Софиология

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