Nikolai Berdyaev and problems of the orthodox Christian doctrine about man (the concepts of “personality” and “individuality”)

The article examines the consequences of the use in Orthodox Christian theology of the following ideas characteristic of the personalist philosophy of Nikolai Berdyaev: the maximum value of a personality, positing the personality as a “goal in itself”, the opposition of the concepts “personality” and “individual”, the concept of a dialogue between “I” and “You”. When these provisions of personalist philosophy become accepted by the theological thought of our time and are further developed (in particular, by metropolitan J. Zizioulas), they lead to a change in the meanings of a number of aspects of Orthodox Christian doctrine. Metropolitan John Zizioulas speaks about the concept of personality, which is not reducible to a biological principle, the imperfection of which lies in the very fact of natural existence. This is very close to some forms of Gnosticism. In general, the transfer of a number of provisions of personalistic philosophy into the logic of Orthodox Christian theology can lead to the fact that the suffering and death of Jesus Christ are excluded from the doctrine of salvation, and theosis is interpreted as involvement in the personal existence of God. Ultimately, all this can lead to conclusions that are unacceptable from the point of view of the Orthodox faith.