Criticism of “barthianism” in Boris Vysheslavtsev's religious anthropology

The article examines the soteriological aspect of the religious anthropology of Boris Vysheslavtsev, who was one of the most prominent representatives of religious and philosophical thought expelled from Soviet Russia in 1922. Vysheslavtsev most clearly expressed this aspect in his two articles, “The Image of God in the Fall” and “The Image of God in the Being of Man”, that criticized Karl Barth’s dialectical theology. The study was based on analytical, synthetic, historical philosophical, biographical, and hermeneutic methods. The author reconstructs the logical structure of Vysheslavtsev’s criticism of Barthianism and evaluates his argumentation. The author emphasizes that Vysheslavtsev considers Barthian theology a non-dialectical doctrine, since he sees the assertion of the thesis of the created nature and sinfulness of man and the negation of the antithesis in the theology. Vysheslavtsev positively assesses Barth’s pathos about the “chasm of the sin” and credits his theology with the fact that it fundamentally clarifies the meaning of the sin for anthropology. However, according to Vysheslavtsev, it is only the thesis of the “antinomy of the sin” opposed by an equally strong antithesis: “the image and likeness of God can never disappear, even in the greatest sin”. Vysheslavtsev gives two arguments for the antithesis: (1) even the most impenitent sinner retains the qualities of God-likeness (personality, freedom and reason); (2) a person retains the image of the lost God-likeness in the form of a clear awareness of one’s sinfulness, or unconscious guilt, or the satanic “spirit of contradiction” that preserves the image of righteousness, which is what this spirit contradicts. The author notes that Barth’s theology has served a worthy reason for Vysheslavtsev to express again his antinomic teaching about man, to solve purely theological problems in this case. Despite the fact that Vysheslavtsev bases his several arguments on the Church Fathers doctrine, his philosophical thought crosses the dogmatic boundaries of the Orthodox theology. However, this does not prevent Vysheslavtsev’s criticism of Barthianism as a confessional thought from the positions of another, the Orthodox, doctrine. The author concludes that this criticism is a very good example of an interconfessional dialogue on key theological issues without any accusations of heresy; more precisely, it is an example of a position in the dialogue when the subject of criticism is ideas, not doctrinal principles, religious feelings or symbols - although ideas logically stem from the foundations of the religious doctrine.