Nietzsche’s Death of God — Premature or Timely?
The idea for which Friedrich Nietzsche is most renowned is his grand proclamation that ‘God is dead.’ On the surface, this sounds simple enough; however, in a Lovecraftian twist, this is much more complex than it appears to be, and apparently, “That is not dead which can eternal lie.” Nietzsche’s statement that ‘God is dead,’ is, of course, well-known; what is lesser-known is the complex chain of references that connect this statement to other critical points within his philosophy. One of these is found in the poem “Ariadne’s Lament,” in which another concept of Nietzsche’s known as the ‘the ladder of religious cruelty’[1] is hinted at. The three rungs of this ladder represent three stages in the development of the sacrifice: in archaic religions, people sacrificed humans to their gods; in times of moral certainty, people sacrificed their strongest drives and instincts to their gods; in a time yet to come, people will sacrifice god himself (which is representative of any belief in consolation and salvation) as a final act of cruelty against themselves.[2] Even Nietzsche did not believe that society was ready to embrace the death of God, and this is described in one of his most famous pieces of writing, “The Parable of the Madman”:
“How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it? 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.”
Here the madman fell silent and looked again at his listeners; and they, too, were silent and stared at him in astonishment. At last he threw his lantern on the ground, and it broke into pieces and went out. “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. Lightning and thunder require time; the light of the stars requires time; deeds, though done, still require time to be seen and heard. This deed is still more distant from them than most distant stars — and yet they have done it themselves.[3]
Here, the death of God is not portrayed as the glorious victory it should. On the contrary, it as a premature act. The deed has been done, God is dead, but what follows? A fleeting and hollow victory? Humanity is not described here as Nietzsche’s higher type who were destined to become god-like, but instead as murderers whose hands are stained with the blood of Nietzsche’s own literary crime. God is dead, but the people are not mentally or spiritually strong enough to be capable of living without the idea of god. With God ‘dead,’ humanity is lost; the premature death of God becomes a murder, transformed into a criminal act against humanity rather than its salvation. The death of God thus deviates from Nietzsche’s original premise of creating the Übermensch and becomes an act of cruelty — not towards God, but towards humanity itself. This ties the murder of God to ‘the ladder of cruelty’: it is an act of cruelty performed by humanity, against humanity. In line with this perspective, Gary Shapiro draws attention to a statement by Nietzsche that connects this act to his political beliefs:
“As Nietzsche had his madman ask why we don’t yet smell the odors of God’s decomposition, so his analysis of the slow but inevitable decay of the national state points to a parallel decentering in the political sphere. To sum this up: “The belief in a divine order in the realm of politics, in a sacred mystery in the existence of the state, is of religious origin: if religion disappears the state will unavoidably lose its ancient Isis veil and cease to excite reverence.””[4]
If Shapiro’s statement is correct, then the death of God could lead to nothing more than substituting a political constitution for the Bible, which is most assuredly not the outcome Nietzsche desires. Rather than instigating a new incarnation of the Holy Lie, Nietzsche wishes to fill the void left by the death of God with a world presided over by his Übermensch. However, it is obvious from the ‘Parable of the Madman’ that even Nietzsche is pessimistic about this actually occurring. As such, Nietzsche’s real intention is not to remove religion entirely. Instead, he attempts to replace it: substituting the Holy Lie of Christianity with one founded on another myth and a new set of values. It is for this reason that he places his words in the mouth of the prophet Zarathustra, praises Dionysus, and draws upon Eastern sources such as the Hindu Laws of Manu (Manusmṛti).
Extract from Chapter two of Nietzsche: The Antichrist & The Antipolitical.
[1] Theisen, B., “Rhythms of Oblivion” in Nietzsche and the Feminine, ed. Burgard, P. J. (Charlottesville, VA: University Press of Virginia, 1994), 92.
[2] Ibid., 92.
[3] Nietzsche, F., The Gay Science, ed. W. Kaufmann (New York: Vintage, 1974), 181–82.
[4] Shapiro, G., Nietzsche’s Earth: Great Events, Great Politics (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2016), 70.
