The Destiny of Man: An Essay in Paradoxical Ethics

Description

First published in Russian in 1931, Nikolai Berdyaev’s The Destiny of Man explores the freedom, dignity, and creative vocation of the human person. Distinguishing the ethics of law, redemption, and creativity, Berdyaev asks how moral life can move beyond conformity to external rules toward a free and responsible response to other people and to God.

Combining philosophical anthropology with Christian religious thought, the book examines conscience, love, suffering, sexuality, marriage, work, technology, the state, revolution, and war. Its final part considers death, immortality, hell, and paradise, challenging an understanding of goodness that accepts the eternal exclusion of others. Throughout, Berdyaev treats ethical life as personal, tragic, and creative rather than reducible to a universal code.

This English translation by Lukasz Liniewicz (2026) is based on the Russian text of the 2006 Moscow edition published by АСТ, АСТ Москва, and Хранитель. The EPUB includes linked contents, the author’s notes, and translator’s notes.

Table of contents 49 entries

The Destiny of Man
1. Part One / Foundations
  1. Chapter I / The Problem of Ethical Knowledge
    1. 1. Philosophy, Science, and Religion
    2. 2. Object and Subject
    3. 3. The Task of Ethics
    4. 4. The Fundamental Question of Ethics: The Criterion of Good and Evil
  2. Chapter II / The Origin of Good and Evil
    1. 1. God and the Human Being
    2. 2. The Fall
  3. Chapter III / The Human Being
    1. 1. Problems of Philosophical Anthropology
    2. 2. Personalism
    3. 3. Sex. The Masculine and the Feminine
    4. 4. The Conscious and the Unconscious
    5. 5. Free Will and Ethics
2. Part Two / Ethics on This Side of Good and Evil
  1. Chapter I / The Ethics of Law
    1. 1. The Dualism of Good and Evil
    2. 2. Primitive Moral Consciousness
    3. 3. The Social and Everyday Character of Law
    4. 4. Normative Ethics. Pharisaism
  2. Chapter II / The Ethics of Redemption
    1. 1. Good Under Grace
    2. 2. Gospel Morality and Legalistic Pharisaic Morality
    3. 3. The Christian Attitude toward the Sinful and the Evil
    4. 4. Christian Morality as a Morality of Strength
    5. 5. Suffering. Asceticism. Love
    6. 6. The Gospel’s Good News of the Kingdom of God
  3. Chapter III / The Ethics of Creativity
    1. 1. On the Nature of Creativity
    2. 2. The Creative and Individual Character of Moral Acts
    3. 3. The Role of Imagination in Moral Life
  4. Chapter IV / Concrete Questions of Ethics
    1. 1. The Tragedy and Paradox of Moral Life
    2. 2. On Falsehood and Truth
    3. 3. Conscience and Freedom
    4. 4. Fear, Dread, and Anguish. Boredom and Vulgarity. Phantasms
    5. 5. Love and Compassion
    6. 6. On the State, Revolution, and War
    7. 7. The Social Question, Labor, Technology
    8. 8. Sex, Marriage, and Love
    9. 9. Ideals of the Human Being. The Teaching on Gifts
    10. 10. Symbolism and Realism in Ethics
3. Part Three / On the Last Things. Eschatological Ethics
  1. Chapter I / Death and Immortality
  2. Chapter II / Hell
  3. Chapter III / Paradise. Beyond Good and Evil
4. Notes