The influence of Catholicism and Orthodoxy on the philosophical culture of Spain and Russia is attributed by most researchers to the typologizing features of the philosophical traditions of these countries. Despite the powerful process of secularization of the modern world, the type of religious mentality, being the spiritual basis for the functioning of society, its stable life priorities and ideals, through a system of values that meet the needs of broad strata of the national community continues to have an indirect impact on philosophy.
Before giving a description of these types of religiosity, it is necessary to determine one’s position in relation to the controversial concept of “nation”. In the philosophical literature, two opposing positions are presented in the definition of this concept: modernists and primordialists. From the point of view of modernists, nations are historical constructions of a random nature, and the emotional connection of individuals with nations is a phenomenon exclusively of the last two centuries associated with the formation of a single state. Primordialism in the interpretation of nations consists in the statement that “people are born and die immersed in the nation as a natural entity that has features hidden in the depths of centuries.” In contrast to these points of view, it is more productive to consider nations as collective identities that are not related to sovereignty over a specific territory and have a long history. One of the most important criteria for such collective identities is religious legitimacy.
Catholicism played a crucial role in the formation of the general Spanish identity of the population of the Iberian Peninsula. Since the 15th century, “being Spanish” has meant “being Catholic.”
A distinctive feature of Spanish Catholicism is the combination of scholasticism and mysticism. The religious ideal of Spain is contradictory: it combines a mystical focus on the divine with a formalism associated with an interest in religious external practices rather than the spirit. This inconsistency, perpetuated primarily by Spanish literature and drama and has become the object of philosophical reflection, acts as a struggle between spirituality and voluptuousness, inspiration and skepticism, the real and the romantic.
The division into “old” and “new” Christians in the Renaissance gave rise to a new interpretation of Christianity in Spanish culture, which was based on the image of the “mystical body of Christ” as a unity of principles of personal self-affirmation and collective fraternal world feeling.” The individualism inherent in the national identity of Spaniards rests on a Christian basis: “the Spaniard loves personal freedom because of eternity, and not because of earthly acquisitions. He’s looking for self-healing, not self-aggrandizement.”
One of the most important principles of the Catholic worldview is the principle of the hierarchy of being, proceeding from the impossibility of cognizing the general plan of divine creation by reason. This plan can only be an object of faith that does not require proof, and the universe can be an object of contemplative admiration and interpretation. Hence, the orientation of Spanish philosophy is not on the scheme of the world, but on a specific person, a “man of flesh and blood”, a person who builds his life in a real variety of life situations, in the circumstances of time and place. Another feature of Spanish Catholicism is the consideration of the world as an organic whole – the result of God’s constant creation of the world. This multi-valued and dynamic whole can only be grasped in symbolic form.
We also note such a psychological feature of Catholicism as communitarianism, according to which the relationship between man and God is established with the direct participation of the religious community. In Catholicism, as Miguel de Unamuno noted, the acquisition of immortality is specifically religious, and not justification, as in Protestantism, which has an ethical rather than a religious meaning. The need to personalize God leads in Spanish Catholicism to the deification of the Virgin Mary, which “meets the need to feel a perfect person in God, to include femininity in the composition of God.” The tradition of perceiving the Virgin Mary as the patroness of Spain can be traced back to the XVI century.
The influence of Catholicism as a substrate of Spanish culture manifested itself, firstly, in the personalistic character of Spanish philosophy, and secondly, in the metaphorical philosophical language, as the most adequate to the dramatic structure of life. The inseparable connection between man and the world, personality and being is a characteristic feature of the Spanish philosophical tradition. The predominant anthropologization of Spanish philosophical thought is another consequence of the influence of Catholicism on the Spanish philosophical tradition.
And although there are now about 4% of practicing Catholics in Spain, with 77.4 percent of the population baptized in the Catholic faith, nevertheless religious pluralism in Spain is expressed to a much lesser extent than in other European countries. Assessing the faith of modern Spaniards, E. Tarncona wrote: “A Spaniard has enough faith to die a Christian, but not enough to live a Christian life.”
The fusion of national identity with religious consciousness has also occurred in the history of Russia. As N.A. Berdyaev noted, “Russian history has revealed the complete nationalization of the Church of Christ, which defines itself as universal. Church nationalism is a characteristic Russian phenomenon.” Since the XV century, “to be Russian” meant “to be Orthodox.” It should be noted that Christianity as a universal religion becomes effective only if it is in constant dialogue with a specific historical time and space.
We compare Orthodoxy and Catholicism not from a theological point of view, but as two different sources of socio-cultural integration. The types of religiosity depend on three factors: the system of church institutions, liturgical practices, and creeds. The features of the religious experience of Orthodoxy include contemplation, humility, joy in the Lord, integrity, and the religiously mystical meaning of love. If a Catholic is tormented by the question “What does God represent in me?”, then for an Orthodox person the main question is: “What does God represent in us, in our lives?” The moral duty of an Orthodox Christian, as S. N. Bulgakov convincingly showed, consists in responsibility not only for his soul, but for the whole society. Conciliarity, as a free inner unity of people around the love of God, and not personalism, constitute the essence of the Orthodox type of religiosity. According to the Orthodox view, both church organization and freedom of religious consciousness are necessary for the creation of a religious life, but first of all, believers need a spirit of mutual love, unity in Christ. Neither the organization of the church nor the freedom of the believer’s consciousness can be properly expressed without it.
It is no coincidence that P. Sorokin considered L.N. Tolstoy and F.M. Dostoevsky to be truly national philosophers, who believe “the essence of the world of God, the main attribute of which is love that knows no boundaries and limits, love is not mental, but directly alive.”
The common features of the Orthodox type of religiosity include cult aestheticism, cosmologism, reverence for Divine motherhood, mercy as the highest Christian value, and the priority of feeling in relation to will. The ontologization of word and truth in Russian philosophy, the criticism of Western philosophy from the standpoint of integral knowledge, the ethical nature of philosophical knowledge, the concept of unity as a specific form of anthropologically existential understanding of the integrity and fullness of life – these are the features of the Russian philosophical tradition associated with the Orthodox type of religiosity.
In modern Russia, also, only 4% of the 66% who consider themselves Orthodox are practicing Christians (data from 2024). This percentage is especially low among students. A study that we conducted at the Kosygin University five years ago showed that the religiosity of student youth is rather cultural religiosity or religious self—identification, some ideological position, but not religiosity in the literal sense of the word. In percentage terms, girls were more likely to recognize themselves as religious, they are more often instilled religion in the family, but the views of young men on secular values common in society – sexual relations before marriage, propaganda of sexual relations in the media, attitudes towards abortion, gender equality, are more categorical. For example, young men recognized the permissibility of abortion only for medical reasons, unlike girls.
I would like to note that my experience of teaching philosophical disciplines at the Kosygin Russian State University has shown a great interest of students in the philosophical component of philosophy. The question of the meaning of life is the main question for most students, but it is quite difficult to solve this issue outside of religiosity. It is religiosity that is the hermeneutical code for understanding life and death. Even in the most radical responses of philosophers who deny God, he is designated as present, having a vital meaning. The philosophical study of religiosity necessarily presupposes free human action and the study of the influence of the dynamism of the relationship between man and God on the subject of this action. The philosophy course at the university helps students to understand the value foundations of their worldview, take responsibility for them, enter into a dialogue with the national philosophical traditions of other countries, understand other points of view and argue their position.
Yakovleva Lyubov, Professor at the Department of Philosophy of the Humanities Faculties of Lomonosov Moscow State University, Doctor of Philosophy, Professor of the Department of History and Philosophy of Kosygin Russian State University (Technologies. Design. Art), academician of the Petrovsky Academy of Sciences and Arts.