Nietzsche, Žižek, to Christ: A Philosophical Journey to Orthodox Christianity
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- čas přidán 23. 03. 2023
- Thank you to Jeff from @ADormantDynasty for all his effort editing the video • Relativism and Cynicis...
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TREY’s book “Aphesis: The Impossibility of Subjectivity”: amzn.to/3hzxZAR (read the preface below!)
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Preface to Aphesis: The Impossibility of Subjectivity
Aphesis is a philosophical journey through hell, ending with a brief-perhaps even miraculous-glimpse of salvation. Many readers of the first edition were quick to note that the transition from the atheistic philosophy of subjectivity to the meditations on Christian theology were sudden and did not naturally follow from the reasoning of the previous chapters, but is this not the very way in which the grace of God operates? It is often when the sinner is most lost in this world-totally unconcerned with anything beyond themselves-that the Spirit of God descends into their hearts and shatters all of their prior assumptions and misconceptions.
I found Christ through this book. When I wrote the first word of Aphesis in the summer of 2019, I was a staunch (Nietzschean) atheist, and I wrote the final chapter as a catechumen in the Orthodox Church. When I say that I found Christ through this book, I mean it in the most literal sense. My “moment of conversion” occurred while I was shooting hoops in my driveway, in deep and troubled thought over my inability to complete the final chapter of this book, one which would overcome, or at least provide a reconciliation with, the “impossibilities of subjectivity.” And suddenly, as if a veil had been lifted from my eyes, I perceived the profound truth that the Christian story of salvation provides a “narrow path” out of every paradox and contradiction I found myself lost in. I dropped the ball, and the coincidences I perceived “made me suddenly stand still.”
I then messaged my cousin, my best friend and brother in Christ, to tell him the good news. Over the next two years we discovered Orthodox Christianity. Orthodox Christian theology-which has its foundation in the ontology of communion-posits that the being of beings is found in the other, in communion with the other. Communion is not mere “relating” to the other as if there were an underlying self-relation that only secondarily “relates” to another self-relating being. The radicality of the communal ontology consists of its absolute opposition to the notion of self-relation, which it banishes into the outer darkness. Pure self-relation is not merely something to be avoided-it is strictly impossible. The source of all being, being as such, is the communion between the Persons of the Holy Trinity: “Nothing in existence is conceivable in itself, as an individual, such as the substance of Aristotle, since even God exists thanks to an event of communion.”
The ontology of communion posits that one’s being is not found in oneself but in and through the other. One reconciles with and finds oneself in Christ. Simply put, the life of the individual is not found “in itself,” but in God:
"Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day [...] This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your ancestors ate manna and died, but whoever feeds on this bread will live forever." (John 6:53-57)
The true radicality of Christ’s “hard teaching” is often lost in the English translation. The Greek term translated as “eat” is closer to “munch” or “consume.” The communal ontology sees being as the consumption of the other (which is another reason why the communal ontology is not merely “relational”). But this “consumption” is not selfish devouring and the destruction of otherness, but a full reception of the other’s freely given love, made possible through the simultaneous giving of oneself. If one remains enclosed within oneself, one cannot commune; it is only in abandoning one’s self-imprisonment through self-sacrifice that one becomes open to communal life. - Zábava
Funny.
I went from Nietzsche to Kirkegaard to Dostoevsky to Orthodoxy.
Lol, in my Philosopical trip from Nietzsche I turned to Guenon, then Serafim Rose was the one who compiled and turned this crazy train finally directly into the Truth
Guenon would have implied Sufism
I went Nietzche (nihilism), Guenon (search for authentic wisdom tradition, reconnected with my Cypriot roots (grace, wholesome), I still had to answer the deeper questions, I read Rose (scared straight), but my entry into the genuine Spirit was with St Sophrony (wounded by love), his nephews book 'I love therefore I am' led to me the emigres and patristics, next to that probably reading modern devotional literature sealed Christianity as *the* revelation and fulfillment of the Tradition in antiquity.
Guenon still haunts me, he's devastating at taking apart modern man's mind, but as you consider these things carefully and deeply in very Guenonian spirit, he missed Christ. Especially in his day in France, one of my favorite devotional writers is St Louis-Marie Grignon de Montfort, or similar like Archbishop Fenelon, Guenon was friends with Charboenau Lassay, he had so much - why did he become a Muslim? Pageau is coauthoring a whole book on quebecque sanctity. Guenon had salvation at the palm of his hands, I feel like he missed it.
Interesting I am going to read seraphim rose, he worked with Alan Watts before orthodoxy and I used to be big with Alan, I think I'm too connected to Evola at the moment but lots to read.
Thoughtful and well said, bravo.
People need to hear about and learn how Holy Orthodox Christianity is a therapeutic science for the sinner who suffers from the passions that breed pathologies and who has lost communion with God through one's darkened Nous.
Be blessed on your journey, telosbound.
I've been learning about Orthodoxy and it's honestly astonishing how every problem I had with the protestant beliefs I was taught growing up is completely opposite in Orthodoxy. Just the whole attitude of the Church as a hospital is such a beautiful departure from the hellfire and brimstone I heard preached growing up.
Just found your channel; great material
Bro negated so hard that found Christ
Pageau calls it the double inversion
Nietzsche: “Battle not with monsters, lest ye become a monster, and if you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.”
Saint Sophrony Sakharov: “Stand at the brink of the abyss of despair, and when you see that you cannot bear it anymore, draw back a little and have a cup of tea.”
It sounds as if you became a christmated Orthodox Christian in the past year or so.
Congratulations!
I enjoy your CZcams channel.
Fr. Dn. Joseph
absolutely fantastic
Awesome stuff
Anotha banger 🔥
I love that Christ lead you to His Church. I had a similar journey that involved facing many dragons... Buddhism, Daoism, Plato, Spinoza, Hegel, Husserl, Heidegger, Deleuze, Nick Land, occultism, hermeticism, and Kierkegaard. Philosophy is love of wisdom and Christ is the Wisdom of God. I had this intimacy where I always knew Wisdom is a person. I'm grateful to have encountered Him in His One, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic Church.
great video man
Really good, interesting content
Man godspeed on the book! Seems very interesting
I gotta applaud how you went beyond Zizek but still acknowledge him for not only the complexity of his thought and his achievement of helping you have the realization in the first place
I'm not a believer, but I enjoy and respect your mind. Take care, sir.
Regarding the question about how Something can come from Nothing, doesn’t Zizek’s engagement with quantum physics point towards an answer? He compares the wave functions of subatomic particles with what he calls “pre-ontological chaos,” following Schelling.
I’m looking for a video, or maybe it’s a writing, you put out that discusses the ontological significance of the legal language of atonement and salvation. Would you be able to direct me to it? I thought I saved it but I can’t find it. I thought it was done well.
Zizek led me back to the Catholicism of my childhood through Chesterton funnily enough.
You start off by saying that there's no 'fixed self' (so to speak) but end up concluding that there will be a time where we will find rest in who we 'are'. I want to know when this will occur and what will cause it. I am Nietzschean so I believe that ontologically everything is in flux - the only constant is change therefore nothing can 'be' because everything is perpetually 'becoming' therefore the self is and will always be a mere illusion
Yaloluyanda, by that logic, the self-state that asked this question ("I want to know") will not be the self-state that will recieve the answer, so why ask such a question?
Don't know much about history but you should check out Ethiopian orthodox church
I think you must enforce more of not having heretical imagery in the videos
Like most false philosophers (ideologues) like Hegel, Nietche, etc it seems Žižek is just employing what Voegelin referred to the gnostic tactic of prohibiting questions in order to justify one's own philosophical system. That whole negations becoming a positive and something coming from nothing is a perfect example of that.
Zizek really changed a lot of people's life by reminding us of the cry of dereliction
15:19 isnt that kind of begging the question?
It is very interesting. A comment towards Universalism is that this subject in Hell is never actually self-closed. The Self is, by nature, communal and so this Hell is perceived as indeed Hell. Where all illusions go to die. The illusion being that there is something to the Self beyond its relation to God. Sure, the ego may struggle to maintain the egotic illusions, but given that these are illusions, they cannot stand the reality of this self-relating negativity.
Devoid of God's gifts that ground us, such as body, the world, other subjectivities, we are left with our projections(both towards the Good and towards the egotic), but the egotic ones cannot provide the solidity and so they are laid bare for the illusions that they are. This is the Great Equalizer, for even Satan is the same Nothing in this Void. Kings and paupers and even angels would be pure self-relating negative consciousness, for the identity as king/pauper or angel is God-given. It is a gift that I am a human, that I have body, that I have health, that I have intellect, and so on.
So, without these gifts the subject is confronted with its own emptiness and the incompleteness that this engenders and the external order can no longer serve as a defense against these illusions. There is no longer the king-ness of the king so that he may feel prideful in his kingness. There is no longer the great intellect of the intellectual so that he may feel prideful in his intellect. There is no longer the great beauty so that we may feel prideful. There is no source that sustains our identity and hence our pride other than the egotic will, but this egotic will cannot survive in this fire, it is burned away. This is why this fire also contains God's love for it redeems us by confronting our pride as illusion, illusion that no longer can deceive itself through God's gifts. This humbles everyone. This fire, is always constant for our emptiness as reality is always the case. Yet it is also the case that God fills this emptiness with itself and His gifts. Because what we are is a relating Self, pride being the illusion that is stripped away in this Hell.
Also, given that we are God's creatures, what sustains our very essence is God's design. God's design is for communion. No one can experience this Hell and be "at home in it", for we are just not made to be at home in Hell. Freedom is always positively oriented, and so even the freedom to be proudful is a freedom that seeks self-fulfillment. In Hell, when we are stripped from our egotic illusions, we can recognize that these illusions cannot lead to our self-fulfillment and we are overcome with the recognition that Hell is hellish and not the object of our desire. Praise God for His humbling and loving Hell.
VV+Trusisi
ARE YOU CRAZY? "IN THE WAKE OF THE DEATH OF GOD?" DO TELL WHEN DID HE PASS AND WHY WASN'T I NOTIFIED.
Can I ask why you put #sigma on all your videos. Is it as a joke or serious. Because you seem like a smart guy and well educated for your age but all that Sigma and online masculinity stuff is mostly a joke but yet I've noticed many young Orthodox Christians who actually try to role play the "sigma" archetype. I don't think Orthodoxy is really a "sigma" mindset however it goes beyond that.
You can't be philosophically educated & also funny, & relatable to the average man?
As Orthodox Christians, we don't believe philosophy is some out-of touch elitism, for university. It's serious, but also life itself, & infuses that.
@@ciaranmurphy6618 I don't quite get what you're saying. Are you saying that it's okay to joke about Sigma mentality but also it's not a joke and is a serious and in line with Orthodoxy? Or something else?
mid font
@@telosbound Please use Comic Sans, my brother in Christ.
it reminds me of the worship of the donkey in Zarathustra, cause you can't handle nihilism
Every modern intellectual Christian convert.
Nihilism is self refuting and a cope. It's a deceptive one, because it makes one with a passive mind feel superior because of rather than despite their passiveness.
@@cosmicsitcom7115 it's almost as if it solves the problem (though even a Deistic Stoicism is a solution).
@@evan7391 The "problem" is people's blindness, and mental haze. Obviously if religion is bs, the next step would be looking at your own physical vessel and Nature, not searching for new and other abstract invisible realms and planes. Eat raw meat, drink blood, have sex, be happy. Voila
Erjondividi, if you have placed your faith in the philosophical belief of Nihilism, why did you even bother conveying any meaningful message to another, and also imparted any judgment of what another cannot handle?