Bulgakov on Freedom
"The spiritual life requires one condition, a negative condition, but invaluable and irreplaceable: freedom. Ethical self-determination cannot but be free, and, conversely, only free self-determination can have an ethical goal. It would be superfluous to try to demonstrate this self-evident truth. But perfect freedom belongs only to pure spirit, which is free from all external influence and open only to interior motivation."Sergius Bulgakov was a Marxist-turned-Russian Orthodox priest and theologian who sort of lived in hot water from the Orthodox hierarchy. This quote from his essay, "The Economic Ideal" is a help from an unlikely place. - DOB
posted by David Browder at 3/09/2008 12:15:00 AM
2 Comments:
But, David, do you think that Bulgakov is a bit optimistic to imagine that such pure spirits can exist, spirits free from external influences and with interior motivation free from the chains that bind their own sinful hearts? Put differently, I can imagine these same words issuing from some protagonist in an Ayn Rand novel.
Walter
That's a great catch, Walter. Bulgakov is certainly optimistic in more than that. If you read his essays, you will see a very Hegelian optimism. I approve, though, of where he wants to go. He sees the internal motivation as being the key to what we would call the law. He would call that obedience and say it was possible, but to the extent that he emphasizes the internal over the external, I can say he has a particularly good insight despite the tradition he is coming from.
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