The Natural World as an Explication of Ethical and Axiological Meanings in Greco-Eastern Patristics

In the context of historical and philosophical reflection, the question of the status of the natural world and humanity’s relationship to it has always remained one of the key issues — especially today, when alarming forecasts of global natural cataclysms increasingly warn of potentially catastrophic consequences on a universal scale. The novelty of this research lies in its historical and philosophical analysis of the ethical and axiological interpretation of nature in the Early Middle Ages. The subject of the study is the natural world as an explication of ontological and ethical–axiological meanings in the works of representatives of Greek–Eastern patristics. The object of the study is the origin and meaning of the natural world within the hierarchy of being in patristic philosophy. The study aims to conduct a historical and philosophical analysis of the ontological foundations in the interpretation of nature and the animal world within the context of medieval mental culture. The article presents constitutive positions characterising conceptions of the natural world in Greek–Eastern patristics. It explores the reasons for its creation and interpretations of nature as testimony to God’s will, reflected in the writings of Christian thinkers of the 4th–6th centuries, as well as the significance of the created world in human spiritual experience and as a source of ethical–axiological meanings. The author concludes that the created world as a whole and its individual components, within the theocentric horizon of thought, are central to medieval ontology and reveal the fundamental ethical and axiological principles formed within the mental culture of the Early Middle Ages. A fundamental idea in Greek–Eastern patristics is the transformation of human nature, corrupted by sin, which is to be aided by understanding the meanings established by God in the laws of the universe, including the existence of the animal world. This approach excludes a consumerist attitude towards nature and the utilitarian interpretation of science and scientific knowledge prevalent in the modern era.