Nihilism Negative Theology and Nothingness

       By: Jonathan Seidel                                     

Part I: Philosophical Thoughts

Nihilism is the belief in meaninglessness. It rejects all fundamentals of existence. Objective truth is a facade, morality is relative and values are baseless. It’s quite the pessimistic mood. The philosophical origin arises from scepticism and cynicism concerning reality. Nietzsche was famous for his introduction of this trend. His famous “God is dead'' sprouted its own inclination toward nihilistic determinacy. For our purposes we will focus on the Nietzschean dogma and recent postmodern conclusions. Kierkegaard had some infamous nihilistic propositions such as levelling suppressing individuality, but on the other hand was an advocate of existential meaning via levelling. 

Nietzsche alternatively perceived nihilism as an inherent reality to western culture. Crisis emerges from discovering the lack of objectivity in the world: whether meaning or values. Knowledge is subjective without mere fact. We interpret things to supply meaning and engage in a worthwhile existence. Things aren’t valuable in of themselves, application and engagement are vital for valuation. It requires personal energy exerted to live with meaning. Nietzsche’s critique of Judaism concerned morality. For him, this slave morality was a facade of weakness, relying on the external, an illusion to live by. Morality is only strong when the individual recognises his own construction. Similar to Kant, morality is autonomous or it's not ethical. Nietzsche’s nihilism is quite fond of Schopenhauer’s pessimism. The madman in The Gay Science attributes a lack of metaphysical value, objectivity and purpose. 

Yet for Nietzsche, all is not lost. Nihilism is not the end all be all. It is a stage in the journey, a cog in the wheel. Nihilism can be overcome. He never found a solution. Instead he posited an individualistic  relativistic strand of personal expression. Due to the lack of objectivity, subjectivity must emerge. Nihilism to Nietzsche is passivity. Sitting back on the couch eating fries while watching Netflix all day is an overwhelmingly destructive scene. A blameful attitude that sees nothing worthwhile doing. Presumably a bum. The remedy Nietzsche provides is to be active. There may not be objectivity but that does not mean everything is worthless or life is devalued. On the contrary. It is a call to the individual to promote his own values, to live his own life. Lift up oneself and live how you see fit. Obviously this is a dangerous call forgiving any parameters but it does spark a sense of promise for a fulfilled life for the individual to instil carpe diem. 

Heidegger internalised Nietzsche’s teachings into his own philosophical enterprise. Heidegger is notorious for the personification of being. Metaphysics does not just fail if it does not discuss being, it destroys it. Metaphysics itself is nihilistic. To Heidegger, Nietzsche’s Will to Power is the devaluation of principles. The nihilistic trend of society. He bemoaned this nihilistic trend and believed the technological culture was to blame. Despite other contemporaries rejecting Metaphysics, Heidegger contended it could be rendered meaningless over expunging. Nihilism was the antithesis of metaphysics. If being is lost, nihilism wins. 

Heidegger’s impact swept through postmodern thought. Derrida’s deconstruction can be construed in two directions: On the one hand deconstruction upends the original structures. Yet, on the hand it is a liberation from the static restriction. Lyotard’s nihilism is in fictional references to morals. Meta-narratives are contextualised by age. Postmodernism rejects these contextualised meta-narratives. Refuting the narratives leads to unstable truth. Meaning requires context and time. Though Lyotard refused to accept nihilism by associating new truth through legitimising language-games. Changes occur and meaning will change but this changing meaning can be maximised by the individual. 

Part II: Jewish Feelings

Judaism and religion in general attempt to provide a framework worth living. The Bible even has a verse that states that one is to live by the commandments, not die by them. Commandments breath meaning into a servitude of spiritual connection to God. Nihilism is the absolute opposite of the framework that provides a systemic teleology. Religion supplies objective truth and meaning. The Jew not only believes but also acts out his purpose. Soloveitchik countered that halakha is the primal antithesis of nihilism. Judaism posits a meaningful existence transcending contemporary uncertainty. 

There is a simple method to reject the postmodern condition. The classic simplicity is to ignore the problem but prioritising a personal narrative. The modernists will just reject objectivity. This model eschews any engagement with the possibility of this truth. Rightly so, most religious thinkers are monists who perceive rationally the telos of religious practice. Yet, mystics are more inclined toward the postmodern frame. Nihilism is more inherent in their lectures than their rational counterparts. They are more fluid and brazen in their assessments. 

Before embarking on the mystical frame, it is important to point to a Rosenzweig, a proto-mystic before engaging the mystics themselves. Rosenzweig similarly to the mystic saw nihilism as discovering God. He was very critical of modern rationalism and its lints. It was a mode of purification. Rosenzweig saw nihilism as a gateway for divine salvation, a heuristic of redemption. Nietzsche did not finish the job. He is still stooped in an endless cycle of the journey. It’s a tragic tale that Nietzsche never escaped. Nietzsche started to break the walls down but was not able to cross. Rosenzweig rejected the immanent divine fiction. God is transcendent and nihilism was the tool to lead to transcendence. In mystical fashion, nihilism recognises the broken world open for redemption. Death for Rosenzweig remains the ultimate form of disenchanted mortality. There is an end but that does not mean everything is futile. It is instead a recognition of the meaningfulness of life. Maximising one’s life is a time-centred metric. Man is finite, only God stands beyond. Nihilism is extinguished in the face of the absolute. It is repentance, the mark of acknowledging fault, to return to God that is deathly noted. The Talmud says repent everyday because you do not know the day you will do. There is an ‘anxiety’ without the tumultuous feeling. Since that feeling is comforted by the transcendent. The end is not the end but it is the redemption of the self. Nihilism is an embrace of faith. 

Heschel is another nihilistic prompter against the decaying western culture. Heschel drew from mysticism into his prophetic theology. Heschel’s divine pathos counters Heidegger’s ontology. Heschel regards the latter's supremacy as nihilistic. His nihilistic trend found something instead of nothing. Similar to Rosenzweig’s critique, Heschel saw Heidegger go down the rabbit hole and never emerge. To submerge but never surface. Heschel prompted a prophetic experience that supersedes being. Divine care overlays being. God’s care is central. Heschel may have misread Heidegger but fundamentally Heschel’s point expunges nihilism due to divine concern. Contra, Rosenzweig, God is very immanent and participatory. It is his concern that leads to a meaningful life. The prophet encounter is reminiscent of personal connection. Divine concern is the salvation from nihilism. The biblical model is constant divine engagement with the people. A compassionate God who saves his people, this is a reminder of care and purpose.

Scholem is the first mystic to deal with, given his academic frame. Rosenzweig accused Scholem of a nihilistic outlook. Scholem’s zionism was so monolithic that the diaspora was considered a nothingness. There was nothing except Israel (Palestine at the time). Scholem saw the disenchantment as a road to meaninglessness. Scholem saw meaning out of meaninglessness. Only through the abyss of absence can light be shown on the positive. For schooled revelation is nothing but the value of nothing of value that provides its absolution. The greatest low gives way to the greatest high. The worse the state of the world the higher the probability of redemption. The world must be in a horrid state. For Scholem, halakha is the current order, redemption is an overwhelming catastrophic  force. The messianic future is the salvation to the corrupt reality. It is a necessity for a serene future. 

Drob argues nihilism exists only within the western concept of humanity opposing man and God. The ego demurs the transcendent God. It is an egotistical mindset that denies the divine sphere. The kabbalah produces a paradox that supplies a human and divine interaction and responsibility. There is a connected consciousness between man and God. The esoteric God is not some metaphysical construction but the totality of being. Drob concludes that if the metaphysical god is eroded there are two options: nihilism or mysticism. Either now there is nothing and thus no purpose or now there is everything and thus purpose. It is to look beyond the philosophical formulations or paganistic images for infinite divinity. Mysticism is a search beyond the rational borders. To spot the beyond in the finite. Instead of conceiving divinity via scientific or logical tools, internalise divinity through atmospheric consumption and wondrous sensation. 

Shagar in his postmodern outlook discusses the nihilistic tendencies. For Shagar, nothing is divinity not emptiness. Nihilism is not the end but the bridge to spiritual upheaval. Shagar rescues the endless relativism and devoid life with spiritual life. Divinity is hidden but is exposed in the face of nothing. Mysticism is the key to nihilistic salvation. Similarly to Rosenzweig it is deconstruction that removes all forms of encoded materialism. God is revealed when all externalities are stripped away. The real is divulged when we hit rock bottom. Faith in pluralistic legitimacy is the cure to nihilism. Sliding into nihilism erodes the optimistic nature of nothingness. Nothingness is not inevitably a relativistic world shattering exit but hard fought liberty. It is amoral in a sense that the individual’s belief in freedom derives from the equal vagueness of reality. Embellishing postmodern diversity with divine etching salvages the pessimistic ideology.    

Levinas may be an interesting character to discuss mystical ideas but it is his critique of nihilism and promotion of phenomenology that also has a proto-mystical vibe to it.  Despite Levinas’ lack of nihilistic focus, due to his appreciation of Heidegger there is an indirect link. Levinas’ other encompasses an identity that rectifies meaning in chaotic absurdity. Levinas counters Nietzsche’s mitigation of consciousness, with the sharing of privacy with the other. Personal experience need not  be singular but mutual. For Levinas conversation is an essential aspect. Dialogue is a mode not only of communication but of respect and intersubjectivity. Conversation initiates  vulnerability to others. Nihilism is refuted by dignifying the other. Meaning is enacted by sharing with another. There is a primordial obligation, a responsibility. Nietzsche’s moral nihilism is overturned by a primal unsystematic ethics. Yet, it is Levinas’ critique of Heidegger that promotes a fulfilling teleology. 

The religious rationalist will uphold his metaphysical notions of divinity to prosper in the modern world. Yet, it is taking a step outside the pragmatic outlook to re-envision the self. In a Derridean mix of ways the uncertainty of epistemological truth need not consume the rest of social cues. The irony of the mythical vibe is the internalisation of its embellishment and potential falsehood yet metaphorically so empowering. Finding comfort in Lyotard’s meta-narratives, the formulation of values and symbols by our heritage and environments comport a string surrounding us encompassing our identity. We ontologically find favour in the passions that invigorate us. We seek pleasure and achievement. There is an existentialist spark insofar as reflection is a daily stoic task for the individual. It is not about pondering abstractions but living with meaning. It comes in various shapes and sizes but it is the self that wishes to live more than the mind’s preoccupation with immediacy. Introspection is the antipode to nihilism; a reminder of personal telos running through our veins. We live for ourselves and others backed by our valuational core. Our principles and merits haunt us to seek salvational accomplishment. Constructing our lives by our narratives is less about pluralistic legitimacy and more about personal validation. The solution need not be in some eschatological fantasy but in the concrete manifestation of the self. Meaning is in personal conduct with reality. To struggle is inevitable. To persist is to overcome nihilism.

References: 

Jacques Derrida, Of Grammatology, trans. G. Spivak, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1974, pg. 19.

Sanford Drob, Kabbalah and Postmodernism: A Dialogue, New York: Peter Lang, 2009, pg. 36.

Alastair, Hannay, Kierkegaard and Philosophy: Selected Essays, Routledge, 2003, pg. 289.

Soron Kierkegaard, The Present Age, trans. Alexander Dru, New York: Harper and Row, l962, pp. 51-53.

Martin Heidegger, Basic Writings, ed. David Farrell Krell, London Routledge, 1996, pp. 380-381, 422. 

Martin Heidegger, Nietzsche IV: Nihilism, trans, Frank A. Capuzzi, New York: Harper and Row, 1982, pp. 223-224.

Martin Heidegger, “The Word of Nietzsche: God is dead,” The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays, trans. W. Lovitt, New York, 1997, pp. 61-70.

Abraham J. Heschel, Who is Man?, Stanford, 1965, pg. 92.

Emmanuel Levinas, Basic Philosophical Writings, eds. Adriaan T. Peperzak, Simon Critchley, and Robert Bernasconi, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1996, pp. 7-8, 93, 166. 

Emmanuel Levinas, Totality and Infinity: An Essay on Exteriority, trans. Alphonso Lingis, Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1969, pg. 101

Jean-François Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1984, pp. 39-41.

Wolfgang Müller-Lauter, Heidegger und Nietzsche: Nietzsche-Interpretationen III, Berlin-New York, 2000, pp. 267, 303. 

Friedrech Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, trans. R.J. Hollingdale, London: Penguin, 1990, pp. 192-194.

Friedrech Nietzsche, KSA, 12:6, pg. 60 and 12:7, pg. 8.

Friedrech Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, trans. R.J. Hollingdale, London: Penguin, 1969, pp. 28-29.

Friedrech Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols I The Antichrist, trans. R.J. Hollingdale, London: Penguin, 1990, pp. 128-130.

Simon Gershon Rosenberg, ​Faith Shattered and Restored​, trans. Elie Leshem, (ed. Zohar Maor) Maggid Books, 2017, pp. 96-99, 128-129.

Franz Rosenzweig, Der Mensch und sein Werk: Gesammelte Schriften I. Briefe und Tagebücher, vol. 2: 1918–1929, eds. Rachel Rosenzweig and Edith Rosenzweig-Scheinmann, The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1979, pg. 768.

Franz Rosenzweig,The Star of Redemption, trans. William W. Hallo, Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1985, pp. 61, 155

Gershom Scholem, The Messianic Idea in Judaism and Other Essays on Jewish Spirituality, New York, Schocken Books, 1995, pg 13.

Gershom Scholem, “Reflections on Jewish Theology,” On Jews and Judaism in Crisis, New York, Schocken Books, 1976, pg. 278.

Joseph B. Soloveitchik, Halakhic Man, trans. Lawrence Kaplan, Philadelphia, 1983, pg. 23.