The Pillar and Ground of the Truth

Introduction

“The Pillar and Ground of the Truth”, its title taken from 1 Timothy 3:15, grew out of Florensky’s master’s thesis “On Religious Truth” (1912) and appeared in Moscow in 1914 with the subtitle “An Essay in Orthodox Theodicy in Twelve Letters”. Addressed to an unnamed friend, the letters treat doubt, the Trinity, contradiction, sin, creation, Sophia, friendship and jealousy. Florensky argues that truth is antinomic: the deepest statements of faith join thesis and antithesis, and reason can accept them only through an act of love that leads into the life of the Church. Admired by many in the religious renaissance, it was criticised by Berdyaev as “stylised Orthodoxy” and by others for its aestheticism and for a sophiology that some theologians found hard to reconcile with Orthodox doctrine.

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