A Good Read - Orthodox Fr. Seraphim Rose on Modern Godlesness and Nihilism

[Marie Louise von Preussen]

http://www.columbia.edu/cu/augustine/arch/nihilism.html

A very nice read. It is especially good at unmasking the many aspects of the nihilistic program today and successful, like other works, in showing the complete lack of any principle, rule or goal in modern society. I definitely recommend it, even to sympathetic non-Christians, although this book in particular is geared towards a specifically traditionalist Christian audience.

[SigniferOne]

As is almost always the case, he is much better at making the case for the bad, than making the case for the good. What is the good in his case, and yours? A reactionary traditionalistic primitivism, worshipping the backward feudalistic "Old Order", and viewing that as height of civilization.

There's a bit of hypocrisy going on here too, because for you Nietzsche is a personal hero, and you've participated in that destruction which the author bemoans; while he finds Nietzsche to be the champion and pretty much the root of all evil in the modern day.

[Marie Louise von Preussen]

As is almost always the case, he is much better at making the case for the bad, than making the case for the good. What is the good in his case, and yours? A reactionary traditionalistic primitivism, worshipping the backward feudalistic "Old Order", and viewing that as height of civilization.

Because it was. All your notion stem from a fundamental incomprehension of it; it's all too petty and modern to call them primitive just because they did not adhere to superficial and arbitrary notions, usually of the mere techological or "artistic" aspect.

The feudal order, in the words of De Maistre, is the most legitimate order. Better than the dysgenic collectivistic techno-bureaucratic "Brave New World" dystopia we live in, byproduct of nihilistic revolutionary thought and obscurantist Enlightenment sophistry.

There's a bit of hypocrisy going on here too, because for you Nietzsche is a personal hero, and you've participated in that destruction which the author bemoans; while finds Nietzsche to be the champion and pretty much the root of all evil in the modern day.

Hint: You do not really know my stance on Nietzsche. Nietzsche and other nihilists were great precisely because they saw through the disintegrating veil of modern post-1789 desacralized society. It is easy to ascribe a completely atheistic stance to him, but in fact, such was not. The man had glimpses of a superior order, but these were all too hidden in his platitudes - the ideal of the Superman, in fact, being a complete distortion.

Mere glimpses of a superior order, of course, amidst a philosophy that often relapses into an order typical of the times (biologism, vitalism, mechanicism) and thus morally and intellectually bankrupt. Thus it is safe to say that Father Seraphim Rose's vision and evaluation of him still carries a lot of merit.

All in all, although Nietzsche was great, Dostoyevsky and Michelstaedter were far better in this aspect: that of sensing the absurdity of the existence without superior values. Thus they are all heroes, in my notion.

[SigniferOne]

[the feudal society] did not adhere to superficial and arbitrary notions, usually of the mere techological or "artistic" aspect.

Indeed, such superficial and arbitrary notions as the rights of man, and the dignity of the individual -- products of classical 17th century Europe, equally distant from the Orthodox primitivism, or modern nihilism.

Since you desire the Orthodox feudal primitivism as your ideal, I volunteer that you be a serf in that society. That will indeed be cosmic justice, because you of course imagine that you'll be a lord of some kind. Such are usual dichotomies for someone who does not view contradictions and messy thinking as necessarily an evil.

Nietzsche and other nihilists were great precisely because they saw through the disintegrating veil of modern post-1789 desacralized society.

He saw through the value-ladden Christian society, laughed and mocked it, and helped with all his might to destroy it. It's true, he saw the "disintegrating post-1789 society", when many others yet didn't, the concept by which he understood a society less and less clinging to Christianity. But he didn't demand that it return to its roots (as you would), quite the contrary -- he cheered that disintegration, and he demanded that it bravely desacralize, and have no fear about going forward. Indeed he was perhaps the greatest champion of the nihilistic Brave New World view altogether.

[Marie Louise von Preussen]

Indeed, such superficial and arbitrary notions as the rights of man, and the dignity of the individual -- products of classical 17th century Europe, equally distant from the Orthodox primitivism, or modern nihilism.

Individualism has degraded the dignity of man to that of a mere atom and has opened the door to modern nihilism and collectivism. All its byproducts are degrading: by "emancipating" man from any principle from above, and anything except his own whims, it made him subject to below.

Since you desire the Orthodox feudal primitivism as your ideal, I volunteer that you be a serf in that society. That will indeed be cosmic justice, because you of course imagine that you'll be a lord of some kind. Such are usual dichotomies for someone who does not view contradictions and messy thinking as necessarily an evil.

One is already a mindless economic ant in the modern world. And one was an even worse ant in 19th century England or today's China! Man has been enslaved by the search of sensual pleasure and economic greed beyond any principle whatsover.

The Medieval Age was far from "primitive". On the contrary, it was a model of unitary organic civilization.

All Western theology nowadays consists of footnotes on Ockham and Aquinas. Philosophy since the "Renaissance" consisted in a continuous degeneration to a purely practical, pragmatic and utilitarian nihilistic character. Individualism, the byproduct of Ockham's rejection of many categories of Aristotelian-Thomistic and Platonistic philosophy, his subjectivism, his distrust for authority, all of this sped up the process of Late Medieval decadence even more.

The only thing that has improved, is the nice shiny ways we use to make technology and the nice and shiny ways we employ to fatten our bank account so we can indulge in even more sensual pleasure. Therein alone lies the catastrophe of this development. Man's dignity is not even measured by his rationality even more, but only by his animalistic, brutish indulgement of impulse for material need (glorification of work) and his capability to appease it in even more degraded and sophisticated ways: the Anglo-Saxon superstition of the animal idea has won over the world.

[SigniferOne]

Individualism has degraded the dignity of man to that of a mere atom

Indeed. There's nothing so uplifting as your Lord kicking you, and then taking half your money to go boozing with his buddies and wenches in his castle.

has opened the door to modern nihilism and collectivism.

Old collectivism was good, but now individualism is bad because it will lead to collectivism? Dang that logic and its pernicious effects.

Indeed "slavery is freedom", "war is peace", "ignorance is strength", we have heard it all before, except it was more creative the first time.

One is already a mindless economic ant in the modern world. And one was an even worse ant in 19th century England

I never posited today as an ideal. You're dealing me with false alternatives: "nihilism, or primitivism, take your pick". "A bullet to the heart, or to the brain".

All Western theology nowadays consists of footnotes on Ockham and Aquinas.

Lol. Russell's aphorism not any more credible than it wad the first time.

[Helm]

As far the animal aspect of human character is concerned this is a good bit philosophy on the subject.



The idea is to indulge yourself in material pleasures rather than abstain as abstinence leads to an unhealthy excessive compulsion. Therefore you will remain in greater control of your self and your ego. And we wouldn't have the kind of problems we're curently having in Western society where it is all a little out of control. And you will get to abstain from all these pleasures after you're dead anyway so it's already taken care of in advance. You'll notice this philosophy/religion has some basis in the Christian faith as well so that may have some appeal for you. Satan himself is the personification of your own animal ego to be worshipped and also the dark force of nature that maintains the order of the cosmos, which cares little for the existence of humanity. Interesting reading material here, more interesting than the God Delusion anyway.

[Marie Louise von Preussen]

Old collectivism was good, but now individualism is bad because it will lead to collectivism? Dang that logic and its pernicious effects.

No joke, Siggy. That you think so, is the byproduct of your faulty understanding. You can be forgiven, though, since it permeates all of modern philosophy: therefore the false antitheses which you seem so fond of.

Indeed. There's nothing so uplifting as your Lord kicking you, and then taking half your money to go boozing with his buddies and wenches in his castle.

Completely forgetting, of course, that the Magna Charta was a Medieval development, and that during the "Great Age of Classical (what a nice meaningless catchword! ) Europe" was also the age of unrestrained European Imperialism and Absolute Monarchy. Both of which were a) highly harmful to the regional balance of power and local autonomy, and ended up having a levelling down effect. Absolute Monarchy in Europe was a prefiguration of Communism. As for Imperialism, it was motivated by economic greed through and through, and it created the greatest system of slavery the world has ever seen; all that in the "classical, wonderful XVII century of freedom" - Freedom for the slave merchant, perhaps.

Louis XIV et all were a perfect example of that deleterious effect. Let us not even take long on what was his effect on traditional local checks and balances on his kingdom, a course which began before him and was imitated by all Kings in Europe almost at perfect synchrony: in one word, they sought to a) manipulate and divide them, so they could be b) destroyed, and replaced with the heavy handed Bureaucratic rule of an omnipotent State. "Freedom", eh?

And what was the alternative being brought forth in England at that time? Not a return to the medieval ecumene, but quite simply, another levelling down: this time in a totally plutocratic direction following the interests of the growing money classes and their preoccupations with the overseas Empire. After 1688, England becomes the vaunted "nation of shopkeepers", of which was alluded by Disraeli. And the same of her proud daughter, the United States, which is even more of an unlimited plutocracy now. The typical American would strike the mind of certain Old Testament figures as even worse than the worse (!) Mammon, golden calf worshipper and Jewish apostate in their own days!

All of that based on the conspicuous "individualism" of the 17th century Liberals, like Locke, and all of that based on an understanding of government, constitution, society, etc... that is all too typical of a merchant, if the distinctions can still apply today (they don't). All of this has ended generating modern faceless collectivity, which exists most strongly in the nations that have been most affected by Individualism and Capitalism, such as... The United States! Lol

Oh and did you know what was all that for? Money. Money to spend on Palaces, luxury, with effeminate and emasculated Courtiers who were the pitiful remnants of the former powerful and proud aristocracy, and were locked away in big palaces so they would not lose their pensions... And their entertainment, lol!

... Way to turn your own biased tirade against yourself, eh Siggy?

Indeed "slavery is freedom", "war is peace", "ignorance is strength", we have heard it all before, except it was more creative the first time.

But that's the very essence of modern prejudices! A total inversion of values, indeed . Good is bad, eh Siggy ?

Lol. Russell's aphorism not any more credible than it wad the first time.

Never knew he said it, concluded it after my own observations.

Theology in the Western world is an extremely degenerate science. Thanks, in great part, to the Reformation. The worst part is, that although a sick and degenerate Theology could be confined on itself and prevented from having an impact on Church practice by mere inertia and resistance to change which is a traditional feature of it, such was not the case of Western philosophical thinking.

All modernistic philosophers, Descartes, Locke, Bacon, D'Alembert, etc... Since the classy XVII century, have been influenced by Ockham to an enourmous stance. And they are not only the ultimate forebears of modern Materialism, but also of Idealistic solipsisim AND the consequential hyper-subjectivism and European nihilism, a final byproduct of the European Enlightenment. Which per se was a product of English thinkers like Locke and Hume, who were nothing but doubters, like Descartes.

Modern thought, paradoxically, doubts everything except for doubt.

I am in the process of translating a brief article on the Enlightenment written by a Traditionalist Catholic, and perhaps you'll be introduced to the basics of anti-Enlightement polemics, Siggy.

[Ludicus]

Never knew he said it, concluded it after my own observations.

"All Western theology nowadays consists of footnotes on Ockham and Aquinas"?
He didn´t. Alfred North Whitehead (collaborator with Russel) once remarked that all of Western Philosophy consists of footnotes to Plato.

[cfmonkey45]

I have to admit that I had severe reservations when I read that it was Fr. Seraphim Rose vs. Nihilism, which invariably implies Nietzche by some form or another.

Regardless, this thread seems to be going exactly where I predicted it. Random red-lettered civitate with a name shoutout to some French philosopher/aristocrat denounces modern society because it forgot how to hold its tea cup with its pinky out. Then Siggy comes in a stomps on any notion implying the veracity of Christian theology/tradition circa 400 to 1500 A.D., which would seem to pave the way for his inevitable attempt to prop up a blend of Divine Monergism juxtaposed with a modern take on the Scholastics' Natural Theology.


Anyways...

I have mixed feelings about Seraphim Rose. On one hand, I've heard very good things from a number of friends. On the other, I'm told that he had a rather... colorful... soteriology and that he harbored a rather intense reactionary temper against what he perceived as academic elitism. This, combined with the fact that every single book by him or about him is a tome, one, if number serves correctly, numbers into about a thousand pages in length, has inhibited me from trying to study up on the guy.

Regardless, I am familiar with Orthodoxy's take on Apophatic theology and their contemplative forms of prayer, which seem to be more in contrast with the Cataphatic theology and rationalistic approach adopted by the West. In a nutshell, the East argues that the Western Theologians dug themselves into a hole with the rationalist perspective by arguing that God is a God of the Gaps. This sort of leads down the road of Theism to Deism to Atheism, which is basically where Nietzche comes in a points out the absurdity of continuing to believe in a God that has already become obsolete and following the norms and cultures of a society (Victorian Era Europe, which was very conservative, ethnocentric, and morally puritanical) that uses this obsolescence as an anchor.

As a response the 19th Century Higher Criticism as well as the advent of existentialism and Nihilism, various forms of Protestantism arose that wished to counter this, notably Paul Tillich's Existentialistic movements, which reject the "Being of God," but is similarly rejected by other Protestants as being essentially a trojan horse of transtheism, and Karl Barth, who's Neo-Orthodoxy is essentially a Calvinism LITE (Same Great Reformed Theology, now with 50% more Universalism).

Suffice to say, there is an atrophy in most forms of Christianity today. In magisterial Protestantism, it's a lack of a clear identity that's leading to the implosion of the Anglican and European Lutheran Communions, while with Roman Catholicism, it's inertia is splitting it amongst it's traditionalist, reformist, modernist, and (minor) charismatic wings, while its dismally bad publicity is scything through its popularity. Eastern Orthodoxy is recovering from 80 years of Communism and massive cultural diasporas, while Evangelical Christianity is growing, but it's fundamentalist theology is shallow and hollow. Once the concession is made that strict, fundamentalistic Biblical Literalism is not the case, the struts of the faith have nothing left to fall back on apart from cultural cohesion and inertia.

[Helm]

What it all boils down to is that there are things that we know to exist, these are material things we can understand through observation of evidence and science. As far as morality is concerned you should just want to be moral anyway, if you're a moral person so this s not an issue. Morality is largely determined by the culture in which you live, along with certain values that are virtually universal for the human race as a whole.

If you want to believe in supernatural powers in addition to all this then you can but there's really no need to get on some kind of high horse over it or see atheism as some kind of root of all evil. Atheists are regular people who are more concerned with what is literally true rather than what feels good to believe in. If there's a problem with society it's nothing to do with atheism or religion as you will find that believers and non-believers in the West are much the same in how they act and what they do.

[Denny Crane!]

Modern philosophy as a whole has a misunderstanding and you have the answer? Wow.

Degenerate science?

Sigh.

[cfmonkey45]

Modern philosophy as a whole has a misunderstanding and you have the answer? Wow.

Degenerate science?

Sigh.

No. Just Modern Philosophy of Religion and Western Theology.

At least that's what I got out of what he's saying.

[Denny Crane!]

Are you sure because we've been here before with the voegelin discussion and how modern science is doin'it'wrong.

[cfmonkey45]

Are you sure because we've been here before with the voegelin discussion and how modern science is doin'it'wrong.

That's a related subtangent, but its not the central theme. The central theme is that the OP recently discovered Eastern Orthodox Christianity, to which I am also a recent convert. However, from what I can tell, the way in which the thread is structured seems to blame the rise of Nihilism on certain assumptions made by Western Theology, namely that they structure God existing according to Aristotelian categories of existence and essence. This did occur during the Scholastic Period when numerous theologians and philosophers had reacquired access to Early Christian texts, such as the writings of Dionysius the Pseuod-Areopagite, and various works of Plato and Aristotle via Byzantium and Rome.

Usually the argumentation is Cataphatic Theology versus Apophatic Theology as the primary way to understand and articulate God. Cataphatic, which is used primarily in the West and in Natural theology, postulates that God's attributes can be discerned through reason and through observations of the natural world. The argument is that this is a false, or partially untrue, assumption, and the logical outcome is nihilism. The converse is Apophaticism, which is a declination to define God in terms of existence unless absolutely necessary.

I don't know if what I've said is what the OP is getting at, but some of what I've heard.

[Marie Louise von Preussen]

Don't take me wrongly. Modern Science, thanks to the experimental method brought about by Descartes, Bacon... Which was foreseen by Ockham (he again! The Father of Modernity!) And refined since then, is a very valuable tool. It has systematized and brought about a body of technics which is simply extraordinary.

Yet, we should not confuse Science with the "totality of knowledge". This is a common error of Materialism. The XIX century has witnessed an inversion: while our technical knowledge has been vastly increased, our philosophical thought, solely carrying on the implications of its own conclusions, has relapsed into nihilism and solipsism. And we have not left that stage since then.

I'll reply to cfmonkey later when I have a bit more time. Sorry!

[Denny Crane!]

Don't take me wrongly. Modern Science, thanks to the experimental method brought about by Descartes, Bacon... Which was foreseen by Ockham (he again! The Father of Modernity!) And refined since then, is a very valuable tool. It has systematized and brought about a body of technics which is simply extraordinary.

Yet, we should not confuse Science with the "totality of knowledge". This is a common error of Materialism. The XIX century has witnessed an inversion: while our technical knowledge has been vastly increased, our philosophical thought, solely carrying on the implications of its own conclusions, has relapsed into nihilism and solipsism. And we have not left that stage since then.

I'll reply to cfmonkey later when I have a bit more time. Sorry!

I don't know anyone who confuses science with the totality of knowledge. Modern philosophy incorporates some science sometimes but I think most of this "materialist" alliance is in your head. Modern philosophy is still devoted to discovery and analysis by various methods. Just look at some searle and his thought experiments and analysis of the mind.

I really don't see the nihilism, which philosophers or branch of philosophy are you referring to or is this a broad sweeping generalisation?

[cfmonkey45]

I don't know anyone who confuses science with the totality of knowledge. Modern philosophy incorporates some science sometimes but I think most of this "materialist" alliance is in your head. Modern philosophy is still devoted to discovery and analysis by various methods. Just look at some searle and his thought experiments and analysis of the mind.

I really don't see the nihilism, which philosophers or branch of philosophy are you referring to or is this a broad sweeping generalisation?

I think by materialism he means Positivism.

[Denny Crane!]

I think by materialism he means Positivism.

Pretty much only discussed in the field of social sciences...and even then I'm trying to think of someone truly relevant after Durkheim. Science and positivism, I couldn't draw that link today.

[cfmonkey45]

Pretty much only discussed in the field of social sciences...and even then I'm trying to think of someone truly relevant after Durkheim. Science and positivism, I couldn't draw that link today.

There's a link, but perhaps I've made a mistake in some dealings.

Regardless, the point remains, Western Theology is blamed for modern philosophical movements that support atheism and such.