Vitalism Leads to Nihilism
I saw a post on the Web somewhere in the last few days (I can’t recall where), about the trend toward worshiping human life itself as the highest principle...detached from recognition of any higher theological realities. Then I ran across this quote from Dietrich Bonhoeffer that struck me as especially relevant, and so I wanted to pass it along:
--Dietrich Bonhoeffer, “Natural Life,” Ethics, p. 178.
Vitalism ends inevitably in nihilism, in the destruction of all that is natural. In the strict sense, life as such is a nothing, an abyss, a ruin. It is movement without end, without goal, movement into nothingness. It does not rest until it has drawn everything into this annihilating movement. This vitalism is found in both individual and communal life. It arises from the false absolutizing of an insight that is essentially correct, that life, both individual and communal, is not only a means to an end but also and end in itself. God wills life and gives life a form in which it can live, because left to its own resources it can only destoy itself.
--Dietrich Bonhoeffer, “Natural Life,” Ethics, p. 178.
Thu, 11/20/2008 00:20
I certainly had not thought that life’s positive externalties like planting a tree in a neighborhood has theology [...]