Софиология

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]

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]

3. The tasks of Bulgakov’s sophiology

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.

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]