The philosophy of religion of S.L. Frank in the light of new materials

Abstract

This article offers a comparative analysis of the texts of S.L. Frank dedicated to the problem of ontological proof of the existence of God. The authors make a systematic comparison between the already published works of Frank and those materials which have hitherto remainedun known to the academic community and are published for the first time in the present fascicle of the The Philosophy Journal. As a result of this survey, it has become possible to clearly indicate what remains constant throughout Frank's consecutive attempts to 'justify' the ontological argument and what are the changes from one to another, which is also reflected in the structure of the respective texts. Special attention is given the analysis of Frank's two essays, entitled, respectively, The proof of the existence of God and Ontological proof of the existence of God, which originate from a talk on the ontological argument given in the spring of 1930 in Belgrad, where Frank, at the invitation of P.B. Struve, delivered a course of lectures at Russian Scientific Institute. A detailed description of published archival materials from Bakhmeteff Archive of Columbia University (New York, USA) is appended to the paper.