ON THE WAY TO CHRISTIANITY AND SCIENCE INTEGRATION
S.V. Devyatova
DOI: 10.17212/2075-0862-2017-3.1-169-177
Abstract:

During all their history people have always been striving for acquiring the integrated worldview. In the Christian part of the world theology and science have traditionally been of great importance in the formation of the worldview. First, theology dominated in gnoseological respect, but then, in the last half-thousand years the leading role was given to science. What is the relationship between Christianity and science nowadays? This article is devoted to consideration of positions of some well-known Christian thinkers specializing in this field. Rejecting the division of spheres of competence between Christianity and science, and their autonomous development, they consider an integrative approach as the most perspective, constructive and productive. The author analyses some flaws in attempts to integrate theology and science, which have been done within the frames of natural theology. Unlike natural theology, which stresses natural sciences component, the suggested approach highlights the idea, that in Christianity theories of creation and salvation are inseparable as well as spiritual life development. Modern integration stipulated by specific and similar features of Christianity and science suggests the formation of integrated worldview on the basis of common philosophical schemes and categories. As one of the most accurate philosophical basis for such integrated worldview the author puts forward «philosophy of process» which considers the world as the dynamic, complex but at the same time the interconnected single whole.

RELIGION AS THE FORM OF COMPREHENSION OF BEING
Svetlana Khmelevskaya
DOI: 10.17212/2075-0862-2017-3.1-178-190
Abstract:

The article is devoted to religion as one of the forms of comprehension of being. To denote the processes of getting various kinds of knowledge in different types of activities in the society the term «comprehension» is used (which is wider than the concept «cognition»). Methodologically «comprehension» is closer to Hegelian interpretation of knowledge acquisition as a cultural and historical process. As a result of comprehension different types of knowledge are formed: the reflective knowledge presenting the world in its own logic and the evaluative knowledge connected with trying to understand this world. The comprehension of being proceeds in stable forms which occupy their own places in general comprehension system (mythology, philosophy, science, religion, art, occultism, trivial and practical knowledge). Depending on the created images of objective reality, methods of its acquisition, methods of obtaining knowledge and their specificity, realistic, imaginative and ambivalent forms of comprehension of objective reality are distinguished. Along with mythology and art, religion can be attributed to imaginative forms of comprehension in which images of the world are created: on the one hand, realistic, and on the other hand, imaginative (in religion, moreover, sacred), built according to the laws of imagination. As any form of comprehension of being, religion has a structure which is represented in the social, epistemological and psychological blocks. The social bloc reveals the process of forming beliefs in the course of religious activity. The epistemological block reflects the specificity of religious knowledge and the methods of obtaining it. The psychological block is dedicated to the peculiarities of religious faith as a gnoseo-psychological mechanism of consciousness, and it also includes other psychological aspects related to the process of obtaining religious knowledge.

IMAGES OF MAN. A CURSORY LOOK AT OUR WORLD AND THE WORLD OF OUR GRANDCHILDREN
Wolfgang Sassin
DOI: 10.17212/2075-0862-2016-4.1-64-77
Abstract:

The specific images of man stand for any canon of values and for any behavioral code. They determine not only the desire to achieve certain public goals. In the end, any change in these images leads to revolutions, radically influencing the development of entire countries. The article highlights some of the linkages and concealed contradictions hidden behind the Ten commandments of the Old Testament, the Sermon on the Mount of Jesus Christ, the American Declaration of Independence of 1776, and related French Constitution of 1791, and finally, of the UN Declaration of Human Rights of 1948. The image of free and rightful man with innate dignity stands in glaring contradiction with the reality of modern humankind, which will reach the ten billion mark quite soon. The limited capacity of finite resources of planet Earth decidedly demands the change of our traditional ideas about man. The lives of our grandchildren will be determined by the new image of man and the way of when and how it will be developed.

ESCAPISM AND EARTHLY SUCCESS: ECONOMIC CULTURE OF FOREIGN OLD BELIEVERS
D.E. Raskov
DOI: 10.17212/2075-0862-2016-4.1-37-53
Abstract:

The article deals with the economic culture of the Old Believers, known as «chasovennye», who live in North and South America. The interviews and observations, collected during the expeditions to Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil and Canada; as well as previously published works became the material for the generalizations. The first part outlines the nature of the activities and the economic culture of the Old Believers in America, and the second part deals with the Old Believers’ choice of the place of residence and their main activity; finally, the third part reveals the phenomenon of the dialectics of escape from the world and earthly success. A comparative overview of the economic life of a community of Old Believers named “chasovennye” shows the intensity of movements and the voluntariness in choosing the place of residence. In terms of theory, the article shows the dialectical logic of economic and religious choice. Economic success, followed by the loss of traditional ways of life and the language, provoked searching for the new places of residence. Like medieval monasteries and mendicant orders, the Old Believers, who had consciously chosen isolation and escapism, often found themselves in even more advantageous economic conditions, as it can be seen in Alaska and the Canadian Alberta.

ONCE AGAIN ABOUT THE SPECIFICS OF INTERACTION BETWEEN CHRISTIANITY AND EUROPEAN CULTURE
Gennady Pikov
DOI: 10.17212/2075-0862-2016-4.1-23-36
Abstract:

  The article is devoted to the problematic character of the relations of Christianity with other cultures as one of the brightest features of European civilization. Attempts to understand it were made throughout the History of Christianity. It is necessary to consider continuous penetration into Europe of the most diverse cultures from the other continents which entered into the existential conflict with this religion. At the same time it is necessary to consider the problem relations of Christianity with the European mental and cultural arrangements. They naturally came into conflict with Christianity which had been created outside the continent. It is especially vividly seen in the period of early Christianity when Christianity was more presented by a set of ideas, than the sum of artifacts. Besides, Christianity was formed not due to the evolution of a certain initial paradigm, but as a result of synthesis of elements of almost all known at that time cultures. The author gives a general characteristic of the history of interaction between Christianity and the European cultural streams, and also he considers some forms and methods of fight, which Christianity used against those cultural streams. The Church played a special role in this fight, and сhristianization might be presented as the movement of the Church, not a religion. At the same time сhristianization is an information gain of new space. Simultaneously, it is necessary to highlight the role of this religion in preservation of the European information unity and also in the fight against cultural interventions from the outside.

METHODS OF INTERPRETATION THE TEXT OF THE SCRIPTURE
Valery Savrey
DOI: 10.17212/2075-0862-2016-4.1-9-22
Abstract:

The article is devoted to the search of the hidden meaning of the Bible, and to the birth of the tradition of patristic hermeneutics and exegesis in the history of the early Christian Church. Actually, in the works of early Christian apologists, the five main methods of exegesis of the Holy Scripture were already used, including: literally-historical, moral, theoretical, typological, and allegorical. The author examines the influence of Philo of Alexandria, who identified two stages in the study of God – knowledge of God from the “created things”, and the ascent of mind to the understanding of the transcendence of deity. Clement of Alexandria, unlike his predecessor, didn’t try to turn the biblical text into a philosophical treatise, but sought to transform the philosophical ideas into the Christian ones, and with the help of the typological method he succeeded in it. The purpose of this study is to reveal the mechanism of interaction between two theoretical and methodological traditions: the tradition of the apology of the truths of Divine Revelation and the tradition of interpreting the text of the Scripture, which was systematized in the Alexandrian philosophical-theological school.

THE CREATOR – A POTTER, THE SUN, A COMPOSER?
S.V. Devyatova
DOI: 10.17212/2075-0862-2016-3.1-93-105
Abstract:

Modern science transformed our notion of the universe which appears now as an integrated, continuously developing system which is characterized by the interaction of the chance and the law. Philosophical comprehension of the new picture of the world demands essential changes in the worldview of people. Many western Christian theologians suppose that Christianity in this connection also must and may improve its doctrine of the Creator and creation. The author considers the conception elaborated by one of the most prominent specialists on the problem «science and the modern Christianity», an English scientist and an Anglican theologian A. Peacocke, which is directed at solving that problem. He motivates the legitimation of a new vision of God where the Creator appears as dynamic, limited in His power and knowledge, suffering, loving, personally connected with His creation, exploring it and developing with it. Peacocke’s conception enriches not only Christian theology but also our notion of it.