The Land of Unlikeness

“How Far Can You Go With Sophiology?”
by Brendan Thomas Sammon, The Catholic University of America

In chapter five of Catholicity and Orthodoxy, Eastern theologian John Myendorff insightfully inquires how the historical development of Western Christianity during the Reformation would have gone had there been a stronger Eastern Orthodox presence.  Reading David Congdon’s and Kyle David Bennett’s lucid presentations on Bulgakov’s sophiology reminded me of Myendorff’s insight; Congdon is, by his introductory admission, a Western Protestant, while Bennett offers a comparative analysis between Bulgakov and the Western Protestant theologian J. Moltmann.  The Eastern Orthodox/Western Protestant conversation, while interesting, inspiring and important, is unfortunately infrequent if not rare among theologians today.  That these two thinkers agreed to pursue Bulgakov is admirable and courageous.

Consequently, it was somewhat refreshing to read these two thoughtful reflections on the enigmatic doctrine of Sophiology as found in the thought of Sergius Bulgakov.  Both reflections offer praiseworthy considerations that help to draw out the beauty of this Eastern thinker.  At the same time, both offer points that merit critical attention.
Congdon provides a helpful analysis of the Trinitarian grounding for Bulgakov’s Sophiology, situating it within the themes of procession and revelation.  Concerning procession, Congdon explains how Bulgakov thinks beyond the distorted equivocation, initiated by the ninth century Patriarch Photius, by resisting the urge to import concepts of causality and origination when contemplating Divine Tri-unity. From this emerges the notion of God as per se relation (or we might, in scholastic parlance, be called ‘subsistent relation’), rather than three divine persons in a broader, and hence prior, relation.  Consistent with that splendid feature of Eastern thought, the resistance to reified abstractions is keenly poignant in Bulgakov’s Trinitarian thought, and Congdon does well to expound this difficult feature.  Viewed from this perspective, God’s intra-Trinitarian life overflows in an act of kenotic-creative revelation, and the immanent/economic distinction of the Holy Spirit “takes shape” in Sophia – both divine and creative.  This act of creative self-disclosure is the grounding of all creaturely participation in the deifying of all creation – a key theme within the tradition of Russian Symbolism.  For Bulgakov, deification as the telos of Creation is not merely an extrinsic addition of an alien grace, but an intrinsic momentum of creaturely union toward Life in the Triune Godhead, and all the discrete creatures in Creation energize this momentum toward its goal.  As far as I understand Bulgakov and his Eastern tradition, its content is well represented by Congdon’s presentation.

With such a fine presentation of Bulgakov’s content, it is somewhat surprising to find myself taking issue with a few of Mr. Congdon’s interpretative remarks throughout, as well as some of his conclusions at the end.  But this may be more a result of a distinction between fundamental principles of thinking than anything else.

My first issue, and one very close to my heart, involves the areas where Mr. Congdon attempts to relate Bulgakov’s Sophiology to the analogia entis.  We first confront this concept when Mr. Congdon, insightfully describing Bulgakov’s Sophiology, writes: “The unity of divinity and humanity in Christ becomes the analogical template for all other unions, including the unity of God and creation.”  Most scholars of medieval theology and philosophy would recognize in these words an expression of the Thomistic understanding of the analogia entis.  While there are obvious distinctions between Bulgakov and certain scholastic thinkers, there are also important similarities because of, not in spite of, particular formulations of analogy.  I was buoyed by the subtle connection – at least until I read the very next line: “We might even speak of an analogy of Sophia, as opposed to an analogy of being (the latter being far too Latin and scholastic).”  Opposed?  Really?  Before addressing the footnoted explanation, a few observations of this terse statement must be put forth lest the misconception of the analogia entis be perpetuated further.

What does that mean, “far too Latin and scholastic”?  Is there such a simple understanding of “scholastic” freely circulating about?  That one would posit a “scholastic” notion of the analogia entis assumes that there is a simple unity within scholasticism reminiscent of M. De Wulf, who claimed that the unity of medieval philosophy can be understood as a “strict, scholastic synthesis.”  But this view can be (and has been) called seriously into question, if not discredited entirely, based on two points.

1] The work of Baeumker who, arguing that it is misleading to maintain a strict unity within scholasticism advocating instead a Gemeingut or “common heritage,” and the work of Gilson who, also rejecting strict unity and advocating a “common Spirit,” demonstrates that it is wrongheaded to make any sweeping claims over scholastic doctrine.  Even De Wulf’s theory of unity does not allow one to gloss over variety within scholastic thought.  Mr. Congdon does this not only in the body of the work, but even more so in the footnote when, referring to the analogia entis, he calls it the “traditional scholastic analogia entis”.  The fact that I recognized in this presentation of Bulgakov subtle hints of (NB!) Thomistic analogia entis, and that Congdon saw it as less “complex” and “interesting” than Bulgakov’s Sophiology, further refutes the idea of a simple “tradition” – clearly, we do not see the same tradition, so de facto it cannot be as simple as Mr. Congdon would like it to be.  For these reasons, Mr. Congdon is at least obligated to describe how he understands the doctrine of the analogia entis if such criticisms are to hold any validity.

2]  This takes us to the second point: the evidence itself.  Thomistic analogia (which, by the way, pace Mr. Congdon, is more Greek than Latin, based as it is on the Greek doctrines of participation and Biblical Creation) is vastly different from, e.g., the conception of analogia formulated by Cardinal Cajetan, despite the fact that the latter believed himself to be a loyal heir to the former.  In fact, it is Cajetan’s notion of analogia, which is really a “univocal analogy” that tends to find itself associated with any (so-called) “traditional notion”.  Cajetan made the mistake of importing unity as a synthetic a priori to understand what, for Aquinas, could never be prioritized by unity over difference; for Thomas, difference is constitutive of all Being(s), and the unity incumbent upon these beings is always-already arriving.  Now, there is debate as to whether analogia, as understood by Aquinas, is real, i.e., a condition of the real order (in re), or merely notional, i.e., a condition in the logical order (in mente).  Debate continues today (e.g., B. Montagnes who argues for the former, and R. McInerney who argues for the latter).  Suffice it to say that all this renders it more than valid to call into question Mr. Congon’s understanding of the analogia entis.  It seems, if we may be permitted to speculate, that his is an understanding born not from the sources themselves, but from a Barthian secondhand reading.

My second and final issue with Mr. Congdon involves his criticism that Bulgakov’s theology is “non-Christocentric.”  Now Mr. Congdon makes an important qualifier: “at least as that word (i.e., Christocentric) defines the kind of theology pursued by theologians like Karl Barth.”  I readily and wholeheartedly concede this point, but would submit that is hardly a criticism.  Must all theological approaches be Christocentric in the way that Barth’s was?  Is Barth’s understanding of Christ the only legitimate one?  Now, to be sure, I find Mr. Congdon’s criticism here to be quite attentive to the existential importance of the historical person of Jesus Christ.  This is quite worthy of being pursued in dialogue with many Eastern thinkers.  The sophiological approach can risk becoming too ‘spiritual’ at the expense of the concrete person of Jesus Christ either in history, or in the Church.  But it is also the case that we in the West may learn a great deal about the person of Christ as he exists now by engaging in the more, let us say, mystical approach of the East without relinquishing the concrete.  In other words, the Western approach, which especially in the last century has become historical (at times, in my opinion, overly so), risks preventing Christ from truly ascending beyond the limits and constraints of the material, historical, order.  I believe that the current obsession, among Biblical scholars, with the historical-critical method is symptomatic of this, as is the fundamentalist identification of American, political state-craft with Christian faith praxis – but these digressions need not be pursued here.

I see in Bulgakov a Christo-centrism of a different mode (a point that Congdon himself makes a few times).  For Bulgakov, Sophiology is nothing but the full elucidation of Godmanhood,¹ a concept he derives from Solovyov, who employed it as a philosophical principle of synthetic unity (not, to be sure, a priori) of science and philosophy, on the one hand, and theology on the other, viewed as the primary constituent of reality. “In Solovyev’s system not only does religion receive a rational basis, but East and West come together, matter and spirit unite.”²  Christ lives in the most real and concrete way as the world of creatures consecrated to the divinely ordained telos of redemption.  But such a view only makes sense within the context of an ontology formed from the authentic tradition of analogia, since only then is unity and difference properly held in the blessed tension of convenientia.

My sincere apologies if this response to Mr. Congdon has been overly drawn out.  I was inspired by his articulate positions, even if not in complete agreement with all aspects.  Still, none of this should detract from the thoughtful and praiseworthy reflection he provided us.

Kyle David Bennett offers a comparative analysis that describes some of the similarities and differences between Bulgakov and Motlmann.  Although brief given the parameters of the blog (parameters which I have admittedly not respected as nobly), Mr. Bennett’s reflection at least commendably points to some openings between Eastern Orthodoxy and the Reformed Tradition with respect to the themes of Resurrection, Judgment and New Creation.  More importantly, he draws out some of the salient differences that would need addressing, or at the very least, would provide a point of discussion and dialogue.

Regarding the similarities, Mr. Bennett illuminates the existential-ontological intrincism that one finds in both thinkers.  For example, resurrection began at Pentecost when the Spirit most fully entered the created order to animate it with a new life.  This is a “proleptic” beginning, as Mr. Bennet astutely calls is, that initiates an anticipatory momentum toward its life-giving destiny.  In this way, the Spirit has already actualized what God wills, where – to borrow a phrase from Dante – “what is willed must be” (Inferno, Canto III).   With respect to judgment, as Mr. Bennett reads it, Bulgakov’s and Motmann’s understanding of the Spirit enables one confronted with “ontological injustice” not to rationalize it away out of fear of what it reveals about oneself or the world, but instead to courageously see it as a moment that reflects one’s judgment not in guilty condemnation, but in grace-filled opportunity for transformation.  This initiates a process of purgation that seeks to renew creation in a holiness that will enable it to receive God when he comes again.  Both thinkers, we are told, share principles related to these themes, and Mr. Bennett laudably draws them out.

But there are differences, and with these differences some critical point are in order.  Mr. Bennett points out the difference in the way each thinkers understands Mary’s eschatological role.  But all we are given as readers is the fact that Mary has a place in Bulgakov and not in Motlmann.  We are given nothing as to what that role is, other than that “Mary will come into the world following her Son Jesus and the Holy Spirit.”  We are given reasons why Bulgakov believes this, and that “The Spirit will bring the theotokos with her,” but nothing in terms of the content or substance of that specific role.  Now again, I understand and appreciate that brevity is an issue.  But at least one or two points regarding the content of Mary’s role in the Parousia would seem to be in order if one is to present a contrast without falling into simplistic reductions.  At the very least, we could see it in terms of Bulgakov’s overall Sophiology, which Mr. Bennett has done so well to articulate in the first section of his paper. In the spirit of what Mr. Bennett writes in his conclusion, then, we offer the following questions with respect to this issue:  would Mary’s role in eschatological judgment perhaps involve in-forming the human capacity to receive?  Her unique place as God-bearer seems to include an openness to God’s will, a power to receive, and this it seems is crucial to both thinkers’ understandings of judgment.  Would Mary’s role, then, involve helping us to conceive of Christ spiritually through the Holy Spirit even as she once conceived materially of Christ through the Holy Spirit?  Whether or not Bulgakov saw it this way, his overall Sophiology certainly puts us on the path of approaching these questions without appealing to any kind of historicism or materialism, offering instead a theological mysticism.

A second point that struck me as somewhat terse, and consequently misleading, concerns the difference between the two thinkers with respect to the issue of the ‘new creation.’  It seems that in this section, the difference between ‘renew’ and  ‘create’ are somewhat constrained for the sake of making a distinction.  Mr. Bennett writes: “For Bulgakov, the new creation is not the old creation created anew. Rather, it is the transfiguration or renewal of the old creation” and he explains this by saying: “There will be no abolition or ontological violence done to the old creation. Instead, through the Spirit, the old will be transfigured and concomitantly, a new creation will come to fruition from the old.”  As presented so far, Bulgakov’s doctrine seems in full keeping with the history of Christian teaching; I know of no thinker who claims that the new creation is the absolute abolition of all that is for the sake of something entirely new, with no relation to the old.  Rather, like Bulgakov, most thinkers believe that redemption is the “transfiguration” of ‘what was’ into a beatified ‘what is’.  It is a complex doubleness of old and new.  Mr. Bennett rightly brings this out.  But then, shockingly, he sweeps things up immediately after by writing: “Therefore, in quintessential Orthodox fashion, the new creation will be a recapitulation and restoration of the old” (italics added).   A teacher of mine once defined theology as ‘watching your language before God,’ and this seems an apt piece of advice here.  Recapitulation?  If Mr. Bennett’s previous analysis is correct, then he undermines it with this poor word choice.  Recapitulation, while harboring some nuance, cannot but carry the meaning of ‘summarizing’ or ‘restating’ or ‘capitulating again’ (to be literally strict).  It is hardly the correct word choice to convey Bulgakov’s sense of ‘new creation.’  Recapitulation and restoration are not, as Bulgakov sees it, theologically synonymous with transfiguration; was Christ ‘recapitulated’ and ‘restored’ on Mt. Tabor?  Did his resurrected state defy recognition because it recapitulated and restored his old body?  Perhaps some will see this is nitpicking.  And perhaps it is, especially if what Mr. Bennett really meant was to be consistent with his original exposition of Bulgakov’s  sense of a ‘new creation’.  Still, it is difficult not to see Mr. Bennett’s final summary of Bulgakov as overly exaggerated in order to contrast it better with Moltmann, for whom, we are told, “the new creation is new and therefore, is something over against the old.”  But again, one finds Mr. Bennett’s final conclusion slightly puzzling.  If it is the case, as Mr. Bennett claims it is, that “He (Moltmann) acquiesces that while that there is continuity between the old and the new he is unwilling to concede that this is simply a restoration of the old,” then we must ask: wherein is the continuity?  Is anything of the old preserved?  Surely continuity – to any degree – requires some sense of the old.  The idea that “he acquiesces” to “continuity” seems thrown in at the last minute after Mr. Bennett had just finished thoroughly explaining the, almost absolute, novelty of creation for Moltmann; as if Mr. Bennett wanted to make sure his exaggerations weren’t too imbalanced.  But such, I suppose, are the pitfalls of reflections that aspire to contrast, especially in such a brief space.

Again, I hope that my criticisms are recognized as motivated by the utmost respect for these two commendable reflections.  I appreciate with the utmost sincerity their efforts, and have put forth my own as a way of showing that gratitude.  I welcome any further responses to what I have put forth here, and look forward to any dialogues that such reflections may provoke.

1. Coppleston, Russian Religious Philosophy: Selected Aspects (South Bend: Notre Dame Press, 1981) 432↩
2. Russian Philosophy, J.M. Edie, J.P. Scanlan, and M.B. Zeldin (eds.) (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1965) vol. 3, p.58.↩