Although this all sounds very speculative, the course of action that derives from a Gnosticism conceived dialectically is simple: “Try to be as contrary as possible!” In this regard, the Gnostic did not stop short at mere passive resignation and escapism; he also turned this negativity into an active principle of subversion, revolt, and antinomianism. On this point, Gnostic dualism’s passive nihilism turned dialectically into an active nihilism. This nihilistic revolt could then take many different shapes, going from religious apostasy to immoral behavior and sexual transgression. This kind of revolt was also paradigmatic for Scholem’s concept of redemption through sin, developed in his discussion of the Jewish heresy of Sabbatianism.

The only course of action that could be derived from a Gnostic or Sabbatian rejection of the world was a negative one. Since nothing positive could be achieved in this world, the only option was saying no to it. In Scholem’s view, Sabbatians refused to go along with immanence by living this world in the opposite direction. If the messianic and the transcendent are in every respect opposite to history and immanence, the only meaningful comportment to this world is to invert every current moral, political, historical, and religious standard.

In the case of radical Sabbatianism, this took shape in an active nihilism that implied first and foremost an inversion of the religious norms of traditional Judaism: “Through a revolution of values, what was formerly sacred has now become profane and what was formerly profane has become sacred. . . . The violation of the Torah is now its true fulfillment.”

The example of Gnostic revolt shows very clearly how the way someone thinks about transcendence and salvation influences the way he behaves in the immanent world and makes sense of profane history, even if his concept of transcendence entails a radical rejection of immanence and history. This is the dialectic of religious nihilism.

After lamenting God’s absence, he concluded in the penultimate line of the poem: “Oh, we must live all the same” (Ach wir müssen dennoch leben).19 When the pursuit of another world ultimately proves futile, we realize that we still have to lead our lives in this unredeemed world.

In other words, Scholem attempted to reaffirm immanence, as he could not stop short at a univocal and paralyzing negation. Nonetheless, he could no longer naïvely reaffirm the intrinsic meaning of the cosmos; he could not deny that meaning is not immediately given. In a true dialectical sense, Scholem therefore pursued an affirmation of the world that was mediated by its initial negation. This is the dialectical negation of the negation. Benjamin Lazier also understood Scholem’s project along these lines: “The Gnostics of late antiquity had divorced God from the world the better to escape it. . . . Scholem also spoke of an abyss between God and the world, but . . . to save the relative autonomy of the world (a version of it) from God, and thereby to affirm it. Dualism—not so much; dialectic—yes.”

What was at stake for Scholem was the affirmation of this world in view of its fundamental nihilism and meaninglessness. In that sense, he attributed value to life in this world in a way that ran counter to its immanent logic. He proposed a way to live history against its grain and to make sense of the world as a manifestation of divine nothingness.

Willem Styfhals, No Spiritual Investment in the World