IS THERE SALVATION THROUGH PHILOSOPHY?

Abstract

The idea of this text envisages the soteriological function of philosophy, which entitles us to ask ourselves some questions in this respect. We start from the premise that human reason was given to reach salvation, to achieve wisdom. If we can reach freedom, truth and happiness, wisdom and God through philosophy, doesn't salvation involve all these? At the basis of such a research work lies a certain understanding of philosophy, of its core and purpose for human life, especially today, in a world devoid of rationality and wisdom. All the universal philosophical thought gives us the pros and cons of salvation through philosophy. While some philosophers do not support the metaphysical path toward salvation, other philosophies are the very doctrine of salvation. The philosophical way to God differs from the religious one, implicitly the path of salvation through philosophy is distinct from the religious experience. I believe that he who reaches the consciousness of transcendence has the ontological chance of salvation through philosophy. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]

Headnote

Abstract: The idea of this text envisages the soteriological function of philosophy, which entitles us to ask ourselves some questions in this respect. We start from the premise that human reason was given to reach salvation, to achieve wisdom. If we can reach freedom, truth and happiness, wisdom and God through philosophy, doesn't salvation involve all these?

At the basis of such a research work lies a certain understanding of philosophy, of its core and purpose for human life, especially today, in a world devoid of rationality and wisdom. All the universal philosophical thought gives us the pros and cons of salvation through philosophy. While some philosophers do not support the metaphysical path toward salvation, other philosophies are the very doctrine of salvation. The philosophical way to God differs from the religious one, implicitly the path of salvation through philosophy is distinct from the religious experience. I believe that he who reaches the consciousness of transcendence has the ontological chance of salvation through philosophy.

Keywords: Salvation, soteriological function, philosophy, transcendence, God, philosophical faith, consciousness, the sense of existence.

In order to answer such a difficult question, it is necessary to analyze the following aspects which we consider essential to understand the issue of our research:

1. What is philosophy and what is its purpose for man; the soteriological function of philosophy;

2. The basic connection between transcendence as a fundamental problem of philosophy and salvation;

3. Philosophical faith and salvation through philosophy;

4. Who can reach salvation through philosophy?

We do not aim to achieve an insight into the history of philosophy to present the most significant definitions of philosophy from antiquity to the contemporary era. Such an approach, although it might be interesting, would drive us apart from our initial interrogation. We will bring into discussion those approaches of philosophy in terms of their relation with religion. It is undeniable that the theme of salvation requires a philosophical-theological approach, a cultural one, generally speaking.

I. For our research we consider it necessary to start from what Hegel clearly states in Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion1 :"The object of Philosophy is God and, in fact, as a unique object. Philosophy does not mean the secular wisdom of the world, as it was called in opposition to faith. It is not worldly wisdom, but unworldly knowledge, it is not the knowledge of the external masses, of the empirical existence and life, but it is the knowledge of what is eternal, of what God is and what derives from its nature, and this nature should manifest and develop". Thus, philosophy distinguishes itself as a cognitive approach since it contains a moose to another type of existence, the temerity to accede to the final mystery. It is "the Science about Absolute".2

For a proper understanding of the distinction between philosophy and religion, we consider as reference N. Berdyaev's text which states: ''Philosophy is not, like religion, revelation of God, it is the revelation of man, but of man who is part of Logos , the Absolute Man, the total man, and not the individual closed being. Philosophy is the revelation of wisdom in man himself, through his creative effort."3

Somehow philosophy starts from the man toward God, while in religion the path is reversed, from God to humans.

Philosophy is an activity of consciousness, and God makes himself heard only in the quietness of the consciousness voice. ''There is no fully completed philosophical system that should get, sooner or later, at a limit point, which is God - either this God is matter, or, as for the pantheists, the universe, a supreme idea of good, as for Platonicians etc., but all these reach a limit point, source of all life and of all reality and, at the same time, the foundation of all reality^ "Following in Hegel's footsteps, the great Romanian professor of philosophy, Nae Ionescu, argues that the object of philosophy is transcendence5, and the differences between philosophy and religion "do not come from the object, but probably from elsewhere: firstly, from the role that the object plays in philosophical or religious concern and, secondly, from the way this object is reached one way or another on the religious path, God is reached through identification and the proof of God's existence is approved through living, whereas in philosophy, this limit point, God, is the result of a whole range of research of our reason."6

One can thus understand that philosophy reaches God through human possibilities of knowledge, the philosophical path toward divinity being a rational one, of self research. This aspect was noticed by the theologian philosopher Augustine, the great discoverer of human insight who, in his Confessions, writes with human imperative character: "Do not get out of yourself ; Compose yourself in yourself for the truth dwells in the inner man". ?

Moreover, all philosophers have admitted, either consciously or unconsciously, the fact that divine mysteries hide only in self-awareness, in self-feeling. Philosophy, though it has concealed its nature, is always positively or negatively religious. The Greek philosophy, regarded as the most unaltered model of autonomous philosophy, was religion by its sources and pathos, reflecting the religious conception of the Greeks. Thus, The Ionians' philosophy cannot be understood unless it is linked with the religious feelings the ancient Greek used to have for nature.

Plato's philosophy can be deciphered only in the light of Orphism and its mysteries, which seek the deliverance from evil and death. The philosophy of Plato and of the Neo-platonicians proves to be consciously religious. The German idealism is circumscribed to Protestantism and to a certain epoch from the previous development of Christianity. Kant and Hegel could not place themselves at the edge of Christianity in spite of the considerable distance between their consciousness and that of the Church.

The rationalist philosophy of the 18th century, like the positivist and materialist philosophy of the 19th century, negatively religious through their pathos, reflect the struggle against God, against the Christian faith, and there is no autonomy, no purity, no abnegation, in these philosophical movements. Rationalism, criticism, empiricism lead a religious battle, but do not free themselves from the life bonds. Atheism is, at the same time, a state of life and religious struggle, like faith. Almost all the objective science devoted to the biblical criticism and historical research on the origins of Christianity led to religious warfare; it was moved by a negative religious pathos. This science has never lived up to pure knowledge and full detachment.

Unbelief is a prerequisite for life to the same extent as faith8. All the arguments presented above converge on the idea that philosophy is the spirit that becomes aware of itself and cannot be independent of a particular spiritual aspiration. The spiritual orientation determines the structure of the consciousness, which, in its turn, determines knowledge. Philosophical knowledge is not the mere knowledge of being, the reflection of reality in the one who knows. Its purpose is to get at the truth, to find the meaning, to make sense of reality.

Thus, if by philosophy we reach truth and freedom, the meaning of life and happiness, no one can challenge the soteriological function of the universal forms of knowledge, because philosophical salvation requires faith in all these. Analyzing the philosophical problem of salvation, we bring into discussion Kierkegaard's example who approached this issue rather as a fact man takes interest in directly than eschatologically. The meaning of salvation is reconsidered and lived in its significance of individual redemption, referring to one's inner self. In Fear and Trembling9 there are the typical indications on the theme of salvation. The title is taken from St. Paul's Letter to the Philippians: "work out your own salvation with fear and trembling" (Philippians 2:12). The two words indicate the state of mind in which Kierkegaard was whenever approaching the theme of Abraham, indicating the risk, the danger that exists in the movement of salvation. God tested Abraham by, who gives up life for eternity and who, despite all these, returns to life in faith, asking him to sacrifice his son, and Abraham, in silence, went to the place indicated, towards Moriah mountain. Abraham's silence indicates the introduction of fear and trembling in religion. Abraham is thus in a double movement of faith, in resignation and total surrender to God. In this way, Abraham is the symbol of humanity that launches in absurd and hopes against hope.

If Kierkegaard's experience of salvation is explained in terms of religion, an antinomic situation is that of Schopenhauer, who is an atheist philosopher, but who is not afraid to develop a doctrine of salvation that he integrated into his own philosophy of will. Yes, there is salvation from misery and error, from mistake and atonement of this life, and it is within the reach of man, the highest and most evolved, therefore the most capable of suffering and submitted to suffering, objectification of the will. Not death is salvation, it bears a completely different name and it is linked to a completely different condition. Death belongs completely to appearance, empiricism, the sphere of multiplicity and change; it does not reach transcendent reality and truth at all. What dies in us is only individuation; the core of our essence, the will, which is the will of staying alive, remains completely untouched and, as long as it does not do more than assert itself, it will always be capable to find its ways to life.10

A relevant example is also the thinking of Friderich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900) 11 , who is another philosophical landmark in terms of the soteriological field. Different from faith or practice, a new principle is now indicated, that of the "will to power", conceived as "eternal return of the same". It involves the denial of traditional values and the foundation of new ones. The old morale is in fact the slaves' morale, animated by the spirit of revenge for those values they do not possess. Christianity is responsible for having made possible a morale of the obedience. Nietzsche can thus deny the values of happiness and salvation, as they are an expression of a life of renunciation and allegiance. The nihilism appears on these bases, expressed in the aphorism "God is dead". This statement does not contain a negation of divinity, it expresses rather a criticism to the adjustments of faith to the mundane and ecclesiastical spirit, denouncing its inability to perform a true salvation by removing the mask. This is achieved by accepting life for what it actually is, that is as joy and sorrow, pain and passion. Salvation consists then in accepting these exceptional living conditions. Only the super-man can accept the whole and bitter truth of life and world, admitting that, after all, there is an eternal repetition of cosmic happenings.

The new century - the 20th century - opens with the cry of "death of God ", which expresses the awareness of the crisis of everything that the 19th century considered as definitive. While in Italy the philosophies of neo-idealism, with Benedetto Croce (1866-1952) and Giovanni Gentile (1875-1944), react to scientism and positivism, elsewhere the speculation takes other ways: that of contemplation and reflection on the themes of existence. Phenomenology, inaugurated by Edmund Husserl (1859-1938), is the return to pure theoreticity, claiming a diverse use of reason, apart from that of world domination tool. Reason, in phenomenology, is necessary to get to know the real human being that presents itself to the world of life (Lebenswelt). It's that reason which confers an ultimate tendency toward the monadologic unity of the ego and upper communities, such as family and society. Salvation is seen in this context as the reconstruction of pure theoreticity. "The heroism of reason" (Heroismus der Vernunft) or 'barbarianism': this is the motto of one of Husserl' last works, Krisis, where salvation is seen in opposition with the objective danger threatening Europe.12

The setorological intention in terms of truth (i.e. always philosophical ones), is the focus of Martin Heidegger's speculation (1889-1976)13 . While in the first works, as in Sein und Zeit, this intention appears as the necessity to make man belong to banality and to the decay of inauthentic life, in a second moment the salvation theme appears among those problems with which the historical world in its destiny of decadence is analyzed. That is why it was said that the expression of Heidegger's thought is becoming more and more attentive to the soteriological and religious moment. Perhaps the most important position of this line of thinking is that of K. Jaspers14 , who, in his works glorified the life of faith as the only possibility of salvation. In fact, faith identifies itself with the very condition of existence. Unable to take the leap into transcendence, it is revealed, however, by figures or limit situations, like pain, sin and death. Salvation is, therefore, in Jaspers' opinion, a condition that arises from the total abandonment or "shipwreck" of existence. In the Romanian philosophy horizon, Nae Ionescu talks about salvation as religious experience, denying the role of metaphysics as a path toward salvation, although in his opinion the object of metaphysics is transcendence. Here is an inconsistency in his thinking that does not confer philosophical knowledge the proper role in the plan of salvation, were it only at the level of superior people.15

II. The problem of philosophy must be dealt with profoundness. To be a philosopher means to know that the essential facts are not similar with everyday ones, it means searching for the truth. This quest requires the passage to something completely new. Truth does not come from the world, but from the spirit; it is known only in the transcendence of the objective world.

The fundamental problem of philosophy seems to be transcendence and, more specifically, the nature of transcendence to which the philosopher recourses in the act of philosophizing. Philosophical transcendence remains, and it claims to remain, within the man himself, being immanent to him.

It is very important to point out in this context that philosophy arises when the data of everyday life become problematic, when life becomes a problem. Summarizing philosophy, Leibniz said that it is defined entirely by the question: why is there something rather than nothing?16 No response based on a worldly thing can provide the solution to such questions. The philosophical conversion is equivalent to asking the question ''Why"? which includes the whole empirical world. Transcendence is the point of view towards which one is acceding and which allows the formulation of this question. The foundation of philosophical questioning, the justification of that why lets itself be understood as a revelation of the very essence of man. Man's self-consciousness acquired through philosophy is transcendental in relation to the natural world and cannot be explained by it. There is a deep and meaningful analogy between Christ's self-consciousness and that of man. Only the revelation about Christ gives the key to revealing the mystery of human self- consciousness.17 Therefore, he who knows himself knows everything in himself. ''Man's supreme self-consciousness is inexplicable starting from the natural world and remains a mystery to this world."18 The human nature that has become aware of its own essence, its own essentially independent and free existence, must exist forever only as a creative, founding nature. The human nature will definitively justify itself in front of the Creator not by fading away, but by its creative expression. The human nature, redeemed and saved from evil, has a positive content and a positive human power. Such content and such a task may be only a creation. When Berdyaev speaks about creation, he does not take into account the current, preponderantly cultural meaning of the term.

''Man is justified by creation because through creation he expresses the prestige of 'likeness' to God. God is, above all, the Creator. And if we are made after His model, then, the more we are creators ourselves, the more we will resemble Him...Man does not imitate, through creation, the created world, but he amplifies it. Also, he does not imitate the Creator, but makes it present, by participating in his Demiurgic act. Human art is an ontological act: it adds to the world being a new being and, to the seven days of Creation, a perpetual eighth day. Being a man, fully, means living in the bliss of the eighth day, always reopening the primary cycle which God sealed with His rest. God's 'Work' could be corrupted by sin. The human 'work' incurs the duty to restore, against sin, the horizon of salvation. The anthropological revelation is linked with the awareness of the relationship between the mystery of creation and the mystery of salvation. Thus, we can hope of a promise of salvation through the synergy of human creation.

III. There is, undoubtedly, a connection between philosophical faith and salvation through philosophy. In the history of European consciousness, two beliefs clashed and opposed each other: the faith in God and the faith in man. This opposition corresponds to a moment in the dialectics of consciousness. At a higher level of consciousness, the man understands that this faith in God involves the faith in man, and the faith in man, the faith in God.

The only source of faith in God is the existence of the divine in man. No one and nothing in this world can cause the denial of this human greatness. Faith in God without faith in man is a form of idolatry. Even the idea of Revelation itself becomes absurd if the one God reveals to is an absolute nothingness and does not live up to the one who reveals himself. There are several stages of revelation which correspond to the degrees of consciousness. Salvation comes from God, the manifestation of God crucified and sacrificed. Man needs both faith in God and faith in his reason to accede to God in order to be saved. ''Understanding is the reward of faith" - said Augustin - trying to reconcile faith with reason: 'so do not try to understand in order to believe, but believe in order to understand."20 On the other hand, he argued that mere belief is just a sort of blind approval. It needs to be consolidated and made intelligible through reason.21 The idea of faith compliance with reason is masterfully developed by Leibniz in his opening of Theodicy22, where the reason is 'canonized': the true reason is enlightened by faith, because it descends from divinity itself.

The philosophical faith, the faith of man who thinks, is always distinguished by the very fact that it exists as such only in relation to human knowledge. A conclusive example in this respect can be the philosophical faith of modern rationalists (Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz) in the power of reason. Moreover, modern rationalism is originally a religious movement. Because God is the central object of knowledge, the whole modern rationalism takes the form of theodicy. Rationalism, founded by Descartes and continued by Spinoza and Leibniz, was developed to expand and strengthen the religious faith with the means of reason. The belief in the perfection of the divine creation gives way as to its rationality. The rationalists' tacit assumption is the identity between perfection and rationality. Descartes. Spinoza and Leibniz did not intend to undermine the Christian faith, but only to render it a rational character.

In the philosophers' world there are examples of thinkers like Socrates, Boethius, Giordano Bruno that we can consider martyrs of the philosophical faith assertion and, why not, the saints of the history of philosophy. They believed in their ideas, they fought and died for them.

''The philosophical faith wants to illuminate itself. Philosophising I do not take anything for granted, I do not leave anything unexplored as it I am required to. Rightly, this kind of faith cannot become universal knowledge, but I must become aware of it by self-conviction. And it must be continually carried on by consciousness, becoming clearer and clearer, more aware. 23 When philosophical belief leads towards a high level of awareness, we can speak of salvation. Salvation through philosophy occurs together with the purification of reason, by following all the stages of knowledge. It is that state of man's bliss, ''elated with God", seized by that "amor intellectualis Amor Dei" referred to by Spinoza in the latter part of his Ethics. ~4

If philosophy is a 'prayer that we murmur all life'25, it means that we can save ourselves through philosophy every moment, through self-knowledge; this cannot be achieved easily because philosophical knowledge is not a passive reflection: it is an active penetration a victory in the fight against the nonsense of universal reality, a fight that involves a synergistic action of faith, intelligence and courage.

IV. Who can reach salvation through philosophy?

Trying to distinguish between an ignorant and a higher spirit, Spinoza, in the last part of his fundamental work the ETHICS, points out: 'Indeed, the ignorant man, in addition to being disturbed in many ways by external causes and never reach true peace of mind, lives almost ignorant of himself, of God and things, so that he ceases to suffer only when he ceases to be.

The wise man, on the contrary, as we consider him as such, has his soul troubled hardly at all, but, being in a kind of eternal need of self-awareness, of God and things, never ceases to exist and always enjoys the true peace of mind. If the way we have shown that leads to it seems very difficult, it can still be found, and, of course, a thing that we meet so rarely must be hard. If salvation were within easy reach and could be attained without much trouble, how would it possibly be ignored by almost everyone?

The wise man, on the contrary, as we consider him as such, has his soul troubled hardly at all, but, being in a kind of eternal need of self-awareness, of God and things, never ceases to exist and always enjoys the true peace of mind. If the way we have shown that leads to it seems very difficult, it can still be found, and, of course, a thing that we meet so rarely must be hard. If salvation were within easy reach and could be attained without much trouble, how would it possibly be ignored by almost everyone?

But everything that is great is as difficult as it is rare26. From Spinoza's point of view, we can, therefore, understand that the ignorant does not ask himself existential problems, while the higher spirit is metaphysically restless, it is a ravaged consciousness.

We have submitted this text to analysis because it obviously illustrates the soteriological function of philosophy, the reason of our research work. We dare answer this interrogation containing the problem of this text as follows: we can speak about salvation through philosophy, but the way to this kind of salvation is a long and arduous one, meant for metaphysically restless spirits, always in search of the Truth, and of themselves.27

Footnote

1 G.W.F. Flegel, Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion, Bucharest, Humanitas, 1995, p.18.

2 Ibidem, p.17.

3 N. Berdiaev, The meaning of the Creative Act, Bucharest, Flumanitas, 1992, p.99-115.

4 Nae Ionescu, Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion, Cluj, Apostrof Library, 1993, p.116.

5 Idem, A Treatise on Metaphysics, Bucharest, Roza Vanturilor Publishing House, 1999.

6 Idem, Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion, p.117.

7 Augustin, Confessions, Bucharest, Humanitas, 2002.

8 N. Berdiaev, Spirit and Freedom. An Essay on Christian Philosophy, Bucharest, Paideia, 1996, p.26.

9 S.Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling, Bucharest, Humanitas, 2002.

10 Ah.Schopenhauer, Philosophical and Religious Writings, Bucharest, Humanitas, 1995, p.28.

11 Fr. Nietzsche, The Will to Power, Bucharest, Aion Publishing Fiouse, 1997.

12 Ed. Husserl, The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology, Bucharest, Humanitas, 2011.

13 M.Heidegger, Being and Time, Bucharest, Humanitas, 2003.

14 K.Jaspers, Philosophical Texts, Bucharest, The Political Publishing House, 1988.

15 Nae Ionescu, op.cit.

16 G.W.Leibniz, Principes de la Nature et de la Grâce fondés en Raison, Hamburg, f. Meiner, 2.Aufl., 1982; (paralelltextFrench-German). p. 12, 14.

17 Berdiaev, The Meaning of the Creative Act, op.cit. Humanitas, 1992.

18 Ibidem, p.70.

19 Andrei Pleçu, Forward to the The Meaning of the Creative Act op.cit., p.12.

20 Augustin, in Iohannis Evangelium tractatus, XXIX, 6, apud. Diane Collinson, A Small Dictionary of Western Philosophy, Bucharest, Nemira, 1987, p.39.

21 Ibidem, p. 40.

22 Leibniz, Theodicy: Essays, Iaçi, Polirom, 1997, p.45-89.

23 K.Jaspers, The Concept of Philosophical Faith, in Philosophical Texts, Bucharest, The Political Publishing House, 1988, p. 112.

24 Spinoza, The Ethics, Bucharest, Scientific and Encyclopaedic Publishing House, 1981.

25 G. Liiceanu, Love Declaration, Bucharest, Humanitas, 1997.

26 Spinoza, op.cit, p. 277.

27 A. Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus, Works XXI, Bucharest, Rao, 2011.

References

REFERENCES

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