The living God of Russian philosophers (on N.N. Rostova’s “The Expulsion of God. The Problem of the Sacred in the Philosophy of Man”. Moscow, 2017. 432 p.) Ksenia V. Vorozhikhina

Abstract

N.N. Rostovа’s book “The Expulsion of God. The Problem of the Sacred in the Philosophy of Man”
is devoted to the theme of “the death of God” and the related topic of “death of a man”. According
to the author, in European thought the concept of God was replaced by the category of the sacred,
which is characterized as immanent and ambivalent. As Rostova points out, man (that is, consciousness) disappears with God, since God is a form, a structure ordering the chaos of human subjectivity.
With the loss of this form, subjectivity is dispelled, and consciousness ceases to exist. The place of
the disappeared consciousness remains a stream of subjective emotions and affects. The discourse
of the sacred, being “a reflection of the self-consciousness of the scientific age”, presupposes an
ontology and anthropology of continuity consistent with evolutionism, implying that the being and
existence of man are limited to the immanent sphere. In contrast to the Western tradition, Russian
philosophy, according to Rostova, is based on the traditional understanding of God as the only transcendental living and concrete truth. Russian philosophy is the philosophy of a cult that “covers the
whole of reality”, the philosophy of unitotality and sobornost’, which derives human subjectivity
from its isolation. Russian philosophy presupposes ontology and anthropology of “ruptures”, implying the mysterious interaction of the transcendent and the immanent, the finite and the infinite, the
absolute and the relative. If in the Western tradition God was “banished”, like demons, for inhumanity and intolerance, then, according to the author, for the Russian philosophy God remains the basis
of hierarchy, division, inequality, order and consciousness.