Arguments for the existence of God: The discourse of Russian religious philosophy

Abstract

The article presents the topic of arguments of the existence of God in the works of Russian religious philosophers of the second half of the 19th — the first half of the 20th century. This topic is found in the discourse of Russian religious philosophy in three variants: putting forward arguments for the existence of God, analysis of Kant’s criticism of the proofs for the existence of God, statements about the meaninglessness of the proofs for religious consciousness. In all variants, there is an inextricable connection between Russian philosophers’ argumentation and their metaphysical propositions. The discourse of Russian religious philosophy itself should be considered a way of contextual demonstration of the significance of metaphysical propositions for religious consciousness. The topic was not only a moment of strengthening the epistemological status of religious knowledge in relation to scientific knowledge, but it had also the importance of philosophizing to form religious worldview. Using the examples of the analysis of both the proofs of the existence of God and their criticism, which is found in the works by S. N. Bulgakov, V. I. Nesmelov, V. S. Solovyov, E. N. Trubetskoy, B. N. Chicherin, and S. L. Frank, the pragmatics of their discourse is revealed — it was aimed not at finding some new ways to substantiate the existence of God with rational means, but at substantiating the necessity of religious faith for the human reason — the faith is not only the main element of religious consciousness, but also a metaphysical principle of cognition of God. The study of the contexts of the appeal of Frank and other Russian philosophers to the topic of the ontological argument leads to the conclusion that such an appeal was associated with the demonstration of the relevance of their metaphysical constructions with the Christian religion.