Nikolai Berdyaev challenges both Marxism and bourgeois liberalism with his prophetic vision of freedom rooted in Orthodox Christianity, not in political centrism.
• Exiled Russian philosopher who viewed freedom as cosmic and primordial—the very ground of human existence
• Criticized the "bourgeois spirit" as a degrading clutching after security and small-mindedness
• Rejected institutional religion and revolutionary violence equally
• Believed human beings are co-creators with God, called to participation in divine creativity
• Saw Christianity not as a system of control but as a mystical inheritance alive with fire and risk
• Proclaimed "The Kingdom of God is freedom. It is not order. Order is the kingdom of Caesar"
• His works include The Meaning of the Creative Act, Freedom and Spirit, and Slavery and Freedom
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Nikolai Berdyaev stands as one of the most challenging prophetic voices of the 20th century, yet remains criminally overlooked in our conversations about meaning, faith, and resistance. Born into Russian aristocracy but drawn to Marxist revolution in his youth, Berdyaev's journey from revolutionary to Christian mystic offers a startling vision of freedom that transcends our tired political categories.
After being imprisoned by the very Bolsheviks whose ideals he once championed, Berdyaev returned to Orthodox Christianity—not as a system of submission, but as a mystical inheritance alive with fire and risk. When Lenin deported him on the infamous "Philosopher's Ship" in 1922, Berdyaev found not defeat but liberation, writing some of his most powerful works from exile in Paris.
What makes Berdyaev urgently relevant today is his refusal to be contained by any system. He was too radical for the church, too spiritual for the Marxists, too mystical for the liberals, and too prophetic to rest comfortably anywhere. In our age of algorithmic thinking and political polarization, his thought offers a way beyond the stifling binaries that dominate our discourse.
At the heart of Berdyaev's vision stands a revolutionary understanding of freedom. For him, freedom wasn't a political arrangement or consumer choice—it was cosmic, primordial, the very ground of human existence. Human beings are co-creators with God, called not to submission but to participation in divine creativity. "Christianity is the religion of divine and human freedom," he wrote. "Where there is no freedom, there can be no love, no creativity, no personhood."
This explosive vision of freedom led Berdyaev to critique what he called "the bourgeois spirit
Contact: subversiveorthodoxy@gmail.com
Instagram: @subversiveorthodoxy
Host: Travis Mullen Instagram: @manartnation
Co-Host: Robert L. Inchausti, PhD, is Professor Emeritus of English at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, and is the author of numerous books, including Subversive Orthodoxy, Thomas Merton's American Prophecy, The Spitwad Sutras, and Breaking the Cultural Trance. He is, among other things, a Thomas Merton authority, and editor of the Merton books Echoing Silence, Seeds, and The Pocket Thomas Merton. He's a lover of the literature of those who challenge the status quo in various ways, thus, he has had a lifelong fascination with the Beats.
Book by Robert L. Inchausti "Subversive Orthodoxy: Outlaws, Revolutionaries, and Other Christians in Disguise" Published 2005, authorization by the author.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
A religion of progress, based on the
apotheosis of a future fortunategeneration, is without
compassion for either thepresent or the past.
It addresses itself withinfinite optimism to the future
with infinite pessimism for thepast.
It is profoundly hostile to theChristian expectation of
(00:21):
resurrection for all mankind,for all the dead fathers and
forefathers.
This Christian idea rests onthe hope of an end to historical
tragedy and contradiction validto all human generations, and
of resurrection and eternal lifefor all who have ever lived all
(00:42):
who have ever lived.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Welcome to the Subversive Orthodoxy podcast.
I'm your host, travis Mullen,and I'm excited to have you with
us.
This is a podcast aboutphilosophy and meaning.
It is about how we as humanswithstand the challenges of our
cultures.
It is about the generalJudeo-Christian revelation of
God in the world and how thebloodiest century ever recorded
(01:09):
couldn't kill that revelation.
It's also about how thatrevelation, tossed aside as
archaic, outdated and obsolete,may be the very life-giving
power we need to resist thisdistracted techno state.
We're living in full of anxiety, depression and teenage suicide
technostate.
(01:30):
We're living in full into afading aristocracy of Imperial
Russia.
(01:52):
Berdeyev's life unfolded betweentwo cultural earthquakes, the
death rattle of the Tsaristregime and the rise of Soviet
totalitarianism.
He came of age as Russiastaggered toward revolution and
his thought carries the scars ofcollapse and the stubborn hope
of resurrection.
In many ways, berdeyev standson a spiritual bridge between
(02:12):
Dostoevsky, who foresaw thespiritual terror of freedom, and
Solzhenitsyn, who chronicledthe moral wreckage of its
suppression.
As a young man, berdeyev wasdrawn to Marxist activism.
He was arrested and exiled in1898 for revolutionary
involvement, but he quicklyfound that materialist systems,
even ones promising justice,left the soul starved.
(02:34):
His early exposure to Marxismignited a lifelong quest for a
deeper liberation, not justpolitical or social freedom, but
existential and spiritualfreedom, freedom as the very
ground of being.
He turned towards OrthodoxChristianity, not in the
institutional sense but as amystical inheritance alive with
fire and risk.
(02:54):
Berdeyev's vision was shaped bythe Russian Silver Age, a brief
, shimmering moment of spiritualand artistic renaissance before
the Bolshevik darkness fell.
Alongside thinkers likeFlorensky and Bulgakov, berdeyev
helped forge a Christianpersonalism rooted in freedom,
creativity and dignity of thehuman person.
(03:15):
But Berdeyev refused to beanyone's partisan.
He was too radical for thechurch, too spiritual for the
Marxists, too mystical for theliberals and too prophetic to be
comfortable anywhere.
Arrested again after therevolution, he was exiled from
Russia in 1922 by a personalorder of Lenin, put aboard the
infamous philosopher's ship withover 150 other dissident
(03:40):
intellectuals, he lived the restof his life in exile in Paris,
where he wrote feverishly inpoverty and obscurity, from his
cluttered apartment.
He published books thatchallenged the dominant
ideologies of his age theDestiny of man, Freedom and the
Spirit, slavery and Freedom, theMeaning of the Creative Act.
(04:01):
His style was not systemic, itwas explosive, less a philosophy
textbook than a runningmonologue with the infinite he
looked a part of the prophetgaunt sharp eyes, wild hair and
prone to outbursts of passionand brooding silence.
Friends described him asintense, eccentric, allergic to
(04:23):
small talk oh, I can relate tothat and consumed with spiritual
fire.
He lived simply with his wifeLydia, and a fellow seeker who
shared his exile and spiritualhunger.
They had no children, buttogether they built a life of
integrity, hospitality andtruth-seeking.
Berdeyev died in 1948, far fromhis homeland.
(04:43):
He never saw the collapse ofthe Soviet system he was so
clearly warning against.
But his thought would quietlyshape the post-war Christian
imagination, echoing through theworks of Dorothy Day, Gabriel
Marcel and Jacques Maritain andpreparing the ground for
Solzhenitsyn's moral witness.
Decades later, today, whenideology again threatens to
(05:04):
eclipse the person, whenspiritual yearning is met with
cynicism and coercion, berduev'switness feels piercingly
relevant.
He reminds us that Christianityis not a cultural weapon nor a
system of control, but arevolution of the spirit, a call
to become fully human bybecoming radically free.
Call to become fully human bybecoming radically free.
He gives us no blueprint forutopia, only the dangerous
(05:33):
freedom to create, to love, tostand before God without fear.
He calls us to live as artistsof the soul, even amidst the
ruins of modernity.
Stay with us as we explore thelife and thought of Nikolai
Berdeyev, exile, mystic, heretic, prophet and perhaps one of the
most urgent voices of our time.
So welcome, professor.
Back to the podcast.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
Well, it's great to be here, travis, still
recovering from Chesterton.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
Yeah, chesterton was a fun time.
You feel a little hungover.
Chestertonian hangover you feela little hungover.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
Chestertonian hangover.
Well, yeah, you know, I thinkthere is a kind of transition
from Chesterton to Bredania.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
So he's a really important figure that's going to
get us from Chesterton toDostoevsky and further on into
our 20th century quest.
Yeah, and just to put that inhistorical context, can you
briefly and succinctly give usthe timeline between Dostoevsky
to Solzhenitsyn?
You said Pasternak and Berdeyevhave been pretty much
contemporaries.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
Well, I think their lives sort of lapped over, so
they were alive at the same timefor a few years, or 10 years or
so.
So I guess that technicallymakes them contemporaries at a
certain point.
But Dostoevsky, I think he diedin 1881.
(07:07):
So he's part of the golden agethat preceded the 19th century
and he sort of, you know,represented really a visionary,
prophetic alteration of Russianliterature into almost like
secular scripture, a whole newpsychological realism that is
(07:32):
going to test the limits ofmodern art and modern thought
and carry it into new territory.
Rudenev was sort of a, you know, a revolutionary Marxist that
found himself thrown in jail bythe very people he thought would
(07:53):
support his ideas.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
Which happened to Solzhenitsyn too.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
Yeah, and this radicalized him in a new way and
it took him back to hisChristian roots and his
understanding of a propheticChristianity that was built on
freedom and creativity, thattransformed societies and not a
transformative society built ona small minority that were going
(08:22):
to manage everybody else.
Once he realized that exile wasreally going to open the doors
to his freedom of thinking andhis ability to be prophetic, he
never looked back and I thinkyour little summary of him is
(08:43):
well put that you know, livingin exile, living, you know, on
the outskirts of exiled Russianintelligentsia, is not a bad
place for a prophet to be, andhe took it as liberation and as
(09:04):
a calling and not as apunishment, which created all
these incredible books that hewrote.
And kind of a lot likeChesterton, if we think of
Chesterton as a great apologeticvoice at the turn of the
century, voice at the turn ofthe century uh burdenius is a
(09:29):
prophetic voice.
Uh, you know, I not thatchesterton wasn't prophetic, but
burdenius hits all the notes ofof a christian, uh and all, and
even old testament prophet umwell, would you do us a favor
and read?
Speaker 2 (09:46):
Do you have your book out?
Speaker 1 (09:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
Would you read pages 42 and 43?
My friend and I, Tyrell, shoutout to Tyrell who loved this
chapter.
Tyrell sent me the things hehad underlined and they're all
the same stuff I had underlined.
So if you just read your workin your voice from the first
paragraph on 42.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
Is that the one that begins with one of the 19th
century?
Redenyev was one of those late19th century.
Is that?
Speaker 2 (10:18):
that.
Yeah, from that paragraph tothe bottom line after his quote
on the second page, like itmight be a lot, but it's just
completely loaded with goodstuff and it's in your voice and
it's from the book, so I justthink we should read it.
It's so many, so many, so muchof it we had underlined okay.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
Well, this is.
This is for your friend here.
Nikolai bordeyev was one ofthose late 19th century
progressive Russian theocratswho became disillusioned with
Marxism after the Bolsheviksthrew him into prison.
He then returned to hisChristian faith with a new
energy, commitment and resolve,developing most of his
(10:59):
innovative ideas while living inexile in Paris, where he died
in 1948.
Bredaev was orthodox in hisChristocentric theology, but
avant-garde in his existentialcritiques of Marxism and the new
bourgeoisie.
Orthodox in his admiration ofChristianity, of Dostoevsky,
(11:21):
soliev and Tolstoy, butavant-garde in his application
of their ideas to Russianliterature and art and politics.
He was orthodox in his use ofChristian categories to launch
moralistic critiques ofcontemporary thinkers and social
trends, but avant-garde in hisapocalyptic reading of history
(11:43):
and his rejection of moralgradualism and material progress
.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
And if you might pause for one interjection here,
this next paragraph reallydescribes what I see as American
culture, and he was speaking tohis culture back then.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
For him, the word bourgeois meant more than just
middle class.
It was a state of the soulcharacterized by a degrading
clutching after security and asmall-mindedness incapable of
imagining a world much largerthan one's own.
The bourgeois didn't worshipmoney per se, but they were
(12:19):
addicted to personal success.
But they were addicted topersonal success, comfort,
security and happiness.
For these things they willinglycompromised their honor,
ignored injustice and betrayedtruth, replacing these high
(12:47):
values with trite moralisms andfacile bromides that blurred
important distinctions andjustified selfish actions.
Gone were the aristocraticintangibles and noblesse oblige.
In came certainty,self-promotion and moxie.
The bourgeois in other wordswas an idolater proud of his
idolatry.
And although the bourgeoisspirit has always existed,
(13:10):
bordeilleff believed that it hadreached its peak in the late
19th century, when the desirefor affluence triumphed over any
residual aspiration forholiness, greatness or genius
residual aspiration for holiness, greatness or genius.
The moral debasement of Westerncivilization continued in the
(13:31):
20th century, with the middleclass gaining such power and
influence that the wordbourgeois became synonymous with
mean-spirited wealth,narrow-minded technological
know-how and a preoccupationwith worldly success.
The cultural ideas of theknight, the monk, the
(13:52):
philosopher and the poet wereall suspended by the cultural
ideal of the businessman andentrepreneur.
The will to power had beenusurped by the will to
well-being.
Berdenev remarks and this is aquote from Berdenev a religion
(14:15):
of progress based on theapotheosis of a future fortunate
generation is withoutcompassion for either the
present or the past.
It addresses itself withinfinite optimism to the future
with infinite pessimism for thepast.
It is profoundly hostile to theChristian expectation of
(14:40):
resurrection for all mankind,for all the dead fathers and
forefathers.
This Christian idea rests on thehope of an end to historical
tragedy and contradiction validto all human generations, and of
resurrection and eternal lifefor all who have ever lived.
(15:03):
Eternal life for all who haveever lived.
That's part of Berdenev's bookthe Meaning of History, which I
think is one of his moreprophetic texts.
That's cool.
The bourgeois did not repudiatereligion, but reinterpreted its
value in terms of utility.
(15:24):
Religion, but reinterpreted itsvalue in terms of utility.
The love of the poor moved tothe periphery of the faith and
was embraced only insofar as itdidn't clash with one's personal
economic interests.
This inversion of means andends, so central also to Matthew
Arnold's critique of the modernPhilistines in Culture and
(15:44):
Anarchy, signaled for Berdyevthe death of the spirit and the
birth of the bottom line.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
Let's keep going to get his other quote here.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
And then he wrote the perfected European and American
civilizations gave rise to theindustrial capitalist system,
which represents not only amighty economic development but
the spiritual phenomenon of theannihilation of spirituality.
The industrial capitalism ofcivilization proved to be the
(16:24):
destroyer of the eternal spiritand sacred tradition.
Modern capitalist civilizationis essentially atheistic and
hostile to the idea of God.
The crime of killing God mustbe laid at its door rather than
at that of the revolutionarysocialism, which merely adapted
(16:48):
itself to the civilizedbourgeois spirit and accepted
its negative heritage.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
So the fun facts and the notable works.
So your favorite was themeaning of history.
We're going to go.
Let's just give the audiencewhat he did, do what he created.
So his most notable works arethe Meaning of the Creative Act,
which is an interesting titlebecause the new guy probably
(17:19):
read that Rick Rubin and wrote abook called the Creative Act.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
Yes, yes.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
It's called the Meaning of the Creative Act by
Brett Berdea back in 1916.
It'd be interesting to see ifhe used a lot of it or ideas
from it.
Speaker 1 (17:34):
Or if he even heard of it.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
Yeah, that'd of it yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:37):
That'd be interesting Wow.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
So then, freedom and spirit, 1927, comprehensive
philosophical work.
Destiny of man 1931, deepmeditative meditation on human
nature, purpose and eschatology.
He wrestles with a lot oftheology in that one.
Uh, most accessible and widelyread book is that one destiny of
(18:01):
man.
Next is slavery and freedom,1939, a powerful examination of
the modern crisis, so that onehas a lot to the capitalism and
socialism.
So that's pretty, pretty cool.
If that's what you'd beinterested in reading, then
number five, the divine and thehuman, 1949 posthumous.
So this came out after he diedyeah, in his late work he
reflects on the relationshipbetween time and eternity,
(18:23):
divine and human, freedom andprovidence.
It's dense and mystical, richwith eschatological insight.
Let's go.
And then there's a few morephilosophy.
Philosophy of Freedom was anearlier one, 1911.
Precursor to some of his laterworks Christianity and Class War
, 1933.
Critique of Marxism and itsmoral-spiritual implications.
(18:45):
He argues that trueChristianity is incompatible
with class hatred orrevolutionary violence.
That's kind of awesome.
Class hatred.
We have a lot of class hatredcurrently in our country.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
He emphasizes oh go ahead.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
I'll just throw this in One of his sort of
dialectical interventions was tocritique Hegel and Marx's
master-slave dialectic, whichwas also something that
Nietzsche was fascinated by.
(19:22):
Working out the master-slavedialectic.
And Berdeyev said well, no,it's not.
We don't really have amaster-slave dialectic, we have
the free and the bound dialectic.
And free freedom is a cosmicattribute to the human identity
(19:55):
that we're cosmically free fromhis point of view and that
freedom precedes liberation anddemocracy and reform and
revolution.
It doesn't come after it.
But as long as we begin withthe master-slave dialectic,
(20:16):
we're sort of perpetually boundto our own unfreedom, and that's
why faith comes out of freedomand his Christian understanding
of Christ's revelation of thefreedom of man is central to his
(20:38):
faith and his eschatology.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
I wonder if Berdeyev got that concept from the New
Testament, where you have slaveand master in the same church
gathering together as brothers.
Yeah, you know experiencingactual freedom together, despite
their human socio situation.
Speaker 1 (21:01):
Yeah, exactly, you know.
No longer any slave or master,no longer any bound and free
right.
We're all one Brothers.
And that was primary to hisunderstanding of what a real
revolution would be about wouldbe overcoming that dialectic,
(21:23):
not not making bets on it andand trying to pit one side
against the other yeah, and thenhis other ones were um,
beginning in the end, history,apocalypse and future of
humanity.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
Gosh, this guy wrote some deep stuff truth and
revelation, 1947, nature oftruth, religious experience,
inadequacy of dogma alone, andthen these are super interesting
concepts.
He wrote about dream andreality, 1949, more poetic,
introspective work whereBerdeyev reflects on his own
inner life, dreams, spiritualexperiences and how they reveal
(22:01):
eternal truths Part memoir, partmystical philosophy.
Speaker 1 (22:05):
Wow, you know I've been trying to get that.
I wanted to have that copy sowe could look at some of that.
Maybe we can do that at anothertime.
But it's fascinating to sort ofsee the kinds of experiences he
had as philosopher, exile, youknow, and his dream, his dreams
(22:30):
and his understanding of himself.
And that would be fascinatingjust on the face of it.
But so we're just seeing hisbig picture today, so we don't
have to go yeah, one thing thatI was wondering about was like
who knows about him?
Speaker 2 (22:46):
because I had never heard of him before.
Your book and you know otherpeople I've that have read the
book they're like, wow, berdeais amazing.
Um, why haven't more peopleheard about him?
It sounds like people who knewabout him were academic
philosophers and theologians.
He made it on their radars.
Orthodox theological circles inEurope, catholic and Orthodox
(23:07):
thinkers Merton talked about him, dorothy Day talked about him.
So it's a lot of people in yourbook actually Existentialists
andian mystics talked about him,and then russian studies.
You might have heard about him.
Why isn't more well known?
Is that he's he defiedcategories.
He was too mystical formainstream philosophy, too
independent for institutionalreligion, too esoteric for
(23:30):
politics, and it made him hardto market and hard to canonize.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
I was just going to say.
You know, you go into yourprofessor at theology school and
you say I've got my topic formy dissertation and he says well
, who are you going to writeabout?
You say Berdeyev.
He says you might have to go tothe literature department or
(23:57):
somebody who's a little moreopen to rhetoric, because we're
hardcore theologians here.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
Yeah, Berdiav's not going to fit in this.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
Or comparative lit, or something like that.
You know, I guess, guess youknow it's interesting, because
there really isn't a departmentof prophets, is there?
I mean, there's, there'sliterature and there's
philosophy, but there isn't, youknow, a department of prophecy
(24:31):
it's too hard to handle.
Speaker 2 (24:32):
Yeah, too hot to handle yeah no one wants to open
up that box as a, as a study ora discipline.
Yeah, the nature of it is likecritiquing everything they're
about or doing you know, evenacademia itself it's.
Speaker 1 (24:51):
it's putting your existential soul on the line,
you know, and uh uh, for betteror for worse.
And then when you look at thefate of most of the prophets,
you can see why it wouldn't benecessarily something, although
I'm sure you know, there arepeople that have done their
(25:12):
dissertations on the prophetsand there's many great scholarly
books on prophecy.
Brueggemann wrote thatProphetic Imagination which is
classic.
Yeah, I don't remember himmentioning Berdeyev, though.
I mean, I think they're mostlybiblical models.
Speaker 2 (25:34):
So here's the 10 fun and or quirky facts about
Nikolai Berdeyev.
Number one he was expelled fromthe university for Marxist
activism but later became one ofMarxism's fiercest spiritual
critics.
Number two he hatedinstitutions.
He once said that everyinstitution tends to become
demonic, including the churchDemonic.
(25:58):
Number three he was deported onthe philosopher's ship.
I don't know why I can't saythat word today.
That is really cool.
I never knew about thatphilosopher's ship.
In 1922, Lenin exiled him with150 intellectuals fearing their
dangerous ideas.
(26:18):
Berdeyev called it a deathsentence for the soul of russia.
Number four he loved dostoevskyand saw him in the brothers
care, saw himself in thebrothers karamazov, which next
is dostoevsky.
So that's kind of why we puthim right before that because he
loved, he loved dostoevsky.
So we're kind of goingbackwards on the russian russian
guys.
Yeah, um, he saw ivan karamazovand the grand inquisitor as
perfect.
He loved Dostoevsky.
So we're kind of goingbackwards on the Russian guys.
(26:39):
He saw Ivan Karamazov and theGrand Inquisitor as perfect
metaphors for modern spiritualcrisis.
Number five he claimed he nevertruly converted to Christianity
.
For him, it was less a momentand more a long return, a slow
awakening to a truth he alreadysuspected.
Speaker 1 (26:55):
Sounds like Chesterton.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
That's really cool.
Speaker 1 (26:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:58):
Number six he lived in voluntary poverty in Paris.
Despite being from Russianaristocracy, he gave up the
wealth for truth and paid theprice.
Number seven he didn't likebeing called an academic.
He saw himself not as aphilosopher in the scholastic
sense, but as a prophetic voice,a witness to spiritual truth
(27:19):
yeah, we just talked about thatyeah, number eight.
He believed creativity wasdivine.
This is where a really uniquecontribution of him is this
emphasis on creativity.
He thought human beings wereco-creators with god and that
art and freedom were sacred actsof resistance yeah, rick rubin,
if you haven't read him yougotta, you gotta get him.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
He's your man gosh rick rubin.
Speaker 2 (27:40):
You'll love.
You'll love this book, thecreative act, if you, uh, if you
read it.
He probably did.
I I'm I'm suspecting, butanyways, we'll see.
He once debated communists onstage and won over the crowd.
His passionate defense of humandignity often left his
ideological opponents shaken.
And number 10, he was read andadmired by both anarchists and
(28:02):
Catholic mystics.
Figures as diverse as DorothyDay, jacques Maritain and even
existential atheists foundinspiration in his writings.
Speaker 1 (28:10):
Yeah, yeah, because of his deep spiritual humanism.
You know, human beings aretheir freedom first and their
dignity is central andeverything else derives from
that.
(28:30):
Political systems, dignity andfreedom are birthrights and you
know, not all men are createdequal.
All men are created free.
That's for him, it's primary,and out of that freedom comes
their equality and their dignityand their capacity for creation
(28:54):
and creativity and creation.
So, wow, he's, wow, he's reallya revolutionary voice that is
worth paying attention to, evennow.
Speaker 2 (29:11):
Yeah, one of the points about that freedom and
creativity together is that hedidn't see Christianity as, or
he was critical of Christianityin its authoritarian sense and
he's critical of the secularleft with its collectivism and
kind of coercion.
Yeah, the thing he saw inChristianity was a revolutionary
(29:35):
spirit like existentialresistance to both or to any
other, any other influence otherthan love.
Speaker 1 (29:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:44):
Which is kind of like making love a political
resistance.
Speaker 1 (29:50):
Yeah, well, that's why he liked Dostoevsky's grand
inquisitor, identified with thatstory.
(30:13):
That was written by one of thecharacters, a religious head of
the Inquisition whose job it wasto bring about the conversion
of the masses through terror andviolence.
Speaker 2 (30:34):
Was it a Christian character?
The Inquisitor?
Yeah, he was the Like a chorusof religion sort of character.
Speaker 1 (30:42):
He was like.
I think he could be seen as theAntichrist, or he could be seen
as the Pope or as the head ofthe Inquisition who had a
philosophical justification forenforcing Christianity through
(31:08):
violence, and we'll talk aboutit when we get to Dostoevsky.
But the fascinating thing isthat the conceit in the story is
that Christ comes back, and sothe Grand Inquisitor brings him
(31:31):
in for interrogation, in forinterrogation and he says okay,
before we begin, I just want tolet you know that at the end of
the Bible it says you can't addanything to the Bible, so you
can't talk.
I'm the only one who can talkand I interpret everything you
(31:55):
already said.
The only one who can talk and Iinterpret everything you
already said.
So you just listen to me andI'm going to tell you how it's
going to go.
We got your number, we'rerunning the show here.
You can't talk anymore.
So I don't really know why youcame back again, because you're
superfluous.
And he goes on in that vein.
Speaker 2 (32:19):
That's cool.
Speaker 1 (32:21):
And Christ is listening to this whole thing
and then at the end he kissesthe guy on the mouth and the
Grand Inquisitor doesn't knowhow to take that Because he's
not adding anything other thanthe kiss.
(32:45):
So subversive it's.
One of those great works thatyou know has led to countless
theological and spiritualinterpretations of that ending
and even multipleinterpretations by the
(33:07):
characters in the novel.
And so we have the intellectualbrother who wrote it, his, his
story, one way, and then hisspiritual brother who hears it,
sees it another way, and theydebate the meaning of of his own
story.
And well, we'll talk about thatwhen we get to dostoevsky.
(33:28):
But you could see why thatwould fascinate, uh, per day.
F because you know he's beenaround christ and and
antichrists and prophets andfalse prophets, and he's seen
the revolution, the great hopeof the Russian revolution, and
then it's betrayal and then it'sturning into a anti-revolution
(33:54):
and a totalitarian regime.
Speaker 2 (33:56):
And you know, and he's there just trying to speak
the truth to power as best hecan, uh, just powerful stuff
this, um, this statement isinteresting that his critique of
both marxism and bourgeoisliberalism was rooted in his
orthodox faith, not not in somemiddle of the road centrism.
(34:18):
Yes, that's interesting becausehe's not just.
He's not saying here's the thirdway ideology, that's just
called centrism yeah but he saidit's this explosive belief in
the human person, made in theimage of a free, creative god.
So it it's a very theologicallyrooted concept of freedom and
(34:39):
resistance to right and left andany political ideology.
Really, and here's one of hisquotes, the kingdom of God is
freedom.
It is not order.
Order is the kingdom of Caesar.
Speaker 1 (34:53):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (34:53):
This single sentence dismantles much of what has been
passed on as political theologyin the american landscape.
And for birdie, birdie of faithwas never about submission to
an earthly order, left or right,but a spiritual awakening that
resists all systems thatdehumanize yeah, um, and we
(35:14):
forget that.
Speaker 1 (35:14):
You know, um, birdenia was exiled to Paris,
but then Paris got invaded bythe Nazis in 1940.
So he saw the face of Caesar inRussia and then he saw the face
of Caesar again in the Nazioccupation in Paris, and both
times it was.
But that doesn't change myprophetic defense of human
(35:39):
freedom Did you say face ofCaesar in these characters?
Speaker 2 (35:43):
Yeah, did he frame it that way?
Speaker 1 (35:46):
I don't know, I'm sure.
Speaker 2 (35:47):
Or did you I'm sure he could have.
Well, face of Caesar in fill inthe blank is kind of a cool way
to look at it.
Speaker 1 (35:53):
Yeah, yeah, fill in the blank is kind of a cool way
to look at it.
Yeah, yeah, it's worship ofpower, and the effort that it
takes to try to take away humanfreedom and divinity of God and
his people made in his image isjust, you know, basic sacrilege,
(36:20):
I think.
What was it that Chestertoncalled it?
He called it a daily mysticism.
You know an everyday mysticism,and I think for Berdanev it's.
You know, mysticism is the samething.
It's a daily thing, uh, everymoment of uh reality that if
(36:45):
you're not seeing you're, you'rebetraying.
Um and for.
For chesterton, mysticism wasthe only thing that could keep
you sane, because otherwise youend up on some sort of power
trip where you're reducing, uh,the mystery to some sort of
(37:07):
program that you got going, somesystem it sounds like he's.
Speaker 2 (37:12):
It sounds like, according to berdayev, there
really is no freedom outside ofchrist yeah, yeah, I think for
berdania, that's, that's whathe's saying like.
It's so theologically rooted.
Speaker 1 (37:29):
Creativity and freedom and love are all so
divine, and that's what gives ushuman freedom interesting to
(37:50):
compare him to Sartre, becauseSartre famously said you know,
he was never so free as when theNazis occupied Paris, because
it changed every choice he madeinto an existential choice about
whether he was going to live ordie, whether he was going to
serve, whether he was going toserve live in freedom or live in
fear.
And there's that famous storywhere a student comes to him and
(38:11):
says I have a difficult choiceto make my mother's sick and I
want to stay home and take careof her, but the resistance
fighter that's my friend wantsme to join his cadre and he
tells me I should become afreedom fighter as part of the
(38:31):
resistance.
And I don't know whether Ishould stay home, take care of
my mother or join the resistance.
Speaker 2 (38:40):
This was SART.
Speaker 1 (38:41):
Yeah, this was the question that was posed to
Sartre and supposedly Sartresaid well, there is no right or
wrong answer.
You're free.
You have to choose and commit,and both of those choices are
(39:07):
good choices.
But you're free, that is to say, create.
And so it was basically youknow you're free, you create I'm
not.
Nobody can tell you what yourconscience is, telling you the
(39:30):
person that you should be, orwhat the choice is.
And if you rely on the party totell you, you're giving up your
humanity and if you rely onyour mom to tell you, you know
you're giving up your autonomyas well.
So you have to takeresponsibility right.
(39:52):
Commitment is responsibilityand responsibility derives from
freedom.
And it isn't to say that allthose choices are relative, but
(40:23):
in this particular case they'reyour own conscience and your own
relationship to the divine.
And Berdenev would probably seethat clearer than Sartre.
I think you know he's sort ofsaying God's asking you to make
your, you know to make a choiceabout, you know who you are and
(40:44):
and he, you know, know you wantto co-create your life with him.
You don't want to just chooseindependently of your role in
the scheme of things.
Speaker 2 (40:54):
And along the lines of freedom is uh.
Here's one of the readings thatalso, I guess, fuses the
spiritual.
The freedom is rooted inspiritual, spiritual truth and
the creativity of god.
Speaker 1 (41:08):
Actually, yeah, which is interesting.
Speaker 2 (41:11):
I never linked those two freedom and creativity like
like as your main, your mainidea of freedom being rooted in
the creation, creative act ofgod and and the ability for you
to act in that way becauseyou're in the image of that.
Speaker 1 (41:25):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (41:26):
And he.
But he kind of says that inthis freedom, in the spirit book
this reading this reading saysum Christianity is the religion
of divine and human freedom.
It's not what the modernculture thinks.
Speaker 1 (41:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (41:39):
It brings not law, not commandments, not coercion,
but the image of the God man andthe call to freely follow him.
Where there is no freedom,there can be no love, no
creativity, no personhood.
The kingdom of God is notestablished by force, nor can it
be imposed from above.
It must be born from within.
In this lies the scandal andgreatness of Christianity that
(42:03):
it entrusts the fate of theworld to the inner freedom of
man.
God does not desire slaves, butsons.
Whoa.
Speaker 1 (42:23):
Can you imagine him saying that at a debate with a
marxist?
Speaker 2 (42:28):
dude.
They would just not even knowwhat to do with that.
They'd have to say it's hogwash, but it just it, but it just
ignited everyone in the room'sconscience oh yeah they know,
they know it's true, just byhearing it, you know.
It's like so evident in yourspirit.
Speaker 1 (42:45):
In your spirit, if you can believe, you have one
well, it's like the very thingwhich both excites and troubles
you about your, your spirit.
You know you're free, but youknow that means you're
responsible.
So it's kind of like you're.
you're you're not off the hook,but you're're not on the
(43:08):
philosophership as an exileeither.
You're co-creating with thedivine and you have a
responsibility to yourself andto creation.
Yeah, that's powerful stuff.
I can see why the Creative Actbook would be probably very
(43:36):
inspirational.
Check that out, see what hesays there.
And the other thing about thatkind of thing, that kind of
statement, is it's not reallyone that you can reduce to two
competing syllogisms, you know,or break it down into some sort
(43:59):
of analytic framework, becauseit's so existential in the sense
of you know your definition ofyour own relationship to your
choices is so subjective.
So, kierkegaardian, you knowthat it doesn't lend itself to
easily parsing.
(44:19):
You either get it or you don't,or you either reject it or
accept it.
It's, it's pretty, you know,right out there.
Speaker 2 (44:30):
That's what's so powerful you can hear it in
Birdejev and Kierkegaard is thatthat deeply honest challenge to
yourself and like as a person,and like, as Kierkegaard was
saying, like yourself, like,does yourself even know yourself
?
Sort of a?
right a depth of, and I guessthat's where existentialism is
(44:51):
coming from, and therefore Ithink it was needed, like it's a
needed discipline.
Yeah, existentialism ratherthan a, rather than a um,
philosophical idea.
I think it's almost like anactual discipline to to know
yourself and to know what's real.
It's like a venture into how doI even know things.
Speaker 1 (45:13):
Yeah, epistemology yeah, what did?
What did kirkagard say?
The self was a relation toitself.
Uh, and if you don't have arelation to yourself, then your
self is a pretty profoundbeginning for philosophy, rather
(45:54):
than just assuming that youknow that you have a self
because you buy clothes orwhatever or you see yourself in
the mirror, or whatever buyclothes or whatever, or you see
yourself in the mirror orwhatever.
Speaker 2 (46:09):
yeah, the that I, that whole concept in kirkagard,
which I hear echoing in berdeev, is like if you, if you don't
know, if you, if you're not so,to the modern person right now.
Like if you can't sit under atree quietly for 30 minutes,
yeah, you probably don't knowyourself at all, and I think our
(46:32):
culture is in a crisis in thatway.
Like I don't think many peoplecan sit under a tree quietly for
30 minutes.
And I'm not making up somerandom arbitrary law, I'm just
saying, like you can't, if youcan't sit with yourself quietly
with your thoughts and likerelate to yourself and play back
and think through and have arelationship with yourself, then
(46:52):
there's a problem.
You're completely disconnectedand everything you're doing is a
reflection of everyone else.
Yeah, and you probably don'thave a single original thought
ricocheting around in your headright now, because you're so
influenced by everybody else.
And that concludes episode 10,part one on Nikolai Berdeyev.
(47:14):
I hope you're resonating withthe powerful ideas and these
people's powerful stories.
It might hit differentdepending on your spiritual
location, whether you'reagnostic, a skeptic, a believer
or somewhere in between, on somekind of deconstruction journey.
We're going to continueexploring what it means to live
a life of deep meaning in aworld that often feels
fragmented and nihilistic.
(47:35):
And this general revelationdoesn't seem to come to us from
the expected places.
It's not confined to pulpits orseminaries.
The prophetic voice is breakingthrough in novels, poetry,
charity work, art and theunexpected corners of culture,
voices crying out from the edgesof society.
We hope you'll continue to joinus on this ongoing conversation
.
Until then, thank you forlistening to the Subversive
(47:58):
Orthodoxy Podcast.
If you found this meaningful,please leave a five-star review,
subscribe and share with anyonewho might resonate with this
conversation.
Adios, spiritually, I want tojump off a cliff without a
parachute, like I'm high oncannabis, and skip through
fields naked, like I wonder ifthis has been a subversive
(48:21):
orthodoxy podcast with traMullen and Professor Enchasti.
A religion of progress, based on the
apotheosis of a future fortunategeneration, is without
compassion for either thepresent or the past.
It addresses itself withinfinite optimism to the future
with infinite pessimism for thepast.
It is profoundly hostile to theChristian expectation of
(00:21):
resurrection for all mankind,for all the dead fathers and
forefathers.
This Christian idea rests onthe hope of an end to historical
tragedy and contradiction validto all human generations, and
of resurrection and eternal lifefor all who have ever lived all
(00:42):
who have ever lived.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Welcome to the Subversive Orthodoxy podcast.
I'm your host, travis Mullen,and I'm excited to have you with
us.
This is a podcast aboutphilosophy and meaning.
It is about how we as humanswithstand the challenges of our
cultures.
It is about the generalJudeo-Christian revelation of
God in the world and how thebloodiest century ever recorded
(01:09):
couldn't kill that revelation.
It's also about how thatrevelation, tossed aside as
archaic, outdated and obsolete,may be the very life-giving
power we need to resist thisdistracted techno state.
We're living in full of anxiety, depression and teenage suicide
technostate.
(01:30):
We're living in full into afading aristocracy of Imperial
Russia.
(01:52):
Berdeyev's life unfolded betweentwo cultural earthquakes, the
death rattle of the Tsaristregime and the rise of Soviet
totalitarianism.
He came of age as Russiastaggered toward revolution and
his thought carries the scars ofcollapse and the stubborn hope
of resurrection.
In many ways, berdeyev standson a spiritual bridge between
(02:12):
Dostoevsky, who foresaw thespiritual terror of freedom, and
Solzhenitsyn, who chronicledthe moral wreckage of its
suppression.
As a young man, berdeyev wasdrawn to Marxist activism.
He was arrested and exiled in1898 for revolutionary
involvement, but he quicklyfound that materialist systems,
even ones promising justice,left the soul starved.
(02:34):
His early exposure to Marxismignited a lifelong quest for a
deeper liberation, not justpolitical or social freedom, but
existential and spiritualfreedom, freedom as the very
ground of being.
He turned towards OrthodoxChristianity, not in the
institutional sense but as amystical inheritance alive with
fire and risk.
(02:54):
Berdeyev's vision was shaped bythe Russian Silver Age, a brief
, shimmering moment of spiritualand artistic renaissance before
the Bolshevik darkness fell.
Alongside thinkers likeFlorensky and Bulgakov, berdeyev
helped forge a Christianpersonalism rooted in freedom,
creativity and dignity of thehuman person.
(03:15):
But Berdeyev refused to beanyone's partisan.
He was too radical for thechurch, too spiritual for the
Marxists, too mystical for theliberals and too prophetic to be
comfortable anywhere.
Arrested again after therevolution, he was exiled from
Russia in 1922 by a personalorder of Lenin, put aboard the
infamous philosopher's ship withover 150 other dissident
(03:40):
intellectuals, he lived the restof his life in exile in Paris,
where he wrote feverishly inpoverty and obscurity, from his
cluttered apartment.
He published books thatchallenged the dominant
ideologies of his age theDestiny of man, Freedom and the
Spirit, slavery and Freedom, theMeaning of the Creative Act.
(04:01):
His style was not systemic, itwas explosive, less a philosophy
textbook than a runningmonologue with the infinite he
looked a part of the prophetgaunt sharp eyes, wild hair and
prone to outbursts of passionand brooding silence.
Friends described him asintense, eccentric, allergic to
(04:23):
small talk oh, I can relate tothat and consumed with spiritual
fire.
He lived simply with his wifeLydia, and a fellow seeker who
shared his exile and spiritualhunger.
They had no children, buttogether they built a life of
integrity, hospitality andtruth-seeking.
Berdeyev died in 1948, far fromhis homeland.
(04:43):
He never saw the collapse ofthe Soviet system he was so
clearly warning against.
But his thought would quietlyshape the post-war Christian
imagination, echoing through theworks of Dorothy Day, Gabriel
Marcel and Jacques Maritain andpreparing the ground for
Solzhenitsyn's moral witness.
Decades later, today, whenideology again threatens to
(05:04):
eclipse the person, whenspiritual yearning is met with
cynicism and coercion, berduev'switness feels piercingly
relevant.
He reminds us that Christianityis not a cultural weapon nor a
system of control, but arevolution of the spirit, a call
to become fully human bybecoming radically free.
Call to become fully human bybecoming radically free.
He gives us no blueprint forutopia, only the dangerous
(05:33):
freedom to create, to love, tostand before God without fear.
He calls us to live as artistsof the soul, even amidst the
ruins of modernity.
Stay with us as we explore thelife and thought of Nikolai
Berdeyev, exile, mystic, heretic, prophet and perhaps one of the
most urgent voices of our time.
So welcome, professor.
Back to the podcast.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
Well, it's great to be here, travis, still
recovering from Chesterton.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
Yeah, chesterton was a fun time.
You feel a little hungover.
Chestertonian hangover you feela little hungover.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
Chestertonian hangover.
Well, yeah, you know, I thinkthere is a kind of transition
from Chesterton to Bredania.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
So he's a really important figure that's going to
get us from Chesterton toDostoevsky and further on into
our 20th century quest.
Yeah, and just to put that inhistorical context, can you
briefly and succinctly give usthe timeline between Dostoevsky
to Solzhenitsyn?
You said Pasternak and Berdeyevhave been pretty much
contemporaries.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
Well, I think their lives sort of lapped over, so
they were alive at the same timefor a few years, or 10 years or
so.
So I guess that technicallymakes them contemporaries at a
certain point.
But Dostoevsky, I think he diedin 1881.
(07:07):
So he's part of the golden agethat preceded the 19th century
and he sort of, you know,represented really a visionary,
prophetic alteration of Russianliterature into almost like
secular scripture, a whole newpsychological realism that is
(07:32):
going to test the limits ofmodern art and modern thought
and carry it into new territory.
Rudenev was sort of a, you know, a revolutionary Marxist that
found himself thrown in jail bythe very people he thought would
(07:53):
support his ideas.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
Which happened to Solzhenitsyn too.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
Yeah, and this radicalized him in a new way and
it took him back to hisChristian roots and his
understanding of a propheticChristianity that was built on
freedom and creativity, thattransformed societies and not a
transformative society built ona small minority that were going
(08:22):
to manage everybody else.
Once he realized that exile wasreally going to open the doors
to his freedom of thinking andhis ability to be prophetic, he
never looked back and I thinkyour little summary of him is
(08:43):
well put that you know, livingin exile, living, you know, on
the outskirts of exiled Russianintelligentsia, is not a bad
place for a prophet to be, andhe took it as liberation and as
(09:04):
a calling and not as apunishment, which created all
these incredible books that hewrote.
And kind of a lot likeChesterton, if we think of
Chesterton as a great apologeticvoice at the turn of the
century, voice at the turn ofthe century uh burdenius is a
(09:29):
prophetic voice.
Uh, you know, I not thatchesterton wasn't prophetic, but
burdenius hits all the notes ofof a christian, uh and all, and
even old testament prophet umwell, would you do us a favor
and read?
Speaker 2 (09:46):
Do you have your book out?
Speaker 1 (09:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
Would you read pages 42 and 43?
My friend and I, Tyrell, shoutout to Tyrell who loved this
chapter.
Tyrell sent me the things hehad underlined and they're all
the same stuff I had underlined.
So if you just read your workin your voice from the first
paragraph on 42.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
Is that the one that begins with one of the 19th
century?
Redenyev was one of those late19th century.
Is that?
Speaker 2 (10:18):
that.
Yeah, from that paragraph tothe bottom line after his quote
on the second page, like itmight be a lot, but it's just
completely loaded with goodstuff and it's in your voice and
it's from the book, so I justthink we should read it.
It's so many, so many, so muchof it we had underlined okay.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
Well, this is.
This is for your friend here.
Nikolai bordeyev was one ofthose late 19th century
progressive Russian theocratswho became disillusioned with
Marxism after the Bolsheviksthrew him into prison.
He then returned to hisChristian faith with a new
energy, commitment and resolve,developing most of his
(10:59):
innovative ideas while living inexile in Paris, where he died
in 1948.
Bredaev was orthodox in hisChristocentric theology, but
avant-garde in his existentialcritiques of Marxism and the new
bourgeoisie.
Orthodox in his admiration ofChristianity, of Dostoevsky,
(11:21):
soliev and Tolstoy, butavant-garde in his application
of their ideas to Russianliterature and art and politics.
He was orthodox in his use ofChristian categories to launch
moralistic critiques ofcontemporary thinkers and social
trends, but avant-garde in hisapocalyptic reading of history
(11:43):
and his rejection of moralgradualism and material progress
.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
And if you might pause for one interjection here,
this next paragraph reallydescribes what I see as American
culture, and he was speaking tohis culture back then.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
For him, the word bourgeois meant more than just
middle class.
It was a state of the soulcharacterized by a degrading
clutching after security and asmall-mindedness incapable of
imagining a world much largerthan one's own.
The bourgeois didn't worshipmoney per se, but they were
(12:19):
addicted to personal success.
But they were addicted topersonal success, comfort,
security and happiness.
For these things they willinglycompromised their honor,
ignored injustice and betrayedtruth, replacing these high
(12:47):
values with trite moralisms andfacile bromides that blurred
important distinctions andjustified selfish actions.
Gone were the aristocraticintangibles and noblesse oblige.
In came certainty,self-promotion and moxie.
The bourgeois in other wordswas an idolater proud of his
idolatry.
And although the bourgeoisspirit has always existed,
(13:10):
bordeilleff believed that it hadreached its peak in the late
19th century, when the desirefor affluence triumphed over any
residual aspiration forholiness, greatness or genius
residual aspiration for holiness, greatness or genius.
The moral debasement of Westerncivilization continued in the
(13:31):
20th century, with the middleclass gaining such power and
influence that the wordbourgeois became synonymous with
mean-spirited wealth,narrow-minded technological
know-how and a preoccupationwith worldly success.
The cultural ideas of theknight, the monk, the
(13:52):
philosopher and the poet wereall suspended by the cultural
ideal of the businessman andentrepreneur.
The will to power had beenusurped by the will to
well-being.
Berdenev remarks and this is aquote from Berdenev a religion
(14:15):
of progress based on theapotheosis of a future fortunate
generation is withoutcompassion for either the
present or the past.
It addresses itself withinfinite optimism to the future
with infinite pessimism for thepast.
It is profoundly hostile to theChristian expectation of
(14:40):
resurrection for all mankind,for all the dead fathers and
forefathers.
This Christian idea rests on thehope of an end to historical
tragedy and contradiction validto all human generations, and of
resurrection and eternal lifefor all who have ever lived.
(15:03):
Eternal life for all who haveever lived.
That's part of Berdenev's bookthe Meaning of History, which I
think is one of his moreprophetic texts.
That's cool.
The bourgeois did not repudiatereligion, but reinterpreted its
value in terms of utility.
(15:24):
Religion, but reinterpreted itsvalue in terms of utility.
The love of the poor moved tothe periphery of the faith and
was embraced only insofar as itdidn't clash with one's personal
economic interests.
This inversion of means andends, so central also to Matthew
Arnold's critique of the modernPhilistines in Culture and
(15:44):
Anarchy, signaled for Berdyevthe death of the spirit and the
birth of the bottom line.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
Let's keep going to get his other quote here.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
And then he wrote the perfected European and American
civilizations gave rise to theindustrial capitalist system,
which represents not only amighty economic development but
the spiritual phenomenon of theannihilation of spirituality.
The industrial capitalism ofcivilization proved to be the
(16:24):
destroyer of the eternal spiritand sacred tradition.
Modern capitalist civilizationis essentially atheistic and
hostile to the idea of God.
The crime of killing God mustbe laid at its door rather than
at that of the revolutionarysocialism, which merely adapted
(16:48):
itself to the civilizedbourgeois spirit and accepted
its negative heritage.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
So the fun facts and the notable works.
So your favorite was themeaning of history.
We're going to go.
Let's just give the audiencewhat he did, do what he created.
So his most notable works arethe Meaning of the Creative Act,
which is an interesting titlebecause the new guy probably
(17:19):
read that Rick Rubin and wrote abook called the Creative Act.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
Yes, yes.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
It's called the Meaning of the Creative Act by
Brett Berdea back in 1916.
It'd be interesting to see ifhe used a lot of it or ideas
from it.
Speaker 1 (17:34):
Or if he even heard of it.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
Yeah, that'd of it yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:37):
That'd be interesting Wow.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
So then, freedom and spirit, 1927, comprehensive
philosophical work.
Destiny of man 1931, deepmeditative meditation on human
nature, purpose and eschatology.
He wrestles with a lot oftheology in that one.
Uh, most accessible and widelyread book is that one destiny of
(18:01):
man.
Next is slavery and freedom,1939, a powerful examination of
the modern crisis, so that onehas a lot to the capitalism and
socialism.
So that's pretty, pretty cool.
If that's what you'd beinterested in reading, then
number five, the divine and thehuman, 1949 posthumous.
So this came out after he diedyeah, in his late work he
reflects on the relationshipbetween time and eternity,
(18:23):
divine and human, freedom andprovidence.
It's dense and mystical, richwith eschatological insight.
Let's go.
And then there's a few morephilosophy.
Philosophy of Freedom was anearlier one, 1911.
Precursor to some of his laterworks Christianity and Class War
, 1933.
Critique of Marxism and itsmoral-spiritual implications.
(18:45):
He argues that trueChristianity is incompatible
with class hatred orrevolutionary violence.
That's kind of awesome.
Class hatred.
We have a lot of class hatredcurrently in our country.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
He emphasizes oh go ahead.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
I'll just throw this in One of his sort of
dialectical interventions was tocritique Hegel and Marx's
master-slave dialectic, whichwas also something that
Nietzsche was fascinated by.
(19:22):
Working out the master-slavedialectic.
And Berdeyev said well, no,it's not.
We don't really have amaster-slave dialectic, we have
the free and the bound dialectic.
And free freedom is a cosmicattribute to the human identity
(19:55):
that we're cosmically free fromhis point of view and that
freedom precedes liberation anddemocracy and reform and
revolution.
It doesn't come after it.
But as long as we begin withthe master-slave dialectic,
(20:16):
we're sort of perpetually boundto our own unfreedom, and that's
why faith comes out of freedomand his Christian understanding
of Christ's revelation of thefreedom of man is central to his
(20:38):
faith and his eschatology.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
I wonder if Berdeyev got that concept from the New
Testament, where you have slaveand master in the same church
gathering together as brothers.
Yeah, you know experiencingactual freedom together, despite
their human socio situation.
Speaker 1 (21:01):
Yeah, exactly, you know.
No longer any slave or master,no longer any bound and free
right.
We're all one Brothers.
And that was primary to hisunderstanding of what a real
revolution would be about wouldbe overcoming that dialectic,
(21:23):
not not making bets on it andand trying to pit one side
against the other yeah, and thenhis other ones were um,
beginning in the end, history,apocalypse and future of
humanity.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
Gosh, this guy wrote some deep stuff truth and
revelation, 1947, nature oftruth, religious experience,
inadequacy of dogma alone, andthen these are super interesting
concepts.
He wrote about dream andreality, 1949, more poetic,
introspective work whereBerdeyev reflects on his own
inner life, dreams, spiritualexperiences and how they reveal
(22:01):
eternal truths Part memoir, partmystical philosophy.
Speaker 1 (22:05):
Wow, you know I've been trying to get that.
I wanted to have that copy sowe could look at some of that.
Maybe we can do that at anothertime.
But it's fascinating to sort ofsee the kinds of experiences he
had as philosopher, exile, youknow, and his dream, his dreams
(22:30):
and his understanding of himself.
And that would be fascinatingjust on the face of it.
But so we're just seeing hisbig picture today, so we don't
have to go yeah, one thing thatI was wondering about was like
who knows about him?
Speaker 2 (22:46):
because I had never heard of him before.
Your book and you know otherpeople I've that have read the
book they're like, wow, berdeais amazing.
Um, why haven't more peopleheard about him?
It sounds like people who knewabout him were academic
philosophers and theologians.
He made it on their radars.
Orthodox theological circles inEurope, catholic and Orthodox
(23:07):
thinkers Merton talked about him, dorothy Day talked about him.
So it's a lot of people in yourbook actually Existentialists
andian mystics talked about him,and then russian studies.
You might have heard about him.
Why isn't more well known?
Is that he's he defiedcategories.
He was too mystical formainstream philosophy, too
independent for institutionalreligion, too esoteric for
(23:30):
politics, and it made him hardto market and hard to canonize.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
I was just going to say.
You know, you go into yourprofessor at theology school and
you say I've got my topic formy dissertation and he says well
, who are you going to writeabout?
You say Berdeyev.
He says you might have to go tothe literature department or
(23:57):
somebody who's a little moreopen to rhetoric, because we're
hardcore theologians here.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
Yeah, Berdiav's not going to fit in this.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
Or comparative lit, or something like that.
You know, I guess, guess youknow it's interesting, because
there really isn't a departmentof prophets, is there?
I mean, there's, there'sliterature and there's
philosophy, but there isn't, youknow, a department of prophecy
(24:31):
it's too hard to handle.
Speaker 2 (24:32):
Yeah, too hot to handle yeah no one wants to open
up that box as a, as a study ora discipline.
Yeah, the nature of it is likecritiquing everything they're
about or doing you know, evenacademia itself it's.
Speaker 1 (24:51):
it's putting your existential soul on the line,
you know, and uh uh, for betteror for worse.
And then when you look at thefate of most of the prophets,
you can see why it wouldn't benecessarily something, although
I'm sure you know, there arepeople that have done their
(25:12):
dissertations on the prophetsand there's many great scholarly
books on prophecy.
Brueggemann wrote thatProphetic Imagination which is
classic.
Yeah, I don't remember himmentioning Berdeyev, though.
I mean, I think they're mostlybiblical models.
Speaker 2 (25:34):
So here's the 10 fun and or quirky facts about
Nikolai Berdeyev.
Number one he was expelled fromthe university for Marxist
activism but later became one ofMarxism's fiercest spiritual
critics.
Number two he hatedinstitutions.
He once said that everyinstitution tends to become
demonic, including the churchDemonic.
(25:58):
Number three he was deported onthe philosopher's ship.
I don't know why I can't saythat word today.
That is really cool.
I never knew about thatphilosopher's ship.
In 1922, Lenin exiled him with150 intellectuals fearing their
dangerous ideas.
(26:18):
Berdeyev called it a deathsentence for the soul of russia.
Number four he loved dostoevskyand saw him in the brothers
care, saw himself in thebrothers karamazov, which next
is dostoevsky.
So that's kind of why we puthim right before that because he
loved, he loved dostoevsky.
So we're kind of goingbackwards on the russian russian
guys.
Yeah, um, he saw ivan karamazovand the grand inquisitor as
perfect.
He loved Dostoevsky.
So we're kind of goingbackwards on the Russian guys.
(26:39):
He saw Ivan Karamazov and theGrand Inquisitor as perfect
metaphors for modern spiritualcrisis.
Number five he claimed he nevertruly converted to Christianity
.
For him, it was less a momentand more a long return, a slow
awakening to a truth he alreadysuspected.
Speaker 1 (26:55):
Sounds like Chesterton.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
That's really cool.
Speaker 1 (26:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:58):
Number six he lived in voluntary poverty in Paris.
Despite being from Russianaristocracy, he gave up the
wealth for truth and paid theprice.
Number seven he didn't likebeing called an academic.
He saw himself not as aphilosopher in the scholastic
sense, but as a prophetic voice,a witness to spiritual truth
(27:19):
yeah, we just talked about thatyeah, number eight.
He believed creativity wasdivine.
This is where a really uniquecontribution of him is this
emphasis on creativity.
He thought human beings wereco-creators with god and that
art and freedom were sacred actsof resistance yeah, rick rubin,
if you haven't read him yougotta, you gotta get him.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
He's your man gosh rick rubin.
Speaker 2 (27:40):
You'll love.
You'll love this book, thecreative act, if you, uh, if you
read it.
He probably did.
I I'm I'm suspecting, butanyways, we'll see.
He once debated communists onstage and won over the crowd.
His passionate defense of humandignity often left his
ideological opponents shaken.
And number 10, he was read andadmired by both anarchists and
(28:02):
Catholic mystics.
Figures as diverse as DorothyDay, jacques Maritain and even
existential atheists foundinspiration in his writings.
Speaker 1 (28:10):
Yeah, yeah, because of his deep spiritual humanism.
You know, human beings aretheir freedom first and their
dignity is central andeverything else derives from
that.
(28:30):
Political systems, dignity andfreedom are birthrights and you
know, not all men are createdequal.
All men are created free.
That's for him, it's primary,and out of that freedom comes
their equality and their dignityand their capacity for creation
(28:54):
and creativity and creation.
So, wow, he's, wow, he's reallya revolutionary voice that is
worth paying attention to, evennow.
Speaker 2 (29:11):
Yeah, one of the points about that freedom and
creativity together is that hedidn't see Christianity as, or
he was critical of Christianityin its authoritarian sense and
he's critical of the secularleft with its collectivism and
kind of coercion.
Yeah, the thing he saw inChristianity was a revolutionary
(29:35):
spirit like existentialresistance to both or to any
other, any other influence otherthan love.
Speaker 1 (29:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:44):
Which is kind of like making love a political
resistance.
Speaker 1 (29:50):
Yeah, well, that's why he liked Dostoevsky's grand
inquisitor, identified with thatstory.
(30:13):
That was written by one of thecharacters, a religious head of
the Inquisition whose job it wasto bring about the conversion
of the masses through terror andviolence.
Speaker 2 (30:34):
Was it a Christian character?
The Inquisitor?
Yeah, he was the Like a chorusof religion sort of character.
Speaker 1 (30:42):
He was like.
I think he could be seen as theAntichrist, or he could be seen
as the Pope or as the head ofthe Inquisition who had a
philosophical justification forenforcing Christianity through
(31:08):
violence, and we'll talk aboutit when we get to Dostoevsky.
But the fascinating thing isthat the conceit in the story is
that Christ comes back, and sothe Grand Inquisitor brings him
(31:31):
in for interrogation, in forinterrogation and he says okay,
before we begin, I just want tolet you know that at the end of
the Bible it says you can't addanything to the Bible, so you
can't talk.
I'm the only one who can talkand I interpret everything you
(31:55):
already said.
The only one who can talk and Iinterpret everything you
already said.
So you just listen to me andI'm going to tell you how it's
going to go.
We got your number, we'rerunning the show here.
You can't talk anymore.
So I don't really know why youcame back again, because you're
superfluous.
And he goes on in that vein.
Speaker 2 (32:19):
That's cool.
Speaker 1 (32:21):
And Christ is listening to this whole thing
and then at the end he kissesthe guy on the mouth and the
Grand Inquisitor doesn't knowhow to take that Because he's
not adding anything other thanthe kiss.
(32:45):
So subversive it's.
One of those great works thatyou know has led to countless
theological and spiritualinterpretations of that ending
and even multipleinterpretations by the
(33:07):
characters in the novel.
And so we have the intellectualbrother who wrote it, his, his
story, one way, and then hisspiritual brother who hears it,
sees it another way, and theydebate the meaning of of his own
story.
And well, we'll talk about thatwhen we get to dostoevsky.
(33:28):
But you could see why thatwould fascinate, uh, per day.
F because you know he's beenaround christ and and
antichrists and prophets andfalse prophets, and he's seen
the revolution, the great hopeof the Russian revolution, and
then it's betrayal and then it'sturning into a anti-revolution
(33:54):
and a totalitarian regime.
Speaker 2 (33:56):
And you know, and he's there just trying to speak
the truth to power as best hecan, uh, just powerful stuff
this, um, this statement isinteresting that his critique of
both marxism and bourgeoisliberalism was rooted in his
orthodox faith, not not in somemiddle of the road centrism.
(34:18):
Yes, that's interesting becausehe's not just.
He's not saying here's the thirdway ideology, that's just
called centrism yeah but he saidit's this explosive belief in
the human person, made in theimage of a free, creative god.
So it it's a very theologicallyrooted concept of freedom and
(34:39):
resistance to right and left andany political ideology.
Really, and here's one of hisquotes, the kingdom of God is
freedom.
It is not order.
Order is the kingdom of Caesar.
Speaker 1 (34:53):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (34:53):
This single sentence dismantles much of what has been
passed on as political theologyin the american landscape.
And for birdie, birdie of faithwas never about submission to
an earthly order, left or right,but a spiritual awakening that
resists all systems thatdehumanize yeah, um, and we
(35:14):
forget that.
Speaker 1 (35:14):
You know, um, birdenia was exiled to Paris,
but then Paris got invaded bythe Nazis in 1940.
So he saw the face of Caesar inRussia and then he saw the face
of Caesar again in the Nazioccupation in Paris, and both
times it was.
But that doesn't change myprophetic defense of human
(35:39):
freedom Did you say face ofCaesar in these characters?
Speaker 2 (35:43):
Yeah, did he frame it that way?
Speaker 1 (35:46):
I don't know, I'm sure.
Speaker 2 (35:47):
Or did you I'm sure he could have.
Well, face of Caesar in fill inthe blank is kind of a cool way
to look at it.
Speaker 1 (35:53):
Yeah, yeah, fill in the blank is kind of a cool way
to look at it.
Yeah, yeah, it's worship ofpower, and the effort that it
takes to try to take away humanfreedom and divinity of God and
his people made in his image isjust, you know, basic sacrilege,
(36:20):
I think.
What was it that Chestertoncalled it?
He called it a daily mysticism.
You know an everyday mysticism,and I think for Berdanev it's.
You know, mysticism is the samething.
It's a daily thing, uh, everymoment of uh reality that if
(36:45):
you're not seeing you're, you'rebetraying.
Um and for.
For chesterton, mysticism wasthe only thing that could keep
you sane, because otherwise youend up on some sort of power
trip where you're reducing, uh,the mystery to some sort of
(37:07):
program that you got going, somesystem it sounds like he's.
Speaker 2 (37:12):
It sounds like, according to berdayev, there
really is no freedom outside ofchrist yeah, yeah, I think for
berdania, that's, that's whathe's saying like.
It's so theologically rooted.
Speaker 1 (37:29):
Creativity and freedom and love are all so
divine, and that's what gives ushuman freedom interesting to
(37:50):
compare him to Sartre, becauseSartre famously said you know,
he was never so free as when theNazis occupied Paris, because
it changed every choice he madeinto an existential choice about
whether he was going to live ordie, whether he was going to
serve, whether he was going toserve live in freedom or live in
fear.
And there's that famous storywhere a student comes to him and
(38:11):
says I have a difficult choiceto make my mother's sick and I
want to stay home and take careof her, but the resistance
fighter that's my friend wantsme to join his cadre and he
tells me I should become afreedom fighter as part of the
(38:31):
resistance.
And I don't know whether Ishould stay home, take care of
my mother or join the resistance.
Speaker 2 (38:40):
This was SART.
Speaker 1 (38:41):
Yeah, this was the question that was posed to
Sartre and supposedly Sartresaid well, there is no right or
wrong answer.
You're free.
You have to choose and commit,and both of those choices are
(39:07):
good choices.
But you're free, that is to say, create.
And so it was basically youknow you're free, you create I'm
not.
Nobody can tell you what yourconscience is, telling you the
(39:30):
person that you should be, orwhat the choice is.
And if you rely on the party totell you, you're giving up your
humanity and if you rely onyour mom to tell you, you know
you're giving up your autonomyas well.
So you have to takeresponsibility right.
(39:52):
Commitment is responsibilityand responsibility derives from
freedom.
And it isn't to say that allthose choices are relative, but
(40:23):
in this particular case they'reyour own conscience and your own
relationship to the divine.
And Berdenev would probably seethat clearer than Sartre.
I think you know he's sort ofsaying God's asking you to make
your, you know to make a choiceabout, you know who you are and
(40:44):
and he, you know, know you wantto co-create your life with him.
You don't want to just chooseindependently of your role in
the scheme of things.
Speaker 2 (40:54):
And along the lines of freedom is uh.
Here's one of the readings thatalso, I guess, fuses the
spiritual.
The freedom is rooted inspiritual, spiritual truth and
the creativity of god.
Speaker 1 (41:08):
Actually, yeah, which is interesting.
Speaker 2 (41:11):
I never linked those two freedom and creativity like
like as your main, your mainidea of freedom being rooted in
the creation, creative act ofgod and and the ability for you
to act in that way becauseyou're in the image of that.
Speaker 1 (41:25):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (41:26):
And he.
But he kind of says that inthis freedom, in the spirit book
this reading this reading saysum Christianity is the religion
of divine and human freedom.
It's not what the modernculture thinks.
Speaker 1 (41:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (41:39):
It brings not law, not commandments, not coercion,
but the image of the God man andthe call to freely follow him.
Where there is no freedom,there can be no love, no
creativity, no personhood.
The kingdom of God is notestablished by force, nor can it
be imposed from above.
It must be born from within.
In this lies the scandal andgreatness of Christianity that
(42:03):
it entrusts the fate of theworld to the inner freedom of
man.
God does not desire slaves, butsons.
Whoa.
Speaker 1 (42:23):
Can you imagine him saying that at a debate with a
marxist?
Speaker 2 (42:28):
dude.
They would just not even knowwhat to do with that.
They'd have to say it's hogwash, but it just it, but it just
ignited everyone in the room'sconscience oh yeah they know,
they know it's true, just byhearing it, you know.
It's like so evident in yourspirit.
Speaker 1 (42:45):
In your spirit, if you can believe, you have one
well, it's like the very thingwhich both excites and troubles
you about your, your spirit.
You know you're free, but youknow that means you're
responsible.
So it's kind of like you're.
you're you're not off the hook,but you're're not on the
(43:08):
philosophership as an exileeither.
You're co-creating with thedivine and you have a
responsibility to yourself andto creation.
Yeah, that's powerful stuff.
I can see why the Creative Actbook would be probably very
(43:36):
inspirational.
Check that out, see what hesays there.
And the other thing about thatkind of thing, that kind of
statement, is it's not reallyone that you can reduce to two
competing syllogisms, you know,or break it down into some sort
(43:59):
of analytic framework, becauseit's so existential in the sense
of you know your definition ofyour own relationship to your
choices is so subjective.
So, kierkegaardian, you knowthat it doesn't lend itself to
easily parsing.
(44:19):
You either get it or you don't,or you either reject it or
accept it.
It's, it's pretty, you know,right out there.
Speaker 2 (44:30):
That's what's so powerful you can hear it in
Birdejev and Kierkegaard is thatthat deeply honest challenge to
yourself and like as a person,and like, as Kierkegaard was
saying, like yourself, like,does yourself even know yourself
?
Sort of a?
right a depth of, and I guessthat's where existentialism is
(44:51):
coming from, and therefore Ithink it was needed, like it's a
needed discipline.
Yeah, existentialism ratherthan a, rather than a um,
philosophical idea.
I think it's almost like anactual discipline to to know
yourself and to know what's real.
It's like a venture into how doI even know things.
Speaker 1 (45:13):
Yeah, epistemology yeah, what did?
What did kirkagard say?
The self was a relation toitself.
Uh, and if you don't have arelation to yourself, then your
self is a pretty profoundbeginning for philosophy, rather
(45:54):
than just assuming that youknow that you have a self
because you buy clothes orwhatever or you see yourself in
the mirror, or whatever buyclothes or whatever, or you see
yourself in the mirror orwhatever.
Speaker 2 (46:09):
yeah, the that I, that whole concept in kirkagard,
which I hear echoing in berdeev, is like if you, if you don't
know, if you, if you're not so,to the modern person right now.
Like if you can't sit under atree quietly for 30 minutes,
yeah, you probably don't knowyourself at all, and I think our
(46:32):
culture is in a crisis in thatway.
Like I don't think many peoplecan sit under a tree quietly for
30 minutes.
And I'm not making up somerandom arbitrary law, I'm just
saying, like you can't, if youcan't sit with yourself quietly
with your thoughts and likerelate to yourself and play back
and think through and have arelationship with yourself, then
(46:52):
there's a problem.
You're completely disconnectedand everything you're doing is a
reflection of everyone else.
Yeah, and you probably don'thave a single original thought
ricocheting around in your headright now, because you're so
influenced by everybody else.
And that concludes episode 10,part one on Nikolai Berdeyev.
(47:14):
I hope you're resonating withthe powerful ideas and these
people's powerful stories.
It might hit differentdepending on your spiritual
location, whether you'reagnostic, a skeptic, a believer
or somewhere in between, on somekind of deconstruction journey.
We're going to continueexploring what it means to live
a life of deep meaning in aworld that often feels
fragmented and nihilistic.
(47:35):
And this general revelationdoesn't seem to come to us from
the expected places.
It's not confined to pulpits orseminaries.
The prophetic voice is breakingthrough in novels, poetry,
charity work, art and theunexpected corners of culture,
voices crying out from the edgesof society.
We hope you'll continue to joinus on this ongoing conversation
.
Until then, thank you forlistening to the Subversive
(47:58):
Orthodoxy Podcast.
If you found this meaningful,please leave a five-star review,
subscribe and share with anyonewho might resonate with this
conversation.
Adios, spiritually, I want tojump off a cliff without a
parachute, like I'm high oncannabis, and skip through
fields naked, like I wonder ifthis has been a subversive
(48:21):
orthodoxy podcast with traMullen and Professor Enchasti.
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