by Ásgeir Jóhannesson
The most important writers on my route from atheism & libertarianism towards Orthodox Christianity & traditionalist conservatism have been Nassim Taleb, Roger Scruton, Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Soeren Kierkegaard and Seraphim Rose. The last mentioned author, the Californian who is probably the least known of the six, is absolutely mind-blowing; the most valuable intellectual discovery I have made so far. The book by him one should read first is a very short book called *God’s Revelation to the Human Heart*. Then the ground has been prepared for the next one: *Nihilism: The Root of the Revolution of the Modern Age*. Nihilism is a subject I have been thinking about for a long time and it surprises me how profound his understanding is and I’m struck by the quality of his analysis.
In his scheme of things, liberalism, libertarianism, anarchism, fascism, Nazism, socialism and Bolshevism are all throroughly nihilistic in character, while traditionalist monarchism (authoritarian but not totalitarian) is the best political structure.
In *Nihilism* he says e.g. the following: “In the Christian order politics too was founded upon absolute truth. We have already seen, in the preceding chapter, that the principal providential form government took in union with Christian Truth was the Orthodox Christian Empire, wherein sovereignty was vested in a Monarch, and authority proceeded from him downwards through a hierarchical social structure. We shall see in the next chapter, on the other hand, how a politics that rejects Christian Truth must acknowledge “the people” as sovereign and understand authority as proceeding from below upwards, in a formally “egalitarian” society. It is clear that one is the perfect inversion of the other; for they are opposed in their conceptions both of the source and of the end of government. Orthodox Christian Monarchy is government divinely established, and directed, ultimately, to the other world, government with the teaching of Christian Truth and the salvation of souls as its profoundest purpose; Nihilist rule – whose most fitting name, as we shall see, is Anarchy – is government established by men, and directed solely to this world, government which has no higher aim than earthly happiness.” (pp. 28-29)
“…The Nihilist “revelation” thus declares, most immediately, the annhilation of authority. Some apologists are fond of citing “corruptions,” “abuses,” and “injustices” in the Old Order as justification for rebellion against it; but such things – the existence of which no one will deny – have been often the pretext, but never the cause, of Nihilist outbursts. It is authority itself that the Nihilist attacks. In the political and social order, Nihilism manifests itself as a Revolution that intends, not a mere change of government or a more or less widespread reform of the existing order, but the establishment of an entirely new conception of the end and means of government.” (pp. 65-66)
“…To such a state has Nihilism reduced men. Before the modern age the life of man was largely conditioned by the virtues of obedience, submission, and respect: to God, to the Church, to the lawful earthly authorities. To the modern man whom Nihilism has “enlightened,” this Old Order is but a horrible memory of some dark past from which man has been “liberated”; modern history has been the chronicle of the fall of every authority. The Old Order has been overthrown, and if a precarious stability is maintained in what is unmistakably an age of “transition,” a “new order” is clearly in the making; the age of the “rebel” is at hand.” (p. 67)
Well, I do not expect you to “have ears” for such approach. Yours truly (my humble self) would have been the fiercest critic of such a transcendental perspective only half a year ago. But I’m starting to see the soundness in this kind of political thinking. Perhaps you will “have ears” for it some day as well.
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it is always good to read of someone who has come to hope and light.
As for the Orthodox Church….
I have known several people who have converted to it – although I have not walked this road myself.
It must be good not to cringe as leading figures in the Church one is part of insist on making political statements (under the false impression that they are making religious statements) – especially as the political statements of Western religious leaders reveal astonishing ignorance.
From the standpoint of theological history the position of the Orthodox is strong.
Augustine (the leading theologian of the West) was dealing with document that were originally either written in Hebrew (the Old Testament) or in Greek (the New Testament) – and Augustine could read neither language.
Therefore it seems odd to place such huge weight on the opinion of Augustine – which the Western Church did.
Before anyone points it out – I do know that the formal break was four centuries later, but the basic difference is already there.
New doctrine (doctrines that Augustine invented – such as the doctrine that justifies violent persecution of people whose religious beliefs one does not agree with, – many had committed this sin, the sin of using violence to impose matters of religion, before Augustine, but he developed the theology that it was not a sin) treated as always-existing doctrine.
One sees this (changing doctrine presented as unchanging doctrine) even today – Pope Benedict says something and it has “always been the teaching of the Church” and Pope Francis says something that at least appears to be rather different and it has “always been the teaching of the Church”.
And the political power play – with Augustine’s link to the powerful Ambrose of Milan, being vastly more important than his (basically non-existent) Hebrew and Greek scholarship.
The Western Church has always contained great men – such Roger Bacon (a profoundly decent man – and also a great scholar, who managed to master languages in the, vastly more difficult, circumstances of the Middle Ages – which Augustine had not bothered to learn in the Classical Age, when it would have been relatively easy for a Roman gentleman to do so), but it has also contained other sorts of people.
Such as Innocent III who (for example) set up the Council that ordered all Jews to dress up in special costumes – a direct imitation of contemporary ISLAMIC law (but without a word that Innocent was copying the Muslims – on the contrary it was presented that this, and many other, forms of persecution had “always been Church doctrine”).
The problem appears to be that the Western Church allows a few human beings to change doctrine – and to deny that they are changing it.
All religions have wicked human beings within them – but the Western Church has been trapped into the position of having to say that certain very important human beings can not be wicked (at least not in the doctrines they teach).
Thus (just to take the example of Innocent III) the crusade against Constantinople has to be explained away (Innocent did not want this…….).
And the Crusade against the heretics of what is now Southern France – with the cry on attacking towns “kill them all [non-Catholic and Catholic] God will know his own”?
And the persecution of the Jews?
And the ripping up of the Great Charta of 1215 in relation to England?
And all the other “misunderstandings”?
Perhaps it can indeed all be explained away – but it seems an unnatural effort.