Sobornost is a Russian word which describes a certain quality in Christian mysticism. Peter Kreeft in his book, Doors in the Walls of the World: Signs of Transendence in the Human Story, states that the word sobornost, “cannot be perfectly translated into English. It combines many meanings into one. Some of those meanings, and translations, are: “friendship”, “relationship”, “oneness”, “universality”, “wholeness”, “community”, “family”, “togetherness”, withness”, and “city” (in Augustine’s sense of civitas: an invisible society of persons unified by a common end, a common love).
This idea of sobornost is the CHAZOWN in The Brothers Karamazov by the Russian author, Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Peter Kreeft argues there are 4 parts to this CHAZOWN of sobornost.
- Metaphysics: “We are all in paradise, but we don’t see it.” Our vision is a lot of times just what we see physically, but we need to see heaven as part of our earthly reality.
- Epistemology: “If you love everything, you will perceive the divine mystery.”
- Cosmology: “A touch in one place sets up movement at the other end of the earth.”
- Ethics: “We are all responsible to all and for all.”
This last point might sound RIDICULOUS to most people. We normally think that if Harry hurt Sally, then Harry is at fault and Sally is innocent. If we have the vision of sobornost, we believe that we’re all at fault since we’re all on the same team. We win together or lose together. We’re in solidarity together. If someone is not doing well, it’s because the rest of us isn’t helping or inspiring that one person. It’s a challenge to the rest of us as long as there are people doing wrong in our world.
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