ABSTRACT
The way of negation can be understood most easily as an ideal of action; but corresponding to ideals of action there are always theories, or at least assumptions, about the nature of the world and in the case of religion about the nature of God. The philosophical theories of immanence and transcendence are too complicated to be dealt with shortly, and it may be doubted whether if we accept one, we must reject the other. Indeed those who venture into theological speculation may find themselves impelled to accept views which, if they were concerned with finite objects, would be self-contradictory. But to the modern man of the West the way of negation in religion seems so strange that it may be illuminating to sketch briefly one metaphysical theory of the universe which is its ground or background. This theory may be called nihilism, and it can be summed up paradoxically by saying that what is is, what is not.
