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PICARD, Max
Christianity and Disjointed Man Christianity, which is the world of permanence and continuity, cannot be understood by the world of disjointedness. This being so, one cannot speak of the hostility of this world toward Christianity; the tension is not there for any sincerely hostile attitude to arise against Christianity. Christianity simply is being swept out of this world like something which does not belong, like something which irritates because it does not fit into the world of disjointedness. This world of disjointedness is not necessarily consciously antagonistic to Christ's doctrine; it needs not even know that doctrine in order to be hostile to it; its hostility is structural; a priori it stands in opposition to Christ's doctrine. With Christianity there is the structure of continuity and permanence; with the world of discontinuity the structure is disjointedness and the momentary. Hence, in this world man suffers not from the split personality based upon original sin, because no continuity exists which could reach back to original sin; modern man is split and is broken up by the structure of disjointedness, and with every moment the breach widens, because every motion in this world, be it mental or physical, already partakes of the mechanics of disintegration and not of God. Likewise, this man is incapable of sacrificing himself, because in the world of the momentary there is no object for which to sacrifice one's self. Instead of sacrificing it, one throws life away in a moment. Finally, far from dying by the schism in himself, modern man, on the contrary, uses it as a stimulant to a hectic life; he manipulates with his own fragments. Disintegration thus becomes a way of life; one lives by one's fragmentation rather than dying from it. For in this world death is not real, as one perpetually jumps from the nothingness of one moment to the nothingness of the next. One greatly fears in this world of disjointedness that God will appear in its midst and end it all. That is why this world of disjointedness is forever on the move, stays forever in the race from moment to moment with the idea that if only this perpetual motion were kept going at full speed, even God could not stop the automatic juggernaut of disjointedness. Nothing but the instant is left, the last remnant of the vanished permanence of time, the moment as a fragmentary shred of time, not the moment of eternity. Only as at the end, at the very last moment, Christ returns, only that moment will again be of eternity. Faith in Christ's second coming thus means that the last moment to come will be the catastrophe which ends this world. Picard, Max. Hitler in Our Selves. Trans. Heinrich Hauser. Hinsdale: Regnery, 1947. |