Nicolai Berdyaev (1874-1948) was one of the most influential Russian philosophers in the West during the 20th century. In a recent paper, Professor Robert Slesinski analyzes Berdyaev’s philosophy, arguing that it centers on a radical understanding of freedom that challenges traditional Christian metaphysics. Read More
Berdyaev’s philosophical project began in pre-revolutionary Russia, where he opposed socialism by asserting that persons are ends in themselves, never merely components in a social machine. As Slesinski explains, this position aligned with Christian teaching on the absolute value of the human person as created in God’s image.
Already in exile, Berdyaev championed the novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821-1881) as a true prophet of freedom in his 1921 work The Worldview of Dostoevsky. Curiously, one of Berdyaev’s heroes was Dostoevsky’s ‘anti-hero’ from Notes from the Underground (1864) – the Underground Man, a spiteful civil servant who bemoaned how ‘normal people’ reduce individuals to automatons without free will. This character decried the impersonalization of humanity that ignores people’s true creative potential.
Central to Berdyaev’s thought is his revolutionary declaration: ‘I have put Freedom, rather than Being, at the basis of my philosophy.’ This position finds its roots in medieval German religious thought, particularly that of Jakob Boehme (1575-1624). Berdyaev draws on Boehme’s concept of the Ungrund – a primordial abyss of non-being that serves as the source of God’s being. From this Ungrund arises what Berdyaev calls primordial freedom – an elemental, creative force that defies conceptualization. According to Slesinski, this freedom rooted in primal nothingness supersedes all freedom founded in being. This represents a departure from conventional theological thinking, which grounds freedom in being rather than as preceding existence, including divine existence.
Berdyaev identified freedom, personality, and creativity as the foundational triad for human activity. This emphasis on inner personal experience over external reality means Berdyaev believes that what we choose shapes who we are more fundamentally than what we know.
Oddly enough, Berdyaev’s theistic existential philosophy finds its clearest echo in the atheistic existentialism of Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980). Whereas Berdyaev’s governing maxim is ‘personality is more primary than being’, Sartre’s stated maxim is ‘existence precedes essence’, stressing that humans first exist and only then define themselves through their life projects.
For Slesinki, both philosophers seem condemned to solipsism – the view that only the self truly exists. This isolation prompted Sartre’s famous declaration that ‘Hell is other people’, recalling the self-enclosed world of Dostoevsky’s Underground Man.
Critics argue that both Berdyaev’s and Sartre’s positions face a fundamental incoherence: how can a being be free if it does not first exist? Slesinski agrees that personality must be grounded in personhood, which requires a foundation in being. The analysis suggests that Berdyaev’s focus on abstract freedom overlooks a simpler truth: that humans are physical beings living in a concrete world. By placing freedom before existence, Berdyaev seems to disconnect people from their reality of living in a physical universe.
