Wisdom is a quality, an attribute of
personality, in other words — an abstract notion. A quality is not a real
object or entity. School grammar taught us, that only those nouns denote real
objects that, so to say, originated as nouns: the sea, the sky, earth, the
tree, the hill. But those historically stemming from adjectives, verbs or
numbers: a trip, a rest, a washing, a decade, a century — are ideas without a
personal existence, requiring a separate carrier. We call such nouns abstract,
in contrast to the nouns of the first type — the concrete ones, which
are representing specific objects or persons, at least, in our imagination. The
sophiologists probably know all this better than we do. From such abstract
ideas and nouns, derivatives from adjectives and verbs, polytheism has created
a whole imaginary world. Wisdom, love, courage, male beauty, femininity,
commerce, fertility — have became gods and goddesses. Is there anything real or
personal behind these ideas? Nothing and no one, just
emptiness. Such was the religion of the Greco-Roman world.
Each object and each living being
has its own vast number of features, attributes, and distinctions. Wisdom by
itself is only an attribute, it can be either
complete, as the wisdom of God, or limited, as in creations. Both forms are
presented in the Book of Proverbs. If wisdom has a number of attributes
attached to it, it doesn’t mean that it is their sole owner, it is only the
first among others, each of them having its own name, while the whole group of
attributes has its own general carrier under its own name. Maybe for
this reason sophiologists add the name "Sophia" to
"Wisdom," as though the latter carries the former as an attribute.
But this, in fact, is pure tautology (redundancy), when identical things are
named in two languages. The name does not enhance the content of that to which
it is applied.
What is the matter then? Aren’t the sophiologists
using Biblical names to introduce substantial, concrete concepts foreign to
Biblical and Christian truths?
What a departure from the Christian worldview!
How contrary all this is to the very idea of
Biblical monotheism! There is nothing in common between monotheism and
polytheism in their very essence, just like between faith and atheism. The
whole essence of religion of the once God-chosen people, the entire ardor of
prophetic speeches, exhortations, threats, cries of spiritual pain, were
directed precisely at the battle with this heathen "cult of life,"
with the cult of "ancestral beginnings of life," in its lowest
form, and this was what made up the spirit of polytheism in different
variations. Biblical religion is completely free of this element. The Bible
sees all the tragedies of the people and its whole history from the point of
view of its falling into the base heathen ideas and the orgies of these cults
connected to them. The prophets foresaw and explained the destruction of the
state, the troubles of the nation, as direct punishment for departing
from the pure moral monotheism, for betrayal of God.
Must we speak on this theme in connection with
Christianity?
The first birth of a person, that is, the creation
of Eve from Adam’s rib, according to the book of Genesis, was not without
purpose a birth "without a wife." Christianity received its
beginning in the same way: the embodiment of the Son of God without a
husband.
In reply, we are offered the following quote from
the first chapter of the Bible: "in the image of God created He him; male
and female created He them." From this a reversed conclusion is derived:
that which has been established in human nature, is also characteristic of
Godly nature. But such a conclusion is a violation of the elementary law of
logic — a reverse conclusion by analogy. I see my face clearly in a smooth
mirror: but I do not deduce from this that my face is also smooth and shiny,
like the mirror. The Apostle writes of the heathen: "But became vain in
their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves
to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God
into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted
beasts, and creeping things" (Rom. 1:21-23). Do we have to imitate
them?
We can only praise God for the wise order upon the
earth. Through the Wisdom of God, through the stream of innumerable births,
through the joining of male and female elements of creation, countless
variations of forms, types and appearances are achieved on earth. A change of
generations is created through these conditions, a fullness and harmony of the whole, and such richness of individuality that there is
none, nor was nor will be two people completely alike, nor even two trees that
are as alike as two drops of water. But the wisdom of God set down the law of
reproduction through the physical union of two creations of one type, giving
them the corresponding variations in bodily structure. And not only differences
in form are achieved. Even more: a family was formed, the basic cell of
human society. But, alas! They are now even trying to destroy the family… But
only in the family, from their childhood, do people learn to love and
unselfishly serve each other!
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