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Abstract:

The subject of consideration is the ideas about theodicy and noumenal nature of history in the article by Fr. Sergius Bulgakov “Reflections on the War” (1940). These ideas are examined in the context of their ideological development in Bulgakov from the early period of his philosophical activity. The author shows that the idea of “universal human solidarity” put forward by Bulgakov in his early years, based on the Sophian unity of the world and which became the basis of his theodicy, comes to life in the idea of active acceptance of suffering in the face of war through correlating this suffering with Christ’s suffering on the cross. The article raises the theme of active struggle against the evil of the world as the fundamental Sophian task of humanity. At the same time, the concept of the noumenal nature of history, developed by Bulgakov over many years, is actualized here. Bulgakov insists on the noumenal dimension of the historical process, emphasizing the apocalyptic meaning of war as a manifestation of the final battle between good and evil, as humanity’s overcoming of its own “animality”.

Keywords: S.N. Bulgakov, sophiology, theodicy, eschatology, Apocalypse, Russian emigration, Russian religious philosophy, the meaning of war.