N. A. BERDYAEV (BERDIAEV)
ORTODOKSIA AND HUMANNESS 1
(Archpriest Georgii Florovsky. "The
Ways of Russian Theology",
1937, YMCA-PRESS.)
(1937 - #424)
Russian text
Permission granted for non-commercial distribution
The book of Fr. Georgii Florovsky was incorrectly named, and it
should be named "The Waylessness of Russian Theology",
or even, in view of the broad scope of the book, "The Waylessness
of Russian Thought" or "The Waylessness of Russian Spiritual
Culture". The book has a number of qualities: novel themes,
on which we have no books, it is written with talent, although in
a somewhat affected style, it reads with great interest, in it is
the agitation and emotion which the author so condemns, in it there
are good traits, there is an independence of thought, tremendous
knowledge is disclosed, broad erudition, and at the end of the book
there is a valuable bibliography, taking up more than fifty pages.
Fr. G. Florovsky employs exclusively a methodology of characteristics,
he does not give an history of ideas and problems. Such a book could
have been written only after the Russian cultural renaissance of
the beginning XX Century, but there is no thanks given it. It was
dictated not out of love, but out of enmity, and in it predominate
negative feelings. This is a book of spiritual reaction, which enflamed
souls after the war and revolution. Everything spiritually reactionary
for Fr. G. Florovsky essentially gets his approval, but with reservations
and the demand of great mental subtlety. Other than that, political
reactionism plays no sort of role in the book. The idea of the connection
of Orthodoxy with a sacred monarchy is as it were foreign to the
author. Yet this is a reaction against man and humanness, so characteristic
for our epoch, demanding an inward putting matters in order and
tranquillity. But in the author himself the tranquillity is not
felt, in him is sensed an irrational agitation for ortodoksness.
The reaction against the human takes the form of a passionate reaction
against romanticism. Under this category of romanticism he assumes
so broad a scope, so universally applied, that romanticism is castigated
even in the theological thought of the XVII Century, even in the
[Old-Believer] schism. All Russian thought was romanticised, it
was all under the influence of the West, and the West of course
was romanticised. As though then in the West there was no classicism!
Thomism, which plays a predominate role within Western Catholicism,
is ultimately classicism, and the Thomists are hostile to romanticism.
The acute struggle against romanticism was conducted in its final
period namely in the West, and in forms, very much like the struggle
involving Fr. G. Florovsky. It suffices but to name the book of
P. Lesser, "Le Romantisme Francais", alongside the book
of Seier against romanticism, of Charles Morras, Karl Shmidt, E.
d’Ors, and the Thomists. Amidst this, romanticism was understood
as the liberating process of a new time, a developing of the emotional
life of man, and romanticism led upwards to Fenelon and Russo. When
the book of Fr. G. Florovsky is read, there remains the impression,
that not only with Russian theology, but also with the whole of
Russian spiritual culture there perished sensitivity, emotionality,
sympathy, stimulation, the impressive, the visionary, the imaginative,
ecstaticism, i.e. there perished ultimately, humanness. Fr, G. Florovsky
says, that the gift of "universal sympathy" of the Russians
(a term of Dostoevsky) -- is a fatal and ambiguous gift. His book
is in essence a condemnation of the Russian soul. The author --
is a Byzantinist, he does not love the Russian, and a "Russian
Christianity" is repulsive to him, although it is unintelligible,
why a "Byzantine Christianity" should be any better
afront the judgement of Christian universalism. G. Florovsky himself
can perhaps be termed a romantic, for in him is great emotionality,
agitation, feelings, impressiveness. Sometimes it seems, that in
the struggle against romanticism he carries on a struggle against
himself, as often of course this happens. For example, Ch. Morras,
who despises romanticism, -- is a typical romantic. The Byzantinism
of Fr. G. Florovsky is likewise romanticism. This is the melancholy
nostalgia and yearning for an extinct world. Romanticism assumes
the form not only of an emotional idealisation of nature, but also
of an emotional idealisation of the historical past, of an historical
tradition. This was a strong motif with the German romantics, and
it is strong also in Fr. G. Florovsky. The book was written against
various temptations as lived through by the Russian soul, the temptations
of moralism, of social utopianism, aestheticism, psychologism, and
in opposition to these temptations there is set an historical positivism.
For historicism to be set first of all in opposition to moralism,
is possible only amidst a full forgetfulness of the Gospel. Fr.
G. Florovsky himself is given over to a temptation, the temptation
of historicism. He is riveted to "the historical", for
him Christianity comprises itself fully within history, he as it
were does not sense the tragic conflict of Christianity and history.
But actually the whole of Christian eschatology is bound up with
this conflict. As a result namely of his enshacklement to the "historical",
Father G. Florovsky is in no way either theologian or metaphysician.
The historical school in theology is the closest thing to him. In
his book it is impossible to find an history of theological thought,
he does not at all enter into theological problematics, and essentially
he is interested in the historical and psychological atmosphere,
the climate, in which Russian thought lived, which ultimately purports
no doubt an interest.
The attitude of Fr.
G. Florovsky towards history is twofold, and it is impossible
to conceal this duality. He contrasts history and the historical
opposite all the temptations, which Russian theological thought
was subjected to. But he nowhere attempts to reveal his own thought
on history, just as moreover, he generally does not reveal his
own positive thoughts. In regards to history he evidently stands
on the point of view of religious conservatism. But religious
conservatism makes a mistake in regards to time, it opposes to
the currents of the present and the future, not the eternal, but
rather the past, i.e. a similar flow of time. It is inconceivable,
why the past -- and only because it is the past -- should be better
than the present or future. This is indeed as much a blunder,
as an assertion made backwards. The eternal can break through
into the present and the future, just as it has broken through
into the past. An obstinate mankind committed sin even in the
past, it sins in the present and will sin in the future. In tradition
there is an element of the eternal, but there is also very much
of the temporal, the transitory, the humanly relative. Byzantinism,
as a spiritual type having disclosed itself within time, is no
wise better than many other spiritual types, and is often even
worse, for it too belongs to historical time. I think, that the
Russian spiritual type is higher than the Byzantine, since it
is more human. The philosophical ideas of the Patristics can in
no wise make greater pretense to an absolute and eternal significance,
than the philosophic ideas of Kant or Hegel. The eternal is in
the spiritual, and not in the historical. It is interesting, that
Fr. G. Florovsky succumbs to historicism, but does not have the
feel of history, of historical dynamics. He has neither the feel
nor the understanding of historical achievements, as one who sees
mostly in history only the temptations, and does not see the religious
meaning of the historical tribulations of mankind, all the dialectics
of philosophical developement, humanism, the liberation of man
from slavery, socialism, the growth of technology and so forth,
-- all yielding only temptation and heresy. Beyond which, all
the history of the Western world, i.e. the foremost of the historical,
even the Medieval world, is a prodigal falling-away from truth
[for him]. And the present day history is ruptured off from the
Byzantine. And Russian history is likewise fallen away, given
over to temptation and heretical tendencies. And a genuine Orthodoxy
in Russia there never was. Fr. G. Florovsky does not at all understand,
that even the process of secularisation possesses a positive religious
significance, that even European humanism is a Christian manifestation.
With such an attitude towards history it is very difficult to
have a grasp on history, as Fr. G. Florovsky wants to, and to
set it in opposition to the temptations of a "spiritual"
Christianity. The soil, on which he stands, is very shaky, a shaky
history. Fr. G. Florovsky fails to understand the basic theme
of the Russian religious thought of the XIX Century -- the religious,
the Christian significance of a world-wide humanistic experience,
an experience of freedom, an experience of the unfolding complexities
of humanity. The Russian soul was revealed amidst this vast and
remarkable experience and it expressed its own thought about this
experience. Mere repetition of the thoughts of the Greeks and
the Byzantine Patristics would signify a misunderstanding o their
theme, the negation of this theme. Man can have new experience,
new searchings, and new horizons can open up before him. The experience
of Byzantium had its limitations, its horizons were constricted,
and there was yet many a theme it had not put before the Christian
consciousness. That world had its mission, and it had spiritual
achievements. But within it there was an element of decay, it
came to an end, it died, not in its eternity, but in its own time.
And to feed off a rotting world can bring infection with the corpse’s
poison. Fr. G. Florovsky does not penetrate into the meaning of
historical dynamics, he all the time "judges, executes and
grants pardon", the same thing he accuses Golubinsky of.
He himself leads by "the terror and malice" that he
accuses others of. He has little "granted pardon"
to anyone in the history of Russian theology, a large portion
"he executed". But he does this not in a rough form,
"he executes" in the form of subtle characteristic,
the venom of which is not flung into the eyes. He is very self-deluded,
thinking, that he has an unique historical acuity. Historical
acuteness is not "judgement and execution", it is
not a distribution of attestations of ortodoksia or heresy, historical
acumen is a penetration into the meaning of what is wrought.
Father G. Florovsky
in his book discovers the full atrophying of the feeling for social
just-truth to be a religious problem. He does not understand the
theme of moral indignation against the wronging and oppression
of man. He reckons it possible to deprecate Vl. Solov’ev
for seeking social just-truth and for wanting the realisation
of a Christian just-truth in social life. This perhaps might be
explained by that in his Byzantine Orthodoxy it was not authentically
involved with man. When they look upon man exclusively as a sinful
being to be saved, then it does not touch upon the abasement of
man and the outrage against his dignity. Fr. G. Florovsky does
not at all turn his attention to this, that the Russian soul amongst
the cultural stratum was rent by the terrible wrong of serfdom,
the debasement of man by the autocracy, and that this imprinted
itself upon the whole of Russian thought. For him this was exclusively
a matter of sentimentalism, of false susceptibilities. And therefore
the Russian thought of the XIX Century is foreign and unintelligible
for him, with its searchings for the just-truth of man, its humanness.
Fr. G. Florovsky, while essentially writing an history of Russian
spiritual culture and the Russian consciousness, characteristically
altogether ignores Belinsky, one of the centre-most figures of
the history of the Russian consciousness of the XIX Century and
of the Russian searches for just-truth. The deep part of the question
is not at all in this, that humanism, the liberation of man, socialism
and so forth serve as substitutes for religion, but in this, of
what sort of positive religious meaning is there in these manifestations.
During the Christian period of history all the remarkable manifestations
in human destiny have an inward Christian character. How strange
perhaps, but Fr. G. Florovsky possesses a formal affinity with
Fr. P. Florensky, -- for them both there is a peculiar moral and
social indifference, though Fr. P. Florensky has a great spiritual
sensitivity. Fr. G. Florovsky evidently considers moral feelings
and heightened consciousness as utopianism. He struggles not only
against romanticism, but also against utopianism. He sees with
the Russian people an abusing of the categories of the ideal.
In the Russian nihilists he denounces first of all an anti-historical
idealism. He does not permit of any revolt against history, though
even this be a revolt against great wrong and falsehood. Everything
can be justified as history. The only thing inconceivable, is
why the history of Russian thought is not justified, why that
which shows itself worthy of Russian history is condemned. Both
the Russian nihilism is history, and the Russian Revolution is
history, it belongs to the historical. But herein the attitude
of Fr. G. Florovsky is defined by this: for him Christianity is
so embedded in history, that the tragic conflict of Christianity
and history is rendered inadmissible. Amidst which this conflict
itself is a very important event within history. Fr. G. Florovsky
all the time makes a sorting-out with history, and amidst this
quite much is rendered outside his understanding of the historical.
And a large portion of the history of the Russian theological,
philosophical, social thought falls victim to this sorting-out
process. It is inconceivable, why Byzantium preeminently is rendered
history and the historical. Almost the whole West also loses historical
significance.
But here
is quite chief an issue, in the connection of Fr. G. Florovsky
to the whole construct of the history of Russian theology. He
holds to a completely mistaken and antiquated opposition of Russia
and the West. This opposition he borrows from the Russian thought
of the XIX Century, but with this original twist, that he regards
in a negative light not only the West, but also Russia, since
that it has given in to the influence of the West. To the west
he sets in opposition the Byzantine East. He reacts both critically
and negatively towards Russian Christianity and Russian theologising
on the basis, that he sees in it a Western influence. This is
a fundamental concept within the book. Russian Orthodoxy was at
first thoughtless. When thought awakened, it was then stifled
by the Western influence. Fr. G. Florovsky considers Russianism
a Western thing. Everything that is Western stands beneathe the
negative standard and is a deviance from the true path. All the
woes of Russian theology and Russian thought -- are consequences
of the rift with Byzantium. But Byzantium went into decline and
it died, and with this ended the true unfolding of thought, and
thereafter there began deviations. Russia evidently has nothing
of its own, it can only have something Byzantine or Western. Towards
the West Fr. G. Florovsky reacts far more negatively than either
the Slavophils, or Dostoevsky or K. Leont’ev, but he does
not contrast it against anything unique in Russia and the Russian
people. For him even the Slavophils were too Western, and he denounces
them for their Europeanism and romanticism, and not without foundation.
But even the saints he does not spare. With St. Dimitrii of Rostov
he sees a Catholic influence, and with St. Tikhon of Zadonsk he
sees the influence of Arndt ("On the True Christianity")
and the Western Christian humanism, which moreover, was completely
accurate. The characteristics of Peter the Great were for him
very evil and cruel. He as it were totally does not understand
the necessity and significance of the reforms of Peter, of the
emergence of Russia from a closed-in condition onto the world-wide
expanse, its joining in with world culture. But what indeed is
this fatal "West", infecting Russia with romanticism,
humanism and all sorts of ills? Herein also is hidden a
chief mistake. This "West" does not exist, it is a
fabrication of the Slavophils and the Easternisers of the XIX
Century, which Fr. G. Florovsky borrows whole. There is no oneness
of "Western" culture, and it is possible to speak
only about the oneness of world culture, about the universal elements
in culture. Indeed, Western Europe does not present a single "cultural-historical
type", to use an expression of N. Danilevsky. The unity
of a "Germano-Romance cultural-historical type" is
a fiction, it is a deluded perception of people immersed in the
Russian East, a product begotten of the Russian provincial mentality.
Even now in the West they say that it is necessary to create the
unity of Europe, of which there is not. Betwixt the French culture
and the German culture there exists an abyss far more immense,
than that which exists between the German and Russian culture.
For the typical French thinker, Germany is the remote East, the
irrational East, completely unintelligible and impenetrable. For
Germans, France is the rationalistic West, to which they set in
contrast the Germanic irrationalism, and the mystical sense of
life. It was the very thing that the Slavophils said about the
West, in which was included Germany also. The borders of East
and West are very arbitrary. Even Fr. Schlegel and the German
romantics said the completely same thing about the West (France
and England), that the Slavophils later said about the West in
general, i.e. they denounced it for its rationalistic dissection,
the absence of organic wholeness and so forth. R. Wagner constructed
an organic teaching about culture, very close to Slavophilism.
and he set it in contrast to the French and Anglo-Saxon West.
The Anglo-Saxon "cultural-historical type" is in turn
altogether unique, and distinct from the French and the German.
There does not exist any sort of Western "Romano-Germanic"
type, there exist only the universal elements of culture, connected
with antiquity, in the national and particularised types of culture
of the Western world. The Russian "cultural-historical type"
should be compared not with a "Western", nor with
a "Romano-Germanic", but with the national cultural
types of the Germanic, the French, the English and so forth. The
Slavonic as a "cultural-historical type" already certainly
does not exist. Russians in their culture have more in common
with the Germans and the French, than with the Czechs, the Polish
or the Serbs. It is necessary to inquire, not about whether Russian
culture and Russian thought be original in comparison with the
Western, but whether it be original in comparison with the German,
the French, the English, whether it be original in amongst the
actual Western cultures. Cultures always have individualised and
national forms, but there is inherent to them an immanent universalism,
not simply borrowed from elsewhere. This fact, that Russia is
East and that it is West, is as it were propitious for Russian
universalism. The Western influences in Russian culture and Russian
thought were part of a disclosing of Russian universalism, an
addition on to universal thought. In Russian religious thought,
for example, the connection with Platonism had been sundered,
but the Platonism was in turn re-discovered through Western influences,
though in it was nothing especially Western. All the constructs
of Fr. G. Florovsky prove artificial and they do not correspond
to the realities, symbolically termed Western. It is necessary
at the same time to acknowledge as out-moded both Slavophilism,
and Westernism. Westernism likewise is a provincially-Russian
manifestation, already out of date.
The artificial aspect
of the constructs of Fr. G. Florovsky is connected especially
to his appraisal of Russian religious philosophy. He sees in it
the stifling influence of German philosophy and Western romanticism.
But he totally disdains to take into account that the German philosophy
of the XIX Century was simply the world philosophy, the supreme
philosophic thought of its time, and similar to how in the Patristic
epoch the supreme philosophic thought was Greek philosophy, the
philosophy of Plato, Aristotle, Neo-Platonism. The teachers of
the Church made use of the categories of thought from Greek philosophy,
the only philosophy of their time, and without its assist they
could not move on in their theologising, even in the working out
of dogmatic formulae. The remarkable Hindu philosophy was at the
time unknown, and they were cut off from it. There exists an analogy
between the influence of Plato, Aristotle and Neo-Platonism on
Patristic and Scholastic thought, and the influence of Kant,
Hegel, Schelling on Russian religious thought. The teachers of
the Church in their thinking were no less dependent upon philosophy,
than were the Russian religious thinkers of the XIX and XX Centuries.
The philosophy of the "pagans" Plato and Aristotle
was not moreso Christian, than was the philosophy of Hegel and
Schelling, -- pervaded as they were by Christian elements. Theology
completely independent of philosophy never was and never will
be. Theology is not religious revelation, theology is the reaction
of human thought upon revelation, and this revelation is dependent
upon the categories of philosophic thought. In his Hellenism Fr.
G. Florovsky wants, evidently, to make absolute the categories
of Greek thought, to acknowledge them as eternal. In this he has
a resemblance to Thomism, which acknowledges the universality
of Greek intellectualism. But Fr. G. Florovsky situates himself
in an extremely worse position. It is not at all evident, whether
he be a Platonist or Aristotelian, it is in general not evident,
what philosophy he would acknowledge as corresponding to Orthodoxy
and thence its truth eternal. He does not posit any sort of philosophy
in contrast to the passion of Russian thought for German philosophy.
He simply in contrast posits Orthodoxy, Orthodox theology, naively
venerating it as independent from philosophy. But everything just
chances to transpire for him as a theologian, involving concepts
of person, essence, creation, freedom, time and so forth. But
what sort of philosophy does all this rest upon? Fr. G.
Florovsky denounces "modernism", in which all Russian
thought be considered guilty, and in ridiculous opposition to
contemporary philosophy, all equally whatever, whether Kant or
Hegel, Lotze or Bergson, is set the eternal truth of the Patristics,
Christian dogmatics, and ultimately revelation. But no one should
make such a simplistic contrast. They indeed contrast philosophies
with a philosophy, with the philosophy of Kant, or of Hegel, or
Schelling or Bergson or others, and they might contrast a philosophy
against the Patristics or the Scholastics, against the philosophy
of Plato or of Aristotle. The Patristics were steeped in philosophic
elements, taken from Greek philosophy. And herein also is the
question, whether the Greek intellectualism of the Patristics
be eternal and immutable. This Greek intellectualism issues from
man, and not from God. Fr. G. Florovsky does the same as the Scholastics
did, but with him it is altogether without foundation and not
worked out. The Orthodox East did not have its own St. Thomas
Aquinas. Fr. G. Florovsky esteems not even Hellenism, but rather
Byzantinism, which philosophically was already on the decline.
His "objectivism" is altogether groundless, and he
simply tacks it on as dogmatic, as a token of Orthodoxy. He is
very loose with his statement of themes and does not disclose
his own positive views, theological or philosophical, therein
avoiding critique. Otherwise the weakness of his positions would
be uncovered. It is quite inconceivable, how such could be the
true Orthodox theology, the true Orthodox philosophy. The teachers
of the Church wrangled much amongst themselves, and Father G.
Florovsky himself finds in them heretical tendencies, if perchance
they are not in agreement with him. The West for the Russia of
the XVIII and XIX Centuries was simply a conjoining to world culture
and thought. During the XVIII Century this was a superficial process,
but during the XIX Century it was rather more at depth. Obviously,
during the XIX Century in Russia Hegel had an immense influence.
But it should not be forgotten, that there were more original
thinkers like Khomyakov and Vl. Solov’ev, who passed through
the Hegelian school of thought, but were not themselves Hegelians
and were even sharp critics of Hegel, denouncing his abstraction,
his rationalism and monism. We had two crises of Hegelianism in
varied forms, with Khomyakov and with Belinsky. Fr. G. Florovsky
does not at all investigate the divergence of Russian thought
from German idealism. For this creative working-through of German
idealism, which we attempted to do by a turning about to the concrete
and real, -- there can be set in opposition either a total Orthodox
irrationalism, i.e. obscurantism, or a return to Byzantism, i.e.
the negation of all the thought of the centuries of modern history.
This is analogous in the West with the return to St. Thomas Aquinas
and with the refusal of the significance of Descartes, Kant, Hegel
and all the dialectical unfolding of philosophy, of all the enduring
coursings of knowledge in the world. Fr. G. Florovsky in essence
negates everything, the whole of Russian theology and Russian
thought, and everywhere he unmasks the Western influence. But
with this he is forced into a negative attitude on whether the
Russians had actually begun to think, although he himself is not
an obscurantist nor hostile to thought. He is quick to exaggerate
the significance of theology and the intellectual element in religious
life, but he very little speaks about the spiritual life, about
the saints, or about that which might be termed Russian spirituality.
Some several analyses of his mustneeds be acknowledged as successful.
Suchlike are an analysis of the [Old-Believer] Schism, although
he incomprehensibly ignores Archpriest Avvakum, a most remarkable
writer of the pre-Petrine epoch, and Masonry, to which he correctly
ascribes a great positive significance, and the eras of Alexander
I, of the official theology, of Pobedonostsev, of Florensky (both
characterisations close to those done by me), and even of several
features of the Russian Renaissance of the beginning XX Century.
Several analyses are ambiguous, as for example that of Archimandrite
Photii, for whom Fr. G. Florovsky has much sympathy, but is not
able fully to approve of and he reproaches not only just the fanaticism,
but just as much the psychological affinity with the "mystic"
unmasked by him. Metropolitan Philaret he spared more than he
did others, but he also reproaches him as regards Western influences
in the epoch of Alexander I. He likewise spared Khomyakov, but
he does not speak about the new in Khomyakov’s teaching,
about freedom and about Sobornost’-communality. Towards
Dostoevsky Fr. G. Florovsky was indulgent, but he does not see
in him the spiritually revolutionary. He overly praises Bishop
Theophan the Hermit, who had little originality as a writer, and
who neither sensed any sort of problems nor expressed any disturbing
moral or social views. Yet he is very incorrect in his estimation
of Bukharev, Nesmelov, Tareev, -- uniquely original thinkers for
us, begotten of spiritual means. He is very unjust to N. Fedorov.
Fr. G. Florovsky is not at all given to have a feel for those
new problems, which vexed these remarkable folk, and he does not
speak about what is unique in their themes. Reading the book of
Fr. G. Florovsky, one would not know what to make of the Pan-Christism
of Bukharev, about the acquisition of Christ and the incarnation
of Christ in all the fullness of life (moreover, certainly a negative
characteristic of the book of Bukharev concerns the Apocalypse).
But the author of our book chiefly is at pains that Bukharev was
an oath-breaker, he left monasticism and married, as though this
were his chief thing in life. The reader of our book likewise
does not learn about the original religious anthropology of Nesmelov,
about his unique anthropologic proof of the being of God, nor
do we learn about the fundamental problem of Tareev concerning
the uncontainability of the Gospel’s absoluteness in the
relativity of history. The attribution of moralism is too easily
given. N. Fedorov for Fr. G. Florovsky is not at all Christian,
though no one in the history of Christianity had such a grieving
over death as did he, such a thirst for a common Christian task.
But the characterising of L. Tolstoy also is not only unjust,
it is simply distressing. Such an attitude towards a supreme Russian
writer, who had tremendous significance for the religious awakening
of an indifferent Russian society, is also that selfsame nihilism,
which Fr. G. Florovsky loves to detect in others. Even Ignatii
Bryanchaninov emerges as not at all Orthodox. St. Seraphim of
Sarov is dispatched under the heading of the historical school.
Only historicism pleases Fr. G. Florovsky. Too many a place is
allotted to third-rate and insignificant theologians. There is
in the book no basic theme, no common thread, unless there be
accounted a common thread in the struggle against romanticism.
In the book of Fr. G. Florovsky
there is no treatment at all of the problematics of Russian religious
philosophy, there is no treatment of what is unique to it in comparison
to German and Western thought, the themes which in Russian religious
thought posited the problem of the cosmos and the problem of man
otherwise than posited in Western thought. Fr. G. Florovsky overlooks
entirely the fundamental idea of God-manhood, he sees in it only
an hodgepodge of western humanism. Everything boils down to this,
that he has no feel for the religious theme of humanism. He does
not see the deficiency of the Patristic anthropology. He does
not at all understand Vl. Solov’ev’s "Meaning
of Love", he cannot at all appreciate the significance of
the problem of sex in V. Rozanov. Fr. G. Florovsky ends his history
17 years ago, i.e. he brings it up to the Revolution. It would
have been better to end the XIX Century and not enter into the
XX Century, which still has not solidified into history and involves
struggle. Fr. G. Florovsky characterises both Fr. S. Bulgakov
and me from 17 years beforehand, yet our chief books, defining
our world-outlook, have been written in the 17 years following.
This is just not right. Fr. G. Florovsky makes mention about my
book, "The Meaning of Creativity" [English published
title, "The Meaning of the Creative Act"]. In this
he does not at all speak accurately about the religious problem
posited by me concerning creativity and the anthropomorphic aspect
connected with it. He characterises me as a German. Such a manner
of qualification does not impress me. Truth cannot be a German
truth, or Russian, or French, or Byzantine, it is rather the significant
truth. The only significant thing is this, whether it be truth
or it be mistaken thought, which Father G. Florovsky would term
German. The philosophy of Kant and Hegel mustneeds be refuted
not because it is German, but because one regard it as mistaken
and false. But herein it requires fairness and attention to nuances
and distinctions of thought. I indisputably place a very high
value on German philosophy and have passed through its school
of thought. But with me there are substantial differences from
German philosophy. I am a very sharply outspoken personalist as
regards my world-outlook. Whereas German idealism, particularly
Fichte, Hegel and to a notable degree even Schelling, -- were
anti-personalist in their tendencies. This is a monistic philosophy.
I many a time have criticised German idealist philosophy for its
anti-personalism, for the absence within it of the correctly posited
problem of man, for its monism, which is foreign to me. Remarkably
even closer for me is the French philosophic current deriving
from Maine de Biran, which is more anthropologic and more protective
of person and freedom, although I was never under the direct influence
of French philosophy. Fr. G. Florovsky never speaks about these
distinctions and therefore he gives an inaccurate presentation.
This was chiefly on the basis, that I am very fond of Jacob Boehme
and I much esteem German mysticism. Of the German philosophers
for me, ultimately, the closest was Kant, and rather less so Hegel,
but even with Kant I have tremendous differences.
Fr. G. Florovsky does not defend the traditional-conservative,
old-Orthodox outlook on civil and social life. But it remains
unintelligible, what it is he would oppose to the social utopianism,
which he denounces in Russian thought, what it is he thinks is
the relation of Church and state, and how he would define the
borders of the churchly and that external to the churchly, and
also what sort of social order he would consider as corresponding
to Orthodoxy. Christians at present in the West make tremendous
efforts to define, what sort of social order they consider as
corresponding to the demands of Christian conscience. Fr. G. Florovsky
keeps it a secret to himself, and this leaves a false impression
from the book. This secret is connected with the myth about a
reknown author with a "true" Orthodoxy, a "true"
theology, a "true" Patristics. The preaching of asceticism
and the exploit of Father G. Florovsky produces a rhetorical impression,
and it is completely fruitless. He speaks about theological problematics,
about theological creativity, but it is totally unclear, what
sort of theological creativity he decides upon or what sort of
new theological problematics he advocates. He defends and guards
the traditional Orthodoxy, but in essence he acknowledges no sort
of authorities. With him there transpires the same thing, as happens
with many other representatives of Ortodoksia. He desires, that
God and the Church should speak, but not man. But God and the
Church always wind up saying, what he says. This is a vicious
circle. Despite all its deficiencies, the book of Fr. G. Florovsky
can be very recommended for reading, it can be read with great
interest and with great benefit. The book indeed demolishes for
the contemporary un-educated generations the false faith in authority,
the naive faith in the infallibility of metropolitans and bishops
and in the immutable truthfulness and absoluteness of the Orthodoxy
of the old, pre-revolutionary Russia. The Orthodoxy of Fr. G.
Florovsky himself one hesitates to suspect. The book lays bare
the contradiction and weakness of the exclusive safe-guarding
of Orthodoxy, and by a negative path it returns to the themes
and problems of Russian religious thought of the XIX and XX Centuries.
This thought has its own limitations and is partially out-moded,
whereas the contemporary thought is more refined, but attention
to its problematics is needful for a vital, not dead, Christianity.
Nikolai Berdyaev
1937
© 2001 by translator Fr. S. Janos
(1937 - 424 - en)
ORTODOKSIYA I CHELOVECHNOST’. (Prot. Georgii
Florovskii. Puti russkogo bogosloviya). Journal Put’,
apr.-july, 1937, No. 53, p. 53-65.
1 Translator note: the word "Ortodoksiya" in Russian
for "Orthodoxy" conveys a pejorative sense of narrow-minded
legalism and ritualism, in contrast to the neutral and normal
Russian word "Pravoslavie" for "Orthodoxy".
Hence, to retain this nuance in our translation, "Pravoslavie"
is rendered "Orthodoxy", but "Ortodoksia"
aptly retains its awkward stiffness rendered also into English.
|