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Intercultural theology is increasingly a major subject matter of 21st-century scholarly inquiry. This results in an interreligious discourse and encounter at different levels. However, gone are the days when the aim is to identify or even to fuse certain overlapping magisteria. A linguistic-cultural approach takes us beyond mergers or grand unified theories. To speak of reality as a whole is not to talk about the whole of reality. Creatio continua, the radical newness of each moment and phase unfolds in unpredictable ways. The ecological crisis of planet earth has forced all responsible researchers to engage with the Anthropocene by establishing space for a common earth religion. Through ressourcement, it appears that the sophiology of theologians of the Russian Silver Age (e.g., Solovyov, Bulgakov, and Florensky) can open up a vista in the spirit of aggiornamento to a meta-religious approach recognising the infinite capacity of humanity to transcend particularised religious identities and so belong in different ways too, with, and in God. In the end, sophiology is a form of progressive Christianity that puts together philosophy and faith by promoting an ecological public theology that is concerned about raising society’s awareness about creation as material nature.

One of the most contentious events of Russian religious thought of the twentieth century was the “Sophia Affair”, which befell Bulgakov in 1935. This article compares and contrasts two responses by Nikolai Berdyaev and Sergius Bulgakov and what they say about freedom of thought in Russian theology, what that means in a socio-cultural context and the impact that had on the development of Russian theology. This is then compared with an article by Bulgakov written chronologically close to the events in question about the theology of authority in the Church. A parallel is drawn, with corresponding insights about the problems of authority in the Russian Church from a theological perspective, and how this affected Bulgakov’s theology in the 1930s and over the course of his life.

Despite the theological controversy surrounding ‘Russian sophiology' amongst Orthodox theologians, John Milbank has claimed that it has proven to be one of the most daring theological breakthroughs within twentieth-century theology. He further considers it to be a fecund avenue of theological and philosophical reflection that has the potential to effectively communicate his central theological arguments in a new idiom. However, many of the positions which Milbank adopts within his sophiology prove to be controversial. This article offers a critical appraisal of Milbank's sophiology, drawing particular attention to several theological aporias it appears to generate and leave unresolved.

What is Christian wisdom for living in the twenty-first century? Where is it to be found? How can it be learnt? In the midst of diverse religions and worldviews and the demands and complexities of our world, David Ford explores a Christian way of uniting love of wisdom with wisdom in love. Core elements are the 'discernment of cries', the love of God for God's sake, interpretation of scripture, and the shaping of desire in faith. Case studies deal with inter-faith wisdom among Jews, Christians and Muslims, universities as centres of wisdom as well as knowledge and know-how and the challenge of learning disabilities. Throughout, there is an attempt to do justice to the premodern, modern and postmodern while grappling with scripture, tradition and the cries of the world today. Ford opens up the rich resources of Christianity in engaging with the issues and urgencies of contemporary life.

The sophiology of Sergius Bulgakov has exerted a significant amount of influence over Anglophone theology over the last decade. Theological figures as significant as Rowan Williams, John Milbank and Paul Fiddes, to name but a few, have positively engaged with and utilised Bulgakov's sophiology within their own theological contributions. Thus, for many, Bulgakov's sophiology has proven to be a fecund source of theological inspiration, especially when articulating the relationship between God and the world. However, historically, Bulgakov's sophiology has been criticised by many Orthodox theologians, who argue that Bulgakov's proposals are theologically flawed and challenge traditional orthodox readings of Christian doctrine. Despite the controversy surrounding Bulgakov's use of Sophia, very few comprehensive, critical studies of Bulgakov's sophiology, spanning its historical development, exist. This article seeks to fill this void at a time when Bulgakov's sophiology is enthusiastically adopted by many without an accompanying critical lens.

This article approached the doctrine of the Trinity from the vantage point of the science and religion dialogue, because the issue of faith and reason is integral to this concept. This approach requires humility and silence. A page from the cosmology of the Russian Silver Age sheds light on the notorious schism of 1054 between the Western and the Eastern theologians on the Filioque issue, which manifests the lack of an apophatic and antinomistic approach. The issue is thus whether God is intrinsically part of nature and yet is its Creator and Redeemer. This question touches upon God’s transcendence and immanence, cataphatic and apophatic theology and even the complementarity of the two. Two protagonists of the ‘Russian Religious Renaissance’, Pavel Florensky (1882–1937) and Sergius Bulgakov (1871–1944), presupposed Christian faith and belief by giving theology preference to philosophy in this debate. Reality is seen as an antinomy and placed within the broader context of human cultural activity.Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implicationsA socially oriented worldview was pursued that underscored the ontological priority of relationality. The conclusion was drawn from the Russian Orthodox theology that the doctrine of the Trinity has its roots in the God–human relationship in Christ by the (Holy) Spirit and it interprets the homoousios of the Godhead as Sophia and antinomianism as the most crucial features of this belief.

This paper aims at reconstructing the political theology of Vladimir Solovyov. Taking as a starting point the argumentative pattern of Carl Schmitt, my research focuses on the analysis of the two central elements of the political theology of the Russian philosopher: first, on the ontological premise which is justifying the possibility of the union of religion and politics in a coherent and functional whole (i.e. the condition of the possibility of this mixed reality); second and as a direct result of this premise, on the description of the reasoning process through which Solovyov is pleading for establishing a close relation between religion and politics, Church and State (i.e. the stages of the theological-political discourse). The relation between religion and politics has cosmic significance as it is supposed to lead to the unification of the whole material and spiritual world in God.

This article examines S. Bulgakov's treatise ‘Sofiologiia smerti’ (‘Sophiology of Death’), which has been relatively neglected by scholars. Death is a topic that recurs with some frequency throughout Bulgakov's writings; that it merited its own study indicates the importance that he attached to the topic. The article provides a biographical, cultural and intellectual context for the treatise, as well some comments on its literary features. Bulgakov's use of sophiology and kenotic theology to explore the process of dying and the fact of death itself come under review. His reflections on human death and dying lead Bulgakov to explore how the Son of God experienced death and the involvement of the Trinity itself in that experience. Christ becomes fully human when he dies, and his death is the pattern for all human death.

This study explores some connections pertaining to theological cosmology in the works of Louis Bouyer and Alfred North Whitehead. It begins with a development of Bouyer's use of Whitehead's work in articulating a «sacramental gnoseology» in his volume on theological cosmology, Cosmos: The World and the Glory of God, moves to a consideration of thematic correlations between Bouyer's «Wisdom of creation» and Whitehead's category of «creativity», especially in regard to their mutual indebtedness to William Wordsworth, and finishes with an exploration of Bouyer's «Eckhartian Thomist» triadology as a manner of response to Whitehead's concern to develop a Christian metaphysics, or, more precisely, a «metaphysics of the Nazarene Carpenter». The article suggests that paths for the contemporary development of Bouyer's thought are opened up with the help of this dialogue with Whitehead, whom Bruno Latour has recently referred to as «the most important philosopher of the 20th century». L'articolo esplora alcune connessioni, nel campo della cosmologia teologica, nelle opere di Louis Bouyer e Alfred North Whitehead. Si inizia con il considerare lo sviluppo dell'uso di Bouyer del lavoro di Whitehead, nell'articolare una «gnoseologia sacramentale» nel suo volume sulla cosmologia teologica, Cosmos: The World and the Glory of God. Nell'articolo si passa poi a considerare le correlazioni tematiche tra il testo di Bouyer, «Wisdom of creation», e quello di Whitehead sulla categoria di «creatività», specialmente in riferimento al loro reciproco debito nei confronti di William Wordsworth, e si finisce con un approfondimento del testo di Bouyer, «Eckhartian Thomist», triologia intensa come un modo di rispondere alla posizione di Whitehead per sviluppare una metafisica cristiana, o, più precisamente, una «metafisica del Carpentiere Nazareno». L'articolo afferma che è possibile oggi uno sviluppo contemporaneo del pensiero di Bouyer, specie con l'aiuto del dialogo con Whitehead, recentemente definito da Bruno Latour come «il più importante filosofo del ventesimo secolo».

Vladimir Lossky (1903–58) and Sergii Bulgakov (1871–1944) are normally taken as polar opposites in modern Orthodox theology. Lossky's theology is portrayed as being based on a close exegesis of the Greek Fathers with an emphasis on theosis, the Trinity and the apophatic way of mystical union with God. Bulgakov's ‘sophiology’, in contrast, if it is remembered at all, is said to be a theology which wished to ‘go beyond the Fathers’, was based on German Idealism and the quasi-pantheist and gnostic idea of ‘sophia’ which is a form of the ‘Eternal Feminine’ of Romanticism. In short, Lossky's theological approach is what people normally think of when they speak of Orthodox theology: a form of ‘neo-patristic synthesis’ (Georges Florovsky). Bulgakov's theological approach is said to be typical of the exotic dead end of the inter-war émigré ‘Paris School’ (Alexander Schmemann) or ‘Russian Religious Renaissance’ (Nicolas Zernov). Lossky, we are reminded, was instrumental in the 1935 condemnation, by Metropolitan Sergii Stragorodskii of the Moscow Patriarchate, of Bulgakov's theology as ‘alien’ to the Orthodox Christian faith. Counter to this widely held ‘standard narrative’ of contemporary Orthodox theology, the article argues that the origins of Vladimir Lossky's apophaticism, which he characterised as ‘antinomic theology’, are found within the theological methodology of the sophiology of Sergii Bulgakov: ‘antinomism’. By antinomism is understood that with any theological truth one has two equally necessary affirmations (thesis and antithesis) which are nevertheless logically contradictory. In the face of their conflict, we are forced to hold both thesis and antithesis together through faith. A detailed discussion of Lossky's apophaticism is followed by its comparison to Bulgakov's ‘sophiological antinomism’. Lossky at first appears to be masking the influence of Bulgakov and even goes so far as to read his own form of theological antinomism into the Fathers. Nevertheless, he may well have been consciously appropriating the ‘positive intuitions’ of Bulgakov's thought in order to ‘Orthodoxise’ a thinker he believed was in error but still regarded as the greatest Orthodox theologian of the twentieth century. Despite major differences between the two thinkers (e.g. differing understandings of reason, the use of philosophy and the uncreated/created distinction), it is suggested that Lossky and Bulgakov have more in common than normally is believed to be the case. A critical knowledge of Bulgakov's sophiology is said to be the ‘skeleton key’ for modern Orthodox theology which can help unlock its past, present and future.