Nietzsche and the Apostle Paul

By the late 19^th century, in European intellectual circles, God was, indeed, dead. It wasn’t always so; look back at the writings of earlier generations and you find a plethora of Christian intellectuals. Even the non-Christian intellectuals made nods in the direction of God. But, by the 1870s, all that God-talk had largely vanished. God, who sed to be the center of European intellectual discourse, was no longer there are all.  God, the idea and relevance of God to the intellectual arguments of the late 19^th century, was indeed quite dead.

Nietzsche looked out at the godless landscape, and what did he see? A true curiosity. While nobody wanted to talk about God anymore, everyone still had all these moral codes which looked a whole lot like the Christian moral code. “Why?,” Nietzsche asks.

That is a really good question. It is the sort of question both Christians and non-Christians ought to be asking. If there is no God, why exactly should I love my neighbor? If I am strong enough, why shouldn’t I kill my neighbor and take all his stuff?

When I ask students this, they inevitably immediately reply, “Well, you don’t want someone to kill you, do you?” They announce this proudly, like it is the ultimate answer. But, it is, of course, just a sign of their weakness. If I am strong enough, why would I worry that others will kill me? Only weak people worry about that. So, again, why shouldn’t I kill my neighbor?

If there was a God who did not want me to murder my neighbor, then that gives me an answer. But, if there is no God? Why not then? Here Nietzsche comes in with an answer. His answer sprawls among a great many books, but the easiest place to start is The Genealogy of Morals.

Once upon a time, the strong could kill their neighbors. Those were the good old days. In those days, there was only the strong and the weak. The strong were good; the weak were not good. The weak did not like being preyed upon by the strong, so they banded together to create a moral code which would constrain the strong. Don’t be strong, said the weak. Be weak like us.

That lambs dislike great birds of prey does not seem strange: only it gives no ground for reproaching these birds of prey for bearing off little lambs. And if the lambs say among themselves: “these birds of prey are evil; and whoever is least like a bird of prey, but rather its opposite, a lamb—would he not be good?” there is no reason to find fault with this institution of an ideal, except perhaps that the birds of prey might view it a little ironically and say: “we don’t dislike them at all, these good little lambs; we even love them: nothing is more tasty than a tender lamb.”
   To demand of strength that it should not express itself as strength, that it should not be a desire to overcome, a desire to throw down, a desire to become master, a thirst for enemies and resistances and triumphs, is just as absurd as to demand of weakness that it should express itself as strength

Thus began the slave revolt in morality. Henceforth all expressions of strength will be called “evil.” All expressions of weakness will be called “good.” The Church arises to impose this new moral code on everyone, constraining the strong and elevating the weak. These new Priests of Weakness, the tarantulas, have gradually poisoned everyone to the point where nobody can see the truth any more.

A predominance of mandarins always means something is wrong; so do the advent of democracy, international courts in place of war, equal rights for women, the religion of pity, and whatever other symptoms of declining life there are.

Even Science has led us further down the same path. Once upon a time, Humans were the Masters of the Universe, ruling the World. Now, we are mere animals, pathetic little creatures acting like a virus on a small planet which is no longer the center of anything at all.

Has the self-belittlement of man, his will to self-belittlement, not progressed irresistibly since Copernicus? Alas, the faith in the dignity and uniqueness of man, in his irreplaceability in the great chain of being, is a thing of the past—he has become an animal, literally and without reservation or qualification, he who was, according to his old faith, almost God (“child of God,” “God-man”).

All this was the history of the world when Nietzsche wrote. But, he warned, it was about to get worse, much worse.

What happens when people become aware that the moral codes they have been using are not actually True? What happens when Truth itself gets called into question?

As the will to truth thus gains self-consciousness—there can be no doubt of that—morality will gradually perish now: this is the great spectacle in a hundred acts reserved for the next two centuries in Europe—the most terrible, most questionable, and perhaps also the most hopeful of all spectacles.

The great spectacle: world wars, genocide, mass killings…all in the name of power. If the 20^th century has shown us anything, this Will to Power in the absence of any Truth is a very ugly thing. Nietzsche was right.

Should that surprise us? Well, not if we have read the Apostle Paul.

Nietzsche may be the most perceptive commentator on the writings of Paul which the world has ever produced. Paul and Nietzsche completely agree on one thing: in a world without God, there is no moral code, and people behave abominably.

In the absence of God, Paul and Nietzsche fully agree that there is no check upon the wickedness of man. In the absence of God, there is no reason that strength should not express itself as strength. In the absence of God, the Christian Church is just imposing a moral code in an attempt to restrain these natural inclinations we all have. Paul notes the wickedness at the heart of all humans; Nietzsche explains the implications of Paul’s observation about human nature.

If there is no God, then we do in fact live in that the Nietzschean world. Prepare yourself for another century of horror. Get used to the Will to Power being the only Rule of Law. If you want to dream, then dream with Nietzsche that maybe the Overman, the Superman, will arise to lead us out of this dark pit.

How do we escape the Nietzschean horror? Easy. If the premise is wrong, then the conclusion is wrong. If there is a God, then weakness and love are indeed good.

Paul and Nietzsche lead to the same place. Both look forward to a redemptive moment in the future to save us from our plight. And both agree on this: if we assume the absence of God, Nietzsche is entirely correct. There is no moral code; there is only power. And if you don’t think that conclusion is True, then maybe it is the assumption that needs modification.