Authors

WALTER SISTO¹;  ¹ D'Youville University, United States

Discussion

John Haught in his important work argues that the philosopher, scientists, and theologians are conditioned to think of the “world and God in the context of ancient and medieval notions of being” which perpetuates the unfortunate impression that Christianity is “intellectually irrelevant” and “saps the ‘zest for living’ that a theological vision must sponsor if it is to make a difference in the world.” Haught persuasively argues that for Christianity to remain relevant it must engage a “‘metaphysics of the future,’ an anticipatory worldview that can accommodate in one wide vision both biblical hope and contemporary science’s unfinished universe.”
Although Haught’s challenge for Catholic theology is relatively new, the ideas he purports about theology and science are not. The Russian Sophiologists, particularly Sergius Bulgakov, provide a theological system that meets Haught’s demands. In this paper, I will elucidate his sophiological perspective. Sergius Bulgakov’s sophiology is a novel and scientifically open-ended theological system. Sophiology, to use Haught’s term, is a “metaphysic of the future.” In this paper, I will examine and explain Bulgakov’s novel approach to science in his major theological writings and draw out the implications of his sophiology for Christianity today.