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‘God is dead’ is one of the most famous — and most misunderstood — phrases in all of philosophy. This lecture from Academy of Ideas untangles what Friedrich Nietzsche really meant, and it is far more profound than a simple jab at religion. Nietzsche was diagnosing the slow collapse of every ‘true world’ that had carried human meaning for centuries, and predicting the psychological wreckage that loss would leave behind. Yet the hour of crisis, the video explains, also opens an ocean of possibility — if we have the courage to build our own meaning on the shore that remains.
Full Video Transcript
The Ideas of Nietzsche, Nietzsche and Nihilism, Lecture 4, Twilight of the Idols.
In his book Twilight of the Idols, Nietzsche announces,
What is called idol on the title page is simply what has been called truth so far.
Twilight of the Idols, that is, the old truth is approaching its end.
In the last lecture we investigated true world theories, which were examples of some of the old truths Nietzsche thought were on the decline.
In this lecture, we will investigate why Nietzsche thought these old truths were approaching their end.
To do this, we will analyze what is perhaps Nietzsche’s most famous and controversial statement,
God is dead.
We will look at what such a statement meant to Nietzsche,
what led him to make such a bold pronouncement,
and what he thought would happen if this belief were to become as widespread as he anticipated.
So what did Nietzsche mean by his statement, God is dead?
On the surface, it may appear that he was referring to the observation that belief in the monotheistic God of Christianity was on the decline.
However, such a view is not generally accepted by modern-day scholars.
Rather, many suggest instead that with this statement, Nietzsche wanted to symbolize his conviction that faith in true world theories in general was deteriorating.
Many scholars and philosophers who have been influenced by Nietzsche have claimed that,
in communicating the death of God to the masses, Nietzsche should be characterized as a modern-day
prophet. What is it about his message that qualifies him for such an honorable title?
Nietzsche was only one of a number of thinkers in his time to recognize the growing skepticism
towards Christianity, as well as other less prominent true world theories. So surely this
alone does not qualify him for the title of prophet. Rather, the uniqueness of Nietzsche’s
message lay in his remarkable ability to foresee the potentially devastating consequences which
would befall those individuals unable to retain their faith in true world theories. Nietzsche
thought that when true world theories lost their influence, individuals would be torn from the very
worldview which gave their lives meaning and the strength to persevere in life despite sometimes
miserable conditions. In short, Nietzsche understood that the death of God could potentially
vault a large majority of the human race into a state of nihilism.
The great Walter Kaufman, in his classic work on Nietzsche, described exactly why Nietzsche
is often heralded as a modern-day prophet.
Sometimes prophecy seems to consist in man’s ability to experience his own wretched fate
so deeply that it becomes a symbol of something larger.
It is in this sense that one can compare Nietzsche with the ancient prophets.
He felt the agony, the suffering, and the misery of a godless world so intensely, at
a time when others were yet blind to its tremendous consequence, that he was able to experience
in advance, as it were, the fate of a coming generation.
The generation following Nietzsche in many ways seemed to have experienced the fate he
had predicted.
As the historian Ronald Stromberg in his book Redemption by War explained, the turn of the
20th century marked a time when intellectuals in Europe were gripped by a growing sense
that life was meaningless. And it was this feeling which can help to explain the now
forgotten fact that the vast majority of European intellectuals were in fact pro-war in the
years leading up to World War I. Stromberg wrote,
How, in the end, are we to explain this so fateful explosion of warlike ideas and sentiments
among all manner of European intellectuals in 1914? Of the ingredients we have found
to be pervasive, all are important. Hatred of the existing society. The apocalyptic sense
of an ending. Need for some kind of worthy cause to give meaning to one’s life. Sheer
thirst for adventure against the background of a dreary materialism.
Fortunately the modern age is much different than the spirit of the early 20th century,
as today most individuals are not fervent war supporters. Instead, modern individuals
seem to search for a cause which will give meaning to their life in different ways. However,
this search for many appears to be a lost cause, as despite the high standard of living
we enjoy in the West, the question, what is it all for, still grips most of us in our
moments of solitude. As the psychologist Viktor Frankl pointed out,
For too long we have been dreaming a dream from which we are now waking up. The dream
that if we just improve the socio-economic situation of people, everything will be okay.
will become happy. The truth is that as the struggle for survival has subsided, the question
has emerged, survival for what? Ever more people today have the means to live, but no meaning to
live for. It is quite remarkable Nietzsche was able to prophesize this nihilistic mood which
has survived to this day. Nietzsche announces the death of God in a famous aphorism in his book
The Gay Science called The Madman. In this passage he tells a tale of a madman who runs out onto the
street, screeching, I seek God, I seek God. Understandably, those on the street give him
a strange look and continue on with their evening. However, the madman does not cease.
He yells, God is dead, God remains dead, and we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves,
the murderers of all murderers? There has never been a greater deed, and whoever is born after
us, for the sake of this deed, he will belong to a higher history than all history hitherto.
too.
Despite the madman’s attempt to enlighten his fellow citizens regarding the enormity
of the death of God, the individuals on the street paid little attention to him.
When he noticed the utter indifference of those around him, he threw his lantern on
the ground so that it broke in pieces and was extinguished.
�I have come too early,� he said then.
�My time is not yet.
This tremendous event is still on its way, still wandering.
It has not yet reached the ears of men.�
Here in his life Nietzsche reached the opinion that the loss of faith in true world theories
was in fact the most glorious event to befall mankind.
In his book The Gay Science he wrote,
In fact we philosophers and free spirits feel as if we are illumined by a new dawn, on receiving
the news that the old god is dead.
Our hearts overflow with gratitude, wonder, premonition, anticipation.
At last the horizon seems to us open again.
The sea, our sea again, lies open before us.
Perhaps there has never yet been such an open sea.
A universe without God or without a transcendent purpose driving the lives of men toward a
common end, was in fact a universe, according to Nietzsche, where strong and creative individuals
could freely sculpt their own worldviews.
However, this attitude of Nietzsche’s did not come naturally, but was an attitude that
he came to adopt only after years of struggle, pain and suffering.
in his life Nietzsche experienced firsthand the misery of living in what he believed to
be a godless world. It was a world with no transcendent purpose and thus no meaning,
in which mankind had no special place in the scheme of things. In other words, this worldview
led him to experience the agony of nihilism. In one of his earlier works, Human All Too
Human, Nietzsche expressed this agony. He wrote,
But the tragic thing is that we can no longer believe those dogmas of religion and metaphysics
once we have the rigorous method of truth in our hearts and heads.
And yet, on the other hand, the development of mankind has made us so delicate, sensitive, and ailing
that we need the most potent kind of cures and comforts.
Hence arises the danger that man might bleed to death from the truth he has recognized.
Byron expressed this in his Immortal Lines.
Sorrow is knowledge.
They who know the most must mourn the deepest over the fatal truth.
The tree of knowledge is not that of life.
The question we will now examine is why he held the conviction that God was dead.
In our modern times, it is usually taken for granted that the general decline of faith in religions and true world theories is a result of the growth of the natural sciences.
However, Nietzsche took a different stance.
In his book, The Dawn, he illuminated his position.
In former times, one sought to prove that there is no God.
Today, one indicates how the belief that there is a God could arise,
and how this belief acquired its weight and importance.
A counter-proof that there is no God thereby becomes superfluous.
When in former times one had refuted the proofs of the existence of God put forward,
there always remained the doubt whether better proofs might not be adduced than those just refuted.
In those days, atheists did not know how to make a clean sweep.
Nietzsche didn’t think it was possible to refute the existence of true worlds by putting
forth an argument which utilized the latest findings ascertained by science, as he understood
that true world believers would counter with arguments of their own.
Instead, Nietzsche thought he had refuted the existence of true worlds with his keen
and penetrating psychological insights.
He looked into the mind of the believer and understood why it is they held such beliefs.
in true world theories Nietzsche espoused, fulfilled deep-seated psychological needs.
Such theories were created by individuals in need of solaces to protect them from the
harsh realities of this life.
Before we conclude we will examine an apparent contradiction in Nietzsche’s thought with
regards to his views on the death of God.
In a very important and often neglected passage from his book Human, All Too Human, Nietzsche
admits that for all we know a true world, or what he here calls a metaphysical world,
could indeed exist, he wrote. It is true, there could be a metaphysical world. The absolute
possibility of it is hardly to be disputed. Of all the misunderstandings Nietzsche has been the
victim of in the last century, and there have been many, one of the most erroneous of them all would
be to call him a dogmatist. Nietzsche, as the above quote signifies, admitted that a true world,
or gods for that matter, could exist for all he knew. As human beings we are fallible animals,
and our knowledge of this vast universe is extremely limited.
And so in terms of the existence of true worlds, we really have no way of knowing one way or the other.
This may appear at first glance to be a contradiction in Nietzsche’s thoughts.
How could he proclaim the death of God, while also state that a true world could exist for all we know?
This possible contradiction is cleared up with the realization that Nietzsche thought
that his psychological insights into the mind of the believer had discredited the validity
of true world theories, but he did not think it had disproved the existence of a true world,
whatever that may be, altogether. In the back of his mind, Nietzsche was always aware that
he, like all other humans, did not have special access to ultimate truths, whatever such truths
would entail. So although he claimed God is dead, he admitted that in fact a true world
in some form or another could indeed exist. However, Nietzsche himself was steadfast in
his conviction to live the rest of his life without believing in any form of a true world.
The reason for such a conviction being utilitarian, that is, he thought that his life, and in
fact the lives of all human beings, would be more successful without such a belief.
By believing a better life is awaiting one following death or at some point in the future,
the individual escapes from the responsibility and burden of having to make the most of this
life.
Thus, in discarding faith in true world theories, an individual is left alone in this world,
with the choice of either making the most of it or spending their days in a state of
guilt and self-pity over what could have been.
Therefore, for more than any other reason, Nietzsche proclaimed the death of God because
he felt that a world composed of individuals who did not believe in true world theories
would be a much better world. In his autobiography,
ECHO HOMO, written shortly before Nietzsche descended into madness,
he conveyed this idea. He wrote,
“…the concept beyond, true world, invented in order to devalue the only world there is,
in order to retain no goal, no reason,
no task for our earthly reality.” In the next lecture we are going to
investigate the phenomenon of nihilism from Nietzsche’s perspective,
looking at, among other things, the difference
between active and passive nihilism
and why Nietzsche thought nihilism
was a transitional stage.
We will then have put ourselves in a good position
for the final lecture, where we will look at different ideas
Nietzsche thought would help an individual overcome
a nihilistic mood.
Source: Academy of Ideas