Only Transcendence Supports Immanence

"When the world is so flattened that all we have is the immanent, the immanent implodes upon itself. In contrast to such nihilism and materialism, only a participatory ontology – in which the immanent and material is suspended from the transcendent and immaterial – can grant the world meaning. …. Following Augustine, every created reality is absolutely nothing in itself…."


James K.A. Smith, Introducing Radical Orthodoxy, p.75

Relative Truth of Nihilism

‘Nihilism is nearer the truth than humanism, because it recognizes the unknown and indeterminate in every reality and because it is true that without God there is nothing. One can add that humanism is nihilism unable to recognize itself and therefore also naïve or cynical or both’ (Radical Orthodoxy: Twenty-four Theses,” thesis 7)


Quoted in: James K.A. Smith, Introducing Radical Orthodoxy, p. 43 note.44