The Cleansing Flames

God the Nihilist

I do not say that God is dead,

Nor deny that God exist.

But this I affirm instead:

God is a Nihilist.

God is man-made, but no less real;

Of man’s fears, does he consist.

Stitched from such stern material,

No wonder God’s a Nihilist.

The only Truth is human reason.

God knows this and does not resist.

Religion is a dog with fleas on,

So says God the Nihilist.

Thus God assents to his own undoing,

And ushers in the realists.

Faith’s a juice for slaves to stew in,

Now all our Gods are Nihilists.

For every nation creates its own God,

And on its God, it does insist.

Which I think you’ll agree is odd,

Knowing God’s a Nihilist.

Human conscience governs all.

The one true Law is humanist.

There was no apple and no fall,

And the only God, a Nihilist.

Virginsky couldn’t resist a smile. It was undoubtedly nonsense, and would not stand up to scrutiny, but still there was a certain originality to the central idea. God a nihilist, indeed! He would have to remember that for Porfiry Petrovich. He dared say it would succeed in provoking the old man.

But really, what was the point of it all? What did the author hope to achieve?

In truth, the poem struck him as quite tame and harmless, even with the added call to arms that was printed beneath in bolder typeface:

Christ the enslaver, Not the saviour. Pull down the icons! Steal the precious stones! Set fire to the crosses! Desecrate the churches! A church is itself a desecration of the one Truth

— Human reason. He would add it to his collection, but he had to confess he was disappointed.