The object of philosophy is sought and found and shown forth by the scientific light of psychology, as stated below.
Psychology is the science having for its object a knowledge of man’s soul. It understands the soul’s essence and nature, and the efficient and final cause of its existence. What is the soul? What is it like? What is it for? For whose sake is it? The true science of the soul solves these questions as follows:
While existing in the semen of man, the soul has only being and substance devoid of the other attributes, which it acquires later in due time and on certain conditions. But after it has been sown in a woman’s womb in accordance with the law of matrimony, and has acquired an organic body and has been born into the world, it becomes a living essence, combining vitality with entity, which latter it possessed previously without vitality. After the infantile body has been nourished and has grown for some time, the soul also acquires intelligence, or awareness; that is, consciousness of its own existence, perception of the existence of the world and of other human beings like itself, and knowledge of the existence of God, the maker and creator of it as well as the maker and creator of the whole world. Upon attaining to this intelligence through nourishment and growth in time, the soul becomes a thinking essence, combining intelligence with vitality and entity, which latter two attributes it possessed at the time it was born and up to a certain stage without intelligence. Having become a living and thinking essence, the soul moves and acts amid the society of its fell ow human beings and amid the physical world in accordance with whatever sensations of life and notions of its own duties and functions it may have; and it becomes an essence willing freely and acting efficiently – or, in other words, it becomes a moral and free person related to God and to its fellow human beings.
Vitality, intelligence, and the powers of free volition, motion, and action – these attributes constitute the nature of the human soul, which moves and acts to maintain and develop its own life, to acquire and to augment its own knowledge, and to acquire and to augment its own powers. The motives actuating it are the yearning to live everlastingly and blissfully, the yearning to know all things, and the yearning to be able to do all things. To satisfy these yearnings of the human soul men need religion, political organization, and philosophy. Of these religion undertakes to satisfy the yearning to live everlastingly and blissfully; political organization undertakes to satisfy the yearning to be able to do all things; and philosophy undertakes to satisfy the yearning to know all things. If the fear of death did not exist in every soul together with the yearning to live everlastingly and blissfully, there would not be any religion among men promising immortal and blissful life to its adherents; and if the yearning to be able to do all things did not exist in every man’s soul, there would not be any political organization among men concentrating the power into the hands of one to enable him to do all things that the ,many and the one wish to be done; and if the yearning to know all things did not spring up naturally in the soul of everybody, there would not be any schools and sciences and so many systems of philosophy among men attempting to comprehend and explain all things and to find out everything unknown. Therefore religion, political organization, and philosophy exist among men because man is naturally religious, political, and philosophical; that is, he has the yearning to live everlastingly and blissfully, the yearning to be able to do all things, and the yearning to know all things.
Now God, who gave man such a nature, must have given him also the means of satisfying the needs of this tripartite nature. He must have given him first of all a true religion truly satisfying his religious need and making whoever practices it a sharer and participator in blissful and everlasting life, the object of his yearning. He must have given him secondly a true political organization truly satisfying his political need and making whoever adheres to it able to do all things that are right and just and that he may wish to do. He must have given him thirdly a true philosophy truly satisfying his philosophical need and making whoever adopts it in his speculations proficient and versed in all things that he may wish to learn. In fact, all these things that God must have given man for the nourishment and growth and perfection of human nature, God has given to all men through our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom we have received a true religion, a true political organization, and a true philosophy, by which we can satisfy the needs of our nature and become really happy and blissful. For Christ, being the true high priest and the leader of true religion, satisfies by this means the religious need of those who practice it, and makes them sharers of the blissful and everlasting life they yearn after. Christ, being a true king and lawgiver and the leader of a true political organization, satisfies by this means the political need of those, who adhere to it, and makes them able to do all things that are right and just and that they may wish to do. Christ, being a true professor and teacher, familiar with every science and art, and the leader of a true system of education and philosophy, satisfies by this means the educational and philosophical need of those who are educated according to His laws and speculate according to His words and logical axioms. Therefore, through Christ God has given the means of nourishing and developing and perfecting the one trinary nature of man – namely, true religion, true political organization, and true philosophy; and has fulfilled a great and most high duty in regard to man and human nature, whom He created religious, political, and philosophical by nature. If God had not given men the means of satisfying, nourishing, developing, and perfecting their nature, God should have been accused of being irrational and of doing ill because, on the one hand, He gave man a sense of infinite needs, which none of the other animals feel; while, on the other hand, He withheld or concealed the means of satisfying these needs, in order to let man be continually tormented and worn out by them. But, since God has given through Christ all things that our nature yearns for and wants, He has justified Himself, and has proved that He is an exceedingly good and benevolent God, a rational and moral God, thinking right and doing right, a holy and faultless God. Therefore, Christ, who justifies God and satisfies our philosophical need as well as our religious and political need, certainly and undoubtedly is Himself the only true object of philosophy. Let us consider the matter also as follows:
In addition to and in opposition to the one true religion of Christ, many false religions spring into existence that do not satisfy, but rather poison and corrupt the religious need of man and make him a sharer of miserable and unhappy life both in the present state and in the future. Because of these many false religions, irreligion comes to be born, starving man’s religious nature to death because it denies altogether the existence of a blissful and everlasting life and admits only a beastly life as the end and purpose of man. Likewise, in addition to and in opposition to the one true political organization of Christ, many false political organizations and anarchy, the opposite of political organization, spring into existence, by which the political nature of man is not satisfied, but perverted and corrupted; the consequence being that the adherents wrong and kill one another or, the stronger enslaving the weaker, they tyrannize and oppress one another. In like manner, in addition to and in opposition to the one true philosophy of Christ, many false philosophies and systems of empty deception spring into existence, as well as skepticism, the opposite of philosophy, by none of which is the philosophical need of man satisfied, but corrupted. And those who so philosophize either delude themselves, thinking that they know what they do not know at all, or deny all true knowledge as impossible, thus reducing themselves to hopeless despair.
Inasmuch as man’s nature is corrupted in all three of its parts or constituents by many false religions and irreligion, by many false political organizations and anarchy, by many false philosophies and wisdom-hating skepticism, men necessarily are unhappy and become wretched and thrice wretched. But men become as happy and blissful through the true religion, true political organization, and true philosophy that come of Christ, as they become unhappy and wretched through false religions and irreligion, through wrong political organizations and anarchy, and through false philosophy and skepticism; for only through the religion, political organization, and philosophy of Christ can the one trinary nature of man be properly nourished, developed, and perfected as regards its religious, political, and philosophical aspects. Without Christ, man’s nature is deprived of the object that is natural and analogous to it, and it either starves to death or is poisoned with falsehood; without Christ man’s nature is nothing but hunger and thirst without bread and water, or instead of bread it must eat stones and sticks, and instead of water it must drink brine and bitterness. If, therefore, Christ alone can satisfy man’s philosophical need, He Himself is the only true object of philosophy. But since, in addition to the philosophical need, He satisfies the religious and political need, He Himself is also the true object of religion and political organization.
Who has anything to say, or who can say anything, against this psychological proof of the object of our new philosophy? What man can deny the philosophical nature of man and the object corresponding to it, which corresponds also to our religious and political nature? And who cannot see through the scientific light of psychology the proof o”f the object of philosophy to be most logical and most certain? But the pseudo-scientists of this age turn their eyes away from the light of true science in order to avoid being exposed as deluding themselves and going to perdition. Accordingly, they prefer falsehood and the destruction of their own souls to truth and salvation, of which those become worthy who love truth and Truth Itself, which is Christ, the Son of the living God, by whom our soul is endowed with life and nourished and through whom it grows up and becomes perfect and blissful. Without Christ, every soul necessarily dies and perishes miserably. What have those who lack Christ? They have irreligion, or else a false and deceptive religion; they have a wrong political organization, or else anarchy; they have a false wisdom, or else a skepticism of despair; they have the evils in themselves by which they are tormented and worn out, and are made wretched and unhappy. But all who do not care for what is good are worthy of what is evil. Christ is that which is perfectly good; because through Him are satisfied aright all the needs of all, both personal and social, and through Him alone are men made happy and blissful. Through Him alone can the philosophical need of our nature be satisfied, and on this account the science of psychology declares Him to be the true object of philosophy.
(continued in the next series of articles this week)
Apostolos Makrakis 