ABSTRACT
Nicholas Berdyaev was born on March 6, 1874, in Kiev. Upon his return from exile in 1901, Berdyaev became acquainted with Sergius Bulgakov, a former Marxist and professor of economics at Kiev. Berdyaev then spent a term at the University of Heidelberg in 1903 in order to hear the philosophy lectures of Wilhelm Windelband. In 1920 he received an appointment to the chair of philosophy at the University of Moscow. Berdyaev then and afterwards had mixed views of the revolution. From ancient times philosophers have sought for the knowledge of being. The construction of ontology has been philosophy's highest claim. In mediaeval philosophy the question of the relation between essentia and existentia played a great part. Being is essentia. Apophatic theology is of immense importance for the understanding of the problem of being. Kataphatic theology rationalized the idea of God.
