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them, which according to Solovyov is the World Soul, the single fee origin of
natural life.
The Christian orthodoxy of Solovyov’s ideas is a matter of considerable
debate among scholars. Florovsky believed that Solovyov’s conception of a
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World Soul was incompatible with church teaching. Krasitsky believes that
from a theological standpoint the major mistake of Solovyov both in the early
Lectures on Godmanhood and in the later Russia and the Universal Church was to
associate the initiation of evil in the natural world with its creation, leading
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inescapably to a form of Manichaeism. Other thinkers have sought to assess
Solovyov as orthodox, especially von Balthasar and Klinger. 47
In a set of lectures given on Russian religious philosophy, Men sees the
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‘World Soul’ as Solovyov’s personal response to mystical revelatory visions of a
spiritualised universe. Men certainly entertains the concept of a World Soul
and adopts the concept of a universal Human Soul in his discussion of evil in
Appendix 8 of Magicism and Monotheism of his In Search of the Way, the Truth and
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the Life, but neither in the same philosophical form as Solovyov. He appears
to adapt the ‘World Soul’, bringing his own personal ideas to bear through it as
a medium. Significantly, he makes it clear that he does not believe in a
pre-existent metaphysical world, and references to a ‘transphysical’ world
rather than metaphysical (see citation from Origins of Religion, ch. 4 above),
suggest a closer relationship of greater equality with the natural world. A
further difference is in Men’s view of the natural world, which, following
Teilhard, is altogether more positive.
The freedom exercised by the World Soul outside of time in its
ambivalence is a necessary part of Solovyov’s explanation of the presence of
evil. Freedom finds an important place in Men’s thinking and it is this aspect

45 Discussed in Krasitsky, p71
46 The physical world ‘of atoms’ only comes into being after the World Soul strives towards
singularity, whereas the Fall itself took place in a metaphysical dimension distinct from this world
of appearances – Krasitsky, p83
47 Krasitsky, p79
48 Men, Lectures on Russian Religious Philosophy, contained in World Spiritual Culture. Мировая
духовная культура. [Фонд имени Александра Меня. Москва. 2002 г. ] [Alexander Men
Foundation. Moscow. 2002.] – can be found at http://www.alexandermen.ru/pan.html
49 Men, Origins of Religion, ch. 4 and Men, In search of the Way, the Truth and the Life – Book 2: Magicism
and Monotheism, Appendix 8 part 9. В Поисках Пути, Истины и Жизни – Том 2. Магизм и
Единобожие. [Издательство "Слово". Москва. 1991 г.] [Publishing House 'Word'. Moscow.
1991] – can be found at http://www.alexandermen.ru/pan.html

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