Вестник Православного Свято-Тихоновского гуманитарного университета: Серия I. Богословие, философия (Dec 2022)
Secular as political theology in russian religious philosophy of the first half of the 20th century
Abstract
The article is devoted to the problem of understanding the secular as political theology in Russian religious philosophy of the first half of the 20th century. The connection between the concept of «political theology» and the concept of «secular» is carried out in accordance with the approach of K. Schmitt. Schmitt’s approach is proposed to be expanded to understand political theology as borrowing the structure of theistic theology by other means for secular purposes. In the article, this approach is used to identify what can be defined as the analysis of «political theologies» in the works of Russian religious philosophers of the first half of the 20th century. The study determines that the secular as political theology appears as the «religion of anthropolatry» of the Russian intelligentsia for Merezhkovsky and Bulgakov, and appears as the mythology of communism for Losev and Florensky. The article concludes that the political theologies of socialism and communism are the result of the secularization of the Jewish apocalyptic and Christian chiliasm for Bulgakov, Berdyaev, Losev. Whereas, socialism and communism are secular variants of Gnosticism, which he defines as «the heresy of utopianism» from Frank’s point of view. The article concludes that understanding of the secular as political theology allows us to interpret the phenomenon of religious conversion, which is considered as the beginning of Russian religious philosophy, as a transition from political theology to theistic theology, and not just as a transition from atheism and skepticism to faith. It also states the possibility of applying the concept of confessionalization to understand cultural criticism of modern political theologies by Russian religious philosophers of the first half of the 20th century.
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