Katharina Breckner

Beauty and Art in Solovjev (18501903) and in Bulgakov

(18741948). Does Beauty Save the World?
In Solovjev beauty is substance. He suggests beauty and the good
to be Siamese twins and predicts that beauty will transform material
being to a moral order, thus saves the world! The essay examines
Solovjevs eschatology that in fact denotes a special view of Creation:
Creation awaits continuation by mans ability to create beauty. Beauty in
nature arises by the cosmic representative of Divine All-unity, by the
sun. In human life mans consciousness is to overtake the suns cosmic
role and create beauty by re-creating in life. The relationship between the
animals and human consciousness signifies the same relation as beauty
in nature versus beauty in life: we should change our attitude towards
nature, which doubtlessly is an ecumenical, ecological, and universally
modern request. The formation of a righteous society springs off natures and societys permanent spiritualisation by the sun-like lucidity
of human ideas that brightly illuminate nature and matter. Solovjevs
eschatology holds that natures creation has not ended after Seven Days,
but nature yields the seeds to co-Creatorship. This is precisely why man
should change his attitude towards nature by spiritually enlivening it.
The Churches unification, the future Universal Church, the manifestation of All-unity, would of course correlate to beauty.
Co-creatorship, mans task and ability to re-create beauty by changing
his attitude towards nature doubtlessly belongs into the spheres of theurgy.
This is the point where Sergej Nikolaevich Bulgakov entered the discussion with Solovjev and made quite adifferent point. He corrected Solovjev
by insisting that only Gods descending acts into this world make theurgy,
make continuous Creation possible. Basically, theurgy depends on Gods
will. However, Gods theurgic descent and, as he called it, mans sophianic ascent may join together and generate the possibility of co-creatorship, another of Christanitys miracles.This, the intersecting of ascending
and descending wills and wishes is what Bulgakov called Sophia-urgy.

Diametrically opposed to Solovjev, Bulgakov defended that God entrusted theurgic might to the Church exclusively. Man through the
Churchs mediation is merely recipient of theurgy, never its creator. The Eucharist sacrament shelters sophianic knowledge that
is needed to begin the worlds transformation into beauty. Spiritual
beauty is not of this world, but it is bound to the Eucharist, the cradle
of life. Beauty in Bulgakov, and in Solovjev, is another expression for
the spiritual reunification of the created and the Uncreated, in short the
re-arrival of original beauty. Similar to Solovjev also Bulgakov hoped
for natures spiritualisation as condition sine qua non to beautys future
reign. Only, he focused on the Churchs tasks to reincarnate Sophia, the
beauty of Gods Wisdom, on earth.