“God is dead.”
This well-known quote appears first in Jean Paul’s 1797 novel under a chapter named “The Dead Christ Proclaims That There Is No God.” Later, it is found in a poem by Gérard de Nerval, and then Victor Hugo’s novel Les Misérables. But the person this phrase was best known for is the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. It was first seen in his collection The Gay Science published in 1882. The paragraph goes:
“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?”
(Anderson)
For further investigation, it is needed to define the phrase “god is dead.” And yet, Nietzsche has been so vague in his various mentions that what he meant by it remains greatly controversial even today. The most accepted theory, though, is that the God referred to the Christian God. This theory states that the phrase referred to the enlightenment and the triumph of scientific rationality it brought is making the dominant beliefs of the Christian God no longer needed. This is a representation of the great moral collapse of the western world in Nietzsche’s theory, where all the moral values that was rooted in Christian culture will also collapse. (Anderson) Indeed, in the quote he said, “What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent?” This means the process of building up a new set of moral values which he evidently thinks is too great for humans. He argued that what awaits them is a huge project of breaking down what can no longer stand after God has “bled to death under our knives” and build a whole new system of morality, all while keeping the society stable and working, taking the roll God had previously. “Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?” His view that this current moral system needs such a major reformation also shows how much criticism he felt against it, thinking that it is destined to collapse.
Nietzsche’s Life
Nietzsche has his first experience of death very early in his life when his father died when he was five. This caused him to grow up in an all-woman household made of his mother, grandmother, two aunts, and his younger sister. When he was 24, he was called to a chair in classical philosophy at Basel, being the youngest ever to be appointed to that post. It was also around 1870 where one of Nietzsche’s greatest friendships, his friendship with Wagner ended, also giving inspiration to the work The Birth of Tragedy out of the Spirit of Music published in 1872. Then he continued to produce essays about Strauss, Schopenhauer, and Wagner, known collectively as the Untimely Meditations. In 1876-1877, Nietzsche’s poor health conditions forced him to take a break, eventually forcing him to resign his professorship. After that, Nietzsche focused on writing the literature that he is best known for, almost publishing a book every year. In his later years, he traveled the world in search of a climate that would improve his health, but eventually died of a stroke in 1900. (Anderson)
Nietzsche on death in “The Gay Science”
Being one of his best-known works, Nietzsche’s “The Gay Science” included his thoughts on a great variety of subjects, including death. In summary, he described “The thought of death” as “the only things certain and common to all in this future.” This argument is obviously true, and is also very shallow, but his next point follows that people “are the furthest from regarding themselves as the brotherhood of death!” He points out two very interesting psychological phenomenon we very well understand but are not very aware of. The first is that “men do not want to think at all of the idea of death!” It just happens that everyone is so afraid of the idea of death that we forget about it for most of our life, only remembering it when it arrives. The second is that it is always the last moment before an eternal departure where “people have more than ever to say to one another.” In the text, Nietzsche used an example of the departure of an emigrant-ship, stressing the ocean “with its lonely silence” being “so greedy” and “so certain of its prey,” making it obvious that the ocean symbolizes death. On each of these phenomena, Nietzsche says it gives him “melancholy happiness” and it “makes me happy,” evidently amused and happy about how humans cope with the shadow, the predator always following them in death.
