The Normative Implications of the Doctrine of Creatio Ex Nihilo and Nikolai Berdyaev. Towards a Renewed Christian Orthodox Understanding of Human Freedom for the Postmodern Twenty-First Century

Abstract

This paper examines the relationship between the doctrine of ‘creation out of nothing’ and the traditional Eastern Orthodox theological understanding of human freedom as submission to the Church’s teachings, regulations, and laws. Further, it explains that the established Christian Orthodox view of human freedom as submission to the Church is frequently at odds with the postmodern understanding of human freedom. Lastly, it focuses on Nikolai Berdyaev - a late 19th and early 20th century Russian religious thinker - and by analysing his philosophical interpretation of the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo, it develops a more attuned to postmodernism Christian Orthodox theological understanding of freedom which views human freedom as an absolute and unlimited choice.