This article distances the classic Patristic teaching of Eastern Orthodoxy on theosis from the pseudo-religious ideology of transhumanism. By appealing to the Silver Age of Russian theologians a century ago, today’s transhumanist vision is dubbed Mangodhood, an idolatrous construction of a technological Tower of Babel. In contrast, the classical Orthodox teaching of deification or theosis relies on the spiritual grace of the true God, rendering the true goal of religion to be Godmanhood.

Less known in the anglophone world than Berdyaev (who was a pupil of his), or Martin Buber, Vladimir Solovyov (1853-1900), philosopher, mystic, poet, has nevertheless a contribution of the first importance to offer to Western scholarship. He came from a rich and not yet fully understood tradition; his erudition was stupendous. Like his predecessors he was extremely sensitive to such problems as the religious meaning of history, of creativity, of culture. It is important to emphasize a general link between Solovyov (...) and preceding currents of Russian thought, for his Christian philosophy in a sense embraces them all. Dostoyevsky and Leo Tolstoy sat at his feet. Godmanhood is the problem of restoring all mankind; it is a concept of salvation as a process of becoming divine. The differences between the Orthodox, Roman, and Anglo-Catholic and many of the Protestant Churches are not found in relation to the great dogmas or articles of the creed. Solovyov has a vital and unique message to Christians of all denominations; he offers a basis for reunion rarely suggested in Western Christianity. (shrink)

The metaphysical layer of what can be called philosophical Christology in Kant’s treatise on religion reflects his idea of the embodiment of the archetype of moral perfection. Kant raises the problem of the ontology of the ideal in the shape of the question about the conditions that make actual experience possible: the ideal of holiness resides in reason, i. e. in the human being, but the dominance of radical evil over the human will puts it out of human reach either (...) in thought or in practice. For rational thought it is more natural to imagine the practical reality of the archetype as the embodiment of the authentic man proceeding from God. Using the Gospel narrative about Jesus, Kant interprets the human nature of the archetype in the light of his general notions about the properties of this nature. It is widely believed that Kant’s ethical theology eliminates the divine nature of the archetype by stating that an entirely holy will cannot be a moral example for the infirm human will. Kant however says, merely as a critical philosopher, that there are not enough rational grounds for thinking divine nature. Rational philosophy can think the archetype of perfection only as its pure and whole moral attitude through all the maxims and acts. Philosophy would transcend its boundaries if it claimed more and expected recognition of the prototypical theology of the ideal as the content of church faith. But it is not by chance that Kant sets forth the philosophical theory of the archetype as the content of faith in the subjunctive mood. According to Kant, the preaching of the divine character of the archetype as extra-philosophical supplement of the paradoxes and symbols of philosophical theology is only possible on condition that this statutory preaching does not obstruct the overall aspiration toward the actualisation of the pure moral attitude. If these conditions are observed the philosopher and the biblical theologian remain each with their theologies and within their rights. (shrink)

Based on ethnographic research done in Moscow, Russia, this article describes how some Muscovites articulate their moral consciousness, that is, the ways in which persons articulate to themselves and others how they conceptualize morality. While it may be possible, and indeed is often the case, that these concepts influence how people act and help guide individuals toward moral behavior, what is more important for our purposes is that these concepts provide a way for persons to give meaning, both for themselves (...) and for others, to their moral worlds and experience. Thus, what I hope to do in this article is describe just one of the conceptual frameworks within which moral experience is rendered meaningful for my Muscovite interlocutors. In doing so, I will consider how certain concepts of the moral person that have their origins in turn of the century Russian religious philosophy, Russian Orthodox Christianity, and Soviet ideology have all come together to make up various aspects of this moral consciousness. (shrink)

I argue that one of the centralaspects characterizing the philosophicalhorizon at the threshhold of the twentieth andtwenty-first centuries is the erosion of thehumanist idea, i.e. `posthumanism''. Russianreligious philosophy is pervaded byconsiderations of humanism and posthumanism(antihumanism). The latter ascribes centralsignificance to the category of `Godmanhood''with which the leading Russian philosophersopposed the Nietzschean category of theOverman. But all of Germany philosophy can bereproached for having forsaken man. The`posthumanist'' narrative about man and God isan extreme, indeed pathological symptom ofphilosophy waiting for Embodiment.

In Book 10 of the Republic, Plato launches an extensive critique of art, claiming that it can have no legitimate role within the well-ordered state. While his reasons are multifac- eted, Plato’s primary objection to art rests on its status as a mere shadow of a shadow. Such shadows inevitably lead the human mind away from the Good, rather than toward it. How- ever, after voicing his many objections, Plato concedes that if art “has any arguments to show it should (...) have a place in a well-governed city, [he] would gladly welcome it back.” Over two millennia later, the nineteenth-century Russian philosopher Vladimir Solov’ev implicitly responded to this challenge in his Lectures on Godmanhood (1881). Solov’ev cited the phenomenon of art as additional proof in favor of his model of the metaphysical foundations of reality. According to Solov’ev, art is not three steps removed from ultimate reality; rather, an artist creates true art only when he has experienced a vision of the univer- sal and substantial ideas that stand over and above particular things, and then conveys them to the viewer directly, via the artistic medium. Hence, the artist is able to sidestep the in- termediate shadow and produce something that is more than a shadow—a clear reflection of that higher reality. If Solov’ev is correct, the artist should enjoy the elevated status of sage, per- haps even philosopher-king, rather than face exile from Plato’s republic, because the artist both knows the Good and guides the less enlightened toward it. After a brief sketch of the metaphysical grounds for Plato’s critique of art, I provide an analysis of Solov’ev’s ontology, as represented in his Lectures on Godmanhood. Next, I describe Solov’ev’s concept of the three-fold mission of art and its relationship to human nature, drawing both from the Lectures and from The Universal Meaning of Art (1890). Finally, in the last section, I demonstrate how the afore-mentioned account comprises Solov’ev’s robust and successful response to Plato’s challenge, from within a platonic framework. (shrink)

This article examines the concept of the perfect, a key idea in Lev P. Karsavin’s metaphysics that largely determines his understanding of personhood and its ontological status. The associated concept of the perfect person develops throughout the entire philosophical period of the thinker’s work, from his Philosophy of History to his treatise “On Perfection,” written in the last year of his life in the Abez’ camps. In this article, I argue that the concept of perfection is the main structural element (...) in Karsavin’s religious–philosophical system, making it ontologically full and complete. I believe the Christian idea of the perfection of man in God, philosophical variations of which Karsavin finds in Nicholas of Cusa’s system of total unity and Vladimir Solovyov’s idea of Godmanhood, is both the initial intellectual intuition and the ontological premise of the thinker’s metaphysical constructions. His religious–philosophical work has a continuity with Russian culture’s spiritual tradition, where patristic thought of man considers the ideal to be the spiritual transcendence of the person in his striving toward the Perfect God. This evangelic idea turns out to be the central binding element both of Karsavin’s Christian personology and of his metaphysics of history, which is resolved in a metaphysical vein. (shrink)

The article outlines Vladimir Soloviev’s views at the time of his fascination by the theocracy, Christian policy and United Church concepts. His standpoint then was to place the “Godmanhood” idea underlying his philosophy in a realistic, historically and socially factual—hence universalistic—context. This led him to confer a special role in the historical process to the Christian church, which he saw as a dynamic institution adding energy to history. Soloviev considered this energy crucial in the rebirth of Christian unity around (...) the Holy See and the fulfillment of the “social trinity” reflecting the structure of the Divine Absolute and harmoniously uniting three relatively independent seats of social power: clerical, state and prophetic. For Soloviev the fulfillment of this project consisted in a lasting alliance between the papacy and the Tsar’s court, a concept which sounds very eccentric today. (shrink)

The author presents two different accounts of the origins of the Russian philosophy. According to the first one, Russian philosophical thought has grown as an autonomous discipline, whereas the second depicts it as a compilation of trends and ideas borrowed from the Western tradition. The author stresses the religious character of the Russian philosophy, focusing on its two fundamental categories: Sophia (Divine Wisdom) and Godmanhood, that result in an original account of the relation between faith and reason.

Resumen: El artículo está dedicado a Vladimir Solovyov (Vladimir Solovyov) (1853-1900), el filósofo religioso más grande de Rusia del siglo 19. La tesis fundamental es que las ideas principales de Solovyov se pueden interpretar como una reflexión filosófica sobre los sentimientos religiosos fundamentales y los aspectos de comportamiento religioso. En este sentido se analizan en detalle las enseñanzas de Solovyov sobre la unidad positiva (all-encompassing unity, всеединство), la catolicidad (sobornost, соборность) y la divinohumanidad (Godmanhood, Divine Humanity, богочеловечество). Se presta (...) atención especial al proyecto teocrático de Solovyov de establecer una Iglesia Cristiana Universal (Christian Universal Church, Ecumenical Church) y restaurar la unidad (re-unification) de la cristiandad.Palabras clave:unidad, divinohumanidad; catolicidad; ortodoxia rusa (Russian Orthodoxy); Iglesia Universal (Ecumenical Church; Universal Church). (shrink)

The article is dedicated to Vladimir Solovyov (1853 - 1900), the greatest Russian religious philosopher of the 19th Century. The main thesis is that the central ideas of Solovyov can be interpreted as philosophical reflections on fundamental religious feelings and aspects of religious behavior. With respect to this a detailed discussion of Solovyov’s teachings of ‘positive all-encompassing unity’ (всеединство), sobornost (togetherness, соборность) and Godmanhood (Divine Humanity, Богочеловечество) are discussed. Special attention is paid to Solovyov’s theocratic project of Christian Universal (...) Church and the re-unification of the Christian world.Key words: All-encompassing unity; Godmanhood, Sobornost; Russian Orthodoxy; Universal Church (Ecumenical Church). (shrink)

I recall that Solov''ëv wasRussia''s first professional philosopher andpresent the most important currents andconcepts of his many-sided theoretical edifice.Solov''ëv conceived philosophy in a verybroad sense of the term, for which reason histhinking comprises metaphysics no less thantheology, ecclesiology, history, and sociology.I show how Solov''ëv sought constantly to bringthese diverse elements into agreement with oneanother for the sake of a consistent systematicproject, how he attempted to synthesizenumerous oppositions (including patriotism anduniversalism, humanism and theocentrism).

Moral absolutes were perceived, by Solov'ëv, in a dual manner: a) from the side of content, of psychology, as when we speak of feelings, emotions, etc.; and b) under a formal aspect, as “ideas,” i.e. logically. Neither of these can be treated without relating to moral absolutes astrue, and without a rationalbelief in their truth, a truth that cannot be logically proved. In my opinion, our time has become keenly aware of the universally human value of Vladimir Solov'ëv's ethics, of (...) its humanist nature, oriented towards the everyday and the ideal tasks of man, and of the concrete direction of his philosophy of “practical idealism”. (shrink)

The main concern of both Berdjaev's and Bulgakov's philosophical strivings consists in developing a concept of the person as the foundation of human dignity and creativity within a Christian world view. Once attracted by Marxism with its emphasis on human dignity and social justice, they started to struggle against Marxism's atheist materialism because of its lack of a concept of person. However, the same concern will lead both thinkers down very different paths with different consequences. This paper argues that, even (...) though Berdjaev has become famous as a philosopher of the person and a herald of creative ethics, Bulgakov developed a more solid Christian justification of the same claims. Both systems are presented by means of comparing some crucial notions within their concepts of personality—potentiality, trinity and autonomy. (shrink)