SOPHIANISM AND TRENDS IN RUSSIAN INTELLECTUAL THEOLOGY
Protopresbyter Michael Pomazansky
The Question of Dogmatic Development
The theme of dogmatic development long ago became a subject of discussion in theological literature: can one accept, from the Church's point of view, the development of dogmas, or not? In the majority of cases, an argument about words ensues: a divergence comes about because a different connotation is applied to the term "development." Is "development" to be understood as a setting forth of what is already known, or as the disclosure of something new?
The common view of theological thought acknowledges that the Church conscience, being guided by the Holy Spirit, is the one and the same in its essence from the Apostles to the end of the (earthly pilgrimage) of the Church. The Christian teaching, the extent and comprehension of Divine Revelation, is unchanged. The doctrine of the Church does not develop and Church self-consciousness does not become any richer, deeper and wider with the passing of the centuries, than it was with the Apostles. The content of the Faith delivered by the Apostles is not subject to supplement. Although the Church is always led by the Holy Spirit, we do not see and do not expect new dogmatic revelations in the history of the Church.
The above understanding of the question about dogmatic development was generally present in Russian theology in the 19th century. What appeared to be a difference in the opinions of various persons on this question was really only a point of discussion. In discussions with Protestants, it was natural to defend the right of the Church to have set forth dogmas, in the sense that the Councils had the right to pronounce and sanction dogmatic positions. In discussions with Latins, it was necessary to refute arbitrary dogmatic novelties created by the Roman Church in later times, and thus to speak against the principle of the creation of new dogmas not delivered by the Church in ancient times. In particular, the Old Catholics, nearer to Orthodoxy, with both sides rejecting the Vatican dogma of papal infallibility - strengthened in Russian theological thought the conservative point of view on the question of dogmatic development, the view which does not approve of the establishment of new dogmatic definitions.
In the 1880's we meet with another approach to this given question. V. S. Soloviev, who was inclined toward a union of Orthodoxy with the Roman Church, wished to justify the dogmatic development of the Latins, and he defended the idea of the development of the dogmatic conscience of the Church. "The Body of Christ," he argued, "changes and becomes complete like any organism"; the original "testament" of Faith in the history of Christianity is being uncovered and elucidated; "Orthodoxy stands not merely by antiquity, but by the eternally living Spirit of God."
Not only Soloviev's sympathy for the Latins, but also his own personal religious-philosophical make-up impelled him to defend the point of view of (this type of) development. This included his idea about Sophia - God's Wisdom, about Theanthropism as an historical process, and others. In the 1890's, Soloviev, captivated by his own metaphysical system, began to spread the teaching of the "eternal Feminine Principle" which, he says,
Is not only an inert image in God's mind, but a living spiritual being, possessing all the fullness of power and action. The whole world and historical process is a process of its realization and incarnation in a great diversity of forms and degrees... The heavenly object of our love is only one, always and for everyone one and the same - the eternal Feminine Principle of God...
Thus, a series of new conceptions began to enter into Russian religious thought. These concepts did not evoke special rebuttals in Russian theological studies because they were emitted more as philosophical thought rather than theological.
By means of his literary and oratorical skills, Soloviev was able to inspire an interest in religious problems among wide circles of Russian intellectual society. Nevertheless, this interest became merged with a turning away from the authentic Orthodox system of thought. This was expressed, for example, at the Petersburg "Religious-Philosophical Meetings" of 1901-1903. Here the questions were raised: "Can one consider the dogmatic teaching of the Church to be complete? Can one not expect new revelations? In what can the new religious-creative genius in Christianity be expressed and by what means can it remain in accord with Holy Scripture and with the Tradition of the Church, with the definitions of the Ecumenical Councils and with the teachings of the Holy Fathers?" Especially characteristic were discussions about "dogmatic development."
In the beginning of the present century, there appeared in Russian religious-social thought, the expectation of an awakening of a "new religious conscience" on Orthodox soil. Thoughts began to germinate that theology must not fear new revelations, that dogmatics must make wider use of a rational basis, that it cannot completely ignore contemporary personal prophetic inspiration, that the circle of basic dogmatic problems is subject to expansion, so that dogmatics must come to present itself as a full philosophical-theological system of the contemplation of the world. The original ideas put forth by Soloviev, first among them the matter of Sophianism, were developed into a second phase. The eminent representatives of the new current were the priest Paul Florensky (The Pillar and Ground of Truth, etc.) and Serge N. Bulgakov, later Archpriest (his later Sophianistic compositions include The Undimming Light, The Unburning Bush, Hypostasis and Hypostasity, Friend of the Bridegroom, God's Lamb, The Comforter, John's Revelation, etc.
In connection with these propositions, it is natural for us to raise the question: does dogmatic science, in its accepted structure, satisfy the need of a Christian to form a complete world outlook? If dogmatics refuses to acknowledge the principle of development, does it not remain a lifeless collection of incomplete dogmas?
It must be said with all conviction that the circle of revealed truths which compose the (Orthodox) system of dogmatic theology provides a complete opportunity to form a high and, simultaneously, a clear and simple world-view. Dogmatic theology, built on the foundation of solid dogmatic truths, speaks of a Personal God inexpressibly close to us, Who does not need a mediator between Himself and His creature, about God in Holy Trinity (Eph. 4:6) - above us (i.e., our Sovereign) with us and in us; about God Who loves His creation, loves man, and condescends to our infirmities, not depriving His creatures of freedom. It speaks of man and mankind, his lofty destiny and high spiritual possibilities, and, at the same time, it speaks of his pitiful real moral level, his fall. It presents paths and means for a return to the lost paradise, paths and means which were revealed by the Incarnation and death on the Cross of the Son of God, and a path to the attainment of eternal blessed life. All this is vitally necessary truth. Here, faith and life, knowledge and the application of it in action are undivided.
Dogmatic science does not claim to satisfy every aspect of the searching of the human mind. There is no doubt that Divine Revelation has revealed to our spiritual eyes only a small part of the knowledge of God and the spiritual world. We see, as the Apostle Paul says, through a glass, darkly. An immeasurable expanse of the mysteries of God remains unknown to us.
It is necessary to point out that the attempts to widen the boundaries of theology on a mystical or on a rational basis, which have appeared both in ancient and modern times, do not bring about a fuller knowledge of God and the world. These devices lead into the forest of narrow mental speculations and set new difficulties before the mind. The main one is the nebulous deliberations about the internal life in God. We witness them (these deliberations) in certain theologians who, having embarked upon the path of philosophizing in theology, do not enter into a direct feeling of reverence, an awareness and feeling of the nearness and holiness of God, and, in fact, they stifle this feeling.
These considerations do not mean that all development in the area of dogmatics is negative. What is subject to development?
The history of the Church shows that there has never been an increase in the quantity of dogmas in the most precise meaning of the word. It was not dogmas that were developed, but the area of dogmatics opened up until it reached its limits, given by the Holy Scripture.
In other words, an increasing number of the truths of the Faith received an exact formulation at the Ecumenical Councils, or in general have been confirmed by Ecumenical Councils. The work of the Church in this direction consisted in defining dogmatic issues, drawing their explanations from God's word, confirming them by Sacred Tradition and proclaiming them to all believers. In this work of the Church, the quantity and extent of dogmatic truths always remains one and the same. In view of the invasion of non-Orthodox opinions and teachings, the Church sanctions one dogmatic thesis - Orthodox, and rejects others - heretical. We cannot negate the fact that, thanks to the defining of dogmas, the content of the Faith became clearer in the conscience of the members of the Church and in the Church hierarchy itself.
Dogmatic science is subject, moreover, to development. Dogmatic science can become diverse in method, be completed with study material, used more broadly or more narrowly with exegetical material, scriptural philology, Church history, writings of the Holy Fathers and can also be used with rational considerations. It can more strongly or moderately respond to a heresy, false teaching, and various currents of contemporary religious thought. But theological science is an external subject in relationship to the spiritual life of the Church. It only studies the work of the Church and Her dogmatic and other definitions. Dogmatic theology, like science, can be developed itself, but it cannot develop and perfect the teaching of the Church. The blossoming or decline of theological science may or may not coincide with the general level of the spiritual life within the Church at any given historical period. The development of theological science can be halted without any loss to spiritual life. Theological science is not called upon to guide the Church: rather, it is obligated to seek for and strictly adhere to the guidance of the Church conscience.
We have been permitted to know what is necessary for the good of our souls. Knowledge about God, Divine life, and Divine Providence is given to people in the measure in which it has a direct moral, vital application. We are taught this by the Apostle Peter when he writes:
According as His divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness... giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, and to virtue knowledge, and to knowledge temperance, and to temperance patience, and to patience godliness, and to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness charity. - II Peter 1:3-7
For the Christian, the essential thing is moral perfection. All the rest, which God's Word and the Church give, is a means to this basic aim.
Philosophy and Theology
Contemporary theological thought has become penetrated with the notion that Christian dogmatic theology must be "fertilized," enlightened by philosophical principles, and must assimilate philosophical understanding.
Vladimir Soloviev defines his task, in the first lines of his works (History and the Future Theocracy), thus: "To justify the faith of our fathers, to raise it to a new step of intelligent conscience..." There would be nothing reprehensible in a task such as the one formulated here. Nevertheless, it is necessary to be cautious of any mixing of two fields - dogmatic science and philosophy - a mixing which is ready to bring about an entanglement and obscurement of them, their content, and their methods.
In the first centuries of Christianity, Church writers and the Fathers of the Church generally responded to the challenge of their time regarding philosophical ideas, and made use of concepts which had been worked out by philosophy. Why? By this they were building a bridge from Greek philosophy to Christianity. Christianity appeared as a world-view which must replace the philosophical views of the classical world, being above them. Then, having become in the fourth century the official religion of the state, it was called by the state itself to take the place of all systems of world-views which had existed up to that time. This is demonstrated by the fact that at the First Ecumenical Council, a dispute took place between Christian teachers of the Faith and a "Philosopher." But more than a "replacement" was needed. Christian apologetics took up the task of taking hold of pagan philosophical thought and directing its understanding into the channel of Christianity. The ideas of Plato stood before Christian writers as a stage in paganism preparatory to Divine Revelation. Moreover, by the force of things, Orthodoxy had to struggle with Arianism not so much on the ground of Holy Scripture as against a philosophical path, since Arianism took its basic error from Greek philosophy, namely, the teaching about the Logos as being a mediating principle between God and the world, but a principle which stands lower than the Divinity Itself. In all this, however, the thought of the Holy Fathers was such that all truths of the Christian Faith are based on the foundation of Divine Revelation and not on rational abstract reasonings. St. Basil the Great, in his treatise, "What Benefit Can Be Drawn from Pagan Works," gives examples of how to use the instructive material contained in these writings. With the universal spread of Christian concepts, the reference toward Greek philosophy was gradually extinguished in the writing of the Holy Fathers.
This is understandable. Theology and philosophy differ first of all in their content. The Saviour's teaching on earth proclaimed to people not abstract ideas, but a new life for God's kingdom. The Apostles' preaching was a preaching of salvation in Christ. Thus, Christian dogmatic theology has as its central goal a complete examination of the teaching about salvation, about its necessity, and about the path to it. According to its basic content, theology is soteriological (from the Greek: ??????? - salvation). Dogmatic theology treats questions of ontology (the essence of existence) - about God in Himself, about the essence of the world and the nature of man - in a more limited aspect. This occurs not only because they are given to us in such a limited aspect in the Holy Scripture, but also according to [limited] psychological principles. Silence concerning the internal life in God is an expression of the vital feeling of God's omnipresence, reverence before God, and awe of God. In the Old Testament this feeling led to an awe of saying God's name. Only in the ascent of reverent feeling did the thought of the Fathers of the Church rise, in individual moments, to the contemplation of the inner Divine Life. The main area of their contemplation is the truth of the Holy Trinity which is revealed in the New Testament. The whole of Orthodox Christian theology also proceeds along this line.
Philosophy sets out along a different path. It is mainly interested in the questions of ontology: the essence of existence, about the unity of existence, about the relationship between absolute fundamentals and the world in its concrete phenomena, etc. Philosophy, by its nature, proceeds from skepticism, from doubt in what has been received, even including faith in God...it examines God "objectively," as with an object of cold, indifferent knowledge, an object which is subject to a rational examination, definition, and explanation of its essence, its relationship, as an absolute existence, to the world of phenomena.
These two areas - dogmatic theology and philosophy - also differ in their sources and methods.
The source for theological work is Divine Revelation which is contained in the Holy Scripture and Sacred Tradition. The fundamental character of Sacred Scripture and Tradition depends on our faith in their truth. Theology gathers and studies material which is found in these sources, systematizes it, assesses it, using in its work those very processes which experienced sciences use.
Philosophy is rational, abstract. It proceeds not from faith, as with theology, but seeks to be based either on undebatable intellectual theses, reaching further conclusions from them, or on scientific data or common human knowledge. Thus, it can hardly be said that philosophy is capable of raising the religion of the Fathers to the degree of knowledge.
Nevertheless, the differences indicated do not fundamentally reject the possible collaboration of the two given fields. Philosophy itself arrives at the deduction that there are boundaries which the human mind, because of its nature, is not in a condition to cross over. The fact that the history of philosophy reveals two currents - idealistic and materialistic - indicates that the construction (of philosophy) depends upon the personal predisposition of the mind and heart. In other words, (philosophy) leans upon fundamentals which lie beyond the boundary of proof. That which lies beyond the boundary of proof is the realm of faith: of negative, non-religious faith, or of positive, religious faith. For the religious mind, that which is "beyond the boundary" is the sphere of Divine Revelation.
It would appear, at this point, that there is a possibility for cooperation in the two areas of inquiry: theology and philosophy. This is the way religious philosophy is created; and in Christianity, this means Christian philosophy.
There is, however, a difficult path in Christian religious philosophy: to unite the freedom of the mind, as a principle of philosophy, with faithfulness to dogmas and all the teachings of the Church. "Go along the open road, whither the mind attracts you," calls the duty of philosophers. "Be faithful to Divine Truth," the duty of a Christian says. Therefore, one must always expect that in a practical realization, the composers of Christian philosophical systems will be forced to sacrifice, voluntarily or involuntarily, the principles of the one area for the use of the other. Church conscience greets sincere experiments in the creation of a harmonious philosophical-Christian contemplation of the world. But, the Church looks upon them as private, personal creations and does not sanction them with its authority. In any case, a clear delineation between dogmatic theology and Christian philosophy is necessary, and all attempts to transform dogmatics into Christian philosophy must be decisively rejected.
Observations About the Religious-Philosophical System of Vladimir Soloviev
The thrust toward new currents in Russian philosophical-theological thought was given, as we said, by Vladimir S. Soloviev, who set forth as his task "to justify the Faith of the fathers" before the reason of his contemporaries. Unfortunately, he entered into a series of direct diversions from an Orthodox Christian pattern of thought - and many of those diversions are accepted and developed by his followers.
Below are series of points in Soloviev's thinking which differ from, and even directly turn away from, confessed Church doctrines.
1.He represents Christianity as a higher stage in the successive development of religion.
According to Soloviev, all religions are true, but one-sided; Christianity synthesizes the positive sides of preceding religions. He writes, "Just as eternal nature is only gradually revealed to the mind of man and mankind, and as a result of this we must also speak of the development of experimental or natural science, so also the divine basis is gradually revealed to the conscience of mankind, and we must speak of the development of religious experience and of religious thinking... Religious development is a positive and objective process, it is a real reciprocal action of God and man - a God-man process. It is clear," continues Soloviev, "that.. .neither any one of its steps, nor any one of the moments of the religious process can be in itself a lie or an error. 'False religion' is a contradiction in terms."
2.The teaching about the salvation of the world, in the form that it was given by the Apostles, is set aside.
According to Soloviev, Christ came to earth not in order "to save the human race, but in order to raise it to a higher level in the order of a successive revelation of the divine basis in the world - of the ascent and deification of mankind and the world. Christ is the highest link in a series of theophanies, the crowning link of former theophanies."
3.Soloviev focuses theological attention directly on the ontological aspect of existence, i.e., on the life of God within Himself and, because of an insufficiency of data in the Holy Scripture, the mind runs into an arbitrary conclusion, either rational or founded on fantasy.
4.He introduced into the Divine Life a creature called Sophia (Wisdom), which stands on the boundary between Divinity and the created world.
5.A differentiation between masculine and feminine principles (or, bases) is introduced into the Divine Life.
With Soloviev, it is somewhat subdued. Father Paul Florensky, following Soloviev, presents Sophia thus: "This is a great, reigning and feminine Being, which, being neither God nor the eternal Son of God, nor angel, nor a holy person, receives honor from both the concluder of the Old Testament and founder of the New" (Pillar and Ground of Truth).
6.There is introduced into Divine Life an elementary principle of striving which is compelled by the God-Logos Himself to participate in a definite process, which submits Him to that process - to raise the world from the condition of pure materiality and stagnation to the higher, most perfect form of existence.
7.God, as absolute, is God the Father, presented as distant and inaccessible to the world and to man. He is withdrawn from the world, despite God's word, into an inaccessible region of existence. As absolute existence, He has no contact with relative existence, with the world of phenomena. Thus, according to Soloviev, a Mediator is necessary between the Absolute and the world. Such a Mediator is the "Logos," Who was made incarnate in Christ.
8.According to Soloviev, the first Adam united in himself a divine and human nature similar to their correlation in the theanthropic nature of the Incarnate Word. Only, he violated this correlation. If this were so then the deification of man is not only a Graceful consecration of man, but is a restoration in him of theanthropicness, a restoration of two natures. This is not, however, in accord with the teaching of the Church, which understands deification solely as Grace-endowed. "There has never been and will never be," says Saint John of Damascus, "another person consisting of Divinity and humanity" aside from Jesus Christ.
9.Soloviev writes, "God is the All-mighty Creator and the Almighty, but not the ruler over the earth and the creatures which come from it... Divinity is incommensurable with earthly creation and can have a moral-practical relationship (of authority, domination, direction) toward them only under the mediation of a man who, as a demigod, is commensurable with both Divinity and with material nature. Thus, man is a necessary subject of the true sovereignty of God" (Truth and the Future of Theocracy).
This statement is unacceptable from the point of view of the glory and power of God and, as we said, it contradicts God's word. Moreover, it does not even withstand a simple observation. Man submits himself to nature not in God's name, as a mediator between God and the world, but for his personal egoistic aims and needs.
The several points of diversion of the views of Soloviev from the teachings of the Church, as noted here, indicate that, for the Orthodox conscience, the religious system of Soloviev is inadmissible in its entirety.
God's Wisdom (Sophia) in Scripture
We encounter the word "wisdom" (sophia) in the sacred books of both the Old and New Testaments.
In the New Testament Holy Scripture, it is used in three senses:
1.In the ordinary broad sense of wisdom, sapience: Jesus increased in wisdom and stature and grace (Luke 2:25); But wisdom is justified of all her children (Luke 7:35).
2.In the sense of God's wise economy which is expressed in the creation of the world, in the providence of God to the world, and in the salvation of the world from sin: ? the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! For who hath known the mind of the Lord, or who hath been His counselor? (Rom. 11:33-34). We speak of the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory (I Cor. 2:7).
3.In relationship to the Son of God, as the Personal (hypostatic) Wisdom of God: But we preach Christ crucified... Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God (I Cor. 1:23-24); Who of God is made unto us wisdom (I Cor. 1:30).
In the Old Testament Holy Scripture, we find wisdom spoken of in many places. Here, too, the term has three meanings. Wisdom is especially spoken of in the Book of Proverbs and in two of the deutero-canonical books: The Wisdom of Solomon and Ecclesiastics (Wisdom of Sirach).
a. In the majority of cases, these works present human wisdom as a gift from God, which must be greatly valued. The names of the books themselves, Wisdom of Solomon, Wisdom of Sirach indicate that we must understand the word in the sense of human wisdom. In other Old Testament books separate episodes are cited which specially depict human wisdom - for example, the famous judgement of Solomon.
These books introduce us to the direction of thought of divinely inspired teachers of the Jewish nation. These teachers inspire the people to be guided by their minds and not by blind inclinations and passions, and to be diligent in ordering their lives with prudence, sound judgment, moral law, and a firm foundation of duty in personal, family, and social life. A significant part of the Book of Proverbs is dedicated to this theme. The title of this book, Book of Proverbs, informs the reader that he will encounter in it a figurative, metaphorical, and allegorical means of exposition. In the introduction to the book, after indicating its purpose, which is to give "understanding, wisdom, and instruction," the author expresses the assurance that a wise man...will understand a parable, and a dark speech, the sayings of the wise also, and riddles (Prov. 1:6, Septuagint), that is, he will understand the imagery and similitudes of poetically woven speech, its "hard sayings" (Prov. 1:3), not accepting all the images in the literal sense.
In truth, on further examination, one finds an abundance of images and personifications in the application of the wisdom that man can possess. Acquire wisdom, acquire understanding... Say unto wisdom, thou art my sister; and call understanding thy kinswoman (Prov. 7:4).Forsake it not, and it shall cleave to thee; love it, and it shall keep thee... Secure it, and it shall exalt thee; honor it, that it may embrace thee; that it may give unto thy head a crown of graces, and may cover thee with a crown of delight (Prov. 4:6,8,9 Septuagint). For she sitteth by the gates of princes, and singeth in the entrances (Prov. 8:3, Septuagint). The book, Wisdom of Solomon, also contains similar thoughts about human wisdom.
Of course, none of these discourses on wisdom can in any manner be construed to teach of a hypostatic Wisdom, of a "soul of the world" in the sophianistic sense. One possesses wisdom, acquires it, loses it, it serves him, its beginning is termed as being the fear of the Lord, and we find "reason," "justice," and "knowledge" placed on the same level with it.
b. And where does wisdom come from? Like everything else in the world, it has a single source: God. For the Lord giveth wisdom, and from His presence come knowledge and understanding (Prov. 2:6). God is the guide even of wisdom and the corrector of the wise (Wisdom of Solomon 7:15).
A second group of utterances in Holy Scripture refer to this wisdom of God, which is the wisdom in God Himself. Ideas of the wisdom in God are interspaced with ideas of the wisdom in man.
If dignity of understanding and wisdom are so exalted, then how majestic are they in God Himself! The writer uses the most majestic expressions possible in order to present the power and grandeur of Divine Wisdom. Here also he makes broad use of personification. He speaks of the grandeur of the Divine plan which, according to our human conceptions, seem to have proceeded the creation: because the wisdom of God lies at the foundation of all that exists. The Lord made me the beginning of His ways for His works. He established me before time was in the beginning, before He made the earth, even before He made the depths... Before all hills, He begetteth me... When He prepared the heaven, I was present with Him (Prov. 8:22-25, 27, Septuagint). The author speaks of the beauty of the world, expressing in images what was said of the creation in the book of Genesis (it was very good). He says on behalf of wisdom: / was by Him. I was that wherein He took delight: and daily I rejoiced in His presence continually (Prov. 8:30).
In all the above-cited images of wisdom, and other similar ones, there are no grounds for seeing in a direct sense any personal spiritual being, distinct from God Himself, a soul of the world or an idea of the world. This does not correspond to the images given here: an ideal "essence of the world" could not be called "present" at the creation of the world (see the Wisdom of Solomon 9:9); only something outside both the Creator and the creation could be "present." Likewise, it could not be an "implement" of the creation if it itself is the soul of the created world. Therefore, in the above-cited expressions it is natural to see personifications (a literary device), even though they are so expressive as to be nearly an hypostases or actual person.
c. Finally, the writer of the book of Proverbs is prophetically exalted in thought to the prefiguration of the New Testament economy of God which is to be revealed in the preaching of the Saviour of the world, in the salvation of the world and mankind, and in the creation of the New Testament Church. This prefiguration is to be found in the first verses of the ninth chapter of Proverbs: Wisdom hath built a house for herself, and set up seven pillars. She hath killed her beasts: she hath mingled her wine in a bowl... (Prov. 9:1-6, Septuagint). This magnificent image is equal in power to the prophecies of the Saviour in the Old Testament prophets.
Since the economy of salvation was performed by the Son of God, the Holy Fathers of the Church, and following them the Orthodox interpreters of the book of Proverbs in general, refer to the name "wisdom of God," which essentially belongs to the Holy Trinity as a whole, to the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, the Son of God, as the Fulfiller of the Counsel of the Holy Trinity.
By analogy with this prophetic passage, the images in the book of Proverbs which were indicated above as referring to the wisdom in God (in chapter 8) are also interpreted as applying to the Son of God. When the Old Testament writers, to whom the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity was not entirely revealed, say In wisdom hath He made them all - for a New Testament believer, a Christian, in the name "Word" and in the name "Wisdom" is revealed the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, the Son of God.
The Son of God, as a Hypostasis of the Holy Trinity, contains in Himself all the Divine attributes in the same fullness as do the Father and the Holy Spirit. However, as having manifested these attributes to the world in its creation and its salvation, He is called the Hypostatic Wisdom of God. On the same grounds, the Son of God can also be called the Hypostatic Love (see St. Symeon the New Theologian, Homily 53); the Hypostatic Light (walk [in the light] while ye have light - John 12:35); the Hypostatic Life ("Thou hast given birth to the Hypostatic Life" - Canon of the Annunciation, Ode 8); and the Hypostatic Power of God (We preach... Christ the power of God - I Cor. 1:24).