Bulgakov Meets Proclus

Sophia as Paradigm

In the Proclean system that my older readers would have by now understand to be my current working framework, there are two loci of what we might call “ontological totality”, and to which I would add a third, in my reading. These two main Loci are the Paradigm and the Universal Demiurge. In Proclus’ system these are the Intelligible Intellect and the Third Intellectual Father. I have elaborated on how I understand the Intellectual Fathers as they seem to appear in the Christian tradition before, so no need for repetition. What is important for me here is the relationship between the two mentioned prior, and their relationship with the third locus I think exists. This third locus will be the subject of another post.

In the Butlerian reading, the Intelligible Intellect is the God as All. It is the final “product” or manifestation of the God as a positive individual. The God is first manifest as One (Intelligible/Primal Being), then as Whole (Intelligible Life), and lastly as All (Intelligible Intellect), and in this final manifestation, reverting upon themself. Every God is an Intelligible God by default, but there is a special sense of “Intelligible God”, which concerns us. This is the sense in which a God is the Paradigm of the Cosmos that is intended by the pantheon of Gods to be manifest. A paradigm, in the Platonic sense, is not an inanimate “plan”, but a mode of unity in which “the All” is united to the unique person, to their “perspective”, for “we choose not just a paradigm for our life alone, but necessarily a paradigm for the cosmos as well, because everything else adjusts itself to our choice.”[i]. In other words:

What is paradigmatic about the paradigm is nothing other than its animality. What is essential to animality, as the vision of Er affirms, is desire, and the cosmic paradigm is the ultimate object of desire. But if it is the ultimate object, then it cannot be an object in this sense, but must rather be that which makes the desired object in its objectivity desirable (epistemologically speaking, “the medium of its intelligibility”); and this is simply the desiring itself as the primary mode of causality, cause of the organism. In this way, we are thrown back again and again upon the individual desiring animal(s) as the sole intelligible content of the cosmos. For in what lies the “self-identical” nature of the paradigm, which ensures the beauty of the work executed in orientation toward it (Tim. 28a)? What paradigm could possibly be unique (31a)? The answer to these questions ought not lie in a violent transcendence. The animal is self-identical because it is, by definition, that which strives to persist in self-identity, and this striving is the beauty of every work the living performs. The paradigm is unique inasmuch as it is each unique being qua unique, and uniqueness is nothing other than absolute individuation, dependent upon no sortal unit; and this is the animal as such, as structuring rather than structure. The demiurgic production of the cosmic totality is thus integrated into a broader framework of action and of ethical rather than technical formation (cf. Nic. Eth. 1140b6–7).[ii]

The paradigm, the “pattern of life” that simply is animality, is not simply the summit of a quasi-spatial hierarchy, but one of the most encompassing expressions of the henadic “all in each”. The God that is the paradigm is “within” all that chooses them, as their ontological singularity prior to formal difference, but posterior to henadic individuality. It’s a bit hard to explain, or understand, even for me. To do so, we have to let go of the idea of a hard distinction between beings and think of their unity without sameness in and as persons.

The Henads are all in each. They manifest first as the individuals they are, then insofar as they unite all things as a whole, and then as they hold things together as the all. In the abstract, this is every Henad, every God. But for a Cosmos, ontological criteria prevail, and so cosmoi must have singular ontological principles. One God must be the very Noesis in which a particular limited totality must be established. But, the God as Paradigm is, as we’ve seen, not a domineering ontological principle, over determining what comes “after” it, it is the “animality” of each living member of the cosmic totality. In order to understand how this is so for us, we require the Demiurge.

The Demiurge, the Third Intellectual Father, is responsible for the organization of the Cosmos as an emergent totality, with really distinct parts, governed by sameness and difference, and negative ontological distinction in general. Although this entity’s transcendence is more than just this, the Demiurge is the summit of onto-theology, the teleological as such, in terms of the intellectual forms (e.g. the form of species, etc.). Remember that, qua God, the Demiurge, like any God, is supraessential, even if it has limited activity on this and other planes. We should not forget this, because this is important. The Gods are persons, and so their will and full causation is not limited to the ontological, nor restricted by anything. This is important because of the role desire plays in the Gods’ manifestation of relationships between their manifestations or activities. Desire is of persons, and cannot really be adequately spoken about in simple ontic terms. There is no “form” or “Eide” of “Desire”, like there is for say, “Justice”. One of the highest ways we can explain divine causation is in terms of desire, as it is an indication of the supraessentiality of the Gods. This is how we will (mostly) get around the problem of explaining the paradigm and demiurge in relation, who, I believe, are Chokmah/Sophia and Christ, for this Christian Cosmos.

Chokmah, we might say, desired to be the ultimate paradigm of a Cosmos. Her desire is in fact the very “field” in which this cosmos will unfold. Her desire, as a Goddess, is the power of unity for this Cosmos, for desire intends an object; but a God is prior to all objects; a God produces whatever it desires; and in the case of Gods desiring one another, establishes the activity/manifestation of the God being desired as an object, in accordance too with the desire of that God, which means this is a mutual desire, productive of a relationship, rather than presupposing one.

As Chokmah’s desire is manifest as the “field” of unity for a cosmos, her intelligence, a unitive intelligence that is in each member of the living totality. The other Gods in the Christian pantheon, in their desire, plot out the intelligible space for the members in question, including themselves. Their desire is here manifest as unity qua continuity of an ontological community, whereas Chokmah alone has her desire for “paradigmaticity” manifest as unity qua individual animality – and note that it is individual animality, not individuality as such, as individuality as such is prior to any ontological determination. Neither Chokmah nor the other Gods in this activity are objectified in any “spatial” sense. It is exactly “space”, in the intelligible sense rather than the physical sense, which is being established by the pantheon. The Demiurge, Christ, is he who establishes the intellectual “distance” that will be constitutive for the very existence of the Cosmos. Rather than desire for continuity and community among a specific number of Gods manifest as Intelligible-Intellectual spatiality itself, with its many elements, the Demiurge, Christ in our case, expresses desire for Gods themselves qua whatever role. This desire is thus manifest as intellectual distance, a “differentiation” expressed, for example, in narrativity, the distance that makes it possible to even express the very idea of a “prior” or “pre-demiurgic” organization. In the Proclean system, this begins prior to the Demiurge, in the First Intellectual Father, but it is not complete in principle – before the unfolding in its products – until the demiurge, whose desire is the lynchpin of the entire system as an ontology. It is in this sense that the Demiurge transcends the paradigm qua paradigm, for the paradigm is not established as an intelligible God from our side prior to the demiurge. We can thus see here the importance of the persons of the Gods from the role of desire. Without it, the entire system collapses. It is the Gods’ desire that establishes intelligible ontological structures prior to the intellectual ontic organizations that frame our existence and have some degree of “independence” as non-divine – although, the Gods encompass all things. The Demiurge’s desire is expressed as an intelligence that has as its “pattern of life” the unified intellectual form of an entity whose intelligible existence is prior in the sense of the “patterning” for all life patterns, rather than a singular object over others. Christ’s manifestation as demiurge is him thinking Chokmah intellectually what she is intelligibly, an intelligibility established by this very distance although intended by Chokmah and thus also manifested by her in another sense. This something that is the case in some way for all Three intellectual Fathers, whom are the Trinity of the Christian Cosmos, in my reading, although we should note that the sense of “Father” in the Proclean reading and the Trinitarian reading are different, with different roles, hence why I can put them side by side without fear of conflict.

Because of this peculiar manner of divine manifestation, I can agree with Sophiology that “She is the divine splendor, the Shekinah, the entire content of the divine essence resplendently manifest and brilliantly burning with love in and among the Three Persons.”[iii] Indeed, their desire for themselves qua intellectual Fathers, is their desire for each other, insofar as, this desire, in its manifestation as the cause of their integrity as Fathers and as a Triad/Trinity, is Sophia/Chokmah herself. In essence, for Christ (for example), his henadic unity roots his desire to be demiurge. This desire manifests as intending the two Fathers who will be prior to him, co-establishing them (with the Fathers themselves), and intending the paradigm they will mediate, “objectifying” them all within himself, and producing all that comes after Him from this very desire. The harmonious co-desiring among the fathers differentiates them, and the desiring of the paradigm for demiurgic purposes establishes Christ as the “icon” of the Cosmos, its maker. The desire for the three Fathers to their particular roles and relations is manifest as them being unique manifestations/hypostases of the One Sophia, the “divine essence” from which this Trinity holds together.

If I were to venture a creative explanation - one that is not explicitly explained by Butler, but which, limited as it is, might express something of how I currently understand this, I would put it in this way, with the note that the First, Second, and Third Intellectual Fathers are here spoken of as the trinitarian “Father”, “Spirit”, and “Son” respectively, insofar as I am, with my Lady’s help, synthesizing this for the Christian Cosmos:

In the Intelligible-Intellectual Space established by the Pantheon, the Father emerges as the intelligible locus of intellectual determination, pouring forth through intelligence its subsequents within this established space and thus establishing narrativity as its beginning. One might say that, if the “prior” orders establish intelligible space as one or several dimensions, the Father establishes intelligible time as a dimension, in an extensive intelligible space-time, prior to “Time” as an Intellectual God itself. These two senses of “Time” probably deserve their own elaboration, but that is another topic. What is important here is the Father as a providential Intellect that establishes the narrativity that will be important in the diacritical differentiation of Intellects. The Spirit is the mediator between Father and Son, the very Intellectual “Motion” that carries forth this narrativity. The Son, finally, is the intellectual locus for what is gifted in narrativity and carried forth in its intellectual motion. The Father manifests the Chokmah as Intelligible Intellect, with emphasis on the “intelligible” aspect. The Spirit manifests Chokmah as Life, the summit of the Vivific Intelligible-Intellectual orders, of which She is an intellectual determination qua activity. The Son manifests Chokmah as Paradigm, the divine pattern of life that will be produced as the whole Cosmos in each entity. Insofar as the paradigm is animality, which in the mythico-symbolic language Christianity inherited from the Enochic stream of Judaism, is known as humanity, Christ is here the premier human, the shining splendor of Wisdom as Paradigm, the icon of the Father prior qua intelligible, the mirror of the Spirit as Life. This transcendent immanence of Chokmah within the three is not in the manner of Father prior to Son. It is in each according to an aspect, according to their will as they who choose her as intelligible intellect, as life, and as paradigm. But this is not a disconnected process. The Father’s manifestation is his existential unity manifest in a space united by Gods in common united by the intelligible unity of the Intelligible Intellect. The Son’s manifestation as demiurge is rooted in the desire for the paradigm he “sees”, positing a distance that is only bridged by the Spirit, a distance, that intellectually, can only lead to and properly stop, at the Father. Thus, The Father, Son, and Spirit are united in perichoresis, but it is the Son that “sees” the paradigm, and this distance indicates that he sees Chokmah in the “face” of his Father as Himself, since reversion on proper causes is also reversion on self. Since Chokmah’s desire is the medium of self-integrity for all that choose her has paradigm, she is the very power that manifests the desire of Son for Father, and in another mode of Father for Son, and the Spirit as the Love that bridges them; another mode, because the Father’s exemplification of Chokmah as Intelligible Intellect does not exclude the fact of the implicitness of animality within this exemplification, just as the exemplification of Life in the Spirit does not exclude it, nor the Son’s exemplification of animality does not exclude the implicitness of intelligibility require for this animality to be. She is also the power that manifests the desire of each for themselves as whatever intelligence they are. Thus they contain each other. The Father desires Son in the Son’s desire for the Father, in the Spirit’s motion of infinite fulfilment of this desire, which establishes their distinction in self unity, this “pattern” of this desire, being Chokmah herself.

This expresses a complicated, fascinating, and beautiful aspect of divine self-manifestation: a God manifest in the form of another without thereby being the same as or negating the identity of that God. It is surely the case that the three Fathers, the three “hypostases”, are their own persons, and yet their “substance”, which are of a common intellectual divine essence, are ultimately Chokmah. A Proclean might then agree with Bulgakov that Sophia is not the “fourth hypostasis of the Trinity”, but the very substance of their subsistence as hypostases of the trinity, the “divine essence itself” in trinitarian hypostatic subsistence. But the Proclean would also say this is only so intellectually, since it is the founding ontology for a particular cosmos, for Sophia, qua Intelligible Paradigm, is beyond intellectual determination, even if this is not so in a manner as to threaten the autonomy of the Trinity in question. She is also still a Henad, a Goddess who has her own autonomy, and who is free to have other activities beyond the Christian Cosmos, for what would explain her own life as a Goddess prior to Christianity and in non-Christian places after Christianity’s emergence? Surely not some evil, since it is the source of so much Good. But this is a tenuous argument. I can make better ones. Suffice to say I don’t think allegorizing her away or reducing her to simply the Bulgakovian solution is ultimately possible, as true and valid in its own sphere as the Bulgakovian solution is.

These two loci are critical for the third not officially mentioned but which I think exists, and would answer the question of whether or not Chokmah is manifest further apart from primary paradigmatic activity. But here, I have to end. May She, who is the Sun of each Soul, enlighten us, to her unity and ours, Amen.

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[i] Edward P Butler, “Esoteric City: Theological Hermeneutics in Plato’s Republic,” 2014.

[ii] Edward P Butler, “Animal and Paradigm in Plato,” 2014, accessed November 25, 2021.

[iii] “The Lively God of Sergius Bulgakov: Reflections on The Sophiology of Death | Eclectic Orthodoxy,” accessed October 2, 2022, https://afkimel.wordpress.com/2021/12/15/the-lively-god-of-sergius-bulgakov-reflections-on-the-sophiology-of-death/.