THE LAND OF UNLIKENESS

“A Discussion in Sophiology and Magic:  Renaissance Precursors to Bulgakov” — PART TWO, cont.

Meanwhile, the Longest Overtly Sophiological Poem I know
by Janet Leslie Blumberg (Deep Grace of Theory)

Meanwhile, let me regale everyone with two passages from the longest overtly Sophiological poem I know. Or so I will posit… to see what you think. (It ought to further our discussion of precursors to sophiology among the Renaissance humanists, at any rate.)

This poem was written by an acquaintance of Giordano Bruno and a fellow renegade, John Donne, although Donne chose to go under cover so as not to die as Bruno did. Or to die as Donne’s own brother had died during the Elizabethan anti-Catholic purges of the 1590s.

In 1611, Donne was asked to commemorate the untimely death of his patron’s adolescent daughter, and Donne seized upon the occasion to write not only about Elizabeth Drury, but also about what he called “the Idea of a Woman.” And while he was eulogizing the young woman who had died (and also eulogizing the passing of more than she), Donne performed an “anatomy” upon the “corpse” of the desolate world that “Shee” had left behind her at her passing. The poem is called “The First Anniversary: An Anatomy of World,” and it turns out to be, among other things, a prescient lament for the “death” of Sophia in the coming mechanistic age. Continue reading ‘Bulgakov Blog Conference, Day 12′

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“A Discussion in Sophiology and Magic:  Renaissance Precursors to Bulgakov” — PART TWO
From Janet Leslie Blumberg to Joshua Delpech-Ramey:

Joshua,
So many rich ideas here in your own oration, Joshua:  An Oration on the Dignity of Sophia — the creaturely Sophia, that is. (As if she ever could be kept apart from the divine Sophia for very long…but we’ll try.)

I must choose just a few threads, out of this closely woven tapestry of yours….

So…you begin with precursors of sophiology in the German Romantic tradition; they had a direct influence on the Russian sophiologists. Then… you work your way back into the Great Unknown, back into the darkness of that more ancient tablet of the West which, according to Bulgakov, is a blank slate with respect to Sophia — at least insofar as her importance to theology is concerned. (But no one, including Bulgakov, should ever be expected to be acquainted intimately with everything, or be made to suffer indignity because of not being.)

So you say, Joshua, that the thinking of the creaturely Sophia was not absent in the West – at least among the poets and philosophers, although “at the level of systematic theology“ you accept Bulgakov’s judgment. But then I notice that after your wonderful “deregulation of nature” (Schelling’s liberation of the physical world from some of the rigid enclosures effected by early-modern epistemologists) –- that you make your transition back in time to the Renaissance not by explicitly citing Pico or Bruno as sophiologists, but instead by using Goethe’s Faust to raise a crucial modern problem, the way that knowledge has been drained of eros and set against love in our scientific, post-Newtonian thoughtworld, so that we are forced to choose one as against the other…. Continue reading ‘Bulgakov Blog Conference, Day 11′

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Our final installation in the Bulgakov Blog Conference is a dialogue, which I think you will find highly illuminating. The dialogue will be published over the next couple days until we have posted it all.

“A Discussion in Sophiology and Magic:  Renaissance Precursors to Bulgakov” (PART ONE)
Between Joshua Delpech-Ramey (The Land of Unlikeness) and Janet Leslie Blumberg (Deep Grace of Theory):

Hello Joshua –
I have an opening question for you, having just finished Sophia, The Wisdom of God and being filled with its wise and gentle music…. Bulgakov says that Sophia, as the ousia of God, is “not a fourth” with respect to the Trinity. Not a quaternity. But via the Marian dimension of Sophia, he does bring into view an additional dimension to the efficacy of the Godhead, in terms of that special human nature that was Mary’s first, and then, through Mary, Christ’s. This humanity “possesses the Adamic nature” and is therefore capable of sin, but sinfulness is effectively reduced to nothingness by the holy life produced by the Holy Spirit with the full consent of the human agent.

I’m wondering, since you know much more about Pico della Mirandola than I do, how you would compare Bulgakov’s vision with Pico’s famous vision of a divinized humanity (a vision, by the way, somewhat qualified and brought down to earth by Shakespeare in the person of Prospero, in The Tempest). Continue reading ‘Bulgakov Blog Conference, Day 10′

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“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. Continue reading ‘Bulgakov Blog Conference, Response to Congdon & Bennett’

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“Moltmann and Bulgakov Pneumatologies”
by Kyle David Bennett, Fuller Seminary

1.1. Introduction
This brief post on the pneumatologies of Sergius Bulgakov and Jurgen Moltmann is predicated on and oriented by one query in particular: How do they converge and diverge with reference to the Spirit’s role in the parousia and eschatological return of Christ? For the sake of brevity I have decided not to explicate Bulgakov and Moltmann’s general pneumatologies (for example, who is the Spirit?); one can ascertain such information from the previous post. What I am interested in, and what this post is concerned with, is how does a prominent Russian Orthodox theologian’s view of the eschatological coming of Christ, and the Spirit’s action in it, differ from that of a Reformed theologian? Before we begin this critical juxtaposition though a note on methodology: I have formulated this critical juxtaposition with a categorical framework consisting of three theological foci, namely, resurrection, judgment and new creation. It is my hope and intent, as a systematic theologian, that this formulation will serve to be the most pedagogically salutary and insightful for the reader. Hopefully, he or she will be able to perceive, understand, and appreciate the logic of these two and how their logic influences and conditions their pneumatologies. That being said; let us begin. Continue reading ‘Bulgakov Blog Conference, Day 9′

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The Comforter: Bulgakov on the Holy Spirit
David W. Congdon, Princeton Theological Seminary

I must begin by confessing up front that I am wholly unqualified for this task.  I am knowledgeable neither in Russian Orthodox theology nor in pneumatology.  Furthermore, I approach theology as a modern, Western Protestant-attributes which predispose me to find the work of Sergius Bulgakov quite alien in nature.  Due to limitations in time and ability, I have limited my focus to the second volume in Bulgakov’s “great trilogy” on Divine-humanity, The Comforter.  In this volume, Bulgakov builds on the account of Divine-humanity and Sophia that he explores in more detail in The Lamb of God (christology) and The Bride of the Lamb (ecclesiology and eschatology), the first and third volumes in the trilogy, respectively.  My treatment of Bulgakov’s pneumatology will proceed by exploring (1) the procession and (2) the revelation of the Spirit, before (3) closing with some final critical reflections. Continue reading ‘Bulgakov Blog Conference, Day 8′

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Hypostatic Motherhood and the Mother of God
by Scott Sharman, University of Toronto

It is no secret that Fr. Sergei Bulgakov was a controversial theologian. He remains so today. In the eyes of some of his colleagues,¹ and in the judgment of the synods of the Moscow Patriarchate and the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia (ROCOR),² Bulgakov was guilty of more than just controversy; he was a heretic, seen to be propagating such heavy-hitting errors as Gnosticism, Pantheism, Arianism, and Origenism.³ Though less known than these official proceedings, the criticisms of Archbishop John Maximovitch were equally strong, and more specifically targeted. In his 1933 The Orthodox Veneration of the Birthgiver of God, Maximovitch denounces Bulgakov for his ‘over-deification’ of the Mother of God, arguing that anyone holding such a Mariology cannot be considered a member of the Orthodox Church.⁴ While there remains some uncertainty regarding the final canonical status and authority of such assessments,⁵ statements of this kind continue to cast shadows over Bulgakov’s legacy. Continue reading ‘Bulgakov Blog Conference, Day 7′

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1. Most notoriously Fr. Georges Florovsky, who A. F. Dobbie-Bateman has called the “Anti-Bulgakov.” See “Footnotes (IX)-In quos fines saeculorum,” Sobornost, no. 30 (1944).↩
2. See Decision of the Council of Bishops of the Russion Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, Dated 11/30 October 1935, On the New Doctrine of Archpriest Sergius Bulgakov Concerning Sophia, the Wisdom of God, translated by Reader Isaac Lambertsen.↩
3. For more on the so-called ‘Sophia controversy’ see Paul Valliere, Modern Russian Theology, (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdman’s Publishing Co., 2000), 287-89 and Rowan Williams, Segeii Bulgakov, (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1999), 172-181.↩
4. St. John Maximovich, The Orthodox Veneration of the Birthgiver of God, Fr. Seraphim Rose, trans., (Platina, CA: St. Herman of Alaska Brotherhood, 1996).↩
5. Valliere, 288 n.21. See also Andrew Blane, ed., Georges Florovsky, (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1993).↩

The Burning Bush and Bulgakov’s Kataphatic Theology
M. S. Compton (all rights reserved)

Rowan Williams has observed that, in The Unfading Light,  Bulgakov expounds upon the Palamite doctrine, and finds “not only the foundation of the theology of negation…but also a vision of the transfiguration of the cosmos by the penetration of divine energy.” (1) Although Wisdom-Sophia is “not God” (i.e., a 4th hypostasis,) she is “the first principle of the new created plurality of hypostases…human and angelic…existing in sophianic relation to the divine.” (2) Bulgakov, in essence, says: “The mystery of the world is this femininity.” (3) Bulgakov’s Mariology, wherein the sacred feminine dimension of his theology is perhaps most explicit, is outlined in the second book of his first sophiological trilogy, The Burning Bush, the English translation of which will be available November, 2008 by Eerdmans. Continue reading ‘Bulgakov Blog Conference, Day 6′

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by Henry Karlson
The Catholic University of America, Washington DC

When discussing Bulgavkov’s Sophiology, it is always important to note the reaction, and condemnation, given to it by members of the Orthodox Church. Obviously we must note, as Aron Dunlap does, that the condemnation was not universal; indeed, its value has been and continues to be questioned by the Orthodox themselves. For those who look positively towards Bulgakov, they will be the first to note the non-binding nature of the condemnation, and how they do not fit what Bulgakov taught. For those who look down upon Sophiology, the condemnation, while unofficial, is seen as normative and cannot be summarily dismissed.

As Aron rightfully points out, for Bulgakov, the belief that Sophia as a “fourth person” of the Trinity is erroneous. But why do people claim Sophia represents a “fourth person” for Bulgakov? To answer that question we must look at earlier forms of Russia Sophiology, especially that which is associated with Vladimir Solovyov. In Russia and the Universal Church, Solovyov presents a personified Sophia; to follow a Hindu analogy, Sophia in Solovyov is like God’s Shakti, the personified essence and energy of God. And for Solovyov, this Sophia, the created other of God, is created directly from the essence of God, and becomes the foundation for the world. Sophia is one with the worldly system, propped herself above God, and became fallen. The Gnostic connections with Solovyov’s Sophiology were evident by all, both by those who supported and those who opposed him. How could it not be when Vladimir Solovyov mentioned in his own writings how he learned about Sophia in part through his study of Gnostic treatises? Because Solovyov’s Sophiology was a major influence upon Bulgakov, especially in the early formation of his own Sophiology, it is understandable that his critics would use Solovyov’s Sophiology as a hermeneutical tool to interpret Bulgakov’s dogmatic writings – and, interpreted in that context, it is easy to see how Bulgakov would appear to fall into erroneous, if not heretical, speculations (especially if one looks at his earlier, cruder, vaguer forms of Sophiology). Bulgakov, like Solovyov, would be seen as a Gnostic following the emanation theories of the Gnostics; therefore, he must have believed Sophia to be personified and even fallen.

Aron does a good job describing what Bulgakov’s Sophiology is about, and can help us begin to see why it should not be seen as a reproduction of Solovyov’s Sophiology, even if it is influenced by it. The distinction between Uncreated and Created Sophia relate, in part, to the fact that humanity is created in the image of God. God’s essence, Sophia, love, wisdom, can never be said to be fallen, and is personified only through and by the members of the Holy Trinity. It’s image, created Sophia, is given hypostization through human persons, and it is these persons who are to be said to be fallen. And because an image is always contained within the one whose image is being imagined, it is for this reason one can understand with Bulgakov (via Aron’s description) that creaturely Sophia has its basis and foundation in eternity, even if it is, as the title suggests, created.

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“Orthodoxy, Heresiology, and Why We Should Care:
A Response to the Essays on Bulgakov and Apollinarius”
by Anthony D. Baker
Seminary of the Southwest
Austin, Texas

Rarely is new research on heresiarchs of the ancient church of any real theological interest.  Whether or not Augustine was right about what Pelagius meant is an archeological matter, since he was certainly right about the disasterously contractual conception of grace that his “fictive Pelagius” offered.  One of a small handful of exceptions to this rule is Rowan Williams’s Arius, which digs deeply into the source materials of fourth century Christology in order to deliver a punchline not so much about what we are to do with Arius, but about the relation of a creative theologian to the church, especially the church in a time of great doctrinal ambiguity.

As another exception to this rule, though, we must surely count Bulgakov’s reassessment of Apollinarius, part of a beautifully-crafted 88-page essay on Patristic Christology.   As Mr. Bruce points out here, this now seventy-five year old thesis holds up remarkably well alongside the recent work that has been done on Apollinarius, which must now cause teachers of Christology to stop assigning him that remarkably naïve notion that the human nature of Christ was void of a human soul.  In fact, as Bulgakov shows, the bishop of Laodicia understood quite well that what is not assumed is not healed, and so that a body and soul must both be assumed by the Logos.  What he lacked, however, was consistency of language and a thoroughly worked-out anthropology, leading later readers to make a rather insane caricature of his position in order to show the sanity of Cyril’s. Bruce points out very helpfully the crude scholarship of 19th century dogmatic histories on this point, and this makes Bulgakov’s rise in popularity over the last decade even more timely, since only now are these broadly sweeping and almost universally inaccurate tomes finally being exiled from seminary and undergraduate lecture halls. Continue reading ‘Bulgakov Blog Conference, Response to Karlson and Bruce-Aragon’

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