The Shadow and Nothingness: Reflections on a Scholion by Nicolás Gómez Dávila

Abstract

On occasion of the centennial of Colombian writer Nicolás Gómez Dávila, this article analyzes a scholion that summarizes his attitude toward the reality in which man is immersed. It says, “Between man and nothingness comes the shadow of God.” On the one hand, this expresses the fear of the abyss of nothingness, which was felt in particular by the contemporary authors whose works were part of Gómez Dávila’s library. On the other, it tests his distance, as a pessimist, from the nihilist authors with whom he has been associated. Gómez Dávila affirmed this distance in faith in a variety of scholia, of which a sample is provided. All of this helps to explain his pessimistic anthropology, which is due more to the classical pessimism of Thucydides than to the contemporary pessimism of a philosopher such as Cioran.