"God is dead."

~ Friedrich Nietzsche, 19th century German philosopher

from Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for All and None

Sir Nietzsche (one of my personas, btw :), liked to say that he delivered his philosophy "with a hammer" and was certainly looking for an immediate response from his "God is dead!" statement.

So, we all know that Nietzsche pronounced God dead.

But, did you know what he was getting at?

Nietzsche's philosophy paints the portrait of his ideal man, the “Uberman” or "Overman": an individual who, through self-discipline and his "will to power" has overcome his social conditioning and is, in Nietzsche's words, "beyond good and evil" and no longer needs God (or anyone else for that matter) to tell him what is moral.

Hence, the Overman lives. God is dead.

(For the record, Nietzsche did leave his possible belief in God open just a bit...Apparently, he "would believe only in a god who could dance.")

And, a friend of his stepped in for the final word on the matter:

“Nietzsche is dead.”

~ God

Isnt’ this basically the lie that Satan told Eve? That by eating the fruit her eyes would become open and she would be able to determine for herself good from bad thus no longer needing God?

Well, I don’t know about the lie and Satan part, but yes, Nietzsche is saying that each of us has the power to identify our truth and do not need priests or other “ordained” individuals to stand between us and God and tell us what is true and what is not.

Respectfully,

-bri

Hi, “rstringer.”

I approach your question with respect, and tentatively. If you are looking for apologetics, I “apologize” from the beginning. But if this is a sincere question, let me try to frame a sincere answer from my perspective.

In a spirit of full disclosure: I was raised in the Episcopal Church. In my early twenties I was an evangical Bible teacher for several years. Since then I have moved into a more “Perennialist” position. There are numerous threads in the Christian tapestry. Some would read the Bible as history and science; others as mere allegory. I’m somewhere in the Middle: I see it as much more than “just stories,” but not a literal record of events either.

I see the Bible as a book of questions, not answers. I see it as meant to knock us off our asses (on the road to Damascus). I see it as a challenge to the status quo, not a comfort at all. The preacher at the back door of the church hears, “Nice sermon, Reverend,” and thinks, “I’ve failed.” But, “What you said troubles me…” Ahhh!

In this sense, then, I see Nietzche’s statement as being in the same vein as the words of the 13th-century German mystic (some would say “heretic”) Meister Eckhart: “The ultimate leave-taking is the leaving of God for God.” You see, Eckhart (like many others, Christian and otherwise) postulated that all that we know about God, all that we say about God, all that we think about God—this isn’t God. Somewhere beyond all this is something ineffable. Jewish tradition has it right when they refuse to say a name for God. The Tao Te Ching begins:

The tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao.
The name that can be named is not the eternal Name.
The unnamable is the eternally real.

This is very close to “No man has seen the Father except me.”

The story of Eden, and the quote from Nietzsche, are indeed connected, but some would say in a positive way: It was necessary for Adam & Eve (=us) to leave our concept in order to find true godness. The Medievals framed it as “the fortunate fall” – without their sin, there would have been no salvation in Christ. (If God is omnipotent, then in some ways Satan must be working for God – see Job.) I see the Eden-Calvary connection not as a literal chain of events in history, but as a necessary psychological event. We must fall from innocence to come to a mature spiritual life (compare Ken Wilber’s “pre-post fallacy”).

This, I think, is what Nietzsche was driving at. But there is great danger in this approach, too. As J.D. McCoughy cracked: “God is dead, but 50,000 social workers have risen to take his place.” Or as Jesus put it (Luke 11), when one demon is removed (and nothing comes to fill its place), it will return with seven more wicked than itself. (Please don’t get me wrong; I’m not calling God a demon here; the first “demon” is our underdeveloped “concept of God”). The man’s final state is worse than at the beginning. And so the loss of a God-centered society has unleashed chaos—but also the potential for true personal transformation.

In his own way, Nietzsche was challenging us to move beyond the limits of our social conditioning and find true divinity, not just “abandon God.” The Buddhist version of this is just as shocking: The Chan (Zen) Patriarch Lin Chi told his followers that if they were to meet the Buddha, they should kill him! This would keep them from becoming “stuck” at some point of development.

Someone said, “It is better to LOVE the truth than to KNOW the truth.” The one who “knows” stops looking.

I hope this somehow addresses the intent of your question.

Hi.

I am coming in here way out of my league :)

From what I understand from Brian’s distillation of Nietzche’s thoughts, I think what Nietzhe was trying to say is this:

Man, and probably more accurately, society, has needed a god to show right from wrong. In Nietzche’s context (as westerner) that would be the christian god. The “Uberman” has risen above the need to be told what is right and wrong – trading an external locus of control for an internal locus of control? – and as such has no more need for a god. Hence, god is dead. There is no need for god in the same way that the telegraph is dead. They are both constructs which outlived their usefullness – the telegraph machine rendered useless by the telephone and god rendered useless through a responsible humanistic world view.

Something else I would like to bring up.

James, you reference to the “fortunate fall”. That whole argument seems a bit like someone cutting you with a knife and then wanting to sell you a bandage for the wound.

If I am off the mark or out of line, please forgive me.

well said, Ivor!!!

I am still floored by the simplicity of Nietzsche’s life plan (perfectly stated by H. Gunaratana:

”......there are levels of morality. The lowest level is adherence to a set of rules and regulations laid down by somebody else. It could be your favorite prophet. It could be the state, the head man of your tribe or your father. No matter who generates the rules, all you’ve got to do at this level is know the rules and follow them.”

“The next level of morality consists of obeying the same rules even in the absence of somebody who will smack you. You obey because you have internalized the rules. You smack yourself every time you break one.”

“There is a third level or morality, but it might be better termed ethics. This level is a whole quantum layer up the scale, a real paradigm shift in orientation. At the level of ethics, one does not follow hard and fast rules dictated by authority. One chooses his own behavior according to the needs of the situation. This level requires real intelligence and an ability to juggle all the factors in every situation and arrive at a unique, creative and appropriate response each time. Furthermore, the individual making these decisions needs to have dug himself out of his own limited personal viewpoint. He has to see the entire situation from an objective point of view, giving equal weight to his own needs and those of others. In other words, he has to be free from greed, hatred, envy and all the other selfish junk that ordinarily keeps us from seeing the other guy’s side of the issue.”

"When you have the wisdom to truly understand a situation, compassion towards all the parties involved is automatic, and compassion means that you automatically restrain yourself from any thought, word or deed that might harm yourself or others.

“Thus your behavior is automatically moral.:”

I apologize for the “c & p”, but he says it so clearly, I had to share it!

Awesome, and well worth striving for…so,

when I meet The Buddha on the road…..I always try to kill him.

Lowell