Francis Berger
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Berdyaev's Concept of Personality is Another Way of Understanding the Divine Self

6/12/2022

5 Comments

 
Personality is a key concept in Nikolai Berdyaev's Christian philosophy, and he describes personality as that unique essence in each individual that correlates to God. The more an individual moves toward God, the more pronounced and defined his personality becomes.

Above all else, this movement of man toward God is not based on coercion, force, or violence, but on a free decision grounded in love. The correlation requires man to take the first step because God will not violate human freedom, but once that first step is taken, God will begin to aid the individual in revealing personality.

Berdyaev's concept of personality extends far beyond psychological and drills down into the spiritual, which makes it simultaneously easy to comprehend but difficult to nail down. For example, Berdyaev dedicates more than thirty pages in Slavery and Freedom to delineating what personality is. He begins by declaring the importance of personality:

The entire world is nothing in comparison with human personality, the unique person of a man, with his unique fate. 

And immediately follows this up with: 

Personality is like nothing else in the world, there is nothing with which it can be compared, nothing which can be placed on a level with it.

To my understanding, Berdyaev's concept of personality does not address the conscious, superficial, ego "personality self" but the the true self, real self, or divine self -- that true, individual part of us that is divine and active within us.

Later in Slavery and Freedom, Berdyaev states: 

Personality is the absolute existential center. Personality determines itself from within, outside the whole object world, and only determination from within and arising out of freedom, is personality. 

He then outlines personality as the conduit for divine-human connection and correlation: 

The image of the human personality is not only a human image, it is also the image of God. In that fact lie hidden all the enigmas and mysteries of man. It is the mystery of divine-humanity, which is the paradox that cannot be expressed in rational terms. 

And what, exactly, is personality meant to do to tackle these enigmas and mysteries?

Personality is bound up with the consciousness of vocation. Every man ought to be conscious of that vocation, which is independent of the extent of his gifts. It is a vocation in an individually unrepeatable form to give an answer to the call of God and put one's gifts to creative use. 

Which leads to the matter of how Berdyaev believes an individual can answer the call of God: 

Personality is conscious of itself, listens to the inward voice, and obeys that only. It is not submissive to outside voices. The greatest among men have always listened exclusively to the inward voice and have refused to conform so far as the world is concerned. 

So what happens after an individual has answered the call the God? According to Berdyaev: 

. . . personality is defined above all not by its relation to society and the cosmos, not by its relation to the world which is enslaved by objectivization, but by its relation to God, and from this hidden and cherished inward relation it draws strength for its free relation to the world and to man. 

Ironically enough, becoming attuned to Berdyaev's conceptualization of the divine self as "personality" requires overcoming what we consciously perceive as personality -- those surface-level, socialized, rationalized, and civilized aspects of ourselves that we believe comprise our true selves.   

Throughout Slavery and Freedom, Berdyaev refers to personality as "activity, opposition, and victory over the dragging burden of the world, the triumph of freedom over the world's slavery . . . personality is effort and conflict, the conquest of the self and of the world, victory over slavery . . . "

And what must personality do to achieve this triumph of freedom over the world's slavery? 

Personality must perform its self-existent, original, creative acts, and this alone makes it personality and constitutes its unique value. 

But all of the above requires the movement of an individual toward God. The correlation begins in personality, but it requires us to take the first step toward Christ, who is the living, breathing "personification" of personality as Berdyaev defines it. 
5 Comments
Amo Boden
6/12/2022 23:40:56

Thank you for this.

Reply
edwin faust
6/13/2022 19:45:09

I think there is a danger in dismissing the so-called superficial ego personality as being distinct from the real self. It brings us closer to the monism of advaita and buddhism, in which the individual is dissolved into some posited pure consciousness that can be expressed in Western terms as the Divine Self. Personality is the heart of our mystery and the temptation to reduce it to a false self and reject it or merge it into a Divine or Christ-self, which can amount to the same thing, is especially strong in our age. Whatever admirable things Berdyaev may have said, he strikes me as someone unlikely to provide solace and light to ordinary people. The circumstances in which we find ourselves are given us as the context in which we can realize our personality in Christ. Usually this happens in unspectacular ways - a kind word or gesture, the restraint of selfish and sensual inclinations, simply being alive to the astounding fact of life itself, reading and sitting with the words of the New Testament for a time. Grand abstractions and attempts to define personality objectively may not be all that useful to most of us. But I appreciate your interest and efforts, as personality is the key to all understanding. But I don't think it can be expressed outside of individual actions and dispositions. I don't know if this comment helps throw light on the matter, but I was moved to say a few words.

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Francis Berger
6/13/2022 20:36:06

@ edwin - I think you've misconstrued the gist of this post a bit.

Berdyaev's concept of personality has nothing whatsoever to do with oneness religions. He does not advocate for the individual to dissolve or merge with God, but to correlate with God personally, with God being one of the persons and the individual the other. The ultimate goal is to form a creative relationship, with God as Creator and the individual as co-creator.

You mention realizing personality in Christ. This is much closer to what Berdyaev means, but once again, it does not involve any sort of merging with Christ consciousness, but in discovering our "true" selves with Christ as our guide.

Personality is revelatory, not dissolving. There's nothing abstract or objective about it. On the contrary, its extremely real and subjective. Note, overcoming superficial aspects of our personalities is not synonymous with rejecting them. It is one thing to reject; quite another to overcome.

Individual actions and dispositions are vital to the uniqueness Berdyaev describes, but discovering this uniqueness does involve overcoming false and superficial aspects of ourselves.

Having said that, I agree with your observation that thinkers like Berdyaev will unlikely provide solace or light to ordinary people, which is exactly as it should be because most ordinary people are too terrified of freedom to begin contemplating anything Berdyaev has to offer.

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John Venlet link
6/13/2022 22:04:52

I think it is also important to note that God has ALWAYS been moving towards us since the creation of the universe. His hand is always reaching out to us, we do not have to go searching for His hand or His Love. Reach out to Him and He will reach out to you.

Reply
Francis Berger
6/14/2022 11:44:32

@ John - Yes, well put.

We must also be aware of the manner in which we reach out to God. God may not be reaching out in the ways He did in the past. Some of the conventional, external, traditional avenues may not work as they have in the past.

Of course, this requires accepting the reality of time, and the belief that human consciousness has developed over time.

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