Pope John Paul II declared in a memorandum that « faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth.^[1] » Lev Shestov had a quite different stance on the subject. Indeed, considering the ancient narrative of Genesis, the Russian philosopher was thus speaking, « For reason is the fiery sword by means of which the Angel placed by God at the gates of Paradise drives men away.^[2] » He was referring to the heavenly beings evoked in the biblical text, « and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life. » (gen 324)

Who are we to believe? The theology of the prestigious Supreme Pontiff who ruled Vatican for nearly thirty years, or a barely known philosopher who went into exile to Paris where he died? For one, Reason raises man, for the other, Reason deprives man of the greatest good. The Pope takes off with Reason in order to meet divine truth whereas Shestov sees in Reason an unbendable enemy constantly threatening him. How then, from the same biblical text, could such an abyss form between those men? Do we see mankind dividing itself up equally between its two sides? Niet! All men have long agreed with the popes’ views – or rather, it is Rome who long ago joined intelligent and reasonable men!

In the same encyclical, John Paul II gets into deeper water as he eventually adds, « philosophical thought is often the only ground for understanding and dialogue with those who do not share our faith ». Let it be reminded that the Roman Bishop bears a title inherited from Latin Antiquity, a title which used to indicate the highest priest of pagan Rome: the Pontifex Maximus, that is, the Great Bridge Builder. John Paul II, in the tradition of his multiple predecessors, is building in this instance a philosophical bridge in order to unite the Church with the rest of reasonable mankind. This way, Christian men will see in Reason one of the Spirit’s wings that allows men to rise and fly from progress to progress. It then belongs to each of us to decide what suits them best as second wing: Science, goes the Atheist, Theology, popes will say, pretending it is the « Science of Faith ». This is how the fire of Reason has burned Faith and then turned it into a divine science. The popes took the spirit’s liberty and transformed it into a fiery and vindictive sword; they tore up its wings. They do not fly, they walk on earth, burning everything that does not obey their reason – like that Failed-man, the sinner.

Shestov, however, had undertaken the task « not to reconcile science and philosophy but to sunder them ». He added, « the deeper and more bitter the enmity between philosophy and science, the more humanity will win by it^[3] ». As for himself, he smashed the bridge built by the popes. He remained there, exiled from the other side of the abyss, joining with the small remnant of men for whom that knowledge possessed by the Angel with the fiery sword is but magic for the intelligent. What sort of philosophy free from the logical workings of Reason did Shestov elaborate this side of the chasm? The one, he declared, that « proposes not to accept but to overcome the self-evidences and which introduces into our thought a new dimension - faith. »

And so the popes threw out faith to Reason, that fascinates them, and, turning it into a Science of God, they built up cathedrals of rules and doctrines to which one only needs to bow down and to obey in order to reach the divine. But one does not buy Faith with the lights of Reason and its wise moral. And not only does Faith disobey Reason, but furthermore, it wants to subject it to Freedom because it knows how Reason goes crazy when in a ruling position. Faith in God feeds on a liberty that no logic can catch hold of. Therefore, whoever builds a bridge in order to tie them one to another is actually performing a transplant, on the same body, of feathers of divine Freedom next to the leaden wing of reasonable truths. In so doing, they are preparing the world to collapse into the bottomless abyss that precisely separates God from our Sciences of the truth.

The kingdom of God, where faith leads to, is a place where truths no longer accuse the soul with their fiery swords. There, the angelic fire of their power has lost the authority their self-evident truths still wield down here. In divine reality, truths live and die at the discretion of the sons of man’s will. There, their contradictions do not trouble neither beings nor nature. This is why, in the present world, a man of faith will be tense with all of his strength in the resistance against the popes of wisdom. For he refuses, lest he associate with them, to burn the budding wings his God forms him to go meet Him one day. It happened during those painful wanderings that Shestov came upon the following consolation – he remembered « the battle against self-evident truths » that Christ also waged when He was tempted in the wilderness:

« When Athens proclaims urbi et orbi, for the city and for the world : If you wish to subject everything to yourself, subject yourself to reason,^[4] Jerusalem hears through these words : All these things will I give thee if thou wilt fall down and worship me ; and answers : Get thee hence, Satan ! For it is written : Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and Him only shalt thou serve. »^[5] 

Ivsan Otets

[1]  John Paul II, Fides et Ratio · Encyclical, 14 September 1998.
[2]  Lev Shestov, Potestas Clavium – « On the Roots of Things. »
[3]  Lev Shestov, In Job’s Balances – « On the Philosophy of History. »
[4]  Seneca, Letters to Lucilius, letter 37-4 (Latin in original – Si vis tibi omnia subjicere, te subjice rationi).
[5]  Lev Shestov, Athens and Jerusalem – « On the Philosophy of the Middles Ages. »