Sunday, December 18, 2011

Nihilism - The Root of the Revolution of the Modern Age

In the book: ”Nihilism - The Root of The Revolution of the Modern Age” Fr. Seraphim Rose analyzes the spiritual causes behind the modern revolution. He looks on the revolt of nihilism as a spiritual revolt against God and every form of authority. In the religious order Nihilism seeks, not a mere reform of the Church and not even the foundation of a new ”church” or ”religion”, but a complete refashioning of the idea of religion and of spiritual experience. In art and literature the Nihilist is not concerned with the modification of old aesthetic canons regarding subject-matter style, nor with the development of new genres or traditions, but with a whole new approach to the question of artistic ”creation” and a new definition of ”art”... The disorder so apparent in contemporary politics, religion, art, and other realms as well, is a result of the deliberate and systematic annihilation of the foundation of the authority in them...Of this age the Nihilist regimes of this century have given a foretaste, and the widespread rebelliousness of the present day is further portent; where there is no truth, the rebellious will reigns. But ”the will”, said Dostoyevsky, with his customary insight into the Nihilist mentality, ”is closest to nothing; the most assertive are closest to the most nihilistic” He who has abandoned truth and every authority founded upon that truth has only blind will between himself and the Abyss; and this will, whatever its spectacular achievements in its brief moment of power (those of Hitler and of Bolshevism have so far been the most spectacular), is irresistibly drawn to that Abyss as to some immense magnet that has searched out the answering abyss within itself.