God as Absolute and Absolute-Relative in Bulgakov

The chapter discusses how BSergiiulgakov applied his ‘antinomism’ to his understanding of God and the world. It updates ‘apophatic’ (negative) and ‘kataphatic’ (positive) theology. Three key antinomies exemplify theological antinomism, and through them Bulgakov articulates a form of the problematic as well as a response. Bulgakov wrote of a ‘cosmological antinomy’ between God as ‘Absolute self-relation in himself’ (immanent Trinity=God in himself) and God as ‘Absolute-Relative’ (economic Trinity=God for the world). For God as Absolute self-relation in himself creation need not have been created. For God as Absolute-Relative, creation is a part of God’s own self-definition as Creator and Redeemer and so it had to be created for God to be God. Bulgakov argues for ‘panentheism’, where God and the world are in a unity-in-difference but it slides into monism and pantheism.