What is scholasticism from the religious point of view, and whence did it come to us?

Mikhail Osipovich Koyalovich, Doctor of Theology (+1891)

September 13, 1861

 

It is hardly possible to deny the sad fact that among the majority of thinking people in secular circles there has been established an unfavorable opinion concerning the ways in which thought is assimilated and expressed through the word in our ecclesiastical estate—whether in literature or in our spiritual education. In the convictions of most of these people, the clergy revolve in the realm of forms, artificially arranged, far from living thought, reality, and life—in a word, they are immersed in scholasticism. One may disregard the extremes of this opinion, but it is hardly appropriate to treat its essence lightly or with contempt. It is indisputable that this opinion is voiced by many serious people, and it is even more certain that it leads many to unfavorable conclusions regarding the very subject they see presented in scholastic form—namely, our faith. In both cases, such an opinion is therefore very important, and it is not superfluous to clarify its foundations. We shall begin our clarification from afar; but we hope that the thread of our thoughts will not be drawn out arbitrarily or scholastically—which, in essence, is the same thing.

We shall leave aside the ancient Greek sophists, those fathers of scholasticism, and likewise leave aside their successors who transferred scholasticism into the Christian, Latin world of the Middle Ages. We shall limit ourselves to a brief, commonly known notion of scholasticism and turn our main attention to the soil where it was developed with paternal care and from where it was transferred to us.

Scholasticism in the broad sense is the artificial combination of thoughts without correspondence to reality, the artificial linking of concepts based on external signs of their similarity, and the derivation from them of equally artificial conclusions, which common sense rejects.

In its extreme manifestations, scholasticism is a mockery of human thought and word; but in its usual forms, it is a superficial exposition of a subject with the outward signs of profound investigation. At first glance, it may seem very strange that such a mode of thinking could have been adopted by so many serious, intelligent people, such as undeniably were among the medieval Latin scholastics; yet in fact, there was nothing strange in this. Latinism is the most fertile soil for scholasticism. It is founded on such principles, composed of such elements, as fear the touch of living thought and can be explained harmlessly only through the scholastic method—that is, with the appearance of persuasiveness and a semblance of truth.

Indeed, where in the domain of faith an innumerable multitude of dogmas has been established, where for everything and everywhere an unchanging blueprint has been set, an inviolable norm down to the smallest details, where the conscientious study of the faith has from ancient times been a forbidden fruit—there it is natural and inevitable to occupy the mind with the external rearrangement of subjects, their artificial juxtaposition, and the mechanical derivation of conclusions—that is, with scholasticism. Scholasticism is the best means to divert thought from the inner, living development of the matter.

The deep medieval faith in the West, within Latinism, lent a charm to this way of thinking, and the all-overwhelming power of the papacy turned minds toward it so irresistibly that it was difficult for them to perceive the compulsion and unnaturalness of their labor. But when this faith and this power began to wane, when living thought began to undermine the foundations of the papacy (with the emergence of Protestantism), then appeared the special teachers of all forms of scholasticism—the Jesuits—whose constant aim has always been to divert people from the living study of faith and to amuse them with outward artificiality and a seeming truthfulness of the Latin system.

The mind of a person educated or guided by the Jesuits had much to occupy itself with, without ever touching the essence of the matter; his energy would be spent before he understood the futility of his labor—and this was the best result for the Jesuits. That is why they so zealously took up scholasticism everywhere and wrote so many books in its spirit, with the most excellent form yet lacking vital content.

In our conviction, no medieval scholar ever carried scholasticism to such serious extremes as the Jesuits, because none of them was as capable as the Jesuits in arbitrarily linking concepts and facts; none adhered so strictly as they to the rule that the end justifies the means—that for a certain goal, in life, in speech, and in thought, everything is permissible. Scholasticism in the Jesuits was both in thought and in life—that is, it developed into an all-encompassing and most rigorous system.

It is with this system, with this dreadful scholasticism, that the Jesuits, as is well known, came in the middle of the 16th century to Poland and entered there into struggle with the so-called dissenters and, among others, with the Western-Russian Orthodox, through the instrument of the Union, in which from beginning to end they embodied scholasticism—though they themselves drew from it a result far from scholastic.

Among the Western-Russian Orthodox there apparently existed a sound means against this scholasticism. Under the influence of the Protestant scientific movement in Lithuania at that time, and even more under the influence of many learned Greeks, education among the Western-Russian Orthodox had risen greatly by the end of the 16th century—an education foreign to the scholastic tendency. The first attempts at struggle with the Jesuits by those who had adopted this education proved, in the most brilliant manner, that Orthodox truth, expressed simply but deeply and sincerely felt, gains a decisive victory over Jesuit scholasticism, despite all its refinement and cunning. But unfortunately, this conviction, justified at the time by many instances and clearly recognized and expressed by many Orthodox, began to give way in the 17th century to other considerations.

The art of the Jesuits in overcoming the Lithuanian-Polish dissenters dazzled everyone with its tremendous successes. All began to think that Jesuit education was the best means of defending one’s convictions. With this goal, the Orthodox more and more frequently turned to this form of education; and when the number of such people among the Orthodox increased—that is, those who had received a Jesuit education—and when the success of their actions seemingly confirmed the value of Jesuit education, the idea arose to establish education based on this system among themselves.

This idea fell to be realized by a man who, despite his undoubted zealous devotion to the true good of the Western-Russian Church, was placed in the most unfavorable conditions for soberly and correctly evaluating all the consequences of this scientific reform of the Western-Russian schools. We speak of the well-known zealot of Western-Russian Orthodoxy, the Western-Russian Metropolitan Petro Mohyla. By origin, he was a foreigner (a Moldavian voivode's son, as he was called), and he received his upbringing in Latin countries, later serving (while still a layman) in the Polish military. He had many opportunities to observe the manifestations of Latin life, but little time and opportunity to strictly compare it with the state of Orthodox Western-Russian life.

Meanwhile, the circumstances of the Western-Russian Church were so troubled and so urgently demanded swift and decisive action against Latinism that it was most natural for Petro Mohyla, given his surroundings, to make use of a ready and well-known means of combating Latinism—to seize, so to speak, on the fly, the idea of Jesuit education that had formed in his milieu. This is exactly what Petro Mohyla did. As is known, he organized the Kiev Academy according to the scholastic system.

There is no doubt that this was a significant error, well understood by the people of Kiev at the time, who had even begun to gather with the intention of destroying the Kiev Academy. Yet it is also undeniable that the zealots of Orthodoxy and the enemies of all things Jesuit and Latin feared too greatly the harm from this transformation of the Western-Russian schools, in which from that time Latin scholasticism began to visibly displace the Greek element that had until then predominated everywhere.

The Western-Russian Church, as an Orthodox Church, had no need of scholasticism. Its truth required no artificial framework and could only suffer from it—something that sooner or later was bound to be noticed, and indeed was noticed by some. Consequently, scholasticism within it could not manifest its full life, being unrelated to its actual needs and even hostile to them.

On the other hand, the Western-Russian Church—along with the Kiev Academy and other Western-Russian schools—was in such a state of tension, and so many vital questions were constantly being stirred within it, that no scholasticism could divert Orthodox minds from living thought and living speech. Life itself destroyed more than half of the harmful influence of scholasticism. Therefore, in the writings of the Western-Russian period of Mohyla, despite the abundance of scholastic methods, one finds many lively, lucid thoughts breaking through even the thickest shell of scholasticism.

It was from the Kiev Academy and, in general, from Western Russia that scholastic education spread throughout all of Russia. In its early, weak beginnings, it began to penetrate here in the second half of the 17th century, when, with the annexation of Little Russia, many Western-Russian scholars began moving into Russia; but it spread especially rapidly and on a broad scale from the time of Peter I, who gave such great impetus to the Western-Russians in the spiritual sphere. This education, as is known, became the foundation of all our ecclesiastical schools.

It is easy to guess what position scholasticism was bound to occupy here. The soil here was significantly different from that of Western Russia. Of course, the Great Russian Church, just like the Western-Russian, neither had nor has any real need for scholasticism—that is, for artificial, strained proof of its truth; but here there were none of those circumstances which, over there, prevented scholasticism from producing many harmful fruits.

The condition of the Great Russian Church was generally peaceful—or, rather, such that life did not present, or could not present, theologically troubling and enormous questions to scholarly inquiry. Consequently, scholasticism here could more often than in the Western-Russian Church lead minds to its natural results—impoverishment of thought, and the dominance in theology of form over the essence of the matter. And this could all the more readily and easily happen because here, in Great Russia, as some scholars have rightly observed, due to the historical composition of society, the habit and esteem for externality and formality were strongly developed.

Thus, the Western-Russians, who in the 18th century occupied in many places in Russia positions in the schools and in pastoral service, produced great harm here—without, of course, any intention or awareness. This harm is revealed first of all in our spiritual education, where formal knowledge occupies far too much space, to the detriment of living, factual truth. It is further revealed in our literature, where again and again one encounters, above all, various signs of division of thoughts, calculated measurements of facts—divisions and measurements whose legitimacy and necessity are among the least evident, persuasive, or harmless to the essence of the matter.

But strictly speaking, the divisions and measurements of thought in themselves are not so harmful; at least, they cannot be deemed—especially today—as too resistant to the new demands of conveying thought. They may even partly serve as an antidote against that unbridled looseness of thinking which often appears in literature and consists in refusing to recognize any order or sequence.

Far more important is the very habit of chasing after forms first and foremost and arbitrarily squeezing the essence of the matter into them—or, worse still, the utterly needless habit, which is instead terribly harmful and contrary to the spirit of the Orthodox faith: the habit of caring little for the essence of the matter, paying little attention to it. This, in turn, gives rise to intellectual laziness, divided convictions, and a low level of scholarly conscientiousness.

Here, in brief words that allow for a more extended explanation, is the history and meaning of our scholasticism. From this outline, it seems one can see that the scholastic method of knowledge is alien and entirely unnecessary for our religious truth, and that it was brought to us entirely by chance. There is no doubt that it has already significantly weakened among us, and it is even less debatable that the present deeply historical movement of Russia, which has already brought forth many vital questions, will soon weaken it even more—a most joyful hope!

But one must in no way expect or demand what many in our society now expect and demand in this case. Many wish that our spiritual education and literature would become exactly what our secular education and secular literature are now. With all our heart, we wish for a reasonable, sincere rapprochement between these two realms and for the unification of their good aspects, but we consider it a duty of conscience and conviction to defend one particular feature of spiritual education and literature that is worthy of deep respect and sincere sympathy.

In attacking our scholasticism, many people mean, in general, the theoretical direction of our thought and our knowledge (our philosophy), and they would like it to be decisively and completely replaced by that factual approach which so exclusively dominates in the secular sphere of knowledge.

There is no doubt that philosophy entered our sphere in scholastic forms, from which it still struggles to free itself, and that its complete liberation from these forms is very much to be desired; but one must by no means wish for the weakening of our philosophical education, nor should one attack it under the guise of attacking scholasticism. This philosophical orientation—which, as we have said, requires correction—constitutes, in its essence, a very bright aspect of spiritual education and spiritual knowledge, being the only phenomenon in our society capable of holding back from our development those extremes which so often appear in the secular sphere, as a result of the lack of philosophical education.

Into our society come theories from all corners of the world; within us reigns a deep awareness of lagging behind Western Europe, and we, with the natural haste that such a condition brings, seize upon any theory, any grouping of data—often theories and groupings developed on an entirely different soil than our own. The labor required of our thought in this matter is perhaps no less than that by which the incoming theory was itself produced; and where is the guarantee of success in this labor, when the level of philosophical education in our society is so low—an education which alone enables one to clearly see the first and final word of a theory and to reconcile them with the fundamental convictions of the person?

Hence, we observe in our society an extraordinary ease in adopting and a fickleness in shifting among various Western European systems and viewpoints. The general outcome of such a condition in society is clear: it is the overthrow of native convictions and the destruction of any desire to acquire for oneself valuable, profound convictions. This is why we ought to value even the weak guarantee we possess against this terrible evil; this is why we must give ourselves the most conscious account in our judgments concerning scholasticism as it manifests in our spiritual sphere.

The clarification of such questions, in our view, can above all contribute to strengthening the bond that must be, and without doubt is being, established between the two spheres—namely, the spiritual and the secular—to revealing the possibility and ease with which they may proceed side by side, in the spirit of Christian peace and mutual cooperation, toward the shared goal of both: the proper development of Russian consciousness, of Russian thought.

 

Russian source:

https://azbyka.ru/otechnik/Mihail-Kojalovich/chto-takoe-sholastika-s-religioznoj-tochki-zrenija-i-otkuda-ona-pereshla-k-nam/