43 lines
3.1 KiB
Plaintext
43 lines
3.1 KiB
Plaintext
{{Draft|author=MBauwens|date=2026-02-02}}
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'''Sophiology''' is a philosophical and theological tradition centered on Sophia (Divine Wisdom) as a cosmological and spiritual principle, with roots in both Western esoteric thought and Russian Orthodox theology.
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== Description ==
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Michael Martin explains:
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<blockquote>
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"Arguably, the only prophetic movement in the Church (broadly conceived) in the modern period has been Sophiology, which began in the late-sixteenth and early-seventeenth centuries with figures like Jacob Boehme, the Philadelphian Society, and William Law and has traces in German Romanticism and William Blake—all Protestants, by the way—then comes to full flower with the Russian sophiologists beginning with Solovyov in the late nineteenth century. From there, after having been forgotten, it spread again to the West and re-emerged in Catholic thinkers such as Hans Urs von Balthasar, Louis Bouyer, and Thomas Merton. In that, Sophiology is an inherently ecumenical phenomenon—and not the false ecumenism often paraded before us as a kind of superficial bonhomie that never leads to anything other than cringe-worthy handholding around a bonfire within which burns all semblance of Christian authenticity."
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</blockquote>
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== The Sophianic Disclosure ==
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<blockquote>
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"People often ask me what the warrant for Sophiology could be, given that it seems to be absent from most of the Fathers and most of 'official' Church history. On the one hand, I think we are the unwitting victims of an interpretive tradition that turns Holy Tradition—whether East or West—into an idol. And in that tradition, the only way to read 'Sophia' is as the Logos—and once such a commitment is accepted, no matter how erroneous or inexact, it is difficult to break its dogmatic spell.
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Sophia, the submerged reality as I have argued for more than the past decade, lies in hiding, as it were, awaiting discovery. We see resonances of this in the Gnostic mythos of Sophia's exile or sleep. But we are the ones who are in exile; we are the ones asleep. One could compare the disclosure of the sophianic nature of Creation—and of the Church—to the disclosure of the laws of mathematics. Those laws were always there; they simply required individuals equipped—by nature, by historical process, most of all by curiosity—to find them.
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My own belief is that the full disclosure of the sophianic and its illumination of the Church is still to come, and that this disclosure is part of the active eschatology heralded by Berdyaev—which, of course, suggests that the revelation of scripture is still incomplete."
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</blockquote>
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== Active Eschatology ==
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As Berdyaev writes:
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<blockquote>
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"My salvation is bound up with that not only of other men but also of animals, plants, minerals, of every blade of grass—all must be transfigured and brought into the Kingdom of God. And this depends upon my creative efforts."
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</blockquote>
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== See Also ==
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* [[Wisdom Traditions]]
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* [[Russian Philosophy]]
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* [[Theology]]
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== Source ==
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* [https://druidstaresback.substack.com/p/the-tabernacle-and-sophia "The Tabernacle and Sophia" by Michael Martin]
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[[Category:Philosophy]]
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[[Category:Theology]]
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[[Category:Spirituality]]
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