Софиология
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Max Weber made the Tolstoian vision of Orthodox love as a mystical and brotherly love into the Ideal type of the Christian ethic of brotherliness,
This ethic resembles the world denying Puritan Christian ethic that has the same distracted brotherly love as an ascetic task and inner-worldly daily praxis at its center. This brotherly Christian ethic according to Weber finds its source in a denial of the world that is characteristic for salvation religions, that is a-cosmic and intrinsically a-social. [520] Tolstoi's extremely world-denying individual ascetic praxis negated the value of everything inner-worldly. Tolstoi's extremely negative evaluation and rejection of the inner-worldly realm differs from Puritanism with its more diverse valuation of this world, and from Orthodoxy that usually recognizes the sinfulness of the world, but did not impose any abstention from or hate for the world that God created.
520
Weber, Die Wirtschaftsethik der Weltreligionen in GW, p. 6389.
2. b. Bulgakov's sophiology as a continuation of Solov’"ev's project – with some important adaptations
Sergei Bulgakov largely followed Solov’"ev in his critical treatment of Tolstoi's concept of Christian love as duty and considered it as too individualistic, abstract and one-sided. Like Solov’"ev, Bulgakov never preached abstention from erotic love, nor celibacy between husband and wife. Bulgakov however never gave human love as eros the central position it had in Solov’"ev's concept of salvation and All-Unity. For Bulgakov, not human eros or erotic love, but Divine love is central. Divine love – or Sophia
– is primordial and makes human love and life possible and meaningful. Although salvation can only be given by the Grace of God, humankind is not supposed to wait for it passively. Human work is essential for the salvation of humanity and the world. [521]
If the human individual is incomplete or imperfect, according to Bulgakov this is a result of the primordial sin. The erotic union of a male and a female does not restore human nature to its condition before the fall. Humanity does not become perfect or complete through eros or polovaia love. According to Bulgakov, only the daily work of every human individual in podvizhnichestvo [522] can make humanity complete as Divine-humanity in sobornost'.
521
The importance of work for salvation Bulgakov introduced in Filosofiia Khoziaistva. Mir kak Khoziaistva. Tom 1 (Moscow, Put' 1912), translated by Catherine Evtuhov as Philosophy of Economy. Part 1. The World as Household, Yale University Press 2000.
522
From podvizhnik, hero or martyr, litt. 'one that moves (things)'. Translated into English as spiritual fight or asceticism.
Bulgakov replaced Solov’"ev's concept of love as the intermediary between humanity and God with the concept of work. Bulgakov interpreted work in its broadest sense as consumption and production, and essentially as the transformation of nature into culture, or the humanization of nature. [523] Whereas for Solov'ev sobornost' signified the ideal organization of the Orthodox Church community, for Bulgakov sobornost' more and more became the characteristic of Orthodox social organization. It is the direct telos of Orthodox podvizhnichestvo which expresses itself as a daily methodic work – an ascetic praxis that is a calling (poslushanie) and a service to God for every Orthodox believer. Bulgakov's concept of work as podvizhnichestvo is consciously close to the Puritan innerweltliche Askese that Weber recognized in the 'spirit of Capitalism', which had a definite – although unintended – economical or inner-worldly result. [524]
523
Bulgakov, Philosophy of Economy, p. 72.
524
Weber, Die Protestantische Ethik und der Geist des Kapitalismus (1904-5), GW, p. 5312 ff.
Throughout his personal intellectual development from religious philosopher to Orthodox theologian, Bulgakov kept using Sophia as icon of the presence or energies of the Christian Trinitarian God in the world. [525] Bulgakov developed his sophiology in Philosophy of Economy (1912) first as Christian sociology, or as a study of the presence of God's love or Sophia in the every day world. In Svet Nevechernii (1917) Bulgakov developed sophiology in a philosophical way, as to its gnoseology, ontology and historiosophy. [526] Sophiology, however, is also an integral part of Orthodox theology or of bogoslovie. Bulgakov developed sophiology as theology in his two theological trilogies. [527]
525
Bulgakov, Svet Nevechernii, Sozercaniia i umozreniia, Moscow 1994, p. 113. Bulgakov developed Gregorii Palamas' distinction of the ousia and energeia of God. The energeia of God are the precondition of sophiology as positive theology
526
See M. de Courten, History, Sophia and the Russian Nation. A Reassessment of Vladimir Solov'ev's Views on History and his Social Commitment, 2004 on Solov'ev's historiosophy
527
The minor sophiological trilogy consists of the volumes DrugZhenikha. Opravoslavnom pochitanii Predtechi, Paris 1927, Kupina Neopalimaia Opyt dogmaticheskogo istolkovaniia nekotorykh chert v pravoslavnom pochitanii Bogomateri, Paris, 1927 and Lestvitsa lakovlia. Ob Angelakh, Paris 1929. His major sophiological trilogiy is O Bogochelovechestve, Vol I Agnec Bozhii, Paris 1933, Vol II Uteshitel', Paris 1936 and Vol
III Nevesta Agnca, Paris, 1945.
Not sexual intercourse between humans as a kind of inter-communion of tvarnost' (created-ness), but divine embodiment of tvar', or the communion of created-ness and uncreated-ness in Godmanhood, was Bulgakov's central point of attention in these writings. The ultimate icons of this communion are the divine Incarnation in the God-man, Christ, and at Pentecost in the Christian Church, as embodied by the twelve apostles of Christ. These are icons of Godmanhood. Sobornost' for Bulgakov is the quality of this Divine-human unity in the Church that is the body of Christ on earth. If the double task of the 'humanization of nature' and the 'churchification of society' is accomplished through Christian work as podvlzhnlchestvo, sobornost' would become the characteristic of the organization of Orthodox society. [528]
528
Bulgakov, Sophla, p. 143.
Russian Orthodox Church hierarchy never officially accepted sophiology as its official social teaching. In 1928, the Russian Orthodox Church of the Karlovtsy jurisdiction accused Bulgakov of heresy because of his sophiology In 1937, the Church court of the Moscow Patriarchate exonerated his case. [529] But even in his own circle of the St. Serge Orthodox Theological Institute in Paris, of which Bulgakov was co-founder and dean, the Spor o Sofll or dispute on Sophia clearly showed the resistance against sophiology Despite his efforts, Bulgakov did not succeed to remove Sophia from her Gnostic roots, or to associate her closer to the Orthodox patristic tradition. The suspicion of Sophia being the fourth and female hypostasis of God remained predominant in lay and official Orthodox circles.
529
Antoine Arjakovskii,
For Bulgakov, Sophia is the unique object of sophiology as Christian sociology, philosophy and theology. As the nature of God, Sophia is the nature of the relation of God to the world that expresses itself as Divine love for his creation. At the same time, Sophia is Jacob's ladder for humanity – or the possibility of a relation with God, and of cataphatlc or positive theology The nature of God and its relation to the world is manifest to humankind as divine Wisdom, Love, Providence, Beauty, Glory and Grace, to enumerate some of the positive qualifications that are characteristic of this Divine-human relation for Bulgakov.
Sophiology as positive theology is in fact the opposite of the traditional apophatlc or negative theology in Orthodox tradition that concentrated on bogoslavle (the glorification of God) and bogosluzhenle (the liturgical service). In his trilogies, Bulgakov wanted to develop or disclose the dogma of the Trinity that was established at the Council of Chalcedon to adapt it to the modern world, and turned to dogmatic theology One could say that Bulgakov changed – slovle or – slavle into – logy, and in this change seemed to elevate philosophy and science above the glorification of God in liturgical service.
Furthermore, Bulgakov's sophiology kept consciously close to secular sociology of the Weberian kind. Bulgakov classified secular sociology as the 'phenomenology of economy' [530] with economy being one of the expressions of the relation between God and the world. Sophiology, in contradistinction to sociology however, had to be capable to discern between good and evil, true or false appearances of God in the world, or between the active presence of God or of Antichrist in the world. [531] Sophiology is therefore Christian sociology and is not only a phenomenology of the 'is,' but also has to give an account of the 'ought.' Sophiology is not only sociology, but also social ethics and social theology. [532]
530
Bulgakov, Philosophy of Economy, chapter VIII, «The phenomenology of economy.»
531
See Govert Buijs, Tussen God en duivel. Totalitarisme, politiek en transcendentie bij Eric Voegelin (Between God and Devil. Totalitarianism, politics and transcendence in the work of Eric Voegelin), Boom 1998. Buijs makes it clear that Weber's sociology in principle is unable to discern between God and devil.
532
Bulgakov, Philosophy of Economy, p.38.