Our task now is to transform from the old Christian way of being human, towards what Nietzsche calls the Übermensch or “ Overhuman”.Ĭhristianity’s problem, in Nietzsche’s view, is that it slowly but surely destroys itself: ironically, prizing truthfulness as a virtue eventually leads to an intellectual honesty that rejects faith.įriedrich Nietzsche, a portrait by Edvard Munch (1903). “ undetermined animals”: malleable enough to be refashioned.

A new dawnįor Nietzsche, nihilism can be a bridge to a new way of being. According to Nietzsche, this state of nihilism – the idea that life has no meaning or value – cannot be avoided we must go through it, as frightening and lonely as that will be. Without God, we are alone, exposed to a natural universe devoid of the comforting idea of a God-given purpose to things. Eventually, he breaks into churches to sing God’s requiem mass. In The Gay Science (first published in German in 1882), Nietzsche has the news of God’s death relayed by a man driven mad through fear at what a godless life might be like. The consequences of the death of God are horrific, but also freeing. How could we play the hero to ourselves now? If we weren’t suffering to get closer to God, what was the point of life? From whom now would we draw the strength to endure life’s difficulty? God was the origin of truth, justice, beauty, love – transcendental ideals we thought of ourselves as heroically defending, leading lives and dying deaths that had meaning and purpose. Nietzsche saw the danger in this atheist worldview. Wikimediaįor Nietzsche, the son of a Lutheran pastor, the growth of scientific understanding after the Age of Enlightenment had gradually made it impossible to maintain faith in God. This 1882 photograph was taken by Gustav Schultze. The death of God can be both devastating and liberating, writes Nietzche.

Nihilistic optimism