Philosophy of the Name

Arguably no other 19^th-20^th century Russian theological figure has received as warm a reappraisal in 21^st-century Anglophone scholarship as has Marxist economist, later turned Russian Orthodox priest, Sergii Bulgakov. Now, nearly a century after its original composition, Bulgakov’s Philosophy of the Name joins the small library of English editions of his work thanks to a full translation by the excellent Thomas Allan Smith. Smith’s work should be highly praised, not only because Bulgakov is difficult to translate well, but Smith’s English translation lacks little to none of Bulgakov’s own beauty and rigor as regards the latter’s prose style. Furthermore, like he does for his other editions of Bulgakov’s works, Smith provides a very helpful introduction, setting the historical scene of the work as well as acting as a primer for the more difficult philosophical and linguistic concepts Bulgakov utilitzes throughout the book.

Written during the maelstrom of World War I, revolution(s), civil war, Bolshevik takeover, and Bulgakov’s own forced emigration in 1922, the treatise’s telos is identified near the end: “The whole preceding discussion had as its goal to bring us to . . . the Name of God, and Its sacred mystery” (197). The name(s) of God have for millennia inspired much meditation and speculation from a great diversity of religious and philosophical traditions, but what particularly occasioned these reflections was the Imiaslavie (“name-glorifying”) controversy that boiled over in the Orthodox world in June of 1913, when a detachment of Imperial Russian marines stormed one of the monasteries on Mount Athos, violently quelling those “name-glorifiers” accused of identifying God’s name and essence in their contemplative life of prayer. Especially at issue during the entire dispute was John of Kronstadt’s formulation from the mid-1890s: “the name of God is God himself.” If this is so, then how exactly? How can the Maker of the Universe be contained in a name spoken by one of its creatures? Also, more generally, what ahappens in prayer, and does the language we use or the names of God we invoke matter in the end?

Bulgakov offers a nuanced defense of the “name-glorifiers,” seeking also to emend some of the potential excesses that were too quickly pounced upon by their opponents, whom Bulgakov dubs the “name-fighters.” While undoubtedly some contemporary linguistic theorists—with the benefit of a hundred years of further research—will consider a few of Bulgakov’s arguments and sources antiquated, the work’s carefully argued points concerning ordinary syntax, grammar, speech, poetics, thought, and philosophical linguistics (which comprise the majority of the first five chapters) culminate in an affirmation of Kronstadt’s (in)famous predication. In short, Bulgakov argues that one may consider “the name of God is God” by grounding this formulation in a Christological poetics of language and its attending high theological anthropology. Furthermore, by creatively engaging with theological history and the subject-copula-predicate structure of ordinary speech-acts, Bulgakov convincingly argues us that the piety of the “name-glorifiers” should not be questioned.

Bulgakov situates humanity in a cosmos that speaks, where words are not “galvanized corpses or sonic masks,” but are themselves “alive” (39-40). In keeping with major classical figures such as Maximus the Confessor, Bulgakov holds that the Word (i.e., the Incarnate-Logos) spoke creation into being and maintains all of existence in himself; thus, the Word upholds the very words utilized and shaped by a collective humanity acting as a “microcosm” that “in” and “through” the world “sounds” (37, 43, etc.). However, Bulgakov is quick to caveat that “a certain initial givenness exists in [the life of language] to which the entire creatively, artistically realizable task corresponds. Language is created by us; it is our artistic product, but at the same time, it is given to us, we have it as a certain primordial endowment. We do not create what we have, but we create from it” (45). Thus, human persons are poetic creatures who are thrown into a world of language while also possessing the extraordinary power to freely, creatively name and speak.

Nevertheless, Bulgakov’s anthropology is not one characterized by some kind of arbitrary naming. Instead, he consistently argues that human persons first begin by attending to “the self-revelation” of “the thing” itself (83). One must listen before one can faithfully speak or name. This is because Bulgakov’s high anthropology depends entirely on the kenotic love of the “source of the word in the world [that is] the Divine Word by which the heavens were made firm. . . . every human being is an incarnate word, a realized name, for the Lord himself is the incarnate Word and Name” (195). What this secures is a privileged place for language that cannot be reduced to any form of linguistic instrumentalization, which Bulgakov always resists.

Furthermore, utilizing the logic of Gregory Palamas’ much discussed essence/energies distinction, Bulgakov argues that Kronstadt’s formulation is indeed permissible in the life of prayer because “The revelation of God in the world is the operation of God, the manifestation of Divine energy: not the essential Godhead itself, transcendent to the world, but Its energy is what we call God” (199). Thus, per Bulgakov, understanding “The Name of God is God” in prayer is legitimate in orthodox worship because “the Name of God contains divine energy, gives God’s presence” (232), although, of course, not in the sense that the uncircumscribable, simple, Transcendent Godhead can be confined by a human creature’s locution. This is further established by the regulating syntax of subject-copula-predicate—that is, in how the formulation is not reversible. The subject and predicate are not exchangeable; one cannot exploit the copula as an algebraic equation whereby “God himself is the name of God.” This would be as syntactically illogical as it is idolatrous, reasons Bulgakov. And this is, arguably, the very heart of the work: metaphysical, theological argumentation and ordinary language forms such as those tacitly assumed in common syntactical usage mutually aid one another in building a philosophically informed linguistics capable of meticulously arguing for the incomprehensible mystery of God’s abiding in God’s name that is, as Bulgakov ends the sixth chapter, “assured in the mystery of prayer” (237).

Daniel Adam Lightsey is a doctoral candidate in religious studies at Southern Methodist University.

Daniel Adam Lightsey

Date Of Review:

January 26, 2024