Protopresbyter Eugene Akvilonov: the psychological argument in the God's existence argument

Protopresbyter Eugene Akvilonov is primarily known by his works on ecclesiology. In this article it’s for the first time that the main focus is set on the anthropological ideas contained in Akvilonov’s doctoral dissertation dedicated to the physical-theleological proof of the existence of God. The key concept of Akvilonov’s proof is that human mind contains the necessary intellectual idea of the absolute purpose, which makes it possible for him to use ontological argumentation. In particular, the article reveals the protopresbyter’s views on human nature’s duality, on the boundaries of human self, on the role of will in human relationships and on the concepts of self-consciousness, world-consciousness and God-consciousness. His ideas are close in many respects to ideas of his teacher A. E. Svetilin, who was professor of logic and psychology in Saint-Petersburg Theological Academy. Aleksander Svetilin limited himself to researching the soul phenomena, but Fr. Eugene went further and tried to reach theological truth by synthesizing philosophy and psychology, the way other famous Svetilin’s followers did, such as Metropolitan Anthony (Khrapovitsky) and bishop Michael (Gribanovsky).