Софиология - Сборник статей

The next section looks at Bulgakov′s concepts of reconciling the created and the Uncreated, of Sophia. His Filosofiia khoziajstva, 1912, subtitled Mir kak khoziajstvo and the earlier, preparatory treatise Osnovnye motivy filosofii khoziajstva v Platonizme i v rannem khristianstve, 1911, present attempts at an ontology of economy.[165] Fundamental Motives discusses nature in Platonism and in early Christian thinking and prepares the Philosophy of Economy, a comprehensive work that was inspired by Bulgakov′s desire to «overcome» Marx′s «economic materialism.from within» by unmasking its limitations as an «abstract principle,»[166] an effort that recalls Solov′ev′s Kritika otvlechennykh nachal.

In Osnonye motivy filosofii khoziastva v pannem Khristianstve i v Platonizme, Bulgakov emphatically declares the Platonic ideas as to have fulfilled a similar function as does Heaven. Yet, neither Plato nor the Neo-Platonists successfully built a ladder between spirit and matter, but instead left a dreadful abyss between them. Christian thought then offered answers to questions posed by Plato and substituted impersonal erotic ascent by Christ′s personal love. Christianity substituted the Platonic «ideas» by the Divine Sophia.[167] Of course, such a sentence requires further elucidation of Bulgakov′s sophiology

For most scholars, theologians or philosophers, concerned with Bulgakov it has become almost a commonplace to differentiate either between the creaturely and the heavenly Sophia (the former bearing shares of the latter), or between an earlier (more philosophical) and a later (more theological) conception of it. In either case, the first conception does not appear as perfectly reconcilable with the second. In my view, the Russian Bulgakov specialist Sergej Khoruzhij most clearly has understood the solution to this problem. As he suggests, the Bulgakovian Sophiology substitutes the «impersonal» Platonic «all-Unitarian ontology» by an ′all-Unitarian personal ontology [my expression, KB].′ He ascribes Sophia – correlating to the Aristotelian ousia – to each of the three hypostases respectively.[168] By simple logics, this three-fold construction defines the heavenly and the creaturely Sophia as signifying one and the same. The ′sophianic′ nature of God reaches out into the world. In Ipostas′ i ipostasnost′, 1924/25, the dichotomy of the created and the Uncreated is explicitly at stake. This writing shows the development of a hierarchy in Bulgakov′s vision of the different incarnations of Sophia. Those modes and forms are what he calls a «hypostasis,» viz. the essential nature of a substance as opposed to its attributes. Ipostasnost′ denotes the potentiality of someone or something to turn into a hypostasis, i.e. to incarnate the Godly substance, Ousia-Sophia, on Earth.[169] In this text, Bulgakov comprehensively discusses her modes and forms from the highest in God to the highest on earth, which, of course, is the Church.[170]

Already in his early Philosophy of Economy Bulgakov maintained, "(t)he purpose of economic activity is to defend and to spread the seeds of life, to resurrect nature. This is the action of Sophia (italics mine, KB)."[171] He explicitly refers to Nikolaj Fedorov s obshchee delo: «The content of economic activity is not the Creation of life but its defence, its resuscitation from a deathlike state.»[172] My analysis thus wonders: How is resurrection possible? What exactly is resurrection and what is its relation to cognition? My analysis turns around this complex of questions.

The foreword of Philosophy of Economy refers to Solov′ev′s notion of «religious materialism.» We read that it refers back Athanasius of Alexandria, Gregory of Nyssa, and other fathers of the Church, whose teachings, as Bulgakov regrets, merely present "dead capital: "…"economic materialism," on the one hand, and «idealistic phenomenalism,» on the other hand, were built on its «ruins.»[173] Let us now attempt to understand what Bulgakov made from these «ruins.»

In Svet nevechernyj, 1916, a writing that testifies to his becoming more and more a theologian, Bulgakov explicitly refers to Gregory of Nyssa′s teachings on Creation and on resurrection:[174] Gregory developed the idea of Creation in two acts: «general» (obshchee) and «partial» (chastnoe) Creation, viz. Creation «in the beginning» and in a second step during the «six days.» Bulgakov quotes: «In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void: and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.»[175] «In the beginning» then is another expression for «Sophia.» Creation began in «Sophia;» she is «potentiality,» is a "unity of opposites, a coinicidentia oppositorum (italics mine, KB)." This way Sophia is «doublecentred,» the Sophia is the «architect» of the earth and simultaneously is «transcendent» to it, for the world is created within the distance between heaven and itself. The difference between both, between «idea» and «matter,» is the «foundation» of Creation. The establishment of a «living ladder» connecting Earth and Heaven is the final goal of the world′s historical process."[176] Following Gregory of Nyssa, Bulgakov maintained, too, that after God′s first Creational act further development of the Created takes place only by constant «creative participation» of matter (material), i.e. of the Earth (zemlia) itself. Sophia is the marrow of «Godearth» (bogozemlia). Sophia is the true «apotheosis» of matter as the birth of life originates herein.[177] Thus, the present world is good as God′s creation, but is not yet perfect. Creation has not ended yet, but the bogochelovek is entitled to continue Creation. How did Bulgakov define co-creatorship?

As in Solov’ëv, in Bulgakov, too, there is no dichotomy between matter and spirit, between body and soul. In each case, Bulgakov, has taken the distinction one ontological step back from dualism. Matter does not signify evil, but is merely shapeless, dependent upon form and upon its association with the Divine. The human person itself is made of spirit and matter and must properly dispose of each. If this correct, we must analyse in the next analytical step the possibilities, which pertain to man.

His Priroda v filosofii Vl. Solov′eva, 1911, looks at the latter′s variant of «religious materialism» acknowledging matter as "sacred corporality (sviataia telesnost′)." If man knows resurrection, the same must be true for nature as a whole, even though there certainly is a difference in quality. Logical thought would have to either deny man′s spiritual essence or admit it for all nature and all creatures.[178] Despite the fact that Solov’ëv never developed this concept into a refined, separate philosophical discourse, Bulgakov praised him for having prepared the ground for a magnificent Christian metaphysics that allocates the sparkling idea of nature as the «other God» or the "second absolute: "[179] "Nature must be the visible spirit, and spirit must be the invisible nature.′[180] Nature is humanised by becoming man′s «peripheral body, submitting to his consciousness and realising itself in him.»[181]

His early religious philosophy already turned around the question of "man in nature and nature in man."[182] The content of all activity – which is economic activity – is mere struggle between life and death, a matter of pure survival.[183] Yet, this struggle is not a struggle between «two principles,» but rather a struggle between «two states.» Life is a principle that differs from death in its potential for «self-consciousness.»[184] Potentially, all inanimate matter is organised by life and concentrated in "knots of life [uzelki zhizni]" interconnected to each other.[185] Nature waits for being man′s spiritual «peripheral body.» [186] This is the meaning of Creation in two acts, the second of which points to human and nature′s co-creatorship.

Already Bulgakov′s early Philosophy of Economy implicitly contained this conceptualisation of Creation: while production is the conscious transformation of dead inanimate matter into a spiritualised body, consumption is «partaking of the flesh of the world.» Life is the"…capacity to consume the world" our bodily organs being"…like doors and windows into the universe, and all that enters us through these doors and windows becomes the object of our sensual penetration and becomes in a sense part of our body."[187] Nourishment is the most vivid means of «natural communion,» because it allows man to partake".of the flesh of the world."[188] Nourishment is immanent to our world, whereas the Eucharist meal, «.nourishes immortal life, separated from our life by the threshold of death and resurrection.»[189] Production and consumption hence is a form of spiritual communion with nature. Seemingly, Bulgakov redefined the three cornerstones to every economic theory.

In order to understand his notion of labour we now consider his Trinitarian ontology. The Glavy o Troichnosti, 1928/30, unambiguously clarifies that the individual ′I′ exists within a triangular relationship. It is a multiplicity of the eternally given ′I′, the ′I-you′ and, thirdly, the ′I-he.′ As it stands, the ′he′ hinders mere doubling of the ′I′, ensures the recognition of the ′you′ and hence is the condition for the ′we′. This ′we′ forms the basis for all cognition. The ′you′ is possibly alien both to the ′I′ and to the ′he′ after man has fallen and this is precisely why life is a tragic struggle. Nevertheless, from a metaphysical point of view, all three units form the ′we′.[190] Man is entirely free to fill the gaps between these three parts of his being, either to recognise the them, or to give his unconscious, non reflected empirical ′I′ the prominent, or worse, the absolute place.[191] Labour has a cognitive function: «Thanks to labour, there can be no subject alone, as subjective idealism would have it, nor any object alone, as materialism holds, but only their living unity, the subject-object.»[192] Economy is a constant modelling of reality, the objectification of the ′I′s′ ideas, is a real bridge from the ′I′ into the ′non-I."[193]

The Eucharist Sacrament is, as Bulgakov declares in his early Philosophy of Economy and in his much later The Russian Church, an active-passive event that reunites the living and the dead, the ′I′ and the ′non-I′, nature and spirit.[194] The identity of both is, as must be concluded, Sophia in terms of an existential form of her actualisation. This identity grounds on conscious consumption of the Created and on production, namely conscious labour-intensive creation of new realities, which must realise the world′s ipostasnost′. The Eucharist sacrament bears «practical character» by definition[195] and it shelters the ′sophianic′ knowledge needed to begin the world′s transformation.

We conclude: 1.) If this is true, the Church bears full and undivided responsibility while Solov′ev does not decide the question of who is the promoter of sophianic progress unambiguously. In Bulgakov, "theurgy" is Divine descending action, whereas "Sophia-urgy" signifies man′s ascent. The Eucharist sacrament portends the key to theurgy. Consequently, the clergy and laics – given they belong to a parish – have theurgical, co-Creational might at their disposal.[196] 2.) Sophia epitomises a principle of change, a principle that demands the spiritualisation of nature. Contrastingly to Solov′ev for whom Sophia denotes the archetype of Creation, Bulgakov defined her an hypostatic, creational principle that bridges heaven and creature, spirit and matter, natura naturans and natura naturata. 2.) The posited return depends on the Church′s dogmatic work, for if this is true, economy′s and life′s co-creative reorganisation hinges on the Church′s conscious and deliberate choice to dispose over the world and make it become the Church′s ′backyard′ needing constant «Eucharist watering».

А.В. Усачев

О контексте формирования софиологии в русской религиозной философии

Впостклассический период развития философии и науки все опорные основания европейского бытия подверглись деструкции. Философия замерла между двумя крайностями, одна из которых хотела ее видеть реальной преобразующей силой (марксизм), другая предпочитала последовательно абстрагироваться от историчности и реальности, развивая чистую философию ценностей, теорию познания, оставляя в стороне аспекты, деформирующие понимания сущности человека и бытия-в-мире (неокантианство). Социетальный уровень обобщений, конечно, представляет собой только схему человечества и его жизненной практики, но и он был замещен на концептуализацию индивида и его внутреннего мира, каждое движение которого имеет всемирно-историческое значение (С. Кьеркегор). Культура стала «легкой добычей» Ф. Ницше, который заставил усомниться в ее базовых ценностях, показав их противоречия, тенденцию к цивилизационному понижению качеств бытия, почти безальтернативной горизонтальной устремленности человека. Стремление «разоблачить» человека, все то, что было ему дорого, приобрело темп, мотивацию и почти спортивный азарт, обобщенные в нигилизме. Менее чем за полвека человека постигло два крупных разочарования. Первое принадлежало К. Марксу: все духовное и религиозное невозможно без удовлетворения элементарных потребностей. Второе связано с теорией и практикой З. Фрейда, который свел все богатство культуры к инстинктивной базе человеческой психики. Увлечение саморазрушением и самокритикой поставило человека в ситуацию, когда он был вынужден признать, что мир объективации не бесконечен. Довольно легко подойти к его грани и всерьез столкнуться с вопросом «что дальше?».