Symbol and Reality in Nicolas Berdyaev -- By: Robert D. Knudsen

Journal: Westminster Theological Journal
Volume: WTJ 24:1 (Nov 1961)
Article: Symbol and Reality in Nicolas Berdyaev
Author: Robert D. Knudsen


Symbol and Reality in Nicolas Berdyaev

Robert D. Knudsen

According to Nicolas Berdyaev, a symbol is an external sign that objectivates an inner reality.1

A most basic use of symbol is in communication. In this sense a symbol is an intermediate sign, the objectification of an idea.2 A formal sign communicates a subjective meaning to someone. Thus there is the use of signs, e.g., in conversation, sign language, or even in art. In this function a symbol unites the communicating parties; but in uniting them it presupposes that they were separated and were in need of being united.3

Berdyaev uses the word “symbol” also in a broader sense. The human spirit objectivates itself, e.g., in its artifacts and institutions. These external vehicles reflect the spirit which they objectivate. Nevertheless, no deposit of spirit can contain the fullness of the spirit. It can be only symbolical, not fully representing but only indicating the reality it objectivates.4

For Berdyaev a certain sense of inadequacy attaches therefore to the term “symbolical”. The symbol is needed for communication in a world of separation, where spirit is isolated from spirit and where union is sought by means of conventional signs.5 In this sense the symbol is a function of society, serving to hold it together.6 That is true not only of the linguistic symbol but of all human laws and institutions. Indeed, it characterizes the rational function of man in general. Reason is the faculty in man, says Berdyaev, in terms of which he

adjusts to the world-process.7 Even the universal validity which reason seeks is itself social, being a means of universal communication.8 In all its manifestations it can overcome the separation in the world only in terms of external generalities.9 Reason and its concepts are adequate to the objectivated world of separation; they are inadequate to express the spiritual realities which this world objectivates.10

In further describing the world Berdyaev closely approaches the analyses of certain existentialists, notably Martin Heidegger and Gabriel Marcel. The world is the terrain of the outward, the ordinar...

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