After Nietzsche

There are very few people whose name would invoke hatred amongst many "Christians" and love amongst many "atheists." One such name is Friedrich Nietzsche. The interpretation of just one passage in his The Gay Science has sparked this great controversy. In it, Nietzsche states at one point that "God is dead"¹ and this one sentence has caused most theologians to abandon reading anything associated with Nietzsche. This one statement, taken out of its context, has supposedly created an army of atheists who see Christianity through these lenses that God is dead. There are some theologians, though, who have tried to acknowledge Nietzsche and re-appropriate things in Nietzsche (such as this death of God) into a new movement.

Acknowledging this diversity of thought, there are many questions to answer and many problems to resolve. First, what did Nietzsche mean in The Gay Science when his madman states that God is dead? To answer this question, it will be necessary to look at the rest of the passage to understand the phrase as well as the historical location of Nietzsche to understand his implications. The second question deals with those that have re-appropriated Nietzsche in theology: did these people understanding Nietzsche's meaning or did they supply their own context and arguments for their ideology? To answer this, it will be necessary to look at their application of Nietzsche and compare it to the answer to the first question. The last question to entertain is whether or not one can re-appropriate Nietzsche's "death of God" into theology and if so, how? The full answer to this question may be beyond one single essay, but I hope that enough will be seen in the other answers to make this answer obvious.

Nietzsche's Words

As I have already noted, Nietzsche's "death of God" is possibly the most misunderstood area of Nietzsche's works and has served as the basis for misunderstanding the rest of Nietzsche's works within theological beliefs. This section of The Gay Science, titled "The Madman," is where any investigation should begin. The madman is very specific in naming the murderers of God. He is less specific as to how God is murdered, but that is answered when Nietzsche's historical location is understood. In the section in question, the madman first asks "Where is God gone?" before answering his own question: "We have killed him,--you and I!"² It seems clear that for Nietzsche, the murderers of God are the people of the madman's time. Yet, are these the same people of Nietzsche's own time or are they some other people? How should these people be described?

The most amazing description of the murderers of God are that they are related to the religious as the madman went around spreading his message among the various churches. These churches have become "the tombs and sepulchers of God."³  As such, it seems logical to conclude that Nietzsche is implying that the priests and clergy are guardians of a cemetery and no longer ambassadors of some living (or even resurrected) God. Yet this does not bring us closer to the murderers of God. We must turn to more of Nietzsche's works to better understand this. Later in The Gay Science, Nietzsche states that Schopenhauer first saw that belief in God was a lie.⁴ Furthermore, Schopenhauer raised this as a problem with the rest of Europe; and it is this European conscience that finally ceased tolerating this lie.⁵  This may bring us closer to discovering the murderers of God than what is first seen. Through this, it may be assumed that God's murder occurred years (if not centuries) before Schopenhauer.

Jumping back in history, we can see when God became a tool of man for Nietzsche: the Jews and early Christians. First, the Jews begin interpreting "all happiness as a reward, all unhappiness as punishment for disobeying God, as 'sin.'"⁶  As "sin" is introduced through the Jews, it becomes a device for the priestly class to maintain the order they want. To Nietzsche, the Jewish priests did not stop there and they began falsifying their history to further their control over others. For Nietzsche, the Jews continued to negate the ideals of what was natural and seen in all of the non-Jewish people. Through this, the Jews were able to form Christianity to suit their own needs:

The 'holy people,' who had retained only priestly values, only priestly words for all things and who, with awe-inspiring consistency, had distinguished all other powers on earth from themselves as 'unholy,' as 'world,' as 'sin'--this people produced an ultimate formula for its instinct that was logical to the point of self-negation: as Christianity, it negated even the last form of reality, the 'holy people,' the 'chosen people,' the Jewish reality itself.⁷

Christianity has become the ultimate form of Judaism in that it even rejects its own true self. Nietzsche further sees the death of God being embedded in the fact that God is never found. There is no evidence anywhere for Nietzsche in the historical, natural, and even the supernatural. The death of God was the creation of a god. In Nietzsche's mind, this is found clearly in Paul: "The 'God' whom Paul invented, a god who 'ruins the wisdom of the world' ... is in truth merely Paul's own resolute determination to...give the name of 'God' to one's own will."⁸  The death of God is a will to nothingness, a call to nihilism.

Back to the madman, we find that individualism is what killed God as the madman asks, "Shall we not ourselves have to become gods, merely to seem worthy of it [killing God]?"⁹ In Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Nietzsche writes that God died of pity. Nietzsche also mentions in Zarathustra that God dies many times. This resonates with Nietzsche's thoughts of eternal return—to will something to occur eternally. Yet, in order to keep within Nietzsche's critique of Christianity, it seems fair to consider that the death of God is brought along in part by the Judeo-Christian priestly class who have replaced God with their own puppet and covered this up with a lie in the myth of the resurrected Christ. Shockingly, Nietzsche respects this one aspect of Christianity because it was a creation of new values.

Nietzsche's World

Nietzsche's phrase "God is dead" may be understood now in terms of who and how, but it still needs to be placed in the context of Nietzsche's meaning. There still remains to be determined whether or not Nietzsche's "Christianity" was synonymous with Christianity as a whole or just in terms of a single section. Some see Nietzsche in terms of the Christian church contemporary to his day much like many see Kierkegaard in terms of the Danish church at his time. If Nietzsche was reacting primarily against the German Lutheranism of his day, how much of his critique is still applicable to theology today? If Nietzsche's criticism was also in view of Christianity as a whole, we must discover how accurate are his depictions of Christianity and how should they affect Christian theology.

It should be noted that the figure of Jesus appears to largely be excluded from his critiques of Christianity. He says in The Antichrist, "Jesus has been understood, or misunderstood as the cause of a rebellion; and I fail to see against what this rebellion was directed, if it was not the Jewish church--'church' exactly in the sense in which we use the word today."¹⁰ As such, it would seem that in some ways, Nietzsche is aligning himself with Jesus against both Jews and Christians. Jesus was not some Redeemer/Son of God figure of salvation but rather a human who has displayed a "psychological reality of 'redemption.'"¹¹ This makes Nietzsche's attack on Christianity much different as he sees some characters in the historical development of Christianity in positive light. Nietzsche is thus very pointed in his critique and not simply writing against anything labeled "Christian." Through this, then, it should be noted that Nietzsche's "opposition to Christianity as a reality is inseparable from his tie to Christianity as a postulate."¹²  That is, we cannot separate how Nietzsche believes Christianity is in theory from what it is in practice.

The Christianity which Nietzsche is radically against is the Christianity of the institution, the Christianity of doctrines. Nietzsche's primary critique of Christianity is that it lies. Contrary to some interpretations of Nietzsche which place his perspectivism first and foremost, Nietzsche does exhibit consistency in seeking out truthfulness; he does suggest that there is a truthfulness to be found and embraced. In the twisting of the slave morality and ressentiment into good, Christianity has made weakness a virtue and strength a vice. By doing this, the Christianity of doctrines has made faith into a matter of simple belief. This "faith," says Nietzsche, only makes being a Christian a negation of that word. Faith is doing, not just believing. Mere belief is only a "cloak, a pretext, a screen behind which the instincts play their game."¹³ It is this revaluation which drives Nietzsche to begin his own revaluation. Nietzsche is not attacking all morality, but rather what he perceives as bad morality, the Christian morality of guilt.

Nietzsche Appropriated

Now that we have some understanding of Nietzsche's critique of Christianity and the "death of God," we should look at how it has been understood and appropriated in theology. Mark Taylor is one of the few who have appropriated Nietzsche into a working model of theology. In his Erring, Taylor notices in sections of Christianity something similar to Nietzsche's madman: individualism. Taylor points out that it was Luther's conception of Christ living and dying pro nobis--"for us"--that has radically shifted the focus of theology from God to self. It is important to note here that the it is the turn towards individualized faith, the turn towards the self as a moral agent capable of being separated from his actions that is in question. This turn to the self has resulted in the slow removal of God, however defined, from the personal and public sphere. Morality, that hammer of control the Jewish priestly class used, has become nothing more than suggestion as Nietzsche sees people like Kant creating their own morals and their own categorical imperatives. There is no longer some kind of transcendent God, even if the people have not yet acknowledged it or their participation in it. God is dead long before people realize it. This individualism, Taylor notes, is radically linked to the Enlightenment and, more specifically, Descartes. While Descartes radicalized doubt, he also made truth something individualized, an I with certainty.¹⁴  As such, Taylor interprets the men of the Enlightenment the ultimate murderers of God. Taylor consistently links the death of God with the death of the Christian God. As I have noted above, this yet another instance of the many deaths of God.

Taylor continues to follow Nietzsche's thought as he expands on the individualism that has killed God: "If the master is God and the slave man, then man's murder of God is an act of self-deification."¹⁵ This is an echo of Nietzsche's sentiments from earlier: the murderers of God have attempted to become gods in order to seem worthy of this event. As such, this death of God "appears to be the birth of the sovereign self."¹⁶ Taylor does not end there. Taking this further, he expands on this death of God and states that it also brings about the death of the human self. As Nietzsche has indicated in The Antichrist, the creation of Christianity is ultimately a perfection of Judaism by the Jews as it negates even itself.¹⁷  It is no coincidence, then, that ultimate death of God, as it brings the birth of the sovereign self would also bring with it the death of the self. This is the nihilism which Nietzsche saw now as something to be embraced but as something we must pass through. By accepting the death of God and entering into the act of creation, man can overcome this murder of God and return to the natural order of noble things and, possibly, beyond the notions of good and evil.

It is through this fullness of nihilism that theology must pass in order to rediscover the oldest God. This God is not the self, but also not the radically Other. The path of nihilism is the one that can navigate theology safely between the rock and whirlpool that past theologies and philosophies have found. Through this path, there can be a radical rebirth of God in the middle place. As a measure of trust, theology should allow play in the future, not seeking to lose the pathos of the self or the ethos of the divine. Through this wandering and playing, we find the essence Taylor calls erring. It is through this purposeful drifting and transgression that theology may resurface from its own death and we can possibly find God for the first time.

----

01 Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science (New York: Russell and Russell, 1964): 125. *All references for this book are to section numbers, not page numbers.

02 Nietzsche, The Gay Science 125.

03 Ibid.

04 Nietzsche, The Gay Science 357

05 Ibid.

06 Nietzsche, The Antichrist in The Portable Nietzsche, Kaufmann, Walter ed. (New York: Viking 1954): 25. All references for this book are section numbers, not page numbers.

07 Nietzsche, The Antichrist 27.

08 Nietzsche, The Antichrist 47.

09 Nietzsche, The Gay Science 125.

10 Nietzsche, The Antichrist 27.

11 Nietzsche, The Antichrist 33.

12 Karl Jaspers, Nietzsche and Christianity (Henry Regnery 1961): 6.

13 Nietzsche, The Antichrist 39.

14 Mark C. Taylor, Erring: A Postmodern A/Theology (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1984): 22.

15 Taylor, Erring 25.

16 Ibid.

17 Nietzsche, The Antichrist 27.

Comments

[Tim McGee]

Nietzsche's Christ is simply an exaggerated version of Hegel's beautiful soul (not very promising for theological reflection; and fortunately, neither interesting nor compelling).

I'm also a bit perplexed as to how Nietzsche's tirades against Judaism could be noted and built upon without any kind of qualification.

Honestly, Nietzsche strikes me a bit like Dawkins: often humorous, but quite prone to making bold (a)theological claims without much theological knowledge. I am inclined to believe that it is for this reason--and not out of fear or hatred--that theologians don't go to him for theological advice.

[Jesus Christ]

Thank you for the issue of making conceptions in to Christianity and making religious customs I'm also a bit perplexed as to how Nietzsche's tirades against Judaism could be noted and built upon without any kind of qualification.

[Phil Newton]

We would turn to Nietzsche precisely because he offers a bold critique of church and theology in a way that those of us inside would never dare offer.

As stated, the death of God is directly related to the rise of the divinity of the self. We could in theory consider the usefulness of Nietzsche's critique of the construction of self and values without paying much attention to his critique of religion, but I would suggest it would be incomplete.

I would however, challenge the notion that "through this purposeful drifting and transgression that theology may resurface from its own death and we can possibly find God for the first time". Certainly, we may resurface from a long delusion and reclaim a God long neglected, but I think Nietzsche's critique does overstate the point in a reductionist sense.

[John T Brittingham]

I especially like the way Paul Ricoeur looked at Nietzsche. For Ricoeur, Nietzsche was one of the masters of suspicion; putting forth a critique of the idol of western metaphysics and of Christianity in particular. It is in this sense that Nietzsche is extremely helpful to the project of theology. As Ricoeur saw it, we must move through the hermeneutics of suspicion because they expose our conceptual idols. Only after we have removed or critiqued the idols can we move towards a hermeneutic of affirmation in which we can begin to speak positively about God in a new way.

To some extent, this move is very phenomenological--reducing the conceptual "masks" of God and Christianity so that we can see the phenomenon more "purely"(though I have serious reservations about a pure reduction)--albeit a phenomenology that "takes the long route" through hermeneutics.

[Tim McGee]

I agree that we should engage Nietzsche; my question is regarding an attempt to incorporate/appropriate his work theologically (in other words, when reading Nietzsche, we should never forget that his thought is more than just a critique, it is a rehabilitation of a paganism incompatible with Christian life). When we forget this fact, we seem prone to just incorporate almost anything (including his awful reading of Jewishness).

[kevin]

But if you read Nietzsche already decided that he's "incompatible with Christian life" then in what sense have you truly felt the force of his critique(s)?

For the author: would you agree that the "death of God" can be re-formulated to read "the death of the metaphysical God" -- the God of ontotheology, God of the philosophers, etc?

[Christopher Roussel]

Hopefully, this one response addresses everything....
I think the "death of God" is something that is largely the death of the common concept of God. While I didn't go into this part of Nietzsche, his "philosophy" is primarily contradictory: he goes against "morality" yet still promotes a morality very similar to the one he rejects. The same thing goes for "truth" and even "religion." To read Nietzsche as just something (e.g. just an atheist), then one has lost half of Nietzsche.
I think one of the best examples of this is when Zarathustra tells his followers to abandon him, reject him, and overcome him and that it is only then that they have truly followed him. Nietzsche isn't to be taken as completely true without question. It is through skepticism that one truly succeeds in reading Nietzsche. In other words, to completely accept Nietzsche, we must completely reject him. The highest person is the one who creates values. This is why he respects the Jewish priests and Paul, even though he despises their creation.

[Jesus Christ]

The conversation of Friedrich Nietzsche went very well and he had made clear about his points about the god and the Christianity

[Jesus Christ]

The conversation of Friedrich Nietzsche went very well and he had made clear about his points about the god and the Christianity

[Tim McGee]

To be brief: there is a very large gap--indeed, N. calls it antithetical, Antichrist, between the creation of values through resentment/negation (jewish/priestly creation) and the noble creation of values through affirmation, and what N. rejects isn't just what the priests create, but how they create (by negating life). And we must not forget that, for N., his affirmation of life is the affirmation of (to use the radical orthodoxy word) an ontology of violence, a world that is chaos, violence, and force.

Also, your take on how we should interpret N.'s critiques seems a bit Hegelian: the negations are themselves negated to be reconciled at a higher level (a morality that resembles the negated morality). Even if this were accurate of N., it still has the unfortunate consequence of the whole movement beginning with the negation of Jewishness (as a symbol for the remarkable power exercised through a feigned denial of life), a fact that should not be overlooked or casually dismissed in our efforts to satisfy the postmodern obligation to "feel the force of Nietzsche's critiques."