Sergei Bulgakov, the Fall, and the Problem of a Violent Creation

Many platonic Christian traditions have grappled with the problem of the violence evident throughout the created world. In contemporary times, the problem has reached new heights as evolutionary science has demonstrated that violence, predation, and death reach back far before humanity existed to corrupt the world with sin.

In the traditional doctrine of creation, God created an Edenic world free from death, predation, and suffering. This world, created out of love and grace, changed due to humanity's sin. The world is now full of violence, predation, and death. However, this explanation faces issues given the evidence of violent death and predation before humanity, contradicting the notion of an Edenic state. This raises questions about God's character, particularly if death and predation are not the corrupted result of free will, but have been present for millions of years. Surely, an omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent God would be capable of creating the multiplicity and beauty of life on earth without violence—especially if God is solely responsible for this creation and has not handed the power over to other agents.

Based on these considerations, one question that arises is as follows: where could we situate the Fall in such a way as to accommodate for death and violent predation? To answer this question, this paper will turn to Sergei Bulgakov’s account of a meta-historical Fall as articulated in chapter 3 of his book, *The Bride of the Lamb*. According to Bulgakov, the Fall is not a singular event within history, but is rather an unfolding process comprised of multiple points within the wider history of the cosmos—a history that embraces aeons and spiritual realities beyond the empirical, material history to which our scientific investigations have access. Because the process of the Fall, in both the angelic sense and in the Edenic sense, takes place in a higher, transcendental, and spiritual form of time—a meta-history—it is no surprise that archeological investigations do not uncover a prior paradise. Likewise, scientific theories of evolutionary history cannot confirm or deny the meta-historical Eden or Fall because they lie outside the reach of empirical analysis. Just as one cannot put God or angels into a test tube, neither can the spiritual threshold of Eden be penetrated within the current aeon. Rather the Fall is a transcendental outsideness, which, to borrow the language of Anna Greenspan, “constitute an exteriority that haunts the successive order of extensive temporality” (*Capitalism’s Transcendental Time Machine*, 17).

Bulgakov does not deny evolutionary science. Rather, he incorporates it into his sophiology, theorizing that evolution is the realization of an inner blueprint, bringing into existence the world's prototypes or 'entelechies.' In evolution, that which underlies, predates, or is beyond this reality is actualized in time and empirical reality (*Bride of the Lamb*, 172).

Despite the intriguing nature and positive components of Bulgakov’s work, there are a few areas needing correction or additional explanation. First, Bulgakov’s position is grounded in a deeply held anthropocentrism, which sees humanity as the telos of nature and as the means by which nature takes on a transcendent aspect (*Bride of the Lamb*, 173). The anthropocentrism causes Bulgakov to severely downplay the dignity of non-human animals. However, despite these limitations, his work provides the tools for a more fruitful construction. This paper will argue that by rejecting anthropocentrism and replacing it with something like a sophiologically-informed panpsychism (a “world soul” as Bulgakov claimed), one can strengthen Bulgakov’s insistence that creation has its own sense of autonomy. Postulating that the person-making force, the world soul, and the modality of freedom are embedded within creation itself, rather than only in humans or angels, could serve as both the philosophical and theological motivation for adopting a form of panpsychism. The upshot is that one could bolster Bulgakov’s claim that freedom is embedded throughout creation, and one could see the turning away of creation from God’s telos as not something carried out by only humans and angels, but is perhaps exercised by other facets of creation as well. Such a view holds the potential for expanding both how one views the doctrine of the Fall and also how one interacts with the relationship between evil and freedom.

The second difficulty is figuring out exactly how humanity participates within the transcendental Eden—especially when Bulgakov combines Eden with the notion of a “proto-Adam.” Two possible avenues of explanation will be given. The first is a look at Maximus the Confessor’s doctrine of the logoi-Logos distinction, to which Bulgakov was indebted. Another option looks at John Milbank’s understanding of the Adam Kadmon, a Kabbalistic and Irenaeusian concept to which Bulgakov might have also been indebted.

Bulgakov’s theory, drawing on sophiology, mysticism, and church tradition, offers a valuable lens for examining the intersection of violent predation and evolution within Christian discourse. His concept of a meta-historical Fall serves as a compelling example of reconciling evolutionary science with the doctrine of the Fall, a balance often elusive in contemporary creation narratives. By delineating evolution and the Fall across different temporal and ontological realms, Bulgakov's framework accommodates scientific inquiry while upholding key theological tenets. By successfully integrating evolutionary theory into Christian Platonic thought, and emphasizing a robust understanding of the Fall, Bulgakov's theory underscores the Christian proclamation of God as a God of peace while ensuring the integrity of both science and theology.