Some cosmic conspiracy exists against our planet, for nowhere in the universe do people die as they do on Earth. The island of death, the only island of death where people die—that is our sad star. And above it, around it, and beneath it, circle countless myriads of stars where there is no death, where people do not die. The abyss of death surrounds our planet on all sides. Where is the path that begins on Earth and does not lead to the precipice of death? Where is the being that can escape death on Earth? Everyone dies, everything dies on this terrible island of death. There is no fate sadder than earthly, no tragedy more despairing than human.
Why is life given to man if he is surrounded by death on all sides ? Death's snares are set everywhere; darkness lies on the paths of man. Like a huge, slimy spider, death has woven dense webs around our soot-covered star, and in them it catches people like helpless flies. Cannibalistic horrors envelop man on all sides, and he has nowhere to escape, for death threatens from all sides.
Why is consciousness given to man if he encounters death everywhere and in everything? Why are sensations given to man? Is it so that he will feel that the grave is his father and the worms his brothers? "I will say to the grave, 'You are my father;' to the worm, 'You are my mother and my sister'" ( Job 17:14 ). Consciousness is a sorrowful and terrible gift to man; but far more sorrowful and terrible is the gift of sensation.
And what about feelings? Why are feelings given to man? Is it to serve as tentacles with which, at every step in the history of the human race, he might probe death? Send your thought across this island of death, so that it may find the meaning of human existence, and it will return to you, grieved and sorrowful, showered with the cold ashes of death. Send out your feelings, and they will return to you, wounded and battered in the impassable ravines of death. Release one feeling to the end of any being in history, and it, as its end, as its completion, will undoubtedly probe death.
One reality is more real than all realities in the world: death. Human consciousness, human sensations, and human feelings bear witness to this, relentlessly and mercilessly. In fact, the final and final reality of human life on earth is death. Tell me, isn't death the final reality for both you and me? We are all infected with death , all of us without exception; the bacilli of death have damaged every tissue of our souls, our beings; each of us carries within us thousands of deaths.
Our planet is constantly devastated by a general chronic epidemic of death; there is no medicine that can save us from this epidemic; there is no quarantine where people can be completely cleansed of the germs of death. What is human life on earth if not a constant, convulsive resistance to death, a struggle with death, and, ultimately, defeat by death? For in medicine, science, and philosophy, we conquer not death itself, but its precursors—diseases and ailments. Moreover, we conquer them partially and temporarily. What do the triumphs of science, philosophy, and technology mean in the face of the terrible fact of the universal mortality of all humanity? Nothing more than the babble of confused and frightened children.
If there is tragedy in the worlds, then its center is man. To be human is tragic, incomparably more tragic than to be a mosquito or a snail, a bird or a snake, a lamb or a tiger. No matter how hard one tries to overcome the tragedy of one's life, one cannot help but realize and sense that one remains a prisoner in the inescapable prison of death, a prison that has neither doors nor windows. From the moment one is born, one is a candidate for death; and not only that, but from birth one is already condemned to death. The womb that bears us is nothing other than the coffin's sister. Emerging from the mother's womb, one immediately sets out on the path that leads to the coffin. One brings one's most terrible and greatest enemy into the world with oneself: death. Yes, at birth, one is born mortal. Death is the first gift a mother bestows upon her newborn. Within every human body resides and lurks the most terrible and least curable of diseases—death. Even in the healthiest body, what is more resilient than health is death. No matter which path a person takes across this island of death, they must ultimately find themselves in the grave. Every person is a morsel that will ultimately be swallowed by the insatiable death—"the omnivorous death" (this is how the Church calls death: Sedalen, Friday of Vail, Matins). What remains for us, poor prisoners of death? Only one thing: a bitter smile of protest, the spasm of a feeble heart.
Over the long and terrifying journey of history, so much death has accumulated within humanity that death has become the sole category within which all human life moves and is realized, within which it emerges, exists, and even passes away. Throughout history, one conviction has developed within humanity: if there is anything necessary in this world, it is death. This conviction has become the dogma of every historical era. The terrifying and inescapable reality of death has forced humanity to formulate this conviction as a dogma: death is a necessity. This unpleasant dogma has been passed down from father to son, from person to person, from generation to generation.
If a person without prejudice were to look into the history of this strange world, they would have to admit that this world is a vast mill of death, which ceaselessly grinds countless streams of people, from the first to the last. It grinds me, and it grinds you, my friend, and it grinds us all, until one day or one night it wipes us all out.
Tell me, can a person be calm and accept this world without protest if he is caught in this mill of death between two millstones that will grind him until he is completely crushed? Can a fly be calm in a spider's web, or a worm in a nightingale's beak, or a nightingale in a hawk's beak?
Out of terror, man perceives this life as some kind of terrifying apparition and gloomy imprisonment. It seems as if someone has sent us to be imprisoned by a vile apparition; sent us, who are made of the same stuff as the apparition itself. A single eye is enough for a person to see that our planet is an arena paved with human skulls. And moreover: an arena surrounded on all sides by death. And the universe? Isn't it a vast, hermetically sealed tomb, which from within people, like moles in despair, are constantly digging, but they can't seem to clear it.
The entire history of the human race is nothing other than a resounding affirmation of death. All its storms and thunderstorms, lulls and feats, all its creators and fighters testify to only one thing: death is a necessity, every person is mortal, inescapably and inevitably mortal. This is the end of every human being, this is the testament that every inhabitant of our planet inevitably leaves behind. This is the testament our ancestors left for each of us. It contains only these three words: death is a necessity.
Tell me, can a person with such a will be calm and happy in this mill of death? Is progress possible? Is progress logical, justified, necessary in a world where death is the most insurmountable necessity? And this question means: do such a world, such a life, such a person have meaning? The question of progress is the question of the meaning of life. If meaning in life is possible in the mill of death, then progress is also possible. The answer to this question, however, is possible only through the answer to the question of death.
Solving the problem of death fundamentally solves the fundamental problem of human existence. Whether directly or indirectly, all problems ultimately boil down to the problem of death. Follow any problem through to its conclusion, and it inevitably evolves into the problem of death. Therefore, the solution to all other problems depends on the solution to the problem of death. Because of its omnipresent reality, the fatal dogma "death is a necessity" has become the motto of humanity.
All beings are surrounded by death. So tell me, is progress possible in such a world—progress that doesn't end in death? Progress in which man isn't ground to dust by death? This is the ultimate question for all gods and all people. If anyone can solve this question, then they are the true God , and there are no other gods, nor do we need them. But only the one who ensures progress in such a world can solve this question. And to ensure progress means to conquer death. Can science, or philosophy, or culture, or any religion accomplish this?
To arrive at an impartial answer to this question, it is necessary to confront the problem of death with science, philosophy, culture, and religion. By answering this question, they will thereby reveal their true significance, for they will answer the question: is progress possible and necessary in this noisy mill of death called the earth?
Place the problem of death squarely before modern positivist science. Science has mobilized all its resources to solve the problem of life and death, but the result of all scientific efforts boils down to one conclusion: the laws of nature govern the world, they are necessary and immutable; in such a world and for such a person, "death is a necessity."
Science wraps its answer to the terrible problem of death in the mysterious word "necessity." But it doesn't solve the problem in this way; it merely confirms and affirms it. In essence, its answer condemns man and humanity to eternal horror, suffering, and torment. With this answer, science acknowledges the fact that death is a necessity. But it is precisely this fact that is the greatest curse for the human race. An irresistible instinct of consciousness compels me to deduce what follows from the aforementioned dogma of science: if death is a necessity, then human life has no meaning, and true progress is impossible; necessity remains necessity; humanity is condemned to a permanent status quo ante, that is, condemned to death forever, since death is a necessity for all people.
"We believe," recently declared the renowned astronomer James Jeans, professor at Cambridge University, "that the universe is not a permanent, unchanging structure. It lives its own life, moving, like all of us, along a path that leads to death. For science knows of no change other than that which consists in aging, and no progress other than that toward the grave. In the light of our present knowledge, we are forced to believe that the entire material universe is only one example of this, albeit on a vast scale" (The Stars in Their Courses. Cambridge, 1931).
Since death is the natural end for man, and indeed for the universe itself, true progress is essentially impossible. Not only impossible, but unnecessary. For what good is progress to me if it consists of solemnly escorting me from the cradle to the grave? It's the same as when the executioner smears the sword with honey to make it sweeter when he chops off your head...
What good is progress to me, what good is all the countless torments and sufferings I endure on this damned path from cradle to grave? What good is all this effort and labor and duty and love and kindness and culture and civilization when I am dying completely, without a trace? Everything that is called progress and work and duty and love and kindness and culture and civilization, all these conventional values—they are all vampires that suck, suck, suck my blood... Damn them!
We must be sincere: if death is a necessity, then this life is the most mocking mockery, the most disgusting gift, and, most importantly, horror, unbearable horror... The necessity of death for science is inescapable and invincible. And this means: science is incapable of either finding or giving meaning to life. Before the problem of death, science itself dies.
Many say: science is strength, science is power. But tell me yourself: is a force that is powerless before death really strength? Is a power that is feeble before death really power? There is no victory except that which conquers death; and there is no progress except that victory; and there is no power except that power; and there is no strength except that power... They say: science is philanthropic. But what kind of philanthropy do I mean when it abandons man to death? When it is helpless to protect him from death? Philanthropy means conquering death. And there is no other.
Confront the problem of death with all philosophies old and new. In short, the logic of all philosophies boils down to one principle: the categories of human thought prove that death cannot be conquered; death is a logical consequence of the physical frailty of human beings, and therefore death is an inevitable necessity.
This answer begs the question: how can philosophies give meaning to life if they solve the fatal problem of death in this way? In essence, philosophies reveal themselves to be nothing more than the arithmetic of pessimism. When a person surveys the world from the brink of the grave, no philosophy can sweeten the bitter mystery of death. Imagine: my brother, sister, or mother is dying; inexpressible sorrow boils in every atom of my being. On what will I rely? Who will console me? Philosophy is mute, science is deaf and dumb, so that I can be consoled. Only when confronted with the terrible reality of death do I sense and realize that philosophy and science are, in essence, not good news, but bitter news. Can news be good news that cannot alleviate the most vexing suffering and the most terrible sorrow of the human spirit—the wormwood-bitter mystery of death?
Place the problem of death squarely before European humanist culture. European culture has inspired many naive souls with hope. But these wings are too weak to lift the heavy human being above death. Death mercilessly cuts them off at their base. And a person of European culture feels desperately helpless before the terrifying fact of death. Culture does not make a person a conqueror of death, because it itself is the creation of mortal men. Everything in it bears the mark of mortality.
I stand at the grave's edge and weigh culture on the scales of death. And look, nothing is lighter than it. Before death, it turns to a shriveled zero. Death gradually corrodes and destroys all its achievements until it completely destroys them and carries them away into its dark abyss. Does a culture that cannot conquer death truly represent the power many ascribe to it? Can a culture that cannot comprehend death truly be the meaning of life? What good does it do a person to be cultured, cultured in the mill of death, which, if not today, then tomorrow, will crush both him and his culture?
Put the problem of death squarely before non-Christian religions. They all struggle with it; in addressing it, they either circumvent it, deny it, or skip over it. The most precise of these are Brahmanism and Buddhism.
For Brahmanism, death, like the entire visible world, is Maya, an illusory reality, non-being, non-existence. The problem of death belongs to a class of self-proclaimed realities that must be transcended by force of will. The entire visible world is a display of ghosts that transform into unreal phantoms. By addressing the problem of death in this way, Brahmanism doesn't solve it, but denies it.
And Buddhism? Buddhism is the coming of age of despair. It is not only a philosophy but also a religion of pessimism. The mystery of non-existence is more pleasant than the bitter, bitter mystery of existence. Death is liberation from the shackles of this terrible monster called the world. Beyond death lies the bliss of nirvana. – Thus, Buddhism does not solve the problem of death, but rather leaps over it; it does not conquer death, but feebly curses it. Similarly, other religions represent nothing but bankruptcy in the face of death.
The true value of any science, any philosophy, any religion, any culture can be determined by examining them in the context of death. Through science, philosophy, and numerous religions, man attempts to conquer death, but he cannot succeed, cannot find the lever with which to elevate both his body and his powers to immortal reality. Therefore, they all fail over the problem of the body.
The problem of the mortality of the human body is the touchstone, the test of all religions, all philosophies, and all sciences: those who go bankrupt over the problem of the body inevitably go bankrupt over the problem of the spirit. He who conquers the death of the body, who grants and ensures immortality to the body—this is the much-desired God and Savior, this is the meaning of life and the world, this is the joy and consolation of man and humanity. In the meantime, pessimism and despair are the lot of man on earth.
Man is alone, and around him the boundless ocean of death lies insidiously silent... Drowning in death, man cries out with the sighs of his heart, and no one answers him; no one, no one, no god. If science, philosophy, or culture mutters anything, it's a narcotic that cannot lull the soul and body awakened by the horror of death. Look, man and humanity have nowhere to escape the accursed mill of death. Our grim planet has too many centripetal forces for anything mortal. All the electrical energy of pain, horror, and tragedy is concentrated into a single thunder—the thunder of death, for which there is no lightning rod.
Death is the supreme evil that synthesizes all evil; it is the supreme horror that synthesizes all horrors; it is the supreme tragedy that synthesizes all tragedy. Before this supreme evil, before this supreme horror, before this supreme tragedy, the entire human spirit and all of humanity freeze in weakness and despair... Progress? Oh, all human progress—what is it if not progress toward death, progress toward the grave? All progress in the mill of death ends in death...
The entire turbulent and tumultuous history of humanity testifies to and affirms one thing: it is impossible for man to conquer death. But if this is the final and definitive conclusion, then why live? Why create history, participate in it, and tread it? Is not the history of the human race, which is nothing other than the merciless, tyrannical dictatorship of death, a mockery of all progress? Let us not deceive ourselves: death is the triumph of tyranny and tragedy and, alas, a feast of irony and comedy... A wretched and comical creature is man when he is destined to live in the mill of death, watching as it mercilessly grinds man after man, generation after generation, and feeling himself gradually ground down, until he is completely crushed...
It is impossible for the wretched and ridiculed creature called man to conquer death, forever impossible. But what is impossible for man was made possible for the God-Man. Yes, the God-Man conquered death. With what? With His Resurrection. And with this victory, He resolved the accursed problem of death; He resolved it not theoretically, not abstractly, not a priori, but by the event, the fact, the historical fact of His Resurrection from the dead.
Yes, a historical fact. For there is no event, not only in the Gospel but in the history of the human race, that is so powerful, so unwavering, so immaculately attested to as the Resurrection of Christ. Without a doubt, Christianity , in all its historical reality, strength, and omnipotence, is founded on the fact of the Resurrection of Christ, and this means on the eternally living person of the God-man Christ. The entire centuries-long and continually miraculous history of Christianity bears witness to this. For if there is an event to which all events in the life of the Lord Christ and the Apostles, and indeed all of Christianity, can be reduced, then that event is the Resurrection of Christ. Likewise, if there is a truth to which all Gospel truths can be reduced, then that truth is the Resurrection of Christ. And further: if there is a reality to which all New Testament realities can be reduced, then that reality is the Resurrection of Christ. And finally: if there is a Gospel miracle to which all the New Testament miracles can be reduced, then that miracle is the Resurrection of Christ. For only in the light of Christ's resurrection do both His face and His deeds become fully clear. Only in the Resurrection of Christ do all of Christ's miracles, all of His truths, all of His words, all of the Gospel events receive their full explanation. For the truths of the God-Man are true through the truth of His resurrection, and His miracles are real through the reality of His resurrection.
Moreover, without the Resurrection of the God-Man, it is impossible to explain the apostleship of the Apostles, the martyrdom of the Martyrs, the confession of the Confessors, the hierarchship of the Hierarchs, the asceticism of the Ascetics, the miracle-working of the Miracle Workers, the faith of the believers, the love of those who love, the hope of those who hope, the prayer of those who pray, the meekness of the meek, the mercy of the merciful, or any Christian endeavor whatsoever. If the Lord Jesus Christ had not risen and, as the risen One, had not filled His disciples with the all-pervading power and miraculous wisdom, who would have gathered them, the fearful and fugitive, and given them the courage, strength, and wisdom to preach and confess the risen Lord so fearlessly, powerfully, and wisely, and so joyfully go to their deaths for Him? And if the risen Savior had not imbued them with divine power and wisdom, how could they, simple people, illiterate, unlearned, and poor, have ignited the world with the unquenchable fire of the New Testament faith? If the Christian faith were not the faith of the Risen and therefore eternally living and life-giving Lord Christ, who would have inspired the Martyrs to the feat of martyrdom, the Hierarchs to the feat of hierarchship, the Ascetics to the feat of asceticism, the Unmercenaries to the feat of unmercenarism, the Faster to the feat of fasting, and any Christian whatsoever to any evangelical feat? In a word: if there had been no Resurrection of Christ, Christianity would not have existed; Christ would have been the first and last Christian, who ended his life, died on the cross, and with Him His works and His teachings would have ceased and died. Therefore, the Resurrection of Christ is the alpha and omega of Christianity in all its divine-human height, depth and breadth.
If Christ had not truly risen, who in his right mind could have believed in Him as God and Lord? And would the Apostles have dared to preach Him as God if He had not truly risen? What zeal, asks St. John Chrysostom , prompted the Apostles to preach about the dead? What reward, what honor did they expect from the dead? Yes, they fled from Him even while He was alive, when He was captured; so after death, could they have followed Him so boldly if He had not risen? How is this to be understood? And that they did not want and could not invent the Resurrection is evident from the following. The Savior repeatedly spoke to them about the Resurrection, even constantly repeating that, as the enemies had even said, He would rise "after three days" ( Matt. 27:63 ). Therefore, if He had not risen, they, as deceived and persecuted by all the people, driven out of their homes and cities, obviously had to turn away from Him; And they, having been deceived by Him and subjected to terrible misfortunes because of Him, would not have wished to spread such news about Him. And that they could not have invented the Resurrection if it had not really happened, is not worth mentioning. Indeed, what could they have hoped for? On the power of their words? - But they were very uneducated people. On wealth? - But they had neither staff nor shoes. On nobility of origin? - But they were poor and born poor. On the fame of their native lands? - But they came from unknown villages. On their numbers? - But there were only eleven of them, and scattered at that. On the promises of the Teacher? But which ones? If He had not risen, then the rest of His promises would not have been worthy of belief. And how could they have pacified the people's anger? If the chief of them (Peter) could not bear the words of a servant woman, and all the others, seeing Him bound, fled, how could they have imagined going to all the ends of the earth to spread the fictitious preaching of the resurrection? If one of them could not withstand the threat of a woman, and the others could not bear the mere sight of bonds, how could they have stood firm before kings, rulers, and nations, where swords, fiery cauldrons, furnaces, and countless forms of daily death abound, had they not been strengthened by the power and omnipotence of the Risen One? Numerous mighty miracles were performed—and the Jews were not ashamed of any of them, but crucified the One who performed them. So, could they have believed the disciples' simple words about the resurrection? No, no! All this was accomplished by the power of the Risen One.
The Resurrection of Christ is a revolution, the first radical revolution in human history. It divided history into two parts. In the first part, the motto reigned: "Death is a necessity"; in the second part, the motto begins to reign: "Resurrection is a necessity, immortality is a necessity." The Resurrection of Christ is the millstone of human history: before Him, true progress was impossible; with Him, it became possible.
From the fact of Christ's Resurrection was born the philosophy of resurrection, which irrefutably demonstrates and proves that necessity is not death, but immortality; not the victory of death, but victory over death. In this, and only in this, fact, and in a life built on this fact, the Resurrection of Christ, is true progress possible.
The practical conviction and philosophical dogma that "death is a necessity" is the pinnacle and maturity of pessimism. This dogma has its postulates in principles: sin is a necessity, evil is a necessity. But the philosophy of the resurrection also has its postulates: sinlessness is a necessity, goodness is a necessity. Since the Resurrection of the God-Man Christ is a fact, an event, there is not a single divine-human virtue or characteristic that could not become a fact, an event, an experience.
The fact of Christ's Resurrection is not limited by time or space; it is boundless and infinite in every way, like the very person of the God-man Christ. The Resurrection of Christ, although a completely personal act of the God-man, nonetheless has a significance and power that is universal and cosmic, for the God-man, as the second Adam, is the progenitor of a new humanity, and everything that concerns His human nature simultaneously concerns the entire human race, of which He is the representative. Therefore, the Resurrection of Christ is a fact and an event of universal and cosmic significance and scope. This fact, this event, ramifies into the lives of millions of Christians, because Christians, through faith in the Risen Lord Christ, have become co-corporeals with Him, that is, members of His God-man body—the Church. The Church, in fact, is nothing other than the continuous and infinite continuation of one event, one fact—the Resurrection of Christ. It is a new organism, a new reality—boundless, infinite, immortal. Here, there are no boundaries of time or space. The fact of Christ's Resurrection is the foundation of the Church, the foundation of Christianity and every Christian. If one does not build on it, one builds on shifting sand, for all foundations except Him are nothing more than shifting sand.
By His Resurrection, the Lord Christ broke the vicious circle of death: He made the transition from death to immortality, from time to eternity. In His Person, man also made this transition, not as a man, but as the God-Man. Therefore, the Resurrection is a fundamental fact: from it is derived and to it is reduced all Christian pragmatics. One thing is required of man: to assimilate this fact, to experience this experience, to resurrect himself from the grave of all that is mortal, uniting his soul by faith with the Risen God-Man.
By His Resurrection, the Lord Jesus gave meaning to the body, meaning to matter, meaning to spirit. For by His Resurrection, the terrible problem of death, the problem of the body and death, was finally and gloriously resolved for the first time. It was resolved in the following way: the human body was created for immortal and divine-human eternity, and with the body, all matter, for all creation is represented in the human body. By His Resurrection, the God-Man gave the human body eternal meaning and eternal value.
Before the Resurrection of the Savior, matter was devalued and undervalued because it was mortal. By His Resurrection, the Lord Jesus was the first to place a true, eternal value on the body and demonstrate that it, too, is for God, worthy to sit eternally at the right hand of God the Father. Before the Resurrection of Christ, man possessed, if not actual immortality, then certainly a symbol of immortality, expressed in the desire for it. The sense of immortality in man was calloused and paralyzed; by His Resurrection, the Lord rejuvenated and refreshed it, and thus the Lord made man capable of attaining and securing immortality and eternal life.
Christ's victory over death through His Resurrection ensured the boundless progress of man and humanity toward divine perfection. In essence, true progress consists in victory over death, in the immortalization of both soul and body, in salvation from death—or, in other words, in salvation from sin and evil, the sole creators of death. Give me a sinless man, and you will give me the creator and leader of progress. But if death is the end of man and humanity, then all human striving for progress is the most damned and mocking quality, implanted in man by someone in order to mock him as cruelly as possible. In such a case, the best and most consistent course is to freeze in desperate inertia and commit suicide, for life would be an unbearable tyranny and an intolerable mockery.
Many deny the Resurrection and speak of progress. However, all such progress, whether scientific or philosophical, artistic or cultural, is nothing more than concentric circles inscribed within the circle of death. Progress that betrays man and abandons him to death is not progress, but a counterfeit of progress. If progress fails to comprehend death and life, to immortalize man and humanity, then it is not progress, but disguised regression. Such are all false progresses, except the progress founded on the Risen Lord Jesus.
If death is not conquered, and immortality is not assured by Resurrection, then there is no progress in this terrible mill of death; then all people without exception are slaves of death, lackeys of death, grindstones of death. If so, then why live, millers of the mill of death? Is it so that the mill of death will ultimately grind me completely, without a trace?... Yes, all progress that is not based on the immortality of the human personality is a fairy tale and fantasy, dreamed by an unfortunate person in the vile embrace of the dragon of death.
The word "progress" literally means any forward movement. Through all its activities—religious, philosophical, scientific, technical, economic—the human race is clearly moving forward, advancing toward what? Without a doubt, toward death, as the ultimate reality. Those born in the mill of death and raised in it, all people, with all their progress, are ultimately ground to dust by death. Peer into the mystery of human progress, and if your mind isn't sedated by the morphine of naive idolatry, the worship of things, you'll be convinced that humanity, through all its progress, is rushing toward one thing, progressing toward one thing—death. Behind all our progress lies death. And when progress culminates in death, isn't it ridiculous to call it progress? It's wiser to call it regression, a fatal regression, since it leads everything into nothingness, into nonexistence, into nothingness.
If we do not wish to deliberately obfuscate the meager consciousness we possess in our souls as human beings and the meager feeling we possess in our hearts, we must recognize and feel that there is no true progress without victory over death, without ensuring immortality and eternal life for the human personality. In other words, there is no progress for man and humanity without the God-Man Christ, the sole conqueror of death. For progress is only that which conquers death and ensures the immortality of the human personality; and anything that does not ensure immortality for the human being is nothing other than regression, a fatal regression that condemns man to death, beyond which there is no resurrection.
Since the God-Man is the only conqueror of death, he is also the only founder and creator of true progress, divine-human progress; while man and everything human, all too human, is, in essence, regression. The dilemma is very simple: man or God-Man, death or immortality? My friend, if you have even once seriously asked yourself the question of the meaning of your life, which so ceaselessly and irresistibly rushes toward the grave, progressing toward death, you could find the true answer to your question only in the Risen Jesus Christ. If you have extended your personal problem to all of humanity, and in sleepless nights and stormy days have seriously asked yourself the meaning of human existence and what human progress truly is, you could draw the following conclusion from all the facts: progress is everything that leads to Christ and the Resurrection, for this ensures immortality for both man and humanity; and regression is everything that turns away from Christ and the Resurrection, for it pushes both man and humanity into death, into non-existence.
Christ-orientedness is the vital, life-giving force of progress, for with it, death and mortality—that is, sin and evil—are vanquished, and immortality and eternal life are assured. The only true meaning of human existence in this mill of death is the personal immortality of each human being. Without this, what is the point of progress and improvement? What is the point of good and evil, truth and love, heaven and earth? What is the point of God and the world?
To feel immortal while still alive in the body is a bliss that cannot be found or guaranteed by anything or anyone except the Lord Jesus. Developing the sense of immortality and transforming it into the consciousness of immortality is the work of a person of Christ in this life. It seems to me that the Gospel of the Savior is nothing less than a practical guide on how a person can transform their mortal self into immortality. If a person believes in the Lord Christ with all their heart and determination, they will, as it were, build a bridge from this island of death to that heavenly shore where immortality begins, and then "drown" into a blessed eternity.
By practicing the Gospel virtues, a person overcomes all that is mortal within him; and the more he lives according to the Gospel, the more he displaces death and mortality within himself and grows into immortality and eternal life. Feeling the Lord Jesus within oneself is the same as feeling immortal. For the feeling of immortality flows from the feeling of God, since God is the source of immortality and eternal life.
"What is immortality?" asks the great Christian philosopher Isaac the Syrian , and answers: "Immortality is the feeling of God." To feel God means to feel immortal. God and the immortality of the soul are two related concepts, for they are two related facts. One is impossible without the other. To constantly feel God within oneself, in every thought, every feeling, every action—this is immortality. To acquire such a feeling of God means to secure immortality and eternal life. Therefore, only from faith in God, from the feeling of God, does the sense of personal immortality flow. Theological-human progress consists in developing and perfecting such a sense of personal immortality in people, for it develops within them the sense of God to its fullest extent.
A person of Christian faith lives by the feeling and awareness that every person is an immortal and eternal being, and therefore cannot be the object of anyone's exploitation or tyranny. The feeling of immortality comes from the feeling of God, and the feeling of God does not tolerate sin, but rather drives it out of man, since sin produces death. Ethics also depends on metaphysics: if the feeling of God is alive in man, then the feeling of immortality is alive with it, which mercilessly fights against everything that kills man—and that is sin , every sin, and every evil.
Pay due attention to the fundamental principles of European humanist progress, to its metaphysics. Don't you see that humanist culture systematically dulls the sense of immortality in man until it is completely dulled, so that the individual of European culture resolutely asserts: I am a man and nothing but a man? And if this assertion were translated into somewhat simpler language, it would mean: I am a body and nothing but a body; I am earth and nothing but earth. In both cases, European man asserts one thing: I am mortal and nothing but mortal. Thus, humanist Europe began to be guided by the motto "man is a mortal being." This is the formula of humanist man and the essence of his progress.
At first unconsciously, and then systematically, consciously and deliberately, the idea that man is completely mortal was instilled in Europeans through science, philosophy, and culture. This notion gradually took shape into a conviction that death is a necessity. Death is a necessity! Is there any greater horror, insult, or mockery than this: man's greatest enemy is necessary to man! Tell me, is there any logic here, even the slightest, even childish, even insect-like? Has European man, crushed and ground in the mill of death, lost the last shreds of reason and begun to delirium?
The humanist man is devastated, terribly devastated, for the consciousness and sense of immortality have been repressed from him. And without a sense of personal immortality, is man truly human? Or, better said, is man human at all? Oh, the European man is narrowed, phenomenally narrowed and degraded, crippled, and reduced to a fragment and a sliver of a man, for every sense of boundlessness and infinity has been repressed from him. And without infinity, can man even exist? Without this sense of infinity, is he not a dead thing among things, an ordinary animal among animals?
Allow me a paradox: I believe that some animals are more boundless in their sensations and immortal in their desires than the man of European humanist progress. Humanist man is wrinkled, calloused, withered, reified, and therefore it is entirely legitimate, metaphysically legitimate, to have declared through his philosophers that he descended from apes. Equated with animals in origin, why should he not be equal to them in morality? Belonging to animals and beasts in his metaphysical essence, he also belongs to them morally.
In modern humanistic legal practice, are n't sin and crime increasingly considered inevitably conditioned by the social environment, necessary by nature? Since nothing in man is immortal or eternal, all ethics is ultimately reduced to instinctive aspirations. And humanistic man, consistent in his logic, has become ethically equal to his ancestors—apes and beasts—and the principle of homo homini lupus (man is a wolf to man) has come to dominate his life. It could not be otherwise, for only on the sense of human immortality can a morality higher and more dignified than that of animals be founded. If there is no immortality and eternal life, then— "let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die!" (cf. 1 Cor. 15:32 ).
Relativism in the metaphysics of European humanist progress was destined to result in relativism in ethics; and relativism is the father of anarchy and nihilism. Therefore, ultimately, the entire practical ethics of the humanist is nothing other than anarchy and nihilism. Because anarchy and nihilism are the inevitable, final, apocalyptic phase of European humanist progress. Ideological anarchy and nihilism, ideological disintegration, were destined to manifest itself in practical anarchism and nihilism, in the practical disintegration of European humanist humanity and its progress. Are we not witnessing ideological and practical anarchism and nihilism devastating the European continent? The components of European progress are such that their sum must always yield anarchism and nihilism, no matter how you add them up...
Man is foolish, incredibly foolish, if, without having conquered death, he can believe in progress, in the meaning of life, and work for it. What good is progress to me if death awaits me from it? What good are all the worlds, all the constellations, all the cultures to me if death awaits me from them, and will ultimately await me? Where there is death, there is no true progress. If it does exist, then it is merely damned progress in the terrible mill of death. And therefore it must be destroyed completely and without a trace.
The Czechoslovakian writer Karel Čapek felt and artistically captured these struggles with European humanistic progress in his tragedy "Rossum's Universal Robots." His characters, Alqvist and Helena, have the following conversation:
Alquist: Does Nana have any prayer book?
Elena: There is one, a very big one.
Alquist: And it probably contains prayers for different occasions? For bad weather? For illness?
Elena: Yes, from temptation, from the flood...
Alqvist: And isn’t it due to progress?
Elena: I don't think so.
Alquist: Yes, it's a pity...
The humanistic man and his progress are opposed by the Christ-man with his divine-human progress. The fundamental principle of divine-human progress is: man is truly human only with God, only as the God-man; in other words: man is truly human only with immortality, that is, through victory over death, overcoming all that is mortal and all mortality. By conquering sin and evil within himself, the Christ-man thereby conquers death and mortality in his consciousness and feeling, uniting with the One Immortal—the God-man Christ. Therefore, the great architect of divine-human progress, the holy Apostle Paul, commands all Christians: "Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth. For you are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God" ( Col. 3:2–3 ).
Both human consciousness and feeling are immortalized by the Lord Christ. He who has united his feelings and consciousness with the God-Man Jesus is already immortal, immortal in this world: his consciousness already contemplates the thought of Christ, an immortal and eternal thought; and his feelings already sense within themselves the life of Christ, an immortal and eternal life... It's as if the question is visible in your eyes: how is this achieved in the accursed mill of death? Only by faith in the Risen Lord Jesus and by living according to the fundamental principles of this faith.
As soon as a person wholeheartedly and sincerely believes in the Risen God-Man, a sense of immortality and resurrection immediately flares up in their soul—a sense that death has been conquered, and with it, sin and evil. This feeling fills the Christian with unfailing joy and inspires them to all the evangelical struggles. They joyfully fulfill Christ's commandments and, with rapture, traverse life's journey from nothingness to allness, from death to immortality. Like a point that expands into all infinity, so does man, when he expands into the God-Man: he radiates divine infinity entirely and feels immortal and infinite in every point of his being. Thus, the tragic principle of humanistic progress, "death is a necessity," is replaced by the joyful principle of divine-human progress: "immortality is a necessity."
God-human progress has its own God-human morality: in it, all human life is guided and energized by the God-man. Goodness is only that which is Christ's; outside of this, there is no true good. Therefore, the fundamental principle of Gospel morality is: without Christ, man cannot create any immortal good (cf. John 15:5 ; Heb. 13:8 ). All enduring, immortal goodness emanates from the wondrous God-man Christ and enters into Him. Goodness that is not Christ's is not infinite, not limitless, not God's, and therefore, not immortal. Immortality is the principal characteristic of Christ's goodness. Thus, immortality is essential to the morality of the man of Christ as a feeling, as a consciousness, as a deed, as a practice.
To feel the Lord Christ as the soul of one's soul, as the life of one's life—that is human immortality, for this ensures limitlessness and infinity. This is what ensures and guarantees boundless moral perfection, limitless moral progress toward God, Who is the sum of all infinities, all infinities, all perfections. Therefore, the categorical imperative of the Gospel is entirely natural, logical, and justified: "Be ye perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect" ( Matthew 5:48 ), that is, be perfect as God . This is rightly demanded by the God-man Christ, for in Him the perfect God and perfect man are given; man is brought to the end of his progress toward God, man is perfected by divine perfection, man is immortally and eternally united with the all-perfect God.
The man of Christ moves along the path of divine perfection, overcoming sin and evil in himself and in the world around him. He always moves forward from good to good, from lesser to greater, from greater to greatest; yet he never stops or lingers, for any delay could mean spiritual stagnation, torpor, and even death. Through every pure thought, through every holy feeling, through every good desire and good word, he progresses toward resurrection, toward immortality, toward eternal life. But through every sinful thought, every impure feeling, unkind desire, and foul word, he rolls toward death without resurrection (cf. Rom. 5:16, 21, 6:23, 7:5-6, 8:2 ; James 1:15-17 ).
Overcoming sin and death, the man of Christ goes through three fundamental stages of Christian evolution in his life: birth in Christ, transformation in Christ, and resurrection in Christ (cf. John 1:12, 3:3 ; Col. 3:1 ; 2 Cor. 5:17–18 ; Rom. 6:5, 12:2 ; 1 Cor. 15:54 ). The ultimate goal of his struggle is to be resurrected with Christ. He endures various torments, fulfills the Savior’s commandments, and demonstrates the virtues of the Gospel: faith, love, hope, prayer, fasting, humility, mercy, meekness…, in order to be deemed worthy of the resurrection from the dead (cf. Phil. 3:8–11 ). Through all his sighs and tears, and prayers, and thoughts, and feelings, and deeds, he strives for this…
Man, you participate in divine-human progress, you create it, if you think, if you feel, if you act as if you have already risen, already conquered death, already entered into eternal life. And indeed: you have already conquered death, already entered into eternal life, if with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your thoughts you have believed in the Risen Lord Jesus, for He said: "He who believes in Him who sent Me has eternal life... has passed from death to life" ( John 5:24, 8:51 ). He who believes has already passed from death to life here on earth.
Yes, by faith in the Lord Christ the "serum" of immortality is injected into both the soul and the body of man. By faith and love, because this good news is also set forth in the Gospel: "We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love his brother abides in death" ( 1 John 3:14 ). The Lord Christ is the only Way that does not end in pathlessness, the only Truth that does not end in lies, the only Life that does not end in death, therefore He could declare to everyone for all time and for all eternity: "I am the Way, the Truth , and the Life" ( John 14:6 ). And since He was the first and only one to conquer death by the Resurrection and thus ensured man immortality and eternal life, He alone could say of Himself: "I am the resurrection and the life: he who believes in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whoever lives and believes in Me will never die” ( John 11:25–26 ).
By faith in the Risen God-Man, man only begins to be human, for he is freed from sin and death and attains a sense of immortality. Sin is a dark force that dulls, withers, and destroys the sense of immortality, so that man, neither by feeling nor by thought, attains the living and true God. Such a person is a crippled man, a half-man, a humanistic man; in a word, a subhuman. The Lord Christ came into the world and conquered death through the Resurrection to awaken man to immortality and eternal life, to revive and refresh the hardened and stagnant sense of immortality in man, so that man might thus experience God and eternal life as the meaning of human life both on earth and in heaven.
In essence, the Church is nothing other than a divine workshop, where the human sense and awareness of personal immortality and infinity are constantly enlivened, refreshed, and strengthened. Doesn't prayer immortalize the soul, connecting it with God? Doesn't mercy, kindness, meekness, and fasting immortalize a person, transporting both heart and soul to the eternal kingdom of Christ's Truth? Let's not deceive ourselves: every prayer gradually conquers death within you, and every evangelical virtue does the same; and all together they bring victory over death and ensure eternal life.
In the divine-human progress, Christ is invariably present for man as God's path through God's Truth to eternal and immortal life. The Lord Christ not only established divine perfection as the goal of divine-human progress, but also granted man all divine powers to achieve this goal (cf. 2 Pet. 1:3-9 ). Although the path of divine-human progress is infinitely long, it is nevertheless filled with joy and admiration, which the holy apostle expresses in the words: "Brethren, rejoice, be perfected, be of good comfort" ( 2 Cor. 13:11 ); "For the kingdom of God is not food and drink, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit" ( Rom. 14:17 ).
God-human progress, as the antithesis of humanistic progress, is close to the soul of our people and dear to the heart of our people. And it was made close and dear by the greatest creator of God-human progress in the history of our people – Saint Sava. For our national sensibilities and consciousness, the person and work of Saint Sava provide the ideology and pragmatics of true progress. What, in fact, is progress for Saint Sava? Nothing other than victory over death; and this means victory over evil, over sin, and through this, ensuring immortality for each individual soul and for the soul of our people as a whole. In other words, for Saint Sava, progress consisted of finding the Lord Christ, living in Him, through Him, and for His sake, and thus conquering sin and death in oneself and in those around one.
Theanthropic progress from man to God-man, from death to immortality, is accomplished through self-transformation through the Gospel's ascetic labors, for through them death is conquered and the soul is immortalized, thoughts are immortalized, and feelings are immortalized. In the person of Saint Sava, we see the realized program of theanthropic progress. Through Christ-driven ascetic labors, he transformed himself from mortal into immortal, from transitory into imperishable, from unholy into holy. For him, the miraculous Lord Jesus was all in all: all in the soul, all in the heart, all in life, all in the people, all in the state. Without Christ, life, heart, soul, and people are nothing other than death, beyond which there is no resurrection. Having sanctified and enlightened himself through life in Christ, Saint Sava became the first creator of the only true progress in our nation—victory over death, over evil, over sin, over darkness. Therefore, there is no death either in his person or in his deeds, but divine immortality and eternity are spread throughout everything that is his.
Having conquered all that was sinful and mortal within himself through the Gospel's struggles, Saint Sava filled himself with immortality and eternal life, and thus became the "mentor, chief priest, and teacher" of the path that leads to life, from death to life. In our national history, he has always been and remains the greatest and most irreplaceable leader of our people from death to immortality, from this transitory life to eternal life. To us—both as individuals and as a nation—European cultural leaders incessantly offer and impose humanistic progress, which systematically destroys the sense of immortality in individuals and nations, equating human beings with mortal insects and animals. But in Saint Sava we have an infallible and fearless leader of divine-human progress, who transforms our souls into immortality and eternity, who, with his day-and-night prayers, invisibly guides us through this turbulent mill of death and leads us into the fragrance of Christ's immortality and eternity, where all perfections and all joys exist in harmony. Guided and led by Saint Sava in the struggle against sin and mortality, we—as individuals and as a people—will continually advance from victory to victory, from victory over sin to victory over death—and thus, and only thus, in this cannibalistic mill of death, will we ensure immortality for ourselves in this world and the next.
Source: https://azbyka.ru/otechnik/Iustin_Popovich/progress-v-melnitse-smerti/