The radical ascesis of the Schopenhauer’s philosophy and christianity’s salvific proposal

Abstract

This work shows the comparison between the Schopenhauer’s philosophy and Christianity’s salvific proposal. The great philosophers think out systems or metaphysical questions in which spirit’s main goal coincides with the liberation proposal in the various forms of Christian religion.  In their systems, the ideal path traced to the spirit coincides with the fullness of being that appears in the religious sphere. The novelty this paper intends to portray is that Schopenhauer's metaphysical system traces a path to the human spirit in which its liberation does not coincide with the fullness of spirit. Over against the usual trend in Western thought, for this philosopher liberation coincides with a radical overcoming of being, because it proposes the mortification/annihilation of being not only in the carnal dimension, but as a whole. It is a reverse path that seeks the void of the Will in search of its whole annihilation.