“Wisdom, Be Attentive!” Bulgakov’s Sophiology and the Image of God
In the course of his rather brief religious life, materialist-economist-turned-Orthodox theologian Fr. Sergius Bulgakov (1871-1944) wrote on the breadth of Christian theology: sacramentology, pneumatology, Christology, eschatology—the list goes on. But his most original, and most controversial, contribution to theology was his theology of Sophia, the Divine Wisdom of Proverbs whom Bulgakov identified with both the divine essence and the nature of the world. How can God’s Sophia be both divine and created? The answer lies in the doctrine of the “image of God,” which Bulgakov richly develops as he teases out the full implications of the “co-imaging” of God and humankind in humanity’s divine image (Gen. 1:26-27). Once the doctrine of Sophia is understood as an attempt to articulate the deep consonance between the divine and the human, Bulgakov’s speculative project, as well its impact in diverse spheres of theology, such as his theology of revelation and his theology of human gender, become clearer, and Christians of diverse theological traditions can fruitfully come to enjoy the nectar of this Christian wine in its new, sophiological wineskins.
In the course of his rather brief religious life, materialist-economist-turned-Orthodox theologian Fr. Sergius Bulgakov (1871-1944) wrote on the breadth of Christian theology: sacramentology, pneumatology, Christology, eschatology—the list goes on. But his most original, and most controversial, contribution to theology was his theology of Sophia, the Divine Wisdom of Proverbs whom Bulgakov identified with both the divine essence and the nature of the world. How can God’s Sophia be both divine and created? The answer lies in the doctrine of the “image of God,” which Bulgakov richly develops as he teases out the full implications of the “co-imaging” of God and humankind in humanity’s divine image (Gen. 1:26-27). Once the doctrine of Sophia is understood as an attempt to articulate the deep consonance between the divine and the human, Bulgakov’s speculative project, as well its impact in diverse spheres of theology, such as his theology of revelation and his theology of human gender, become clearer, and Christians of diverse theological traditions can fruitfully come to enjoy the nectar of this Christian wine in its new, sophiological wineskins.
In the course of his rather brief religious life, materialist-economist-turned-Orthodox theologian Fr. Sergius Bulgakov (1871-1944) wrote on the breadth of Christian theology: sacramentology, pneumatology, Christology, eschatology—the list goes on. But his most original, and most controversial, contribution to theology was his theology of Sophia, the Divine Wisdom of Proverbs whom Bulgakov identified with both the divine essence and the nature of the world. How can God’s Sophia be both divine and created? The answer lies in the doctrine of the “image of God,” which Bulgakov richly develops as he teases out the full implications of the “co-imaging” of God and humankind in humanity’s divine image (Gen. 1:26-27). Once the doctrine of Sophia is understood as an attempt to articulate the deep consonance between the divine and the human, Bulgakov’s speculative project, as well its impact in diverse spheres of theology, such as his theology of revelation and his theology of human gender, become clearer, and Christians of diverse theological traditions can fruitfully come to enjoy the nectar of this Christian wine in its new, sophiological wineskins.