Russian Religious Philosophy at the Turn of the 19th and 20th Centuries

The Philosophy of Freedom by M. Berdyaev

The problem of the individual is one of the central theoretical issues in the history of Russian philosophy. This issue encompasses fundamental questions of political, legal, moral, religious, social, and aesthetic life and thought. The place of the individual in society, the conditions of its freedom, the structure of the personality, and its creative realization constitute a cohesive process of developing ideas.

For instance, the primary concern of Nikolai Berdyaev's philosophy (1874-1948) is the meaning of human existence in relation to the meaning of being as a whole. According to the philosopher, "philosophy knows being through man and from man"; the meaning of being reveals itself in the meaning of one’s own existence. To exist meaningfully is to exist in truth, attainable by humanity through paths of salvation (escaping from the world) or creativity (actively reshaping the world through culture and social policy).

According to the Russian philosopher G. P. Fedotov, four interconnected concepts define Berdyaev's religious theme: Personality, Spirit, Freedom, and Creativity. The foundational worldview position of the philosopher is the recognition of opposition between spirit and nature, the psychic and the physical. Spirit is subject, life, freedom, and creativity. Nature is object, thing, necessity, and determinacy. In the realm of spirit, all discrepancies are overcome by love. God is Spirit. In His innermost essence, He is both irrational and super-rational. God transcends the natural world and can only reveal Himself symbolically. Berdyaev’s notions regarding the connection between God and the universe can be encapsulated in his teaching on freedom.

The philosopher distinguishes three types of freedom:

1. Primary irrational freedom, or Lawlessness. Nothing.
2. Rational freedom, manifested in the fulfillment of moral duty.
3. Freedom infused with God’s love.

Human irrational freedom is rooted in "nothingness," but this is not emptiness; it is a primordial principle that precedes God and the world. Berdyaev notes that at an incomparably greater depth lies the ungrounded, to which neither the categories of good and evil nor those of being and non-being apply.

The philosopher grapples with the problem of theodicy, the reconciliation of the world's evil (objectivation) with the existence of God, which is also linked to the problem of freedom. Berdyaev believes it is difficult to reconcile the existence of an omnipotent and all-good God with the evil and suffering in the world. Thus, he arrives at the necessity of positing the existence of Uncreated Will. Freedom is not created by God; rather, God Himself arises from this Will, and from the same Will, which is rooted in Nothing, potentially containing All, He creates the world. God is present only in freedom and acts only through freedom—this is the writer's thought. This idea serves a dual purpose in Berdyaev’s teaching: it explains the existence of evil in the world (the uncreated freedom accounts for the emergence of evil) and defines human freedom not only in relation to the world but also to God. Such a concept of freedom struggles to reconcile with the understanding of God as an Absolute Being. Since freedom is not created by God, He has no authority over it. Freedom is primary with respect to good and evil, determining the possibility of both. Thus, God, as Creator of being, possesses no power over non-being or the Uncreated freedom. This abyss of primordial freedom, which precedes God, is the source of evil. Berdyaev could not, like Solovyov, place the responsibility for evil in the world on God. However, he equally rejected the Christian schema that locates evil within humanity itself. He preferred to absolutize freedom, to separate it from God and man, thereby ontologizing evil, submerging it in the chaos that existed prior to being. This opens the path to the harmonization of being, achieved through creativity. Yet, since creativity, in the philosopher's view, also arises from Will, the very struggle between evil and creativity constitutes the essence of a new religious era—the era of the "third revelation," the anticipation of which permeates much of Berdyaev’s work.

Berdyaev is convinced that freedom is tragic: if it constitutes the essence of humanity, then it also manifests as obligation; a person is enslaved by their freedom. It is a heavy burden borne by the individual. They are responsible for their actions and for what transpires in the world. Freedom is my independence and the determination of my personality from within; it is not merely a choice between good and evil presented to me, but my own creation of good and evil, the state of choice can even yield feelings of oppression... even unfreedom. Liberation occurs when the choice is made, and when I pursue a creative path. Berdyaev perceives freedom not as ease but as difficulty.

Thus, at the foundation of Berdyaev's entire philosophical system lies the principle of Freedom. Not being (matter, nature) nor spirit (consciousness, idea), but Freedom serves as the fundamental principle of the world. In this context, the philosopher refers not to the freedom of individual will, but to ontological freedom, which underlies all being.

In contrast to God, humanity is endowed with a dual nature (spirit and matter), which, according to Berdyaev, generates an eternal contradiction and the entire tragedy of human existence: as a spiritual being, humanity is free; yet as a natural, social, and political being, it is subject to necessity and cannot break free from its confines. The tragic struggle and contradiction between freedom and necessity, the "kingdom of Spirit" and the "kingdom of Caesar," remain unresolved in this world. The resolution of this problem is connected to the overcoming of human dualism, achievable only eschatologically, that is, only in the Kingdom of God.

For the philosopher, the issue of creativity becomes paramount. Creativity is the chief purpose of humanity, and it is understood in a philosophical sense—as "world-creation" that finds its "objectivation" in culture, science, art, and so forth. Herein lies a fundamental contradiction within creativity itself. In the act of creation, the individual is free; they transcend alienation, confronting the "lower" worlds of nature and society, which do not represent true being, and which the author refers to as "objectivation." Yet, as a result of this creative act, the individual again returns to the realm of "objectivation," which invariably dehumanizes them, fostering a psychology of servitude. In this regard, it is worth noting that Berdyaev finds slavery even in theology, which views God as "Master," thereby diminishing humanity. In his view, the relationship between God and humanity has been transposed from social life, reflecting the dynamics of master and servant.

In Berdyaev's teachings on humanity and society, another characteristic trait of Russian religious philosophy emerges, one that also reaches back to mystical antiquity: the idea of sobornost. Sobornost is the free unity of the church's foundations in the common understanding of truth and the shared search for the path to salvation, a unity grounded in unanimous love for Christ and divine righteousness. Since believers collectively love Christ as the embodiment of perfect truth and righteousness, the church is not only a unity of many individuals but also a unity in which each personality retains its freedom. This is only possible if such unity is founded on selfless, devoted love. Sobornost is the communion of the Spirit. Berdyaev perceives in sobornost the very idea of the Church and ecclesiastical salvation: there exists a circular, collective responsibility among all people for one another, where each is accountable for the entire world. All humans are brothers in misfortune; all have participated in original sin, and each can attain salvation only alongside the world. Berdyaev points out the untranslatability of the concept of sobornost into other languages and, to facilitate its understanding in the West, introduces the term "communitariness" (from the French commune - community, commune), although he acknowledges that sobornost is fundamentally a Russian idea, finding only a few Western thinkers close to it. For a person who has not experienced this unity in the Spirit, it is impossible to understand the distinction between sobornost and collectivism, or the communal nature of Asian societies, or the solidarity of Western societies.

From this, it follows that whenever Russian philosophical thought begins to address the individual, particularly ethical questions, these immediately transform into an ideology of social movement and heroism.

Berdyaev’s social philosophy is intertwined with his philosophical anthropology, particularly in his understanding of the relationships between the individual and society. Society is an objectivation of human relations, an alien reality to the human spirit and will. In his view, society is part of the individual, its social dimension, rather than the individual being merely a component of society. An objectivated society stifles individuality; it fosters disunity among people. In such a society, communication exists, but genuine interaction is absent; the individual exists merely as a function, and a prevailing sense of alienation, along with the power of technology and the state, dominates.

In analyzing this theme, it becomes clear that for Russian thinkers, the moral point of departure was fundamental in revealing all philosophical problems, whether they pertained to ontology, epistemology, socio-political issues, or any others. While Western European philosophy typically regards ethics as a sort of "superstructure" over ontology, epistemology, or the philosophy of history—an outgrowth of these fields of philosophical knowledge—Russian thinkers place ethics at the very foundation of their systems, regarding it as the cornerstone of their philosophical inquiries. This notion can be illustrated by examining how Berdyaev, Shestov, and many others approached epistemological issues. These philosophers directly linked the moral qualities of individuals to their capacity to know the world: the world is accessible only to morally integral, spiritual persons. Thus, the very notion of truth serves not only as an epistemological category but also as an ethical one. Due to this moralistic orientation, Russian philosophy has consistently gravitated toward social issues and the moral evaluation of its relationship with the people.

A new voice in Russian philosophy emerged in the early 20th century, articulating the following: the creation of ontological epistemology, synthesized with existential and religious-metaphysical approaches. To this philosophical amalgamation, which was so unusual for its time, there was a perceived need to add a new critique of reason that would radically differ from Kantian critique, thus providing non-rational forms of the human spirit a legitimate entry into ontological epistemology. Later, these tendencies, in their unity and synthesis, began to carve a path into Western European philosophical thought.