In the Absence of God’s Plan

Fedorov, Bulgakov and the Eschatological Problem of Modernity

Abstract

Between the end of the XIX and the beginning of the XX centuries in Russia rose to prominence a most peculiar philosophical and religious trend, later identified as “Cosmism”, which sought, among other things, to reframe mankind’s purpose and goals on a higher scale – first the whole planet and then the whole cosmos. Any form of predestination is negated, and Mankind’s absolute freedom means that the fulfilment of its (cosmical) task is left to its own devices. This new reframing of mankind, reflected in much of our contemporary worldview, was seen by some of its contemporaries as revealing a fundamental issue of modernity – the abandonment of any eschatological dimension. We will explore this node through the analysis of the ideas on predestination of two authors: Nikolaj Fedorov, perhaps the most important representative of Cosmism, and one of its critics, Russian philosopher and theologian Sergej Bulgakov.