nihilism is the view that certain things people often assume are “real” or “given”—like objective meaning, objective values, or a purpose built into the universe—may not exist. …
The key practical point is this: a claim about what exists in the universe is not the same as a recommendation about how to live. “There is no objective meaning” is descriptive. “Therefore I should act cruelly” is prescriptive.
J. Colle, Ardenne. Nihilism Explained: A Short Philosophy Book for Beginners on Existential and Moral Nihilism and the Meaning of Life, 13 & 21
Category: Nihilism
experience necessity
According to Hume, Descartes’s cosmological proof of the existence of God relied on a conceptual foundation that he had left unquestioned, the conceptual foundation of causality. Hume argues that if you really tried to build knowledge back up from the most basic elements of human nature (e.g., perception), then you could not claim that causality is something we can know to be true rather than something we can only believe to be true. Though we may see one event follow another, and see this sequence of events happen over and over again, it is impossible to see that this sequence of events must happen. In other words, we cannot experience necessity.
Gertz, Nolen. Nihilism (The MIT Press Essential Knowledge series), 19.
In the end, we are always free to act.
purgation
Traditionally the first “step” of union with God is purgation. One of the definitions suggested by Google is “evacuation of the bowels brought about by taking laxatives.” For the follower of Jesus, it is simply being like Jesus who …
… ἑαυτὸν ἐκένωσεν μορφὴν δούλου λαβών, ἐν ὁμοιώματι ἀνθρώπων γενόμενος· καὶ σχήματι εὑρεθεὶς ὡς ἄνθρωπος
… made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men
Philippians 2:7 (KJV)
Other English translations use “empty himself” for κενόω. Maybe philosophically it is a little like “nihilism” – to become nothing? For the follower of Jesus is a choice to be “nothing” so God can create.
… absolute to itself
Who can precisely say that my neighbour suffers more than I do, or that Jesus suffered more than all of us? … Each person remains with his own suffering, which he thinks absolute and limitless… Each subjective existence is absolute to itself. For this reason each man lives as if he were the centre of the universe or of history.
On the Heights of Despair
a fool and his prayer book 