Abstract:
Berdyaev believed that original sin doesn’t mean obeying God but abandoning freedom. His freedom referred to the original freedom in an ontological sense but not a volitional freedom in a psychological sense. This kind of freedom existed prior to all existence and beyond God’s control. What caused abandoning freedom was objectified cognitive form. Objectification occurred because men ontologically mistook the result of their thinking for the object of their thinking, that is, took their mental illusion as the reality. This happens to coincide with the theological understanding that men take the place of God out of their pride. Berdyaev pointed out that abandoning freedom meant corruption. In other words, they turned their concern to the world of phenomena, that is, the outer world, and sought physical interests, control of nature and other people, and varieties of knowledge which can magically bring about strength and power. Thus they were caught in enslavement of natural, social and moral laws and necessities, which happens again to agree with theological elaboration of sins. Berdyaev’s philosophic interpretation of original sin can be regarded as his greatest contribution to Christian theory of original sin.
