Babanov A.V. The Faith of Lev Shestov And Lev Tolstoy

Abstract: The subject of the research is the concept of faith of Lev Shestov and Lev Tolstoy. The object of the research is Lev Tolstoy's religious and moral teaching and Lev Shestov's philosophy. Special attention is paid to the relationship between faith and reason, faith and morals and the difference in the philosophers' views on human's attitude to the absolute beginning of the world. The purpose of the research is to show general 'ethical' orientation of Shestov's and Tolstoy's philosophies and to analyze their subjective attitude to the world that was based on different grounds. The research methodology involves integrated analysis of sources on the research subject. The researcher has also used the method of comparative analysis. The main conclusions of the research are the following: while Shestov viewed faith and reason as mutually exclusive, Tolstoy saw faith as the proof of reason and reason as the 'way' to faith. Shestov also opposed faith to morals while Tolstoy considered fath to be an essential prerequisite for moral behavior. Nevertheless, both Shestov's and Tolstoy's philosophies in fact have the general ethical intention: Shestov views the idea of faith as the reliance of morals not as a result of the 'possible' and the 'must' restrictions but as a result of nondetermined decisions of an absolute subject. Tolstoy related the idea of morals to the highest 'Self' that was viewed as the ideal and attitude to which was created within the space of moral perfection. 

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