Faith and belief in The Anti-Christ: A re-evaluation of Nietzsche’s relation to Jesus

This paper re-evaluates the significance of Jesus for Nietzsche by looking at The Anti-Christ. Specifically we will ask whether a re-evaluation of this relation can shed new light on Nietzsche’s critique of Christianity. And we will do this first by surveying the standard interpretations of this issue, as well as the existing literature on The Anti-Christ. Arguing that the latter picks out nothing new regarding a critique of Christianity, we nonetheless suggest that a new criticism can be developed via the discussion of Jesus there. Further, this can be done by looking at the account given of faith and belief in that text. That is, we will explore the status of Jesus for Nietzsche by looking at the origins and development of “faith” as a mode of belief. In particular, we trace the former’s development as a type from a basic mode of faith. As such, we begin by looking at the psychological origins of this kind of belief in “decadence”, and why Nietzsche is critical of this. However, we will then discuss the emergence of a more positive faith in the form of Buddhism, and see how this represents an analogue for Jesus’s faith. Continuing, we will see how Jesus signifies a similar problematic development, but also “overcoming”, of initial decadence faith. And we will argue, also, that this overcoming is rooted in his emphasis on the immediacy of lived experience. Finally though, we will look at how Christianity returns Jesus’s more productive relation to the world again to a primitive mode of faith. In other words, we will see how Christianity converts the fluid, lived, “faith” of Jesus into something again based on transcendent belief. And lastly, we will ask what new light this point sheds on Nietzsche’s critique of Christianity, and his affinity with Jesus the man.     

NIETZSCHE AND UNAMUNO ON CONATUS AND THE AGAPEIC WAY OF LIFE

Unamuno saw in his defense of religious faith a response to Nietzsche’s criticisms of the Christian, agapeic way of life. To Nietzsche’s claim that engaging in this way of life is something antinatural and life-denying, insofar as it goes against the (alleged) natural tendency to increase one’s own power, Unamuno responded that an agapeic way of life is precisely a direct expression of this natural tendency. Far from being something that goes against our natural inclinations, Unamuno says, an agapeic way of life is a life-affirming exercise, something we are led to given our own natural condition. Hence, the aim of this essay is to comment on Unamuno’s criticism of Nietzsche and to point out the philosophical relevance of Unamuno’s attempt to provide a natural foundation for religious faith when assessing Nietzsche’s criticisms of the possibility of carrying out a Christian, agapeic way of life.     

Nietzsche,science, and philosophical nihilism

Abstract

Nietzsche offers us a critique of modern culture as threatened by a nihilistic crisis in values. Philosophy is specifically incorporated into Nietzsche’s critique, resulting in the claim that modern philosophy, as well as modern culture, is nihilistic. But why should contemporary philosophers give this view credence? In this paper, I put forward some reasons to take Nietzsche’s view seriously, focusing on the relationship between science and philosophy. I suggest that modern philosophy still tends to idealise science as an exemplar of objectivity, particularly as this relates to judgement, even despite widespread acknowledgement that science is not value-free. I therefore argue that Nietzsche’s critique is valuable in two respects: first, it calls the notion of a scientific ideal grounding objective, cross-cultural, judgement into question, and second, it facilitates a distinction between this scientific ideal and science itself.     

Faith in doubt in the end

At one time or another, most Contemporary Continental philosophers of religion make reference to Nietzsche’s announcement that “God is dead.” However, their interpretation and treatment of that announcement owes nothing to Nietzsche. Instead, they see the death of God as Hegel did, as a moment in a transition to a new way of talking and thinking about God or the Absolute. Their faith in God or the Absolute is not in doubt in the end. We argue that if one hears and thinks Nietzsche’s word “God is dead”—along with Heidegger’s critique of onto-theo-logy-then faith in the end is in doubt. Any affirmation or profession of faith is questionable; there is no promise that all conflicts will be resolved and that all will be saved and forgiven. Nietzsche’s saying that “God is dead” calls for thinking and questioning; it calls not for faith, but faith in doubt.     

Heidegger’s Destruktion of Theology: ‘Primordial Faith’ and ‘Recognition’ of the Messiah

Heidegger’s phenomenology of religious life offers important insights by engaging Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians, where he distinguishes ‘Paul the Pharisee’ from ‘Paul the Christian’ in order to explicate the nature of faith in contrast to systematic theology. Neither certitude in God’s existence is primordial to Christian faith, according to Heidegger, nor is rabbinic nor theological disputation concerning God’s existence or God’s nature. Instead, what is essential to Heidegger’s phenomenology of religious life are: (1) faith as lived experience and (2) recognition of ‘the Christ’ (ho christos/ha ma?ía?). This ‘recognition’, however, requires phenomenological clarification and not philosophy of religion as traditionally construed.     

Help or Hindrance? Exploring the effects of Christian nurture upon the whole faith of the child

This paper explores the effects that religious nurture (particularly Christian) may have on the child, seeking to provide indicators of whether faith may be viewed as a help or a hindrance. The desire is to indicate the elements of Christian nurture that are most beneficial to the child, through adoption of a broad rather than restricted lens of Christian faith. The EYFS themes: ‘unique child’, ‘positive relationships’, ‘enabling environments’ and ‘learning and development’ were utilised as a guide for formulating the observational indicators. The five case study children all had actively Christian parents who sought to pass their faith onto their child, but each utilised different approaches of faith nurture, enabling comparison of varying styles. The analytical methodology considered 14 observable elements of the child during play-based interviews. Presentation of this data in radar diagrams facilitated a visual representation of the extent to which faith nurture was a resource for the child. When viewed alongside key attributes of the child’s experiences of faith nurture, tentative conclusions were that if openness, individuality and relational involvement are core components of Christian nurture, this will have a positive impact on the broader landscape of the child’s ongoing faith.     

NIETZSCHE,THE CROSS,AND THE NATURE OF GOD

In this essay, I treat of a type of moral objection to Christian theism that is formulated by Friedrich Nietzsche. In an effort to provoke a negative moral‐aesthetic response to the conception of God underlying the Christian tradition, with the ultimate aim of recommending his own allegedly ‘healthier’ ideals, Nietzsche presents a number of distinct but related considerations. In particular, he claims that the traditional theological interpretation of the crucifixion of Jesus expresses the tasteless, vulgar, and morally objectionable character of God, thus rendering Him unworthy of belief. In response to Nietzsche's worries, I first of all argue that his account of the origins of the belief in God is both prima facie implausible and historically false. At the same time I recognize that Nietzsche is expressing, in his typically bombastic manner, a genuine and widely held worry about what the crucifixion, as an event in salvation history, says about the nature of God. In response to this worry, I draw on the work of Wilhelm Dilthey in order to support the contention that the concept of divine transcendence, which underlies Nietzsche's concern, has its proper place within the Greek metaphysical tradition, rather than in Christian faith. Building on the work of Franz Rosenzweig and Jürgen Moltmann, I outline a conception of God that more accurately reflects the claim that the cross is the definitive revelation of the divine nature while at the same time foreclosing on the possibility of the kind of response that Nietzsche articulates.     

Nietzsche on creating and discovering values

ABSTRACT

This article considers Friedrich Nietzsche’s claims about value creation alongside his proclamation that ‘nature is always value-less’ (GS 301), assessing their implications for his metaethics. It begins by weighing the evidence for a recent constructivist interpretation of Nietzsche’s metaethics, arguing that despite several apparent interpretive advantages, Nietzschean constructivism ultimately fails. Through a close reading of GS 301 and related passages, the constructivist interpretation is shown to be misguided in taking Nietzsche’s talk of value creation as expressing (or playing a significant role in) a metaethical view according to which the evaluative attitudes of philosophers ground what is valuable. Against this, it is argued that GS 301 should be understood as an assertion of the status of philosophers as the causal sources of new evaluative outlooks that shape the held values of their respective cultures, a claim developed through analysis of passages in which Nietzsche discusses his ideal of the ‘genuine philosopher’ and contrasts this figure with ‘critics’ or ‘philosophical laborers’ (BGE 210–211). It is next argued that, insofar as it is best understood as describing a social or anthropological phenomenon rather than a metaphysical one, GS 301 is a poor piece of evidence not only for the constructivist interpretation, but in fact for any account of Nietzsche’s metaethical position—including radical anti-realist interpretations informed by his statement that ‘nature is always value-less’. The paper then concludes by appealing to another passage, GS 55, which hints towards a very different—and plausibly realist—picture of Nietzsche’s metaethics     

Attitudes to suffering: Parfit and Nietzsche

Abstract

In On What Matters, Derek Parfit argues that Nietzsche does not disagree with central normative beliefs that ‘we’ hold. Such disagreement would threaten Parfit’s claim that normative beliefs are known by intuition. However, Nietzsche defends a conception of well-being that challenges Parfit’s normative claim that suffering is bad in itself for the sufferer. Nietzsche recognizes the phenomenon of ‘growth through suffering’ as essential to well-being. Hence, removal of all suffering would lead to diminished well-being. Parfit claims that if Nietzsche understood normative concepts in Parfit’s objectivist sense, he would not disagree with the claim that suffering is bad in itself – that intrinsic facts about suffering count in favour of our not wanting it. I argue that Nietzsche would disagree. Suffering for Nietzsche is not merely instrumentally necessary for psychological growth, nor is it easy to construe it as something bad in itself that contributes value as part of a good whole. Suffering that can be given meaning through growth is something we have reason to want. Suffering that remains brute and uninterpreted is something we have reason not to want. But for Nietzsche, suffering as such has no invariant value across all contexts.     

Nietzsche on conscious and unconscious thought

ABSTRACT

While much recent attention has been directed towards Nietzsche’s reflections on the mind, and on consciousness in particular, his often-suggestive comments about thinking have thus far avoided comparable scrutiny. Starting from Nietzsche’s claims that we ‘think constantly, but [do] not know it’, and that only our conscious thinking ‘takes place in words,’ I draw out the distinct strands that underpin such remarks. The opening half of the paper focuses upon Nietzsche’s understanding of unconscious thinking, and the role of affects therein. In what remains, I consider the difference (for Nietzsche) between conscious and unconscious thought, with a particular focus on two important readings. The first, put forward by Paul Katsafanas, claims that conscious states alone have conceptually-articulated content. The second, defended most prominently by Mattia Riccardi, argues that Nietzsche’s various claims evince a form of HOT (higher-order thought) theory. I argue that neither reading is quite right, and instead propose an alternative interpretation of conscious thinking ‘in words’, which draws on work on inner speech.     

Remarks about the Nietzschean dancing God

Nietzsche and (or beyond) Christianity: a worn-out and almost banal problem? In this article I argue that this topic goes far beyond a mere opposition between Christians and Nietzscheans. I want to show that the actual issue concerns Nietzsche's attempt to overcome the moral hegemony within Christianity. In this context, Nietzsche's project is not to eradicate religion but to define a new religious space. I have organised this discussion by conceiving the present article around a sentence extracted from Thus spoke Zarathustra. I first analyse the text in its syntactic and rhetorical composition. Nietzsche's very strategy (or trick?) resides in undermining the Christian discourse from the inside: he argues that Christian morality is not inspired by a cheerful affirmation of life but by its vindictive negation. I further show that Nietzsche puts at stake the Christian striving for a justification of life and consequently its incapacity of accepting the question-mark of existence. Within his radical critique, Nietzsche points to an authentic attitude towards life, an attitude which I have designated with the metaphor of the dancing God.     

Nietzsche and the Empirical: through the eyes of the term ‘Empfindung’

Abstract

This paper examines Nietzsche’s attitude to the empirical by concentrating on his concept of Empfindung (sensation, perception, feeling). In Section 1, five distinctive features of his use of ‘Empfmdung’ are described in relation to the philosophical tradition and some of his sources in 19^th Century physiology. All five features, I argue, point to Nietzsche’s philosophical concern to stake out the limits of ‘Empfmdung’ as an aspect of human finitude. In Section 2, my attention turns from the term ‘Empfmdung’ to Nietzsche’s actual argumentation. The bewildering variety of perspectives and arguments concerning ‘Empfmdung’ in his writings are broken down into three basic types of argument or discourse with radically different, incompatible presuppositions: a critical, epistemological discourse serving anti-metaphysical ends; a quasi-scientific discourse serving critical-epistemological ends; and a quasi-ontological discourse of life that looks to explain the results of Nietzsche’s critical epistemology. The value of this ‘contradictory’ practice, I contend, is twofold: Nietzsche makes epistemology fruitful for the philosophical problem of life; at the same time he offers a performative critique of epistemology by the manner in which he exceeds it.     

A Sense of Belonging: on the Challenging Complexity of Women and Church

Abstract

This article presents a general outline of a feminist Christian faith. It is argued that some of the characteristics of this form of Christian religion and theology offer inspiring challenges for a renewal of contemporary theology and the churches of Western Europe. This argument is demonstrated proving the following theses: One of the main characteristics of feminist theology is its ‘ekklesiality’; there is a strong connection between this ekklesiality and the importance of an immanent God; the ongoing struggle of dealing with ‘differences’ and ‘diversity’ is an important source of creativity for the ekklesiality of feminist theology and the women-and-faith movement. It is suggested that the integration of these elements will empower the vitality and the future of the churches.     

What is Enshrined in Morality? Understanding the Grounds for Nietzsche’s Critique

Abstract

It is a truism that Nietzsche is a critic of morality. But what does Nietzsche have against this institution of morality? I consider the prominent interpretation of Brian Leiter’s that Nietzsche takes morality to task for its bad effects in hampering the flourishing of great individuals and cultures. There are good reasons, I argue, to resist this reading as the best, and certainly as the exclusive, account of the grounds for Nietzsche’s criticism of morality. I go on to propose an alternative construal that sees Nietzsche as objecting to the expressive character of moral values themselves (an under-explored notion in anglophone ethics and social philosophy that I seek to elucidate in the paper). My project, in the first instance, is the exegetical one of understanding what is going on in Nietzsche’s texts when he criticizes morality. Nonetheless, there are important philosophical lessons to be learned here from Nietzsche’s work, if not necessarily about the actual failings of morality itself, then about the kinds of ethical and ideological objections that philosophers and cultural critics can sensibly raise. One of the central styles of critique that we see in Nietzsche’s work, exemplified especially in his criticism of morality, involves interpreting social and cultural phenomena, as one might interpret texts or works of art, with an eye toward extracting the meaning or significance they have in light of the ideals they enshrine, and then attacking them, on broadly ethical grounds, on account of this. It thereby creates the space for criticizing institutions not just for what pernicious effects they have, but for the intrinsically objectionable character of what they express.     

Nietzsche on the Nature of the Unconscious

Abstract

This paper argues that Nietzsche develops a novel and compelling account of the distinction between conscious and unconscious mental states: he argues that conscious mental states are those with conceptual content, whereas unconscious mental states are those with nonconceptual content. I show that Nietzsche’s puzzling claim that consciousness is ‘superficial’ and ‘falsifying’ can be given a straightforward explanation if we accept this understanding of the conscious/unconscious distinction. I originally defended this view in my ‘Nietzsche’s Theory of Mind: Consciousness and Conceptualization’ (2005, European Journal of Philosophy 13: 1–31); since then, the view has come under criticism on several fronts. Brian Leiter and others suggest that there is not enough textual evidence for the view. In addition, Leiter, Mattia Riccardi and Tsarina Doyle argue that, rather than aligning the conscious/unconscious distinction with the conceptual/nonconceptual distinction, Nietzsche endorses a higher-order thought model of consciousness. Riccardi also objects that Nietzsche must treat some unconscious mental states as conceptual. In this essay, I defend the interpretation in light of these objections. I provide new textual evidence for the interpretation, show that Nietzsche extracted aspects of the view from Schopenhauer’s work on consciousness, consider the possibility that Nietzsche endorses a higher-order thought theory, and respond to Riccardi’s objection.     

Richard Wagner and the Birth of The Birth of Tragedy 1

Abstract

Nietzsche writes that the ‘real task’ of The Birth of Tragedy is to ‘solve the puzzle of Wagner’s relation to Greek tragedy’. The ‘puzzle’, I suggest, is the intermingling in his art and writings of earlier socialist optimism with later Schopenhauerian pessimism. According to the former the function of the ‘rebirth of Greek tragedy’ in the ‘collective artwork’ is to ‘collect’, and so create, community. According to the second the function of the artwork is to intimate a realm ‘beyond’ this world of pain and death. The audacity of The Birth is that it attempts to show that Wagner can have his cake and eat it: the ‘Dionysian’, musical, element provides a ‘metaphysical comfort’, while the ‘Apollonian’, verbal, element draws a ‘veil of oblivion’ over the metaphysical, thereby allowing the artwork to solidify community. Contrary to the standard Anglophone view, this perspective on The Birth shows that Nietzsche’s intimate association with Wagner during the period of its creation lies at the heart of its philosophical content.     

Nietzsche’s interpretation of his sources on Darwinism: Idioplasma,Micells and military troops

Abstract

While he did not believe in the idea of a perfect society and humanity, for Nietzsche development [Entwicklung] implied growth and intensification of the will to power of a single organism or a social organism. Development has no fmal goal or ‘purpose’. Nietzsche interpreted ‘struggle’ differently from Darwin as evidence of the most basic sustaining quality of all life: ‘Herrschaft’ [rule, government] or ‘Macht’ [power]. Nietzsche’s genealogical approach would contend that structural alterations in societal considerations are illusions, since the foundation, the genealogy, remains the same. Nietzsche’s reception of Darwin through the work of C. von Nägeli allows us to understand how his philosophy interacted with one of the most important scientific theories of his time.     

Life,the Unhistorical,the Suprahistorical: Nietzsche on History

Abstract

Nietzsche was a philosopher who prided himself, in deliberate contradistinction with previous philosophers, on his ‘historical sense’. But this leaves many questions unanswered about the precise role of the historical in Nietzsche’s philosophy. Perhaps most importantly, can the conception of genealogy in Nietzsche’s later philosophy, as a revised historical method, be taken to represent his mature philosophical methodology in general? I argue, firstly, that there is considerable continuity between Nietzsche’s conceptions of history in the early essay ‘On the uses and disadvantages of history for life’ and those of his later philosophy. The former can therefore be used as a resource for understanding the latter. Through a reading of the early history essay I demonstrate that Nietzsche’s conception of the historical here is intimately bound up with the notion of the ‘unhistorical’ and that it is precisely renewed access to the unhistorical which is required in order for history to be conducive to the flourishing of humanity. I go on to contend that this holds for Nietzsche’s later writings as well, and that genealogy, being purely historical, must therefore be seen as one subsidiary part of a broader philosophy in which the unhistorical will play, literally, a vital role.     

The Joy of Suffering: Nietzsche,Theodicy and women’s bodies

Abstract

I use Nietzsche’s work on theodicy to explore gendered valuation systems around women’s bodies. The notion of theodicy provides a different entry point to questions of ideology as it begins with an account of people’s attempts to find meaning in their lives. Nietzsche traced humans’ propensity to look for and create stories that give meaning to their lives, even when this meaning is one that may ultimately oppress them or celebrate something negative such as suffering. For him it is not the suffering that torments humans, but rather its meaninglessness. In the slums of Northeast Brazil, Afro-Brazilian women invest in the Christian glorification of suffering in a context where they experience their bodies in terms of loss, shame and alienation. I explore how, through a process of creative deception, this suffering comes to be experienced as pleasure. That is, the women reconstruct their bodies using two dominant stories to which they have access: Christianity and the glamorous Brazilian soap operas.     

Redeeming the penultimate: discipleship and Church in the thought of Søren Kierkegaard and Dietrich Bonhoeffer

There are striking parallels between the theologies of discipleship advanced by the Danish thinker Søren Kierkegaard and the German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Bonhoeffer's notion of ‘costly grace’ closely resembles Kierkegaard's critique of the misuse of the Pauline-Lutheran doctrine of justification by grace through faith alone. After the publication of Cost of Discipleship, however, Bonhoeffer's view of discipleship moves in a different direction from that of Kierkegaard. Whereas Kierkegaard takes discipleship to mean that the Christian must be in irrevocable conflict with the world, Bonhoeffer sees discipleship as living in the world and cultivating a ‘worldly holiness’. This article tracks the reasons why their initially similar theologies of discipleship result in Kierkegaard and Bonhoeffer developing different understandings of Christian discipleship and church. The discussion is organised around the distinction Bonhoeffer makes in his Ethics between the ‘ultimate’ and the ‘penultimate’. Kierkegaard emphasises the ultimate to such an extent that the penultimate is virtually eliminated and the Christian disciple is called upon to live in a state of constant eschatological opposition to the world. For Bonhoeffer on the other hand the penultimate is not to be condemned but to be transformed in the light of the ultimate. The article argues that the differing notions of discipleship advanced by Kierkegaard and Bonhoeffer arise from the different political contexts in which they were living and writing. Whereas Kierkegaard's historical situation prompted him to affirm the ultimate by confronting his contemporaries with New Testament Christianity's radical opposition to the world, Bonhoeffer's resistance to the Nazi régime prompted him to reflect on how the ultimate can be integrated into the penultimate and how the Christian disciple can engage with the world without being of the world.