The prophet is a "representative of future time."[164] Certainly, prophets play a very difficult, even risky role, for they ignite dynamics within the hierarchical body of the Church itself. Mere reproduction of the existing historical Church facing state and people is avoided only if individual religious creativity – irrespective of whether pronounced by members of the clergy or by lay people – is successfully communicated within the hierarchical body of the Church. The Church bears a conservative character by definition. As it stands, Solov’ëv calls for a reconciliation of nature and spirit, and of creativity and conservatism. These are the central forms of co-creativity. The Church must be successful in reconciling the individuals′ religious creativity and the Church′s proper conservatism. This certainly is a standard problem with regard to any "religious politics" and is a task that enjoys immense ecumenical importance in a world that is characterised by multi-cultural societies. These stand in dire need of reconciliation, a problem Solov′ev certainly well understood.

The next section looks at Bulgakov′s concepts of reconciling the created and the Uncreated, of Sophia. His Filosofiia khoziajstva, 1912, subtitled Mir kak khoziajstvo and the earlier, preparatory treatise Osnovnye motivy filosofii khoziajstva v Platonizme i v rannem khristianstve, 1911, present attempts at an ontology of economy.[165] Fundamental Motives discusses nature in Platonism and in early Christian thinking and prepares the Philosophy of Economy, a comprehensive work that was inspired by Bulgakov′s desire to "overcome" Marx′s "economic materialism.from within" by unmasking its limitations as an "abstract principle,"[166] an effort that recalls Solov′ev′s Kritika otvlechennykh nachal.

In Osnonye motivy filosofii khoziastva v pannem Khristianstve i v Platonizme, Bulgakov emphatically declares the Platonic ideas as to have fulfilled a similar function as does Heaven. Yet, neither Plato nor the Neo-Platonists successfully built a ladder between spirit and matter, but instead left a dreadful abyss between them. Christian thought then offered answers to questions posed by Plato and substituted impersonal erotic ascent by Christ′s personal love. Christianity substituted the Platonic "ideas" by the Divine Sophia.[167] Of course, such a sentence requires further elucidation of Bulgakov′s sophiology

For most scholars, theologians or philosophers, concerned with Bulgakov it has become almost a commonplace to differentiate either between the creaturely and the heavenly Sophia (the former bearing shares of the latter), or between an earlier (more philosophical) and a later (more theological) conception of it. In either case, the first conception does not appear as perfectly reconcilable with the second. In my view, the Russian Bulgakov specialist Sergej Khoruzhij most clearly has understood the solution to this problem. As he suggests, the Bulgakovian Sophiology substitutes the "impersonal" Platonic "all-Unitarian ontology" by an ′all-Unitarian personal ontology [my expression, KB].′ He ascribes Sophia – correlating to the Aristotelian ousia – to each of the three hypostases respectively.[168] By simple logics, this three-fold construction defines the heavenly and the creaturely Sophia as signifying one and the same. The ′sophianic′ nature of God reaches out into the world. In Ipostas′ i ipostasnost′, 1924/25, the dichotomy of the created and the Uncreated is explicitly at stake. This writing shows the development of a hierarchy in Bulgakov′s vision of the different incarnations of