The «stitching» of the eternal and the social: from the socialization of holiness to the encounter with the Divine

Abstract

The article deals with the problem of comparing the metaphysical and the social as a condition for the socialization of holiness, leading to a theological definition of meeting with the Divine. The relevance of the research is determined by the fact that the ratio of the eternal and the social is an enduring theme of philosophical and theological reasoning. The theme of the mutual correlation of metaphysics and sociality indicates the unique possibilities of the theological method to synchronize these different areas. The substantiation of the effectiveness of this theological research is the ability of religious intellectuality to overcome ontological gaps, to discover the unity of being. The results of the study are the description of the epistemological “seam technique”, implying the unity of being and, as a result, the unity of the metaphysical and social. In addition, the importance of adopting Christian values is argued both at the level of microsociety (community) and at the level of macrosociety (state), which allows us to achieve the transformation of social tasks in the spirit of the Christian ‘economy’ (oikonomia). A special place in the study is occupied by the problem of socialization of holiness as confirmation of the effectiveness of the application of spiritual values in social transformations. The conclusion of the study is the definition of the contours of the meeting place with the Divine as a consequence of the socialization of holiness, as well as the argumentation of the possibility of a project approach to the theological understanding of the meeting with the Divine.