Man alone with faith: theological aspects of loneliness

The article examines the issue of theological understanding of such a complex social and personal phenomenon as loneliness. The relevance of this topic is due to the inescapable presence of loneliness in human civilization, which makes the consideration of loneliness an important and urgent spiritual and intellectual project. In understanding loneliness, cognitive questioning is carried out, unique in its inner content: in a situation of loneliness, personal and personalistic motives that determine the subjective contour of consciousness and socio-historical processes that form a particular type of society are combined. The purpose of this research is to understand loneliness through the prism of a theological system of views, the desire to understand the causes and consequences of loneliness in the context of religious awareness of the world. The key methods are comparison, analysis, synthesis, and the construction of a working hypothesis of the study. The most important aspect of the study is the proof of the statement that, if we look at loneliness from a theological point of view, it turns out that the main reason marking loneliness as an exclusively negative phenomenon is the positivist objectification of the world. On the contrary, the theological approach seeks to reveal loneliness in its spiritual effectiveness. The theme of religiously colored loneliness becomes a productive material for determining the extent of the effectiveness of the overall theological (theological) understanding of the world. The article examines the dangers and temptations of loneliness. The conclusion is the proof that loneliness should be considered as a unique condition for theology, through loneliness the spiritual potentials of contemplation of the Divine are revealed, which are impossible in other formats. Theological loneliness forms a special optics of spiritual cognition, in which, through the openness of solitude, human weakness and Divine greatness are fully revealed, it becomes possible to overcome the temptations of loneliness and transform the desert of loneliness into a spiritual «ladder», an exit to a meeting with the Divine.