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The Submerged Reality: Sophiology and the Turn to a Poetic Metaphysics
In The Submerged Reality: Sophiology and the Turn to a Poetic Metaphysics, Michael Martin challenges us to reimagine theology, philosophy, and poetics through the lens of sophiology. Sophiology, as this book shows, is not a rogue theology, but a way of perceiving that which shines through the cosmos: a way that can return metaphysics to postmodern thought and facilitate a (re)union of religion, science, and art. “This is a brave, powerful, and intensely fascinating book that will certainly prove controversial. The notion of the divine Wisdom, Sophia, has always proved contentious in theology, but has remained persistent. For Michael Martin, it is essentially a poetic intuition, challenging our ways of perception and understanding. Exploring writers left in the shadows by conventional theology, he taps sources from which theology and the life of the Church could find renewal.”--ANDREW LOUTH
“In The Submerged Reality, Michael Martin suggests why a radicalized orthodoxy in the future will need more to ‘walk on the wild side’ and appropriate what is best in the esoteric, occult, and even gnostic traditions. He intimates that the past failure to do this is linked to a one-sidedly masculine theology, downgrading the sacrality of life, immanence, fertility, and the ‘active receptivity’ of the feminine. The consequence of this has been the perverse liberal attempt to distill ‘order out of disorder,’ or the denial of real essences, relations, gender difference, and the objective existence of all things as beautiful. Finally, Martin argues that such a genuinely feminist theology would also be concerned with a space between the openly empirical observation of nature on the one hand, and the reflective exposition of divine historical revelation on the other. In this space, continuously new poetic realities are shaped and emerge under the guidance of holy inspiring wisdom.”--JOHN MILBANK
“This is a very clearly written and lively work of Catholic apologetics. Professors would be well advised to assign it as a text for undergraduate courses in theology. The Submerged Reality could win the hearts and minds of contemporary young people for Christian belief.”--FRANCESCA ARAN MURPHY
“Sophiology as participatory metaphysics shows us how Christian thought has not always been sufficiently Trinitarian and personalist, and how Christianity gradually split into multiple denominational chapels as a result. It further shows how the modern division between faith and reason must be supplemented by symbolic and eschatological thinking, and how thought centered on the Wisdom of God allows us to find new ways of dialogue between the monotheistic and cosmocentric spheres of human civilization. It is the great merit of Michael Martin’s work to open our eyes to such awareness. This is a very daring book, written with great erudition, and one that delivers the best of Christian thought, both East and West, in modern times.”—ANTOINE ARJAKOVSKY
“Sophiology is best understood, not as a ‘doctrine,’ but as a way of seeing and feeling the deepest mystery of reality. In this wide-ranging and exhilarating book, Michael Martin gives us the most important theological apologia for the contemplation of divine Sophia since the great Russian Sophiologists of the last century. Drawing on the Russian genius of Vladimir Soloviev and Sergius Bulgakov, Martin’s meditation on Sophia ranges across the contributions of figures such as Jacob Boehme and Rudolf Steiner, Edith Stein and Pavel Florensky, Hans Urs von Balthasar and John Milbank. In so doing, he weaves a rich tapestry that illumines how a deeper gaze toward the feminine figure of Sophia begins to yield a more adequate response to the crisis of post-modern secular culture.”--AARON RICHES
“In The Submerged Reality, Michael Martin suggests why a radicalized orthodoxy in the future will need more to ‘walk on the wild side’ and appropriate what is best in the esoteric, occult, and even gnostic traditions. He intimates that the past failure to do this is linked to a one-sidedly masculine theology, downgrading the sacrality of life, immanence, fertility, and the ‘active receptivity’ of the feminine. The consequence of this has been the perverse liberal attempt to distill ‘order out of disorder,’ or the denial of real essences, relations, gender difference, and the objective existence of all things as beautiful. Finally, Martin argues that such a genuinely feminist theology would also be concerned with a space between the openly empirical observation of nature on the one hand, and the reflective exposition of divine historical revelation on the other. In this space, continuously new poetic realities are shaped and emerge under the guidance of holy inspiring wisdom.”--JOHN MILBANK
“This is a very clearly written and lively work of Catholic apologetics. Professors would be well advised to assign it as a text for undergraduate courses in theology. The Submerged Reality could win the hearts and minds of contemporary young people for Christian belief.”--FRANCESCA ARAN MURPHY
“Sophiology as participatory metaphysics shows us how Christian thought has not always been sufficiently Trinitarian and personalist, and how Christianity gradually split into multiple denominational chapels as a result. It further shows how the modern division between faith and reason must be supplemented by symbolic and eschatological thinking, and how thought centered on the Wisdom of God allows us to find new ways of dialogue between the monotheistic and cosmocentric spheres of human civilization. It is the great merit of Michael Martin’s work to open our eyes to such awareness. This is a very daring book, written with great erudition, and one that delivers the best of Christian thought, both East and West, in modern times.”—ANTOINE ARJAKOVSKY
“Sophiology is best understood, not as a ‘doctrine,’ but as a way of seeing and feeling the deepest mystery of reality. In this wide-ranging and exhilarating book, Michael Martin gives us the most important theological apologia for the contemplation of divine Sophia since the great Russian Sophiologists of the last century. Drawing on the Russian genius of Vladimir Soloviev and Sergius Bulgakov, Martin’s meditation on Sophia ranges across the contributions of figures such as Jacob Boehme and Rudolf Steiner, Edith Stein and Pavel Florensky, Hans Urs von Balthasar and John Milbank. In so doing, he weaves a rich tapestry that illumines how a deeper gaze toward the feminine figure of Sophia begins to yield a more adequate response to the crisis of post-modern secular culture.”--AARON RICHES
228 pages, Paperback
First published February 7, 2015
34 people are currently reading
146 people want to read
About the author
Michael Martin
15 books48 followersMichael Martin, Ph.D. is a philosopher, theologian, poet, musician, songwriter, editor, and biodynamic farmer. He is the editor of the journal 'Jesus the Imagination' and director of The Center for Sophiological Studies.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
August 8, 2015
The following review is a shortened version of a longer one at my site here: http://corjesusacratissimum.org/2015/...
This book casts a shining light in a darkening world. Its Catholic author, Michael Martin, locates the roots of that darkening in the Enlightenment, tracing them back to the Reformation and earlier scholastic nominalism within the Church. The result has been an ever more rationalist, machine-like civilisation, stripped of soul and filled, increasingly, with nihilism.
And, as Martin notes, even Catholics who truly recognise that the transubstantiated bread and wine are the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, nevertheless fall victim to the Enlightenment parody of reality in other areas of their lives.
Catastrophic consequences now manifest themselves everywhere and Martin considers some of the most obvious: the holocaust of abortion and the tragedy of gender ideology which reflect the nominalist denial of universalia.
Yet – creatively and unusually – Martin acutely identifies other heartbreaking consequences of our Enlightenment-poisoned thinking. These are things which should gravely concern Catholics, but often fail to. As Martin shows, they range from genetically modified food to the collapse of bee colonies to mechanical, modern education.
Martin, a manifestly sincere, inspired Byzantine Catholic, however, draws hope in the same hope that animated St. John Paul II: that East and West are both lungs that must breathe together.
To that end, the book is focussed on the Sophiology that animated the Russian Orthodox Soloviev, Florensky and Bulgakov. This Sophiology calls us to actively remember God’s living presence in Creation. For it recalls the teaching of the Church natura vulnereta, non deleta (nature is wounded but not destroyed) and and asks that we turn to Our Lady – unfallen pinnacle of Creation – in place of the soullessness of secular modernity.
In addition to these Russian Orthodox thinkers, Martin also considers the sophiological concerns of the little-known Russian Catholic convert Valentin Tomberg. Unlike some, Martin fully appreciates that Tomberg – pace Pickstock and Milbank – was ‘radically orthodox’ before his time.
Here is to say, Tomberg was a devout Catholic who took obedience to the Pope and the hierarchy seriously and yet remained, still, radical in the best of that word: going to the root of things.
Indeed, Martin’s book appears deeply indebted to Tomberg’s sophiological diagnosis of the crisis of the West. As Tomberg writes in his profoundly Catholic Meditations on the Tarot:
"The Virgin is not only the source of creative élan, but also of spiritual longevity. This is why the West, in turning away more and more from the Virgin, is growing old, i.e. it is distancing itself from the rejuvenating source of longevity.
Each revolution which has taken place in the West —that of the Reformation, the French revolution, the scientific revolution, the delirium of nationalism, the communist revolution —has advanced the process of aging in the West, because each has signified a further distancing from the principle of the Virgin. In other words. Our Lady is Our Lady, and is not to be replaced with impunity either by the ‘goddess reason’, or by the ‘goddess biological evolution’, or by the ‘goddess economy’."
Here I note that Tomberg – quite pointedly I think – does not join Martin in decrying scholasticism. Rather, the Catholic Tomberg repeatedly turns to the Reformation as the original revolution that undermined Western civilisation. Here, I, too, have a point of dissent with Martin.
Still, of everything that has been written in English on Tomberg, Martin’s book is the best so far. I thoroughly recommend it to anyone trying to grasp Tomberg’s project to heal the West.
Finally, it should be noted that Martin also considers some unusual thinkers indebted to German Protestantism including Jacob Boehme and Rudolf Steiner. This will be problematic for some readers. However, even where Christians like these are problematic in some respects – or even apostate or heretic – it does not follow, ipso facto, that everything they ever said is worthless! It is to Martin’s great credit that he recognises this, whilst never straying from Catholic orthodoxy.
To return to the place started: This book is a living flame in the dark. If you care about the fate of humanity, I urge you to consider studying Martin. He is, with Valentin Tomberg, pointing to the only hope I have for the West: an obedient, pious, deeply traditional Catholicism, which is neither afraid to embrace Eastern Christianity, nor indeed any Christian wisdom, wherever it may be found.
This book casts a shining light in a darkening world. Its Catholic author, Michael Martin, locates the roots of that darkening in the Enlightenment, tracing them back to the Reformation and earlier scholastic nominalism within the Church. The result has been an ever more rationalist, machine-like civilisation, stripped of soul and filled, increasingly, with nihilism.
And, as Martin notes, even Catholics who truly recognise that the transubstantiated bread and wine are the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, nevertheless fall victim to the Enlightenment parody of reality in other areas of their lives.
Catastrophic consequences now manifest themselves everywhere and Martin considers some of the most obvious: the holocaust of abortion and the tragedy of gender ideology which reflect the nominalist denial of universalia.
Yet – creatively and unusually – Martin acutely identifies other heartbreaking consequences of our Enlightenment-poisoned thinking. These are things which should gravely concern Catholics, but often fail to. As Martin shows, they range from genetically modified food to the collapse of bee colonies to mechanical, modern education.
Martin, a manifestly sincere, inspired Byzantine Catholic, however, draws hope in the same hope that animated St. John Paul II: that East and West are both lungs that must breathe together.
To that end, the book is focussed on the Sophiology that animated the Russian Orthodox Soloviev, Florensky and Bulgakov. This Sophiology calls us to actively remember God’s living presence in Creation. For it recalls the teaching of the Church natura vulnereta, non deleta (nature is wounded but not destroyed) and and asks that we turn to Our Lady – unfallen pinnacle of Creation – in place of the soullessness of secular modernity.
In addition to these Russian Orthodox thinkers, Martin also considers the sophiological concerns of the little-known Russian Catholic convert Valentin Tomberg. Unlike some, Martin fully appreciates that Tomberg – pace Pickstock and Milbank – was ‘radically orthodox’ before his time.
Here is to say, Tomberg was a devout Catholic who took obedience to the Pope and the hierarchy seriously and yet remained, still, radical in the best of that word: going to the root of things.
Indeed, Martin’s book appears deeply indebted to Tomberg’s sophiological diagnosis of the crisis of the West. As Tomberg writes in his profoundly Catholic Meditations on the Tarot:
"The Virgin is not only the source of creative élan, but also of spiritual longevity. This is why the West, in turning away more and more from the Virgin, is growing old, i.e. it is distancing itself from the rejuvenating source of longevity.
Each revolution which has taken place in the West —that of the Reformation, the French revolution, the scientific revolution, the delirium of nationalism, the communist revolution —has advanced the process of aging in the West, because each has signified a further distancing from the principle of the Virgin. In other words. Our Lady is Our Lady, and is not to be replaced with impunity either by the ‘goddess reason’, or by the ‘goddess biological evolution’, or by the ‘goddess economy’."
Here I note that Tomberg – quite pointedly I think – does not join Martin in decrying scholasticism. Rather, the Catholic Tomberg repeatedly turns to the Reformation as the original revolution that undermined Western civilisation. Here, I, too, have a point of dissent with Martin.
Still, of everything that has been written in English on Tomberg, Martin’s book is the best so far. I thoroughly recommend it to anyone trying to grasp Tomberg’s project to heal the West.
Finally, it should be noted that Martin also considers some unusual thinkers indebted to German Protestantism including Jacob Boehme and Rudolf Steiner. This will be problematic for some readers. However, even where Christians like these are problematic in some respects – or even apostate or heretic – it does not follow, ipso facto, that everything they ever said is worthless! It is to Martin’s great credit that he recognises this, whilst never straying from Catholic orthodoxy.
To return to the place started: This book is a living flame in the dark. If you care about the fate of humanity, I urge you to consider studying Martin. He is, with Valentin Tomberg, pointing to the only hope I have for the West: an obedient, pious, deeply traditional Catholicism, which is neither afraid to embrace Eastern Christianity, nor indeed any Christian wisdom, wherever it may be found.
January 14, 2016
Michael Martin provides a valuable service in writing this introduction to the Christian Sophiological tradition of the post-Reformation West (including the Russians of the 19th and 20th century). However, Martin's main thesis is, perhaps out of his own desire to reflect in a supra-rational manner, appears to be lost amid his desire to expose the reader to all the varieties of Sophiological thought he knows of.
His first chapter seeking to outline the narrative of "a loss of the sacred" is both enlightening and rather biased. His main culprit is Reason, manifested primarily in scholasticism and the teachings of Natura Pura and Nominalism. While Nominalism is almost universally accepted as a cause for the break down in the sense of the sacred - refusing to admit the reality of universals and shared nature, but only giving names (nomen, thus NOMINalism) to arbitrary groupings - the Natura Pura debate is alive and well. Martin simply sidelines anyone who would dare think the scholastic idea of Natura Pura is anything other than an attempt to validate deism - a point which is simply ignorant at worst or uncharitable at best. There may be problems with some of the Natura Pura narrative, but to toss out most every scholastic thinker after Thomas (who is somehow acceptable, though his followers are not) seems to be far too hasty. His outline of post-reformation developments, especially regarding the philosophical movement of Descartes, Kant and that lineage and the scientific developments of the enlightenment are quite good. I would have liked to see some discussion of political shifts, though, especially as Sophiology is supposed to be the integral science/"poetic metaphysics" par excellence.
The following chapters, the rest of the book really, which seek to outline a counter-enlightenment narrative following various sophiological thinkers, is of mixed quality. Martin is clearly a poetic soul and is quick to grasp onto ambiguities with great gusto, but I question if this is a trait shared by many. This is most powerfully highlighted in his discussion of Jakob Bohme, considered a primary source of this sophiological counter-narrative. Bohme, to this reader, if he makes any sense, cloaks it in a lexicon unique unto himself, making it incoherent to all but those who can quickly indulge his poetic eccentricities (like Martin) or are willing to sit down and devote a good chunk of one's life to decoding him. This comes out in Martin who delights in giving you quotes of Bohme with commentary that appears to be "this inspires me to think of..." rather than any actual aid in understanding the quote.
This sort of commentary continues, though the writers after Bohme are much more understandable on their own. What this offers is a look at writers who have been greatly moved by the biblical images of wisdom or some great insight into the integral unity of creation. These are no more than tastes, but it offers the reader a chance to figure out if these writers are offering something they wish to pursue. Admittedly, none of the writers I was introduced to left me desiring to look them up, but that may be more because my own tastes do not parallel Martin's - ecological science and Romantic Germanic-English poetry.
For the theologian and philosopher, the most intriguing figures are the Russian sophiologists. However, Martin's hangup with reason leaves him giving them a suspiciously cold shoulder even as he is forced to highlight how they have taken sophiological thought out of the ghetto and made it something more respectable than obscurantist theosophy or poetic musings. This is especially the case with Sergius Bulgakov, who Martin, even while citing the praise and respect the man gets even from intellectual enemies, believes almost defaces Sophiology by placing it in the theological paradigm.
Martin really shows his hand in an attempt to locate a "Catholic Sophiology". His candidates are the disgraced and perpetually "on his way to rehabilitation" scientist-priest Teillard de Chardin and the perennially loved, but may have been a heretic in the end, Thomas Merton. He does not look to either's theological work - not touching de Chardin's ideas of the Omega Point or Merton's mysticism which, while originally quite edifying, became tainted with oriental ideas in the end - he chooses to look at the poetry of each. This is Martin's field of choice, of course, but Martin doesn't offer much in the way of commentary, but again just gives little interesting bits of discussion.
Martin's ultimate sophiological writer is the [heterodox] Catholic and ex-anthroposophist, Valentin Tomberg. Tomberg's major work, Meditations on the Tarot, is incredibly interesting in a fashion. Martin doesn't hide its oddities (but ignores some egregious ones, like Tomberg's belief in reincarnation), but doesn't do more than present its ideas, especially the sophiological. He says no more about it than it being there and it being fascinating.
This may be the primary fault of the book. Martin is reaching for the stars ("Sophiology can ultimately return us to a sense of the sacred"), but never builds the ladder to get there. He refuses to allow his darling sophiology to be tainted by reason, but this ultimately leaves it nebulous, ambiguous, and open to a variety of interpretations. He clearly wishes to distance himself from the neo-feminist readings of the sophia texts as a goddess or other mare radical readings. However, this is not an answer to what he does make of them and the rest of this "sophiological tradition." He offers nothing more substantive than "There's something to this stuff.
For those interested in sophiology, I recommend going right to those who Martin gives the cold shoulder to - Vladimir Solovyov and Sergius Bulgakov. The Russians are by no means perfect, but they offer something to actually think and reflect on. And one should not be fearful of reason. According to Martin, Sophiology is all about integrating all of our power, in fact integrating all the world. Reason is part of this. Working with it may be more helpful than trying and finding a way to ignore it.
His first chapter seeking to outline the narrative of "a loss of the sacred" is both enlightening and rather biased. His main culprit is Reason, manifested primarily in scholasticism and the teachings of Natura Pura and Nominalism. While Nominalism is almost universally accepted as a cause for the break down in the sense of the sacred - refusing to admit the reality of universals and shared nature, but only giving names (nomen, thus NOMINalism) to arbitrary groupings - the Natura Pura debate is alive and well. Martin simply sidelines anyone who would dare think the scholastic idea of Natura Pura is anything other than an attempt to validate deism - a point which is simply ignorant at worst or uncharitable at best. There may be problems with some of the Natura Pura narrative, but to toss out most every scholastic thinker after Thomas (who is somehow acceptable, though his followers are not) seems to be far too hasty. His outline of post-reformation developments, especially regarding the philosophical movement of Descartes, Kant and that lineage and the scientific developments of the enlightenment are quite good. I would have liked to see some discussion of political shifts, though, especially as Sophiology is supposed to be the integral science/"poetic metaphysics" par excellence.
The following chapters, the rest of the book really, which seek to outline a counter-enlightenment narrative following various sophiological thinkers, is of mixed quality. Martin is clearly a poetic soul and is quick to grasp onto ambiguities with great gusto, but I question if this is a trait shared by many. This is most powerfully highlighted in his discussion of Jakob Bohme, considered a primary source of this sophiological counter-narrative. Bohme, to this reader, if he makes any sense, cloaks it in a lexicon unique unto himself, making it incoherent to all but those who can quickly indulge his poetic eccentricities (like Martin) or are willing to sit down and devote a good chunk of one's life to decoding him. This comes out in Martin who delights in giving you quotes of Bohme with commentary that appears to be "this inspires me to think of..." rather than any actual aid in understanding the quote.
This sort of commentary continues, though the writers after Bohme are much more understandable on their own. What this offers is a look at writers who have been greatly moved by the biblical images of wisdom or some great insight into the integral unity of creation. These are no more than tastes, but it offers the reader a chance to figure out if these writers are offering something they wish to pursue. Admittedly, none of the writers I was introduced to left me desiring to look them up, but that may be more because my own tastes do not parallel Martin's - ecological science and Romantic Germanic-English poetry.
For the theologian and philosopher, the most intriguing figures are the Russian sophiologists. However, Martin's hangup with reason leaves him giving them a suspiciously cold shoulder even as he is forced to highlight how they have taken sophiological thought out of the ghetto and made it something more respectable than obscurantist theosophy or poetic musings. This is especially the case with Sergius Bulgakov, who Martin, even while citing the praise and respect the man gets even from intellectual enemies, believes almost defaces Sophiology by placing it in the theological paradigm.
Martin really shows his hand in an attempt to locate a "Catholic Sophiology". His candidates are the disgraced and perpetually "on his way to rehabilitation" scientist-priest Teillard de Chardin and the perennially loved, but may have been a heretic in the end, Thomas Merton. He does not look to either's theological work - not touching de Chardin's ideas of the Omega Point or Merton's mysticism which, while originally quite edifying, became tainted with oriental ideas in the end - he chooses to look at the poetry of each. This is Martin's field of choice, of course, but Martin doesn't offer much in the way of commentary, but again just gives little interesting bits of discussion.
Martin's ultimate sophiological writer is the [heterodox] Catholic and ex-anthroposophist, Valentin Tomberg. Tomberg's major work, Meditations on the Tarot, is incredibly interesting in a fashion. Martin doesn't hide its oddities (but ignores some egregious ones, like Tomberg's belief in reincarnation), but doesn't do more than present its ideas, especially the sophiological. He says no more about it than it being there and it being fascinating.
This may be the primary fault of the book. Martin is reaching for the stars ("Sophiology can ultimately return us to a sense of the sacred"), but never builds the ladder to get there. He refuses to allow his darling sophiology to be tainted by reason, but this ultimately leaves it nebulous, ambiguous, and open to a variety of interpretations. He clearly wishes to distance himself from the neo-feminist readings of the sophia texts as a goddess or other mare radical readings. However, this is not an answer to what he does make of them and the rest of this "sophiological tradition." He offers nothing more substantive than "There's something to this stuff.
For those interested in sophiology, I recommend going right to those who Martin gives the cold shoulder to - Vladimir Solovyov and Sergius Bulgakov. The Russians are by no means perfect, but they offer something to actually think and reflect on. And one should not be fearful of reason. According to Martin, Sophiology is all about integrating all of our power, in fact integrating all the world. Reason is part of this. Working with it may be more helpful than trying and finding a way to ignore it.
August 20, 2025
although my dear friend did not want to “get me into the esoteric side of christianity,” that is exactly what he did when he gifted me and my wife a copy of Traherne’s “Centuries” translated by Michael Martin.
Martin is the man in question who wrote “the submerged reality.” he himself is a bit of an odd guy, and his claims are on the extreme side. from one perspective, he fails to prove his thesis that the christian world has all gone to the pot and sophiology is the one potential savior.
at least he comes off as trying to prove that, and understandably falls short. that said, as an intro and history of sophiology, this is quite good. i am convinced of at least the notion that theology needs to be more poetic, and that God’s presence is deeply intertwined with creation in some profound and mysterious way, possibly best described by the hypothesis of divine Sophia.
Martin is the man in question who wrote “the submerged reality.” he himself is a bit of an odd guy, and his claims are on the extreme side. from one perspective, he fails to prove his thesis that the christian world has all gone to the pot and sophiology is the one potential savior.
at least he comes off as trying to prove that, and understandably falls short. that said, as an intro and history of sophiology, this is quite good. i am convinced of at least the notion that theology needs to be more poetic, and that God’s presence is deeply intertwined with creation in some profound and mysterious way, possibly best described by the hypothesis of divine Sophia.
November 2, 2016
This book is a strident appeal to re-alchemize the material world as the Eucharistic reflection of higher, divine, spiritual and celestial principles ; it's basically a spiritual manifesto against the "disenchantment of the world" which hit Western European intellectual consciousness since the 14th century nominalist thinking, a "rationalist" effervescence in medieval scholasticism which tried to put a break between the long-standing essential link between the world of forms and the material/corporeal reality, the beginning of a host of dualistic epidemiologies which - even though many of them nominally "religious", if not spiritual (Franciscans or Jesuits) - condemned man to distance himself from nature, becoming the quintessential Other from then submitted to Cartesian dualism, Baconian empiricism and Hobbesian pessimism, treating it as mere commodity and unleashing problems on major scales, individual as well as ecological, not to say cosmic.
But the author shows that a string of thinkers tried to conjure this invading metastasis, which kept becoming more and more explicit with the further advancements in science & technology, and they summoned a figure : the Sophia. With roots in the Bibical (Wisdom) literature, the Sophia is the immanent primp of God in the Creation, the material/corporeal world thus being a dynamic self-disclosure of God's Sophia through which beings are manifested ; he takes on different authors who brought a speculative Sophilogy infusing, more or less, their systems, from the German cobbler Jakob Böhme (d. 1624) up to some Catholic thinkers with less pronounced Sophiology, and going through Robert Fludd (d. 1637), the Rosicrucians, Goethe (d. 1832), Germand/English Romantic, Rudolf Steiner (d. 1925) or the Russians Sophiologists (Soloviev, Florensky & Bulgakov).
By convoking all these names, stretching centuries, geographies as much as creedal allegiances (Catholic/Orthodox/Protestant), the point is not to show that there was a doctrinal homogeneous Sophiology - it wasn't the case at all -, but that in the history of Western Christianity, independently of all "external" signatures, the consciousness of a Sophia arbitrating; penetrating and interoperating reality has always charmed some of its greatest minds - and in the face of the questions brought from modernity (postmodernism, ecological disasters, ...) the authors simply and elegantly calls for a more systematic Sophiology to take on all the pandemic trials, to reclaim back a "poetic metaphysics" giving sense to reality in a sublimed way.
But the author shows that a string of thinkers tried to conjure this invading metastasis, which kept becoming more and more explicit with the further advancements in science & technology, and they summoned a figure : the Sophia. With roots in the Bibical (Wisdom) literature, the Sophia is the immanent primp of God in the Creation, the material/corporeal world thus being a dynamic self-disclosure of God's Sophia through which beings are manifested ; he takes on different authors who brought a speculative Sophilogy infusing, more or less, their systems, from the German cobbler Jakob Böhme (d. 1624) up to some Catholic thinkers with less pronounced Sophiology, and going through Robert Fludd (d. 1637), the Rosicrucians, Goethe (d. 1832), Germand/English Romantic, Rudolf Steiner (d. 1925) or the Russians Sophiologists (Soloviev, Florensky & Bulgakov).
By convoking all these names, stretching centuries, geographies as much as creedal allegiances (Catholic/Orthodox/Protestant), the point is not to show that there was a doctrinal homogeneous Sophiology - it wasn't the case at all -, but that in the history of Western Christianity, independently of all "external" signatures, the consciousness of a Sophia arbitrating; penetrating and interoperating reality has always charmed some of its greatest minds - and in the face of the questions brought from modernity (postmodernism, ecological disasters, ...) the authors simply and elegantly calls for a more systematic Sophiology to take on all the pandemic trials, to reclaim back a "poetic metaphysics" giving sense to reality in a sublimed way.
November 3, 2022
Martin is enthusiastic about the importance of Sophia to a sassy degree, which is great fun if you begin inclined towards his thesis. I kinda doubt anyone who was skeptical about Sophiology would pick up this book, but if you were you might find him too sassy. There were definitely more than a few passages in this book that seemed like arguments intended other for epistemology university people engaged in specific contemporary arguments that one would never encounter outside of graduate departments in particular universities, and so occasionally by eyes would glaze over and I'd just have to push on, but these little spells were always redeemed by the relatively quick pace at which Martin marches. And he's marching through basically a Greatest Hits of semi-obscure writers with a mystical bent of the past two thousand or so years, linking together "Sophiological" ideas, which I'm not sure I can explain clearly or succinctly, but which I'm pretty sure is basically the concept that if you don't regularly lean into a poetic perspective on humanity and the universe, you don't really have the whole truth of any matter regarding humanity and the universe-- a poetic appreciation of all things is a necessary component of "getting it" and any attempt to use pure reason to understand things that exist is doomed to produce an incomplete picture. The "Sophia" part involves a biblical justification and personification of this idea through the mysterious old testament entity Sophia. Anyway, for all the times the book (kind of paradoxically) plunges into technical shop-talk, there's many many more times that Martin hits you with an incredible quote or passage from some long-dead savant that makes you go, "Oh shit who is this guy? I look up more of this guy's stuff" and the book is worthwhile for that reason alone imo.
January 10, 2022
Sophiological writings are difficult and problematic for someone with a logical, analytical mind. Sergius Bulgakov in particular is rather opaque and seemingly heretical. "The Submerged Reality" is the first book I've read that provides the background and describes how sophiology is not intended to become dogma (Bulgakov notwithstanding) but is better approached as poetry. It's a description in words of something that cannot be expressed in language. In addition, this book exposes the reader to a host of interesting authors and a library of books to read.
May 23, 2025
Michael Martin has written a great and deep book about the history of Sophiology and the influence it has through history. Some chapters are top notch, but others are trying to fish out sophiology from places where, even after reading, I cannot quite see it. I get that it is hidden underneath, "submerged" so to speak, but it feels like he is reading too much into some thinkers few have heard of. I did like this book, I was surprised how much, as it gave me pieces to consider on many a turn. If you are looking into Sophiology, this is a must-read!
May 17, 2017
Accessible and excellent introduction to sophiology across the centuries and confessions: Protestant, Orthodox, and Catholic. From a seemingly marginal place in Christian thought, the ruminations on divine Sophia touches upon the issues that lie at the heart of Christian theology: transcendence and immanence, nature and grace.
I do not know if I will read Boehme, Fludd, or Tomberg, but I will surely read more of Pavel Florensky, Sergius Bulgakov, Henri de Lubac, and Hans Urs von Balthasar.
I do not know if I will read Boehme, Fludd, or Tomberg, but I will surely read more of Pavel Florensky, Sergius Bulgakov, Henri de Lubac, and Hans Urs von Balthasar.
December 12, 2018
Disappointed
Some of this was very interesting, but when I was far into the book, I read the term abortion culture and was so turned off I did not continue. When I am trying to read a book about the feminine in spirituality, this seems way off base. Condemnation will not move us towards love. Thomas Merton, Thomas Keating, and Richard Rohr all understand this.
Some of this was very interesting, but when I was far into the book, I read the term abortion culture and was so turned off I did not continue. When I am trying to read a book about the feminine in spirituality, this seems way off base. Condemnation will not move us towards love. Thomas Merton, Thomas Keating, and Richard Rohr all understand this.
August 1, 2025
brilliant book
So glad I’ve discovered Michael’s work , thru reading Rodger Bucks post. I’ve ordered Transfiguration notes toward a radical Catholic re-imagation of everything.
So glad I’ve discovered Michael’s work , thru reading Rodger Bucks post. I’ve ordered Transfiguration notes toward a radical Catholic re-imagation of everything.
December 9, 2021
Who Should Read This Book - Anyone interested in learning about sophiology and some of the key figures who have written on it.
What’s the Big Takeaway - In our post-Enlightenment secular culture we have come to rely too heavily on pure reason at the expense of beauty, art, poetry and other such right-brained paths. Sophiology is a tool to reunite what should never have been spit.
A Quote - “Sophiology is actualized in the contemplation of beauty of Creation (the nexus of art and science) married to the contemplation of Holy Scripture (the nexus of art and religion), which discloses what von Balthasar has called a ‘theological aesthetics.’ . . . The diminished status of beauty in both theology and science diminishes both.”
I’ve been reading Russian theologian Sergius Bulgakov this year, finishing two of his books and about to start a third. Bulgakov is known for his emphasis on the Divine Sophia (Wisdom). In reading Bulgakov I became curious to learn more about Sophiology, so I found this book.
Overall, its a good summary of writers who have written on Sophia from Jakob Boehme through to the Russian (Bulgakov, Solovyov, Florensky) and Catholic (Teilhard de Chardin, Thomas Merton, von Balthasar). I wish Martin had spent more time on Bulgakov, but that may just be my bias.
Martin begins by telling the story of the rise of modern culture and the problems this has led to (and he cites Charles Taylor’s A Secular Age, which I just reread). His point is that beginning with nominalism in the medieval church and moving on through the Protestant Reformation and the Enlightenment, reason has been separated from most everything else (art, emotion, feeling, faith, beauty, etc.). The promise was that enlightened humans could discern truth through pure rationality. Along with this, Christian theology moved in the same direction, becoming overly-rational (or left-brained).
Where once the best theologians were also contemplative mystics, it became possible for theologians to employ only their reason. Any sort of prayer life, if they had one, was relegated to the personal.
What does Sophia have to do with this? Sophiology is about God’s presence in all creation. The different writers Martin talks about explain this in different ways. The point is that Sophiology enables us to see the beauty in all creation as all creation is infused with God’s glory (wisdom, Sophia). Sophiology helps us reunite what is broken.
At the same time, Martin concludes by acknowledging no one book can create a paradigm shift (p. 203). Further, a complete sophiology has yet to be realized (p. 205).This was my feeling throughout. Learning from folks like Bulgakov and Boehme is fun. Trying to move through life seeing the world in all its beauty, infused with God’s glory, is a worthwhile practice.
But wow, it’s hard! As Taylor says, just by living in the secular age we experience faith differently. As individuals or small communities we can perhaps learn new ways to live and see. Yet so much pushes the other way and culture’s not going back.
With that in mind, it was sort of disappointing that Martin did not really offer much in the way forward. At the end of the initial chapter on left-brain thinking, he is very critical of where our culture has led us. There’s a lot to critique, for sure. But what sort of better future does someone like Martin envision? A return to a better past? The good old days, after all, were not always that good. And the world has changed so much, we could not go back even if we wanted to.
One of the negative examples he talks about, albeit briefly, is the changing definitions of marriage and family. He also mentions changing ideas of gender. This just seems like too big a point to bring up briefly. And it doesn’t seem relevant to the book; what precisely does sophiology have to do with LGBTQ persons? Is the goal to return to a pre-reformation moral and ethic? I’m skeptical that all that many people lived in the wonderful, idyllic sorts of families Martin imagines.
Maybe I am wanting a different sort of book, something more pastoral. I think the most charitable interpretation would be the way forward is better than the current left-brain reason-driven pure-nature enlightenment while also not returning to the flaws that came before. I’m just curious what Martin imagines such a future would look like, especially in regards to persons who do not fit into his ideas of binary norms?
That aside, this is a good introduction to sophiology.
What’s the Big Takeaway - In our post-Enlightenment secular culture we have come to rely too heavily on pure reason at the expense of beauty, art, poetry and other such right-brained paths. Sophiology is a tool to reunite what should never have been spit.
A Quote - “Sophiology is actualized in the contemplation of beauty of Creation (the nexus of art and science) married to the contemplation of Holy Scripture (the nexus of art and religion), which discloses what von Balthasar has called a ‘theological aesthetics.’ . . . The diminished status of beauty in both theology and science diminishes both.”
I’ve been reading Russian theologian Sergius Bulgakov this year, finishing two of his books and about to start a third. Bulgakov is known for his emphasis on the Divine Sophia (Wisdom). In reading Bulgakov I became curious to learn more about Sophiology, so I found this book.
Overall, its a good summary of writers who have written on Sophia from Jakob Boehme through to the Russian (Bulgakov, Solovyov, Florensky) and Catholic (Teilhard de Chardin, Thomas Merton, von Balthasar). I wish Martin had spent more time on Bulgakov, but that may just be my bias.
Martin begins by telling the story of the rise of modern culture and the problems this has led to (and he cites Charles Taylor’s A Secular Age, which I just reread). His point is that beginning with nominalism in the medieval church and moving on through the Protestant Reformation and the Enlightenment, reason has been separated from most everything else (art, emotion, feeling, faith, beauty, etc.). The promise was that enlightened humans could discern truth through pure rationality. Along with this, Christian theology moved in the same direction, becoming overly-rational (or left-brained).
Where once the best theologians were also contemplative mystics, it became possible for theologians to employ only their reason. Any sort of prayer life, if they had one, was relegated to the personal.
What does Sophia have to do with this? Sophiology is about God’s presence in all creation. The different writers Martin talks about explain this in different ways. The point is that Sophiology enables us to see the beauty in all creation as all creation is infused with God’s glory (wisdom, Sophia). Sophiology helps us reunite what is broken.
At the same time, Martin concludes by acknowledging no one book can create a paradigm shift (p. 203). Further, a complete sophiology has yet to be realized (p. 205).This was my feeling throughout. Learning from folks like Bulgakov and Boehme is fun. Trying to move through life seeing the world in all its beauty, infused with God’s glory, is a worthwhile practice.
But wow, it’s hard! As Taylor says, just by living in the secular age we experience faith differently. As individuals or small communities we can perhaps learn new ways to live and see. Yet so much pushes the other way and culture’s not going back.
With that in mind, it was sort of disappointing that Martin did not really offer much in the way forward. At the end of the initial chapter on left-brain thinking, he is very critical of where our culture has led us. There’s a lot to critique, for sure. But what sort of better future does someone like Martin envision? A return to a better past? The good old days, after all, were not always that good. And the world has changed so much, we could not go back even if we wanted to.
One of the negative examples he talks about, albeit briefly, is the changing definitions of marriage and family. He also mentions changing ideas of gender. This just seems like too big a point to bring up briefly. And it doesn’t seem relevant to the book; what precisely does sophiology have to do with LGBTQ persons? Is the goal to return to a pre-reformation moral and ethic? I’m skeptical that all that many people lived in the wonderful, idyllic sorts of families Martin imagines.
Maybe I am wanting a different sort of book, something more pastoral. I think the most charitable interpretation would be the way forward is better than the current left-brain reason-driven pure-nature enlightenment while also not returning to the flaws that came before. I’m just curious what Martin imagines such a future would look like, especially in regards to persons who do not fit into his ideas of binary norms?
That aside, this is a good introduction to sophiology.
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