'Sophiology as Modern Theological Anthropology'--Syndicate Review Symposium Commentrary on Marcus Plested, Wisdom in Christian Tradition (Oxford, 2022)--November 2023 (original) (raw)

Nikolai Valentinov, Encounters with Lenin (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1968), 178.[/footnote] That is how Prof. Sergei Bulgakov would open his seminars on economics and social sciences at the beginning of the twentieth century. Therefore, he would be delighted about this book by Marcus Plested, who offers a thorough and sympathetic account of the pros and cons of Bulgakov's Sophiology from a patristic point of view, guided by the sincere intention to "hold on to what is good" (1 Thess 5:21). Moreover, Plested situates modern Russian Sophiology within the much broader and "dazzling scope of Christian wisdom reflection" (224), that has somehow fallen out of focus because of the overwhelmingly negative reception of Sophiology by Bulgakov's "neo-patristic" colleagues, and against the background of the heated church-political atmosphere of Russian Orthodox intellectuals in exile. Plested's main question is "whether or to what extent (Bulgakov's) Sophiology is grounded in patristic tradition." However, one should bear in mind that this is not Bulgakov's main question or goal. Bulgakov's recourse to patristic theology is a method, not an end in itself. Therefore, on the one hand, Plested's answer that "Sophiology is clearly rooted in patristic tradition, but only up to a point" (230), is not surprising. On the other hand, Plested convincingly shows how Sophiology "misses a great deal from the tradition-not least from the Bible" (230) and demonstrates that Bulgakov could have even amplified his own arguments by more thoroughly studying both Christian wisdom reflection in the Greek East and in the Latin West, where, as Bulgakov quite polemically claimed, "Sophia never had any place" and only "constantly hovers on the brink of sophiological problems."[footnote] Sergei Bulgakov, Sophia: The Wisdom of God, trans.