Romilo Knežević

The purpose of this paper is to critically examine and compare Nietzsche’s concept of chaos and Berdyaev’s notion of the Ungrund, bearing in mind the ontological problem of human freedom and the context of the ‘God after metaphysics’ debate. Nietzsche and Berdyaev introduce their respective concepts in trying to overcome the impasse of onto-theology caused by the view of God as actus purus. Chaos and the Ungrund stand for the idea of the posse reintroduced in our days by Richard Kearney. The primary cause of onto-theology, for Kearney, is the classic metaphysical tendency to subordinate the possible (posse) to the actual (esse). I identify posse with Godhead, which is the first principle in God, the ‘unapproachable intensity of his being’ and the ‘inexhaustible ground’ from which everything originates. But during the past centuries rationalism has deprived God of this first principle. ‘The power of the Godhead has disappeared.’ Berdyaev reminds us that there cannot be a valuable theodicy without ontological anthropodicy. God ceases to be actus purus when, as the result of his becoming, there is more being than there was before. God and the human being are more than just God. Humans must possess potency similar to the divine, which implies that at the end of their action there is more being than there was before. God cannot be the living God if his creature is not alive. The overcoming of onto-theology, therefore, requires a theanthropic hermeneutical method.

Nietzsche is the forerunner of a new religious anthropology. Through Nietzsche the new humanity moves out of godless humanism to divine humanism, to a Christian anthropology. Nietzsche is an instinctive prophet of the religious renaissance of the west.

– N. Berdyaev

In this paper I shall critically examine and compare Nietzsche’s concept of chaos and Berdyaev’s notion of the Ungrund, bearing in mind the ontological problem of human freedom in the context of the ‘God after metaphysics’ debate. Given the immense role the issue of liberty has played in the history of philosophy, it is surprising,