Софиология

Yet, in his encyclopaedic entry on Liubov′, 1896 – composed while Solov′ev was working on the Justification of the Good – he again specified carnal love to simultaneously manifest the «strongest form of individual self-affirmation» [corresponding to ascending love] and of «self-negation» [corresponding to descending love]. As such an ambiguous event, carnal love is the «highest symbol» [vysshijsimvol] of «the ideal relationship between personal and social principles.»[151] Though spiritualised carnal love does not serve humanity′s but the individual′s perfection, it nevertheless represents one of cornerstones of ideal society′s development. For Solov′ev society".is the supplemented or expanded individual, while the individual is the condensed or concentrated society."[152] As may be concluded, only perfected individuals – individuals experienced in spiritualising syzygy in order to experience holy androgynous being – may form ideal society, Already in Filosofskie nachala tsel′nogo znaniia, 1877, he had introduced a tripartite scheme of society: 1.) the "material society [materialnoe obsh-chestvo]" is located at the fundament, the "political society [politicheskoe obshchestvo]" occupies the midst, and the "spiritual [dukhovnoe]" or "holy society, the Church [sviashchennoe obshchestvo, Tserkov′]" tops both. As may be concluded, the third type of society appears to be the syzygial unification of the other two.[153] The «Universal Church» signifies unification of masculine and feminine elements, which correspond to Christ and nature respectively[154]

No scholar has yet presented a survey on his image of existence in pairs (syzygy) as something spread throughout his entire works. Solov′ v claims this Greek expression to best express his idea of "composition [sochetanie]."[155] Krasota v prirode,[156] 1899, briefly treats another syzygial phenomenon, namely beauty. Beauty is not at all an indefinable property and beauty is not an expression of mere subjectivity either. Beauty signifies another fertile form of syzygy, for the sun′s light elucidates matter. Nature′s elucidation by the sun denotes the unification of two elements that are independent from each other. Their unification radiates beauty.[157] Man′s self-consciousness relates to the animals′ as beauty in art relates to beauty in nature. Art is not a mere repetition of the artistic deeds begun by nature but their continuation by analogously creating syzygial unities between the lucidity of human ideas and nature.[158]

Syzygy opens out into Solov′ev′s metaphysically religious notion of Trinity. I call this interdependence between unity in pairs and Trinity a ′trinitarian double helix.′ This expression indicates the trinitarian structure of the cosmos, of the world, and of ideal society (the Universal Church, viz. Sophia). The (self-) realisation of the latter depends in turn on multiple unifications of opposites. Syzygy is the way of repairing dissociation. Syzygial unities generate «mystical» and / or «religious experience»[159] making man anticipate the ′sophianic′ social ideal.

To conclude:

1. Unification of opposites releases mystical experience. Mystical and / or religious experience thus denotes the individualisation of All-Unity, a unity that bears androgynous character. Conscious experience of syzygy generates, as I conclude, prophetic faith, a type of faith that is sufficient to bestow on people a befitting foundation of social life.