The philosophy of hell and ecumenism
I tried to translate an essay I wrote in swedish into english. I am sorry for my bad grammar.
"The real cause, he said, is the soul and God: whatever God is doing and whatever the soul is doing. These two things actualize the whole of history; and all the external events - what treaty was signed, or the economic reasons for the discontent of the masses, and so forth - are totally secondary. In fact, if you look at modern history, at the whole revolutionary movement, it is obvious that it is not the economics that is the governing factor, but various ideas which get into people´s souls about actually building a paradise on earth. Once that idea gets there, then fantastic things are done, because this is a spiritual thing. Even though it is from the devil, it is on a spiritual level, and that is where actual history is made..."
Hel. Seraphim (Rose), ”Not of this World”, sid 670. St. Herman of Alaska Brotherhood.
The spirit of Relativism and Nihilism is now penetrating the western mans thinking to such an extent, that he no longer can defend values of goodness, beauty, truth and righteousness. Beauty is relative, it is not “out there”, only in someones mind as an opinion and nothing more than HIS opinion. What is beauty for you is not beauty for another, we are told, and we like this argument because it makes us feel enlightened, tolerant and intellectual honest. This philosophy is moreover connected with an epistemology. We cannot PROVE that something is more beautiful than something else and therefore we cannot really judge art by objective standards. Art has therefore become what you want and like. Something that people just fifty years ago would call perverse and decadent is now mainstream art, because there are no real standards for beauty. Western man is also told that goodness is relative. We are told that different people has different values and ideas about the good and what is good for you is not good for another. This affects morality that way that you no longer effectively can scold a behaviour as immoral, because you are only speaking from a perspective, and not from some objective morality. What happens here is that political, military, economical or rhetorical POWER becomes the only “thing” that determines what is ok to do or say or think. Murder is wrong, not because we have an objective morality according to which life has an intristic value, but because our LAWS says so, the politicians have decided that murder is wrong and that´s why it is wrong. It is perhaps even wrong because the people say so in an democracy. But what happens if the democratic regime decides that an Hitler should rule as was the case in the Weimar Republic. In lack of something absolute good and beautiful, power is the substitute. The political decision in itself is the criterium of what is right, not the content of that decision.
In the book: ”Nihilism - The Root of The Revolution of the Modern Age” blessed 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 litterature 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 appraoch 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.
In my analyzes, the destruction of authorities gives the perverse opportunity for the autonomis individual to choose authorities from other standards than the TRUE, the GOOD and the BEAUTIFUL. Here we have the modern idolatries in form of the worship of sex, action, the nation, democracy, utopianism, science and many other isms. Political Correctness forms public opinion to chose one idol, for example democracy, and hate an anti idol, for example fascism. But the same political correctness would say that nothing is objectively true, good and beautiful. Read this line one more time: The NOTHING is the truth, the NOTHING is the Beautiful and the NOTHING is the GOOD. This is the philosophy of hell. It is opposite of Christ who said: I AM THE TRUTH. Satan says: NOTHING is the TRUTH. We have Being, the I am versus the non Being – the Non- existent.
This phiolosphy leads to the conclusion that every claim to truth has the same (or rather no) value, that is, no real value at all. The claim is Universal, the Nothingness is absolute everywhere on for every human on this planet. No one are allowed to say that his religion is more true that anu other religion. No one is allowed to say that your morality is decadent and destructive.
This philosophy attacks every dogma of the Holy Orthodox Church. It first attacks Gods name, the I AM. It attacks the truth of Christ, it attack the inegrity of the Gospel because it says that the Gospel are no more true than, for example, the Quaran. Today many Christians say that their religion is just true for them, that other religions are different roads to the same goal. In other words they say that Christ is wrong and relativism is right. Because Christ said that HE was the ONE and ONLY road to the Father. Christ is ANTI NIHILIST for this reason, HIS teaching and philosophy is opposite of the philosophy of hell.
When the devils philosophy now have destroyed the people of the west and transformed them from Christians to consumers of mass culture, light cigarettes and hedonistic products, believing that there are no truth and no real beauty anymore, he attacks the Church of Christ, transforming the ancient orthodox patriarchates into Masonic clubs, into schools and propaganda centers of ecclesiological relativism. The patriarchates no longer says that Orthodoxy is the ONLY true church, but that it is ONE church among other Churches. They say: There are also Christian protestant, Anglican and catholic Churches and many of them have apostolic succession. So, the triumph of relativism and nihilism in our Churches is the triumoph of NOTHINGNESS, because it teaches a heresy: THAT CHRIST IS DIVIDED, God forbid!!!
This perverse thinking must be condemned by a Holy Orthodox Synod and condemned back from the abyss from which it once came from.
Nikodemus
