On the philosophy of religion of Vladimir S. Solovyev: a critical analysis. Part 1

This article is devoted to the criticism of the philosophy of religion created by Vladimir Solovyev (1853-1900), the most popular and authoritative Russian thinker. Solovyev’s religious and philosophical system, commonly known as the “philosophy of universal unity”, claims to be an ecumenical religious and philosophical doctrine that overcomes all discords and contradictions of diverse religions and philosophic teachings. Moreover, the author of the philosophy of universal unity invariably tried to convince its readers that the system of his views belonged to Christian or even Greek Orthodox philosophy. The present article proves that in real fact this “synthesis” has a rather eclectic character and contains a large number of elements rooted in the trends alien to Christianity such as Gnosticism, Kabbalah, Occultism, Spiritism, Theosophy and Positivism. In the early period of his creative work, when Solovyev worked on his philosophy of “universal unity”, he was close to the Slavophile movement, contributed his works to their magazines and partly shared their views. The mystical and religious schemes of Solovyev’s mature period, which outwardly developed Christian teaching, like his concept of Godmanhood and especially the contradictory idea of Sophia, had in fact a chiliastic character and were aimed at the realization of God’s Kingdom on the Earth. Moreover, these mystic elements of Solovyev’s teaching were contradictorily combined with the influence of Comte’s pseudo-religious Positivistic “religion of Mankind” and a support to the liberal ideas of moral and social progress. But when his utopic teaching of the universal theocracy under the spiritual guidance of the Roman Pope faced a rejection by Russia’s cultural society and official circles, Solovyev changed his views for a pro-Catholic position and became a severe critic of the Orthodox Church and nationally oriented movement. Although towards the end of his life Solovyev had a spiritual crisis and rejected his chiliastic ideas, later his metaphysical teaching including his philosophy of religion gained a large number of followers. The author’s choice of this theme is due to the fact that Solovyev’s religious teaching has enjoyed a great authority as the most important philosophical system evolved in Russia.