Vladimir Soloviev and Judaism: Personalism, Prophecy, and (Theocratic) Progress

• In Event: The Hebrew Bible/Old Testament in Russian Thought and Literature

Abstract

This paper will explore how Vladimir Soloviev drew some of the main principles of his religious thought from Judaism (and perhaps also how he attributed them to Judaism). The first of these is personalism, the recognition that God is the absolute person. Soloviev calls this “the essential significance of the Old Testament revelation.” Human beings are also persons, which makes possible their authentic interaction with God as moral agents capable of freely and inwardly appropriating God’s will, of inner self-determination according to the divine law or principle. Soloviev thought that the prophets were the first to recognize the possibility of this inner, personal relationship between the divine and human, of grounding the human will in God’s love. Prophecy is the second main Judaic principle of Soloviev’s religious thought. The third is theocratic progress: the ever fuller realization of the divine law of love in human society and the world. Soloviev’s ideal of “free theocracy” rested on freedom of conscience, the rule of law, and a flourishing civil society. He tirelessly advocated for the cause that Jews in the Russian empire should enjoy these freedoms, protections, and opportunities.

Author

• Randall Allen Poole, College of St. Scholastica