“You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:32): reflections of a philosopher
V. P. Lega
In modern society, the idea is firmly established that Christianity, like any other religion, limits a person’s free choice and therefore makes him less free. Indeed, atheists argue, how can one imagine a free person given the existence of an omnipotent God who predetermines all human actions? And Orthodox Christians themselves call themselves “servants of God”, elevate obedience to the rank of the highest virtues, etc.
Perhaps this idea was expressed most clearly by J.-P. Sartre, who said that even if God existed, it would not affect man in any way in terms of his freedom and responsibility. In short, if man is free, then there is no God. Therefore, writes Sartre, “existentialism is nothing more than an attempt to draw all the conclusions from consistent atheism.” Thus, the atheist claims that Orthodoxy suppresses freedom, asserting that man is a servant of God and forbidding man to do many things that are completely accessible to an atheist. And where there is no freedom, there is no ethics. This leads to completely pessimistic conclusions regarding Christianity.
However, atheistic speculation on the problem of freedom is caused by an insufficient understanding of what freedom is. I propose to address this issue through the prism of the famous phrase from the Gospel of John, “You will know the truth, and the truth will make you free” (John 8:32). The phrase is extremely rich in philosophical concepts, so it is impossible to do without its philosophical understanding here. But to make this understanding more accurate, let's read this phrase in its context. “Then Jesus said to the Jews who believed in Him: If you continue in My word, then you are truly My disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free. They answered him: we are Abraham’s seed and have never been slaves to anyone; How then do You say: You will be made free? Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave of sin.” But the slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever. Therefore, if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed” (John 8:31–36). From the words of the Savior it is clear that by truth He means Himself, the Son of God, as He said in another place: “I am the way and the truth and the life” (John 14:6). Ap. also speaks in this sense. Paul: “...the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and death” (2 Cor. 3:17). For a Christian, the words “freedom in Christ” are very understandable and familiar. As A. Khomyakov wrote, “Christianity itself is nothing other than freedom in Christ.” But how to understand these words from a philosophical point of view? Here we need to clarify both concepts: the concept of freedom and the concept of truth. Let's start with the second one.
Most often, the word “truth” refers to the correspondence of statements or thoughts to the actual state of affairs. The founder of this point of view, Plato, said: “If anyone speaks of things in accordance with what they are, he speaks the truth. Anyone who speaks differently about them is lying.” Aristotle echoes him in Metaphysics: “To say of a being that it does not exist, or of a non-existent that it is, is to say something false. And to say that what exists is and what does not exist is not, means to say what is true.” In other words, truth is the correspondence of thoughts to reality. This is the classical or correspondent's concept of truth.
However, it raises serious problems that were posed in ancient skepticism. A person in his cognitive activity always deals with phenomena, and not with reality itself, and phenomena can always be reduced to subjective perceptions. Therefore, the division between reality and thought about it turns out to be quite ephemeral; philosophy has never been able to overcome it. Further, based on what criterion does a person conclude that his thoughts actually correspond to reality? After all, a person is always limited by the framework of his own thinking, and it is in thinking that a judgment about the truth is formed. A person can never take the place of an object; he always remains a subject. Therefore, to say that my judgment corresponds to reality is completely unfounded. What is the criterion, how do I know that this judgment corresponds to reality, that is, that it is true? I must have my own criterion of truth in order to know whether this is true or not. That is, the criterion of truth must have its own criterion of truth, etc. ad infinitum. And even if some of my statements correspond to some kind of reality, then what about the statements of science, which are of a universal nature? How to check the truth of universal statements based on this criterion?
To solve these problems in the 17th–18th centuries. Another theory of truth was proposed, called coherent. The requirement of logical coherence of a statement is put forward as a necessary requirement for truth. A true statement is one that is logically consistent. Accordingly, the coherent theory of truth has two varieties. One variety is the theory of Hobbes, who argued that logical consistency is the criterion in the classical theory of truth. We find another variety in the teachings of Kant, who argued that reality is generally unknowable and we are talking only about phenomena, about thought, which itself dictates the laws of reality, and therefore the criterion of truth and the truth itself is precisely a consistent statement.
But here again problems arise. What does consistency mean? This concept simply asserts the truth of the laws of logic without examining its origin, and thereby simply postulates that logical consistency is truth. Moreover, it is not clear why a consistent statement really corresponds to the real state of affairs.
Hobbes's concept also has its own trap, for the question arises: on the basis of what criterion is it stated that logical consistency is a criterion that guarantees that our thoughts really correspond to the objective world? Problems appear that arose in the first case, in the classical theory, - the question that real things are connected by the same laws as concepts in the mind, but it is clear that the laws of reason and the order of things are essentially different from each other.
So, we get a vicious circle: the coherent theory of truth requires a classical theory as a complement, and the classical theory requires a coherent one. In the 19th–20th centuries. conclusions were drawn about the reasons for the emergence of this problem and it was indicated that such a reason is the desire of philosophers to solve their problems through subject-object relations. To overcome the subject-object nature of philosophy, other concepts of truth have been proposed, in which one goes beyond the subject-object pair. At the end of the 19th century. the so-called pragmatic concept of truth was proposed: truth is what is useful. Thus, the creators of the pragmatic concept tried to free themselves from the dependence of the concept of truth on the laws of logical thinking, on the connection between words. A category such as utility can be applied both to a material subject and to the material world. But it turned out that the pragmatic concept narrows the very concept of truth. Bertrand Russell ironically noted that from the point of view of the pragmatic concept of truth, two statements such as: “It is true that other people exist” and “It is useful to believe that other people exist” are identical, although it is obvious that these are completely different statements.
Moreover, in the theory of the utility of truth, truth itself turns out to be subjective: if there is no active person, then truth itself does not exist. There is no such thing as a “true theory.” From the point of view of pragmatic theory, many provisions of theoretical sciences cannot be examined for truth, especially those that relate to cosmological problems, mathematical questions, etc. (what benefit do people have from the general theory of relativity? from non-Euclidean geometries?). Meanwhile, these theories, which cannot be usefully applied in real life conditions, have their own criterion of truth that is completely understandable to scientists.
The Marxist concept of truth, which claims that practice is the criterion of truth, is also close to the pragmatic concept. Marx noticed the problem of the criterion of truth and quite correctly said that the criterion of truth should not be in reason itself, because reason itself cannot say whether it corresponds to reality or not. Consequently, the criterion of truth must be somewhere outside, uniting both reason and reality. Therefore, Marx proposed such a criterion of truth as practice. Truth is put forward according to traditional criteria, classical and coherent, and then practice verifies the truth of these statements. Despite the fact that such a concept was drummed into the minds of Soviet people for several decades, any normal person who received a natural science education always had an internal rejection of it, because the problems that arose with the pragmatic concept of truth also transferred to the Marxist one. What kind of practice can test the theory of relativity, the correctness of Minkowski's four-dimensional space-time, the provisions of Lobachevsky's or Riemann's mathematics? It is clear that practice can also be a kind of private criterion of truth, but only in individual cases, and therefore cannot claim to be comprehensive.
As a result, the so-called semantic theory of truth was proposed in modern positivism of the Lviv-Warsaw school. The main task of this theory was to overcome the shortcomings of the classical and coherent concepts, i.e. the problem of the emergence of paradoxes (such as the liar paradox) and the problem of compliance with a consistent theory of reality. Semantic theory argues that any true theory must meet two criteria: it must be materially adequate and formally consistent, and in order to avoid the liar paradox, it must be built on some kind of artificial language, devoid of ambiguous terms - following the example of mathematics. Truth itself exists only in that science in which some special, ideal language has been created that excludes the appearance of paradoxes.
Nevertheless, even here the problems do not disappear, because the semantic theory, putting forward the requirement of a special language, creates the problem of the truth of this language. To assess its truth, it is necessary to create a certain meta-language in which the language of science would be considered as its special case. A construction like an infinite nesting doll appears. The problem of truth in such a construction is not finally resolved.
By the end of the 20th century. a situation arises that was foreseen at the end of the 19th century. Friedrich Nietzsche, who said that truth does not exist and that all human knowledge is simply his interpretation, and that there are only errors. The doctrine of truth is one of the great misconceptions of mankind, therefore knowledge is only a person’s adaptation to reality. The very concept of truth is an erroneous concept, a pseudo-concept, in the language of the positivists.
Thus, such a seemingly easy question about truth turns out to be extremely difficult when trying to solve it, and not just difficult, but practically impossible to solve in the language of philosophy. Science cannot answer this question because it is always concerned with its own subject and naively considers the problem of truth obvious. However, the problem of truth goes beyond the boundaries of science, and therefore it is natural to invite philosophers to consider this problem. But philosophy, as we see, also could not offer anything except endless contradictions that arise in various theories of truth.
However, it is obvious that the concept of truth, incomprehensible by science and undetectable by philosophy, nevertheless exists, which is directly felt by every person.
Why does a person’s ability to evaluate the truth arise and the inability to understand it? Obviously, man, by his own nature, as a being who knows how to evaluate the truth or falsity of any statement, any theory, carries the criterion of truth within himself. This means that man, by his nature, rises above the subject-object relationship, otherwise it would be impossible to talk about anything other than personal, subjective perception. If a person confidently asserts the truth or falsity of any statement or theory, then this means that he really rises above the very process of cognition, above the very relationship of subject and object. In other words, this shows that a person, if he knows the truth, is no longer just an integral part of our material world, just as he is not only a rational, thinking being. Of course, this is necessary; man is both a material and a rational being. But it is impossible to evaluate the truth of a statement based on the presence of reason alone. This means that a person has an ability, not realized and not understood by him, which elevates him above material and above rational reality. In theology, this idea is often illustrated by the example of a moral criterion present in a person - conscience. If a person can evaluate a certain act he has committed from the point of view of morality or immorality, then this also becomes possible due to the presence in a person of the ability of moral self-esteem, conscience.
A person is not just a being consisting of a body and having a mind (a rational animal), but a being that by its nature rises above this world and is part of this world. This contradictory attitude can only be understood through Jesus Christ, the God-man, both towering above the world and bearing within Himself the nature of this world. Christianity affirms the unmerged and inseparable existence of the world and God in Christ. Therefore, those contradictions that exist in various philosophical theories are removed in Christianity. Christianity completes the fragmentary judgments that various philosophers have proposed as criteria of truth. Therefore, it turns out that truth is the one Divine Person of Jesus Christ, in Whom the divine and the human are inseparably and inseparably united, i.e. created, nature, this is reason, word, Logos. Thus, the statements “what is truth?” and “Who is the Truth?” do not exclude one another, but complement and clarify each other.
Now let’s find out how philosophers answered the question: what is freedom? It would seem that the answer is simple: freedom is the ability to choose. A person is free when he can do what he wants, and vice versa, he is not free when he is deprived of such a choice, as, for example, in places of deprivation of liberty. However, such an answer would be very superficial. After all, it is clear that choice is a property of a being that has freedom. Consequently, freedom is not the choice itself, but a certain ontological property, possessing which, one can make this choice.
The Greek philosopher Plotinus was one of the first to draw attention to this property of freedom. His philosophy is most often associated with the doctrine of emanation from the One, which flows not according to its (the One’s) will, but out of some necessity, since the One is so filled with energy that it cannot help but pour it out. Obviously, the idea that in emanation the One is not free also has a completely ordinary idea of freedom: the One would be free if it could not only pour out, but also not pour out energy. A completely human idea.
However, Plotinus himself understands freedom differently and writes for this purpose the treatise “On the will and freedom of the First One.” For Plotinus, free is not a being that can choose, but one that does not depend on anything. The existence of the One is not conditioned by anything, it exists by virtue of its own nature, and therefore it is absolutely free. After all, the One is above everything, there is nothing above it, nothing forces it to act, it acts only by virtue of its own nature. And this is true freedom. “As for the doubt whether a being can be free if it obeys its nature, we in turn ask: can a being be considered dependent when it is not forced by anything from the outside to follow anything else? Is a being striving for the good under the pressure of necessity, when this desire of his arises from his own desire and from the confidence that the object of his desire is good? (VI. 8, 4).
This understanding of freedom as ontological independence will be often used in the future to solve various philosophical and theological problems. Applying this definition of freedom, the Fathers of the Church will be able to overcome the temptations of heresies (as, for example, such an understanding of freedom will help St. Augustine to overcome the erroneous conclusions of the heresy of Pelagius, and St. Maximus the Confessor - the incorrectness of monothelitism). In modern times, philosophers will explain how freedom can be thought of within the framework of natural determinism (Spinoza, for example, will show that true freedom is possible only on the path of knowing God), and will show the independence of the moral law from the material law (Kant).
Let's consider these arguments.
The sad consequences of the understanding of free will as a choice between good and evil were shown by the blessed. Augustine in controversy with the famous heresiarch Pelagius. According to Pelagius, it turned out that if freedom is a choice between good and evil, then man himself is neutral in relation to these concepts. From here follow the main conclusions of Pelagianism: about the integrity of human nature in original sin, about the uselessness of the Church for salvation, etc. Augustine, in response to this, points out that freedom is not a choice in itself, but some deeper force capable of making this choice. Thus, in his work “On Free Will,” Augustine writes: “After all, our will would not be a will if it were not in our power. Well, if it is in our power, then it is free with us” (III, 3, 8). In other words, Augustine, like Plotinus, believes that freedom is independence. That is why God is free: everything is in His power, nothing dominates God. God does not depend on anything or anyone, since He is a substance, for, as He said to Moses, “I am who I am.” God is love, He is absolutely free and that is why He cannot sin. Man also has this ability from God (being the image of God), but since man is not omnipotent, this ability manifests itself as a choice. A person can find greater freedom only in God, in complete obedience to Him.
To refute the heresy of monothelitism, St. Maxim once again has to return to the question of the relationship between the free will of man and God, posed and resolved in his own way by Augustine, and therefore to the question of freedom in general. Free will is a property of human nature, and not of his hypostasis, because all people freely desire, but what each specific individual desires is another question. If free will were a property of hypostasis, then one person could have freedom, and another could not. But human freedom is his essential property, no matter how deeply sin may penetrate his nature. And how a particular person uses his freedom depends on him - his knowledge, upbringing, etc. Thus, Maximus the Confessor develops the doctrine of two wills in man - natural and gnomic. Natural will is an essential property of man, the image of God in him, given to him from the creation of man, and gnomic will is a manifestation of natural will in specific circumstances. True, the gnomic and natural will in Christ form one whole, because Christ did not accept human sin. Therefore, the path of salvation consists in following Christ - to subordinate one’s gnomic will to the natural one, i.e. divine, and become free, as God is free.
Spinoza's philosophy is usually interpreted as complete determinism. However, Spinoza himself thought differently, believing that his philosophy was the path to true human freedom. Spinoza comes from the same tradition as Plotinus and Augustine, and points out that “a thing is called free if it exists only by the necessity of its own nature and is determined to act only by itself.” In other words, free is the one who determines himself in his own action. Therefore, Spinoza concludes that only God, who is the cause of himself, is free in the proper sense; only God Himself determines Himself to act and acts in accordance with the necessity of His own nature alone.
A person can also act freely, but his freedom is realized not in self-will, which, as Spinoza shows, is nothing more than dependence on passions, but on the path of knowledge of the truth. A person can freely choose, freely act only if he becomes like God. Due to the fact that all phenomena ascend through cause-and-effect relationships, ultimately, to God, then “the more we cognize individual things, the more we cognize God.” As soon as a person begins to understand that he is part of nature and is included in the necessary connection of phenomena, when he begins to cognize the necessary connection of phenomena, then he truly becomes free.
Spinoza's approach can be useful for a deeper understanding of Christianity - for example, in answering the question why a Christian should consider himself a servant of God. Indeed, this may seem contrary to the spirit of Christianity, because Christ brought true freedom to people: “Stand fast therefore in the freedom that Christ has given us, and do not be subjected again to the yoke of slavery” (Gal. 5:1), writes the apostle. Paul. In reality, this opposition between freedom and slavery stems from a lack of understanding of what freedom is. Christianity claims that freedom can only be found in truth: “...you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free” (John 8:32). Sinful self-will is always slavery to sin: “everyone who commits sin is a slave of sin” (John 8:34). Thus, freedom in God is opposed to slavery to passions. Passion is something passive, passively perceived. A person cannot get rid of passions, but he can either submit to them (and then he is not free, he becomes a slave of passions), or dominate them (and then he becomes free). Passions act, as a rule, due to the subordination of a person to sensual pleasures and the body. The body is a mechanism, it is not free, and a person, by subordinating himself to the body, also loses freedom. True freedom is achieved when a person acts not as he wants (as a rule, as the body wants), but as he should, i.e. submits himself to the truth.
Freedom, as Spinoza claims, is found not on the paths of self-will, which leads only to slavery, but on the path of knowing the truth and subordinating oneself to it. Freedom is a recognized necessity - this is what Spinoza could well have said long before Marx. Indeed, in our scientific and technological age, one can see how human freedom in the world increases through knowledge of the laws of nature and their application in various technical devices. But at the basis of these transformations lies man’s conviction that the laws of nature do not depend on man, that man is, so to speak, a “slave” of these laws.
These considerations can now clarify for us how to understand the phrase “Know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” In the spirit of the philosophy of Spinoza or Marx, it can be paraphrased as “freedom is the known truth.” Materialism, speaking of freedom as a cognized necessity, too narrows the understanding of the world, reducing it only to material determinism and actually denying a person the acquisition of freedom. Surprisingly, it turns out that atheists find a contradiction between the doctrine of an omnipotent God and human freedom and do not notice a much more obvious contradiction between the determinism of the laws of the material world and human freedom. There can be no freedom in a purely material world. The Christian understanding of the world is much broader than the narrow atheistic one. In addition to the material world, in which the laws of nature operate, there is a spiritual world, which also has its own “laws” - first of all, moral principles, understood in Christianity as commandments. By learning the moral commandments and acting in accordance with them, a person also becomes freer, just as a scientist who knows the laws of nature becomes freer. But for this, the scientist has to admit that he is completely dependent on the laws of nature, is, so to speak, their slave. A Christian is in the same “slavery” to God, recognizing the objectivity of divine commandments and moral postulates. Submitting their will not to the material body, which makes a person dependent on matter and turns him into a slave of passions, but to God, people who believe in Christ act “as free people, not as using freedom to cover up evil, but as servants of God” (1 Pet. 2:16). And therefore, it is the Truth, i.e. Christ, that gives man that real freedom that cannot be found on the paths of self-will. Anyone who does not know the truth or rebels against it will always be a slave - in this case, a slave of sin. Although he will believe that he acts freely. And the one who acts in accordance with the truth - with the laws of nature and Christian commandments - will be truly free.
Notes:
Sartre J.-P. Existentialism is humanism // Twilight of the Gods. M., 1989. P. 344. Khomyakov A.S. A few more words from an Orthodox Christian about Western religions // Khomyakov A. S. Works. T.2. Works on theology. M., 1994. P. 150. Plato. Spinoza B. Ethics // Spinoza B. Selected works: In 2 vols. M., 1957. P. 362. Ibid. P. 606.
Freedom and Grace
The Gospel says: “You will know the Truth, and the Truth will make you free.” Final liberation can be achieved only through the vital assimilation of the Truth. In the extreme, this is divine freedom, the freedom of the Kingdom of God, freedom ultimately united with grace.
A false assertion of freedom is also possible when it is understood statically, formally and seems easy, not difficult. Human freedom is limited on all sides, and it is also limited within him. And a person must always fight for freedom, sometimes a heroic struggle. Freedom meets resistance, and man must overcome resistance. When freedom does not meet resistance, it begins to decay.
Freedom is both the possibility of fatality and the possibility of grace. Enlightening grace is the highest freedom. God acts in freedom and through freedom, and outside freedom there is no grace. The traditional opposition between freedom and grace in theological literature is superficial and does not go into the depth of the issue. When a person is completely free, he is in grace. This is the awakening of the divine element in man. If without freedom it is impossible to accept grace, there is no organ for this, then without grace there is no final liberation of a person from necessity, slavery and fate. This is also the secret of God-humanity.
Man is on a journey, not in the final achievement of the goals of the journey. On the way, a person seeks and explores the truth, continuing to search and explore even when the main ray of Truth has entered his soul. The Truth is not given in a ready-made and complete form, nor is the Truth of revelation given. No revelation should pretend to be complete and complete; it continues until the end of the world. Finding the Truth presupposes a path and a life. Christ is the Truth, the way and the life, certainly the way and the life. And in the path and life, freedom is necessary in order to achieve the fullness of the Truth. When along the way they affirm the completeness of the revelation of the Truth, which should give real freedom, they fall into the anti-Christian temptation, the temptation of the Grand Inquisitor. This temptation of the Grand Inquisitor awaits all secularized, non-religious and anti-religious movements, all doctrines that claim the final possession of the Truth and recognize only the freedom that will be granted by their Truth. But we need to fight not only in the name of freedom, but also in the name of Truth.
There is a stingy, protective freedom, and there is a generous, creatively giving freedom. Freedom is not only a choice of path, freedom is also a creative force. A skeptical delay in choosing a path can lead to a loss of freedom, to its impotence.
The radiation of what is called God's grace is human freedom. God is the Mystery, God is the Truth of the world, the Freedom of the world, and not the world itself and not the government in it. We can say that God is Love and Freedom, because this is taken from the highest spiritual experience of man, and not from the experience of the natural and social world. It is difficult to believe in God without Christ, without the crucified Son, who took upon himself all the suffering of the world. God suffers in the world, not dominates. The prince of this world rules in the world. But concepts associated with the prince of this world were transferred to God.
Belief in God is man's liberties charter. Without God, man is subject to our world. All intellectual proofs of the existence of God that remain in the realm of thought are untenable. But an internal meeting with God is possible.
