-natured self is often brought to the forefront. Shift uses it to his advantage, and always coerces Puzzle to do his will, saying how unkind or ungrateful Puzzle is if he doesn’t.

When Shift and Puzzle find a lion-skin, the difference between the two is obvious. Puzzle mourns the death of the lion and wants to bury the skin; Shift does not; rather he thinks of what use he could make of it: he wants to use it to turn Puzzle into a false-Aslan. Shift has no reverence for anyone, and no respect for his friend; he just looks for what he can get out of others. Puzzle reveres Aslan, and believes that respect should be shown to all lions because Aslan is himself a talking lion and all lions are in his image. Thus he suggests to Shift, “Even if the skin only belonged to a dumb, wild lion, oughtn’t we to give it a decent burial? I mean, aren’t all lions rather – well, rather solemn. Because of you know Who? Don’t you see?” (6) Shift only responds with contempt, saying that Puzzle is not too bright and he should just follow what Shift tells him to do. And so Puzzle does this, helping to bring about the end of Narnia itself.

Shift gathers followers around him who do his will, fighting for control over Narnia. He makes a deal with Calormenes, enemies of Narnia who worship the brutal false-god, Tash. Indeed, he tells everyone that Aslan and Tash are one and the same, and yet he does this, not to discourage false religious practices, but to encourage a false unity between the two faiths. This must be read in context with what has Aslan say in the end of The Last Battle There is some measure of truth in it – what Shift said is as true as it is false, and that truth is what gives his message some strength. For in the story we learn of one Emeth, a good Calormene, and his encounter with Aslan:

The Lion growled so that the earth shook (but his wrath was not against me) and said, It is false. Not because he and I are one, but because we are opposites, I take to me the services which thou hast done to him, for I and he are of such different kinds that no service which is vile can be done to me, and none which is not vile can be done to him. Therefore if any man swear by Tash and keep his oath for the oath’s sake, it is by me that he has truly sworn, though he know it not, and it is I who reward him. And if any man do a cruelty in my name, then though he says the name Aslan, it is Tash whom he serves and by Tash his deed is accepted. (165).

The truth behind the fiction that Shift told is that one who believes they are following Tash could in truth be following Aslan; the name, though meaningful, is secondary to the heart; if one loves truth and seeks for goodness, they will find it. Even if they were led to believe the search is to be done through a falsehood such as Tash, in the end they will find what they thought to be Tash was really Aslan.

This paves the way for Lewis’ unconventional understanding of the Antichrist. Puzzle, ever beguiled by his simple but good nature, trusts his friend, and it in that trust, in the purity of his heart, that we find that goodness remains. Such goodness, Lewis suggests, can only end in triumph, and with the The Last Battle this means the salvation of Puzzle.

Like Williams, Lewis offers us a unique vision of the Antichrist, and he provides for us some things to ponder. We often believe that the Antichrist will be the one in control, and yet it is also believed that he will hold some power-mad scheme which makes him obviously evil. In Lewis, we find the exact opposite: Puzzle is kind and considerate, but he is also rather simple minded. He has no malice in his heart; yet it is because of his simple nature, that he can be used as a figurehead for evil. Evil, by its nature, can only exist in and through the good, it can only corrupt, it cannot create. The ultimate evil cannot exist without some good; it won’t be followed except for the fact it will look and appear that what it offers is not evil, but good.

This brings us back to Solovyov and his vision of the Antichrist. His representation combines elements of Williams and Lewis together. Here we have an Antichrist who begins his mission as a humanitarian; he truly wills to do good. “At that time, there was among the few believing spiritualists a remarkable person -- many called him a superman – who was equally far from both, intellect and childlike heart both. […] Conscious of the great power of spirit in himself he was always a confirmed spiritualist, and his clear intellect always showed him the truth of what one should believe in: the good, God, and the Messiah. In these he believed but he loved only himself.” Vladimir Solovyov, War, Progress, and the End of History. Trans. Alexander Bakshy, revised by Thomas Beyer (Hudson, New York: Lindisfarne Press, 1990), 165.

Here we have a superman, one with powers and skills beyond everyone else, but he has one flaw – he loved only himself. But what a flaw it is! The same flaw we have with Considine, we see in Williams’ vision of the Antichrist. But, unlike Williams, Solovyov goes forward to show the consequence of this love – to show the true power of the Antichrist. He followed the good only so far as it helped him, but he would – and did – bow to the Evil One when offered the kingdoms of the Earth. He turns from a believer of Christ to his great denier – seeing Christ as only a type of himself. His book, The Open Way to Universal Peace and Prosperity, brings about what it claims: world peace and an end to famine, with him as its ruler. “The new lord of the world was above all else a kindhearted philanthropist and not only a philanthropist, but even a philozoist, a lover of life. He was a vegetarian himself, prohibited vivisection, and instituted strict supervision over the slaughter-houses; while societies for the protection of animals received from him every encouragement. But what was more important than these details, the most fundamental form of equality was firmly established among humankind, the equality of universal society” (171).

All this appears good and holy, and yet he held for himself alone love and respect, and he had grown to hate Christ, even to fear him. To lift himself up, he must make Christ as naught; he must create a universal Christian faith which believes in nothing but has himself, not Christ, as its defender. Most Christians are fooled, but a few, including the representative heads of the Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox traditions, are not. This brings down his wrath – showing the extreme bitterness and hate contained within his heart.

While Williams brings to us a superhuman, hypnotic Antichrist, filled with esoteric power, and Lewis brings us the beguiled, good-natured Antichrist, Solovyov provides for us not just an Antichrist who fools us with his apparent goodness, but with an Antichrist whose goodness is lost because of his own self-love. He who desires to be the greatest must be the least; we must die to our selves to be resurrected in Christ. In this reason we can understand Solovyov’s point. The qualities he gives to the Antichrist can be anything which we perceive to be good, but no matter what we believe them to be, they can be lost by those whose love is only themselves; and whatever good Tolstoy represents, Solovyov believed, was lost by his pride and grandiose personality. For what other reason could Tolstoy be led to claim Christ and yet reject the Church Christ established (in any objective manifestation of it)?

Vladimir Solovyov Quote

Those who feel horrified at the thought that the Spirit of Christ acts through men who do not believe in Him, are wrong even from the dogmatic point of view. When an unbelieving priest correctly celebrates the liturgy, Christ is present in the sacrament in spite of the celebrant's unbelief and unworthiness, for the sake of the people who need it. If the Spirit of Christ can act through an unbelieving priest in a sacrament of the Church, why can it not act in history through unbelieving agents, especially when the believers drive it away? The Spirit bloweth where it listeth. Its enemies may well serve it. Christ who has commanded us to love our enemies can certainly not only love them Himself but also know how to use them for His work. And nominal Christians who pride themselves on having the same kind of faith as the devils should call to mind another thing in the Gospel -- the story of two apostles, Judas Iscariot and Thomas. Judas greeted Christ with words and with a kiss. Thomas declared his unbelief in Him to His face. But Judas betrayed Christ and 'went and hanged himself,' and Thomas remained an apostle and died for Christ.

--- Vladimir Solovyov, “The Collapse of the Mediaeval World-Conception,” pp. 60 – 71 in A Solovyov Anthology. Trans. Natalie Duddington (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1950), 70.

Florensky and the Aesthetics of Morality: Part V

Conclusion

Florensky saw the creation of a piece of it art is related to it’s creator’s spiritual experience, that is, it is related to the inspiration which guided the artist to create a particular work. True beauty is encountered in art if the artist properly incarnates that spiritual experience; when this happens, that work will necessarily be symbolic, with all kinds of symbols representing to others relating the artist’s personal experiences to everyone else. Beauty motivates us, fills us with vitality; it is capable of taking us back to the simple innocence of childhood, to a time when we were full of life and adventure. Indeed, art should be more than viewed, it should be experienced. This is true with art in all of its manifestations, though perhaps more clearly understood in the dramatic arts. In a short but insightful essay, Florensky explained how a puppeteer is similar to a priest, because they mediate to us a way by which we can bring out from within the lost innocence of our youth:

So, the spiritual harmony, which is suddenly revealed in religious conversion, lies in those same layers of the personality of that the puppet awakens in us. The puppet theatre is the hearth that is nourished by the childhood submerged within us and which in turns awakens within us the slumbering palace of the childhood fairytale.

[...] through the puppet theatre we see once more this lost Eden, even if only dimly, and so we embark upon an intercourse with one another [...] Shining in the rays of the setting sun, the theatre opens like a window onto an eternally living childhood.[1]

For Florensky, beauty inspires and frees us; it frees us from a legalistic approach to life. Creativity in life is related to the spark of the divine within us; it is the work of the Spirit of Life which guarantees true life. It frees us from the slavish, mechanical determinism which would otherwise be imposed upon us. A beautiful life is a good life, for a truly beautiful life imitates the creative, free activity of God, whose image we have, and whose likeness we are meant to posses.

One can see within the writings of Florensky a cry against the two authoritarian regimes he lived within: first, that of the Tsar, and secondly, that of the Communists. As a response to the strangehold he felt imposed upon him, he had a great desire for freedom. His love for creativity and beauty was a manifestation of his desire for goodness and truth – for orthodoxy. In this way, he believed that the ecclesiology of the Orthodox Church proved its truth, because it reflected the vitality and openness of the Spirit of God guiding it:

The indefinability of Orthodox ecclesiology, I repeat, is the best proof of its vitality. Of course, we Orthodox cannot point to any one ecclesial function about which it can be said that it sums up all of ecclesiality, for what would be the sense of all the other functions and activities of the Church?” [...] There is no concept of ecclesiality, but ecclesiality itself is, and for every living member of the Church, the life of the Church is the most definite and tangible thing that he knows.[2]

We should understand and accept this desire for freedom. In the eras that he lived through, we find others engaging these same questions. But he came to it with a specific idea, one which relies upon the unity of the philosophical transcendentals. Recognizing the ingenious greatness behind these ideas, nonetheless we must also acknowledge that his theories are incomplete. He believed that the way we judge the truth (and goodness) of something is through its beauty. On the one hand, this is a good, creative way to examine moral questions, and it certainly suggests an aspect of what we need to answer them. He is right: this aspect of moral theology has been lacking, and its negligence has caused considerable confusion. As such, it is easy to understand the power behind his thought. But a new question emerges: how are we to judge beauty, by what criteria is something said to be “beautiful” and therefore good, or “ugly” and therefore, bad?

Certainly, the spiritual dimension, as he suggests, needs to be included in any answer we might give. When he tells us that any created beauty, to truly be beauty, incarnates the higher, transcendent experiences of life, is valid. However, freedom without any structure or guidance would become chaos, not beauty. Once again, he is right when he says that there has been an over-emphasis on the logos in society, but it seems like there is another danger which he misses, and that is what happens when one makes the kalos an independent criteria without any structure to guide it, so that it becomes a rule without definition.

We can also ask another, important question: in all practicality, how does one act upon his principles? It sounds nice to say, “Go, and be beautiful,” but how is this to be done? What answers does it really provide when we ask concrete questions? What, for example, would theories of beauty have to say about war? How would they deal with the question of an unjust peace? Robert Slesinski succinctly points out this problem in Florensky’s thought when he says:

In their very indeterminateness, in their very transcendentality, these criteria appear almost empty, and indeed, give the impression of being decidedly inoperable. Just to cite them as deciding factors is to beg the question. But to make them work we must enter into matters of proportionality, and determine the proportions of truth, goodness, and beauty at stake in any given case.[3]

Florensky, I think, would grant this criticism, but he would also point out, that his position is that beauty is not to be seen alone, but beauty is truly one with the good and truth; they can’t be “proportioned” out and used as individual criteria; rather, any given situation or factor must be examined by all three perspectives, and when that is done, then and only then is the situation properly judged. Beauty, however, is the principle of freedom and creative participation with the world; it is for him the primary criteria we must use, because it is the principle of love. And this is where we find the strength of his claims. Love unites us, one with another, and this can only be done when the other is accepted as it is, without any demands placed upon them. Beauty through its goodness frees us; sin entraps us. Sin separates us from one another. Sin makes us think we are individuals who can only live and thrive at the expense of others, and generates in us a Satanic rebellion against God, against one another, and against the world we live in. Ugliness is repulsive, and when we act upon it, people want to leave us alone. Beauty brings us together, unites us in a harmonious interdependence with one another. Because of this beauty can be used as the principle by which we judge the goodness of an action: if what is done creates discord, then that perpetrator of that action has committed a sin: people will innately find something in him or her that they consider to be ugly or repulsive. If, on the other hand, what is done creates a true peace and concordance, then people will be attracted to it, and see the beauty of what has been done.

The aesthetic dimension of a moral act is a criteria that needs to be examined when engaging in moral theology. Florensky offers many examples of how an aesthetic criteria could help dictate the kind of action that should be had. However, there is the need for us to go beyond Florensky. He has shown us a part of the path that we must take, but we have been left with the task to develop his thought and refine it. Logos alone, legalism alone, should not be the approach we take to explain morality (even if it seems, de facto, the way we operate); but neither should kalos alone be the judge. Together, not apart, that is the way I believe moral theology needs to go; we need to examine moral questions through both perspectives, realizing, as Florensky did, they are just two aspects of the same ontological reality. The logos should be seen as the backbone or structure of moral theology in that it provides the grounding by which we can live out life in a truly beautiful, spirit-filled fashion; but just as a backbone is not the whole of an organism, so must the logos not be seen as the whole of the moral theology.

Notes
[1] Pavel Florensky, “On the Efimov’s Puppet Theatre,” in in Nicoletta Misler, Pavel Florensky: Beyond Vision: Essays on the Perception of Art. Trans. Wendy Salmond (London, England: Reakton Books, 2002), 134 –5.
[2] Pavel Florensky, Pillar and Ground of the Truth, 8.
[3] Robert Slesinski, Metaphysics of Love ,69.

Florensky and the Aesthetics of Morality: Part IV

Florensky’s Aesthetics: Later Writings

The reason why the holiness of the saints attracts our veneration and awe is because beauty attracts, and beauty is inherently connected to holiness. Iconography represents this beauty; the iconographer contemplates the glory of the Spirit-bearers, and brings to us an image of the Kingdom God. Indeed, the reason why icons look strange to modern, western eyes, is because the image in the icon represents the spiritual flight of the saint, and so transcends the boundaries of “perspective.” Perspective in art is, at best, a pale imitation of reality: an illusion which tries to trick the viewer into believing what they see is “real.” According to Florensky, the foundation of perspectivism in art lies in theatre, trying to add the illusion of reality to the play.[1] Perspectivism is an optical illusion; however, the true task of art is not merely creating a visual imitation of what we see, but to present its essence to us:

For the task of painting is _not_ to duplicate reality, but to give the most profound penetration of its architectonics, of its material, of its meaning. And the penetration of this meaning, of this stuff of reality, its architectonics, is offered to the artist’s contemplative eye in living contact with reality, by growing accustomed to and empathising with reality, whereas theatre decorations wants as much as possible to _replace_ reality with its outward appearance [...] Stage design is a deception [...] while pure painting is, or at least wants to be, above all true to life, not a substitute for life but merely the symbolic signifier of its deepest reality.[2]

In icons, but also with many other great works of art, the laws of perspective are broken; indeed, they can be transcended or even reversed, for the purpose of representing that which the eye alone cannot see. Life is fluid and full of motion; it is not still and cut off from the rest of reality. Great painters, even after the “recovery” of perspective in art, show to us that they understand the transcendent aspect of “reverse perspective” by offering, in their masterpieces, more than one focal point in their paintings. This attracts us to the painting because we feel within it there is something great being represented in that work of art.

Florensky believed that iconography represents a higher art, a heavenly art, because it understands, appreciates, and fully applies the transcendent, unearthly themes which make art great. We actually see more of the saint in an icon than what we would normally see if we had met them in person, because the icon represents to us the fullness of that saint’s being, and in any encounter we had with them, we would miss much of their internal, essential makeup.

So-called artistic realism is not actually realistic, rather, it is naive. It creates a logical barrier between the artistic vision and reality; it creates a false, legalistic view of creation. At best it takes one subjective manner of perception, and universalizes it. It does to art what legalism does in morality. While it might seem to be the most empirical representation of reality, even this is false: for science shows us that our perceptions of reality are, in themselves, not true to what it is to the object we are perceiving. Indeed, our very perceptions can be said to be illusionary manifestations of reality. Thus he said about naturalistic art, “Whereas the scientist exposes the unreality of perceptible images as subjective, the artist on the contrary strives to secure them in their subjectivity. Consequently, art does not express cognition of the truth of things, it obscures it.”[3] It puts forth an illusionary world: it at first appears to be real, but when we examine it, there is no substance, no reality; there is no core to that experience, it is dead; it is like picking up a discarded shell from the ocean; the life which once was within it is gone. It does not bring us, therefore, a world full of life, of creativity, of love. These, Florensky believed, are required for a piece of art to be an inspired masterpiece.

Thus, while Florensky believed iconography is the greatest kind of artistic achievement possible, he did not understand that this meant it should be the only kind of art. Thus he tried to delve deeper into what makes art, art. What is the foundation of art? It is not to express beauty to the world? Where does that beauty come from? The artist has a kind of spiritual experience (even if they do not realize it as such), and that experience is then manifested on a canvas, on a fresco, in stained glass windows, through the carving of stone, etc:

In creating a work of art, the psyche or soul of the artist ascends from the earthly realm into the heavenly; there, free from all images, the soul is fed by contemplation by the essences of the higher realm, knowing the permanent noumena of things; then, satiated with this knowing, it descends again to the earthly realm. And precisely at the boundary of the two worlds, the soul’s spiritual knowledge assumes the shapes of symbolic imagery: and it is these images that make the permanent work of art.[4]

Art represents a mystical experience of the artist, but it manifests this experience by relating one of the two different movements of the soul in that experience: either from its “ascent” above itself, or from its “descent” as it comes back to itself. Art that is born of the ascent is art of raw psychic material: it is incomplete, for it has not had the fullness of vision, the full experience of the heavenly realm. It is art which paradoxically tries to “capture” the “freeing” of the soul. Florensky related this to the spiritual state of prelest – spiritual pride which generates an ego trying to hold onto itself back from the fullness of the ascent. This means, among other things, we are trying to keep a hold of those aspects of ourselves which we believe keep us grounded in the world, preventing our spiritual perfection: we do not let go of our sin. Or, as Florensky explained, “...where ordinarily we would seek to break the grips of our sinful passions – even if our attempts were weak and futile – in prelest, driven by spiritual conceit, spiritual sensuality, and (above all) spiritual pride, we seek to tighten the knots that bind us.”[5]

Art born of the ascent is art trying to seize and capture the spirit before it has fully revealed itself, and therefore it creates an imperfect, false representation of reality. It puts a mask over reality instead of showing the full countenance, the full semblance of beauty which would be experienced at the height of the mystical, artistic moment. In the descent, even if the representation is false, the experience of that height is there, and it is therefore capable of being represented, even if the technical skills of the artist has not matured enough to know how to do it properly. It has accepted, not denied, the spirit. “Art” born of the ascent is the “art” of naturalism, of illusionism, because it creates, as with all illusions, “an empty image of the real.”[6] Art born of the descent, born after the fullness of spiritual revelation, is an incarnational experience, for it “incarnates in real images the experience of the highest realm; hence this imagery [....] attains a super-reality.”[7] What is portrayed “manifests its ontological reality”[8] to us.

Florensky related his ideas to the Eastern understanding of the distinction between image and a likeness. What does it mean to say we are in the image of God? That we are in the likeness of God? Being in the image of God means that we exist, and it is the “ontologically actual gift of God, as the spiritual ground of each created person....”[9] Our likeness however, is our manifestation of our potential, in how well we live out that image. We are called to be in the likeness of God (that is, like God, we are called to live to our full potential), but, after the fall of Adam, we have failed to do so. Yet, we were originally made in the likeness of God: humanity once manifested its potential perfectly. Through grace, this is still possible; it is our spiritual inheritance. To once again be in the likeness of God, we must “incarnate in the flesh of our personality the hidden inheritance of our likeness God: and to reveal this incarnation in our face.”[10] When we do so, the beauty that is God is seen in us, in our face. The saints, once again, are the greatest examples of this.

We are to mold our lives so to attain the spiritual heights we are capable of achieving. Like an artist, we are to be creative in how we develop ourselves and once again put on the likeness of God. Sadly, we do not always do this well; prelest is always a danger. When this happens, we have halted our ascent, stopped our spiritual perfection, and instead of taking on the image of God, we develop for ourselves a sinful countenance. We put on a new mask for ourselves, thinking its beauty matches the beauty we should possess; but in the end, what we get for ourselves is not even beautiful. “By exfoliating essence into appearance, sin brings into a countenance (lik) i.e., into the purest revelation of God’s image – that which is alien to the countenance and, in so doing, it overshadows the light of God: and the face becomes a light mixed with darkness, flesh becomes here and there corroded, through the twisting of beauty, into sores.”[11]

Florensky understood that in the creation of beauty, be it artistic or personal beauty, that we are inspired in our action from a spiritual ascent. However, we often prevent that ascent from achieving its final end, and therefore, create an illusionary shell which can confuse and overwhelm us. He recognized, therefore, that it is not just a spiritual experience, not just “transcendent beauty” (for all ascent is transcendent) that is needed. Rather, it is the incarnation of the spiritual realm into the earthly realm which creates the best, truest representation of beauty; anything else is an illusionary, satanic deception, no matter how beautiful it seems to be. Thus, we can be overwhelmed with a dark “evil” art, with an “angel of light” who deceives us, and traps us before attaining the fullness of spiritual and moral beauty.

The reason why the saints attract us, the reason why the hold us in awe, is because they have incarnated the glory of the spiritual realm into the earthly realm. They show us that this internal, radiant beauty is possible, and that we should not stop our ascent until we reach its final end. The beauty we see, the beauty which is captured in iconography, is the beauty of the spirit which radiates and inspires, which descends and incarnates into the world. It comes to us, calls to us, asks us to follow it so that we can have that which the saints have had. It requires us to overcome ourselves, to let go of everything that would prevent our own spiritual pilgrimage. Just like Florensky believed icons represent the height of art, so it is also that saints themselves are the greatest iconographers. Indeed:

In the most precise sense of the word, only the saints can be iconpainters; and it may well be that the vast majority of the saints have ‘painted’ icons in the sense of directing, through their spiritual experience, the very hands of those iconpainters who possessed both the technical skill to depict sacred vision and enough spiritual intelligence to respond sensitively to saintly instruction. [...] It is no wonder, then, that certain masters of iconpainting, obedient to the saints who proclaimed visions of immortal beauty, would depict that beauty under the direct supervision and verification of the very saints themselves.[12]

It is also this very reason why icons require strict spiritual discipline in their creation.An icon is a statement of the artist, one which that leads the viewer, the contemplator of the icon, to the heavenly realm incarnated therein. Those iconographers who have had an insufficient spiritual vision must be prevented from stepping past the boundaries of what an icon should represent. They can still create icons that manifest the heavenly realm to the viewer. But they must do so by following the traditional rules of iconography. Thus we find rightfully established icons are the prototypes of other icons, and iconographers imitate what has gone on before. They are told not to be “creative” without understanding the degrees or means by which creativity is valid, and this is found out only by spiritual experience. Thus, if the iconographer continues with the spiritual tradition of the great iconographers before him, the viewer is at least assured that it re-presents that very first spiritual experience that inspired the original icon in that tradition.

Notes
[1] Pavel Florensky, “Reverse Perspective,” 208.
[2] Ibid., 208-9.
[3] Pavel Florensky, “On Realism,” in Nicoletta Misler, Pavel Florensky: Beyond Vision: Essays on the Perception of Art. Trans. Wendy Salmond (London, England: Reakton Books, 2002), 182.
[4] Pavel Florensky, Iconostasis. Trans. Donald Sheehan and Olga Andrejev (Crestwood, New York: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1996), 44.
[5] Ibid., 48.
[6] Ibid., 45.
[7] Ibid.
[8] Ibid., 51,
[9] Ibid., 51 –2.
[10] Ibid., 52.
[11] Ibid., 55.
[12] Ibid., 88-9.

Florensky and the Aesthetics of Morality: Part III

Florensky’s Aesthetics: The Pillar and Ground of the Truth[1]

It is from the the wide variety of interests he held and and the many unique experiences had had during his life that Florensky developed his theories on aesthetics. In his writings, he tied them together, using his multi-disciplinary perspective as a way to respond to the relevant issues and questions of those living in his day. His inquisitive, scientific background suggested to him an experimental appraoch for his theological studies. He tried to incorporate the philosophical sophistication of Kant (he held a tremendous appreciation for Kant’s antinomies), the higher logical sciences (especially those developed from modern mathematical theory), and marginalized spirituality (where he was able to apply, while still being critical, thoughts from late nineteenth century spiritualists, including, but not limited to, Madame Blavatsky and Rudolf Steiner), with traditional Orthodox theology. He believed theology, out of necessity, must be more than theory, but lived experience (and this was not just from the practical standpoint of a scientist, but also that of a devoted man of spirituality who understood the fact that theology without the spirit is meaningless).[2] Like Roger Bacon before him, he was willing to search the gauntlet of human knowledge, experience and test what he found, and leave no stone left unturned.

Looking at the lives and deeds of the saints, he pondered the diverse reactions people had towards them – some were drawn to them, some were fearful and resentful of them. As a part of his opening to The Pillar and Ground of the Truth he examines these responses to the saints, and he asks, why? Why do we find these two contradictory responses to them? He believed that the answser was a matter of aesthetics. The saints are beautiful, but this beauty is terror for some, but for others, like the common peasant, it is a joy which foreshadows the joy of heaven:

The ascetic saints of the Church are alive for the living and dead for the dead. For a soul that has become dark, the faces of the saints become dark; for a soul that has become paralyzed, the bodies of the saints are frozen in terrible fixity. [...] And are not those who sin against the Church forced to look away in fear? But unclouded eyes see as always the faces of the saints as radiant, ‘as the faces of angels.’ For a purified heart, these faces are, as always, inviting [...] I ask myself, Why are the common folk, in their pure immediacy, involuntarily drawn to the saints? Why in their mute sorrow do the common folk find comfort in these saints as well as the joy of forgiveness and the beauty of the heavenly celebration?[3]

The saints, in their sublime beauty, represent to him the masters of the spiritual life. Yet, it is their beauty which shines through and is seen by all, it is their beauty which attracts us to them. Why? Because they have lived life to the fullest, because they have become sanctified and holy; they show to us the new life, the true life, the life filled by the Spirit. Truth is not some dogmatic formulation, but a life in this new spirit; truth is felt, experienced, not proved. Truth compels by attraction, by its radiant beauty, and not by some logical, theoretical calculation. The fullness of this truth is experienced and found in ecclesiastical life, where the Church is, as Scripture suggests : the Church is the pillar which holds up truth and allows us to experience it in its fullness (1 Tim. 3:15). “What is ecclesiality? It is a new life, life in the Spirit. What is the criterion of the rightness of this life? Beauty. Yes, there is a special beauty of the spirit, and, ungraspable by logical formulas, it is at the same time the only true path to the definition of what is orthodox and what is not orthodox.”[4]

When looking for truth, we must realize that truth transcends the rational, philosophical approach we use to find it. This means, when left to our own rational mind, we might doubt its existence, we might be confused, but truth remains despite our dubt, we are still drawn to it, and it is this attraction, this love we feel for truth, which tells us to put aside our doubt, to renounce ourselves, for the sake of experiencing the glory of this truth.[5] “True knowledge, knowledge of the Truth, is possible only through the transubstantiation of man, through his deification, through the acquisition of love as the Divine essence [....] In love and only in love is real knowledge of the Truth conceivable.”[6]

Love brings us into communion with the Truth, and through this Truth reveals itself in its fullness. In doing so, it reveals itself not different from, but one with, beauty. “For the ‘I’, our entering into communion with truth is knowledge; for the ‘thou’, for another, this communion is love; for the ‘me’ which is “objectified and objective, (i.e., according to the mode ‘He’), it is beauty.”[7] Thus, Florensky added, “What for the subject of knowledge is truth is love of this subject on the part of the object of knowledge, while for the one who contemplate knowledge (knowledge of the object by its subject) it is beauty.”[8] Truth is experienced by us in three different ways: as knowledge, as love, and as beauty. We know truth when we are the subject, we love truth when it is the object, and from a contemplative distance, it is beauty.

From this follows his belief that Truth, Goodness, and Beauty act as one principle. “It is one and the same spiritual life, but seen from different points of view. Spiritual life as emanating from ‘I,’ as having its center in ‘I,’ is the Truth. Perceived as the immediate action of another, it is Good. Objectively contemplated by a third, as radiating outward, it is Beauty.”[9] In this way, he believed that manifested truth is love, and realized love is beauty.[10]

We try to form universal laws which tell us how to live out our life. Even with those empiricists who follow the sciences, but reject the Christian faith, we find this to be the case. Florensky believed that the same Logos which Christians follow is to be understood as being the Logos which is behind all scientific laws. But this Logos is only understood improperly by the empiricist, because they extract it from its unity with Goodness and Beauty, from its divinity; their distorted vision creates a fatalistic, life-destroying legalism. “We conceive everything under this category of the law, the measure of harmony. This idea of logism, an idea that is often distorted to the point of unrecognizability, is the basic nerve of everything that is alive and genuine in our mental, moral, and aesthetic life.”[11] Science establishes the cosmic pattern and order found within creation, but on its own, left to its own, it unable to experience the fullness of life, the fullness of creativity, for the creative life in the Spirit is not the subject of rational, logical science:

Inspiration, creativity, freedom, ascesis, beauty, the value of the flesh, religion, and much else – all this is felt only indistinctly, is described only rarely, is established as being present, but stands outside the methods and means of scientific research, for the fundamental presupposition of such methods and means is, of course, the presupposition of correctedness, the presupposition of continuity, of gradualness. In its existing form, the idea of lawfulness is completely inapplicable to this. There is discontinuity here, and discontinuity goes beyond the limits of our science, does not jibe with the fundamental ideas of the contemporary worldview but destroys this worldview.[12]

What we need, he believed, is the experience of the Spirit, who as the Comforter and the Spirit of Truth, is also the Spirit of Life; the Spirit frees us from a strict, legalistic approach to life; it breaks apart the cold-hearted dogmatic calculations of rationalistic philosophy and science. It is the Spirit of Beauty, for it attracts and glorifies those who come into its presence; it sanctifies its recipients, bringing them the joys of the Kingdom of Heaven. “Finally, the free striving towards beauty, the love of the Goal – these are the deviations from scientism that typologically predict an immortal life and a holy, resurrected flesh.” [13] While we use reason to try to understand the world around us, all it does is provide for a deterministic, legalistic approach to life – and with it, we can write down what we consider the correct conduct and mode of living. But what we write can never express the fullness of life, the fullness of the free-flowing creative spirit which we have, and the manifold, unique experiences and conditions we find ourselves in. The proper mode of conduct can be legally debated, but never fully illuminated. It is only with the Comforter, the Spirit of Truth, and its compelling, attractive joy and beauty that the disputed questions can be answered.[14]

Notes
[1] Because of the wide variety of texts Florensky wrote upon aesthetic themes, I have tried to limit my focus in this presentation to his major theological work, The Pillar and Ground of the Truth, and some of his major writings on art ( with a special interest in his book Iconostasis, and his long essay “Reverse Perspective.”) In bringing these texts together I have only touched upon some of of his more important themes, so that this should be seen more as a primer to his thought than as an exhaustive analysis of his aesthetics.
[2] “Living religious experience as the sole legitimate way to gain knowledge of the dogmas – that is how I would like to express the general theme of my book, or rather, my jottings which have been written at different times and in different moods. Only by relying on immediate experience can one survey the spiritual treasures of the Church and come to see their value.” Pavel Florenseky, The Pillar and Ground of the Truth: An Essay in Orthodox Theodicy in Twelve Letters. Trans. Boris Jakim (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1997), 5.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Ibid., 8.
[5] Ibid., Letter Two, “Doubt” shows his understanding of doubt. He admits we all face it, and we often doubt truth itself even exists. But, for the love of truth, even if we do not know it, we transcend that doubt; we act like it is there, and open ourselves up. Doubt keeps us to the self, love opens us up to overcome the individualized doubt. In our love, with truth as the object, we are willing to ignore our doubts about our beloved for the sake of the beloved. Love requires us to act for the sake of the other, and not for ourselves.
[6] Ibid., 56.
[7] Ibid.
[8] Ibid.
[9] Ibid.
[10] Ibid.
[11] Ibid., 93.
[12] Ibid., 94.
[13] Ibid.
[14] Ibid., 104.

Pavel Florensky and the Aesthetics of Morality: Part II

On Pavel Florensky

Pavel Florensky was one of the greatest intellectuals of early twentieth century Russia. Because of the wide variety of interests he held and pursued, several people dubbed him the Russian Leonardo da Vinci.[1] He was at once a philosopher, a theologian, a priest, an art historian, an art critic, a linguist, a mathematician, a physicist, and to top it all off, a married man with a family. He integrated his interests together in all that he did, providing for a creative and unique outlook in life as is evident in his writings. He was to be become the “scholar priest” whom the communists could not ignore; his scientific work, especially in the field of electrical engineering, made him a useful and important contributor to the new state, protecting him and his life until the time that they felt that they had got all they could out of him.

He was born on January 9, 1882 in Evlakh, Azerbaijan. His father, Alexander Ivanovich, was a Russian railroad engineer. His mother, Olga Pavlovna, although of Armenian background, had distanced herself from her family’s Armenian heritage. His father had no interest in religion: he could accept the idea that there was a higher being, but he did not believe in the tenets of the Christian faith. He was not hostile to religion; he was just unable to accept that any one religion had been given by God, and he believed that religious doctrines went beyond what humans could rationally know. His mother was more favorable to religion, and so she would “affirm the importance of religion and the clergy”[2] but like his father, she did not hold a strong conviction in the Christian faith. The family would celebrate Christmas and Easter, but they were seen as cultural celebrations, and the religious elements of the feasts would be minimized.

From his father, Florensky developed a keen interest in mathematics and the sciences; from his mother, he gained an interest in the arts. As a young man, he possessed an interest in the natural world and felt united with it, leading to an outlook on life which could be described as semi-pantheistic. Robert Slesinski has translated a beautiful passage from his memoirs, where he recounts one of his earlier mystical experiences at a seaport in Russian Georgia:

I remember my childhood impressions, and I do not err in their regard: at the seashore, I felt myself face to face before a dear, solitary, mysterious and endless eternity, from which all flows and in which everything revolved. It called me, and I was with it.[3]

While he was a capable student in school, he felt he learned more from when he would be with his father, going on various little side-excursions into the world around them. On those trips, he would examine what he saw, analyze it, and then he would either photograph it or draw it to preserve the experience. Often with his father, he would look for stones, shells, and fossils, creating within him an attraction to geology and the earth sciences which stayed with him throughout his life.[4] But it was not just the rocks, but all of the workings of nature, which he believed possessed a natural beauty of their own, and in their own way, inspired him. “Wayside blooms, buds, leaf-buds attracted him more than the luxuriance of fully opened flowers. The beauty of the bud fascinated him with its mystery, its promise, the possibly of another as yet unfolded life, of another, as yet, unapparent, but ripening being.”[5] In his introspection, he observed this attraction that he had for nature and tried to understand it, making it possible that some of his aesthetical ideas had their initial sparks in these childhood experiences.

From 1882 to 1900, he was a student of the Second Classical Gymnasium in Tiflis, where he acquired many basic technical skills in mathematics, linguistics, and the sciences. Until 1899, he pursued his studies, more or less, with a primary interest in the hard sciences, believing they would provide for him the best way to understand the world. But in 1899 he had his first major spiritual crisis: he felt that the life of pure scientific research was not enough; physics was inadequate on its own to explain life to explain reality. With this crisis, he embraced Russian Orthodoxy; to his parents, this seemed liked a sudden, “radical conversion.”[6]

After graduating from the Gymnasium in 1900, Florensky studied mathematics in the Department of Physics and Mathematics at Moscow University from 1900 – 1904. While there, he was able to study under the mathematician Nikolai Vasilevich Bugaev, who was the father of the Symbolist poet Andrei Bely. He was also keen in pursuing and developing his spirituality, and so he took classes in philosophy. Bely and Florensky formed a friendship, one which was founded not just from their respective interest in mathematics, but also, in the way they worked together in developing the philosophy of Symbolism. This philosophy sought to find an essential, integrated meaning behind works of art, literature, and religion based upon the combination of the idea that symbols, found in all of them, are signs that represent a greater, inner truth than the symbol itself, with the belief that all of the arts and religion tried to convey this greater message. Florensky had a great interest in the newer mathematical theories developing at that time, and wrote for his thesis, On the Peculiarities of Planar Curves as Loci of Disruptions of Continuity. He came to believe that Euclidean mathematics, and the physics based upon it, failed to meet the wider, more diverse, discontinuities found in higher mathematics, and therefore, failed to actually address reality. This belief would later help form some of Florensky’s aesthetic theories.

After finishing his degree in mathematics, Florensky had been given the opportunity to continue his mathematical studies, but he felt a much different call –a religious call. He talked with his Bishop about his desire of becoming a monk. However, his Bishop persuaded him that he was not called to the monastic life, and convinced him instead to go to seminary at the Moscow Theological Academy in order to study for the priesthood. From 1905 through 1908 he completed his basic theological training, and then he became a lecturer in philosophy for the Academy. While there, preparing for his future life, he met Anna Mikhailovna Giatsintova, whom he married on August 17, 1910. He was ordained a priest on April 24, 1911. He finished and defended his master’s thesis, Of Spiritual Truth, in 1914; he would later expand his thesis and publish it as his greatest theological work, The Pillar and Ground of the Truth.

Before the October Revolution, Florensky became one of the leading members of a group of intellectual, spiritually minded philosophers in Russia. He became the friend or associate with many of the other liked minded individuals such as Sergius Bulgakov, Symeon Frank, Nicholas Berdyaev, and Nicholas Lossky. From 1911 – 1917, he was an editor and writer for one of the leading theological journals of the time, the Theological Messenger. He also continued research with his scientific and mathematical interests, and wrote articles for several technical journals; but his interests also went far and wide, so he was beginning to publish articles in other fields of study, such as linguistics. His articles touched upon the philosophical and sociological disputes of his time – for example, because communists were trying to ridicule traditional motifs following the principles of scientific positivism, Florensky would work to show the naivety of positivism, especially through his research in the principles of non-Euclidean mathematics. He would often point out that positivism relied upon the false presumptions of an Euclidean view of reality.[7]

The Bolshevik Revolution had a radical change on Florensky’s life. Before it, he had hoped to create a special philosophical academy in Moscow where one could study religion and religious phenomena scientifically. He had also been made the protector-curator of the St Sergius Monastery. After the revolution, he tried to convince the new regime to preserve the monastery intact for its cultural heritage in the essay,“The Church Ritual as a Synthesis of the Arts.” Several of the communists agreed with what he said, but only up to a certain point – they agreed with him that it was worthwhile to protect religious artifacts as works of art. To them he suggested that art could only be appreciated and experienced within the context it was produced and meant to be viewed. Thus he said that one should view the monastery as a museum—as a living museum where the monks and priests were able to go about their life, because this would preserve the integrity of the art within. He said it was similar to the way that a naturalist would want to keep a forest preserved by keeping all it natural inhabitants within it. “What would we say of an ornithologist who, instead of observing birds wherever possible in their natural habitat, concerned himself exclusively with collecting beautiful plumage?”[8] In an ingenious way, he labels those who would seek the destruction of the community as possessing a religious fervor, acting like ascetics who abandoned the world, while those who would want the monks to stay and make the monastery a living museum would be those who value art for its sake:

I could understand a fanatical demand to destroy the Lavra and leave not a stone standing, made in the name of the religion of socialism. But I absolutely refuse to understand a Kulturträger who, on the basis of nothing more than a fortuitous overabundance of specialists in the visual arts in our day, fervently protects the icons, the frescoes, and the walls themselves, and remain indifferent to other, no less valuable achievements of ancient art.[9]

Because of his work and critical studies in the arts, he would eventually teach art at the Higher State Technical Arts Studios from 1920 – 1927, where he eventually became the Chairman of its Department of Polygraphy. At the same time, during the 1920s, he would also work and lecture on the sciences. In 1920 he helped create a special ultramicroscope for the biologist Ivan Ognev; in 1921 he began his work as a specialist in electricity for the Soviet Electrification Plan, where eventually helped create new insulation materials for GlavELEKTRO.[10] He also worked on more than 120 articles for the developing Technological Encyclopedia between 1927 and 1934.

Florensky made several bitter enemies. He never left his religious fervor, and he always wore his cassock.[11] In 1928, because of complaints lodged against him, he had been sent on a three month exile to Novgorod; after his return to Moscow, he was able to continue with his scientific research and duties. In many ways, his genius earned him the ability to be a religious man, a theological philosopher, because his talents were needed by Russia. He was one of the greatest scientific minds of the time. The Soviets feared he was influencing young students, but they feared what would happen if they did not make use of his talents, talents which he did offer up for the good of the state.

Needless to say, Florensky was living on borrowed time. Even his genius was unable to save him from the new, more sadistic regime of Stalin. His religious faith had become too much of a burden to the Soviets. In 1933, he was accused of many crimes, including criminal conspiracy, and was sent to ten years of hard labor in the Soviet Gulags. He was sent there on his own with the rest of his family having to stay behind. Even under arrest, and working hard labor, Florensky continued his philosophical, theological and scientific studies – he wrote when he had the time, and it is possible that the Soviets gave him a bit more freedom to do so than any of the other inmates at the Gulag because they were interested in what he might write. Since his family was not in Siberia with him, he wrote to the authorities hoping that his works and research could be given to them. Indeed, they worked to help facilitate some of this, and he was able to write to his friends; thus his friend and co-worker, Pavel Kapterev, received his essay, “How Water Freezes.”[12] In 1934, he was given the chance to see his family one last time. He was then moved to the Solovki Gulag, where he taught mathematics and the scientific properties of iodine to his fellow inmates (it was, among other things, an iodine factory). He was allowed to write to his family; from his letters, they were able to read of the appalling conditions he lived under. On November 25, 1937, the Secret Police re-examined the case against Florensky, found him guilty, and condemned him to death. He was executed on December 8, 1937. In the 1950s, the Soviets would state that his execution was an unfortunate mistake. In the 1980s, Pavel Florensky would be among those canonized by ROCOR as a New Martyr of the Orthodox Faith. [13]

Notes

[1] Robert Slesinksi, Pavel Florensky: A Metaphysics of Love (Crestwood, New York: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1984), 21.
[2] Ibid.,.28.
[3] Ibid., 30.
[4] Nicoletta Misler, Pavel Florensky: Beyond Vision: Essays on the Perception of Art. Trans. Wendy Salmond (London, England: Reakton Books, 2002), 18.
[5] Victor Bychkov, The Asesthetic Face of Being, 19.
[6] Nicoletta Misler, Pavel Florensky, Beyond Vision,19.
[7] This would also be the approach he would take in art critique, as can be seen in his lengthy work “Reverse Perspective.” While many believe our use of perspective in art works best to recreate the visual world we perceive, he finds mathematical reasons to dismiss it ,because perspectivism is formed from an Euclidean bias. He also points out that perspectivism fails to capture the whole of reality as we perceive it – even if an Euclidean view of the world was correct as to how things are: “Leaving aside the olfactory, gustatory, thermal, aural and tactile spaces that have nothing in common with Euclidean space, so that they’re not even subject to discussion in this sense, we cannot overlook the fact that even visual space, the least removed from Euclidean space, turns out on closer inspection to be profoundly different from it. And it is in fact [visual space] that lies at the core of painting and the graphic arts, although in various instances it can be subject to other aspects of physiological space too, in which case a picture will be a visual transposition of non-visual perceptions.” Pavel Florensky, “Reverse Perspective,” in Nicoletta Misler, Pavel Florensky: Beyond Vision: Essays on the Perception of Art. Trans. Wendy Salmond (London, England: Reakton Books, 2002), 266.
[8] Pavel Florensky, “The Church Ritual as A Synthesis of the Arts” in Nicoletta Misler, Pavel Florensky: Beyond Vision: Essays on the Perception of Art. Trans. Wendy Salmond (London, England: Reakton Books, 2002),102.
[9] Ibid., 111.
[10] See Nicoletta Misler, Pavel Florensky: Beyond Vision, 22.
[11] “The Soviet authorities for whom Florensky worked, seeing his value as an extraordinary research scientists, wanted him to renounce his priesthood. Not only did he not comply, but he was daring enough to wear his priest’s cassock, pectoral cross and hat while working in an official capacity as a scientist, even going to the Supreme Soviet for National Economy dressed as a priest. Fearlessly walking in with his shining cross hanging from his neck, he delivered lectures to groups of Soviet scholars and old professors.” St Paul Florensky, Salt of the Earth: An Encounter with A Holy Russian Elder: Isidore of Gethsemane Hermitage. Trans. and intr. by Richard Betts (Platina, California: St Herman of Alaska Brotherhood, 1987), 29.
[12] Nicoletta Misler, Pavel Florensky: Beyond Vision, 26.
[13] St Paul Florensky, Salt of the Earth, 31.

Pavel Florensky and the Aesthetics of Morality: Part I

Introduction

Although moral theology has the potential of bringing an inspiring, practical dimension of theological investigation to our lives, it is a lamentable fact that this potential is rarely met. Sometimes, if not most of the time, it is carried out as if all that people need to know to be good, moral persons, is a list of obligatory commands. While it is true that the Church should express the norms by which people should live by, it is also true that there is a large number of people who feel that these norms do not properly address how they should live in the world today. The rules offered do not seem to address the moral quandaries people face in their daily lives. Indeed, one can say that the rules are increasingly difficult if not impossible to follow. The societal environment needed in order to follow them is just not there. The question of “what ought I to do” really can never be fully answered by a a list of “do not do this, nor this, nor this.” Indeed, while we have free will, at a given moment we cannot do everything we might want to will: I can’t fly into the sky just because I will to fly. People might will to do good, but they might find themselves in a situation where they believe every possible choice or action they could make would break one or more of the moral laws they have been told to follow. After experiencing much frustration, they do as one expects them to do: they give up. They feel that the Church is no longer in touch with the real world and the choice of actions they have set before them. In the end, they begin to look elsewhere for answers.

Moral theologians have to provide meaningful answers to the moral questions which are set before us today. It is a very difficult task. In his encyclical Veritatis Splendor, Pope John Paul II noted both the increasing difficulty that the Catholic Church has in teaching its moral norms to the laity, but also the increasing need for moral theologians to effectively express the Church’s morality in a way people can understand and follow it. “The service which moral theologians are called to provide at the present time is of utmost importance, not only for the Church’s life and mission, but also for human culture and society.”[1] But the question is – how are they to do this? What ways can they integrate the norms of moral law with the increasingly difficult living conditions and moral dilemmas that Christians face?

Father Kenneth Overberg reminds us that, “Deeply rooted in the Catholic tradition is the conviction that morality is based on reality. Reality is God, human beings and the rest of creation – all in relationship. Every moral dilemma presents a small but real slice of this totality.”[2] Questions of morality reflect questions about the whole of reality. When we ignore the relationship that our actions have with the greater whole, it might be easy for us to find ways to justify those actions we like to do. However, it is easy for us to see how this insufficiently addresses the morality of the action is, because the moral consequence of any action extends beyond the limited framework of the individual who act: all actions have an effect, however slight or great, upon the whole of creation.

The priest-martyr Pavel Florensky offers us another way to address moral questions. Like Father Overberg, Florensky believed that moral theology can only be adequately addressed by understanding its proper position and place within the whole of reality. What is moral theology but theological reflection which looks upon the question of goodness? Then then, what does it mean to be good? What, exactly, is the good? Victor Bychkov explains Florensky’s basic view: “In Florensky’s understanding, the metaphysical triad of Truth, Good, and Beauty is formed not of different principles or aspects of being, but of one principle. It is one and the same spiritual life considered from different angles.”[3]

In this way we can say that one of the many problems of how moral theology has often been done is that it has taken itself, and its principle questions, as independent investigations separated from the rest of theology. It has lost is spiritual center, and with it, the core by which it is able to provide for us a way of life. Its reflections tend to become legalisms; it provides to the one searching for answers a Pharisaical letter that kills their human spirit. In order to put a life-giving spirit back into moral theology is time to put back into its reflections that which has been most neglected: the aesthetic dimension of being. Aesthetic theology, and its livelihood, can be used to encourage a more organic, more holistic moral theology – it can create a theology that inspires, just as beauty attracts the one who views it. Or, in a similar vein, it can be said that moral theology should be examined and within the lens of aesthetic theology: if what we find is unappealing, if what we find can be said to be “ugly,” then there should be no surprise why it does not encourage people to following its principles.

The question can easily be asked: even if the good and the beautiful are one and the same principle under different angles of investigation, is it possible for moral theology to be judged by aesthetics? That is, can aesthetics be used to set up practical moral principles? As an example where this has been done, let us turn it upon the life and teachings of Pavel Florensky. Since he is the one who suggests to us that it should be possible, and that it is necessary for morality and aesthetics to intersect, it would be interesting to see how he demonstrated this in his own life and work. From there, we will readdress this question, taking Florensky’s insights, and see that although they offer a direction for us to move, his own principles needs further elaboration and development before it can be fully used within the scheme of moral theology. They are useful, they point us to a new way to look at the issue, and they raise raise the right question, but it is a project left incomplete by Florensky. Perhaps if he had lived longer, he would have been able to provide for this as well. Even if he did not, we can recognize in his thought a kernel of truth which can be useful in further investigations into moral theology.

Notes
[1] Pope John Paul II, The Splendor of Truth. Vatican Translation (Boston, Massachusetts: St Paul Books and Media, 1993), 111.
[2] Kenneth R. Overberg, S.J., Conscience in Conflict: How to Make Moral Choices; revised edition (Cincinnati, Ohio: St. Anthony Messenger Press, 1998), 5.
[3] Victor Bychkov, The Aesthetic Face of Being: Art in the Theology of Pavel Florensky. Trans. Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky (Crestwood, New York: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1993), 28.