Epistemology or Mystagogue? Concept of living religion in works by Pavel Florensky
Вестник Православного Свято-Тихоновского гуманитарного университета: Серия I. Богословие, философия May 11, 2018 Natalia Vaganova
Living religious experience, rooted in prereflective childhood encounters, is the only legitimate way to comprehend dogma, according to Pavel Florensky's The Pillar and Ground of the Truth. This experience later becomes reflected in scientific, personal, and religious life, forming the concept of "coexistence of two worlds" as reality's basis. The invisible center of this system is the sacrament, with visible worship and symbols carrying its energy. Florensky's epistemology, drawing on the Corpus Areopagiticum and Bonaventure, represents a mystagogue under a scientistic cover—a symbolic spiritual ascent to Truth where symbols, including "man Paul," become unnecessary once the aim is achieved. Religious experience, whose essence is life, should ground a new type of religiosity, currently only a project.