„Човековата слободна волја во антрoполошкo-етиката мисла на свети Јован Златоуст“

Abstract

Human Free Will in Anthropological-Ethical Thought of Saint John Chrysostom

One of the radical novelties that Christian Theology caried within, based on God's revelation, is the ontological conceptualization of the human person, which is not found in ancient philosophy. It is this fundamental doctrine of the Christian worldview which is the basis for understanding the specificity of the ethical voluntarism of Saint John Chrysostom, opposed to the ethical concepts found in ancient philosophical thought. In ancient philosophy, the volitional activity of human is most closely connected with the reason. Therefore, human freedom as conceived, by the Stoics for example, it is limited to the domain of the intellectual cognition. The idea of connecting human`s will and freedom with his sanity is not alien to patristic thought either. But in St. John Chrysostom, as in the holy fathers in general, human logosness is not reduced, exclusively, to its intellectual aspect, but it also refers to the ability for self -determination of a man for eternal communion with God, which, on the other hand is not conditioned by intellectual cognition. For patristic tradition human freedom, is understandable from eschatological-sotirological perspective. Saint John, according to Christian tradition, connects human self-ownership with the salvation of specific persons, and therefore, freedom, apart from moral, has, primarily, an ontological meaning.