Towards the Spiritual Convergence of America and Russia: American Mind and Russian Soul, American Individuality and Russian Community, and the Potent Alchemy of National Characteristics

Scientia + Fides =› Sapientia

Americans live so much of their inner lives ‘in the mind’, with rational, “common sense” thinking; with their full center of consciousness inside of their skulls, that it is (unconsciously) assumed that such a condition and manner of inner being is, as if, transnationally, transculturally and trans-historically inherent and “natural” to the human being as such. Even for those who would not concur with some high appraisal of the capacity and “supremacy of the mind”, either for reasons of religious belief, or some contrasting psychological interpretation of the human being, the preponderance of their inner life is still mostly lived, in thinking, in the rational mind. [187] Indeed, many “Westerners” — be they North American, Western European, or Russian — might ask what else they might do; how else they might be!

What we are considering here, is not whether one holds a materialistic, humanistic-anthropocentric, religious-theocentric or spiritual conception of life, world and man. But whether, holding any of these “belief-systems”, one does so predominately, with the rational-intellectual-thinking mind. It is the psychology, the mentality — the manner of inner being — which is here essential, and in question; not the contents of the “belief-system”, be it a spiritual, anthropological or material one. For what Kireyevsky and kindred spirits were, in this regard, challenging, was not so much the philosophy or “belief-system”, held by some Western individual or other, but rather how it was held — the mode, the mentality, the psychology of the individual who “believed it”, most often, with the rational mind. It was the predominance of the rational, conscious, thinking mind over the other sensibilities, forces, feelings, aspects, etc, of the human soul (psyche) and heart, which Kireyevsky, Khomyakov, Dostoyevsky, Vladimir Soloviev, et al, were challenging of the “Westerners”, be they European or Russian. Some special inwardness, in these and other Russians — and sensitive Europeans — found such “Westerners” to be incomplete, partial human beings; with an absence, rather than presence of soul. And, since “Westerners” were considered in comparison to the profound “vertical” conception and wisdom of life and man, which constituted the ideal core of Holy Russia, their incompleteness as human beings was viewed as being part and parcel of a secular-tending culture and civilization. Such a critique would obviously include, those philosophies and psychologies of man, be they from the Renaissance or the “Age of Reason”, which conceived man’s inner life to be centered, if not, at its best, limited, to the mind; with the outer life limited to the earthly “horizontal”. The “Slavophile” critique of Western Man can only be truly understood by recognizing that “vertical”, spiritual, Orthodox conception and comprehension of man, society and life which was the inner life which made Russia Holy.

The meaning of what Kireyevsky and others said, and are saying, to the “Westerner” — whether they be in nineteenth Berlin, Paris, London, Boston, or Moscow; оr in the late twentieth century, in the Soviet Union, or in some comfortable, academic American position, etc., etc., — is that the entire human soul, the whole inner life of man, with all its forces, feelings, capacities and aspects (especially the human heart) are requisite, not only for individual psychic as well as social health, but also for true knowledge and wisdom. (But not, and here is the deepest key — and the profound depth, in which they disagreed with Francis Bacon [188] — with the unredeemed, “fallen” condition of Man.)

In the conception of man borne by the Orthodox Church — and bespoken as well by prominent nineteenth century Russians — faith (fides in Latin) is not some religious intellectual “belief-system” of ideas, to which one gives (questioning or unquestioning) intellectual assent. It is rather conceived (cf. e.g. Kireyevsky or V. Soloviev [189]) as a living, inner presence, in and of the human heart and soul, toward aspects of life, meaning and being, which are beyond the common knowledge and experience, of the rational, earthly mind. Scientia is able to understand and manipulate the matters of the material world. It can also, especially when added to a scepticism of the heart, subjugate fides into an inner serfdom. Fides, by itself alone, may perhaps yield an innocent’s peace, a mystic’s otherworldliness or a holy foolishness. [190] But fides alone, can be overpowered by the practical realities of matter and scientia. Yet only both, scientia and fides - and fides as a vital soul presence [191] — can lead to illuminatory sapientia. In other words, the ennobled mind, a purified heart, the redeemed soul — and a repentant will — are requisite for real human knowledge and wisdom. The West’s scientia must be completed, indeed, redeemed from its one-sidedness. This, the Occident’s East, in Russia and Eastern Europe, could do by contributing a soul wholeness and a vertical conception of man. The Christian East’s fides must be incarnated into the realities of earthly life; this the accomplished West can do.