03/07/2026 09:00 - 11:10

HALL: Pola - A106

Contact: Serpytyte R.

Chair: Kardelis N., Serpytyte R.

In the writings of Jan Gruzewski, a prominent 17th-century Polish-Lithuanian thinker, we find a synthesis of philosophical, theological and juridical ideas that were instrumental in shaping the intellectual landscape of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Republic of Two Nations. The focus on fairness and equality in Gruzewski's legacy invites us to address the problem of religion's relation to equality from a more general perspective.
The word religion is derived from the Latin verb religare, meaning "to join, connect, relate". Such understanding of religion defined the Christian view on the nature of man's religious attitude. According to this view, any authentic religious relationship is based on man's absolute trust in God: in the sense that any trust presupposes mutual respect and fairness, the religious relationship is that between equals, albeit fundamentally unequal equals, having in mind the absolute ontological distance between God and man. Man's love of God and trust in Him presupposes mutuality, reciprocity of such an attitude also on the part of God.
The appreciation of equality arises from the discerning of differences between those who are unequal in some particular sense. Therefore, striving for equality includes an effort to negotiate differences in order to find some common ground, that is, some level - or "equal" - ground which then becomes a mutually acknowledged basis for building, figuratively speaking, "superstructures" of unequal height on top of this level ground.
Thus the religious relationship between God and man as unequal equals becomes a blueprint for all non-trivial kinds of equality in various forms of human interaction. It is also at the core of logic and rational reasoning as such - and tied to the very possibility of any human dialogue.