The Problem of Evil, Sin and Freedom in the Context of the Russian Religious-Philosophical Tradition

The relevance of the presented research is determined by the fact that eschatological premonitions in Russian religious and philosophical thought reveal the future of the problem of good and evil. The problematic of the phenomena of evil, sin and freedom, studied in the context of religious and philosophical discourse, contributes to a more in-depth analysis of the ontological causes of social conflicts and violence phenomena, since it draws our attention to the spiritual and moral phenomenon of free apostasy from spiritual and existential good. The church legal concepts and definitions of evil, sin and freedom, too concentrated on the external ascetic forms of morality, do not give a complete picture and do not reveal the full depth and multidimensionality of this phenomenon. The phenomena of evil, sin and freedom, if they are not reduced only to the manifestations of church normative ethics and the signs that qualify the rejection of its attitudes, are a deep and multifaceted phenomenon of an individual's spiritual and moral life, which has a direct impact on culture and society. Existing in the context of Judeo-Christian discourse, this phenomenon can be characterized not only by external and internal apostasy from traditional spirituality. It often becomes a dangerous and hypocritical form of apostasy from all existential good, love, humanity in general, that is, it acquires a certain global significance. The general directions in the approaches of Russian religious philosophers to the topic of eschatology are revealed. The aim of the work is to show the importance and relevance of spiritual and moral issues, issues of choosing good and evil for deepening modern philosophical discourse in the direction of preventing interreligious and social conflicts, and phenomena of violence, extremism and terrorism. The article examines the problem of evil, sin and freedom in the context of Russian religious and philosophical thought. Various views of Russian religious philosophers on the main issues related to this problem are presented. The spiritual, moral and eschatological aspects of Russian religious and philosophical thought, general directions in the approaches of Russian religious philosophers to the themes of evil, sin and freedom are revealed. The comparability and incomparability of the ideas of Russian religious thinkers with Eastern Christian traditionalism are revealed. Russian religious and philosophical thought came to an understanding of the insolubility of the problem of evil not only in the context of the church ascetic world outlook; it thoroughly confirmed the necessity and importance of a person's spiritual and moral life. The eschatological direction of Russian religious and philosophical thought is mainly correlated with the Eastern Christian cultural tradition and is focused on understanding the universal problems of the fate of the world and man, salvation and death, life and death, good and evil. Having found itself outside the church-legal, religious-philosophical understanding, this phenomenon acquired large-scale development prospects, rebelling against the spiritual and moral foundations of human life. It has become not only an external, but also an internal characteristic of a person. This is confirmed by the extraordinary development of the phenomena of violence, extremism and terrorism. These processes again turn our attention not to the external forms of evil, but to its deepest essence. Hence, it becomes necessary to transfer the analysis of the problems of evil, sin and freedom from the church-legal, cultural-historical and prophetic sphere to the spiritual, moral and ethical sphere.

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