Deification and Creativity

Abstract

Chapter 4 analyses Nikolai Berdiaev’s first philosophical statement The Meaning of Creativity (1916) in the context of the theosophy of Jakob Boehme. It is shown how Berdiaev adopts the deification narrative primarily as expressed by Boehme rather than in the Orthodox theological tradition, and the ways in which the two narratives diverge are analysed. Berdiaev tends towards a Gnostic attitude to the material world and the body and an Origenistic view of the pre-existence of the soul. Most importantly, his reading of human–divine synergy in the task of transfiguring the universe emphasizes the superiority of human over divine agency after the Incarnation. The chapter goes on to set the work in the context of Berdiaev’s critique of the Russian Orthodox Church and of Russian Symbolism. His contemporaries’ response to the work is drawn on to suggest that Berdiaev’s Nietzschean persona opens him to the charge of illegitimate self-apotheosis.