GOD MIGHT NOT BE DEAD

God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. 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 of us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement? What sacred games shall we have to invent?..Must we ourselves not become Gods simply to appear worthy of it ?-Friedrich Nietzsche These words appear in Book V of Friedrich Nietzsche's work The Gay Science that was published in 1882. However, the concept had appeared earlier in a novel written by Jean Paul Siebenkas in 1797, where he titled a chapter as: 'The Dead Christ Proclaims That There is No God.' Literary scholar George Steiner speaking at the American Academy of Arts and Science, in 1987, claimed that Nietzsche's formulation 'God is Dead' was indebted to the 'Dead Christ' dream-vision of Jean Paul. The phrase is also found in Victor Hugo's 1862 novel Les Misérables. Another German philosopher named Philipp Mainlander popularised the concept before Nietzsche. Famously known as a philosopher of pessimism, he believed life as a process of aging, sickness, and death. He gave to the world the terrifying idea that the world is simply the rotting corpse of God. God had decided to carry out a self-fragmentation by taking his own life, so that he could continually divide himself, that being the universe, into further fragments, until he was no more. Nietzsche's statement 'God is Dead' has been one of the most misunderstood and misinterpreted quotes of the nineteenth-twentieth century. This German philosopher was himself brought up in a pious, orthodox, Christian home in Germany. Unlike what many thought, Nietzsche was not an atheist. During his childhood, he followed all the church traditions without questioning any. However, he suffered greatly from the strict morality of Christian upbringing, often validated through severe punishments. As a result, from a young age he was inclined towards the freedom of the spirit, rather than an enforced piety. Nietzsche's theory of the death of God was not a celebratory statement; on the other hand, what it implied was the absence of God in a world which was shifting towards science and materialism. Friedrich Nietzsche lived in Germany (1844-1900) in the nineteenth century a philosopher, classical scholar, critic, of the Enlightenment era who became one of the most influential of all modern thinkers. It was an age that was dominated by scientific discoveries, evolutionary theories, and rational thinking. This shift in thought process from traditional beliefs introduced a new way of thinking, beliefs and values. The European world became increasingly wealthier with its imperialist policies, and the people, increasingly materialistic and morally liberal. Nietzsche saw all around him the decadence of Christian values. Nietzsche's statement 'God id dead' apart from its literal meaning has also a metaphysical connotation. Nietzsche was making a metaphysical statement of a tragic historical event. Science, and rationality ruled the minds of modern Europe; it presented a serious crisis of existing moral values. In the new world of consumerism, wealth, comforts and pleasures no one thought about God or believed God existed in the midst of it all. As traditional value systems gave way like a crater, Nietzsche feared

2015

The authors claim that Bruno Latour’s re-definition of scientific practices as ontological construction processes enables an alternative understanding of the existence and reality of God. As a consequence a Latourian inspired God breaks down the a/theism-dichotomy by denying that belief is central to the God question. In this process Nietzsche is transformed into a new church father just as a polytheistic space opens up in so far as gods can be constructed differently. The second part of the paper demonstrates how a Latourian God can be said to be religious, and how our understanding of religious practices changes accordingly. This part draws on the thoughts of Dietrich Bonhoeffer whose views on God as suffering makes it possible to claim that a Latourian God comes to life in death. As a living-dead, a Latourian God is capable of re-orienting the religious towards this life and creating what the authors call a “brotherhood of actors”.

An Evaluation of Friedrich Nietzsche’s Concept of the "Death of God": Implications for Modern Morality and Existential Philosophy, 2024

This paper critically examines Friedrich Nietzsche's declaration of the "Death of God," exploring its profound implications on morality, human existence, and the evolving conception of values in a secular world. By delving into Nietzsche's works, particularly Thus Spoke Zarathustra and The Gay Science, this study assesses the philosophical implications of his challenge to religious and metaphysical foundations. Nietzsche's concepts, including the Will to Power, Master-Slave Morality, and Übermensch, are analyzed in the context of a moral framework lacking divine authority. This research employs historical, expository, and evaluative philosophical methodologies to unpack Nietzsche's existential and ethical propositions. The study ultimately contemplates Nietzsche's influence on contemporary discourse, highlighting his contributions to existentialism, postmodern thought, and the reshaping of moral philosophy.

Thinking through the Death of God: A Critical Companion to Thomas J. J. Altizer, ed. Lissa McCullough and Brian Schroeder. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2004, vii-xi.

2013

The aim of this essay is to reflect on the implications of the thought of the death of God with a view to two related themes. The first has to do with the a-teleological interpretation of Being and the world as a result of the collapse of the transcendent realm which heretofore had given a meaning to life. The death of God implies that no finality can be ascribed to either the world or human action. The investigation of this theme necessitates examining one of Nietzsche’s central doctrines, the Eternal Recurrence of the Same. It has long been considered to be the most puzzling idea in Nietzsche’s corpus, to which he himself offered no thorough explanation but simply referred to it obliquely as his “most abysmal thought.” The second theme to be discussed is the nature and the task of thinking after the death of God and its relation to suffering. The a-teoleological interpretation of life implies that reason and the good no longer guarantee one another, and that thinking cannot justif...

This work aims to introduce some of the main Nietzsche's contributions in order to analyse how the assertion of the death of God impacts on other formulations of the philosopher, in particular with the one of perspectivism. The following step is to consider in which way perspectivism represents a change for the practice of philosophy.

The author has granted a nonexclusive licence allowing the National Library of Canada to reproduce, loan, distribute or sell copies of this thesis in microform, paper or electronic formats. The author retains ownership of the copyright in this thesis. Neither the thesis nor substantial extracts fiom it may be printed or otherwise reproduced without the author's permission. Your file Vainr rdliirencB Ow me Nme r B f B m a 3 L'auteur a accorde une licence non exclusive pennettant a la Bibliotheque nationale du Canada de reproduire, prster, distribuer ou vendre des copies de cette these sous la forme de microfichelfilm, de reproduction sur papier ou sur format electronique. L'auteur conserve la propriete du droit d'auteur qui protege cette these. Ni la these ni des extraits substantiels de celle-ci ne doivent Stre imprimes ou autrement reproduits sans son autorisation.

An analysis of Nietzschean philosophy vis-à-vis existentialism and the concept of the 'homo sacer'.

Atheism Revisited Rethinking Modernity and Inventing New Modes of Life, ed. Szymon Wróbel, Krzysztof Skonieczny, Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020

This chapter provides a reevaluation of Nietzsche’s atheism in response to Rüdiger Safranski’s thesis that the prevalence of scientific naturalism in Nietzsche’s time made his announcement that “God is dead” the equivalent of “braking down barriers that no longer existed”. Skonieczny distinguishes between two problems of atheism in Nietzsche—the “easy problem”, that is, that God is dead, and the “hard problem”, that is, how to act and think when God is dead. After an analysis of Nietzsche’s own insufficient answers to the “hard problem”, including the Eternal Return and the Overman, Skonieczny turns to Martin Hägglund’s interpretation of Derrida’s “radical atheism”, which proposes an appreciation of the precarious and uncertain nature of this world, rather than seeking (as Nietzsche did) what amounts to a new, this-worldly theology.