Nihility And Salvation:Gnosticism In Philip K.Dick’s VALIS Trilogy

VALIS trilogy was written by Philip Dick during his last years when he was seeking the God and Savior for our world. The novels contain some distinctive features of Gnosticism. Based on close reading of the text of VALIS trilogy and focused on nihilism and salvation, this paper attempts to investigate Dick’s modern interpretation of Gnosticism and its significance.Nihilism, as a common spiritual predicament of modern people, is the theme of the three novels. In the view of Dick, for us who are confused by nihilism, the salvation from God is necessary and possible. Enlightened by Gnostic ideas, he finds that God has not abandoned the humans completely and people can be saved by getting the holy knowledge (i.e. gnosis) of God. So the issue of salvation has been made the core of the trilogy. The journeys of salvation that the main characters of VALIS trilogy undertake show that Dick tries to find ways by combining the dualistic cosmology and the salvation theories of Gnostic theologies with many different thoughts from Christianity and Judaism. However, none of their attempts really succeed at the end. While reinterpreting the Gnosticism, Dick denies some of its theories, especially the theory on personal salvation that completely abandons secular world and the Gnostic dualism that may result in antinomianism. Dick hopes to combine personal salvation with universal salvation in order to eliminate sufferings on the earth and avoid complete denial of the world as well. But later, he also realizes that there exists an unavoidable gap between the two aims and it is almost impossible to obtain the kingdom of God and the earthly life at the same time. Yet he is unwilling to make a choice between the two. Therefore, he lays the question aside without final conclusion in the hope that God’s salvation might come someday.