Philosophical and religious views of Tolstoy
The life of Leo Tolstoy is divided into two completely different parts. The first half of Leo Tolstoy's life, according to all generally accepted criteria, was very successful, happily. A count by birth, he received a good upbringing and a rich inheritance. He entered life as a typical representative of the highest nobility. He had a wild, wild youth. In 1851 he served in the Caucasus, in 1854 he took part in the defense of Sevastopol. However, his main occupation was writing. Although stories and stories brought glory to Tolstoy, and large fees strengthened his fortune, nevertheless, his literary faith began to be undermined. He saw that writers do not play their own role: they teach, not knowing what to teach, and constantly argue among themselves about whose truth is higher, in their work they are driven by selfish motives to a greater extent than ordinary people who do not pretend to the role of mentors in society. Without giving up writing, he left the literary environment and after a six-month trip abroad (1857) took up teaching activities among the peasants (1858). For a year (1861) he served as a world mediator in disputes between peasants and landowners. Nothing brought Tolstoy complete satisfaction. The frustrations that accompanied each of his activities became a source of growing inner turmoil, from which nothing could save. The growing spiritual crisis led to a sharp and irreversible upheaval in Tolstoy's worldview. This coup was the beginning of the second half of life.

The second half of Leo Tolstoy's conscious life was the negation of the first. He came to the conclusion that he, like most people, lived a life devoid of meaning - he lived for himself. Everything that he valued — pleasure, fame, wealth — is subject to decay and oblivion. “I,” writes Tolstoy, “seemed to have lived and lived, walked and walked and came to the abyss and clearly saw that there was nothing ahead but destruction.” It is not these or those steps in life that are false, but its very direction, that faith, or rather the unbelief that lies at its foundation. And what is not a lie, what is not vanity? Tolstoy found the answer to this question in the teachings of Christ. It teaches that a person should serve the one who sent him into this world - God and in his simple commandments shows how to do this.

So, the basis of Tolstoy's philosophy is the Christian teaching. But Tolstoy's understanding of this teaching was special. Lev Nikolaevich viewed Christ as a great teacher of morality, a preacher of truth, but nothing more. He rejected the divinity of Christ and other difficult-to-understand mystical aspects of Christianity, believing that the surest sign of truth is simplicity and clarity, and Lie is always complex, pretentious and verbose. These views of Tolstoy are most clearly seen in his work "The Teachings of Christ Set out for Children," in which he retells the Gospel, excluding from the narrative all mystical scenes indicating the divinity of Jesus.

Tolstoy preached the striving for moral perfection. The highest moral rule, the law of human life, he considered perfect love for neighbors. Along the way, he cited some of the commandments taken from the Gospel as fundamental:

1) Do not be angry;

2) Do not leave your wife, i.e. do not commit adultery;

3) Do not ever swear to anyone or anything;

4) Do not resist the evil force;

5) Do not consider people of other nations as your enemies.
According to Tolstoy, the main of the five commandments is the fourth: "Do not resist evil", which imposes a ban on violence. He believes that violence can never be a blessing, under any circumstances. In his understanding, violence coincides with evil and it is directly opposite to love. To love means to do as the other wants, to subordinate one's will to the will of another. To rape means to subordinate someone else's will to your own. Through non-resistance, a person recognizes that the issues of life and death are beyond his competence. A person has power only over himself. From these positions, Tolstoy criticized the state that tolerates violence and practices the death penalty. “When we execute a criminal, then again we cannot be 100% sure that the criminal will not change, will not repent and that our execution will not turn out to be useless cruelty,” he said.

Tolstoy's reflections on the meaning of life

Realizing that life simply cannot be meaningless, Tolstoy devoted a lot of time and effort to finding an answer to the question of the meaning of life. Moreover, he became more and more discouraged in the possibilities of reason and rational knowledge.

“It was impossible to look for an answer to my question in rational knowledge,” writes Tolstoy. I had to admit that "all living mankind has some other knowledge, unreasonable - faith, which makes it possible to live."

Observations of the life experience of ordinary people, who are characterized by a meaningful attitude to their own life with a clear understanding of its insignificance, and the correctly understood logic of the very question of the meaning of life, lead Tolstoy to the same conclusion that the question of the meaning of life is a matter of faith, and not knowledge. In Tolstoy's philosophy, the concept of faith has a special content. "Faith is the consciousness of a person of his position in the world, which obliges him to certain actions." “Faith is knowledge of the meaning of human life, as a result of which a person does not destroy himself, but lives. Faith is the power of life. " From these definitions it becomes clear that for Tolstoy a life that has meaning and a life based on faith are one and the same.

The following conclusion follows from the works written by Tolstoy: the meaning of life cannot be that it dies with the death of a person. This means: he cannot be contained in life for himself, as well as in life for other people, for they too die, as in life for humanity, because it is not eternal either. "Life for oneself cannot make any sense ... To live reasonably, one must live in such a way that death cannot destroy life." Tolstoy considered only service to the eternal God to be meaningful. This ministry consisted for him in fulfilling the commandments of love, non-resistance to violence and self-improvement.

Lysenkov V.

The object of the research is Leo Tolstoy's religious and philosophical treatises "Confession", "What is My Faith?", "On Life".

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Republic of Tatarstan

Tukaevsky municipal district

MBOU "Betkinskaya secondary school"

Research work on the topic

"Leo Tolstoy's Religious and Philosophical Views"

(section: Life and work of Leo Tolstoy)

I've done the work

Lysenkov V.,

grade 10 student

Supervisor:

Lysenkova S.L.,

teacher of Russian language

And literature

2015 year

Introduction ………………………………………………………………………… ..3

Main part

Religious and philosophical sounding of "Confessions", treatises "What is my faith?", "On life" ……………. ………………………………………………… ..5

Conclusion ……………………………………………………………………… ..9

Bibliography ………………………………………………………………… 10

Introduction

How should you live? What is evil, what is good? How to find the truth, if you are lost from the abundance of answers, just voicing the question? And what is there outside of life? What is the meaning of my life? Why did I come to this world?

Any person asks himself such questions at least once in his life. Someone, not finding the right answer, continues to live as he lives, suffer, rejoice, suffer and wish for the best. Another person cannot live without resolving these issues for themselves. And after all, the desire, or rather, the need for solving these philosophical questions is not a whim at all. The answers to them form a person's worldview, which means that they also indicate the direction in which life is further built, and determine a person's thoughts, words, actions.

One cannot do without philosophical questions in literature, which reflects both an individual person, with all his searches, doubts, aspirations, and all of humanity as a whole. But literature does not reflect the impartially existing reality and does not engage in simple statement of facts. She sets herself grandiose philosophical, moral and educational tasks. Literature teaches, shapes the worldview of its reader, which means that it also touches on the most complex, ambiguous aspects of life and tries to answer those questions that are always of interest to the seeker.

Leo Tolstoy, "the patriarch of Russian literature," made his contribution to world philosophy, culture, literature not only as a genius writer, but also as a truly great thinker.

Scientific comprehension of the philosophical and publicistic heritage of L.N. Tolstoy demands attention for several reasons. On the one hand, many researchers, politicians, public figures, readers began to actively use the thoughts and statements of the writer to confirm their own views, distorting the meaning of Tolstoy's words and ideas. This is due to the fact that for many years his religious and philosophical works were not published, the spiritual and moral side of Leo Tolstoy's works was not studied. The experience of the writer's spiritual life has not been studied either.

On the other hand, the gap between the goals and values ​​of modern society from Tolstoy's understanding of the highest life truth is becoming more and more obvious. This raises the problem of understanding and implementing the religious and philosophical heritage reflected in the works of L.N. Tolstoy.

So, and the relevance The topic is determined by the need of modern society to study the deep resources of human nature, to identify the possibilities of dialogue between the secular and spiritual principles of culture, both domestic and world.

Object studies are the religious and philosophical treatises of Leo Tolstoy "Confession", "What is my faith?", "On life."

Item research - the spiritual life of Leo Tolstoy, his searches, internal contradictions.

Target work - to find out and understand the religious and philosophical theory of Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy. Is it worth popularizing this side of the writer's life and work? After all, it is unacceptable both for an atheist and for a church-believing person. But, despite this, we should not show indifference to his inner spiritual life, his searches, because the very attitude of Tolstoy to these questions and to the search for answers to them cannot but resonate in our soul.

To achieve this goal, it is necessary to solve the following tasks :

Get acquainted with the treatises of Leo Tolstoy "Confession", "What is my faith", "On life";

Get acquainted with the works of research scientists;

Prove the significance of the religious and philosophical views of L.N. Tolstoy.

Work structure.This work consists of an introduction, a main part and a conclusion. The main part deals with the philosophical and religious views of L.N. Tolstoy, attention is focused on the main works of Tolstoy in the 1880s of the XIX century, in which the path of the writer to a new moral and religious worldview was indicated: "Confession", treatises "What is my faith?", "On life".

Research methods:

Study of works Leo Tolstoy "Confession", "What is my faith", "About life";

Analysis of critical articles about Leo Tolstoy.

Main part. Religious and philosophical sound of "Confessions", treatises "What is my faith?", "On life"

Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy (1828 - 1910) - the great Russian writer and thinker. His work had a significant impact on world culture, he is the author of wonderful works of art, deep socio-political and religious-ethical treatises. Tolstoy was primarily interested in the problems of human life, which he considered from the point of view of humanism, universal human moral norms and natural needs and ideals of man. The artist's philosophical reflections are not abstract judgments, but a certain concept of life and a way of transforming social relations on the path of improving and creating good.

That is why, I repeat, we should not show indifference to his inner spiritual life, his searches, because the very attitude of Tolstoy to these questions and to the search for answers to them cannot but resonate in our soul.

The man who created the patriotic epic "War and Peace" - he condemned patriotism.

Having written immortal pages about love, about family, he eventually turned his back on both.

One of the greatest masters of the word, he sarcastically ridiculed all forms of art.

The God-seeker, who found the foundation of life in faith, Tolstoy, in essence, undermined its foundations.

Preaching the Gospel of Christ, he found himself in an acute conflict with Christianity and was excommunicated from the Church.

Finally, he, who prioritized non-resistance and meekness, was a rebel at heart. Taking up arms against the Church and culture, he did not stop before the harshest expressions, which sometimes sounded like gross blasphemy.

And these are far from all the contradictions that tormented Tolstoy.

But what has been said is enough to feel what storms raged in his life, consciousness and creativity. Isn't this a tragedy of a genius?

The Confession is an invaluable human document. In it, the writer shares with his readers his attempt to comprehend his own life path, the path to what he considered to be true. The preconditions for the creation of the "Confession" refute the popular belief that a person thinks about eternal questions only under the influence of difficulties and adversities.

The crisis overtook Leo Tolstoy during the heyday of his talent and at the zenith of success.

A loving and beloved family, wealth, the joy of creative work, a chorus of noble readers ... And suddenly the question pops up: “Why? Well, then? " The obvious meaninglessness of life in the absence of an inner core in it strikes a fifty-year-old writer like a blow.

This is how he himself said about it: “My life has stopped. I could breathe, eat, drink, sleep, and I could not breathe, eat, drink, sleep; but there was no life, because there were no such desires, the satisfaction of which I would find reasonable. If I wanted something, then I knew ahead of time that whether I would satisfy or not satisfy my desire, nothing would come of it. ”

Tolstoy begins his "Confession" with the assertion that, having lost faith in his youth, since then he has lived without it for many years. Is he fair to himself? Hardly. There was faith. Even if not always conscious, but it was. Young Tolstoy believed in the perfection and beauty of Nature, in the happiness and peace that a person finds in unity with her.

But this was not enough. The voice of conscience sounded in him, suggesting that in nature alone you will not find answers to your questions.

“My question,” writes Tolstoy, “the one that led me to commit suicide at the age of fifty, was the simplest question lying in the soul of every person, from a stupid child to the wisest old man, - the question without which life is impossible, as I felt in practice".

Science did not give an answer. Pessimistic philosophy led to a dead end. It was even less possible to count on social ideals, for if you did not know why all this was, the ideals themselves would fly into smoke.

In Tolstoy's eyes, faith remained something absurd. And yet, looking back at other people, he was forced to admit that it was she who fills their lives with meaning.

Leo Tolstoy abandoned the Church, in fact, never recognizing it. He strove to create a new religion, but still wanted it to be called Christian.

A deeper study of religion by Tolstoy is described in the treatise "What is my faith." In it we read: “The teaching of Christ has a universal human meaning; the teaching of Christ has the simplest, clearest, most practical meaning for man. " This meaning can be expressed as follows: Christ teaches people not to do stupid things. This is the simplest, all accessible meaning of Christ's teaching. Tolstoy said that the Gospel is true Christianity.

Historian D.N. Ovsyaniko-Kulikovsky once said that Tolstoy wanted to be a religious reformer, but fate gave him a literary gift instead of a mystical gift.

Nikolai Berdyaev admitted that "any attempt by Tolstoy to express in words - to log into - his religious element gave rise to only banal gray thoughts."

This is hardly a coincidence. Tolstoy's failure only proves that religions are not artificially created, not invented.

Isn't that why, in spite of his secret plan, he denied "Tolstoyism" and continued to insist that he was preaching not his own doctrine, but the Gospel.

Here lies the main reason for his conflict with the Church, his excommunication by the Synod. He fiercely, offensively wrote about the sacraments of the Church, about her teaching, but he claimed that he was a Christian, that only his view of understanding Christianity was true.

However, Tolstoy does not stop there and continues to write his religious and philosophical teachings. Another book on the "dominant meaning of consciousness", written in 1887, was originally entitled "On Life and Death"; As its general concept developed, Tolstoy came to the conclusion that death does not exist for a person who has learned the meaning of life in the fulfillment of the highest good - serving God, that is, the highest moral truth, he deleted the word "death" from the title of the treatise.

This book is based on Leo Nikolaevich's intense reflections on life and death, which always occupied Tolstoy and became aggravated during a serious illness in the fall of 1886. The main idea of ​​the future treatise, consisting of an introduction, thirty-five chapters, a conclusion and threeadditions, is expressed quite clearly already in a letter to A.K. Chertkova: “A person, you, me, is given at a certain period of his life an amazing and terrifying at first internal contradiction of his personal life and mind ... the soul of every person ... This contradiction for a person cannot be resolved by words, since it is the basis of a person's life, and is resolved for a person only by life - the activity of life, liberating a person from this contradiction. " Briefly, this contradiction is defined as follows: "I want to live for myself and I want to be reasonable, but to live for myself is unreasonable." It goes on to say that this contradiction is the "law of life," like rotting grain that sprouts. Spiritual birth frees a person from the fear of death.

Tolstoy considered the book "On Life" to be the most important among others who set forth his views. In October 1889, to the question of the geographer and writer V.V. Mainov, Tolstoy answered: “You asked which of my own works I consider more important? Can't say which of the two: "What is my faith?" or "About life".

Summing up the results of all the teachings of Lev Nikolaevich, we can say that they turn into historical nihilism, a rejection of creativity in history, a denial of culture. This is the main contradiction of Tolstoy, since the untruth of life is "overcome" by the rejection of all tasks, from creativity, from progressive historical development.

On February 24, 1901, on the day of excommunication from the church, everyone was waiting for Tolstoy's own answer, and he replied “... in my will to my loved ones, so that when I die, they would not allow church ministers to see me, and my dead body would be removed as soon as possible, without any spells and prayers over it ... "

The subsequent evolution of Tolstoy, the immediate causes and consequences of the spiritual crisis that caused the writer's departure from Yasnaya Polyana, his dying visit to Optina Hermitage and the Shamordinsky monastery are extremely interesting. This is seen as an attempt at repentance and reconciliation with the church. But Lev Nikolaevich said that “... I just cannot return to church, take communion before death, just as I cannot speak obscene words or look at obscene pictures before death, and therefore everything that will talk about my dying repentance and communion is a lie ... ".

Conclusion

The contradictions of Tolstoy are largely due to the constant collision of two elements in him: artistic and rational. And here we have the right to say that, entrusting himself with the mission of a preacher of a "new religion", Tolstoy is fighting the perversions of Christianity for allegedly correctly understanding the teachings of Christ, his subjective opinion is in contradiction with reality.

However, we cannot but agree that Tolstoy truly became the voice of Russia and the world, a living reproach for people who are confident that they live in accordance with Christian principles. His intolerance of violence and lies, his protests against murder and social contrasts, against the indifference of some and the plight of others are precious in his teaching.

It is important to see this meaning of Leo Tolstoy. After all, even in the mistakes of great people, you can find a lesson and a creative element. For Tolstoy, this was a call for moral revival, for the search for faith.

Tolstoy's tragedy is the tragedy of a man who has not gotten rid of the hypnosis of rationality, of rationalism. But despite this, his religious and philosophical writings can teach us a lot. Tolstoy reminded the man that he was living an unworthy, humiliating, perverted, vain life, that the peoples and states calling themselves Christian had pushed into the background something extremely important in the Gospel.

Let the religion of Tolstoy objectively not be identified with the religion of the Gospel; the conclusion that he came to after experiencing an internal crisis remains indisputable. This conclusion says: it is impossible to live without faith, and faith is the true basis of morality.

Bibliography

1. Tolstoy L.N. Confession. What is my faith? - L .: Fiction, Leningrad branch, 1991.

2. Lomunov K.N. The Life of Leo Tolstoy. - M .: Fiction, 1981.

3. Opulskaya L. D. Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy. Materials for the biography from 1886 to 1892. - M .: ed. "Science", 1979.

4. Prometheus: Historical and Biographical Almanac of the Life of Remarkable People series / Comp. Yu. Seleznev. - T.12. - M .: Mol.Gvardiya, 1980.

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Introduction 3

Chapter 1. Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy 5

1.1. Spiritual quest of Lev Nikolaevich ... ………………………… .5

Chapter 2. The difference between the religious views of Lev Nikolaevich from

official Orthodoxy ………………………………………………. eight

2.1. What is my faith ……………………………… .. …… ………………… ... 8

Conclusion 13

List of used literature 14

Introduction

Relevance of the topic control work lies in the fact that at present the religious views of Tolstoy from official Orthodoxy are poorly studied. The Church is trying to distort the opinion of the writer, giving a not always correct assessment of the thinking of Lev Nikolaevich, persuading people to take its side.

In our time, after the country lived in atheism for 70 years, and the Orthodox religion again began to prevail in the hearts of people, many began to think about God. The correctness of the Orthodox religion is the main meaning of Tolstoy's spiritual quest. Lev Nikolaevich describes very well the shortcomings of the Orthodox religion. He is looking for the true God, is engaged in the translation of the originals of the Gospel. His religious writings should be read by everyone, especially those who consider themselves a Christian.

If it is still possible not to think about church dogmas (since a dogma is a decree, the provisions of a doctrine approved by the highest church authorities, issued by the church as an immutable truth and not subject to criticism), then it is impossible to calmly talk about the many shortcomings intertwined by religion and society that the writer reveals. If we analyze the religious works of Tolstoy, then we can draw a parallel between the time of the Orthodox Church and understand that many things remain unchanged today.

The degree of study of the topic. The religious and philosophical views of Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy were well represented by A.V. Men. 1

Purpose of work: consider the religious views of Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy, find the main differences between the religious views of the writer and official Orthodoxy.

Tasks:

1. Analyze the spiritual quest of Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy
2. To study the differences between the religious views of Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy and the Orthodox religion.

Work structure: the test consists of an introduction, two chapters, a conclusion and a list of used literature.

Chapter 1. Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy

1. Spiritual quest of Lev Nikolaevich

The history of Lev Nikolaevich's spiritual quests is the history of his generation, and not one, but even several. The writer lived a long life, and Tolstoy's influence on his contemporaries was colossal. However, today's readers have a vague idea of ​​what was the meaning of his teaching and what is the tragedy of the great writer. Speaking of Tolstoy, they primarily mean a writer, authors of novels, but they forget that he is also a thinker. The thinker who created his own philosophy was dissatisfied with Christian dogmas and criticized the Orthodox Church.

Lev Nikolayevich early began to think about the meaning of life, analyze his actions, think about the ethical aspects of human life. Also early he thought about God, about the Orthodox faith and wrote in the religious work “Confession”: “I was baptized and raised in the Orthodox Christian faith. I was taught it from childhood, and throughout my adolescence and youth. But when I left the second year of university at the age of 18, I no longer believed in anything that I was taught ”2. But you should not take this statement of Tolstoy literally, he had faith, but only vague in the form of deism. He was looking for the meaning of life in family, work, in what people call happiness.

“War and Peace” is a novel in which Lev Nikolayevich believes in fate that leads a person to where he does not want to go. For him, Napoleon seems to be a certain historical figure, and the mass of people moves like ants according to some mysterious laws. Tolstoy also believes in the reunification of man with nature. Prince Andrew speaks internally with an oak tree. The oak is an endless symbol of nature, which the hero's soul strives for. In vain are the spiritual searches of Pierre Bezukhov, who becomes a Freemason, performing their rites (blindfold and repeating words). It is strange that the heroes of the novel do not even think of following the Christian path. Deism, which spread by the 18th century, is to blame. the dogmas of deism, which denies both Revelation, and the Incarnation, and the person of Jesus Christ as the Revelation of God on earth, and presents Him only as a teacher and prophet.

Anna Karenina is a tragic novel that shows Anna's moral death. The writer describes the story of a woman's life as an evil fate, fate, a mysterious God deals with a sinner. And so Leo Tolstoy began his novel with words from the Bible, with the words of God: "Vengeance is mine, and I will repay." 3 Tolstoy interpreted these words as fate, that is, God, takes revenge on a person for sin, punishes.

Anathema overtook Lev Nikolaevich, when in the novel Resurrection he wrote about the main sacrament of Christ's faith, about the Eucharist: “taking a gilded cup in his hands, went out with it to the middle door and invited those who wanted to also eat the body and blood of God, which were in the cup ". 4

You can call Tolstoy a spiritual dissident, or a dissenter. He was looking for answers to religious questions that the Holy Scriptures and the Orthodox Church could not always explain. Simple and intelligent people told him about faith, but he could not understand their faith and stubbornly sought his own.

Many argue that a person finds God in himself in difficult times, but if you look at Lev Nikolaevich, you cannot say that he experienced difficulties. He had everything for his own happiness: talent, family, wealth. But he pauses, ponders and asks questions: “What will come of what I do today, what will I do tomorrow - what will come of my whole life? Why should I live, why want something, why do something? Is there a meaning in my life that would not be destroyed by the inevitable death that awaits me? " In his search for answers to the question of life, the writer experienced the same feeling that overcomes a lost man in the forest. 5

Chapter 2. Difference between Leo Tolstoy's religious views and official Orthodoxy

1. What is my faith

Tolstoy's disagreement with the Orthodox Church began very early. Being an erudite person, he knew a lot and considered it wrong to be a Christian and not fulfill the position of non-resistance to evil. From childhood, the writer was taught that Christ is God and his teaching is Divine, but they also taught to respect institutions that provide security from evil by violence, taught to honor these institutions as sacred. Lev Nikolaevich was taught to resist the evil and was taught that it was humiliating to submit to the evil, and commendable to repulse evil. Then Tolstoy was taught to fight, i.e. to resist the wicked by murder, and the army, of which he was a member, was called the Christ-loving army; and this activity was sanctified with a Christian blessing. In addition, from childhood to maturity, he was taught to respect that which directly contradicts the law of Christ. To rebuff the offender, to avenge the insult with violence; all this was not only not denied, but also inspired Tolstoy that all this is wonderful and does not contradict the law of Christ. After all this, Lev Nikolaevich had a delusion. It arose from confessing Christ in words and denying him in deeds. “Everyone understands the teaching of Christ in the most varied ways, but not in that straightforwardly simple sense that inevitably follows from His words,” 6 Lev Nikolaevich believes. People have arranged their whole life on the grounds that Jesus denies, and no one wants to understand the teaching of Christ, in its literal sense. The law of Christ is not inherent in human nature, it consists in rejecting from oneself this dreamy teaching of people about non-resistance to evil, which is not inherent in human nature, making their life miserable. The world, not the one that God gave for the joy of man, but the world that was created by people for their destruction, is a dream, and the dream is the wildest, terrible, delirium of a madman, from which you only have to wake up once so that you will never return to this awful dream. People have forgotten what Christ taught, what he told us about our life - that you cannot be angry, kill, you cannot defend yourself, but you must turn your cheek to the offender, that you need to love your enemies. Jesus could not imagine that those who believe in his teachings of love and humility can safely kill their brothers.

Lev Nikolaevich cites as an example a young peasant who refused military service on the basis of the Gospel. Church teachers instilled in the young man his error, but since he believed not them, but Christ, he was put in prison and kept there until the young man denied Christ. And this happened after 1800 years, as Christians were given the commandment: "Do not consider people of other nations as your enemies, but consider all people as brothers and treat everyone in the same way as you treat the people of your people, and therefore not only do not kill those who are whom you call your enemies, but love them and do them good. " 7

Public opinion, religion, science, everyone says that humanity is leading a wrong life, but how to become better and make life better is an impracticable teaching. Religion explains this by the fact that Adam fell and the world lies in evil. Science says the same thing, but in other words, the dogma of original sin and atonement. In the doctrine of redemption, there are two points on which everything rests: 1) the lawful human life is a blissful life, while the worldly life here is a bad life that cannot be corrected by the efforts of man, and 2) salvation from this life is in faith. These two points became the basis for believers and non-believers in pseudo-Christian societies. From the second point the church and its institutions emerged, and from the first point philosophical and public opinions emerge.

The perversion of the meaning of life has perverted all rational human activity. The dogma of the fall and redemption of a person closed from people and excluded all knowledge so that a person could understand what he needs for a better life. Philosophy and science are hostile to pseudo-Christianity and are proud of it. Philosophy and science talk about everything, but not about how to make life better than it is.

The teaching of Jesus Christ is the teaching about the son of man, so that people do good, strive for a better way of being. One must understand the teaching of Christ about eternal life in God. Jesus himself did not say a word about his resurrection, but as theologians teach, the basis of the faith of Christ is that Jesus was resurrected, knowing that the main dogma of faith will consist precisely in the resurrection. But Christ never mentioned this in the Gospel, he exalts the son of man, i.e. the essence of human life is to recognize oneself as the son of God. Jesus says: that he will be tortured and killed, the Son of Man, who recognized himself as the son of God, will nevertheless be restored and triumph over everything. And these words are interpreted as a prediction of his resurrection. eight

Chinese, Hindus, Jews and all people in the world who do not believe in the doctrine of the fall of man and his redemption, life is life as it is. A person is born, lives, has children, brings them up, grows old and dies. His children continue a life that continues from generation to generation. Our church says that human life is the highest good, it seems to us a small particle of that life that is hidden from us for a while. Our life is bad and fallen, a mockery of the present, of the one that for some reason we imagine that God should have given us. The purpose of our life is not to live it the way God wants it, not to make it eternal in generations of people, like the Jews, or to merge it with the will of the Father, as Christ taught, but to believe, that after mortal life the real one will begin. Jesus did not speak about our imaginary life, but which God had to give, but did not give. Christ did not know about the fall of Adam and eternal life in paradise and the immortal soul breathed into Adam by God, and he never mentioned this anywhere. Jesus taught about life as it is and always will be. We mean that imaginary life that never existed.

There is a very old misconception that it is better for a person to leave the world than to succumb to temptations. Long before Christ, a story was written against this delusion about the prophet Jonah. The idea in the story is the same: Jonah is a prophet who alone wants to be righteous and leaves wicked people. But God tells him that - he is a prophet who must tell the lost people the truth, and therefore he must be near people, and not leave them. Jonah scorns the depraved Ninevites and flees from them. But no matter how the prophet runs away from his appointment, God still brings him to the Ninevites and they accept the teachings of God through Jonah and their life becomes better. But Jonah is not happy that he is an instrument of the will of God, he is vexed and jealous of God for the Ninevites - he alone wanted to be good and reasonable. The prophet goes into the wilderness, weeps and laments against God. After that, a pumpkin grows over Jonah in one night, which saves him from the sun, and on the other night, the worm eats the pumpkin. Jonah complains even more about God for the missing pumpkin. Then God says to the prophet: you regret that the pumpkin that you considered yours was gone, but I wasn’t sorry for the huge people who died living like an animal, unable to distinguish the right hand from the left. Your knowledge of the truth was needed to convey it to those who did not know it. nine

The Church teaches that Christ is the God-man who gave us an example of life. The whole life of Jesus known to us takes place in the center of events: with harlots, publicans, with the Pharisees. The main commandments of Christ are love for one's neighbor and the preaching of his teachings to people, and this requires an indestructible communion with the world. The conclusion is that according to the teachings of Christ, one must get away from everyone, get away from the world. It turns out that you need to do exactly the opposite of what Jesus taught and what he did. The church tells worldly and monastic people not by teaching about life - how to make it better for oneself and for others, but by teaching about what a secular person needs to believe in order to live wrongly, nevertheless, to be saved in the next world. make life worse than it is. But Christ did not teach this. Jesus taught the truth, but if the truth is abstract, then this truth will be true in reality. If life in God is an indivisible true life, blissful in itself, then it is true, here on earth, under all possible circumstances in life. If life here did not confirm Christ's teaching about life, then this teaching would not be true. ten 2.1. What is my faith ……………………………… .. ……………………… ... 8
Conclusion 13
List of used literature 14

Tolstoy is a great master of artistic words and a great thinker. His whole life, his heart and mind were occupied with one burning question, which to one degree or another left its painful imprint on all his works. We feel his darkening presence in The Story of My Childhood, in War and Peace, in Anna Karenina, until he finally absorbed him in the last years of his life, when such works as My Faith were created, " What is my faith? "," What to do? "," On life "and" The Kreutzer Sonata ". The same question burns in the hearts of many people, especially among the Theosophists; it is truly a matter of life itself. "What is the meaning, the purpose of human life? What is the final outcome of the unnatural, perverse and deceitful life of our civilization, such as is imposed on each of us individually? What should we do to be happy, constantly happy? How can we avoid the nightmare of inevitable death?" " Tolstoy did not answer these eternally standing questions in his early writings, because he himself did not find it. But he could not stop fighting, as millions of other, weaker or cowardly natures did, without giving an answer that would at least satisfy his own heart and mind; and the five above-mentioned works contain such an answer. This is an answer that, in fact, cannot be satisfied with the Theosophist in the form in which Tolstoy gives it, but in his main, fundamental, urgent thought, we can find new light, fresh hope and strong consolation.

Basic ideas and specifics of the philosophical system

From the point of view of the Russian writer and thinker L.N. Tolstoy, the drama of human existence consists in the contradiction between the inevitability of death and the thirst for immortality inherent in man. The embodiment of this contradiction is the question about the meaning of life - a question that can be expressed as follows: "Is there a meaning in my life that would not be destroyed by the inevitable death that awaits me?" Tolstoy believes that a person's life is filled with meaning to the extent that he subordinates it to the fulfillment of the will of God, and the will of God is given to us as the law of love, opposed to the law of violence. The law of love is most fully and accurately developed in the commandments of Christ. In order to save himself, his soul, in order to give meaning to life, a person must stop doing evil, commit violence, stop once and for all and, above all, when he himself becomes the object of evil and violence. Not to answer evil for evil, not to resist evil with violence - this is the basis of the life teaching of Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy.

According to Tolstoy, a person is at odds, at odds with himself. It is as if two people live in it - internal and external, of whom the first is dissatisfied with what the second does, and the second does not do what the first wants. This inconsistency, self-destruction is found in different people with varying degrees of acuteness, but it is inherent in all of them. Contradictory in himself, torn apart by mutually denying aspirations, a person is doomed to suffer, to be dissatisfied with himself. A person constantly strives to overcome himself, to become different.

However, it is not enough to say that it is human nature to suffer and be dissatisfied. Moreover, a person knows that he is suffering, and is dissatisfied with himself, he does not accept his suffering situation. His discontent and suffering are doubled: to the very suffering and discontent is added the consciousness that it is bad. A person does not just strive to become different, to eliminate everything that gives rise to suffering and feelings of discontent; he strives to become free from suffering. A person does not just live, he also wants his life to have meaning.

People associate the realization of their desires with civilization, changes in external forms of life, natural and social environment. It is assumed that a person can free himself from a suffering situation with the help of science, arts, economic growth, the development of technology, the creation of a comfortable life, etc. them during the first half of their adult life. However, it was just personal experience and observations of people in his circle that convinced him that this path was false. The higher a person rises in his worldly pursuits and hobbies, the more wealth, deeper knowledge, the stronger the emotional anxiety, discontent and suffering from which he wanted to free himself in these occupations. You might think that if activity and progress multiply suffering, then inactivity will help reduce it. This assumption is incorrect. The cause of suffering is not progress itself, but the expectations that are associated with it, that completely unjustified hope that by increasing the speed of trains, increasing the yield of fields, something else can be achieved in addition to the fact that a person will move faster and eat better. From this point of view, it makes little difference whether the emphasis is on activity and progress or inactivity. The very installation to give meaning to human life by changing its external forms is erroneous. This attitude is based on the belief that the inner person depends on the outer, that the state of the soul and consciousness of a person is a consequence of his position in the world and among people. But if this were so, then there would be no conflict between them from the very beginning.

In short, material and cultural progress means what they mean: material and cultural progress. They do not affect the suffering of the soul. Tolstoy sees unconditional proof of this in the fact that progress becomes meaningless if we consider it in the perspective of human death. Why money, power, etc., why try in general, why achieve something, if everything inevitably ends in death and oblivion. “You can only live as long as you are drunk with life; but when you sober up, you cannot help but see that all this is just a deception, and a stupid deception! ”.

The conclusion about the meaninglessness of life, to which experience seems to lead and which is confirmed by philosophical wisdom, from the point of view of Tolstoy, is clearly contradictory logically, so that one can agree with it. How can reason justify the meaninglessness of life if it is itself a product of life? He has no basis for such a justification. Therefore, the very statement about the meaninglessness of life contains his own refutation: a person who came to such a conclusion should, first of all, take his own scores with life, and then he could not talk about its meaninglessness, if he is talking about meaninglessness of life and thus continues to live a life that is worse than death, which means that in reality it is not as meaningless and bad as it is said. Further, the conclusion about the meaninglessness of life means that a person is able to set goals that he cannot achieve, and formulate questions that he cannot answer. But aren't these goals and questions posed by the same person? And if he does not have the strength to realize them, then where did he get the strength to put them? No less convincing is Tolstoy's objection: if life is meaningless, then how did millions and millions of people, all of humanity, live and live? And since they live, enjoy life and continue to live, then they find some important meaning in it? Which?

Not satisfied with the negative solution to the question of the meaning of life, LN Tolstoy turned to the spiritual experience of ordinary people living by their own labor, the experience of the people.

Ordinary people are well acquainted with the question of the meaning of life, in which for them there is no difficulty, no mystery. They know that they must live according to God's law and live so as not to destroy their soul.

They know about their material insignificance, but it does not frighten them, for the soul remains connected with God. The lack of education of these people, their lack of philosophical and scientific knowledge does not hinder the understanding of the truth of life, rather, on the contrary, it helps. In a strange way, it turned out that ignorant, prejudiced peasants are aware of the depth of the question about the meaning of life, they understand that they are being asked about the eternal, undying meaning of their life and whether they are not afraid of the impending death.

Listening to the words of ordinary people, peering into their lives, Tolstoy came to the conclusion that the truth was speaking through their lips. They understood the question of the meaning of life deeper, more precisely, than all the greatest thinkers and philosophers.

The question of the meaning of life is the question of the relationship between the finite and the infinite in it, that is, does finite life have an eternal, indestructible meaning, and if so, what does it consist of? Is there anything immortal in her? If the finite life of a person contained its meaning in itself, then this question itself would not exist. “To solve this question, it is equally not enough to equate the finite with the finite and the infinite with the infinite”, it is necessary to reveal the relationship of one to the other. Consequently, the question of the meaning of life is wider than the scope of logical knowledge; it requires going beyond the scope of the area that is subject to reason. “It was impossible to look for an answer to my question in rational knowledge,” writes Tolstoy. We had to admit that “all living mankind has some other knowledge, unreasonable - faith, which makes it possible to live”.

Observations of the life experience of ordinary people, who are characterized by a meaningful attitude to their own life with a clear understanding of its insignificance, and the correctly understood logic of the very question of the meaning of life, lead Tolstoy to the same conclusion that the question of the meaning of life is a matter of faith, and not knowledge. In Tolstoy's philosophy, the concept of faith has a special content that does not coincide with the traditional one.

It is not the fulfillment of the expected and confidence in the invisible. "Faith is the consciousness of a person of his position in the world, which obliges him to certain actions." “Faith is knowledge of the meaning of human life, as a result of which a person does not destroy himself, but lives. Faith is the power of life. " From these definitions it becomes clear that for Tolstoy a life that has meaning and a life based on faith are one and the same.

The concept of faith in Tolstoy's understanding is completely unconnected with incomprehensible mysteries, incredibly miraculous transformations and other prejudices. Moreover, it does not at all mean that human knowledge has any other toolkit besides reason, based on experience and subject to strict laws of logic. Characterizing the peculiarity of the knowledge of faith, Tolstoy writes: “I will not seek an explanation of everything. I know that the explanation of everything must be hidden, like the beginning of everything, in infinity. But I want to understand in such a way as to be reduced to the inevitably inexplicable, I want everything that is inexplicable to be so not because the requirements of my mind are wrong (they are correct, and outside of them I cannot understand anything), but because that I see the limits of my mind. I want to understand in such a way that any inexplicable situation appears to me as a necessity of reason, and not as an obligation to believe. " Tolstoy did not recognize unsubstantiated knowledge. He didn’t take anything for granted but faith itself. Faith as a force of life goes beyond the competence of reason. In this sense, the concept of faith is a manifestation of the honesty of reason, which does not want to take on more than it can. From this understanding of faith, it follows that doubt and confusion are hidden behind the question of the meaning of life. The meaning of life becomes a question when life loses its meaning. “I understood,” writes Tolstoy, “that in order to understand the meaning of life, it is necessary, first of all, that life is not meaningless and evil, and then only the mind in order to understand it”. A confused questioning about what to live for is a sure sign that life is not right. One conclusion follows from the works written by Tolstoy: the meaning of life cannot be that it dies with the death of a person. This means: he cannot be contained in life for himself, as well as in life for other people, for they too die, as in life for humanity, because it is not eternal either. "Life for oneself cannot make any sense ... To live reasonably, one must live in such a way that death cannot destroy life."

Introduction. 3

Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy's political searches. 4

Tolstoy's ideal society. eleven

Conclusion. 17

References .. 18

Introduction

It would be strange and vulgar to commemorate Leo Tolstoy with factual information about what the great writer did during his rich creative life. Any factual information will give less than what, in essence, even the average reader knows about Tolstoy, and, moreover, will drown in the boundless literature available about Tolstoy and his works. But, perhaps, it is not superfluous to try to assess the significance and meaning of Leo Tolstoy's activity from the most general point of view, what problems this activity poses and deepens. Any such attempt is inevitably doomed to be subjective and fragmentary.

My work will be very difficult, since Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy did not go deep into political life, but, nevertheless, his whole life and his work in one way or another reflected the negative events taking place in the political life of society and, of course, Lev Nikolayevich did not stop and did not tire of influencing the minds of the Russian people with his activities, so I will try to delve into the topic of Tolstoy's political searches and connect it with the various diverse activities of the great man.

Political searches of Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy

The history of the Russian people knows not one, not two, not three great writers. But there are only three huge phenomena in it: Pushkin, Dostoevsky and Tolstoy.

The enormity of Tolstoy, as a phenomenon of Russian culture, is completely different from the enormity of Pushkin, and indeed of all Russian creators of the pen.

Until the early 80s. one could ask: who is Tolstoy? Now the question is posed to each of us differently: what is Tolstoy? What is the meaning of this huge phenomenon of Russian culture?

Before, before the religious upheaval that happened to him. Tolstoy was a great Russian writer. But after Pushkin, the appearance of the great Russian writer no longer signified any cultural turn and did not contain any mystery.

However, something happened that has no example in the history of world culture. The powerful artist became a fighter against beauty.

Goethe once said:

"Whoever owns science and art has religion. Whoever has neither science nor art, let him be given religion."

Goethe did not foresee that it is possible, "having" art, for the sake of religion to turn away from it and rebel against beauty. This seemingly impossible and even unthinkable deed was accomplished by Leo Tolstoy. This is its immensity and uniqueness as a world cultural phenomenon. There were many fighters against art and beauty before Tolstoy. But there is no other example in the history of world culture for this struggle to be undertaken by a brilliant creator in art.