Вестник Екатеринбургской духовной семинарии (Jul 2022)
Love That Gives Understanding: On the Question of the Сognition-of-God in the Theology of A. S. Khomyakov and His Attitude to Non-Orthodoxy
Abstract
The article is aimed at clarifying one of the aspects of the “love” concept in Khomyakov’s theology, namely, how Alexey Stepanovich correlates love and cognition, and what role the former plays in the latter. The occasion for raising this question was Khomyakov’s statement about the lack of love in Western Christianity, which, from his point of view, had become the real reason for the dogmatic errors of non-Orthodoxy. What kind of love are we talking about, how does it or its absence manifest itself? Love and cognition meet in the subject of cognition-of-God. According to A. S. Khomyakov, such a subject can only be a whole Church, and not an individual or a special group, and it is created only by love as a divine gift. This is the meaning of the concept of “catholicity” (sobornost) of the Church. In historical reality, such an essential structure of the Church is manifested in the conciliar structure of the Orthodox Church. The different understanding of the subjects of the knowledge of God is put by A. S. Khomyakov as the basis of confessional distinction. And he calls the absence of love precisely the absence of a catholic — created by love — subject of the knowledge of God. For a better understanding and clarification of A. S. Khomyakov’s thought, the author compares it with the Catholic theologian J. A. Moehler’s teaching about the bishop as the personification of Christian love, and notes the “romantic” understanding of love as a force of unity shared by both the theologians. The pneumatological ecclesiologies of both authors have an undoubted similarity: their understanding of Tradition as the “heritage of inner life”, catholicity as a special kind of unity created by love bestowed by the Holy Spirit. Khomyakov’s attitude to freedom is also noted as the important factor for his ecclesiological views. Fundamental to A. S. Khomyakov’s discourse is the opposite of the mechanical and organic, defined from the outside and from the inside, unambiguously defined and not subject to such definition. This directly affects the organization of the Church, introducing a temporal dimension to the definition of catholicity.
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