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so valuable that God sets creation the task of realising it once again and this is
the meaning of creation for Berdyaev. creation is given the task of creatively
realising the freedom of the created soul.
For Berdyaev, freedom is a mystery beyond rational explanation. In
seeking to place freedom outside God he turns to Meister Eckhart’s
conception of Gottheit. ‘In [Gottheit], which is higher than all the Persons of
the Trinity and dialectics connected with them all antinomianism is
pre-eternally and absolutely overcome, but in relation to it even disappears the
question of existence and non-existence. But about the [Gottheit], nothing can
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be said – it is inexpressable and relationship to it is super-religious’. Freedom,
as non-existence, is able to find its origins in this principle of ultimate
transcendence. However, from the perspective of Christian orthodoxy, Men
finds this way of explaining freedom and the evil that results from it
questionable.
Men, commenting on Berdyaev’s conception of ‘freedom’ in Appendix 8
of ‘Magicism and Monotheism’ tells us that for Berdyaev in his Philosophy of a Free
Spirit, it is an ‘unconditional, irrational spontaneity’. 60 He finds this idea
appealing. In situating this freedom in Gottheit or later Ungrund, however,
rather than God, Men writes that Berdyaev is moving towards a dualistic
conception of the universe. For Berdyaev, God created the world out of
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nothing (nichego), but this nothing (’nichego’ – lack of anything) is not nothing
(’nishto’ – absolute ‘nothing’). It is instead a dark, chaotic world of freedom
uncreated by God. God lacks control over the world, despite the fact he will
eventually defeat the chaos that is in it. Men comments that Berdyaev’s
realisation that God is not king over suffering is correct, but his attempt to
ground the freedom that allows for evil ontologically outside God is not.
In places, Men does show considerable admiration for Berdyaev’s
attempt to resolve the problem of evil. In The Strugle and Polarisation of Good
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and Evil, he describes it as ‘the most interesting attempt’ and in an interview
with Mark Makarov he also refers to it as one of the most interesting answers
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to the question of evil. However, this does not mean that in his own thinking

59 Berdyaev, Philosophy of Freedom, Part 2 Chapter 5:1
60 Men, Magicism and Monotheism, Appendix 8
61 Men, Lectures on Russian Religious Philosophy
62 Men, Conversation about Redemption, 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
63 Shukman/Roberts, p35

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