Revisiting Gurdjieff’s “Terror of the Situation”: Atheism as the principal engine of our unawakening

Atheism, despite its vaunted pose as the rationalist’s creed, is in fact a metaphysical regression—an infantile, reactive, and ultimately self-destructive position. It is not grounded in science, nor in reason, nor in observable phenomena, but in spiritual blindness. It is not the result of inquiry, but the refusal of responsibility and, worse still, the principal engine of our unawakening.

As both Gurdjieff and the Christian tradition affirm in different idioms, atheism is the outcome of a profound disorder in the soul—a collapse of orientation toward the Real, the Good, and the True.

Far from being a mature philosophical stance, atheism is a spiritual pathology—a rebellion not merely against “God,” but against Reality itself. And as such, it becomes the most pernicious form of idolatry: the worship of the self.

Atheism is not a worldview—it is a rejection

Atheism is not a first philosophy. It does not offer a constructive account of Being, of consciousness, of meaning, or of value. It is entirely defined by what it negates: namely, God.

In this respect, it is not a serious metaphysical proposal, but a reaction formation—a reflexive “no” to any transcendent claim that might demand obedience, humility, or transformation. It is the epitome of Gurdjieff's Hasnamuss.

The vacuity of this posture is even more stark when placed alongside Gurdjieff's assertion that the existence of God is not something to be argued but something that is self-evident—presupposed in the very structure of the cosmos and the experience of consciousness itself. Atheism, then, is the act of sawing off the very branch upon which one sits.

Atheism pretends to be scientific—but it is not

Modern atheists love to don the garb of science. Yet science, properly understood, is methodologically naturalistic—it does not (and cannot) pronounce metaphysical judgments.

The claim that science “disproves God” is a category error, akin to claiming that a microscope has disproven music. Science is silent on the transcendent precisely because it confines itself to the immanent.

Furthermore, the trajectory of modern physics and cosmology—especially in quantum mechanics, fine-tuning, and consciousness studies—has only made the atheistic-materialist model increasingly untenable. The astonishing precision of cosmological constants, the emergence of qualia, and the irreducibility of subjective experience all cry out for a deeper ontological explanation.

Yet atheism continues to cling to an outdated and mechanistic cosmology, blind to the metaphysical implications of the very science it invokes.

Gurdjieff and the “Terror of the Situation”

According to Gurdjieff, the human condition is marked by a tragic irony: we are spiritual beings asleep to our own condition, hypnotized by illusion, automatism, and false personality. In this context, atheism is not merely an error of belief—it is the apex of sleep, the supreme form of delusion.

“The Terror of the Situation,” as Gurdjieff called it, is the fact that man has mistaken himself for his ego, and thereby worships himself—believing himself autonomous, self-generating, and sufficient. Atheism is the theological formalization of this error.

It is not simply disbelief in God—it is the enthronement of the self. And this, Gurdjieff understood, is the most dangerous form of idolatry: self-worship masquerading as reason.

In this light, atheism is not a neutral position—it is an ontological deviation, a refusal to bear the weight of being. It denies the vertical axis of reality (the hierarchy of being) and collapses all meaning into the horizontal plane of ego and materiality. It reduces man to a machine—then asks why he feels dead inside?

The Christian diagnosis: Atheism as diabolical inversion

From a Christian perspective, atheism is more than error—it is deception. The refusal to acknowledge God is not just ignorance, but spiritual rebellion, a device of Satan to turn human beings away from their source, their telos, and their salvation.

St. Paul writes:

“They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator…” (Romans 1:25)

Atheism, at its heart, is this very exchange. It is the substitution of self for God, of autonomy for obedience, of hedonism for holiness. It is the original temptation in Eden—“you shall be as gods”—dressed in the garments of modern rationalism.

And the fruit of this rebellion is everywhere: narcissism, nihilism, civilizational decay, the collapse of meaning, the rise of totalitarian systems, the commodification of the body, and the death of the soul. In forsaking God, man does not become free—he becomes enslaved to his passions and to the powers of this world.

The collapse into narcissism and anti-humanism

What atheism ultimately generates is not liberation but narcissism. When man is made the measure of all things, he loses all measure. He oscillates between arrogance and despair. Without a transcendent reference point, the human being becomes trapped in his own solipsism—either consumed with self-aggrandizement or crushed by existential futility.

Gurdjieff saw this clearly: without conscious work on the self (a a great deal of help from God), man becomes a slave to mechanical impulses. And the tragedy is that he believes himself free.

The atheist, denying God, becomes his own god—and therefore ceases to develop. He is a prisoner who has thrown away the key and declared his cell a palace.

This is the true Terror: not merely that we are asleep, but that we defend our sleep as truth.

Atheism is spiritual degeneration

Atheism is not a neutral “lack of belief”—it is spiritual degeneration, a crisis of perception, a willful refusal to participate in reality as it is. It is neither philosophically robust nor scientifically grounded. It is a psychological evasion dressed up as intellect. It is, as Gurdjieff and the Christian saints alike have understood, a rebellion against the very structure of the cosmos—an ontological betrayal whose consequences are not merely intellectual, but civilizational and eternal.

Atheism is the creed of those who have chosen the ego over the Absolute, comfort over conscience, and illusion over the labor of inner transformation. It is, in the final analysis, the oldest lie in the world: “You shall be as gods.”

But man was not made to worship himself. He was made to awaken—to know, love, and serve the Source of all Being. And until he returns to that path, every denial of God will merely deepen the sleep from which he must one day awaken—or perish.