Letter from Jacques Masoin 1

Bruxelles, le 3.1.1949

Je viens de terminer la lecture de Cinq méditations sur l'Existence. Elles sont pour moi d’un puissant intérêt et joie aussi. Je ne sais si vous aurez pris la peine de lire ma petite introduction à la pensée de l'Inde mais je suis extrêmement frappé par la ressemblance entre votre pensée (telle qu'elle s'exprime surtout dans la Deuxième Méditation) et ce que j'avais écrit alors sous l'inspiration de l'Inde.

Justement je me suis efforcé de démontrer que l’attitude de l'Inde dans la connaissance est tout à fait contraire à l'objectivation (caractéristique de l'Occident), c'est-à-dire essentiellement subjective – ainsi que je l'appelle – et se manifestant exactement de la manière dont vous décrivez la seconde voie (p.76) qui est celle de la philosophie existentielle. Dans mon texte je taxe cette pensée indienne d'idéalisme absolu mais j'ai grand soin de préciser, en note, sa nature en lui appliquant les mots de Novalis : "l'idéalisme est l'empirisme vrai" doublé d'une expérimentation, vécue, dans le sens où l'on touche une existence concrète. Je me rends compte aujourd'hui que la place d’un idéalisme absolu il faudrait mettre un existential indien afin d’éviter de confondre la pensée indienne avec ce à l’opposé de l'idéalisme absolu malgré les similitudes nombreuses que l'on pourrait trouver, par ex. entre Hegel et le Védanta qu’il a certainement connu.

Tout le système de Shankara constitue une philosophie de l’être en tant que sujet. Le point de départ de sa démonstration métaphysique est une critique de l'objectivation. L’adhyāsa ou surimposition revient à démontrer qu'on applique une réalité à ce qui n'en a point (ou du moins qu’il n’en a que dans la mesure où on l'objective : moi seul je confère une réalité à Māyā en la pensant) le sujet existant étant seul "absolument réel." Une certaine réalité relative peut cependant être laissée à l'objet. En effet, l'objet, s'il cache la plénitude invisible du Réel, ne laisse pas de persister en ambiguïté entre l'être et le non-être. À tel point que si le sujet se perd en s'aliénant dans l'illusion objective universelle (comme dit Lacombe), il se retrouve cependant partiellement en se prenant lui-même pour objet.

Supprimer l'objectivation – d'où l'intellectualisme – vous devez la remplacer par l’intuition qui est la prise de possession de soi par soi. C'est le chemin que préconise Shankara, la connaissance vraie, la gnose.

La pensée indienne est grande et riche précisément parce qu’elle est opposée à l'objectivation et donc en quelque sorte anti-conceptuelle. Elle est essentiellement intuitive, aussi les concepts qu’elle a forgés (car il faut bien détruire les instruments à la pensée "dans le monde") s’appuient-ils toujours sur une expérience intérieure, sur du vécu, sur de l'existential. D’où sa force, sa cohésion et surtout sa vérité. Elle reste perpétuellement dans la...

Brussels, January 3, 1949

I have just finished reading Five Meditations on Existence. They have been for me both a profound source of interest and joy. I don't know if you have taken the time to read my little introduction to Indian thought, but I am deeply struck by the resemblance between your thought (as it is expressed especially in the Second Meditation) and what I had written at the time under the inspiration of India.

Indeed, I sought to demonstrate that India's approach to knowledge is entirely contrary to objectification (a characteristic of the West), that is, fundamentally subjective—as I call it—and manifesting itself in exactly the way you describe the second path (p. 76), which is that of existential philosophy. In my text, I label this Indian thought as absolute idealism, but I am careful to clarify, in a note, its nature by applying Novalis' words: "idealism is the true empiricism," doubled with an experiential, lived dimension, in the sense that it touches upon concrete existence. Today, I realize that instead of absolute idealism, one should use Indian existentialism to avoid confusing Indian thought with the opposite of absolute idealism, despite the many similarities that could be found, for example, between Hegel and the Vedanta, which he certainly knew.

The entire system of Shankara constitutes a philosophy of being as a subject. The starting point of his metaphysical demonstration is a critique of objectification. Adhyāsa or superimposition demonstrates that we apply reality to what does not possess it (or at least possesses it only insofar as we objectify it: I alone confer reality upon Māyā by thinking of it) with the subject existing alone as "absolutely real." A certain relative reality can, however, be granted to the object. Indeed, the object, even if it conceals the invisible fullness of the Real, nonetheless persists ambiguously between being and non-being. To such an extent that if the subject loses itself by alienating itself in the universal objective illusion (as Lacombe says), it still partially rediscovers itself by taking itself as an object.

Eliminating objectification—hence intellectualism—you must replace it with intuition, which is self-possession by oneself. This is the path advocated by Shankara: true knowledge, gnosis.

Indian thought is vast and rich precisely because it opposes objectification and is, in a way, anti-conceptual. It is essentially intuitive; even the concepts it has forged (for one must destroy the instruments of thought "in the world") are always based on an inner experience, on lived reality, on the existential. Hence its strength, coherence, and above all, its truth. It perpetually remains within...

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Letter from Jacques Masoin 2

...voie de la connaissance droite (que certains nomment tradition), en contact permanent avec le Divin qui l’alimente sans cesse. Les plans hiérarchiques de l’être sont maintenus avec rigueur.

Naturellement sur le plan matériel le manque d’objectivation absolument total du génie indien a été fatal à l’Inde, car elle n’a jamais attribué d’importance ni au temps ni aux techniques. Immergée dans le sacré, l’acquisition de pouvoirs extérieurs, rendue possible par l'objectivation, lui a fait défaut, d'où sa perpétuelle sujétion à d'autres races plus "objectives" qui la dominèrent à de nombreuses reprises dans son histoire.

Jacques Masoin
Ci-joint veuillez trouver un texte inédit de Shankara traduit par O. Lacombe.

...the path of true knowledge (which some call tradition), in permanent contact with the Divine that sustains it constantly. The hierarchical planes of being are maintained with rigor.

Naturally, on the material level, the total lack of objectification in Indian genius has been fatal to India, as it never attributed importance to either time or techniques. Immersed in the sacred, it lacked the acquisition of external powers, made possible by objectification, hence its perpetual subjugation to other more "objective" races that dominated it repeatedly throughout its history.

Jacques Masoin
Attached, please find an unpublished text by Shankara, translated by O. Lacombe.

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Letter from Jacques Masoin 3
SHANKARA: Introduction to the Commentaries on the Brahma Sutras

SHANKARA : Introduction aux commentaires aux Brahma-Soutras

Les notions du vous et du nous constituent deux domaines, celui de l’objet et celui du sujet, en opposition essentielle comme les ténèbres et la lumière, et qu’on ne saurait identifier en aucune façon : c’est la chose patente, qui entraîne à plus forte raison l’impossibilité d’identifier leurs attributs. Et par conséquent, la surimposition ou superposition, qui a pour domaine la notion du nous, et dont l’essence est spirituelle, de l’objet, qui a pour domaine la notion du vous, et de ses attributs, ou, vice versa, la superposition du sujet et de ses attributs à l’objet, est nécessairement erronée. Malgré cela, c’est un comportement naturel à l’homme de surimposer tantôt à l’un, tantôt à l’autre de ces deux termes l’essence et les attributs du terme opposé : la cause en est la fausse connaissance relative à ces deux termes et à leurs attributs, qui, bien qu’ils soient absolument distincts, on ne les distingue l’un de l’autre et unit le Réel à l’Irréel en des représentations comme celles-ci : "Je suis cette chose (objective)" ou "Cette chose (objective) est à moi."

On demande : Mais qu’appelez-vous surimposition ?

Nous répondons : c’est la manifestation (apparente), en forme de mémoire sur un fond ontologique étranger, d’un aspect du connaissable antérieurement perçu.

Quelques-uns la définissent comme la surimposition des attributs d’une chose à une autre chose.

Certains y voient l’erreur consistant à la non-appréhension de la différence d’autres déclarent qu’elle consiste à attribuer fictivement à ce pur quoi elles sont surimposées la possession de qualités contraires à sa nature.

Mais, de toute manière, sa définition ne déborde pas cette proposition qu’elle est la manifestation apparente d’attributs étrangers à la chose qui semble en être le sujet.

Et cela concorde avec l’expérience vulgaire pour laquelle "la nacre apparaît comme de l’argent" ou "la lune apparaît comme unique, bien qu’elle soit unique".

Mais encore, comment se peut-il qu’au Soi intérieur, qui n’est pas un objet se surimposent des objets ou leurs attributs ? Car nul ne surimpose un aspect objectif étranger que sur quelque objet présent devant lui, ou vous affirmez que le Soi intérieur, incompatible avec la notion du vous, n’est pas un objet.

Nous répondons qu’il n’est cependant pas non-objet en un sens absolument exclusif, car il est l’objet de la notion du nous. Au surplus, c’est par son évidence immédiate que la conscience intuitive qui s’avère le Soi intérieur. Il n’est pas non plus de règle qu’on ne doive surimposer des aspects objectifs étrangers qu’à un objet présent devant soi. Les simples, en effet, surimposent à l’espace la qualité d’être plan, ou coloré, ou sonore, encore qu’il soit inaccessible à la proposition de ce qui n’est pas objet que le Soi intérieur porte lui aussi la surimposition.

C’est précisément cette surimposition ainsi caractérisée que les doctes considèrent comme l’Ignorance, tandis qu’ils appellent Science la détermination de la vraie nature de quoi est par la discrimination de ces apparences surimposées.

SHANKARA: Introduction to the Commentaries on the Brahma Sutras

The notions of you (vous) and we (nous) constitute two realms, that of the object and that of the subject, in essential opposition like darkness and light, and they cannot be identified in any way: this is the obvious fact, which all the more entails the impossibility of identifying their attributes. Consequently, the superimposition, which concerns the notion of we, whose essence is spiritual, upon the object, which concerns the notion of you and its attributes, or vice versa, the superimposition of the subject and its attributes upon the object, is necessarily erroneous. Despite this, it is natural behavior for humans to superimpose alternately onto one or the other of these two terms the essence and attributes of the opposing term: the cause lies in false knowledge relating to these two terms and their attributes, which, although absolutely distinct, are not distinguished from each other, and they unite the Real with the Unreal in representations such as: "I am this (objective) thing" or "This (objective) thing is mine."

Question: What do you mean by superimposition?

Answer: It is the (apparent) manifestation, in the form of memory, upon an alien ontological background, of an aspect of the knowable previously perceived.

Some define it as the superimposition of the attributes of one thing upon another thing.

Certain scholars see in it the error consisting in the failure to apprehend the difference. Others declare that it consists of fictitiously attributing to what they are superimposed upon the possession of qualities contrary to its nature.

But, in any case, its definition does not extend beyond this proposition: it is the apparent manifestation of foreign attributes to the thing that seems to be the subject.

And this aligns with common experience for which "the nacre appears as silver" or "the moon appears as unique, although it is singular."

But still, how can it be that objects or their attributes are superimposed upon the inner Self, which is not an object? For no one superimposes a foreign objective aspect unless it is upon some object present before them, or you affirm that the inner Self, incompatible with the notion of you, is not an object.

We answer that it is nevertheless not a non-object in an absolutely exclusive sense, for it is the object of the notion of we. Moreover, it is through its immediate evidence that intuitive consciousness reveals the inner Self. It is not the rule, either, that one can only superimpose foreign objective aspects onto an object present before them. The simple, in fact, superimpose upon space the quality of being flat, or colored, or sonorous, even though it is inaccessible to the proposition of what is not object; the inner Self too carries superimposition.

This very superimposition, thus characterized, is precisely what the learned consider to be Ignorance, while they call Science the determination of the true nature of being through the discrimination of these superimposed appearances.

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Letter from Jacques Masoin 4
SHANKARA: Introduction to the Commentaries on the Brahma Sutras

Puis donc qu’il en est ainsi, aucun des deux pôles de cette surimposition mutuelle n’a, si peu que ce soit, de relation (réelle) aux qualifications que lui surimpose l’autre pôle, ni l’esprit aux déficiences du non-spirituel, ni le non-spirituel à l’excellence de la spiritualité.

C’est justement cette surimposition réciproque du Soi et non-Soi, appelée Ignorance (avidyā), qui constitue la condition préalable de toute activité empirique avec ses distinctions de norme et objet de connaissance, que ce soit dans l’ordre profane ou dans l’ordre de la révélation védique, et les enseignements sacrés eux-mêmes la supposent (dans leur propre texture), qu’ils visent à enjoindre ou interdire l’action ou à promouvoir la délivrance.

Mais, va-t-on nous dire, comment les normes authentiques de la connaissance, perception, inférence, etc… et l’enseignement sacré auraient-ils un objet qui implique l’Ignorance ?

C’est que, répondons-nous, les normes de connaissance ne peuvent s’exercer là où un manque subtil de sujet connaitrait ; nul n’est en cette condition où il s’en est affecté de l’opinion illusoire du moi et du mien, qui n’a de signification que par rapport aux sens, etc…

Sans le secours des sens, en effet, l’activité de perception, d’inférence, etc., ne peut se produire. Et sans le sens (corporelle) les sens ne peuvent fonctionner. Et cela est vrai aussi dans le moyen d’avoir un corps auquel le Soi n’est pas intérieurement surimposé. Tant que ces conditions ne sont pas données, le Soi n’est pas non plus affecté par la différence des normes sacrées qui posent le Soi en tant que référence, et ce système lui-même les normes de connaissance les mêmes comportements humains.

Nous tirerons aussi argument de l’identité des comportements humain et animal. Les animaux, en effet, si leurs sens (vue, etc.) entrent en relation avec une qualité sensible, revêtue de signification (palou, etc.), qu’une qualité impliquée en cette qualité sensible se trouve être contraire à leurs inclinations, ils s’éloignent, ou, s’ils y voient la protection ou des dangers, ils y accourent. Voyant un objet droit et levant un bâton, ils se disent “Il veut me frapper”, et commencent à fuir; mais, si au contraire, ils aperçoivent un herbe verte, ils tendent leur museau vers lui. De même les hommes aussi, dont la pensée est (pourtant) à un stade supérieur, voyant un individu vigoureusement armé brandissant des sabres, s’approchent de ceux qui donnent des signes de faiblesse, ce qui prouve que des hommes ont dû faire.

Pour ce qui est maintenant de l’activité réglée par les enseignements sacrés, s’il est bien vrai que le sujet de telles actions doit avoir préalablement édifié sur leur nature et n’y peut être habilité sans savoir que le Soi-même (atman) a rapport de notion supra-terrestre, il reste cependant à établir que cela ne commande pas la réalité de Soi-même (essentiellement étranger à la transmigration).

Thus, since this is the case, neither of the two poles of this mutual superimposition has, in any way, a real relation to the qualifications imposed upon it by the other pole—neither the spirit to the deficiencies of the non-spiritual, nor the non-spiritual to the excellence of spirituality.

It is precisely this reciprocal superimposition of the Self and non-Self, called Ignorance (avidyā), which constitutes the prerequisite condition for all empirical activity, with its distinctions of norms and objects of knowledge, whether in the profane order or in the Vedic revelation. Even the sacred teachings assume it (within their own texture), whether they aim to enjoin or forbid action, or to promote liberation.

But, one might ask, how could the authentic norms of knowledge—perception, inference, etc.—and the sacred teaching have an object that implies Ignorance?

It is because, we reply, norms of knowledge cannot operate where a subtle lack of a knowing subject would be present. None are in this condition without being affected by the illusory opinion of “self” and “mine,” which only hold meaning in relation to the senses, etc.

Without the help of the senses, indeed, perception, inference, etc., cannot occur. And without a physical sense (corporeal), the senses cannot function. This is also true of the medium possessing a body to which the Self is not inherently superimposed. As long as these conditions are not met, the Self is also not affected by the distinction of sacred norms that posit the Self as reference, nor by the same behaviors as knowledge norms within the system.

We will also argue the identity of human and animal behavior. Animals, indeed, if their senses (sight, etc.) come into contact with a sensory quality endowed with meaning (palou, etc.), and if a quality embedded in this sensory quality is contrary to their inclinations, they move away; or, if they perceive protection or danger, they approach it. Seeing an upright object lifting a stick, they think, “It wants to hit me,” and they begin to flee; but if, on the contrary, they see green grass, they bring their muzzle toward it. Similarly, humans too, whose thought is (however) at a higher stage, seeing a vigorously armed individual brandishing swords, approach those showing signs of weakness, proving certain instincts remain in men.

Regarding activities regulated by sacred teachings, while it is true that the subject of such actions must have first understood their nature and cannot engage without knowing that the Self (atman) belongs to a supra-terrestrial realm, it must still be established that this does not command the reality of the Self (essentially foreign to transmigration).

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Letter from Jacques Masoin 5
SHANKARA: Introduction to the Commentaries on the Brahma Sutras

même en contradiction avec les droits (du sacrifiant).

Et comme c'est antérieurement à la connaissance discriminative d'un tel soi-même que les prescriptions sacrées s'exercent effectivement, elles ne dépassent pas l'ordre des objets qui impliquent l'Ignorance. C'est ainsi, en effet, que les injonctions comme "Le brâhmane doit sacrifier..." n'ont d'efficace que si elles s'appuient sur la surimposition au Soi de particularités telles que la caste, l'âge canonique et l'âge naturel, les circonstances, etc.

Ce qu'il faut entendre par surimposition – le fait de voir dans cette chose-ci la notion de cette chose-là qui lui est étrangère – nous l'avons dit. Éclairons cette définition de quelques exemples: celui qui "éprouve dans l'intégrité de son être quand sa femme et ses enfants sont en bonne santé, se trouve diminué quand ils sont malades, surimpose ainsi les qualités corporelles." Et quiconque à un moment ou un autre surimpose les qualités du corps et que l'on pense: "C'est moi qui suis gros, ou mince, de teint clair; ou encore, de tel sens qu'on ressent, qu'on pense." De même quand on lui surimpose les qualités des sens et que l'on pense: "C'est moi qui suis muet, sourd ou aveugle, ou que tel désir, contentement, on superpose à un organe quelconque." L'organe est ainsi défini d'intention synthétique, recherché dans les lois physiques, et tel est l'objet suprême des actions corporelles sur lesquelles l'enseignement sacré vise son point d'ancrage.

C'est pourquoi il faut faire cause de la cessation de l'Ignorance, tendue à la découverte de la Science de l'Unicité du Soi, que nous entreprenons l'étude de la Somme Védantique.

even in contradiction with the rights (of the sacrificer).

And since it is prior to the discriminative knowledge of such a self that the sacred prescriptions effectively operate, they do not exceed the order of objects that imply Ignorance. Thus, indeed, injunctions like "The Brahmin must sacrifice..." are only effective insofar as they rely on the superimposition on the Self of particularities such as caste, canonical age, natural age, circumstances, etc.

What should be understood by superimposition – the act of seeing in this thing the notion of that thing which is foreign to it – we have already mentioned. Let us clarify this definition with a few examples: the one who "feels a sense of well-being when his wife and children are in good health, finds himself diminished when they are ill, thereby superimposes corporeal qualities." And whoever, at one time or another, superimposes the qualities of the body and thinks: "It is I who am fat, thin, fair-skinned; or of such a sense that one feels or thinks." Similarly, when one superimposes the qualities of the senses and thinks: "It is I who am mute, deaf, or blind, or that such desire or satisfaction is superimposed upon any organ." The organ is thus synthetically defined, sought within physical laws, and becomes the supreme object of bodily actions on which the sacred teaching seeks its point of anchorage.

This is why one must make the cessation of Ignorance their cause, aiming toward the discovery of the Science of the Oneness of the Self, as we undertake the study of the Vedantic Sum.

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ACROSS THE REVIEWS 1

À TRAVERS LES REVUES

Entre les revues des dialogues se nouent qu'il sera passionnant de suivre. Personnalistes et marxistes discutaient déjà depuis longtemps des fondements de l'action humaine. Le débat vient de s'animer singulièrement par l'entrée en scène de la nouvelle revue de J.-P. Sartre. Les rencontres provoquées prennent chaque mois plus d'ampleur.

Le pavé avait été lancé par Sartre lui-même à la conférence des centraux: "Vous n'allez pas au bout de votre athéisme," disait-il à peu près aux marxistes. "Par la suppression de Dieu, l'homme est réduit à ses seules forces, sans idée de sens à priori de l'histoire, pas de progrès, pas de valeurs." Dans les Temps modernes, il complète la démonstration. Rappelant l'appel à l'action, lancé par les marxistes pour rejoindre une synthèse à réaliser dans l'avenir, il pose la question cruciale : "qui sait le sens de l'histoire pour tout le prolétariat ?" Une philosophie qui renonce à l'absolu comme moteur de l'histoire, et qui fonde l'histoire sur des idées plus ou moins "scientifiques" sur l'avenir, risque d'être absurde au moment où les choses d'avenir échappent aux hommes et qu'ils doivent se prononcer sur des choses qu'ils ne connaissent pas encore.

Il fait de l'homme un être tout à la fois singulier et universel: "Pour fonder les choses de demain sur l'homme d'aujourd'hui, il faut fonder la relation invisible." Les vérités révolutionnaires sont à tout moment des vérités nouvelles. "Un homme doit choisir son option, c'est-à-dire choisir de se révolutionner." C'est formulé, dit-il, "une des fois seulement, car c'est celui qui pose à l'origine des choses l'énigme même de l'existence." Et l'homme ne la pose-t-il pas lui-même, pour l'homme, à l'homme ? Si l'homme 1848 surprend l'homme 1876, c'est à l'homme seul qu'il revient de décider. Sartre révolutionnaire : c'est qu'il choisit son attitude par des décisions que l'on renouvelle à chaque instant.

L'option qui fait le militant conscient plus que l'homme de foi, plus que le simple raccroché qui détruit sans idéal de dialogue. Et voici l'invitation : "Il s'agit de se remettre en question, vers une liquidation de la liberté ou l'affirmation la plus résolue de la liberté."

Le problème ainsi posé gêne visible les interlocuteurs. Sans doute, Henri Lefebvre, dans Action, Roger Garaudy, peut-il, dans les Lettres Françaises, proposer de sortir du "cercle" pour entrer en discussion dans l'obscur lumineux. "Cette liberté, liberté héroïque sans une histoire invisible et sans structure, écrit-il, se retrouve, car le monde passe et est ce point inébranlable, désabusé, et sans confort." Nous voici désormais en face d'un avenir. Mais attention! À ce précarisme, un univers plus absolu est promis... Il parle anglais, vient des États-Unis. C'est peut-être une direction générale de l'univers vers plus de conscience. Voyez la leçon sur la morale révélée par les intellectuels (Cahiers Intellectuels n°7). On veut encore confier à nos âges une structure universelle fondée sur une divine, au-delà d'une histoire universelle de l'éternel. Une méthode nouvelle, le sens historique. Voyez Léon Blum montrant dans son ouvrage récent que la révolution sociale n'est pas seulement la conséquence immédiate d'une révolution économique, mais en même temps le lieu d'une existence universelle.

ACROSS THE REVIEWS

Between the various reviews, dialogues are forming that will be fascinating to follow. Personalists and Marxists have long been discussing the foundations of human action. The debate has recently gained significant momentum with the arrival of J.-P. Sartre's new review. The encounters it has sparked are becoming increasingly substantial each month.

The gauntlet was thrown down by Sartre himself at the conference of the Centrists: “You do not take your atheism far enough,” he said, more or less, to the Marxists. “By eliminating God, man is reduced to his own forces alone, with no notion of a priori meaning in history, no progress, no values.” In Les Temps Modernes, he expands on this argument. Recalling the call to action made by Marxists to achieve a synthesis in the future, he poses the crucial question: “Who knows the meaning of history for the entire proletariat?” A philosophy that abandons the absolute as the driving force of history, and instead bases history on more or less "scientific" ideas about the future, risks being absurd when the future escapes human control and they must make decisions about things they do not yet know.

He portrays man as a being both singular and universal: "To base the things of tomorrow on the man of today, one must establish an invisible relationship." Revolutionary truths are at every moment new truths. "A man must choose his stance, that is, choose to revolutionize himself." Sartre states: "It is formulated only once, because it raises the enigma of existence itself at the origin of things." And does man not pose this enigma himself, for man, to man? If the man of 1848 surprises the man of 1876, it is up to man alone to decide. Sartre, the revolutionary: he chooses his attitude through decisions that must be renewed at every moment.

The stance that creates a conscious militant, more than a man of faith, more than a simple hanger-on who destroys without an ideal of dialogue. And here is the invitation: "It is about questioning oneself, moving toward either the liquidation of freedom or its most resolute affirmation."

The problem thus posed visibly unsettles the interlocutors. No doubt, Henri Lefebvre, in Action, and Roger Garaudy, perhaps in Les Lettres Françaises, suggest stepping out of the “circle” to enter into discussion in the luminous obscurity. “This freedom, heroic freedom without an invisible history and without structure,” writes Garaudy, “remains, for the world passes, and it is that unshakable, disillusioned point, without comfort.” From now on, we are faced with a future. But beware! To this precariousness, a more absolute universe is promised... It speaks English and comes from the United States. It may be a general direction for the universe toward greater consciousness. See the lesson on morality revealed by intellectuals (Cahiers Intellectuels no. 7). One still seeks to entrust to our times a universal structure founded on something divine, beyond a universal history of the eternal. A new method, the historical sense. See Léon Blum showing in his recent work that social revolution is not merely the immediate consequence of an economic revolution, but at the same time the site of a universal existence.

ACROSS THE REVIEWS 2

de la raison et de la conscience humaine". Les foudres de G. Cogniot, du haut de la tribune de la Pensée n°4, s'abattaient sur l'hérésiarchique: "Pour tout homme qui n'est pas déiste, proféra-t-il, cette affirmation d'une raison éternelle est stupéfiante." Voilà bien en effet l'orthodoxie marxiste qui défend encore? P. Hervé, dans une conférence à l'..., répondait aux tentations de la foi sartrienne : "Nous ne croyons pas, dit-il à peu près, à une nature humaine permanente, à des aspirations innées, à une finalité immanente..." C'est l'action des hommes qui anime le "développement de l'humanité". Entendu: mais alors pourquoi ne pas souscrire à la formule existentialiste : "être révolutionnaire, c'est se choisir combattant par une décision que rien d'extérieur ne vient forcer?" La gratuité sartrienne ou les exigences externelles... Dilemme incontournable.

Les marxistes feignent de n'en pas être troublés, mais quand ils parlent des bases de la morale, le dilemme est là qui les guette. Pour M. Hervé, le marxisme ne se suffit pas de morale, sinon d'une morale relative, créée par les conditions mêmes de l'action, une morale dont la systématique pourrait bien être un jour être remise en question ! C'est bien ce qu'admet Simone de la Frey, dans la lumineuse Esquisse d'une dialectique réelle (réalisme politique), mais elle en tire toutes les conséquences, jusqu'à une fin ne pouvant être inscrite dans la vie... "Dire avec Rosa : la liberté c'est toujours dans la vérité..." mais il ajoute : ce n'est pas tout dire.

Dire "la vérité c'est toujours dans la liberté" n'est pas une chose qu'une décision humaine impose. L'homme doit choisir et décider... C'est précisément en ce libre arbitre que se greffe la morale. La morale serait alors l'expression de la seule volonté humaine. Concrète, la morale n'exprimerait plus aucune réalité extérieure, mais une réalité purement intérieure à l'homme, car l'homme n'est pas sans morale.

Ainsi se trouve remarquablement énoncée la question des valeurs transcendantes de la philosophie marxiste: soit qu'elle s'appuie sur la métaphysique, soit qu'elle se détache d'une décision arbitraire et sans appui. Si elle croit trouver un appui...

C'est ici qu'interviennent dans le dialogue les personnalistes chrétiens. "Montrer la plus grande, la plus rigoureuse de ces analyses" (Esprit 15), le paradoxe de la liberté sartrienne. Libération... mais pourquoi, et qu'en défaire historiquement? Cette tension, quel avenir lui donner, de quelle substance la nourrir, vers quel avenir l'élever? Ce que nous risquons tout et l'on veut que nous parlions de tout... Ce vrai monde, on doit l'obtention d'une liberté politique et sociale qui veut obtenir à l'homme tout ce qu'il doit lui-même demander en retour. Dix ans plus tôt elle eut mené au pire. Je crains qu'un jour ce qui était métaphysiquement défini comme le dépassement infini de l'homme, cet avenir que seule cette tension peut incarner, ne soit plus que lui-même un soupir... La lutte pour la liberté... C'est ici la liberté qui doit se nourrir de sa substance et non pas du désespoir de n'avoir rien au-delà.

L'appel des de Gandillac... la nouvelle revue de N. Berdiaeff, Cahiers de la Vie spirituelle... Et voici, conclut M. Boiron, le rapport avec l'univers visible est recréé par la science.

"Si les hommes" écrit-il, "peuvent supposer que le monde n'est pas seul que les valeurs...".

“of reason and human consciousness.” The wrath of G. Cogniot, speaking from the platform of La Pensée no. 4, fell upon the heretic: “For any man who is not a deist,” he proclaimed, “this affirmation of an eternal reason is astonishing.” Indeed, here lies the Marxist orthodoxy still standing? P. Hervé, in a lecture at the ..., responded to the temptations of Sartrean faith: “We do not believe,” he said, “in a permanent human nature, in innate aspirations, or in an immanent finality...” It is the actions of men that drive the “development of humanity.” Understood: but then why not subscribe to the existentialist formula: “To be revolutionary is to choose oneself as a fighter through a decision that no external force compels?” Sartrean gratuity or external demands… An inescapable dilemma.

The Marxists pretend not to be disturbed, but when they speak of the foundations of morality, the dilemma looms. For M. Hervé, Marxism cannot rely solely on morality, except on a relative morality, created by the very conditions of action, a morality whose systematics could one day be called into question! This is precisely what Simone de la Frey acknowledges in her luminous Outline of a Real Dialectic (Political Realism), but she draws all the consequences from it, to the point of an end that cannot be inscribed within life itself... “To say with Rosa: freedom is always within truth...” but she adds: this is not everything.

To say “truth is always within freedom” is not something imposed by a human decision. Man must choose and decide... It is precisely in this free will that morality takes root. Morality would then be the expression of human will alone. Concrete, morality would no longer express any external reality, but a purely internal reality within man, for man is not without morality.

Thus, the question of transcendent values in Marxist philosophy is remarkably stated: either it relies on metaphysics, or it detaches itself, becoming an arbitrary decision without support. If it believes it has found support...

This is where Christian personalists intervene in the dialogue. “To show the greatest, most rigorous of these analyses” (Esprit 15), the paradox of Sartrean freedom. Liberation... but why, and how to historically apply it? What future can we give this tension, from what substance can we nourish it, toward what horizon can we elevate it? We risk everything here, and they want us to speak of everything... This real world demands the attainment of political and social freedom, which seeks to give man everything he must demand of himself in return. Ten years earlier, this would have led to disaster. I fear that one day, what was metaphysically defined as man’s infinite transcendence, this future that only this tension can embody, will become no more than a sigh... The struggle for freedom... Freedom must nourish itself from its own substance, not from the despair of having nothing beyond.

The call of de Gandillac... N. Berdyaev’s new review, Cahiers de la Vie Spirituelle... And here, concludes M. Boiron, the relationship with the visible universe is recreated by science.

“If men,” he writes, “can suppose that the world is not alone, that values…”

ACROSS THE REVIEWS 3

existent, ils seraient altérés de leur découverte, ils se croiraient les bruits. Dans la Reef de Décembre 45, de Marcel, et un comme toujours le cœur du débat à propos des Chemins de la liberté de J.-P. Sartre :
“Rien ne serait, je crois, plus indispensable que de rechercher si la notion d’angustia ne tend pas à perdre tout son vrai valeur positive, dès le moment où il est perdu de vue, si même elle n’est radicalement niée, une réalité sans laquelle il n’obtient de se préciser effectivement. Or c’est justement cette réalité qui paraît à mes yeux concevable dans la perspective d’un Sartre: le fond donc des marxistes est pas apparent. Sur ce violence ? Faut-il voir ce que, Maurice Lure (*) écrit dans une lettre relative, la cachant inconsciemment dans un des Évangiles anciens, comme les accuse Liard (L’homme révolutionnaire, Paris, Cresset), une confiance dans un Univers cohérent, un sentiment d’anticipation, analogue à celui qui décrivent L. Lavelle et de F. B., cet ! Attachons la suite du débat pour y répondre.

En tout ce que cette équivoque traduit on maintenant de comprendre les échanges entres Écoles diverses: les spiritualistes et face aux existentialistes et celle des Érudits, les anti-dialecticiens.

Pour eux les textes marxistes de la lutte, parce qu’ils n’en tiennent même pas au combat réel, restent imperturbablement avec la mesure d’une hésitation équivoque dans un possible infini vers une philosophie existante.

Les Chemins de J.-P. Sartre ? Est-ce là encore une morale nouvelle ? Non ! Ce serait ainsi qu’il semblait décrire les différents rôles d’un Marx et d’un Sade. Dans Esprit (octobre 1944) il insinue que le dogmatisme historique du christianisme oriente vers l’avenir.”

“Au point où nous en sommes, nous débouchons sur l’horizon lumineux : l’action s’appuie sur une authentique transcendance. Nous soumettrons prêts à rechercher les conditions d’équilibre entre l’engagement et la transcendance. Deux articles remarquables nous y lient : de la sommité spécifique de J. Lacroix dans Esprit la série Révision du personnalisme, de Maurier dans Esprit sur la connaissance et le nombre et le machiavélisme, ils s’efforcent avec clarté distinguer le plan du soigné et le plan de l’efficacité, le plan du prophète et le plan du politique.

Enfin aux dernières nouvelles, les dialogues reprennent entre existentialistes et marxistes : Action cette fois répond à Fortune.
Nous sommes à l’écoute.

existing, they would be altered by their discovery, believing they are the noise itself. In the Revue of December 1945, Marcel once again gets to the heart of the debate regarding The Roads to Freedom by J.-P. Sartre:
“Nothing, I believe, would be more essential than to investigate whether the notion of angustia (anguish) tends to lose all its true positive value, once its true context is lost, or even whether it is radically denied—this reality without which it cannot effectively define itself. Now, it is precisely this reality that seems to me conceivable from Sartre's perspective: So, what do Marxists think? Is it visible in their violence? Should we interpret it as Maurice Lure (*) wrote in a related letter, unconsciously hiding it within one of the ancient Gospels, as accused by Liard (The Revolutionary Man, Paris, Cresset): a confidence in a coherent Universe, a sense of anticipation akin to what L. Lavelle and F. B. describe? Let us follow the continuation of the debate to respond.”

All that this ambiguity reflects is now clearer to understand from the exchanges between different Schools: the spiritualists in contrast to the existentialists, and the erudites opposed to the anti-dialecticians.

For them, the Marxist texts on struggle, because they don’t even adhere to real combat, remain unwaveringly stuck in an ambiguous hesitation within a potential infinity that gestures toward an existing philosophy.

The Roads to Freedom by J.-P. Sartre? Is this yet another new morality? No! It would then appear that he seeks to describe the different roles of a Marx and a Sade. In Esprit (October 1944), he insinuates that the historical dogmatism of Christianity guides one toward the future.”

“At this point, we reach a radiant horizon: action relies on an authentic transcendence. We are ready to search for the conditions of balance between engagement and transcendence. Two remarkable articles connect us to this: the specific insight of J. Lacroix in Esprit’s series Revision of Personalism, and Maurier in Esprit on knowledge, numbers, and Machiavellianism. They strive, with clarity, to distinguish between the plan of care and the plan of efficiency, the role of the prophet and that of the politician.”

Finally, in the latest news, dialogues resume between existentialists and Marxists: Action this time responds to Fortune.
We are listening.

Christian and Marxist Understandings of History by Berdiaeff 1

ÖKUMENISCHER RAT FÜR PRAKTISCHES CHRISTENTUM
Forschungsabteilung
Vertraulich!

November 1935.

Christliches und marxistisches Geschichtsverständnis.

Von Prof. N. Berdiaeff, Paris.

Alle Geschichtsphilosophie ist aufs Engste mit dem Christentum und mit dem Judentum verbunden. Selbst die marxistische Geschichtsphilosophie wäre ohne das christliche Thema der Geschichte nicht möglich. Sie gehört in das christliche Zeitalter der Geschichte. In der griechischen Philosophie mit ihrer Idee des ewigen Kreislaufs der Dinge konnte ein rechtes Geschichtsverständnis, ein Verständnis für den Sinn der Geschichte nicht aufkommen: die Griechen waren in ihrem Denken kosmisch, nicht historisch bestimmt. Das Christentum aber, wie auch das Judentum, bedeutete die Offenbarung Gottes nicht in der Natur sondern in der Geschichte. Dieser geschichtliche Charakter des Christentums, das christliche Verständnis für den Sinn der Geschichte, erklärt sich daraus, dass für das Christentum aller verborgene Sinn seine Erfüllung in der Geschichte findet, im Einbruch des Ewigen in das Zeitliche beschlossen liegt. Dieser Einbruch des Ewigen in den historischen Raum der Zeit lässt in der Geschichte das Metahistorische aufleuchten. Geschichte spielt sich nicht ab in einer geschlossenen Welt, vielmehr sind in ihr meta-historische Kräfte wirksam. Die Zeit ist kein begrenzter Kreis. Das Verständnis für den wahren Sinn der Geschichte hat ein messianisches Bewusstsein zur Voraussetzung. Diese auf den kommenden Sieg der Geschichte in ihrer tiefsten Wahrheit und Bedeutung, auf das kommende Reich Gottes gerichtete messianische Bewusstsein ist nur möglich auf dem Boden des Judentums und des Christentums. Der griechischen Philosophie ist es wesentlich fremd.

Die Lehre vom Fortschritt ist entstanden auf dem Boden des Christentums. Sie stellt den christlich messianischen Gedanken in säkularisierter Form dar. Die Fortschrittslehre ist ganz verschieden von der Idee der Evolution, die im 19. Jahrhundert in Verbindung mit der Wissenschaft der Biologie ihren Einzug gehalten hat. Der Fortschrittsgedanke geht aus von der Annahme, dass sich die Geschichte auf den Sieg des Guten hinbewegt, was allen Dingen als tieferer Sinn zugrunde liegt, dass in der Geschichte ein höheres Ziel realisiert wird. Die Lehre vom allgemeinen Fortschritt ist, was die Zukunft betrifft, optimistisch, hingegen in der Betrachtung der Vergangenheit wesentlich pessimistisch. Dies wird besonders deutlich am Marxismus. Der Marxismus, der den Fortschrittsgedanken Hegels aufgegriffen hat, ist in seinem Geschichtsverständnis durchaus pessimistisch: In der Geschichte, so lehrt der Marxismus, triumphiert die Sünde der Ausbeutung des Menschen durch den Menschen; sie allein bestimmt den Gang der Geschichte, der die Knechtung der Menschen untereinander zugrunde liegt. Sämtliche Ideologien, die im Laufe der Geschichte zur Geltung gekommen sind, sind Lüge und Betrug. Es kommt aber der Tag des strengen Gerichts über die Geschichte. Dann wird der Mensch frei von den Mächten der Sünde und Sklaverei. Im Blick auf die Zukunft ist der Marxismus also un-optimistisch. Sein Optimismus ist nicht durch wissenschaftliche Erkenntnis, sondern durch ein ausgeprägtes Sendungsbewusstsein bestimmt. Ganz anders war das messianische Bewusstsein eines Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Auch bei ihm finden wir die "Mystik der Demokratie", die Mystik des souveränen Volkes gleich der Mystik des Proletariats im Denken von Karl Marx. Eine solche Mystik ist immer die Hoffnung, dass einmal der Tag des Gerichtes über die Unwahrheit, der Tag der Erlösung kommen wird. In der christlichen Welt der vergangenen Jahrhunderte herrschte die utopische Vorstellung von der Theokratie, vom Heiligen Reich, eine Vorstellung, die als Quelle aller Utopien betrachtet werden muss. Diese utopische

ECUMENICAL COUNCIL FOR PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY
Research Department
Confidential!

November 1935

Christian and Marxist Understandings of History

By Prof. N. Berdiaeff, Paris

All philosophy of history is closely linked to Christianity and Judaism. Even Marxist philosophy of history would not be possible without the Christian theme of history. It belongs to the Christian era of history. In Greek philosophy, with its idea of the eternal cycle of things, a proper understanding of history, an understanding of the meaning of history, could not emerge: the Greeks, in their thinking, were cosmically, not historically, oriented. Christianity, however, like Judaism, signified the revelation of God not in nature but in history. This historical character of Christianity, this Christian understanding of the meaning of history, arises from the fact that, for Christianity, all hidden meaning finds its fulfillment in history, in the intrusion of the eternal into the temporal. This intrusion of the eternal into the historical realm of time allows the metahistorical to shine through in history. History does not unfold in a closed world; rather, metahistorical forces are at work within it. Time is not a closed circle. An understanding of the true meaning of history presupposes a messianic consciousness. This messianic consciousness, directed toward the coming triumph of history in its deepest truth and significance, toward the coming Kingdom of God, is only possible on the foundation of Judaism and Christianity. It is fundamentally alien to Greek philosophy.

The doctrine of progress arose on the foundation of Christianity. It represents the Christian messianic idea in a secularized form. The doctrine of progress is entirely different from the idea of evolution, which gained prominence in the 19th century in connection with the science of biology. The idea of progress is based on the assumption that history moves toward the triumph of good, which underlies all things as a deeper meaning, and that a higher goal is realized in history. The doctrine of universal progress is optimistic concerning the future but fundamentally pessimistic in its view of the past. This becomes particularly evident in Marxism. Marxism, which adopted Hegel’s idea of progress, is thoroughly pessimistic in its understanding of history: in history, Marxism teaches, the sin of exploitation of man by man triumphs; this alone determines the course of history, which is based on the subjugation of humans to one another. All ideologies that have prevailed in the course of history are lies and deceptions. But the day of strict judgment over history will come. Then humanity will be freed from the powers of sin and slavery. In its view of the future, Marxism is thus un-optimistic. Its optimism is not determined by scientific knowledge but by a pronounced sense of mission. Quite different was the messianic consciousness of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. In him, too, we find the “mysticism of democracy,” the mysticism of the sovereign people, akin to the mysticism of the proletariat in Karl Marx’s thinking. Such mysticism is always the hope that one day the day of judgment over falsehood, the day of redemption, will come. In the Christian world of past centuries, the utopian vision of theocracy, of the Holy Kingdom, prevailed—a vision that must be regarded as the source of all utopias. This utopian

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Christian and Marxist Understandings of History by Berdiaeff 2

Vorstellung ist in der Christenheit verwirklicht worden. Ueberhaupt sind Utopien, ganz im Gegensatz zur gewöhnlichen Annahme, realisierbar und finden auch tatsächlich ihre Verwirklichung. In gewissem Sinne sind alle Utopien verwirklicht worden, und so wird es auch in Zukunft sein. Alle aber sind sie ein Beweis für das unvermeidliche Ende der Geschichte, für das verhängnisvolle Misslingen der Geschichte. Damit sind wir zum Christentum in seiner doppelten Beziehung zur Geschichte vorgestossen:

Die christliche Bejahung der Geschichte in ihrem tieferen Sinne ist durchaus kein blinder Optimismus. Der Sinn der Geschichte liegt jenseits ihrer Grenzen und ist nicht erschöpft durch die blosse Auslösung des immanenten Geschichtsprozesses. Vielmehr setzt der Sinn der Geschichte ein Transzendentes voraus, etwas, was über sie hinausgeht. Darum ist der Sinn der Geschichte auch das Gericht über die Geschichte. Das christliche Verständnis der Geschichte findet sich mit ihrer immanenten Lösung, der endgültigen Verwirklichung des letzten Zieles in den Grenzen des Geschichtlichen nicht ab. Aus diesem Grunde stützt sich die christliche Geschichtsphilosophie auf das Problem der Eschatologie. Der Sinn der Geschichte setzt das Ende der Geschichte voraus. Dieses Ende bedeutet sowohl die Verwirklichung der Geschichte in ihrem tiefsten Sinne jenseits der historischen Schranken als auch das Gericht über die Geschichte mit allen ihren Fehl­schlägen. In der christlichen Geschichtsphilosophie werden die Misserfolge, wird der Misserfolg der Geschichte aufgedeckt. Die christliche Geschichtsphilosophie ist relativ pessimistisch, nicht absolut pessimistisch. Sie ist der Nährboden für die Lehre vom Fortschritt, teilt jedoch nicht die optimistischen Erwartungen dieser Lehre. Der gewaltige Unterschied zwischen der christlichen Geschichtsphilosophie und allen anderen geschichtsphilosophischen Systemen besteht darin, dass das Christentum personalistisch bestimmt ist, dass ihm die Seele des Menschen kostbarer ist als alle Herrlichkeiten der Welt. Diese kann deshalb die menschliche Persönlichkeit von unbedingtem Wert. Diese kann deshalb nicht ein Werkzeug des Fortschritts sein, ein blosses Mittel für die Grösse der Geschichte oder die kommenden Geschehnisse. Der christliche Geschichts-Pessimismus erklärt sich dadurch, dass die Geschichte gegenüber der Persönlichkeit, gegenüber dem lebenden, dem Menschen und seinem Schicksal kein Erbarmen kennt. Die Lehre vom Fortschritt geht über die Persönlichkeit des Menschen hinweg; sie hat es nur auf die Zukunft abgesehen; für sie ist die Gegenwart, der lebende Mensch nur ein Werkzeug der Zukunft. So ist jede Utopie beschaffen: ihre Hoffnung gilt nicht dem lebenden Geschlecht. Die Persönlichkeit steht mit der Geschichte in einem schweren Konflikt: Sie findet ihre Erfüllung in der Geschichte; die sich jedoch ihr gegenüber gleichzeitig und erbarmungslos zeigt. Deshalb ist das Christentum in seinem Verhältnis zur Geschichte und zum Fortschritt wesentlich antinomisch und paradox. Das Versagen der Geschichte erkennen, heisst nicht das historische Geschehen leugnen oder die christliche Pflicht zur Verwirklichung der Wahrheit in der Geschichte ablehnen, heisst auch nicht die Einhaltung der christlichen Gebote in der Fülle des persönlichen und sozialen Lebens oder die schöpferischen Kräfte des Menschen vernachlässigen.

Die Christenheit ist in der Geschichte stets Versuchen ausgesetzt gewesen. Ihre erste Versuchung bestand in der Anerkennung des Rechtes Cäsars als sakrales, heiliges Reich, der Heiligung einer Macht, die rein menschlichen, nicht göttlichen Ursprungs war. Schon der Gedanke, dass es eine "charismatische" Macht gibt, stellt eine Versuchung dar, die einer soziologischen Erklärung bedarf. Die christliche Offenbarung in der Geschichte ist durch bestimmte soziale Interessen und Einflüsse verzerrt worden. Die Christen unterlagen der Versuchung, der Jesus in der Wüste unterstanden hatte: sie erwiesen dem Cäsar göttliche Ehren, Cäsar ist das ewige Sinnbild der Herrschaft des Reiches dieser Welt. Alle historischen Theokratien stellten eine solche Versuchung dar. Dem Christentum ist der Monismus in allen seinen Formen von Grund auf entgegengesetzt. Monismus ist nur im Reiche Gottes möglich. Das Christentum ist in seinem tiefsten Wesen revolutionär, viel revolutionärer als alle revolutionären Bestrebungen der Welt. Dieser revolutionäre Charakter des Christentums

The concept has been realized within Christendom. In general, contrary to common belief, utopias are realizable and do, in fact, come to fruition. In a certain sense, all utopias have been realized, and so it will be in the future. Yet all of them serve as evidence for the inevitable end of history, for the fateful failure of history. With this, we have reached Christianity in its dual relationship to history:

The Christian affirmation of history, in its deeper sense, is by no means blind optimism. The meaning of history lies beyond its boundaries and is not exhausted by the mere unfolding of the immanent historical process. Rather, the meaning of history presupposes something transcendent, something that surpasses it. Therefore, the meaning of history is also judgment upon history. The Christian understanding of history cannot be content with its immanent resolution, the ultimate realization of the final goal within the limits of the historical. For this reason, Christian philosophy of history is rooted in the problem of eschatology. The meaning of history presupposes the end of history. This end signifies both the fulfillment of history in its deepest sense beyond historical limits and the judgment upon history with all its failures. In Christian philosophy of history, the failures, the failure of history, are revealed. Christian philosophy of history is relatively pessimistic but not absolutely pessimistic. It serves as the fertile ground for the doctrine of progress but does not share the optimistic expectations of that doctrine.

The significant difference between Christian philosophy of history and all other historical philosophical systems lies in the fact that Christianity is personalist in nature, valuing the soul of the individual more highly than all the glories of the world. Therefore, the human personality is of absolute value. It cannot be reduced to a mere tool of progress, a means to the greatness of history or future events. Christian historical pessimism is explained by the fact that history shows no mercy to the individual personality, to the living human being and their fate. The doctrine of progress bypasses the human personality, focusing solely on the future; for it, the present—the living person—is merely a tool for the future. This is how all utopias are constructed: their hope is not directed toward the living generation. The personality stands in deep conflict with history: it finds its fulfillment in history, but history, at the same time, is merciless toward it. Therefore, Christianity in its relationship to history and progress is fundamentally antinomian and paradoxical. Recognizing the failure of history does not mean denying historical events or rejecting the Christian duty to realize truth in history, nor does it mean neglecting adherence to Christian commandments in the fullness of personal and social life or the creative powers of humanity.

Christendom has always been subjected to temptations throughout history. Its first temptation consisted in the recognition of Caesar's rule as a sacred, holy empire—the sanctification of a power that was purely human and not of divine origin. The mere idea of "charismatic" power represents a temptation requiring sociological explanation. Christian revelation in history has been distorted by specific social interests and influences. Christians succumbed to the same temptation that Jesus faced in the wilderness: they rendered divine honors to Caesar. Caesar is the eternal symbol of the rule of the kingdom of this world. All historical theocracies represented such a temptation. Christianity is fundamentally opposed to monism in all its forms. Monism is only possible in the Kingdom of God. Christianity, in its deepest essence, is revolutionary—far more revolutionary than all the revolutionary efforts of the world. This revolutionary character of Christianity

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Christian and Marxist Understandings of History by Berdiaeff 3

wird deutlich aus der Gegenüberstellung des Reiches Gottes und aller irdischen Reiche, der Gegenüberstellung des Ewigen und des Zeitlichen, des Ganzen und seiner Teile. Die Vergöttlichung (Sakralisierung) alles Endlichen, alles Stückhaften, alles zeitlich Begrenzten, das ist die Versuchung. Das Revolutionäre im Christentum ist eschatologisch bestimmt, wie alles Revolutionäre eschatologisch bestimmt ist und auf die Endkatastrophe gerichtet sein muss. Die falsche Eschatologie der weltlichen Revolutionen gibt jedoch gewöhnlich einer zeitlich begrenzten Zukunft den Charakter einer ewigen Zukunft.

Durch das Absolute im Christentum sind alle Utopien – die theokratisch-monarchistische, die nationalistische, die demokratische, die soziologische – gerichtet. Daraus darf indes keineswegs geschlossen werden, dass etwa die Christen aus dem sich in der Welt vollziehenden Kampfe keine Konsequenzen ziehen sollten. Vielmehr müssen sie sich entscheiden und an diesem Kampf teilnehmen. Das Christentum ist das Gericht über die Geschichte. Es schaltet sich aus der Teilnahme am historischen Geschehen nicht aus und leugnet nicht die Aktivität des Menschen in der Geschichte. Das alles entscheidende Ende der Geschichte wird vorbereitet durch die schöpferische Aktivität des Menschen, ist von ihr also abhängig. Auch die Wiederkehr des Gottmenschen Christus hängt vom Handeln des Menschen ab. Das Ende der Geschichte ist Sache Gottes und des Menschen. Geschichte darf nicht verstanden werden als eine rein menschliche oder eine rein göttliche Geschichte, sondern als etwas, woran Gott und der Mensch beteiligt sind. Die Menschheit hat teil an der menschlichen Natur Christi. Dies ist die Grundidee des russischen christlichen Denkens im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert. Darin orientiert sich sein Geschichtsverständnis. Die Geschichte muss verstanden werden nicht als bedingtes, symbolisch-sakrales Geschehen, sondern in ihrem realen gottmenschlichen Prozess, in dem tragischen Zusammenwirken Gottes und des Menschen, in dessen Kraft und Intensität zur wirklichen Wandlung des Lebens führt. Darum hängt das Ende der Geschichte und das Endgericht über die Geschichte von der Verwirklichung der christlichen Wahrheit im Leben durch den Menschen ab. Gott erwartet vom Menschen das schöpferische Handeln. Das Christentum in seiner reinen Gestalt, das auf das Reich Gottes gerichtet ist, verwirft jegliche Utopie, die das Reich Gottes verfälscht. Aber das christliche Gewissen muss entscheiden, wo die grössere Wahrheit, wo grössere Übereinstimmung mit der ewigen Wahrheit des Evangeliums besteht.

In dem Kampfe, der sich heute zwischen dem Nationalismus und dem Sozialismus abspielt, duldet das christliche Gewissen keine Illusionen und auch keine Interpretation des Relativen und Zeitlichen als sakrale Grössen; aber es kann nicht verkennen, dass die grössere Wahrheit auf Seiten des Sozialismus steht. Wir sind nicht allein vor Utopien gestellt, sondern auch vor Realitäten, die miteinander im Kampfe liegen. Und darum dürfen wir uns der Anteilnahme an diesem Kampfe nicht entziehen. Die Religion des Sozialismus ist vom christlichen Standpunkt aus Lüge und Betrug. Aber der Sozialismus ist nicht nur die "Religion" des Sozialismus, nicht lediglich Utopie sondern eine Realität für unsere Zeit. Der Sozialismus kann keinen Anspruch auf absolute und ewige Bedeutung erheben, er ist relativ und zeitlich gebunden. Es liegt ihm jedoch die christliche Wahrheit von den Beziehungen zwischen den Menschen zu Grunde, genau so wie dem Nationalismus die "Unwahrheit" des Heidentums, der erbarmungslose animalische Kampf zugrunde liegt. Die Verwirklichung des Sozialismus in unserem Zeitalter wird nicht der Anfang des vollkommenen Lebens sein. Auch der Sozialismus wird, wie alles, was in der Weltgeschichte Verwirklichung gefunden hat, von der menschlichen Sünde entstellt sein. Aber was an ihm wahr sein wird, ist, wie seinerzeit bei der Aufhebung der Sklaverei und Leibeigenschaft, die Befreiung des Menschen von der Knechtschaft. Die Kampfmethoden können abscheulich sein, wie fast alle in der Geschichte zur Anwendung gekommenen Kampfmethoden abscheulich waren, und müssen daher vom christlichen Gewissen verurteilt werden. Das christliche Verständnis aber muss den Sozialismus als eine Erscheinung von Weltformat sehen, als das Gericht über die verlogene Menschheit, die das Christentum verraten hat, das Gericht über die auf einer Lüge

This becomes clear in the contrast between the Kingdom of God and all earthly kingdoms, between the eternal and the temporal, the whole and its parts. The deification (sacralization) of everything finite, fragmentary, and temporally limited—this is the temptation. The revolutionary aspect of Christianity is eschatological, as all revolutionary movements are eschatologically determined and must be directed toward the ultimate catastrophe. However, the false eschatology of worldly revolutions usually gives a temporally limited future the character of an eternal one.

All utopias—the theocratic-monarchist, the nationalist, the democratic, the sociological—are judged by the absolute in Christianity. Yet, this should not lead to the conclusion that Christians should draw no consequences from the ongoing struggles in the world. On the contrary, they must decide and participate in this struggle. Christianity is the judgment upon history. It does not withdraw from participation in historical events, nor does it deny the activity of humanity in history. The decisive end of history is prepared through the creative activity of humanity; thus, it depends on it. Even the return of the God-Man Christ depends on the actions of humanity. The end of history is a matter of both God and humanity. History must not be understood as purely human or purely divine; rather, it is something in which both God and humanity are involved. Humanity partakes in the human nature of Christ. This is the fundamental idea of Russian Christian thought in the 19th and 20th centuries. Its understanding of history is shaped by this perspective. History must be understood not as a conditional, symbolic-sacral event but as a real God-human process, in which the tragic cooperation of God and humanity leads, through their power and intensity, to a true transformation of life. Therefore, the end of history and the final judgment upon history depend on the realization of Christian truth in life through human action. God expects creative action from humanity. Christianity, in its pure form directed toward the Kingdom of God, rejects any utopia that distorts the Kingdom of God. Yet the Christian conscience must decide where the greater truth lies, where greater alignment with the eternal truth of the Gospel exists.

In the struggle currently unfolding between nationalism and socialism, the Christian conscience tolerates no illusions or any interpretation of the relative and temporal as sacred. However, it cannot deny that the greater truth lies on the side of socialism. We are not merely confronted by utopias but also by realities that are in conflict with one another. Thus, we must not withdraw from participating in this struggle. From the Christian standpoint, the religion of socialism is falsehood and deceit. But socialism is not only the “religion” of socialism, not merely a utopia, but a reality for our time. Socialism cannot claim absolute and eternal significance; it is bound by the relative and the temporal. However, it is grounded in the Christian truth of relationships between human beings, just as nationalism is grounded in the “falsehood” of paganism, the merciless, animalistic struggle. The realization of socialism in our time will not be the beginning of perfect life. Like everything realized in world history, socialism too will be distorted by human sin. Yet what will be true in socialism, as it was in the abolition of slavery and serfdom, is the liberation of humanity from bondage. The methods of struggle may be atrocious, as almost all methods of struggle used in history have been, and must therefore be condemned by the Christian conscience. However, the Christian understanding must see socialism as a phenomenon of global significance, as the judgment upon a deceitful humanity that has betrayed Christianity—a judgment upon the lie

Christian and Marxist Understandings of History by Berdiaeff 4

begründeten menschlichen Zivilisation. Damit ist das Verhältnis des Christentums gegenüber dem Marxismus und dem marxistischen Geschichtsverständnis in seiner ganzen Kompliziertheit dargetan. Der Marxismus bedeutet die Entlarvung der falschen Heiligtümer, die Entlarvung eines Christentums, das seine Wahrheit nicht verwirklicht hat. Darin besteht seine religiöse und seine prophetische Bedeutung.

Es ist keine Frage, dass der Marxismus nicht nur einen wissenschaftlichen und sozialpolitischen, sondern auch einen religiösen Charakter aufweist, obwohl er dies selber nicht wahr haben will. Das ausgeprägte Sendungsbewusstsein des Marxismus hat mit der Wissenschaft nichts gemein. Der Marxismus erhebt nicht nur den Anspruch darauf, die Geschichte der Menschheit in ihrer letzten Bestimmung zu erkennen, sondern er will auch das Endziel der Geschichte verwirklichen. Wir erkennen in ihm, wenn auch in säkularisierter Form, das Erbe des altjüdischen Chiliasmus wie auch ganz eindeutig die Übertragung des Glaubens an das auserwählte Volk auf das heutige Proletariat. Trotz der scheinbaren Amoralität des Marxismus, die mit seinem naiven Materialismus zusammenhängt, bedeutet der Marxismus als solcher die Entlarvung der Ursünde der Geschichte (die Ausbeutung des Menschen durch den Menschen und die Verwandlung des Menschen in eine Sache) wie auch die Beseitigung der falschen historischen Heiligtümer, eines falschen Idealismus im Verständnis der Geschichte. Der Marxismus will aus dem menschlichen Bewusstsein die Illusionen ausmerzen, welche aus der Knechtung des Menschen durch die Natur und seine Bedrückung durch die Mitmenschen entstehen. Er will zu den Wirklichkeiten vordringen, die nicht mehr ein Trugbild des Bewusstseins und auch nicht mehr durch eine falsche Denkungsart verdunkelt sind. Eine solche primäre Wirklichkeit erblickt der Marxismus in der Wirtschaft, im Lebenskampf des Menschen mit elementaren Naturmächten. Der ökonomische Materialismus von Karl Marx kann auf zweierlei Weise verstanden werden. Die Mehrzahl der Marxisten, wie auch die meisten Kritiker des Marxismus wollten den ökonomischen Materialismus als eine objektiv gegebene, wissenschaftlich-soziologische Wahrheit, kurz als logischen Determinismus sehen. Auf diesen Determinismus wurde der wissenschaftliche Charakter des Sozialismus gegründet und deshalb am Determinismus besonders festgehalten. Man kann die marxistische These von der Bestimmung des gesamten menschlichen Lebens durch die Wirtschaft aber auch anders verstehen. Damit ist dann der marxistische Messianismus verbunden, der mythosbildende Charakter des Marxismus, sein Glaube an die Zukunft, sein Appell zu kämpferischer Tat. Die ausschliessliche Bestimmung des menschlichen Lebens durch die Wirtschaft ist keine ewige Wahrheit, sondern geht zurück auf die menschliche Bosheit, auf die menschliche Sünde in vergangenen Zeiten, auf die Knechtung des Menschen durch die Naturmächte, auf die Bedrückung des Menschen durch den Menschen. Es wird aber der Tag kommen, an dem der Mensch sich befreit von der erniedrigenden Macht der Wirtschaft und über sie Herr wird, der Tag, da die Sklaverei des Menschen, ein Ende findet. Das ist der Sprung aus dem Reich der Notwendigkeit in das Reich der Freiheit. Darin besteht die Sendung des Proletariats. Diesen Sprung zur Freiheit muss der Mensch tun, sondern der soziale Mensch, das menschliche Kollektiv. Darum ist der Marxismus gegenüber der Vergangenheit pessimistisch, jedoch gegenüber der Zukunft optimistisch, und darum gebe auch die russischen Kommunisten dem Marxismus eine indeterministische Deutung. Im Marxismus hat der Hegelsche Panlogismus in veränderter Form Eingang gefunden. Der Logos, die in den Tiefen der Materie beschlossene Vernunft, wird die elementaren Kräfte des Irrationalen besiegen und sich untertan machen. Die Sünde und das Böse, die dem menschlichen Leben und der menschlichen Geschichte zugrunde liegen, können durch den immanenten Geschichtsprozess überwunden werden. Die Notwendigkeit der Aktivität und des Kampfes wird zur Freiheit führen. Der im Kommunismus verkörperte marxistische Messianismus glaubt an die Möglichkeit einer endgültigen Rationalisierung des menschlichen Lebens, an die Möglichkeit, das Schicksal zu überwinden und das Geheimnis des Irrationalen aufzudecken.

...foundation of human civilization. This reveals the complex relationship between Christianity and Marxism, and the Marxist understanding of history in all its intricacy. Marxism represents the unmasking of false sanctities, the exposure of a Christianity that has not realized its truth. In this lies its religious and prophetic significance.

There is no doubt that Marxism has not only a scientific and socio-political character but also a religious one, even though it does not want to acknowledge this itself. The strong sense of mission in Marxism has nothing in common with science. Marxism not only claims to recognize the ultimate destiny of humanity’s history but also seeks to realize the final goal of history. We see in it, even in its secularized form, the legacy of ancient Jewish chiliasm, as well as the clear transference of the belief in a chosen people onto today’s proletariat. Despite the apparent amorality of Marxism, which is tied to its naive materialism, Marxism as such signifies the unmasking of the original sin of history (the exploitation of humans by other humans and the transformation of people into objects), as well as the elimination of false historical sanctities, a false idealism in the understanding of history. Marxism seeks to eradicate from human consciousness the illusions that stem from the subjugation of humanity by natural forces and its oppression by fellow humans. It aims to penetrate realities that are no longer mere illusions of consciousness, nor obscured by false ways of thinking. Marxism identifies such a fundamental reality in economics, in the human struggle for life against elemental forces of nature.

Karl Marx's economic materialism can be understood in two ways. The majority of Marxists, as well as most critics of Marxism, tend to view economic materialism as an objectively given, scientific-sociological truth—in short, as logical determinism. The scientific nature of socialism was founded on this determinism, and for this reason, determinism was particularly emphasized. However, Marx’s thesis on the determination of all human life by economics can also be understood differently. In this case, it is connected to Marxist messianism, the myth-making character of Marxism, its faith in the future, and its call for militant action. The exclusive determination of human life by economics is not an eternal truth; rather, it stems from human wickedness, from human sin in past times, from the subjugation of humans by natural forces, and from the oppression of humans by other humans. But the day will come when humanity will free itself from the degrading power of economics and rise above it—the day when human slavery will come to an end. This is the leap from the realm of necessity to the realm of freedom. This is the mission of the proletariat. This leap toward freedom must be made by humanity, but specifically by the social human being, the human collective.

Thus, Marxism is pessimistic regarding the past but optimistic about the future, which is why even Russian communists interpret Marxism in an indeterministic way. In Marxism, Hegel’s panlogism has been adopted in a modified form. The Logos, the reason inherent in the depths of matter, will conquer the elemental forces of the irrational and subjugate them. Sin and evil, which underlie human life and human history, can be overcome through the immanent historical process. The necessity of activity and struggle will lead to freedom. The Marxist messianism embodied in communism believes in the possibility of a final rationalization of human life, in the possibility of overcoming fate and uncovering the mystery of the irrational.

German

Christian and Marxist Understandings of History by Berdiaeff 5

Der Marxismus ist humanistischen Quellen entsprungen. Der genialen marxistischen Kritik des Kapitalismus liegt die Idee zugrunde, dass sich in der kapitalistischen Wirtschaftsordnung eine Entfremdung von der menschlichen Natur, eine Umgestaltung des Menschen in eine blosse Sache, in eine blosse Ware, vollzieht. Die Arbeit des Menschen, ja alle menschliche Aktivität, die dem sozialen Leben als erste Wirklichkeit zugrunde liegt, wird fälschlich als zu den rein sachlichen Werten der Wirtschaft gehörend hingestellt. Diese sachliche Welt der Wirtschaft, das Ergebnis menschlicher Mühe und Arbeit, kann zerschlagen und zertrümmert werden durch den revolutionären Klassenkampf. Dann erst wird die menschliche Arbeit und die menschliche Aktivität in ihrer ganzen Wirklichkeit zutage treten. Der Mensch wird Herr der Wirtschaft. Die ihm entfremdete, zerstörte Natur wird er zurückerhalten. Die Ganzheit, die Totalität des Menschen wird wiederhergestellt sein. Dies ist marxistischer Humanismus, wie er heute in Frankreich von den kommunistischen Intellektuellen besonders unterstrichen wird. Die marxistische Lehre von der Entfremdung, der Ausplünderung der menschlichen Natur in der Wirtschaft ist die Ausdehnung der Lehre Feuerbachs von der Entfremdung der menschlichen Natur durch den religiösen Glauben und die Gottesidee auf dieses Gebiet. Auf das wirtschaftliche Leben trifft dies natürlich in weit stärkerem Masse zu als auf das religiöse. In der Lehre Feuerbachs und auch in der marxistischen Doktrin von der Entfremdung der menschlichen Natur wird der Notwendigkeit, dem Menschen diese ihm entfremdete Natur wiederzugeben, liegt ein Widerspruch, auf den sich imformell die Wiederlegung des Materialismus stützt. Der Materialismus bedeutet die Entfremdung und Entleerung des menschlichen Natur. Der Mensch bleibt ein materielles Wesen, d.h. ein beraubtes Wesen, dem der Geist, das geistige Leben nicht zurückgegeben worden ist. Der Mensch wird nicht zur Persönlichkeit, ihm werden Reichtümer zuteil, nachdem er sich in eine blosse soziale Funktion verwandelt hat. Deshalb liegt im Marxismus in Bezug auf das soziale Leben eine grosse Wahrheit verborgen, aber auch eine grosse Unwahrheit in Bezug auf das geistige Leben. Wie verhält sich nun das christliche Geschichtsverständnis zum marxistischen?

Der Marxismus stellt sich in Gegensatz zum Christentum und bekämpft in seiner kommunistischen Form das Christentum erbarmungslos. Damit ist jedoch die Bewertung des Marxismus durch das Christentum nicht abgetan. Das christliche Geschichtsverständnis kann nicht einfach den Marxismus beiseite schieben, vielmehr muss es sich auch auf die Teilwahrheit erstrecken, die im Marxismus begründet liegt. Es gibt einen falschen christlichen Idealismus, einen falschen Spiritualismus, den der Marxismus mit Recht blossstellt. Das idealistische Geschichtsverständnis ist falsch, man hat sich seiner oft zu schlimmen Zwecken bedient. Das Christentum will nicht eine abstrakte Geistigkeit, die das materielle Leben mit Verachtung straft, sich von der harten Arbeit und dem harten Lebenskampf abwendet. Die Brotfrage hat für das Christentum eine religiöse Bedeutung. Der marxistische Messianismus ist verfälschter, verirrter christlicher Messianismus. Der Christ ist dazu berufen, das Reich Gottes und die Wahrheit Gottes zu suchen. In Wirklichkeit hat er das Christentum entstellt, indem er es auf das Streben nach persönlicher Erlösung, auf einen transzendenten Egoismus beschränkte. Die christliche Haltung zur Geschichte ist eine paradoxe Haltung, die für den Marxismus nicht besteht.

Das Christentum weist die Utopie vom irdischen Paradies als Erfüllung der Geschichte zurück. Es glaubt nicht an die Möglichkeit, das Reich Gottes auf dieser Erde und unter diesem Himmel zu verwirklichen. Es erwartet die neue Erde und den neuen Himmel, die Verwandlung der Welt. Aber die Christenheit muss auch mit allen Kräften auf die Verwirklichung des Reiches Gottes in dieser Welt hinarbeiten: "Dein Reich komme, Dein Wille geschehe, wie im Himmel also auch auf Erden". Sie muss mit allen Kräften auf die Herbeiführung der sozialen Gerechtigkeit und Weltbruderschaft auf Erden hinwirken. Es wäre abscheuliche Heuchelei, wollte man

Marxism has its roots in humanistic sources. The brilliant Marxist critique of capitalism is based on the idea that in the capitalist economic system, an alienation from human nature takes place—a transformation of the human being into a mere object, a mere commodity. Human labor, indeed all human activity, which underlies social life as its fundamental reality, is falsely presented as belonging solely to the objective values of the economy. This objective world of the economy, the result of human effort and labor, can be shattered and destroyed through revolutionary class struggle. Only then will human labor and human activity reveal themselves in their full reality. Humanity will become the master of the economy. The alienated, shattered nature will be restored to humanity. The wholeness, the totality of the human being, will be reestablished. This is Marxist humanism, as it is particularly emphasized today in France by communist intellectuals.

The Marxist doctrine of alienation, the exploitation of human nature in the economy, extends Feuerbach's teachings on the alienation of human nature through religious belief and the idea of God to the realm of economics. This applies to economic life to a much greater extent than to religious life. In Feuerbach’s teachings and the Marxist doctrine of the alienation of human nature, the necessity of restoring this alienated nature to humanity is apparent. However, there is a contradiction here that informally supports the refutation of materialism. Materialism implies the alienation and depletion of human nature. Humanity remains a material being, that is, a deprived being, to whom spirit and spiritual life have not been restored. Humanity does not become a personality; it is granted wealth only after being reduced to a mere social function. Therefore, in Marxism, there is great hidden truth concerning social life, but also great untruth regarding spiritual life. How, then, does the Christian understanding of history relate to the Marxist one?

Marxism positions itself in opposition to Christianity and, in its communist form, fights Christianity mercilessly. However, this does not settle the evaluation of Marxism by Christianity. The Christian understanding of history cannot simply dismiss Marxism; rather, it must extend itself to include the partial truth that lies within Marxism. There is a false Christian idealism, a false spirituality, which Marxism rightly exposes. Idealistic interpretations of history are flawed, and they have often been used for harmful purposes. Christianity does not desire an abstract spirituality that scorns material life, turning away from hard work and the struggles of life. The "bread question" (concerns of material sustenance) holds religious significance for Christianity. Marxist messianism is a distorted, misguided form of Christian messianism. The Christian is called to seek the Kingdom of God and the truth of God. In reality, Christianity has been distorted by reducing it to the pursuit of personal salvation, to a transcendent egoism. The Christian stance toward history is paradoxical—a stance that does not exist for Marxism.

Christianity rejects the utopia of an earthly paradise as the fulfillment of history. It does not believe in the possibility of realizing the Kingdom of God on this earth and under this heaven. It awaits the new earth and the new heaven, the transformation of the world. Yet Christendom must also work with all its strength toward the realization of the Kingdom of God in this world: "Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." It must labor with all its strength toward bringing about social justice and universal brotherhood on earth. It would be an appalling hypocrisy to suggest otherwise.

Christian and Marxist Understandings of History by Berdiaeff 6

diese Aufgabe auf das himmlische Leben, das jenseitige Leben allein beziehen. Der Marxismus hätte dann das Recht, sie zu bekämpfen. Das christliche Paradox hinsichtlich der Geschichte findet eine Lösung im Chiliasmus, in der Erwartung des Tausendjährigen Reiches Christi, das Diesseits und Jenseits ist, das in der Geschichte wie auch jenseits der Geschichte, im Raum der Zeit und in der Ewigkeit liegt. Das christliche Geschichtsverständnis ist frei von Utopien, von optimistischen Illusionen, die Geschichte ist nach ihm eine Tragödie. Die utopische Vorstellung von der christlichen Theokratie, vom heiligen Reich, ist zusammengebrochen und kann nicht wiedererstehen. Das christliche Geschichtsverständnis wird sich weder die Geschichtsphilosophie Hegels, noch die marxistische Geschichtsphilosophie mit ihres unpersönlichen Charakters je aneignen. Der Optimismus dieser Geschichtsphilosophien besteht in dem Unverständnis für das Primat der Persönlichkeit, den tragischen Konflikt der Persönlichkeit, jeder einzelnen konkreten Persönlichkeit mit der Geschichte und der Gesellschaft. Das Christentum aber wird der Persönlichkeit, dem einzelnen Menschen gerecht. Somit kann der Sozialismus auf christlicher Grundlage immer nur personalistisch bestimmter Sozialismus sein. Der Mensch, jeder Mensch ist wertvoller als das Reich, die Nation, ja als alles Grosse in der Geschichte. Dem Hegelschen wie auch dem marxistischen Geschichtsverständnis mit ihrem Anspruch auf Totalität ist der Sieg über den Tod und die ewige Tragik des Lebens unbekannt. Somit ist der auf dem Boden dieses Geschichtsverständnisses wachsende Glaube an die endgültige Überwindung des Konfliktes zwischen der Persönlichkeit und der Gesellschaft, der Persönlichkeit und der Geschichte, der Glaube an die endgültige Rationalisierung des menschlichen Lebens Illusion und Utopie. Dieser Glaube geht aus von der Unterdrückung alles Persönlichen und Individuellen durch das Allgemeine und Generelle. Wolle Gott verhüten, dass einmal die Christenheit unter berechtigtem Hinweis auf die Illusion und die Utopie eines solchen optimistischen Glaubens daraus etwa den Vorwand ableitet, um sich der Verwirklichung der höchsten Wahrheit, Gerechtigkeit und Humanität im Leben zu entziehen.

...assign this task solely to heavenly life, to the life beyond. In such a case, Marxism would have the right to oppose it. The Christian paradox regarding history finds resolution in chiliasm, in the expectation of the thousand-year reign of Christ, which encompasses both the earthly and the heavenly realms, existing within history and beyond it, in the space of time and in eternity. The Christian understanding of history is free from utopias and optimistic illusions; it views history as a tragedy. The utopian notion of a Christian theocracy, of a holy kingdom, has collapsed and cannot be revived. The Christian understanding of history will never adopt Hegelian philosophy of history, nor Marxist philosophy of history with its impersonal character.

The optimism of these philosophies of history is rooted in their failure to understand the primacy of personality, the tragic conflict of the individual personality with history and society. Christianity, however, honors the individual personality, the single human being. Thus, socialism on a Christian foundation can only ever be a personalist socialism. Every human being is more valuable than the state, the nation, indeed more valuable than all the great achievements in history. For Hegelian as well as Marxist understandings of history, with their claim to totality, the victory over death and the eternal tragedy of life remains unknown. Thus, the belief that grows on the foundation of such historical philosophies in the ultimate resolution of the conflict between personality and society, between personality and history, the belief in the final rationalization of human life, is an illusion and a utopia. This belief arises from the suppression of everything personal and individual by the general and universal. May God forbid that one day Christendom, under the pretense of highlighting the illusion and utopia of such optimistic faith, uses it as an excuse to evade the realization of the highest truth, justice, and humanity in life.

Personalist Group 1

Personalist Group 2

PERSONALISM

"Personalism" is the name given by Nicholas Berdyaev for his philosophy of what constitutes true personality and how it is achieved. It has become widely current as applied to those philosophies which emphasise the value of the freedom and independence of the individual personality, and which make an ideal of personality the basis of ethical and political judgments.

Berdyaev makes the centre of his philosophical system the concept of the free, creative personality which must not be used as a mere means to an end. He holds that all real existence is in the free life of personalities. It is the essence of personality to resist the compulsion of the world, to reject compliancy. Nevertheless, the personality can develop rightly only through relationships, through the spirit of love and community. Love must not be regarded as mere sympathy, but as fire and energy directed to understanding and serving others and enriching human life. Personality develops through love, through creativeness, and through the sense of vocation, man being called by God to seek to realise the limitless potentialities of being. Personality must not be regarded as a ready-made datum, but as a question to be posed, as an ideal to be achieved. Personality is a potential all; it has the capacity to receive into itself the whole universe of human experience, and to create from it what is individual and unique. Every person is unique and has a distinctive contribution to make to the communal well-being.

Personality demands for its full development the integration of man's being. Berdyaev finds in man an entity that he calls the Spirit, which can act as an integrating factor, and can direct all man's energies into beneficial channels.

Martin Buber and Albert Schweitzer are noteworthy European exponents of Personalism. In France Personalism has become an influential school, under the leadership mainly of Jacques Maritain and Emmanuel Mounier, and publishes a journal called "Esprit," while in Britain, John Macmurray occupies a leading position among Personalist thinkers.

Personalism must be distinguished from individualism. The individualist is concerned about the unrestricted expression of individual desires; he may feel a fastidious aloofness from his fellow creatures. The personalist recognises the need for a...

Personalist Group 3

...sense of service and vocation and for the direction of man's energies by the integrating spirit.

Berdyaev's personalism is theistic. He holds that the source of the true values of the personality lies in the nature of God, and that a dynamic reciprocal relationship can exist in the soul between man and God, God loving and helping man, and man loving and helping God.

Many personalists, however, are humanists. They hold that the value of personality-in-community needs no supernatural sanction. They hold that man's nature is such that, unless he is spiritually unawakened or his development has been perverted, he cannot but will to achieve the spirit, the attributes of which are, in Olaf Stapledon's words, "sensitive and intelligent awareness, love and creativeness." Julian Huxley says, similarly, "Anyone who has experienced the illumination of new knowledge, the ecstasy of poetry or music, the deliberate subordination of the self to something greater, the joy of complete physical well-being, the intense satisfaction of a difficult task achieved, knows that the above experiences are in some way valuable for their own sakes, beyond ordinary satisfactions."

Personalists assert the primacy of personality over society as against the primacy of society, or the state, over personality. They are opposed to totalitarianism and to all regimentation of the mind or of culture. But they recognise the need for social justice and for what Karl Mannheim has called "planning for freedom." Berdyaev points out that personality is essentially a creative and revolutionary force; it is personality which should re-create society, not society which should mould personality. In the political and economic field, personalists stress the importance of both industrial and political democracy, of political and economic decentralization, and of the greatest possible degree of autonomy, under proper safeguards, of industrial and cultural associations.

The Personalist Group holds lectures, conferences, informal discussions and social functions, and undertakes research. It is interested in promoting the spirit of fellowship, both within and without the Group. On appropriate occasions it takes action in the social and political spheres, both independently and in co-operation with other bodies.

Hon. Sec., J. B. COATES, 5 Kings Garth, London Road, Forest Hill, S.E.23

THE RUSSIAN IDEA by Christopher Hollis 1

THE RUSSIAN IDEA by Christopher Hollis

7:40 - 8:00 p.m., Sunday, 18th, January, 1948
Third Programme

I have been reading The Russian Idea, the most recent work of the famous Russian scholar, Berdyaev. I went to Berdyaev not, quite frankly, to learn—to learn many interesting things about Russia but, more particularly, to learn the answer to one question which is just about the most important question that we can be asking one another these days but which is, for all that I can hear, asked with surprising infrequency.

The question is, How and why are the Russians different from the people of Western Europe? We are told: because they are under a Communist regime, and that is of course true enough, but surely we want to go a bit deeper than that—to ask what is it that makes this creed, which is not acceptable to others, acceptable to them. Even if we grant that the Russians had to have a revolution, it was by no means inevitable that it should have been a Communist revolution. Karl Marx, who was pan-German and an anti-Slav, thought that Russia was the last country in the world that would ever have a Communist revolution, and, as Berdyaev tells us in his book, when some Russians tried to declare themselves his disciples, Marx, as he showed in a letter which he wrote to Mikhailovsky, was very puzzled and not at all particularly pleased.

He was quite right to be puzzled from his point of view, for to Marx the Communist stage was next in order after the Capitalist stage. The Russians had not, as far as he could see, had a Capitalist stage. They had not got industrialism, and what is more they did not seem to want industrialism, or as the leading Russian Communist of the day, Tkachov, explained, he could see how you could have Communism if you did not have industrialism. He could not see how the proletarians could unite if you did not have the proletarians. And it is one of the odd paradoxes of Russia that right up to 1917 it did not have an important proletariat.

As Berdyaev shows, there was indeed in Russia all through the nineteenth century and right up till 1917 a very strong hostility to the capitalists. You find it everywhere in Russian literature. You find it among the Slavophils who believed—with little historical justification—in a golden age of simple Russian living in the past when the Czar was still in Moscow and before Peter the Great had introduced what they thought of as a diabolical programme of westernisation. You find it in Tolstoy, in his attitude to all organisation. Finally even art was welded into the movement. You find it in a Conservative like Dostoevsky, to whom capitalism...

THE RUSSIAN IDEA by Christopher Hollis 2

...is but a step on the road to Communism, which is more hateful even than Capitalism. You find it in those cultured liberals of the nineteenth century who formed the Narodnik or "Into the People" movement—who believed that educated aristocrats should go out and deliberately share the life of the peasant.

These aristocrats did not think that the peasant should be altered or improved or given a higher standard of living. On the contrary, they believed that there was a mystical virtue in poverty and that the peasants were holy precisely because they were poor.

What then was it in Marxism which attracted the Russians? I would defend the thesis that what did attract them—and what does attract them in Marx—is not his logic, but his illogic. It is a commonplace among Western critics that Marx' historical analysis does not really lead to his conclusion that there is no reason why the classless society should emerge out of this succession of societies, nor why the capitalist society should on its fall be replaced, as the Communist Manifesto promised that it would be replaced, "by an association in which the free development of each will lead to the free development of all." Obviously it was logical to expect that it would rather be replaced by another form of class society. If Marx believed otherwise, he believed otherwise not on economic but on religious grounds. For all his repudiation of religion, he was still led by the messianic dream which he had inherited from his ancestors.

Now the Russians are a profoundly Messianic people. Every Russian is compelled to believe two things about Christ and this world. He is compelled to believe that two thousand years ago Christ came in the flesh, and he is equally compelled to believe that He will come again. In the West, an enormously more stress on the first of these beliefs than on the second. Our religion is primarily historical. We rest our faith on what we assert has happened; and indeed when from time to time in our Western people of one sort or another—Fifth Monarchy men or Seventh Day Adventists—have for a change talked about the end of the world, the main reaction of the rest of us has been to dismiss them as eccentrics. But the Russians are extremely unhistorically minded. This idea is a newcomer among the nations. The Russians have no pride in the Roman past of Europe. To them an evil and satanic thing. Russia, as Spengler truly put it, is "an apocalyptic revolt against antiquity." On the other hand, they are incomparably more millennium-minded than we of the West. It was the common tenet of all the sects which played so important a part in Russian religious life from the fifteenth century that the return of Christ to the world was to be expected in the very near future. We lose a large part of the force of Christ's appearance to the Grand Inquisitor in Ivan Karamazov's story if we do not understand that to Dostoevsky it would not have been the least surprising if Christ really had appeared. In the powerful revolutionary poem the Twelve of Alexander Blok, twelve Reds who are walking through the snow of Petrograd and suddenly they notice that Christ has joined them as their leader and is marching at their head. To the Western mind the economic revolution of Communism is in its tail end a political accident; to the Russian, it can often be a radical transformation of human nature. It is only if we read the history of nineteenth century Russian literature that we understand that the Russians were expecting such a transformation anyway long before they had even heard of Lenin or of Karl Marx.

THE RUSSIAN IDEA by Christopher Hollis 3

The Russians are a millennial nation. They are also a Messianic nation. In the nineteenth century the Czarist Government had its imperialist ambitions for Constantinople and a warm-water port. But these ambitions were but a crude political version of the much deeper Russian feeling that there was a Messianic nation with a Divine mission to free the decadent West from its complexities and corruptions. "Show him"—that is, the Russian—"the whole of humanity rising again," says Prince Myshkin, "but renewed by Russian thought alone, perhaps by the Russian God and Christ, and you will see into what a mighty and truthful man a wise and gentle giant will grow before the eyes of the whole world, astonished and dismayed, because he expects or understands nothing but the sword, nothing but the sword and violence; because, judging by themselves, the other peoples cannot picture us free from barbarism." A Czar like Alexander I mixed Messianism with crude imperialism towards Europe—both sincere, each contradictory of the other in that bewildering, schizophrenic fashion of the Russian with which the novels of Dostoevsky have made us familiar. So to-day one often hears it said that the Russian soldier in Europe is amazed and disturbed at the high standard of the living that he finds there, that the authorities put him through a special course of moral decontamination before they allow him back into Russia. There may be some truth in these stories, but I am sure that, by a paradox, we shall be mistaken if we count on any reaction of crude materialism from the Russians. We have not yet defined the existence of God, says the much quoted Belinsky in fury when someone interrupted his argument with Turgenev to tell him that Bunin was a bore. And so the Russians today may wonder, like children, at bicycles and wrist-watches, but also another part of their nature there is their feeling that poverty is a holy thing and the poverty-stricken are nearer to God, and they have either by seen or weakened as a result of its imposition of poverty on its subjects. It is true that it may not be very easy to account for this voluntary and enthusiastic embracing of poverty on the formal principles of Bolshevism. But Bolshevism would have come to an end long ago if there had been nothing more to be said for it than the Bolshevists say.

Take again liberty. We often tell one another in explanation of something that is done in Russia, "Of course you must understand that the Russians have no tradition of liberty. They are in that quite different from us of the West." But if you go to Russian history and Russian literature, you will see that this is at best only a half truth. Russian literature has been predominantly preoccupied with religious problems, and the basic Russian objection to Catholicism and the religion of the West has been that, as the Russians see it, it claims too much authority. It turns the Church into a State. "Roman Catholicism," says Prince Myshkin again, "in schooling Tiberius, is not even a religion, but simply the continuation of the Western Roman Empire." There is no writer in all literature who claims so large a place for freedom as Dostoevsky—and Dostoevsky is beyond question the central interpreter of the Russian mind. In his essay on Khomyakov’s Notes on World History, yet it is certainly true that there’s a profound difference between the Russian and the European view of freedom. To us of the West freedom is a boon, which we shall be the happier to possess. To Dostoevsky—to take alike the Inquisitor’s scene in the Brothers Karamazov or the revolutionary club in the Possessed—it is a burden, which man would be glad to lay on another’s shoulders if he could, but he must not do so because he is forbidden by God.

So, too, with authority. It is obviously untrue that Russians are, like people like Egyptian fellaheen. There is a great strain of anarchy in them. But if they were willing to...

THE RUSSIAN IDEA by Christopher Hollis 4

...tolerate the autocracy of Czars in the past and are willing to tolerate the alien autocracy of Stalin to-day. A large part of the reason is that the exercise of authority is intolerable to them. They have no wish to rule. They are grateful to anyone who will take the burden of responsibility off their shoulders—a burden ever harder to bear than the burden of freedom.

Again, we are often told that Russian Communism has about it more of the marks of a religion than of a political party. This is very true and incidentally is a very great difference between Russian Communism and Marx' own time. "There was no passionate fervour in my atheism," Marx said. When he said that religion was the opium of the people he said it in a half kindly half contemptuous way. You get a wholly different attitude towards religion in the burning hatred of Lenin's letters; the hatred, for instance, for his friend Bulgakov, when he went off and became an Orthodox priest. This intensity of hatred must, I think, have been puzzling to Western Communists, and some of them must surely have said to him in those days, "I understand that you hate the Orthodox Church as a bulwark of the existing regime in exactly the same way we attack the established Churches in the West. But your hatred is not only against the Church. It is a much more virulent hatred of God. Indeed you hate, as you confess, good priests worse than bad priests. We cannot understand it. We need no understanding why you hate the poor secretaries of your country who cannot by any stretch be called supporters of the capitalist system."

And, again, I think that we find the answer in the roots Dostoevsky taught us, and explicitly in Dostoevsky. Here is, behind which lies a limited religious fervour in Russian atheism which is almost wholly lacking in the indifferent atheism of the West. "It's easier," he said through the mouth of Ivan, "for a Russian to become an atheist than for anyone else in the world. And Russians do not merely become atheists. They invariably believe in atheism, as though it were a religion without noticing that they are putting faith in a religion." Russian atheism springs from roots far deeper than the political. Russians are obsessed with the problems of suffering. How can Peter the Being have created an "imperfect world of suffering" and the Russian atheist is not so much a man who denies God as one who indicts Him. He refuses to bow the knee to an omnipotent guilty of such an enormity.

This is no place to discuss the policies which Western governments should adopt towards Russia and the policies to be adopted towards manifestations of Communism outside Russia lie still further beyond its thesis. Yet I think that it is important that we should understand the Russian Idea as clearly as we can, and we must be grateful to M. Berdyaev for enabling us to understand it more clearly. It is too difficult to criticize it; it is more important, as a first step at any rate, to understand it.

A merely political revolution against the present regime would achieve little. The impulse for such a revolution would leave untouched profundities that lie far deeper than are guessed at by a mere politician out to found a political programme. On this plane merely to attack the Russians strengthens them. It strengthens them in their siege-like complex. They expect to be attacked. They, who, as they think, have come to liberate the world, expect to be hated by the world. It will be a waste of time to fight Bolshevism unless it is overthrown by a trained theologian...

University of Cambridge Awards

University of Cambridge
Thursday, 12 June 1947

A CONGREGATION WAS HELD AT 12 NOON

The following Honorary Degrees were conferred:

Doctor of Law (Honoris Causa)
His Excellency Domingos de Sousa Holstein Beck, Duke of Palmella,
M.A., of King's College, Portuguese Ambassador at the Court of St James's

Doctor of Divinity (Honoris Causa)
Professor Nikolai Aleksandrovich Berdyaev

Doctor of Science (Honoris Causa)
Linus Carl Pauling
Professor of Chemistry at the California Institute of Technology

Doctor of Law (Honoris Causa)
Field-Marshal The Right Honourable Archibald Percival Wavell, Earl Wavell
G.C.B., G.C.S.I., G.C.I.E., C.M.G., M.C.

The Right Honourable Samuel Lowry Porter, Baron Porter
M.A., Honorary Fellow of Emmanuel College, Lord of Appeal in Ordinary

The Right Honourable Ernest Bevin
M.P., His Majesty’s Principal Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs

Doctor of Science (Honoris Causa)
Sir Edward Mellanby
K.C.B., M.D., F.R.S., Honorary Fellow of Emmanuel College, Secretary of the Medical Research Council

Doctor of Letters (Honoris Causa)
David Nichol Smith
M.A. (Oxford), Emeritus Professor of English Literature in the University of Oxford

Frank Merry Stenton
M.A., Hon. D.Litt. (Oxford), Vice-Chancellor of the University of Reading

Doctor of Science (Honoris Causa)
Charles Thomson Rees Wilson
C.H., M.A., F.R.S., Emeritus Professor of Natural Philosophy and Fellow of Sidney Sussex College

Doctor of Music (Honoris Causa)
Edward Joseph Dent
M.A., Mus.B., Emeritus Professor of Music and Fellow of King’s College

https://scarc.library.oregonstate.edu/coll/pauling/awards/1947h.3.html

University of Cambridge Awards 2

ECCE SOCRATES ALTER, animus impavidus, qui difficultatibus saepe confluctatus ab indagatione atque investigatione veri nunquam declinavit. Caesaribus patriam suam regentibus exilio affectus est, quod eis se adiunxerit qui, sicut Christiani veteres, omnia communia habere voluerunt, divitias omnibus dividere prout cuique opus esset. Eisdem hominibus rerum potitis mox compertum habebat non sic Regnum Dei fundatum iri. Qui enim alia Christi verba sequebantur, alia prorsus contemnebant. Quid illis quod “Non in solo pane vivit homo”? Quid, quod “Spiritus est qui vivificat”? Iterum igitur in exilium profectus ingenium naturaliter Christianum exercet, scribit, cogitat, alios in philosophiae rationibus instruit, ut quae hodie bona sint in patriae suae vita et administratione ad omnium hominum salutem convertantur, mala exterminet atque tollantur. Namque hoc pro certo habet, non temere neque casu nos creatos esse, sed Dei omnipotentis voluntate, libertati destinatos non servituti, divino afflatu instinctos et animatos. Recte vero antiquii primum officii fontem sapientiam dicebant. Melius et simplicius Fidei nostrae Auctor: “Et cognoscetis veritatem, et veritas liberabit vos.” Gratissimus igitur hospes nobis advenit veritatis cultor, liberi animi philosophus, quem nunc honorandum vobis adduco.

BEHOLD ANOTHER SOCRATES, a fearless spirit, who, though often beset by difficulties, never turned away from the pursuit and investigation of truth. Under the rule of emperors, he was exiled from his homeland because he joined those who, like the early Christians, wished to hold all things in common and distribute wealth to all according to their need. Yet, he soon realized, along with those in power, that the Kingdom of God could not be founded in this way. For those who followed some of Christ’s words completely disregarded others.

What did they make of the saying, "Man does not live by bread alone"? What of "It is the Spirit that gives life"? Once again, therefore, driven into exile, he exercised his naturally Christian intellect: he wrote, he reflected, and he instructed others in the principles of philosophy, so that the good in his country’s life and governance might be turned toward the salvation of all mankind, and the evils might be eradicated and destroyed.

For he firmly holds that we were not created by chance or randomness but by the will of Almighty God, destined for freedom, not for servitude, inspired and animated by divine breath. Indeed, the ancients rightly called wisdom the source of the highest duty. But the Author of our Faith expressed it better and more simply: "You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free."

Thus, a most welcome guest has come to us: a devotee of truth, a philosopher of free spirit, whom I now present to you for honor.

Latin