Nietzsche on Death of God

Nietzsche was known to be an atheist philosopher because of his declaration of the death of God. His thought and teaching spurred many existential philosophers to action.

He rejected the notion that there is a universal and absolute system of morality which every person must obey, because in his view people are different. To hold tenaciously and resolutely to universal morality is to close an eye over the basic and fundamental differences between individuals. Probing into morality, he discussed two types of morality, namely: master morality and slave morality. Master morality he said is where good meant noble, while evil meant vulgar’ where people regard themselves as creator of value, the morality of the noble who do not look outside themselves for the approval of their acts, where power is honored in all forms; the morality of the noble who take pleasure in subjecting themselves to rigor and toughness, and have reverence for all that is severe and hard. On the contrary, slave morality is the morality that originates with the lowest elements of society, the oppressed, absurd and slave and equally those who are uncertain of themselves. This morality sees those qualities that serve to alleviate the existence of sufferers such as, sympathy, patience, the warm heart humility etc as good. This slave morality is the morality of the weak and powerless, it extolled such qualities as sympathy, kindness and humility as virtues, and the strong and independent individuals are regarded as dangerous and evil.

The weak and the powerless as a sign of resentment and revenge against the noble have pushed the slave morality forward, such as good and quality under the guise of the fundamental principle of society. Nietzsche’s protest against dominant western morality was that it exalted the mediocre values created by the possessors of slave morality, thus making this morality the accepted morality of the society. Thus, he regarded morality as the will to disown life, a secret instinct for annihilation a principle of decay, depreciation, of slander. However, while attacking this morality, he discovered that Christianity consolidated this morality still; he thus incorporated the Judeo-Christian morality in the object to be attack.

Elucidating his actions, Copleston wrote:

Christian morality contains as its root-motive and inspiring force on hostility towards life and in creation of decadents of men who hate life and deny it and who in their desire to avenge themselves upon life, have set up a table of values and morality code calculated to shackle the ascending to force of life to prevent the growth and development of outstanding man, to render impossible the coming of superman.5

He sees Christian morality as a morality of self-renunciation; a crime against life, that it teaches the contempt of all principle instinct of life, a morality that teaches that the man who is weak, ill who ought to be wiped out is declared to be the good man. The goodness and kindness emphasized by the Judeo-Christian morality is the consequence of decadence and symptom of weakness, therefore if man wishes to be elevated to his highest glory and power, he must place himself above morality.

Nevertheless in fighting the Judeo-Christian morality, he discovered that they claimed that their morality is based upon the laws of God, upon a living and kind God who directs human beings. Nietzsche thus started to regard those who believe in God as despisers of life, decaying people and the blasphemous of the earth. Capturing this thought Compleston wrote:

The concept “God” was invented as the opposite of the concept life-everything detrimental, poisonous and slanderous and all deadly hostility to life was bound together in one horrible unit in Him.6

With the above conviction, Nietzsche thus declared a war upon God saying that the concept God is contrary to life. With God he said, a war is declared on life, nature and the will to life. God is the formular for every calumny of this world and every life concerning the beyond. In God non entity is defied, and the will to non entity is declared holy.

Emulating the mad man in the street, Nietzsche therefore, declared we proclaimed the death of God saying “God is dead, at last, the sea our sea lies upon before us”. It is this death of God as Nietzsche holds that will open the gateway for man’s creative energies to develop fully in this world. With the death of God, man is now free; he now has freedom of an absolute character. There will be no universal principles holding man bound, rather he is free to create himself and recreate himself. Creation is the great deliverance from suffering because: “In creation, authentic being is attained. Freedom appears only in creation. Our only happiness consists in creation as a creator, you transcend yourself you cease to be yourself own contemporary”.

It is by being the creator of himself that man makes his freedom, in his freedom he lives above morality and is elevated to his highest glory and power and thus will attain the status of the superman (bermersch) .Nietzsche sees freedom as that which will exist when the thought about the existence of God and morality are sidetracked.