Religious and Philosophical Concept of Semyon Frank in the Context of Western Christian Theology

Abstract

The article examines the theological concepts of Semyon Frank that derive from the system of Nicholas of Cusa’s Neoplatonism. The ideas of Frank are problematic in origin, as they are attributed to different religious traditions. The paper disputes the compliance of the Frank’s Cusa-like Neoplatonism with the provisions of Catholic theology. The methodological foundation underlying the research is based on method of content reconstruction and historical and comparative method. With the view to scrutinizing the ideas of theologians, the content of Frank’s concept was reconstructed. It presents God as a spiritual Absolute and focuses on the problem of the balance stroked between God and the world, human beings and society as a whole. The leading methodological idea applied by Frank is the principle of antinomic monodualism as the coincidence of opposites in the formula unity of two or duality is one. Theological steps of argumentation in favour of the religious philosopher’s keeping aside of the Catholic path are as follows. Firstly, the critical attitude the philosophy of Nicholas of Cusa takes when facing the Catholic philosophy of those times serves as the evidence base and the obstacle for Frank to become a close ally of the Catholic thought. Secondly, the article notes the criticism Semyon Frank has of the Augustinian proposition about the insignificance of human being before God, which is foundational for Catholicism. Third, the article substantiates the compatibility of Frank’s ideas with the Orthodox ideal of sobriety and the system of external change of human being as the foundation of the system of Orthodox education and selfimprovement, thus obscuring the thoughts of his ties with Roman Latinism. Another research line treats the common features philosopher has with the third Christian confession. When comparing Frank with the Protestant theology, parallels occur (i.e. the Frank–Niebuhr Christian realism), but they are insufficient to claim the Protestant turn of Semyon Frank. As a result, it is concluded that Frank’s religious and philosophical conception is a theology of philosophical theism developed by a bearer of the Orthodox faith, not Catholicism. In relation to Orthodox theology, it is a soft, non-radical version of Orthodox modernism, in which solutions of problems that were contemporary to Frank are combined with maximum possible preservation of the provisions of the Orthodox theology.