Theological Journal – September 11 More Berdyaev

 “The rule of authority is a domination of man over man, inevitably passing over into violence and coercion. But spirit does not know of being the master: spirit is freedom.

 “The imagining to oneself of God as the administrator of the world order, as a monarch, as a ruling power is a distorted human conception about God, clearly taken from the social relationships of people. To God is not applicable the category of a ruling power, since it is too lowly a category for God, and it is taken from the lower spheres of social life. God has no sort of ruling power. He has less power than a policeman.

 

“God is endowed of strength of power, and not authoritative rule of power. The authoritative rule of power exists only because there is not the strength of power to take hold in the souls of people, to transform and enlighten them.... What can the knowing of truth have in common with the rule of authority? The whole of history teaches this, that the rule of authority has but wrought violence upon knowledge and has but distorted truth. The rule of authority has been guided by socio-utilitarian motives, by interests supportive of the rule of authority, and not by knowledge of truth, which always represents a danger for the established orders of the ruling authority...

 

“If for God it be impossible even to say that He is being, then even less so is it possible to say that God is a ruling power of authority, that God is a monarch and that the relationship of God to man and the world is a relationship of the power of an authoritative ruler.”