From Nihilism to Kingdom Come :: Philosophy Theology Religion Papers

The Final Stage of Mankinds Education From Nihilism to Kingdom ComeABSTRACT I give reasons to conceive that our present situation is not as bleak as some would have it. I show how the historical process can be mute in terms of a Premodernity (Aquinas), Modernity (Hegel), and Postmodernity (Nietzsche) division of human tarradiddle. I argue that both Hegel and Nietzsche were fully aware that Modernity was over and that a cast out Postmodern condition was to necessarily precede a consummatory positive one. Also since history may be taken to have reached its goal at the exterminate of Modernity (with Reasons grasp of Christianitys principle), Postmodernity can best be understood in terms of its central task of elevating all humanity into absolute acute (the knowing of the God within)an elevation via Reason and Faith achievable only by the abolition of the God outside, i.e., by a negative followed by a positive outcome of history, which Schelling refers to as the Church of John, a synthesis of Catholicism and Protestantism, the perfected Church. IntroductionMy thesis, in brief, is that the painful God is dead period of history we are presently going through can best be understood as a necessary transitional period the immediate burden of mankinds intellectual advance, in the preceding period, viz., the Modern or Age of Reason, beyond the Middle Ages, the Age of Belief. With the apotheosis of the development of the principle of subjectiveness in Modern philosophy, i.e., with the attainmeUnprioritized SDO meetingnt of absolute knowing, or Reasons knowing of the absolute, humanity had outgrown its former manner of relating to substance, the divine its eyes opened, it could not go back but only forward. From the highest standpoint, it can be said that the movement of history is from the God outside to the God inside an inversion process involving three explicit and necessary phases Premodernity, Modernity, and Postmodernity, to be correlated with Thomas Aqui nas, Hegel, and Nietzsche, respectively.It appears that as a result of Modernitys, i.e. Hegels, intellectual achievement in which religion was superseded by philosophy, i.e., Wissenschaft or information religion had of necessity to undergo a major crisis. That is, a God is dead period of (post-) history had to supervene. However this negative period is in no way to be regarded as final or terminal, but instead as the necessary precondition for a positive, consummatory period of human history, its finale, a period in which, in Schellings words, the unification of philosophy, science, and religion will be realized.