Vladimir Solovyov

Qu'est-ce que l'Absolu ? Dieu existe-t-il ?

The Absolute is all-unity: a superessential ground and a Trinitarian God at once

À la fois personnel et impersonnelIl le dit expressément

Soloviev builds the first systematic Russian metaphysics around all-unity. In the Lectures on Godmanhood, the Absolute is at once what stands above every determination, free of all particular content, and what positively contains everything; hence it can be described both as nothing and as all. This Absolute is no cold principle: it is expressed in the Christian Trinity, and its content, the ideal world in its unity, is Sophia, which he calls the body of God. In the Critique of Abstract Principles and the Philosophical Principles of Integral Knowledge he argues that reason, experience and mysticism must be united to think it. His God is personal and Trinitarian, but the way in passes through an ontology of totality reminiscent of Plotinus, Schelling and the Kabbalah, sources he himself studied.

Qui suis-je ? Existe-t-il un vrai soi ?

The person is absolute in form and is called to Godmanhood

Une âme créée et immortelleIl le dit expressément

For Soloviev the human being occupies the hinge between God and nature. In the Lectures on Godmanhood he describes it as a being which, by its form, has unconditional value, since it can embrace in its consciousness the idea of the whole, although by its real content it is limited and dependent on the world. Its destiny is to fill that form with divine content, to unite freely with God without being lost in him: that is Godmanhood, fulfilled in Christ and promised to all humanity. In The Meaning of Love he adds that individuality is not saved by closing in on itself, but through the sacrifice of egoism, recognising in another the absolute value that egoism feels only in oneself. The true self is thus an immortal person realised in union.

Pourquoi souffrons-nous ?

Evil is the disintegration of a world that broke away from all-unity

La séparation d'avec DieuIl le dit expressément

For Soloviev suffering has a cosmic root. In the Lectures on Godmanhood, the world soul, which was to keep creation united in God, sought to assert itself and fell from all-unity; hence the scattering of nature into mutually exclusive elements, strife, death and egoism, which in the human being is the assertion of oneself against all. History is the process by which that disintegrated world is reintegrated, culminating in Christ and to be extended to society. In The Justification of the Good he studies shame, pity and reverence as moral roots that resist this disintegration. In Three Conversations, his last book, he confronts evil as a reality and not a mere lack, and embodies it in the figure of the Antichrist.

Que se passe-t-il après la mort ?

Christ's resurrection is the centre: true love aspires to conquer death

Vie éternelle et résurrectionIl le dit expressément

Soloviev understands death as the ultimate form of the disintegration egoism introduces into the world, and resurrection as its real, not merely symbolic, overcoming. In The Meaning of Love he argues that love between two persons, if taken seriously, cannot accept the death of the beloved: its meaning is immortality, the restoration of the complete image of the human being. In Three Conversations, his last book, Christ's resurrection is the criterion that separates true Christianity from its imitation, and the Antichrist of the tale is a benefactor of humanity who cannot bear it. His eschatology is not individualistic: victory over death reaches all of humanity and the cosmos, which are to be transfigured in the process of Godmanhood.

Comment atteint-on la libération ou le salut ?

Salvation is Godmanhood: the free union of God and man, social as well

Par la grâce et l'amourIl le dit expressément

For Soloviev salvation is not the individual flight of a soul, but the reintegration of the world into God, which he calls the divine-human process. It began in Christ, in whom divine and human nature were united without confusion, and must be extended in humanity through man's free cooperation with grace. In The Spiritual Foundations of Life he describes the acts that open the individual to that cooperation: prayer, which unites him with God; fasting, which masters material nature; and almsgiving, which unites him with his neighbour. But he insists that salvation must also reach social and political life: hence his programme of a free theocracy and his defence, in The Justification of the Good, of a social order conforming to the moral good.

Faut-il un maître ?

Spiritual authority lives in the universal Church, which must be reunited

La communauté et la traditionIl le dit expressément

Soloviev was no disciple of any guru, nor did he present himself as a master of initiates, although he recounted his visions of Sophia in the poem Three Meetings. For him spiritual authority resides in the Church as the body of Christ, bearer of tradition and sacraments, and his great concern was that Church's division. In Russia and the Universal Church, written in French in 1889, he argues for the reunion of East and West and grants the bishop of Rome a primacy of unity, which earned him censorship in Russia. The master-disciple relationship, in his work, shifts to the figure of the prophet, who speaks freely in the name of truth, alongside the priest and the king of his free theocracy. In Three Conversations the elder John, Pope Peter and Professor Pauli represent the three traditions reunited at the end of time.

Le monde est-il réel ?

The world is the world soul on its way to God; beauty embodies the idea

Manifestation du divinIl le dit expressément

For Soloviev the world is neither illusion nor a mere artefact external to God. In the Lectures on Godmanhood he conceives it as God's other: ideal all-unity, Sophia, eternal in God, exists in the world in a state of dispersion, because the world soul separated from divine unity. Natural and human history is the process by which that soul is reunited with God, first in nature, then in human consciousness and finally in Christ and in deified humanity. In Beauty in Nature he defines beauty as the incarnation of the idea in matter: every beautiful form already announces the transfiguration of the world. He also defended, against subjective idealism, the reality of the external world.

Qu'est-ce que l'amour ?

Love overcomes egoism by recognising absolute value in another

Le désir ardent et l'unionIl le dit expressément

The Meaning of Love, published between 1892 and 1894, is one of the most original philosophical meditations on eros. Soloviev holds that the meaning and dignity of love lie in its compelling us to recognise truly, with our whole being, in another the central and unconditional value that egoism feels only in oneself. Love between man and woman does not have procreation as its end, which perpetuates the succession of mortal generations, but the creation of a complete human being, the union of two persons in a fullness that anticipates immortality and the reunion of the world with God. The meaning of human love is the justification and salvation of individuality through the sacrifice of egoism. Behind this vision lies his experience of Sophia, to whom he devoted the poem Three Meetings.

Sommes-nous libres ou tout est-il déterminé ?

Union with God must be free; moral freedom is self-determination by the good

Un libre arbitre réelIl le dit expressément

All of Soloviev's philosophy depends on the union between God and the world being free: in the Lectures on Godmanhood, the human being is not absorbed by the divine, but must unite with it by his own decision, which is why history is a drama and not a mechanism. His political programme of a free theocracy carries the same demand into the social sphere: no unity imposed by force has religious value. In The Justification of the Good he refines the philosophical question: he rejects free will understood as choice without motive and maintains that moral freedom consists in the will being determined by the good recognised by reason, not by the passions. The person is responsible precisely because he can know the good and adhere to it.

Pourquoi méditer ou prier ?

To pray is to surrender to God; with fasting and alms it founds spiritual life

L'amitié avec DieuIl le dit expressément

In The Spiritual Foundations of Life, written between 1882 and 1884, Soloviev describes three acts that ground the individual's religious life, corresponding to his three fundamental relations: prayer, which unites him with God above him; fasting, which gives him mastery over material nature below him; and almsgiving, which unites him with other human beings beside him. Prayer consists in setting aside one's own will in order to open oneself to the divine will, and its model is the Lord's Prayer, which he comments on petition by petition. It is not an exercise in concentration, but a personal relation to the Father, to be extended in the life of the Church and its sacraments. His mystical experience of Sophia, narrated in Three Meetings, shows that he also knew visionary contemplation.

La raison peut-elle connaître l'ultime ?

An integral knowledge uniting experience, reason and mysticism

La foi et la raison s'entraidentIl le dit expressément

Soloviev is the great Russian systematiser of the relation between faith and reason. In The Crisis of Western Philosophy, his thesis of 1874, he argues that both empiricism and rationalism have reached their limit, and that Western philosophy ends in the need for a synthesis with the religious wisdom of the East. In The Philosophical Principles of Integral Knowledge and the Critique of Abstract Principles he develops that synthesis: sense experience, rational thought and mystical intuition are three sources of knowledge which, separated, become abstract and false, and only united in an integral knowledge reach the truth. Revelation does not cancel reason, but gives it its ultimate content, and reason allows faith to be understood and articulated.

Se retirer du monde ou le transformer ?

Christianising society: a free theocracy and law in the service of the good

Ordonner la sociétéIl le dit expressément

Soloviev rejected a spirituality that abandons social life to its fate. His project of a free theocracy, set out in The History and Future of Theocracy and Russia and the Universal Church, proposes that Church, State and society cooperate, each in its own function, in transforming collective life according to the Gospel, without coercion in matters of faith. In Law and Morality he defines law as the minimum of morality society can demand, and in The Justification of the Good he defends every person's right to a dignified existence, the abolition of the death penalty and the critique of nationalism. He acted accordingly: in 1881 he publicly asked for clemency for the assassins of Alexander II, which cost him his chair. Holiness is measured also in social justice.