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If there were no particular, then there would be no everything
If there were no particular, then there would be no everything, and if there were no everything, then there would be no unified as real. But since the particular, not everything, can exist only in the process, as everything that becomes, then, consequently, one’s own existence belongs to two inseparably connected and mutually conditioning absolutes: the absolute
being
(God)
and the absolute
becoming
(man), and the full truth can be expressed by the word “God-manhood”, for only in man the second absolute — the world soul — finds its actual realization in both of its principles. In fact, in its purely human ideal principle (which is expressed for itself as reason), the world soul receives unconditional independence — freedom, on the one hand, in relation to God, and on the other hand, in relation to its own natural material principle. Freedom in the latter respect is self-evident and requires no explanation. But man (or the world soul in humanity)
is free not only from his material existence, he is unconditionally free in relation to his divine principle:
for as becoming absolute, and not existing, he himself is the foundation of his being.
In fact, the Divine defines him here only ideally, determines only
what
he becomes, the content and purpose of his life;
but that he
becomes
this, this has its basis not in the Divinity, detached from all process, but in himself. Being alien to all process and change, the Divine as such cannot be the real cause (causa efficiens)
of change (ἀρχὴ τῆς κινήσεως);
the real cause of the change is always the one who changes, while the Divine is always only the formal and final cause of the change, its idea and purpose.
The second produced unity
The oneness of the divine beginning, substantially abiding in the first sphere of being and ideally manifested in the second, can receive its real actualization only in the third. In all the three spheres we distinguish the acting divine beginning of unity or Logos as the direct manifestation of Divinity, and the 'many' or the 'all' which are unified by the action of that One,
[which]
assimilate it
[the One]
into themselves, and actualize it. But in the first sphere this 'all' exists by itself only potentially, in the second only ideally;
only in the third does it receive its own real existence;
and therefore the unity of this sphere, produced by the divine Logos, appears
[here], for the first time, as an actual independent being, which is able of itself to act on the divine beginning. Only here the object of divine action becomes a real, actual subject, and the action itself becomes a real interaction. This second
[or]
produced unity, as opposed to the original oneness of the divine Logos, is, as we know, the soul of the world or the ideal mankind (Sophia), which
contains in itself and binds with itself all the particular living beings or souls.
Representing the realization of the divine beginning, being its image and likeness, the protoform humanity or the soul of the world is simultaneously, one and all;
she occupies the mediating position between the multiplicity of living beings, which comprise the real content of her life, and the unconditional unity of Divinity, which is the ideal beginning and the norm of that life. As the living focus or the soul of all creatures, and at the same time the real form of Divinity—die extant
[living]
subject of the created being and the extant
[living]
object of the divine action—participant of the oneness of God, and at the same time embracing the whole multiplicity of the living souls, the all-one humanity, or the soul of the world, is a dual being: containing in herself both the divine beginning and the created being, she is not defined exclusively by either one or the other and, consequently, remains free;
the divine beginning, inherent in her, liberates her from her created nature, while the latter makes her free in regard to Divinity. In embracing all living beings (souls)
and in them also all ideas, she is not exclusively bound to any one among them, is free from all of them—but, being the immediate centre and the real unity of all these beings, she receives in them, in their particularity, independence from the divine beginning
[and]
the possibility of acting upon it in the capacity of a free subject. In so far as she receives unto herself the divine Logos and is determined by Him, the soul of the world is humanity—the divine manhood of Christ—the body of Christ, or Sophia. Conceiving the unitary divine beginning and binding by this unity the entire multiplicity of beings, the soul of the world thereby gives the divine beginning
[its]
complete actual realization in everything;
by means of her
[through her as the medium]
God is manifested in all creation as the living, active force, or as the Holy Spirit. In other words: in being determined or formed by the divine Logos, the soul of the world enables the Holy Spirit to actualize Himself in all;
for that which in the light of Logos is revealed in ideal images, is realized by the Holy Spirit in real action. Hence it is clear that the soul of the world contains in unity all the elements of the world only in so far as she is herself subjected to the divine beginning which she receives, in so far as she retains that divine beginning as the sole object of her will of life, as the unconditional aim and focus of her being;
for only in so far as she herself is permeated by the divine all-unity can she transmit it into the whole creation, uniting and subjecting to herself and the whole multitude of beings through the power of Divinity, resident in her. In so far as she is possessed by Divinity, in that measure she possesses all;
for in Divinity everything is in unity;
and asserting herself in the all-unity
[of Divinity]
she is thereby free from everything in particular, free in the positive sense, as possessing all. But the soul of the world receives the divine beginning and is determined by it not because of any external necessity, but by her own action;
for as we know, she has in herself by her own position, the principle of independent action or the will, i.e., the capacity to initiate from within herself an inner motion (striving). In other words, the world soul can herself choose the object of the striving of her life.
What could be the object, besides the divine beginning, to which the world soul would strive?
She possesses all;
the unlimited potentiality of being (in Greek: τò άπειρον)
is satisfied in her. But it is satisfied not unconditionally and, therefore, not finally. The world soul possesses 'all', as the content of her own being (her own idea)
not immediately in herself, but from the divine beginning, which is essentially prior to her, is presupposed by her and defines her. Only as she is open in her inner being to the activity of the divine Logos does the world soul receive in Him and from Him power over all, and possesses all. Therefore, although possessing all, the world soul can still desire to possess it in a manner
different
from the way she does possess it, i.e.,
she can desire to possess it
of herself, as God
[desires anything]:
she may wish to add to the fullness of being which belongs to her, also the absolute
sell-substancy
of her being in the possession of that fullness—something that does not belong to her. By virtue of this, the soul can detach the relative centre of her life from the absolute centre of the divine life, can assert herself outside of God. But thereby the soul necessarily loses her central position, falls from the all-one focus of the divine being to the circumference of multiple creation, losing her freedom and her power over this creation: for
she possesses such power not of herself, but only as a mediatrix between creation and Divinity, from which in her self-assertion she becomes separated.
In resting her will upon herself, centring in herself, she takes herself away from all, becomes but one among many. But when the world soul ceases to unite all with herself, then all lose their common bond, and the unity of cosmic creation breaks up into a multitude of separated elements, the universal organism becomes transformed into a mechanical aggregate of atoms. Because all the particular specific elements of the universal organism by themselves, i.e., as specific (each as 'something' but not as the whole, as 'this' but not as the other), are not
[connected]
in immediate unity one with the other, but have this unity only through the medium of the world soul, as their common focus which contains or encompasses all in itself. With the segregation of the world soul, however, when she, arousing in herself her own will, thereby detaches herself from the whole, the particular elements of the universal organism lose their common tie
[which they had]
in her, and, left to themselves, are doomed to the particularized, egoistic existence, the root of which is evil, and the fruit, suffering. Thus, the whole creature is subjected to the vanity and slavery of corruption
not by its own will,
but by the will of him2
who has
[so]
subjected it, i.e., the world soul, as the one free beginning of natural life.
2
Solovyev uses here the words of St. Paul but attributes that will to the 'world soul', instead of to God. Translator.
The meaning and goal of the world process
The natural world, which has fallen away from the divine unity, appears as a chaos of disjointed elements. The plurality of disintegrated elements, foreign one to another,. impermeable for each other, is expressed in real
space. Real space does not consist only of the form of extension—every being and every representation has such form for another
[being or representation];
even all the content of the inner psychic world, when we represent it concretely, appears as extended or as occupying space in that respect, i.e., in the formal sense;1
but this is only the ideal space, which does not set any permanent and independent limit to our action;
the real space or externality necessarily proceeds from the disintegration and mutual alienation of all that exists, by virtue of which every being has in all others
[in all other beings]
a constant and coercive boundary to his actions. In this condition of externality every single being, every element, is excluded or pushed out by all others;
and, by resisting this external action, occupies a certain definite place, which it strives to retain exclusively for itself, demonstrating the force of inertia and impermeability. The complex system of external forces, shocks, and motions, which results from that mechanical interaction of elements, forms the world of
matter. But
this world is not a world of unconditionally homogeneous elements;
we know that every real element, every single being (atom)
has its own particular individual essence (idea);
and if in the divine order all those elements, positively completing one another, form a whole and harmonious organism, then in the natural order we have this same organism only disintegrated in actuality (actu);
it retains its ideal unity in a latent potentiality and in its tendency
[striving, desire]. The gradual actualization of this striving,
the gradual realization of the ideal all-oneness, constitutes the meaning and goal of the world process.
As in the divine order all
eternally
is the absolute organism;
so by the law of natural being, all gradually
becomes
such organism in time.2
1
For example, in a dream we see ourselves in a certain space, and all that happens in a dream, all the images and pictures of dreams, appear in a spatial form.
2
If space is a form of the external unity of the natural world and a condition of the mechanical interaction of beings, time is a form of the internal unification and a condition for the restoration of the organic union of what exists;
which, not
given
in nature, necessarily becomes something
attained
[reached for], in a
process.
The soul of this nascent organism—the soul of the world—at the beginning of the world-process is deprived, in actuality, of that unifying, organizing force which it has only in union with the divine beginning, as
[the conductor or medium]
receiving and transmitting it into the world;
but separated from it, by itself, it is only an indefinite tendency towards the unity of all, an indefinite passive possibility (potentiality)
of the all-unity. As an indefinite tendency, which as yet has no definite content, the world soul or nature3
cannot by itself reach that point to which it strives, i.e., all-unity;
it is unable to generate it from its own self. In order to bring to unity and accord the disjointed and
[mutually]
hostile elements, it is necessary to determine for each
[element]
its specific function, to place it in a definite positive relationship towards all others—in other words, it is necessary not merely to unite everything, but to effect that unification in a definite, positive
form. This definite form of all-unity or of the universal organism is contained in Divinity as an eternal idea. In the world, on the other hand—i.e., in the aggregate of the elements (of all that exists)
which came out of unity—in this world, or rather, in this chaotic state of the existence of all (which had constituted the primordial fact)
the eternal idea of the absolute organism had to be gradually realized;
and the effort towards that realization, the striving towards the incarnation of Divinity in the world—this striving is universal, one in all, and therefore transcends the limits of each—it is this striving which, representing the inner life and beginning of movement in all that exists, is the world soul, properly speaking.
And if, as it has been stated,
the world soul by herself cannot realize herself because she lacks a definite positive form
[necessary]
for that purpose;
then, it is obvious that in her impetus towards the realization
[of the striving]
she must look for that form in another
[one];
and she can find it only in the one who eternally contains that form, i.e., in the divine beginning: which thus appears as the active, formative, and determining principle of the world-process.
3
The Latin word
natura
(that which is to be bom)
is very expressive as a designation of the world soul;
for it does not yet exist, in fact, as actual subject of all-oneness;
in that capacity it has yet to be born.
In itself, the divine beginning is the eternal all-one, abiding in absolute repose and immutability;
but
in relation to the plurality of finite being, which has emerged from it,
the divine beginning appears us the active force of unity—Logos
ad extra. The multiple being rises in its discord against the divine unity, denies it;
but Divinity, being by its essence the principle of all-unity, is only stimulated by that negative action of disintegrated being to a positive counteraction, to the revelation of its unifying force—at first in the form of an external law, setting the limit to the disintegration and strife of the elements, and then gradually actualizing a new, positive unification of these elements in the form of the absolute organism or the internal all-unity.
And so the divine beginning appears here (in the world process)
as the active force of the absolute idea which endeavours to embody itself in the
[midst of the]
chaos of the disjointed elements. The divine beginning thus strives towards the same aim as the world soul—towards the incarnation of the divine idea or the deification (theosis)
of all that exists, by means of bringing all into the form of the absolute organism but with this difference, that
the world soul as a passive force, as a pure aspiration, does not know originally towards what it should aim, i.e., does not possess the idea of all-unity;
whereas the divine Logos as the positive beginning, as the active and formative force, has the idea of all-unity in Himself, and bestows it upon the world soul as the determining form. In the world process both, the divine beginning and the world soul, appear as the striving;
but the striving of the divine beginning is the effort to realize, to incarnate in another that which it already has in itself, which it already knows and possesses, i.e., the idea of all-unity, the idea of the absolute organism;
while die striving of the world soul is to receive from another that which she does not yet have in herself, and to incarnate what she will receive in what she has, in that to which she is bound, i.e., in the material being, in the chaos of the disjointed elements. But since the aim of their strivings is the same—the incarnation of the divine idea—and since the actualization of this aim is possible only with the concomitant action of the divine beginning and the world soul (because the divine beginning cannot directly realize its idea in the disjunct elements of the material being, as something alien and opposite to itself, and the world soul cannot immediately unite these elements, not having in herself the definite form of unity), therefore
the striving of the divine beginning for the incarnation of the idea becomes the striving for
union
with the world soul, as the one in possession of
the material
[necessary]
for that incarnation;
and, in her turn,
the striving of the world soul towards the realization of unity in its material elements, becomes the striving towards the divine beginning, as the one containing the absolute
form
[necessary]
or that unity.
Thus
the incarnation of the divine idea in the world, which constitutes the goal of the whole world movement, is conditioned by the union of the divine beginning with the world soul,
in which the first represents the active determining, formative, or fertilizing element, while the world soul appears as the passive force which receives the ideal beginning and endues the received with matter
[requisite]
for its development, with the encasement
[shell, frame]
[which it needs]
for its complete manifestation. But now a question may arise. Why does not this union of the divine beginning with the world soul, and the resultant birth of the world organism as the incarnated divine idea (the Sophia)—why does not this union and this birth take place at once, in one act of divine creation?
Why are these labours and efforts necessary in the life of the world, why must nature experience the pains of birth, and why, before it can generate the perfect and eternal organism, must it produce so many ugly, monstrous broods which are unable to endure the struggle for existence and perish without a trace?
Why all these abortions and miscarriages of nature?
Why does God leave nature to reach her goal so slowly and by such ill means?
Why in general, is the realization of the divine idea in the world a gradual and complex process, and not a single, simple act?
The full answer to this question is contained in one word, which expresses something without which neither God nor nature can be conceived;
that word is
freedom.
By a free act of the world soul, the world united by it, fell away from Divinity and fell apart within itself into the multitude of elements warring among themselves;
by a long series of free acts that whole rebellious multitude must make peace among themselves and be reconciled with God, and be reborn in the form of the absolute organism.
If all that exists (in nature, or in the world soul)
must be united with Divinity—and this constitutes the aim
[purpose]
of all being—then that unity, in order to be actual unity, must, obviously, be reciprocal, i.e.,
[must]
proceed not only from God but also from nature, be nature's own task. But all-unity cannot be achieved in one immediate act by nature, as it is, eternally, in God;
in nature, on the contrary, as immediately detaching itself from God, the actual being belongs not to the ideal all-oneness but to the material discord, while the all-unity appears in it as a pure striving, originally quite indefinite and empty;
all is in chaos, nothing is yet in unity;
consequently, being without unity, all can only
pass
to unity by virtue of its striving, and do so
[only]
gradually: because originally the world soul does not know
[the idea of]
all-unity at all, she strives towards it unconsciously, as a blind force—she strives towards it as towards something 'other';
the content of that 'other' is for her something completely foreign and unknown;
and
if this content, i.e., all-unity, were suddenly communicated or transmitted to her in its whole fullness, it would have appeared to her only as an external fact, as something fatal and coercive;
whereas, in order to have it as a free idea, she must herself assimilate or master it, i.e.,
[must]
pass from its indefiniteness and emptiness to more and more complete determinations of all-unity. Such is the general basis of the world process.
…
In man the world soul for the first time is internally united with the divine Logos in consciousness, as in the pure form of all-unity.
Man, in reality but one of the many beings of nature, having in his consciousness the faculty of comprehending the reason or the inner connection and meaning (in Greek, logos)
of all that exists, appears, in the idea
[ideally], as
all, and in this sense is the second all-one, the image and likeness of God.
In man, nature outgrows itself and passes (in
[human]
consciousness)
into the domain of the absolute being. Man, conceiving and bearing in his consciousness the eternal divine idea, and at the same time by his factual origin and existence inseparably connected with the nature of the external world,
appears as the natural mediator between God and the material being, the conductor of the all-uniting divine beginning into the elemental plurality
—[is]
the organizer and manager of the universe. This role, which from the beginning belonged to the world soul (as the eternal humanity)
receives in the natural man, i.e., one that was produced in the world process, the first opportunity of being factually realized in the order of nature. For all other beings produced in the cosmic process have in themselves
actu, actually, only the natural beginning, the material one;
the divine idea in the action of Logos is for them but an external law, an external form of being, to which they are subjected by natural necessity, but which they do not sense
[know]
as their own;
here, there is no inner reconciliation between the particular finite being and the universal essence, 'all'
[the universal]
is only an external law for 'this',
[the particular]:
of the whole creation only man finding himself factually as
[a particular]
'this', is aware of himself in the idea as
[the universal]
'all'.
Thus man is not limited by one beginning, but, having in himself, first, the elements of material being which bind him to the natural world;
secondly, having the ideal consciousness of all-unity which unites him to God;
and thirdly, not being exclusively limited by the one or the other;
appears as a free 'ego', able to determine himself in one manner or another, in relation to the two sides of his being, free to incline to this side or w the other, to affirm himself in one or another sphere. If in his ideal consciousness man hears the
image
of God, then his unconditional freedom from the idea as well as from the fact, this formal limitlessness of the human 'ego', represents in him a
likeness
of God.
Man not only has the same inner essence of life—all oneness—as God: he is also free to desire to have it as God, i.e., he may of himself wish to be like God.
Originally he has this essence from God, in so far as he is determined by it in the immediate perception, in so far as his mind inwardly coincides with the divine Logos. But he (or the world soul in him)
by virtue of his limitlessness, is not satisfied with that passive unity. He wishes to have that divine essence of himself, he wishes to take possession of it by himself, to assimilate it. In order to have it of himself and not only from God, he asserts himself apart from God, outside of God, he falls away or separates himself from God in his consciousness in the same manner as the world soul originally seceded from Him in all her being.
But, rebelling against the divine beginning of all-unity, excluding it from his consciousness, man thereby falls under the power of the material beginning,
for he was free from this latter only in so far as he kept a counterbalance in the former—he was free from the dominion of the natural fact only through the power of the divine idea;
excluding it from himself, he becomes himself but a fact
[loosing his former position]
of the commanding centre of the natural world becomes one of the multitude of natural beings: no longer the focus of `all', he becomes a mere `this'. If before, as the spiritual centre of the universal creation, he embraced in his soul all nature and lived one life with it, loved and understood and therefore governed it;
so now, having asserted himself in his separateness, having shut his soul off from everything, he finds himself in an alien and hostile world, which no longer speaks with him in any intelligible language, and which does not understand or obey his word. If previously man had in his consciousness a direct expression of the universal organic connection of
[all]
that exists, and that connection (the idea of the all-unity)
determined the whole content of his consciousness;
then now, no longer having this connection in himself, man loses with it the organizing beginning of his inner world—the world of
[his]
consciousness is transformed into chaos. The formative principles, which were acting in external nature and which reached in the human consciousness their internal unity, lose it
[the unity]
afresh.
Consciousness appears as a simple form, seeking its content.
This content appears here, therefore, as external
[to consciousness], as something that consciousness must yet make its own, must yet assimilate. This internal assimilation by the consciousness of the absolute content (necessarily gradual)
forms a new process, the subject of which is the world soul in the form of humanity subjected to the natural order.
The element of evil, i.e., the exclusive self-assertion which had thrown all that exists into
[the state of the]
primordial chaos, and which was overpowered externally in the cosmic process, emerges once more in a new aspect, as a free conscious act of the individual man;
and the newly arising process has as its aim the inner, moral overcoming of that evil principle.
The world soul, which in man reached an inner union with the divine beginning, transcended the limits of the external natural being and focused all nature in the ideal unity of the free human spirit—by a free act of the same spirit once more loses its inner bond with the absolute being;
in the capacity of natural humanity it falls under the dominion of the material element, into the enslavement to `corruption';
and only in the unconditional form of consciousness preserves the possibility (potentiality)
of a new inner union with Divinity. As in the beginning of the general universal (cosmogonic)
process, the world soul appeared as a pure potentiality of unity, without any definite form or real content (since all actuality belonged to chaos): so here also, in the beginning of the human or historical process, the human consciousness, i.e., the world soul
[which]
attained the form of consciousness, appears as a pure potentiality of the ideal all-unity;
while all actuality is reduced to the chaos of external natural phenomena which arise (for consciousness)
in the external order of space, time, and mechanical casualty, but without any internal unity or connection. For consciousness, which has lost the inner unity of the whole in the divine Spirit, only that external unity becomes accessible then which is generated by the cosmic action of the divine Logos upon the world soul as the matter of the world process. The consciousness of humanity strives to reproduce in itself those definite forms of unity which had been already evolved by the cosmogonic process in the material nature, and the unifying forces of this latter (the offspring of the Demiurge and the world soul)
appear now in consciousness as determining it, giving it the content of the natural elements, gradually manifest themselves and reign in it as lords not only of the external world but even of consciousness itself;
as real
gods. This new process is thus, first of all, a theogonic process;
not, of course, in the sense that these dominant elements were created in the
[course of that]
process,
[not in the sense]
that mankind invented its own gods—we know that these elements existed prior to man as cosmic forces, although in that capacity they were not gods (for there are no gods without worshippers)—they become gods only for the human consciousness which acknowledges them to be such, after it has fallen under their dominion as the result of its separation from the one divine centre.
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