Обожение как смысл жизни

Abstract

In the worldview system of any person, the question of the meaning of life is central. However, if for a non-Christian the truth that makes sense of life is something unknown and therefore the movement towards it comes from somewhere from the periphery, then in the worldview system of Christians the meaning-forming truth, which is Christ, is known from the beginning and therefore the ways of understanding the world around us and oneself in it is radically opposite — the entire value range of a person, starting from this Truth, is rethought in the light of the Christian faith79. It causes value-based changes in the nature of the very topology of the world — Christ becomes the dwelling, clothing and food of a Christian. Such a metamorphosis is also possible due to the difference in the specifics of the path to comprehend the meaning of life. For a Christian, this is not just a process of rational and empirical knowledge, but what in Eastern Christianity, from the first centuries of its existence, was called deification — the acquisition by man of Divine properties through communion with the nature of God by grace. Deification covers all aspects of Christian doctrine — dogmatics, soteriology, ecclesiology, asceticism, etc., all spheres of Christian life — personal, family, civil, etc. All this is possible, since deification for a person is ontologically conditioned — the first man, Adam, was called to it as his own appointment. Now that the second Adam, Christ, has restored the fallen nature of man, to be called to deification means to be first of all Christians. The purpose of this article is to trace the ontological connection between the ideological category “meaning of life” and deification, as well as to reveal the essence of deification and the features of its acquisition.