Sophiology

In Dostoevsky’s 1869 novel, The Idiot, two characters mention an intriguing theory, which they both attribute to the eponymous spiritual hero, the Prince: the idea that “beauty will save the world.”  Since then, a long line of writers and thinkers have picked up on this grand and inspiring motto.  After all, who wouldn’t want to believe that beauty will save the world?  Yet few people have tried to work out exactly what that might entail.

One of the most important figures to have taken up this challenge is Sergeii Bulgakov—philosopher, economist, politician, theologian, and priest.  Bulgakov quotes this phrase in at least four different works spanning the major phases of his mature intellectual career: Philosophy of Economy (1912), The Unfading Light (1917), the essay “Beauty and Art” (1934), and The Comforter (1936).  For Bulgakov, this declaration represents the crystallization of an all-encompassing vision for society, a cosmic process of material and metaphysical redemption analogous to individual salvation.  Through it, Bulgakov underlines the continuity between political aims and theological means, with beauty as the pivot. 

In this paper, I consider the role of the aesthetic principle of beauty in Bulgakov’s political theology.  I focus on two dogmatic works of the 1930s: a treatise, The Comforter, and an essay, “Religion and Art,” drawing on a sermon from the same period, entitled “Social Teaching in Modern Russian Orthodox Theology” to clarify key points in his political theology.  I discuss how Bulgakov’s aesthetic notion of Christian humanism enables him to petition for the transfiguration of society and reform of its unjust structures while steering a political theological course between Marxist positivism and Christian apathy.  Furthermore, I argue that the beauty at the core of his conceptual framework enables him to hold together history and eschatology, human freedom and divine sovereignty, in a theologically coherent theandric whole that nevertheless resists collapse into essentially atheistic “progress” or a pantheistic cosmology.  I conclude by posing a question about the possible role of beauty as a functional substitute for Sophia for theologians adapting Bulgakov’s brand of Christian humanism.

Geopolitical change at the start of the 20th century wrought significant change to the study of theology. After the Russian Revolution, exiled intellectuals found their way to the West and connected with like-minded scholars. One of these was Sergius Bulgakov, whose life was particularly complex: beginning as a Marxist and later returning to Orthodox Christianity, he became one of the most prominent, and contentious, theologians of the Russian diaspora. He forged ecumenical connections, including with the Fellowship of St Alban and St. Sergius. Traditionally, scholars have categorised him with the so-called “Russian School”, largely due to his sophiology. But scholars have come to question the accuracy of this categorisation. For example, Andrew Louth has proposed that Bulgakov be regarded as a theologian of the eucharist. Consideration of period documents confirms Bulgakov’s eucharistic consciousness, especially with ecumenism, corroborating Louth’s hypothesis. More research is justified into an important direction in the study of Russian diaspora theology.

Статья представляет собой отзыв на публикацию «Экклезиология сегодня: две модели устройства Церкви и их исторические предпосылки», в котором автор, в целом позитивно воспринимая проект разработки терминологически выверенной экклезиологии, подвергает критике отдельные аспекты системы священника Михаила Легеева. Прежде всего, автор отзыва отказывается относить русское эмиграционное богословие в лагерь противников традиционного учения Церкви. Во-вторых, он оспаривает правомерность использования термина «классическая традиция русской школы», признавая плюрализм русских экклезиологий. В-третьих, автор отзыва проблематизирует традиционность схемы «Христос-иерархия-народ», а также вопрос о генезисе церковной иерархии. Наконец, ставится вопрос об ипостаси Церкви и соотношении ее мариологического аспекта с концепцией священника Михаила Легеева.

The present article is a review of the article by Priest M. Legeev “Ecclesiology Today: Two Models of the Structure of the Churches and their Historical Background”, in which Priest M. Nikulin, positively perceiving in general the project of developing a terminologically verified ecclesiology, criticizes some aspects of Priest M. Legeev’s system. First of all, the author of the review refuses to attribute Russian emigration theology to the camp of the opponents of the Church traditional doctrine. Secondly, he disputes the legitimacy of using the term “classical tradition of the Russian school,” recognizing the pluralism of Russian ecclesiologies. Thirdly, Priest M. Nikulin problematizes the traditionality of the “Christ-hierarchy-people” scheme declared in the article, as well as the issue of the genesis of church hierarchy. Finally, is posed the question of the Church hypostasis and the correlation of its mariological aspect with Priest M. Legeev’s concept.

This article examines Fr Sergii Bulgakov’s writings on the eucharist. It argues that these texts, written at critical junctures at the beginning, middle, and end of his career, constitute a “eucharistic horizon” against which one can envision continuity across Bulgakov’s wide-ranging corpus. Contrary to the scholarly narrative that Bulgakov abandoned his mission to justify Orthodox social action after his exile to Western Europe in the early 1920’s in the interest of building an abstract dogmatic edifice, this article argues that at the core of his thought lies a commitment to the importance of the material world and concomitantly an abiding commitment to collective social action within it. It is argued that the entirety of Bulgakov’s thought can be viewed a resource for restoring a spirit of collective Orthodox social action (as opposed to individual contemplation and ascesis alone) for the transfiguration of human and non-human creation: what Bulgakov called the “common task” of humanity.

This is a continuation of the article published in SapCr 2 (2005), 117-136. Bulgakov’s kenotic theory, at times criticized by orthodox theologians, is even penetrating the west with von Balthasar. The author places it within the vast breadth of Bulgakov’s sophiology, which is the “ousia” of God in revelation. In his sophiology Bulgakov expresses an organic and unitarian theological vision, at one and the same time Christological and trinitarian, cosmological and anthropological, ecclesiological and Mariological, protological and eschatological. In this second part of his article Zak shows the profound linkage between the theory of Christ’s kenosis and Bulgakov’s own concept of Church, even in matters of ecumenism.

This article belongs to a series of studies of results from working with the Foundation Stone Mediation given by Rudolf Steiner at the Christmas Conference of the Anthroposophical Society in 1923-4. In a previous article we explored the idea that this meditative text reveals the being of Isis-Sophia.1 We sought to demonstrate that the Foundation Stone Meditation, like the Representative of Humanity sculpture created by Rudolf Steiner and Edith Maryon, is a sort of veil, as Steiner said, behind which stands Isis-Sophia, the mighty being sought by initiates of all ages.  To behold this cosmic being was the goal of those aspiring to the most lofty experience of initiation: knowledge of the human being’s connection to the cosmos, knowledge that the human being is truly a micro-cosmos. Or as Lao Tzu is said to have expressed it: “The universe is a man on a large scale.” Our current study will show that within the Foundation Stone stands concealed, not only Isis-Sophia, as we have demonstrated, but even more hidden, the Virgin Sophia, who is the microcosmic reflection of and the key to the experience of Isis-Sophia.

Il senso teologico della differenza di genere nella teologia di S.N. Bulgakov. Il documento è un estratto della tesi per il conseguimento della Licenza in Teologia Dogmatica presso la Pontificia Università Gregoriana dal titolo: "Il senso teologico della differenza di genere:
un dialogo tra H.U. von Balthasar, K.Barth, S. Bulgakov e l'esegesi moderna" (2017).

Автор книги «Владимир Соловьёв и философия Серебряного века», П. П. Гайденко, раскрывает в своём труде жизненный и философский путь В. С. Соловьёва, взаимосвязь его философско-мистических прозрений и его видения Софии, божественной Премудрости — Мировой Души (и эволюция софиологии), а также системы цельного знания и умопостижения всеединства. Очень хорошо излагаются взгляды Шеллинга в соотнесении с Соловьёвым, проводится сопоставление идей Соловьёва и Гегеля.

Показывается культурно-философский контекст, существовавший вокруг Соловьёва, раскрываются миросозерцания его современников — кн. С. Н. Трубецкого и К. Н. Леонтьева. Далее довольно обстоятельно исследуются философские взгляды и мировоззрения Н. О. Лосского («иерархический персонализм»), С. Л. Франка («метафизика конкретного всеединства, или абсолютный реализм»), Н. А. Бердяева («анархический персонализм»). В связи с Франком довольно цельно (но и достаточно лаконично) рассматриваются воззрения А. Бергсона и Н. Кузанского.

Затем идёт переход к осмыслению поэтико-философской культуры Серебряного века

The following collection of essays could have had as a subtitle "Towards a New Sophiology." Essays 3, 4, 5, and 8 bear directly on this subject. Apart from the final essay, “Valentin Tomberg and Dostoevski,” all the other essays presented here appeared (in this same order) as articles in the Starlight Journal of the Sophia Foundation of North America over the years 2014-2019. The production of these articles took place during the period that immediately followed the publication of O’Meara’s book, "The Way of Novalis," and should be seen as an outgrowth from the Sophianic direction of that book. In these essays, slightly expanded from the articles, O’Meara elaborates on the Sophianic mission of the Foundation with reference to the main Master-Individualities to whom the Foundation has linked itself, notably Rudolf Steiner, Valentin Tomberg, Novalis (Friedrich von Hardenberg), as well as the Master Peter Deunov. However, other well-known individuals are also considered in some depth, including Vladimir Solovyov, Pavel Florensky, Sergius Bulgakov, Fyodor Dostoevski, Carl Jung, as well as some of the Master-artists of the Renaissance, most notably Michelangelo and da Vinci. Estelle Isaacson and Ita Wegman also assume a significant role in this collection. How to put our arms around the demands being made on us with respect to our spiritual evolution now and in the future may be said to have been the main purpose of this series of essays.

Visit the author's website at johnomeara.squarespace.com

The primary identity of the Church as ‘Body of Christ’ in her relation with God is questioned. Understood somatically, since the Logos is the hypostasis of Christ, it fails to give the necessary ontological space for Creation to respond to God’s love.

Congar’s ecclesial ontology, formulated as Body of Christ, is investigated. His hierarchical interpretation of the relation between church structure, whose ontos as visible Body derives apneumatically from the incarnate Logos, and the Spirit, which vivifies the mystical Body through faith and the sacraments, is drawn from the filioque, subordinating the Spirit to the Institution. Souls united with God are eschatological ‘brides’, the reality for which the institution temporarily exists. Christ, or the Spirit, is the ‘I’ of the Church, which is not a ‘person’. Ultimately, souls are to be catholic, transparent to each other and God’s love. There is no explicit relation of Church to Creation.

Bulgakov identifies humanity as the hypostatic centre of Creation. In creating, God kenotically gives away his own being (Sophia) establishing temporality and otherness. Humanity is spirit-embodied earth, hypostasising created Sophia, drawn, through deification by the Spirit, into communion with God. The Trinitarian communion of the Godhead is imaged in Creation as the kenotic, hypostatic transparency of the Church. The Incarnation is a synergism between the Logos and Mary, who thereby participates in the salvific activity of the Son and the Spirit, as Spirit-bearer. She is the ‘Bride’ in whom all others participate.

Congar’s eschatology and Bulgakov’s kenotically hypostasised Creation proffer an understanding of the Church as the invited ‘yes’ of the personalised cosmos, reborn from Christ through the Cross, eschatologically irradiated by the Spirit with the glory of God, unified in kenotic love, whose communion with the Trinity as the ‘fourth’ hypostasis, ‘the Bride,’ proceeds through her nuptial union with the Son.

Vladimir Solov'ev (1853–1900) is one of the major influences on Sergii Bulgakov's “sophiology” and has been praised by both Hans Urs von Balthasar and John Milbank. However, his theology has often been read as a mere “religious philosophy” unduly influenced by Gnosticism and German Idealism. The article argues that Solov'ev's theology is more accurately understood as a unique form of Christology which integrates Gnostic and Idealist thought into Chalcedonian orthodoxy. Solov'ev's most important contribution is a sophiological reading of Christology which attempts to found the created on the uncreated without collapsing one into the other or ontologically juxtaposing them.

Bulgakov’s psychological and spiritual evolution can be reckoned as representative for his entire generation. Moving from Marxism to Idealism and finally conceiving his best known theory, namely Sophiology, he was considered by many one of the most influential and sometimes controversial Orthodox thinkers of the 20th century. The theory of Sophiology, his most disputed premise which lies at the center of his theological vision, is considered “a systematic attempt to work out the basis on which political action and policy could be seen as philosophically – and, eventual, theologically - legitimate” . If we reflect on our present cultural and political context we will find a renewed relevance in studying the evolution of Bulgakov’s theological and politic thought, due to the similarities of both periods. Just like in the last turn of the century, we also face issues of legitimacy of the political action, a new cultural paradigm and an economical crisis.

Vladimir Lossky (1903–58) and Sergii Bulgakov (1871–1944) are normally taken as polar opposites in modern Orthodox theology. Lossky's theology is portrayed as being based on a close exegesis of the Greek Fathers with an emphasis on theosis, the Trinity and the apophatic way of mystical union with God. Bulgakov's ‘sophiology’, in contrast, if it is remembered at all, is said to be a theology which wished to ‘go beyond the Fathers’, was based on German Idealism and the quasi-pantheist and gnostic idea of ‘sophia’ which is a form of the ‘Eternal Feminine’ of Romanticism. In short, Lossky's theological approach is what people normally think of when they speak of Orthodox theology: a form of ‘neo-patristic synthesis’ (Georges Florovsky). Bulgakov's theological approach is said to be typical of the exotic dead end of the inter-war émigré ‘Paris School’ (Alexander Schmemann) or ‘Russian Religious Renaissance’ (Nicolas Zernov). Lossky, we are reminded, was instrumental in the 1935 condemnation, by Metropolitan Sergii Stragorodskii of the Moscow Patriarchate, of Bulgakov's theology as ‘alien’ to the Orthodox Christian faith. Counter to this widely held ‘standard narrative’ of contemporary Orthodox theology, the article argues that the origins of Vladimir Lossky's apophaticism, which he characterised as ‘antinomic theology’, are found within the theological methodology of the sophiology of Sergii Bulgakov: ‘antinomism’. By antinomism is understood that with any theological truth one has two equally necessary affirmations (thesis and antithesis) which are nevertheless logically contradictory. In the face of their conflict, we are forced to hold both thesis and antithesis together through faith. A detailed discussion of Lossky's apophaticism is followed by its comparison to Bulgakov's ‘sophiological antinomism’. Lossky at first appears to be masking the influence of Bulgakov and even goes so far as to read his own form of theological antinomism into the Fathers. Nevertheless, he may well have been consciously appropriating the ‘positive intuitions’ of Bulgakov's thought in order to ‘Orthodoxise’ a thinker he believed was in error but still regarded as the greatest Orthodox theologian of the twentieth century. Despite major differences between the two thinkers (e.g. differing understandings of reason, the use of philosophy and the uncreated/created distinction), it is suggested that Lossky and Bulgakov have more in common than normally is believed to be the case. A critical knowledge of Bulgakov's sophiology is said to be the ‘skeleton key’ for modern Orthodox theology which can help unlock its past, present and future.

This essay's briefer first part examines the influence of theosophy on Philip Sherrard's presentation of man's experience of the sacred, while the lengthier last section analyzes Sherrard's astute critique of the much-maligned “Western civilization.” Though his early embrace of German Romantic aesthetics led Sherrard to the gravest of errors in his teachings about God, man and creation, his insightful account of Western theological and cultural decline shows him to be, if not an important Orthodox writer, at least a noteworthy anti-Western polemicist.

В научном периодическом издании Екатеринбургской духовной семинарии публикуются материалы и исследования по различным вопросам богословия, церковной истории и смежных дисциплин, извлечения из протоколов заседаний ученого совета ЕДC, рецензии и отзывы на дипломные работы студентов семинарии, рецензии и библиографические заметки на новые актуальные для богословской науки исследования. Издание адресуется преподавателям и студентам духовных учебных заведений, историкам, богословам, философам, а также всем интересующимся.
The academic journal issued by Ekaterinburg Theological Seminary publishes materials and research articles on theology, church history and related disciplines, extracts from the protocols of the seminary academic council meetings, reviews and comments on the diploma papers of the seminary students, reviews and bibliographical notes on new research in the area of theological studies. The journal is addressed to teachers and students of religious schools, historians, theologians, philosophers and all those interested in the above mentioned topics.

It is argued that those who uphold Ecumenism and Anti-Ecumenism in Eastern Orthodoxy share much more in common than is normally thought to be the case. Both groups see the Orthodox Church as the Una Sancta of the Creed and that Orthodoxy must always witness to
itself as the fullness of the Christian faith. They also both see ecumenical encounter (whether in dialogue or in condemnation of the Other) as being a species of civilisational dialogue between two very different realities of Christian East and West. Ultimately, it is contended, both parties have much to learn from one another so that their opposition is not a sterile but a creative antinomy.

Georges Florovsky (1893–1979), with his “neo-patristic synthesis”, is perhaps the most influential modern Orthodox theologian, having mentored and/or taught such theologians as Lossky and Zizioulas. However, his theology enshrines a troubling paradigm where a Pan-Orthodox Eastern identity (“Christian Hellenism”) is asserted over against the heterodoxy of an Other which is often the West. The article traces this paradigm then argues that Florovsky's construction of Eastern Orthodoxy is dependent on German Romanticism and that his polemicism blinded him to this fact. It briefly suggests, on the basis of the Chalcedonian definition, a new "dialectical" theology of ecclesial identity where identity is established in an encounter with the Other, rather than in demonizing it.

The term pneumatophore, originally drawn from the taxonomy of botany, has profound ecological implications. In the plant kingdom, it refers to roots which stick out of swampy waters to reach for pneuma, or the breath of life. For Bulgakov, the Theotokos serves as a vibrant bearer of Spirit and sophia-wisdom, but the term pneumatophore is also used today as an inspiration to guide us toward a heightened sense of global responsibility, which characterizes all modern theologies of panentheism. This is chapter 7  of the book "Sergius Bulgakov and the Patristic Roots of a Feminine Spirit," which explores the recently discovered text on Mary by Maximus. Subsequent chapters discuss Bulgakov's panentheism in more depth.

This is the first in a series of articles that addresses what is necessary for the development of a new community of the Grail, a spiritual knighthood such as that pointed to by both Rudolf Steiner and Valentin Tomberg. Such a community would be the guardians of modern grail wisdom both protecting and sharing such knowledge under the guidance of the modern time spirit. This article seeks to enumerate the prerequisites for spiritual knighthood exploring the idea that its members must "remain true to the spirit" remaining independent of teachers and teachings, of groups and organizations by rising to independent thinking that is social nevertheless and based on a profound inner knowledge of the Christ.

The present essay focuses on the Russian theologian Sergeij Bulgakov's two main cornerstones: Time and Cosmos. The methodological option has been to consider The Great Trilogy (The Lamb of God, The Comforter, The Bride of the Lamb) as the main critical reference. Two are the major themes chosen as paradigms of the entire Great Trilogy: Time and Cosmos. During the dissertation it will become clear that these two major themes are, in brief, the Participation of the Almighty, Omnipotent, in the here and now of Creation. These two major themes represent the pillars of the mystery of God who reveals Himself in the act of Creation. From the reading of this essay it is clear that Bulgakov's lecture remodulates the possibility of the theological saying, although without becoming indipendent of the apophatic traits of the Eastern (Orthodox) Christian theology.

This book has earned the 2023 Early Slavic Studies Association (ESSA) Book Prize honourable mention.

https://earlyslavicstudies.org/prizes/48-winners-of-the-2023-essa-book-prize

An interdisciplinary study of the enigmatic and contested allegorical iconography of Sophia, the Divine Wisdom
Challenges assumptions about the development of Russian art
Engages with previously unexamined texts, including works of Orthodox anti-Latin literature

https://global.oup.com/academic/product/depicting-orthodoxy-in-the-russian-middle-ages-9780198854302?prevNumResPerPage=20&prevSortField=1&sortField=8&resultsPerPage=20&start=0&lang=en&cc=gb&fbclid=IwAR3VF0B4TMHF1VuABvUesHthB-rfS5oNhAVutvWVrurnVk30SQ5C-Dhuhyo#

A review of the book from Georgi Gerov: https://www.ceeol.com/search/article-detail?id=1196798&fbclid=IwAR2d_70zF1LTPrV5KJRxVll8I83aWOYrAWDxcVFjU6gAMswAYWj_jiZVtnU

384 Pages | 105 colour figures
234x156mm
ISBN: 9780198854302

This paper will explore three phenomenological themes relating to the processes of palingenesis and resurrection. Firstly, the bi-polarity of love and death through an etymological analysis of (a)mor and its connection to Eros. Secondly, the separation (separatio) of body and soul through the mors osculi or morte di bacio (Latin: death of the kiss). Thirdly, I will show that the resurrected body (sahu), in its primordial state, is bound to the all-pervasive power of Eros, a power that 'loosens or breaks the chains that bind the soul to the body’. Deathlessness implies both separation and reintegration of body and soul intrinsic to the renovatio of the alchemical body of resurrection: corpus resurrectionis (body to come) and post resurrectionem (glorified body).This transmutation of the soul, culminating in an invisible life force within the newly incorruptible body (ka) ‘survives’ death, thus entering a state of deathlessness. Through my explication of the mors osculi, I will establish that the process of death has a uniquely feminine quality. A view comparable with Sophia in her Exaltation, or more precisely, the death-initiatory aspects of the intercession of the Angel of Knowledge (Dator formarum). Lastly, it is this very intercession which underpins numinous modalities of theophanic apperception and transcendence. Through transfiguration, the 'alchemical body of resurrection,' the soul in eclipse achieves apotheosis through deathlessness—mors osculi—the Urphänomen for the concatenation of death-palingenesis-resurrection.

The paper deals with the artistic composition of Divine Wisdom in the wall painting of Nemanjic’s Serbia in the 14th century, with special reference to the genesis, development and disposition of the display, as well as its dogmatic-theological and visual art aesthetic connotations. Divine Wisdom, as a person (hypostasis), participates in creation, Incarnation and the Eucharist, but it is also one of God's Energies, as a principle of cosmic structure and harmony, and a source of divine inspiration and wisdom for people. This conceptual ambiguity in theology influenced the formation of very diverse types of artistic expression, with different distribution and influences in the Eastern Christian, primarily Slavic world. The emergence and long perfection of the iconographic canon took place in special historical circumstances that prevailed within the Orthodox Christian Balkans, under an atmosphere of political, cultural and even doctrinal tensions, especially during the Christological controversies that followed half a century.

It is appropriate to speak of a  “Mother of God  Renaissance” in  15th and 16th century Italy and Russia. (G. Craco first made use of this concept in the Italian context –“Rinascimento Mariano” ). The veneration of Mary emerged in Italy in numerous sanctuaries in locations where her person or image (in the form of icons or statuary)  miraculously appeared. At the same time, Russia saw numerous miraculous appearances of icons of the Mother of God and of miracles associated with these icons,  the establishment of national cults of these  miraculous icons, and the formation of a system of church feasts in honor of icons of the Mother of God.  In both Italy and Russia, the Mother of God  was seen as the principle power in salvation history  and therefore in the historical process. Russian sources of the Time of Troubles emphasize  the key role of certain types of Mother of God icons in the countries’ response to (recovery from) national crisis.  The Loreto sanctuary, at the end of the 1520s  played a similar role in the material and moral salvation of the papacy.  In the same wey the Vladimir icon of the Mother of God, the Loreto Madonna  contributed  to the defense of Christians from the Muslim threat. 
    This article will examine the sermon of Bernadine of Sienna on the Birth of the Mother of God and certain liturgical images of the Immaculate Conception on the one hand, and on the other hand,  the sermon on the feast of the Triumph of Orthodoxy (the Tale of the Roman Icon), certain chronicle accounts and tales about icons and liturgical texts.  The manner of glorification of the Virgin Mary in Italy and of icons of the Mother of God in Russia both show a tendency to use Christological motifs. In the Russian veneration of these icons, the thematics and images of the feast of  the Presentation of Christ in the Temple of February 2 play an important role.  Images of Wisdom and especially of the Sun transversing the Universe have special significance.

The paper argues that Sergej Bulgakov’s sophiology was an attempt, via antinomism or the philosophy of antinomies, to overcome the rationalism, monism, and determinism (in a word, “pantheism”) of Vladimir Solov’ëv’s philosophy of the Absolute understood as an abstract Trinitarianism. After detailing Solov’ëv’s thought on the Trinity and Bulgakov’s criticisms of it, the study then describes Bulgakov’s antinomism and its application to the doctrine of God. However, it is contended that Bulgakov’s antinomism ultimately falls into the same problems with pantheism found in Solov’ëv and so the last part of the paper tentatively proposes resources in his work, stated in the form of a suggested “fourth (Bulgakovian) antinomy” between ousia (divine Being as such) and Sophia (the revelation in God and the world of the divine Being), that might help to avoid a collapse of God and the world by making the divine Being proper utterly transcendent and unknowable.

[ Uncorrected proofs ] The following is of necessity a scanty survey of significant moments in the last millennium of Orthodox Christian experience. Sometimes divergent, the trends and figures mentioned here converged in the common aspiration for higher gnosis and the attainment of human perfection.

Acest articol este o schiță a unui parcurs în care s-ar putea întâlni viziunea apuseană și cea răsăriteană despre natura și demnitatea creației. Este vorba despre întâlnirea dintre doctrina analogiei ființei din filosofia religioasă catolică a secolului 20 și sofiologia teologilor ruși din prima jumătate a aceluiași secol. Prima este preluată de Erich Przywara (1889-1972) de la Toma de Aquino și plasată ca centru formal-epistemologic al unei teologii catolice a participării infinitului relativ al creatului în infinitul absolut al lui Dumnezeu. A doua este baza unei articulări a dependenței ipostaticității creației de Dumnezeul Triipostatic prin medierea Sofiei, a Înțelepciunii divine, găsindu-și expresia sistematică în opera lui Serghei Bulgakov (1871-1944), purificând ambiguitățile lui Vladimir Soloviov (1853-1900) și ducând la înflorire intuițiile penetrante ale lui Pavel Florenski (1882-1937).

Îmi voi prezenta argumentul în cinci etape: în prima, vom vedea care este substanța criticii lui Przywara față de teologia rusă. În doua și a treia, voi prezenta o sinteză a doctrinei lui Bulgakov despre „Sofia” ca Înțelepciunea lui Dumnezeu ce leagă necreatul de creat. În partea a patra mă voi întoarce la Przywara și conceptul său de „analogia entis”, punctând mai ales aspectele în care s-ar găsi o apropiere de Bulgakov. Iar în ultima voi propune schița unei narațiuni teologice despre natura Creației care să țină cont de cele două gândiri și care să adreseze câteva dintre patologiile intelectuale contemporane.

The book under review is concerned with the communication of properties among Sophia, Holy Spirit, and the Virgin Mary over time, with additional attention to technical issues involving Spirit Christology, creation ex nihilo, the cataphatic/apophatic dynamic, and recent feminist and process thought.  This book grows out of deep reflection on the work of Sergius Bulgakov and the patristic sources for these areas of Christian doctrine and dogma.

Aim of this paper is to follow the paths of eriugenian thought in one of his most topical argument: the creation of everything in the Verb. Moving from the fourfold division of nature, set at the beginning of Periphyseon, two main problems are identified: the non-creativeness of God, and the creativeness of the primordial causes. An attempt to reconstruct the play of ontology and meontology under these themes is made, in search of what the Irish master means speaking of God’s self-creation in everything and God’s identity with the Creation. The Wisdom argument is identified by Eriugena to overpass the aporias that rational though, which follows the rules of dialectics, meets as its limits. Moving from scientia to sapientia, the intellect passes from a divisive knowledge to a unitive one, and by this step an harmonisation of the four divisions of nature with the division between things-that-are and thing-that-are-not is understood in a unitary frame.