From Nihilism to Kingdom Come :: Philosophy Theology Religion Papers

The Final Stage of Mankinds development From Nihilism to Kingdom ComeABSTRACT I give reasons to turn everywhere that our present situation is non as bleak as nearly would hold in it. I show how the historical process basis be dumb in terms of a Premodernity (Aquinas), Modernity (Hegel), and Postmodernity (Nietzsche) division of military man autobiography. I argue that both Hegel and Nietzsche were fully aw be that Modernity was over and that a negative Postmodern condition was to necessarily precede a consummatory positive one. Also since history may be taken to have reached its goal at the end of Modernity (with Reasons grasp of Christianitys belief), Postmodernity can best be understood in terms of its central travail of elevating all humanity into absolute knowing (the knowing of the immortal within)an heave via Reason and Faith achievable only by the abolition of the God outside, i.e., by a negative followed by a positive diaphragm of history, which Schelling refe rs to as the Church of John, a synthesis of Catholicism and Protestantism, the perfected Church. insertionMy thesis, in brief, is that the painful God is dead period of history we are presently going through can best be understood as a prerequisite transitional period the immediate import 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 subjectivity 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 backwards but only forward. From the highest standpoint, it can be state that the movement of history is from the God outside to the God inside an anastrophe process involving three distinct and necessary phases Premodernity, Modernity, and Postmodernit y, to be correlated with doubting Thomas Aquinas, 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respectively.It appears that as a result of Modernitys, i.e. Hegels, intellectual achievement in which religion was superseded by philosophy, i.e., Wissenschaft or Science religion had of necessity to abide a major crisis.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.