According to P. Tillich, the concept of "courage" is one of the most important, since it helps to comprehend the human situation. Courage belongs to the realm of ethics, but it is rooted in all the diversity of human existence and, ultimately, in the structure of being itself. The ethical question about the nature of courage, according to Tillich, inevitably leads to the ontological question about the nature of being. And vice versa: the ontological question about the nature of being can be asked as an ethical question about the nature of courage.

The title of Paul Tillich's book "The Courage to Be" combines both meanings of the concept of "courage" - ontological and ethical. Courage as an act performed by a person, which is subject to evaluation, is an ethical concept. Courage as a universal and essential self-affirmation of human existence is an ontological concept. Courage to be is an ethical act in which a person affirms his being in spite of those elements of his existence that oppose his essential self-affirmation.

According to Tillich, the courage to be is the courage to assert one's own rational nature in spite of everything random that is in us. Obviously, the mind in this sense is the center of the personality, and also includes all intellectual activity. Reasoning as a limited cognitive faculty, separated from the personality center, could never generate courage. It is impossible to eliminate anxiety by proving it unfounded, and this is not at all the latest discovery of psychoanalysis: the Stoics, glorifying the mind, were well aware of this.

Although the Stoics insisted that all men share equally in the universal Logos, they could not deny that only an infinitesimal elite possessed wisdom. They recognized that a huge number of people are "fools" who are in bondage to their desires and fears.

According to Tillich, the concept of self-preservation in Spinoza, as well as the concept of “self-affirmation” used by us to interpret it, taken in its ontological aspect, raises a serious question. What does self-affirmation mean if there is no “self”, for example, in the inorganic world or in infinite substance, in being itself? Is not courage only a quality of man, which can only be ascribed to the higher animals by analogy, but not in its proper sense?

Such an argument is reminiscent of the objections raised against most of the metaphysical concepts developed throughout human life. Such concepts as "universal soul", "microcosm", "instinct", "will to power", etc., have been repeatedly accused of imposing subjectivity on the objective world of things. But these accusations are unfounded. They miss the meaning of ontological concepts. Being as being transcends both objectivity and subjectivity.

Courage is self-affirmation “in spite of”, namely, in spite of what is trying to prevent the “I” from asserting itself. Various strands of the "philosophy of life" (in contrast to the Stoic and neo-Stoic teachings on courage) have seriously and from a position of affirmation, and not negation, turned to what courage is opposed to. After all, if being is described with the help of such concepts as life, or process, or becoming, then from an ontological point of view, non-being is just as fundamental a category as being.

As Tillich emphasizes, ontological principles are of a polar nature, which corresponds to the fundamental structure of being: "I" and the world. The first pair of polar elements is individualization and participation. Their connection with the problem of courage, if courage is defined as the self-affirmation of being in spite of non-being, is obvious. But who is the subject of this self-affirmation? The individual "I", which participates in the world, i.e. in the structural universe of being.

Self-affirmation of a person, Tillich believes, is two-sided. These sides are distinct but inseparable. One of them is the assertion of oneself as "I", i.e. the assertion of a separate, self-centered, one-of-a-kind, free, independent “I”. This is what is affirmed in every act of self-affirmation. This is what a person protects from non-existence and courageously affirms, accepting non-existence for himself. Ontological self-affirmation precedes all metaphysical, ethical and religious definitions of the "I".

For the concepts of self-affirmation and courage, this means that the self-affirmation of the "I" as an individual "I" always implies the affirmation of the power of being in which this "I" participates. The courage to be a part is the courage to assert one's own being in participation. Man participates in the world to which he belongs and from which he is at the same time isolated. But participation in the world becomes real through the participation of a person in those components of the world that form a person's life.

As Tillich emphasizes, individualism is the self-affirmation of the individual "I" as such, regardless of the complicity of the "I" in its world. Individualism is opposed to collectivism, the self-affirmation of the "I" as part of the whole, regardless of its specificity as an individual "I". Individualism was born under the yoke of primitive collectivism and medieval semi-collectivism. It was able to develop under a protective layer of democratic conformity and then surface in moderate or radical forms. This happened within the framework of the existential movement.

Emerged in the XX century. existentialism most vividly and menacingly expresses the meaning of "existential". In it, the whole process reaches a point beyond which it is no longer able to develop. Existentialism has spread throughout the Western world. It manifests itself in all spheres of spiritual creativity, has penetrated into all educated classes. This is not the invention of a bohemian philosopher or neurotic writer; this is not a sensation hyped up for fame and money; it is not a painful game of denials. Some of this affected him, but existentialism itself is a means of expressing the anxiety of meaninglessness and trying to accept this anxiety by showing the courage to be oneself.

So, courage is the self-affirmation of being in spite of the fact of non-being. It is the act that the individual self performs, taking on the anxiety of non-being upon itself and asserting itself either as part of an all-encompassing whole or as an individual self. Courage always involves risk, it is always threatened by non-existence; it is either the risk of losing oneself and becoming a thing within a whole of other things, or the risk of losing one's world in the void of self-reference. Courage needs the power of being, the power that transcends non-being, which is experienced in the anxiety of guilt and condemnation.

Man's being presupposes his courage to be himself. Based on his own uniqueness, a person chooses the routes of existence. However, on this path, false forms of human self-identification arise. He tries to "have", "possess" to the detriment of the truth of his being. A person is able to renounce himself as a person. Analysis of the modes of human existence is an actual problem of philosophical anthropology.

• See: Tillich P. Favorites. Theology of culture. M., 1995.

Chapter VI

COURAGE AND TRANSCENDING
(Courage to accept acceptance)

Courage is the self-affirmation of being in spite of the fact of non-being. It is the act that the individual self performs, taking on the anxiety of non-being upon itself and asserting itself either as part of an all-encompassing whole or as an individual self. Courage always involves risk, it is always threatened by non-existence; it is either the risk of losing oneself and becoming a thing within a whole of other things, or the risk of losing one's world in the void of self-reference. Courage needs the power of being, the power that transcends non-being, which is experienced in the anxiety of fate and death, is felt in the anxiety of emptiness and lack of meaning, is present in the anxiety of guilt and condemnation. The courage that takes this triple anxiety into itself must be rooted in a power of being greater than the power of the individual Self and the power of the world of this Self. Those whom we have characterized as bearers of these types of courage attempt to transcend themselves and the world in which they participate in order to acquire the power of being-itself and the courage to be that lies beyond the threat of non-being. There is no exception to this rule, which means that every courage to be has explicit or hidden religious roots. For religion is a state of being captured by the power of being-itself. Sometimes religious roots are carefully hidden, sometimes their Presence is passionately denied; they may be buried deep or on the surface. But they cannot be completely absent. After all, everything that exists participates in being itself, and everyone is aware of this participation to some extent, especially at moments when he experiences the threat of non-existence. So we are faced with a double question, the consideration of which will complete this work: how is the courage to be rooted in being-itself, and how are we to understand being-itself in the light of the courage to be? In the first case, we are talking about the foundation of being as the source of the courage to be; in the second - about the courage to be as the key to the foundation of being.

THE POWER OF BEING AS A SOURCE OF THE COURAGE TO BE

Mystical experience and the courage to be

In view of the fact that the connection of a person with the foundation of his being must be expressed in symbols taken from the very structure of being, the specificity of this connection is determined by the polarity of individualization and participation, just as this polarity determines the specificity of the courage to be. If participation prevails, then the connection with being-itself has a mystical character; if individualization predominates, then the connection with being-itself has a personal character; if both these poles are accepted and transcended, then the connection with being-itself has the character of faith.

Mysticism is characterized by the striving of the individual I for such participation in the foundation of being, which approaches identification with it. We are not interested in the question of whether a finite being is capable of achieving this goal, but of whether mysticism (and if so, in what way) can become a source of courage to be. We have already spoken about the mystical roots of Spinoza's system and how this philosopher derives the self-affirmation of man from the self-affirmation of the divine substance in which man participates. In the same way, all mystics derive their power of self-affirmation from the experience of union with the power of being-itself. However, the question arises: can courage in any way connect with mysticism? For example, in India, courage seems to have been regarded as a virtue of the "kshatriyas" (military aristocrats), which is ranked below the virtue of a brahmana or an ascetic saint. Mystical identification transcends the aristocratic virtue of courageous self-sacrifice. It is self-denial in a higher, fuller and more radical form. It is the perfect form of self-affirmation. In this case, it is courage in the broadest, not the narrowest sense of the word. The ascetic and ecstatic mystic affirms his own essential being, opposing those elements of non-being with which the finite world, the realm of Maya, is full. Resisting the lure of appearances takes great courage. The power of being manifested in this kind of courage is so great that the gods tremble in fear before it. The mystic tries to penetrate into the foundation of being, into the omnipresent and all-pervading power of Brahman. Thus he affirms his essential Self, which is identical with the power of Brahman, while all those who assert themselves under the yoke of Maya, whether they are animals, men or gods, affirm that which is not their true Self. This puts the self-affirmation of the mystic above courage, understood as a special virtue of the military aristocracy. However, the mystic does not rise above courage in general. For what, from the point of view of the finite world, appears to be self-negation, from the point of view of ultimate being, is the most perfect self-affirmation, the most radical form of courage.

Firm in his courage, the mystic conquers the anxiety of fate and death. For if being in time and space, defined in terms of finiteness, is ultimately unreal, then the vicissitudes that it gives rise to, and the final non-being with which it ends, are just as unreal. Non-being is not a threat, because finite being itself eventually turns out to be non-being. Death is the negation of the negative and the affirmation of the positive. In the same way, the mystical courage to be takes into itself the anxiety of doubt and meaninglessness. Everything that exists that belongs to the Maya region and is therefore doubtful is subject to doubt. Doubt rips away the veil of the Maya, it keeps mere opinions from being protected from ultimate reality. This manifestation of ultimate reality is beyond doubt, for it precedes all doubt. Without awareness of the truth itself, it would be impossible to doubt the truth. The victory over the anxiety of the absence of meaning is achieved where the ultimate meaning is understood not as something definite, but as an abyss that absorbs every definite meaning. The mystic discovers, step by step, the absence of meaning on the different levels of reality that he steps into, passes through, and then leaves. And as he moves forward along this path, the anxieties of guilt and condemnation are also defeated. It cannot be said that they do not exist at all. Guilt can arise at any level of reality, partly from the inability to fulfill the mandatory requirements of this level, partly from the inability to go beyond it. But as long as there is confidence in the final fulfillment, the anxiety of guilt does not become the anxiety of condemnation. In accordance with the laws of karma, punishment comes automatically, but there is no condemnation in Eastern mysticism.

Mystical courage to be possible only in the conditions of a mystical situation. Its border is where the emptiness of being and meaning arises, accompanied by horror and despair, about which the mystics wrote. At such moments, the courage to be comes down to accepting this state as a way in darkness to prepare for light, in emptiness for fullness. As long as the absence of the power of being is felt as despair, the power of being makes itself felt through despair. The courage to be a mystic in a state of emptiness lies in experiencing and enduring this despair. And although mysticism, presented as extreme affirmation or extreme negation, is relatively rare, its fundamental attitude - the desire for union with the ultimate reality - and the corresponding courage to take on the non-being implied by finitude, offer a mode of existence that is not only acceptable to many , but even formed the worldview of a significant part of humanity.

However, mysticism is more than a special form of relationship with the ground of being. Mysticism is a necessary element in any relationship of this kind. Since everything that exists participates in the power of being, the element of identification on which mysticism is based is necessarily present in any religious experience. The foundation of being and its power to conquer non-being act in every self-affirmation of a finite being and in every act of courage to be. And the experience of the presence of this force is a mystical element even in a personal meeting with God.

The meeting of God and man and the courage to be

The pole of individualization manifests itself in religious experience as a personal meeting of a person with God. The courage that emerges from this encounter is the courage of trust in that personal reality that is manifested in religious experience. Unlike mystical union, this relationship can be called personal communication with the source of courage. These two types of relationship are opposed, but they are not mutually exclusive. Their unity is based on the interdependence of the poles of individualization and participation. Often, especially in Protestantism, the courage of trust is identified with the courage of faith. However, this identification is inaccurate, because trust is only one of the elements of faith. Faith includes both mystical participation and personal trust. In most books of the Bible, the religious experience of meeting God is described in purely personal terms. Biblicalism, especially that which was characteristic of the creators of the Reformation, follows this trend. Luther fought against Roman Catholicism, with its counting of sins and virtues, its objectifying and depersonalizing elements. He advocated a direct, purely personal relationship between man and God. In Luther the courage of confidence reaches its highest point in the history of Christian thought.

All Luther's writings, especially the early ones, are filled with just such courage. He constantly uses the word " trotz "- "contrary." Contrary to his negative experience, despite the anxiety that dominated that period of history, he gained the power of self-affirmation in unshakable trust in God, in a personal meeting with Him. In accordance with the methods of expressing anxiety accepted in that era, the symbols of that denial with which Luther's courage had to cope were the images of death and the devil.It is rightly noted that Albrecht Dürer's engraving "Knight, Death and the Devil" gives a classic expression of the spirit of the Lutheran Reformation and, it is worth adding, that courage of confidence that was characteristic of Luther himself, A knight in full armor rides across the plain on a horse, accompanied by Death on one side and the Devil on the other. Fearless, focused, trusting, he looks ahead. He is alone, but he is not alone. the strength that gives him the courage to assert himself in spite of everything negative that is present in human existence.Of course, his courage is not the courage to be a part.

The Reformation finally broke with the semi-collectivism of the Middle Ages. Luther's courage of trust is a personal trust based on a personal encounter with God. Neither popes nor councils could help him gain this confidence. As a result, Luther was forced to reject them simply because they were based on a doctrine that paralyzed the courage of trust. They asserted a system that did not allow a complete victory over the anxiety of death and guilt. This system gave many assurances instead of confidence, many points of support for the courage of trust instead of an indisputable foundation. The collective provided the individual with numerous ways of resisting anxiety, but none of them allowed the individual to take on the anxiety. The individual did not have certainty, he could not assert his being with unconditional trust. After all, he was deprived of the opportunity directly, with his whole being, to meet the unconditional and enter into direct, personal relations with it. The meeting of God and the human soul has always, with the exception of mysticism, been indirect and partial, it has been mediated by the Church.

After the Reformation eliminated this intermediary and opened a direct, accessible to everyone, personal path to God, a different, non-mystical courage to be became possible. This can be seen in the heroic struggle of the supporters of Protestantism, representatives of both the Calvin and Luther Reformations; in Calvinism this is even more pronounced. What makes these people heroes is not their readiness to take the risk of martyrdom, to resist the authorities, to transform the Church and society, but the courage of trust, and it is precisely this that forms the basis of other manifestations of their courage. It could be said, as liberal Protestantism has done more than once, that the courage of the creators of the Reformation marked the beginning of the individualistic type of courage to be oneself. However, such an interpretation confuses the phenomenon itself with its possible historical consequences. The fact is that the courage of the reformers both affirms and transcends the courage to be oneself. The courage of trust inherent in Protestantism, in contrast to the mystical forms of courageous self-affirmation, affirms the individual I as an individual I in his encounter with God as a person. This radically distinguishes the personalism of the Reformation from all later forms of individualism and existentialism. The courage of the creators of the Reformation is not the courage to be oneself, but also not the courage to be a part. It transcends both these types of courage and unites them. After all, the courage of trust is not based on trust in oneself. The Reformation proclaims the opposite: a person can trust his existence only after his trust ceases to be based on himself. At the same time, the courage of trust is not based on anything finite that is next to a person, even on the Church. It is based on God and only on God, which is realized in the experience of a unique and personal encounter. The courage of the Reformation transcends both the courage to be oneself and the courage to be a part. This courage is not threatened either by man's loss of his Self, or by his loss of his world.

Guilt and courage to accept acceptance

At the center of the Protestant courage of trust is the courage to accept acceptance in spite of guilt. Luther, as was characteristic of his entire era, experienced the anxiety of guilt and condemnation as the main form of anxiety. The courage to assert oneself in spite of this anxiety is the courage that we have called the courage of trust. It is rooted in a personal, holistic, and immediate assurance of divine forgiveness. The belief in forgiveness is present in all forms of the courage to be, even in neo-collectivism. But nowhere does it occupy such a place as in a truly Protestant understanding of human existence. And in no other historical movement has this belief been so deep and so paradoxical. Luther's formula "unrighteous - righteous" (by virtue of divine forgiveness) or, as we would say today, "unacceptable - accepted", is the exact expression of the victory won over the anxiety of guilt and condemnation. It can be said that the courage to be is the courage to accept oneself as accepted in spite of one's unacceptability. It is hardly necessary to remind theologians that this is precisely the meaning of the Pavlovian-Lutherian doctrine of "justification by faith" (in its original formulation, this doctrine is already incomprehensible even to theologians). However, theologians and pastors should be reminded that psychotherapy, which combats the anxiety of guilt, drew attention to the idea of ​​acceptance and gave it the same meaning that the Reformation era put in the words "forgiveness of sins" or "justification by faith". The basis of the courage of trust is to accept acceptance despite being unacceptable.

It is especially important that such self-affirmation does not depend on any moral, intellectual or religious precondition: the right to courageously accept acceptance is not for the one who is kind, wise or pious, but for the one who lacks all these qualities and who is aware of his unacceptability. However, this does not mean that a person accepts himself as himself. This is not the justification of an individual. This is not the existentialist courage to be yourself. This is a paradoxical act in which a person is accepted by what infinitely transcends his individual Self. From the point of view of the reformers, this is the acceptance of an unacceptable sinner into the realm of doing justice and transforming communion with God.

In this sense, the courage to be is the courage to accept the forgiveness of sins not as an abstract statement, but as an experience on which the encounter with God is based. Self-affirmation in spite of the anxiety of guilt and condemnation involves participation in what the self transcends. its unacceptability. In this type of relationship, the healer does not act as an individual, but represents the objective force of acceptance and self-affirmation. This objective force works through the healer in the patient. Of course, this power must be embodied in a person who is able to understand guilt, is able to judge and is able to accept it in spite of the sentence. Acceptance by something that does not have the quality of personality can never overcome personal selflessness. The wall, if I confess to it, is not able to forgive me. Self-acceptance is not possible unless you are accepted into an interpersonal relationship. But even if you are accepted as a person, the self-transcending courage to accept this acceptance is necessary, the courage of trust is necessary. After all, acceptance does not mean that guilt is denied. If the psychoanalyst tries to convince the patient that he is in fact innocent, then he is doing him a disservice. It prevents him from accepting guilt in his self-affirmation. The physician can help the patient to transform the replaced neurotic guilt into genuine guilt, which falls into place, so to speak; however, he must not suggest to the patient that there is no guilt at all. He accepts the patient into the area of ​​his communication, without judging or justifying anything.

But it is precisely here that religious "acceptance as accepted" transcends psychotherapeutic treatment. Religion seeks the ultimate source of that power that heals by accepting the unacceptable; she is looking for God. Acceptance by God, the act of His forgiveness and justification - this is the only and ultimate source of the courage to be, which is able to take into itself the anxiety of guilt and condemnation. For the ultimate power of self-affirmation can only be the power of being-itself. Nothing less—neither the finite power of one's own being, nor anyone else's power—can overcome the radical, infinite threat of non-being experienced in the desperation of self-alienation. That is why the courage of trust, expressed, for example, by Luther, affirms an unchanging hope in God alone and denies the possibility of any other foundations of courage to be, and not only because they are insufficient, but also because they can lead a person to an even greater sense of guilt. and deepen his anxiety. The great liberation brought to the people XVI V. proclamation of the reformers and their boundless courage to accept acceptance, made possible by the concept of " sola fide ", i.e., the message that the courage to trust is not determined by something finite, not only by something that is unconditional in itself and that we experience as unconditional in a personal meeting with it.

Fate and courage to accept acceptance

The symbolic images of death and the devil testify to the fact that the anxiety of that era was not reduced to the anxiety of guilt alone. It was also the anxiety of fate and death. The Renaissance revived the astrology of late antiquity, and even the humanists who supported the Reformation were influenced by astrology. We have already spoken of the neostoic courage expressed in some of the paintings of the Renaissance, which depict a man guiding the ship of his life, driven by the winds of fate. Luther met the anxiety of fate differently. He sensed a connection between guilt anxiety and fate anxiety. An unclean conscience fills a person's life with countless incomprehensible fears. The rustle of fallen leaves frightens the one who is tormented by guilt. Therefore, by conquering the anxiety of guilt, we simultaneously conquer the anxiety of fate. The courage of trust takes into itself both the anxiety of fate and the anxiety of guilt. "In spite of you," the courage of trust tells them both. This is the true meaning of the doctrine of providence. Providence is not a teaching that describes the actions of God, it is a religious symbol of the courage of trust in relation to fate and death. After all, even death, the courage of trust says: "In spite of you."

Luther, like Paul, saw the connection between the anxiety of guilt and the anxiety of death. In stoicism and neostoicism, death does not threaten the essential self, since it belongs to being-itself and transcends non-being. Socrates, having conquered the anxiety of death by the power of his essential Self, became a symbol of courage, taking death upon himself. This is the true meaning of Plato's so-called doctrine of the immortality of the soul. Considering this doctrine, let us leave aside the evidence of the immortality of the soul, even those that are given in Plato's dialogue "Phaedo", and turn to the image of the dying Socrates. All these proofs, which Plato himself treats with skepticism, are an attempt to interpret the courage of Socrates, the courage to accept death in his self-affirmation. Socrates is sure that the I that the executioners will destroy is not the I that asserts itself in its courage to be. He does not consider the connection between these two I in detail, and he could not do this: after all, quantitatively there are not two, but one, but it has two sides. He makes it clear that the courage to die is the test of the courage to be. The self-affirmation that does not accept the affirmation of its own death tries to avoid this test of courage, the most radical encounter with nothingness.

We all know the belief in immortality, which in Western culture has almost completely supplanted the Christian symbol of the Resurrection, is a mixture of courage and flight. This faith seeks to maintain man's self-affirmation even in the face of the inevitability of death.

The finiteness of man, i.e. the inevitability of his death, it prolongs ad infinitum so that true death never comes. However, this is an illusion and, from the point of view of logic, a contradiction in terms. This belief makes infinite what by definition must come to an end. "Immortal Souls" is an unfortunate symbol of the courage to face the inevitability of death.

The courage of Socrates, described by Plato, was based not on the doctrine of the immortality of the soul, but on the assertion of himself in his essential, indestructible being. He knows that he belongs to two orders of reality and that one of these orders is transtemporal. The courage of Socrates, more convincingly than any philosophical construction, proved to the ancient world that every person belongs to two orders.

However, the Socratic (Stoic and neostoic) courage to take death on oneself is based on the assumption that every individual has the ability to participate in both orders - temporal and eternal. Christianity does not accept this assumption. According to Christian teaching, we are alienated from our essential being. We cannot freely realize our essential being, we are forced to come into conflict with it. Therefore, death can only be accepted in a state of trust, when it has ceased to be "the wages of sin" (Rom. 6:23). And this is the state of acceptance in spite of unacceptability. It is here that Christianity decisively changes ancient ideas; Luther's courage to face death is also rooted here. This courage is based on acceptance into the realm of fellowship with God, and not on the dubious theory of the immortality of the soul. For Luther, the encounter with God creates the basis not only for the courage to take upon oneself sin and condemnation, but also for the courage to take upon oneself fate and death. After all, meeting with God means meeting with transcendent reliability and transcendent eternity. He who participates in God participates in eternity. But in order to participate in Him, it is necessary that He accept you, and you would accept His acceptance of you.

Luther went through what he describes as bouts of extreme despair (" Anfechtung "), as a frightening threat of a complete lack of meaning. He perceived such moments as an attack by the devil. They threatened everything: his Christian faith, confidence in his work, the Reformation, the forgiveness of sins. Everything collapsed in such moments of despair, and the courage to be left him "In his despair and in the descriptions of this despair, Luther anticipated modern existentialists. But for him this was not the last word. The last word was the first commandment, which affirms that God is God. She reminded him of the presence in human experience of the unconditional element, which man is capable of to be aware even in the abyss of the absence of meaning, and this realization saved him.

Let us not forget that Luther's great opponent Thomas Müntzer, an Anabaptist and religious socialist, describes similar experiences. He speaks of the ultimate situation: everything finite reveals its finiteness, it approaches the end, anxiety seizes the hearts, and all previous meanings fall apart, but that is why the presence of the Divine Spirit can be felt, which is able to turn this whole situation into the courage to be, manifested in revolutionary action. . If Luther represents ecclesiastical Protestantism, Müntzer expresses evangelical radicalism. Both of them shaped history, but Müntzer's views were more influential in America than Luther's. Both of them experienced the anxiety of meaninglessness and described it in the language created by Christian mystics. But in this way they transcended the courage of trust, which is based on a personal encounter with God. They had to use elements of the courage to be based on mystical union. But then the next question arises: is it possible to combine both of these types of courage to accept acceptance, given the pervasive presence of anxiety of doubt and lack of meaning in our time?

Unconditional faith and courage to be

Describing the courage to be, based on mystical union with the foundation of being, and the courage to be, based on a personal meeting with God, I did not use the concept of "faith". I did this partly because the concept of faith has lost its true meaning and acquired the meaning of "belief in the incredible." But this is not the only reason that I have used other terms instead of the word "faith". First of all, this is explained by the fact that, in my opinion, neither mystical union nor personal meeting fully realize the idea of ​​faith. Of course, faith is present in the ascent of the soul from the finite to the infinite, leading to the union of the soul with the foundation of being. Faith is also present in a personal meeting with a personal God. But the concept of faith includes something more. Faith is a state of being captured by the power of being-itself. The courage to be is the expression of faith, and only in the light of the courage to be can one understand what faith is. We have defined courage as the self-affirmation of being in spite of non-being. The power of this self-affirmation is the power of being, which operates in every act of courage. Faith is the experience of this power.

However, this experience has a paradoxical character: it is based on the acceptance of acceptance. Being-itself infinitely transcends any finite being; God meeting man certainly transcends man. Faith bridges this endless gap by accepting the fact that the force of being is present in spite of this gap, that the one who is separate is accepted. Faith accepts "in spite of", and from this "in spite of" faith is born "in spite of" courage. Faith is not a theoretical recognition of something that is questionable; it is the existential acceptance of that which transcends everyday experience. Faith is not an opinion, but a state. It is a state of capture by that power of being which transcends all that exists and in which all that exists participates. Man, captured by this force, is able to affirm himself because he knows that he is affirmed by the power of being-itself. In this respect mystical experience and personal encounter are identical. In both cases, faith is the basis of the courage to be.

This is especially important in an era when, as today, for example, the anxiety of doubt and meaninglessness prevails. Of course, the anxiety of fate and death has not disappeared in our time. Anxiety of fate intensifies as the schizophrenic splitting of our world destroys the remnants of the former reliability. Anxiety of guilt and condemnation also did not disappear. One can only wonder how often anxiety of guilt is found in the practice of psychoanalysis and private psychological help. Several centuries of puritanical and bourgeois suppression of the vital aspirations of man have given rise to hardly less guilt than the medieval doctrine of hell and purgatory.

However, despite these reservations, the anxiety that defines the face of our time is the anxiety of doubt and meaninglessness. A person is afraid that he has already lost or that he will lose the meaning of his existence. This situation is expressed by modern existentialism.

What courage is capable of accepting non-existence, expressed in the form of doubt and lack of meaning? This is the most important and most exciting question for all who seek to have the courage to be. For the anxiety of meaninglessness undermines the basis of what the anxiety of fate and death and the anxiety of guilt and condemnation leave intact. In a situation of guilt and condemnation, doubt has not yet undermined the certainty of ultimate responsibility. We are threatened, but we are not yet destroyed. However, if doubt and lack of meaning prevail, then a person feels how the meaning of his life and the truth of ultimate responsibility disappear into the abyss. Such a situation is unknown to the Stoic, who overcomes the anxiety of fate with the Socratic courage of wisdom, nor to the Christian, who overcomes the anxiety of guilt with the characteristic Protestant courage to accept forgiveness. After all, even in a situation of despair of the inevitability of death and in a situation of despair of self-condemnation, meaning is affirmed and certainty is preserved. However, in a situation of doubt and lack of meaning, both are absorbed by non-existence.

Then the question arises: is there courage that can overcome the anxiety of meaninglessness and doubt? In other words, is a faith that accepts acceptance capable of resisting the power of non-being in its most radical form? Can faith resist the absence of meaning? Is there a faith that can coexist with doubt and lack of meaning? These questions open before us the last and most important for our time aspect of the problem to which these lectures are devoted. How is the courage to be possible at all, if all attempts to create it are faced with the experience of the ultimate insufficiency of these attempts? If life is as meaningless as death, if guilt is as doubtful as perfection, if being is no more meaningful than non-being, then what can be the basis of the courage to be?

Some existentialists, in trying to answer these questions, rush from doubt to dogmatic certainty, from meaninglessness to a system of symbols expressing the meaning of any one ecclesiastical or political group. Such a drastic change can be interpreted in different ways. One can see in it an expression of yearning for guarantees; it can be arbitrary, to the same extent that - from the point of view of the existentialists - any decision is arbitrary; it may be the result of the Christian message becoming an answer to questions raised in the course of the study of human existence; it can be a genuine conversion, independent of theoretical positions. In any case, such a change does not solve the problem of radical doubt. It conveys the courage to be one who is converted, but does not answer the question of how such courage is possible in itself. The response must accept the state of meaninglessness as a precondition. If the answer requires the elimination of this state, then it ceases to be an answer: after all, this is precisely what cannot be done. A person, seized with doubt and lack of meaning, is unable to get rid of them; however, he needs an answer that is convincing inside, not outside, the situation of his desperation. He needs the ultimate foundation of what we have called the courage of despair. If you do not try to get away from this question, then only one answer is possible to it: the acceptance of despair is in itself faith, and it borders on the courage to be. In such a situation, the meaning of life is reduced to despair about the meaning of life. But such despair, so long as it is an act of life, is positive in its negation. From the point of view of a cynic, this means that life itself requires a cynical attitude towards itself. From the point of view of religion, this means that a person accepts himself as accepted in spite of his despair about the meaning of this acceptance. The paradox of all radical negation, if this negation is active, is that it must assert itself in order to be able to negate itself. All true negation necessarily implies affirmation. The paradoxical nature of self-denial is evidenced by the hidden pleasure that despair brings. The negative lives off the positive that it negates.

The faith that makes the courage of despair possible is the acceptance of the power of being even in the grip of non-being. Even in a state of despair about meaning, being asserts itself in us. The act of accepting the absence of meaning is in itself a meaningful act. This is an act of faith. We have already noted that he who has the courage to assert his being in spite of fate and guilt does not eliminate them. They still threaten him and make him suffer. However, he accepts his acceptance by the power of being-itself, in which he participates and which gives him the courage to take the anxiety of fate and guilt upon himself. The same applies to doubt and lack of meaning. Faith, which creates courage that accepts doubt and the absence of meaning, does not have a specific content. It's just faith, undirected, unconditional. It is indefinable because everything defined is destroyed by doubt and lack of meaning. Nevertheless, even unconditional faith is not a surge of subjective emotions and not a mood devoid of an objective foundation.

The study of the nature of unconditional faith reveals the following components. The first component is the experience of the power of being, which is present even in the face of the most radical manifestations of non-being. If we say that in this experience the vitality resists despair, then we must add that the vitality in a person is proportional to his intentionality. The vitality that can withstand the abyss of meaninglessness is aware of the presence of hidden meaning within the destruction of meaning. Another component of unconditional faith is the dependence of the experience of non-being on the experience of being, and the experience of the absence of meaning on the experience of meaning. After all, even in a state of despair, a person has enough existence to make despair possible. The third component of unconditional faith is the acceptance of one's own acceptance. Of course, the state of despair precludes the possibility of acceptance by anyone or anything. However, there is an experience of the power of acceptance itself. The lack of meaning experienced by man contains the experience of "the power of acceptance." Consciously accepting this power of acceptance is the religious response of unconditional faith, that faith which doubt has robbed of concrete content, but which continues to be faith and the source of the most paradoxical manifestation of the courage to be.

Such a belief transcends both the mystical experience and the meeting of God and man. It may seem that mystical experience is closer to unconditional faith, but this is not the case. Unconditional faith carries an element of skepticism that is absent from mystical experience. Of course, mysticism also transcends all concrete contents, but not because it questions them or sees them as meaningless; rather, he views them as a preliminary stage. Mysticism uses concrete contents as steps along which it advances towards its goal. The experience of meaninglessness, on the contrary, rejects these contents (and everything that goes with them) without making any use of them. The experience of meaninglessness is more radical than mysticism. Therefore, he transcends the mystical experience.

Unconditional faith also transcends the meeting of God and man. This meeting is described using the subject-object scheme: a certain subject (man) meets a certain object (God). The opposite can be argued: a certain subject (God) meets a certain object (man). However, in both cases, doubt is capable of destroying the subject-object structure. Theologians who talk so confidently and self-confidently about the meeting of God and man must understand that a situation is possible in which radical doubt prevents this meeting, and then nothing remains but unconditional faith. Acceptance of such a situation as religiously significant leads, however, to the need to analyze and transform the specific contents of ordinary faith. The courage to be in its radical form is the key to such an idea of ​​God that transcends both mysticism and personal encounter.

COURAGE TO BE LIKE THE KEYOPENING THE DOOR OF BEING ITSELF

Non-existence opens the door of being

The courage to be in all forms has in itself the character of revelation. It reveals the nature of being, showing that the self-affirmation of being is such an affirmation that overcomes negation. Using metaphor (and every statement about being-itself is either a metaphor or a symbol), one can say that being includes non-being, but non-being does not prevail over it. "Inclusion" is a spatial metaphor that indicates that being encompasses both itself and what opposes it - non-being. Non-being is inherent in being, it cannot be separated from being. It is impossible even to think about being without resorting to a double negation: one must think of being as the negation of the negation of being. That is why, for a more accurate description of being, we use the metaphor "force of being". Strength is the ability of a being to actualize itself in spite of the resistance of other beings. Speaking of the power of being-itself, we point out that being asserts itself in spite of non-being. Considering courage and life, we spoke about the dynamic understanding of reality, which is characteristic of representatives of the philosophy of life. Such an understanding becomes possible only if one accepts the opinion that non-being belongs to being, that being, devoid of non-being, could not be the basis of life. The self-affirmation of being, devoid of non-being, would turn from self-affirmation into a static self-identification. With such self-affirmation, nothing would appear, nothing would be expressed, nothing would be revealed. But non-existence brings being out of its seclusion and forces it to assert itself dynamically. Philosophy turned to the dynamic self-affirmation of being-itself whenever it switched to the language of dialectics; I have in mind, first of all, Neo-Platonism, Hegel, and also the philosophy of life and the philosophy of process. Theology has done the same whenever it has taken seriously the idea of ​​a living God; this is most evident in the Trinitarian symbolism of the description of God. Spinoza, despite his static definition of substance (namely, as he calls the ultimate power of being), combines philosophical and mystical ideas, speaking of that love and that knowledge by which God, through the love and knowledge of finite beings, loves and knows Himself. Non-existence (that is, that in God which makes His self-affirmation dynamic) brings Him out of divine self-solitude and reveals Him as power and love. Non-existence makes Him a living God. If it were not for this No, which He has to overcome in Himself and in His creation, then the divine Yes, said to Himself, would be lifeless. The ground of being would not reveal itself, there would be no life.

But where there is nothingness, there is finitude and anxiety. If we say that non-being is inherent in being-itself, we thereby affirm that finitude and anxiety are inherent in being-itself. When philosophers and theologians talk about divine bliss, implicitly (and sometimes even explicitly) they always talk about the anxiety of finiteness, which the bliss of divine infinity eternally takes into itself. The Infinite encompasses itself and the finite; Yes includes itself and No, which it takes into itself; bliss consists of itself and the anxiety it overcomes. This is precisely what is meant when they say that being carries non-being in itself and that it manifests itself through non-being. Speaking of this, it is necessary to use the language of symbols. However, the symbolic nature of this language does not detract from its truth; on the contrary, it is a condition of its truth. Arguing about being-itself not in the language of symbols, we would move away from the truth.

Divine self-affirmation is the power that makes possible the self-affirmation of a finite being, his courage to be. Courage becomes possible only because being-itself is characterized by self-affirmation in spite of non-being. Courage participates in the self-affirmation of being-itself, it participates in the power of being, which prevails over non-being. One who acquires this power in an act of mystical, personal or unconditional faith realizes the source of his courage to be. Man is not always aware of this source. He is not allowed to realize cynicism and indifference. But this source acts in a person as long as he retains the courage to take his anxiety upon himself. When we perform the act of the courage to be, the power of being is at work in us, whether we are aware of it or not. Every act of courage is a manifestation of the foundation of being, regardless of the content of this act. This content may hide or distort true being, but the courage of this act reveals true being. The true nature of being-itself is revealed not by reasoning about it, but by the courage to be. By asserting our own being, we participate in the self-affirmation of being itself. There is no conclusive proof of the "existence" of God, but there are acts of courage in which we affirm the power of being, whether we know it or not. If we know about it, then we accept acceptance consciously. If we do not know, we nevertheless accept it and participate in it. And in our acceptance of what we do not know, the power of being appears to us. Courage has the power of revelation, the courage to be is the key that opens the door of being-itself.

Beyond Theism

Courage, which takes into itself the absence of meaning, presupposes such a relationship with the foundation of being, which we have called "unconditional faith." It has no specific content, but it is not devoid of content at all. The content of unconditional faith is "God over God." Unconditional faith and its consequence - the courage that takes into itself a radical doubt, a doubt about God - transcends the theistic idea of ​​God.

Theism can mean an unspecified statement of God. In this case, theism does not explain what is meant by the word "God." Due to the traditional and psychological associations that this word evokes, such empty theism is capable of evoking a sense of awe in people when talking about God. Politicians, dictators and all those who resort to demagoguery in an effort to impress the public willingly use the word "God" in this sense. The listeners are given a favorable impression of the seriousness and moral qualities of the speakers. They are especially successful if they can brand their opponents as atheists. If we consider theism in a broader sense, then we can note that people who do not have a specific religious affiliation willingly call themselves theists, without pursuing any special goals: they simply cannot live in the world without God, whatever this God may be . They crave what is associated with the word "God" and fear what they call atheism. Theism, understood even more broadly, is characterized by the use of the word "God" as a poetic or simply convenient symbol for an emotionally colored designation of a higher ethical idea. Such theism borders both on the second type of theism and on what we call "theism beyond theism." But he is still too vague and unable to cross this border. The atheistic denial of this type of theism as a whole is as vague as theism itself. For those who seriously assert their theistic worldview, such an attitude can only cause neglect and irritation. This atheism may even be justified if it opposes the misuse of the word "God" in political rhetoric, but it is ultimately as helpless as the theism it denies. He is also incapable of reaching a state of despair, just as the theism he opposes cannot reach a state of faith. Theism can also have a second meaning, the opposite of the first: it can mean what we have called a personal meeting. Then it refers to that part of the Jewish-Christian tradition that insists on the personal nature of man's relationship with God. In this case, theism emphasizes the personalistic elements of the Bible and Protestant creeds, the personalistic image of God, the word as an instrument of creation and revelation, the ethical and social character of God's Kingdom, the personal character of human faith and divine forgiveness, the historical vision of the universe, the idea of ​​divine purpose, infinity separating the creator and creation, the absolute isolation of God from the world, the conflict between the holiness of God and the sinfulness of man, the personal nature of prayer and practical piety. In this version, theism represents the non-mystical side of biblical religion and historical Christianity. Atheism, from the point of view of this theism, is a person's attempt to avoid meeting with God. Therefore, this is an existential and not a theoretical question.

Theism has a third meaning, purely theological. Theological theism, like any theology, depends on the religious content that it expresses with the help of concepts. It depends on the first type of theism because it tries to prove the necessity of some recognition of God; as a rule, he develops the so-called proofs of the "existence" of God. But to an even greater extent, it depends on theism of the second type, since it tries to create a doctrine of God that turns a person’s personal meeting with God into a doctrine of two personalities who may or may not meet, but who have an independent one from the other. reality.

So, theism of the first type must be transcended because of its inconsistency, theism of the second type must be transcended because of its one-sidedness. However, theism of the third type must be transcended because of its falsity. This is bad theology. Let's consider this question in more detail. The God of theological theism is a being among others and as such a part of reality as a whole. Of course, He is considered its most important part, but only a part, and, as a result, He is subordinated to the structure of the whole. It is believed that He is outside the ontological elements and categories that make up reality. However, every affirmation subjects Him to their laws. He is regarded as a person who possesses the world; as I related to You, as a cause separated from its effect. He has a definite space and infinite time. He is a being, not being-itself. As such, He is included in the subject-object structure of reality, He is an object for us - subjects. At the same time, we are objects for Him - the subject. It is precisely for this reason that theological theism must be transcended. After all, God as a subject turns me into an object and nothing more than an object. He robs me of my subjectivity because He is omnipotent and omniscient. I rebel and try to turn Him into an object, but my rebellion turns into defeat and despair. God appears as an invincible tyrant, a being in comparison with which everything else is devoid of freedom and subjectivity. He is like modern tyrants who, with the help of terror, try to turn everything around into a mere object, into a thing among other things, into a cog in the machine they control. He becomes the image of what existentialism rebels against. It is about this God that Nietzsche said that it is necessary to kill Him, because man cannot allow himself to be turned into a mere object of absolute knowledge and absolute control. This is the deepest root of atheism. This atheism is justified because it is a reaction to theological theism and its dangerous consequences. This is also the root of existentialist despair and the widespread anxiety of the absence of meaning in our time.

Theism in all its forms is transcended in the experience we have called unconditional faith. It is the acceptance of acceptance in the absence of anyone or anything with the capacity to receive. Accepts and communicates the courage to be the power of being itself. Here we have reached the climax of our investigation. The power of being cannot be described in the language that describes the God of all types of theism. It cannot be described in the language of mysticism. It transcends mysticism and personal encounter, just as it transcends both the courage to be a part and the courage to be oneself.

God over God and the courage to be

The ultimate source of courage to be is "God over God"; this is the result of our demand to transcend theism. The courage to be is able to take into itself the anxiety of doubt and the absence of meaning only on the condition that the God of theism is transcended. God above God is the object of every mystical aspiration, but in order to reach Him, mysticism must also be transcended. Mysticism does not take seriously the concrete itself, nor the doubt about the concrete. He plunges right into the foundation of being and meaning, leaving behind the concrete, the world of finite values ​​and meanings. So mysticism does not solve the problem of meaninglessness. For the current religious situation, this means that Eastern mysticism is unable to answer the questions of Western existentialism, although many are trying to use it for this purpose. The God above the God of theism is not a devaluation of meanings cast by doubt into the abyss of meaninglessness: He is potentially capable of restoring them. However, unconditional faith agrees with the faith implied by mysticism in that both of them transcend the theistic objectification of God as a being. For mysticism, such a God is no more real than any finite being; for the courage to be such God disappeared into the abyss of meaninglessness along with other values ​​and meanings.

The God above the God of theism is present, albeit implicitly, in every encounter between God and man. Biblical religion and Protestant theology recognize the paradoxical nature of this encounter. They realize that the God who meets man is neither an object nor a subject, and therefore He is above the scheme into which theism tries to fit Him. They realize that personalism in relation to God is balanced by the over-personal presence of the divine. They realize that a person is able to accept divine forgiveness only if the power of acceptance is active in him, i.e. in the language of biblical religion, if the power of grace is at work in him. Biblical religion and Protestant theology are aware of the paradoxical nature of all prayer - addressing someone who cannot be addressed because he is not "someone"; petitions from someone whom it is impossible to ask for anything, because he gives or does not give before any request; appeal to You to someone who is closer to Me than I am to myself. Each of these paradoxes leads the religious consciousness to a God who is above the God of theism.

The courage to be, which is rooted in the experience of God, which is above the God of theism, combines and transcends the courage to be a part and the courage to be oneself. He is not characterized by either the loss of himself in complicity, or the loss of his world in individualization. The acceptance of a God who is above the God of theism makes us a part of that which in itself is not a part, but the foundation of the whole. Therefore, our Self is not lost within the whole, which includes the life of some limited group. The ego, which participates in the power of being-itself, returns to itself again. For the force of being acts through the force of the individual selves. It does not absorb them in the same way as every limited whole, every collectivism, every conformism does. That is why the Church, which represents the power of being-itself or God, who transcends the God of religions, claims to be the conductor of the courage to be. And the Church, founded on the authority of the God of theism, cannot claim that.It inevitably becomes a collectivist or semi-collectivist system.

But the Church, which in its proclamation and piety rises to God above the God of theism, without sacrificing its specific symbols, can become a conductor of courage that takes doubt and lack of meaning into itself. Only the Church of the Cross is capable of this, the Church that preaches the Crucified, who called to God, who remained his God after the God of trust left him in the darkness of doubt and meaninglessness. To be a part of such a Church means to acquire the courage to be, which does not allow a person to lose his Self and helps him find his world.

Unconditional faith, or the state of being captured by God, who is on the other side of God, is not something that can exist alongside other states of the soul. It is not something isolated and definite - a phenomenon that can be singled out and described. It always constitutes a movement within other states of the soul, together with them and in their conditions. It is a situation that arises at the border of human possibilities. She "is" this boundary. Therefore, it is both the courage of despair, and the courage within and above all courage. It is not a place to live, it does not give reliable guarantees for words and concepts, it has no name, no church, no cult, no theology. But she moves in the depths of it all. It is the force of being in which everything participates and which everything partially expresses.

All this can be realized by a person seized by the anxiety of fate and death, after the traditional symbols that helped him endure the vicissitudes of fate and the horror of death have lost their strength. After "providence" has become a superstition, and "immortality" a figment of the imagination, that which previously gave strength to these symbols continues to be present and create the courage to be in spite of the experience of the chaos of the world and the finiteness of existence. Stoic courage is returning, but not as a belief in a universal mind. It returns as an unconditional faith that says yes to being, possessing nothing concrete that could overcome the non-being of fate and death.

A person is able, in the anxiety of guilt and condemnation, to realize God above the God of theism, after the traditional symbols that helped him to withstand this anxiety have lost their power. After the "judgment of God" has been interpreted as a psychological complex, and the forgiveness of sins as a relic of the "father image", what previously gave strength to these symbols continues to be present and create the courage to be in spite of the experience of an endless gap between what we are, and what we should be. Lutheran courage is returning, but already deprived of support in faith in the God of judgment and forgiveness. It returns in the form of an unconditional faith that says Yes, despite the lack of a special power that can overcome guilt. Courage that takes the anxiety of the absence of meaning upon itself is the limit to which the courage to be is able to Reach. On the other side - only non-existence. And within him all forms of courage are restored in the power of God, who is above the God of theism. The root of the courage to be is that God that appears when God disappears in the anxiety of doubt.

The book The Courage to Be by Paul Tillich, one of the most profound Christian thinkers of the 20th century, poses the most important question of modern culture: what gives a person strength to live in the face of catastrophes and upheavals that have befallen a person in the last century? The answer to Hamlet's question: "to be or not to be?" underlined in the English original of the title "Courage to be" - Courage To Be. Answering, the author offers his own interpretation of the existential tradition, correlates it with universal human and Christian ethics. Tillich considers the history of European civilization through the prism of courage as a form of response to the anxiety of human existence: the anxiety of fate and death in the era of antiquity, guilt and condemnation in the Middle Ages, doubt and nonsense in modern times. In our era of globalization, economic and environmental crises, Tillich's analysis takes on new meaning. Such books encourage us to ask questions about the meaning of life and culture, about the meaning of the Christian tradition, about the dialogue between traditions, confessions and cultures.

Paul Tillich is an outstanding German-American theologian and existentialist philosopher. Until 1933 he taught at a number of German universities. After the Nazis came to power, he emigrated to the United States. He taught at Harvard. Tillich's philosophical system is built at the intersection of theology, philosophy and psychology, in which he sought to combine religion and culture in a single theory capable of answering existential questions about the meaning of life, loneliness, the interaction of man and the world, etc. In the presented here and his most famous In The Courage to Be, Tillich addresses the topic of anxiety and suggests ways to overcome it. This and other works of Tillich have gained worldwide fame and have had a significant impact not only on modern theology, but also on existential psychology. Among the students of Tillich was one of the most famous representatives of this trend, Rollo May.

Quotes from the book Paul Tillich - The Courage to Be:
From the book: Tillich, Paul. "Selected: The Theology of Culture." Lawyer, 1995.
(Sedakova's translation loses a lot of meaning,
quotes are given according to the old edition of 95)

I)BEING AND COURAGE
Courage and bravery: from Plato to Thomas Aquinas

Courage and Wisdom: The Stoics

“The Stoics developed a profound doctrine of anxiety, also reminiscent of modern psychoanalysis. They found that the real object of fear is fear itself. “There is nothing terrible,” writes Seneca, “except fear itself.” And Epictetus says: “It is not death and deprivation that are terrible, but the fear of death and deprivation.” Our anxiety puts frightening masks on everyone and everything. If these masks are removed, then the true appearance of the thing is revealed, and then the fear disappears. The same can be said about the fear of death. If we lose a particle of life from day to day, if we die every day, then the last hour in which we cease to exist does not in itself bring death; it only completes the process of dying. The terror evoked by death is only a figment of the imagination. He disappears at the moment when the mask falls off the face of death.

It is our uncontrolled desires that create masks and put them on people and objects. Freud's theory of the libido is anticipated by Seneca, while Seneca's teaching has a broader basis. Seneca distinguishes between natural desires, which are limited, and desires, which are based on false ideas and are not limited by anything. Desire as such cannot be unlimited. In its undistorted form, it is limited only by objective needs and, as a result, can be satisfied. But man's distorted imagination transcends objective needs ("wandering astray, you wander endlessly"), and, therefore, every possible satisfaction. It is this, and not at all desire as such, that gives rise to "an unwise (inconsulta) inclination towards death."

“The affirmation of one's essential being in spite of desires and anxieties brings joy. Seneca urges Lucilius to "learn to feel joy." However, Seneca does not mean at all the feeling that arises as a result of the fulfillment of desires, because real joy is a “serious matter”, joy is the happiness of the soul, “exalted above all circumstances”. Joy accompanies the self-affirmation of our essential being, which takes place in spite of the obstacles created by the accidental that is in us. Joy is the emotional expression of a courageous "Yes" to one's "true being. It is this combination of courage and joy that makes the ontological character of courage evident.

“Seneca made three statements regarding the relationship between the courage of wisdom and religion. The first statement says: "If we are not disturbed by fears and not corrupted by pleasures, then we can not be afraid of either death or the gods." The gods here mean fate. These are the forces that determine fate and symbolize the threat that fate is fraught with. Courage, which overcomes the anxiety that a person experiences in the face of fate, just as successfully overcomes the anxiety that seizes him before the gods.

“According to the second statement, the soul of a wise man is like God. The God referred to here is the divine Logos, in union with which the courage of wisdom overcomes fate and transcends the gods. It is "God above the gods". The third statement describes in terms of theism the difference between the idea of ​​cosmic fatalism and the idea of ​​cosmic salvation. Seneca says that if God is "beyond" suffering, then the true Stoic is "above" it. This means that suffering is contrary to the nature of God. It is impossible for God to suffer, he is "outside" it. The Stoic, by virtue of his human nature, is capable of suffering. But he can not allow suffering to reign in the center of his rational being. He is able to place himself "above" suffering, for suffering is a consequence of something that does not belong to its essential being, but is of an accidental nature.

"Seneca says that the greatest courage is born out of sheer despair."

Courage and self-affirmation: Spinoza

"Spinoza called his main work on ontology 'Ethics', and this title indicates his intention to give an ontological justification for the ethical existence of man, which also implies the inherent courage of man to be."

“The striving of a thing to abide in its being is nothing else than the actual essence of the thing itself” (Spinoza, Ethics III, Theor. 7).”

“Virtue is the ability to act solely in accordance with the true nature of man. He is more virtuous who shows a greater desire and ability to assert his own being. And it is impossible to think of any other virtue that would precede the striving to preserve one's own being (Ethics IV, theor. 22). Thus, self-assertion is the most virtuous virtue."

"Fortitude" (as in scholastic terminology) is the firmness of the soul, its ability to be what it is in essence.

"Erich Fromm expressed in full the idea that right love for oneself and right love for one's neighbor are interdependent, and self-love and contempt for others are also interdependent."

Courage and Life: Nietzsche

Nietzsche's "will to power" is neither will nor power, that is, it is not will in the psychological sense and not power in the sociological sense. "Will to power" refers to the self-affirmation of life as life, including self-preservation and growth. Therefore the will does not aspire to something which it does not have, to some object outside of itself, but wills itself with the dual purpose of self-preservation and self-transcendence. Such is her power - including power over herself. The will to power is the self-affirmation of the will as the ultimate reality.

Nietzsche is the most striking and consistent representative of what is commonly called the "philosophy of life." "Life" here denotes progress, in the course of which the power of being is actualized. But in the course of self-actualization, it overcomes "something" that, although it belongs to life, denies life. This "something" could be called the will opposed to the will to power.

II) BEING, NON-BEING AND ANXIETY

An ontology of anxiety

“Courage is self-affirmation “in spite of”, namely, in spite of what is trying to prevent the Ego from asserting itself.”

"Courage is usually called the ability of the soul to overcome fear."

« Anxiety is a state in which being is aware of the possibility of its non-being. The same statement in a shorter form would sound like this: anxiety is existential awareness of non-existence. The definition of "existential" here indicates that it is not abstract knowledge of non-existence that generates anxiety, but the realization that non-existence is part of a person's own being. It is not the thought that everything is transient, or even the experience of the death of loved ones, that generates anxiety, but the impact of all this on a constant, but hidden awareness of the inevitability of our death. Anxiety is a limb experienced by man as his own limb.

“Anxiety and fear have a common ontological basis, but in fact they are different.

Fear, unlike anxiety, has a specific object.(many researchers agree on this); this object can be met, analyzed, overcome, endured. A person can influence this object and, influencing it, participate in it - even if struggle becomes a form of participation. Thus, a person can take this object into his self-affirmation. Courage can meet any object of fear precisely because it is an object, and this makes participation possible. Courage can take into itself the fear caused by any particular object, because this object, no matter how terrible it may be, participates in one of its facets in us, and we, through this facet, will participate in it. It can be formulated as follows: as long as there is an "object" of fear, love (in the sense of "complicity") is able to overcome fear. »

But with anxiety, things are different, because anxiety has no object.

“A person who is seized with anxiety, as long as it is pure anxiety, is completely left to it and is deprived of any support. The helplessness that occurs in a state of anxiety can be observed both in animals and in humans. It is expressed in disorientation, inadequate reactions, lack of "intentionality"(i.e. connections with meaningful contents of knowledge or will). This unusual behavior is due to the fact that there is no object on which the subject who is in a state of anxiety could focus. The only object is the threat itself, not the source of the threat, because the source of the threat is "nothing."

“However, the question arises: is not this menacing “nothing” an unknown, indefinite possibility of a real threat? Doesn't anxiety stop the moment some known object of fear appears? In such a case, anxiety would be fear of the unknown. But this explanation of anxiety is not enough. After all, there are countless areas of the unknown (for each person they are different), perceived without any anxiety. The fact is that the unknown that gives rise to anxiety is a special kind of unknown. It by its very nature cannot become known, for it is non-existence.

“Fear is the fear of something, such as suffering, rejection by a person or group, the loss of something or someone, the moment of death. But in the face of the threat that these phenomena are full of, a person is not afraid of the denial that these phenomena carry in themselves, he is worried about what, perhaps, is hidden behind this denial. A prime example—and more than just an example—is the fear of death. To the extent that it is "fear", its object is a premonition of a fatal illness or accident, agony, and the loss of everything. But to the extent that it is "anxiety", its object is the absolute suspense of the state "after death", non-being, which will remain non-being even if filled with images from our present experience. The foreknowledge of what may be waiting for us beyond the threshold of death and turning us into cowards, described in Hamlet's monologue "To be or not to be," is terrifying not by its specific content, but by its ability to symbolize the threat of non-existence - what religion calls "eternal death."

“The fear of death introduces an element of anxiety into any other kind of fear. Anxiety that is not affected by the fear of a particular object, anxiety in all its nakedness is always anxiety of ultimate non-existence. At first glance, anxiety is a painfully experienced inability to cope with the threat posed by a certain situation. However, closer analysis shows that anxiety about any particular situation implies anxiety about the human situation as such. It is the anxiety of not being able to maintain one's own being that underlies all fear and creates the terrible in fear. Therefore, at the moment when “bare anxiety” takes possession of the soul of a person, the former objects of fear cease to be definite objects. They turn out to be what they partly were before, namely, symptoms of a person's underlying anxiety.

“Anxiety tends to turn into fear, because courage is able to meet it. A finite being is incapable of enduring naked anxiety for more than a moment. Those who have experienced such moments—for example, the mystics who have seen the "night of the soul," or Luther, seized with despair because of attacks of the demonic, or Nietzsche-Zarathustra, who has experienced "great disgust" - have told about the unimaginable horror of naked anxiety. Turning anxiety into fear of something, no matter what, usually helps to get rid of this horror. The human soul is not only a factory of idols (as Calvin noted), it is also a factory of fear: the first is needed in order to hide from God, the second - to hide from anxiety. There is a relationship between these two abilities of the human soul. After all, meeting with God, who in fact is God, also means meeting with the absolute threat of non-existence.

Alarm types

"I I propose to distinguish three types of anxiety in accordance with the three areas in which non-being threatens being. Non-existence threatens the optical self-affirmation of man relatively - in the form of fate, absolutely - in the form of death. It threatens the spiritual self-affirmation of a person relatively - in the form of emptiness, absolutely - in the form of the absence of meaning. It threatens the moral self-affirmation of a person relatively - in the form of guilt, absolutely - in the form of condemnation. Anxiety is the awareness of this triple threat. This is how three forms of anxiety: anxiety of fate and death (or simply anxiety of death), anxiety of emptiness and loss of meaning (or simply anxiety of the absence of meaning), anxiety of guilt and condemnation (or simply anxiety of condemnation). Anxiety in these three forms is existential because it is inherent in existence as such, and does not represent an abnormal state of mind, such as neurotic (and psychotic) anxiety.

"The courage to be, inherent in the ancient Stoics, conquers not only the fear of death, but also the threat of the absence of meaning."

Paul Tillich (1885–1965) was a German-American Christian thinker, theologian, and philosopher of culture. The main problems of Tillich's work are Christianity and culture, the place of Christianity in modern culture and the spiritual experience of man, the fate of European humanity in the light of the Gospel Good News. These problems are considered in terms of ontology and anthropology, cultural studies and philosophy of history, Christology and biblical hermeneutics. Tillich refers to theology, or theology of culture, in all his works, from his first public appearance at the Berlin Kantian Society in 1919 to one of his last works (Theology of Culture, 1959). The volume included the most significant works: "The Courage to Be", "Love, Strength and Justice", "Shaking the Foundations".

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