A Summary Exposition of Nicolas Berdyaev's Truth and Revelation

A Critique of Revelation in Nicolas Berdyaev’s Truth and Revelation:

A Summary-Exposition and Reflection

This paper aimed to present Nicolas Berdyaev’s Critique of Revelation in his book Truth and Revelation.

The writer’s presentation of the topic is divided into three parts: 1. A Short Biography of Nicolas Berdyaev, 2. A brief and general summary of Truth and Revelation, 3. Summary-Exposition of Berdyaev’s Critique of Revelation, and 4. Reflections and Insights.

I. Nicolas Berdyaev: A Short Biography

Nikolai (Nicolas) Alexandrovich Berdyaev was born at Kiev in 1874 of an aristocratic family. He commenced his education in a military school and subsequently entered the Kiev University taking up law. He, however, did not graduate there for he was arrested and exiled from Kiev to the north of Russia for taking part in the socialist movement in 1898. He had broken with Marxism in company with Sergius Bulgakov shortly before his second exile, before the Revolution, that he had escaped. In 1909, he contributed to a symposium, which reaffirmed Orthodox Christianity. After the October Revolution he was appointed by the Bolshevists to a chair of philosophy in the University of Moscow, but soon fell into disfavor for his independent political opinions. He was twice imprisoned and in 1922 was expelled from the country. He settled first in Berlin, where he opened a Russian Academy of Philosophy and Religion. Thence he moved to Clamart near Paris, where he worked chiefly at the Y.M.C.A. From 1926 towards the end of 1939 he was the editor of the religious and philosophical journal PUT. He was then invited to lecture at the Sorbonne. He lived through the German occupation unmolested. After the liberation, he announced his adhesion to the Soviet government, but later an article by him published in a Paris (Russian) newspaper, criticizing the return to a policy of repression, was tantamount to a withdrawal of this.

Nicolas, in his youth,...