God is Dead, but a New god Rises in His Place.

In 1966 Time Magazine published this cover for all the world to see. The boldness of the lettering set against a black background remarkably parallels the intent of the author of those three little words, Friedrich Nietzsche. I want to explain what he meant by that infamous statement and, more importantly, explain how pluralism has proven him to be correct.

His statement is very easy to understand in broad strokes, so please don’t be turned back from this post because you think Nietzsche to be too smart or inscrutable for you to comprehend. I assure you, in this post, the most arduous task set before either you, as the reader, or myself, as the writer, will be for me to spell his name correctly (or at least consistently). Knowing this man and his philosophy will give you a deeper understanding of the world around you.

So let’s start by getting to know Nietzsche.

He was a German philosopher who lived in the nineteenth century. He is generally considered the father of Nihilism and remains one of the most influential voices in the rise of postmodernism. Nihilism is a philosophy that denies the possibility of order or meaning in the world. Postmodernism denies the possibility of foundational or objective truth. If you believe that truth is relative to each person then congratulations, you have become half as enlightened as Nietzsche. I say half as enlightened because what we know as postmodernism was only a brief side point in the arguments that led Nietzsche to Nihilism.

Here is how the argument goes: I hold something as true. You hold the opposite of my belief as true. Our two truths are mutually exclusive, but we don’t know which is true. This ambiguity of truth between contrasting philosophies means that objective truth either doesn’t exist or it doesn’t matter. In either case, my personal belief is the only truth that can have bearing on me and my life, therefore that is my new objective truth (postmodernism). If everything is relative to each individual, then there is no over-arching truth which binds all men together. Without any ultimate purpose for humanity, there can be no meaning for individual men. Therefore, there is no meaning or purpose to my life, even in my own little subjective world of truth (Nihilism).

So that is how Nietzsche viewed the world. Meaningless. Now, this philosophy is what leads Nietzsche to make the incredible claim that God is dead and that humanity has killed him. He says that when we have taken away the basis for morality for the world at large and given it into the hands of individual men, we have effectively killed God in our lives. Let’s look at one of the places in his writing where he makes this assertion. This is from an analogous book he wrote to explain his philosophy. The following is the thought of the main character known as the Madman:

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 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?

Nietzsche hit upon one major point that I would like to bring to your attention. His main character, the Madman, clearly recognizes the need for repentance for killing God, but he brings up an excellent question; who has the right or power to forgive a man for killing a God? His answer is as chilling as it is logical; we must make ourselves into a god into order to give ourselves absolution for our sins.

Postmodernism makes each man his own god, deciding what is truth and what is real. When man tries to become a god his failings must be blamed on someone else, his offense becomes another man’s greatest sin, and sex becomes his only time of worship. I mention only these three because they characterize our own culture in America; Freud has removed our responsibility, political correctness is marked as virtue, and pornography has become our object of greatest devotion.

This is what I want to point out. Although the problems that follow from postmodernism, and eventually Nihilism, are manifold, all of them lead to one issue that has been a problem since the Garden of Eden.

Man wants to be his own god. When this happens, we stand on the brink of lunacy with a new found right to sin.