‘God is Dead’

A world without moral certainty

Disclaimer• If you are of particularly devout faith then this session

comes with an advisory warning.• Once you open certain doors they cannot be closed.• A young lady asked Nietzsche if he had been to

church today, to which he replied: ‘Today? No.’ He stated afterwards to a friend: ‘If I had troubled that young girl’s mind I should have been horrified.’ IF YOU ARE THAT ‘YOUNG GIRL’ THEN LEAVE NOW.

• However, in a letter to his sister, who was a believing Christian he wrote:

‘What is it we are seeking? Rest and Happiness? No, nothing but Truth, however evil and terrible it may be …So are the ways of men marked out; if you desire peace of

soul and happiness, believe; if you would become a disciple of Truth, enquire…’

Complete the ‘Moral Opinion Poll’ activity…

For each idea circle a number and explain why you feel you

agree or disagree with the statement.

What is truth?

How do I know if something is true?

A Correspondence Theory of Truth Versus

A Coherence Theory of Truth

Correspondence Theory of Truth

In this idea of ‘truth’, for something to be TRUE it must correctly measure against an independent idea of TRUTH that is objective, unchanging and by implication eternal. A correspondence theory of truth is sometimes known as a

‘Realist’ approach.

For something to be true on earth it must measure up to an independent form of TRUTH in the universe.

TRUTH

A Coherence Theory of Truth

In this idea of ‘truth’, for something to be TRUE it need only be agreed between a group of people. The idea becomes

COHERENT between the individuals and their agreement of what is true. In this idea human beings construct their own reality through agreement and disagreement. A coherence

theory of truth is sometimes known as a ‘Non-Realist’ approach.

No objective truth to measure against

Something becomes true because people agree that it is the case.

TRUTH

‘The only serious philosophical question is whether to commit

suicide or not…’

Albert Camus 7 November 1913 – 4 January 1960

‘The Myth of Sisyphus’

What do you think this quote means?

God is dead…and we killed Him. Think about this concept for a second. One of the attributes of God is eternity. This concept means the quality or state of having no beginning and no end. If God truly is eternal then, if ‘God is dead’, what Nietzsche is really saying is that God never existed. God is a concept that human beings have made up.

In ‘Thus Spoke Zarathustra’ Nietzsche is asking us to imagine the prophet Zarathustra coming down from his mountain retreat and being amazed to discover that people do not realise that God is dead.

God is a concept that is no longer useful according to Nietzsche. There are a number of problems that arise when you begin to deny the existence of God, it is not only God that goes, it is also the existence of the metaphysical realm.

‘God is Dead’Friedrich Nietzsche

(1844-1900)

Metaphysical RealmThe metaphysical (meaning above/beyond the physical world) is a concept that has survived in philosophy for centuries. It still continues to this day. But it is important to note one or two ideas that follow:

• Any belief in a ‘God’ or the afterlife beyond our physical world is dealing with metaphysics

• Any belief in the soul is dealing with metaphysics

• Any belief in ghosts or spirits is also dealing with metaphysics

• Any belief that suggests that morals are True in a correspondence sense is dealing with metaphysics

Therefore, dismissing God as dead, for Nietzsche, was a dismissal of the metaphysical and all that goes with it…

‘…truths are illusions of which one has forgotten that they are illusions…’

Nietzsche and Nihilism

Nietzsche’s denial of God and any

metaphysical realm brings us to something

known as nihilism.

NihilismNihilism (from the Latin nihil = nothing) is a

philosophical position that argues that existence is without objective meaning, purpose, or intrinsic value. Nihilists generally assert that objective morality does not exist, and that no

action is logically preferable to any other (ie: one action is just as good as another). Nihilists that

argue that there is no objective morality may claim that existence has no intrinsic higher meaning or

goal. They may also claim that there is no reasonable proof or argument for the existence of

a higher ruler or creator, or posit that even if a higher ruler or creator exists, humanity has no

moral obligation to worship them.

NO WAY THROUGH

NIHILISM

Nihilism is wrong – Keep

belief in metaphysics

(religious faith)

Nihilism is correct – No

metaphysical reality

(Need to reassess the way that we view the

world)Christianity Nietzsche

‘Existence precedes essence’

What do you think this quote means?

Nietzsche ContinuedNietzsche asks us to examine a world without God. He believes that human beings are at the leading edge of evolution…

‘Man is a rope, fastened between animal and übermensch (superman or overman) –

a rope over an abyss.’

Nietzsche insists on two things from humanity:

1) The courage to face reality and

2) A desire to provide a new direction in our lives now that there is no God to provide it.

Nietzsche’s Attack on Christianity

Nietzsche despised Christianity. He believed that it symbolised everything that was wrong with the world. He thought of it as a vampire that sucked the life out of human beings. The Romans had virtually ruled the known world for 1500 years until Christianity was adopted as the state religion…

‘Christianity was the vampire of the imperium Romanum – in a night it shattered the tremendous

achievement of the Romans’.

Nietzsche is suggesting that, through the adoption of Christianity as the state religion, the values of Rome had changed from strong masters of the known world to morality befitting slavish obedience to a divine overlord (God).

Nietzsche’s Attack on Christianity (2)

Nietzsche considered that Christianity denied life, making human beings sick from within. Nietzsche saw that human desires and passions were the most important thing for the evolution of the human race. Christianity denies passion and desire, Nietzsche suggests that the individual was as:

‘…a caricature man, like an abortion: he had become a ‘sinner’, he was caged up, he had been imprisoned behind a host of appalling notions…full of hate for the instincts of life, full of suspicion in regard to all that is still strong and happy. In short, a ‘Christian’.

Nietzsche’s AlternativeIn a sense what Nietzsche is saying is that ALL WESTERN VALUES have arisen out of Christianity and that these values undermine the very essence of what it is that makes us human. For Nietzsche some humans are better than others and so should behave as such, he is advocating that the ‘few’ become like the übermensch or the masters - pursuing their desires and passions, becoming the pinnacle of evolution, and the ‘many’ slaves serve their worthy masters. This is known as master and slave morality.

Nietzsche believed that the values that Christianity and democracy demand of us - passivity, selflessness, guilt, equality, justice, humbleness, compassion, forgiveness and charity – must be rejected and eliminated…

On the other hand he demands that lust, anger and revenge should be regarded as virtues rather than vices – these mark out the strong ‘masters’ while the Christian values were for the weak ‘slaves’.

• In a world without God, one needs the courage to face one’s situation, set one’s own goals and say ‘Yes’ to life.

• Humankind is to strive to go beyond itself – to become ‘Supermen’ and to allow that quest to give meaning to life.

• Christianity (and, through its values, democracy) have promoted ‘slave morality’ to defend the weak; Nietzsche wants a ‘master morality’ to encourage the development of the ‘strong’.

Nietzsche’s Conclusions

Nietzsche’s views on morality are uncomfortable but where does

our moral behaviour stand

without God?

“Without God, anything is

allowable…”Fyodor Dostoyevsky

(1821 – 1881)

Russian Novelist

In groups of 4 complete the thinking about God and

morality sheet