Bulgakov on Gender

This article discusses Sergei Bulgakov’s theological view on gender and examines the extent to which his Trinitarian approach can be considered a response to the feminist charge of essentialism, or the view that there are properties women qua women or men qua men share which unify them, respectively. In the process, it also evaluates various charges against Bulgakov. The interpretation offered in this paper suggests that Bulgakov’s theological view is essentialist in one sense, but without evidently falling prey to the commonly voiced charge of essentialism. In order to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of Bulgakov’s view, the article outlines his Trinitarian approach along the following systematised propositions: (1) Human beings are created in the image of God. (2) All human beings share the same human nature. (3) Human nature participates in the divine nature. (4) Some human beings are male, some are female. (5) Male and female are two hypostases of human nature. (6) As male and female, human beings are created in the image of the triune God. (7) In the triune God, there are three hypostases of one divine nature: the Father (first hypostasis) revealing himself in the Son (second hypostasis) and in the Holy Spirit (third hypostasis). (8) Male human beings are created in the image of the second hypostasis of God (the Son); female human beings are created in the image of the third hypostasis of God (the Holy Spirit). (9) The fullness of the image of the triune God is present only in the duality and union of male and female human beings. (10) The relation between the two hypostases of human nature—male and female—reflects the relation between the two revealing hypostases of the divine nature, the Son and Holy Spirit, but not vice versa; the former are the images, the latter the proto-images. (11) As created in the image of the triune God, male and female human beings are the bearers of, and constituted by, male and female principles. (12) These male and female principles have both a spiritual and bodily form (that correspond to each other). (13) In the spiritual form, each human being consists—unconfusedly but inseparably—of both male and female principles. (14) As a bodily (form of the male and female) principle, biological sex is secondary to, and an authentic embodiment of, the spiritual (form of the male and female) principles. The article concludes that if one takes Bulgakov’s view one step further, one might reach the conclusion that gender has a two-fold nature: one theological and the other social—and both are related to sex, albeit in different ways.