Christianity after Nietzsche.

by Narkissos 56 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  Narkissos

  Thanks for the additional replies.

  Dan, I think a biographical approach to Nietzsche (Stefan Zweig offers a very insightful and sympathetic one, in several of his writings) would clear a possible misunderstanding: the herald of the Uebermann and Wille zur Macht is very far from being a "master" socially. He's a sick, suffering man, ignored or despised by almost all his contemporaries. His praise of "real life" is poetical and ecstatic in many ways, and all the more moving. He doesn't want his own gloom to darken the cruel beauty of life both around him and in his own eyes, hence his sensitivity to the problematic of "resentment".

  A popular broad-brush remark has often been made that the religion/philosophy of the socially, economically or culturally wealthy tends to be sad and austere, while the religion of the poor is joyful, lively and colourful. In spite of the obvious generalisation I guess there is some truth to that. Compensation?

  This is very Gospel-like when you think of it: I'm thinking of the "beatitudes" of course, and this passage of James (1:9f) which I particularly enjoy: "Let the believer who is lowly boast in being raised up, and the rich in being brought low." This sounds a lot like "resentment," weren't it for the "boasting" in which the "rich" paradoxically shares -- in being brought low.

  "Dear me, I am nuance!" (Ecce Homo, in an anti-German passage which all people who still connect Nietzsche with Nazism should read btw.)
• 

  myelaine

  "Dear me, I am nuance!" (Ecce Homo, in an anti-German passage which all people who still connect Nietzsche with Nazism should read btw.)"

  thanks Narkissos...I just dusted it off...I didn't make it thru the introduction...

  love michelle
• 

  Rapunzel

  Hi, Narkissos. You write that "Nietzsche lumps together Christianity and Anarchism as expressions of the same basic rejection of reality." I would like to ask: For you, what is Nietzsche's conception of "reality"? Is it the Wille zur Macht [the Will to Power]? I ask this because of your use of the term reality. As I mentioned in aprevious, I have always thought of Nietzsche as the consumate anti-metaphysical philosopher; and, of course, metaphysics deals with the study of 'reality." So, I guess that I am asking whether you think that Nietzsche even had a concept of reality, and if he did, what it was.

  It's interesting that you should mention the entire Western tradition of philosophy, from Socrates and Plato and thereafter. This leads me to my next question: Do you see Nietsche's thought as based on the philosophy of the pre-Socratics. Did Nietzsce not do a dissertation on Democritus? Could Nietzsche's idea of reality be said to be based on a form of ancient atomism?

  Also, how would you define Nietzsche theory of eternal recurrence? For me, this is one of his more nebulous doctrines.

  Finally, I don't see Christianity as willing to accept the confrontation of Nietzschean thought. I don't think that Christianity and Nietzsche have much common ground for dialogue or polemics.
• 

  Narkissos

  R. Crusoe,

  Tolle's focus on "now" seems extraordinarily shortsighted to me.

  Now-here man = no-where man?

  Of course there are some pathological, harmful, painful, incapacitating ways of connecting to the past and future through representation -- guilt, pride, fear or greed for instance.

  But on the other hand human, and even animal "consciousness" / "sentience" is tied in with memory and anticipation. Only inasmuch as we exceed the now and here, through mental representation of the past and future, do we perceive the now and here as such. Mere now doesn't know.

  The days past and future are no less real, bright and warm than today. Where are they? is the starting point of human thinking, which involves language and mental representation (imagination).

  And I can only perceive time now as the product of a centuries-old language and culture -- from François Villon, mais où sont les neiges d'antan? (where are the snows of old?) to Marcel Proust, A la recherche du temps perdu (in search of time lost).

  journey-on,

  While reading your description of future Christianity emerging from a 2-millenia "evolution" I couldn't help smiling at the fact that it corresponds almost exactly to some of the earliest known versions of Ancient Christianity (especially Jewish-Christian and Gnostic)... not eternal but long-range recurrence, isn't it?
• 

  Deputy Dog

  Nark

  according to Nietzsche the belief in, and desire for, " another (higher or future) world" and " eternal life" betrays a hatred of this world and real life, of power and beauty, of the animal and the "body," a "slave morality" which essentially consists in "resentment" against everything real, powerful, beautiful, etc.

  So you safely assume Nietzsche has the market cornered on realism? Look more like materialism to me.

  So I'll leave aside ignorance (that of the old man in Zarathustra, who "hasn't yet heard that God is dead"), or apologetic denial.

  Paul answered Nietzsche long before his birth

  Romans 1:14

  I am under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish. 15 So, for my part, I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome. 16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. 17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, "BUT THE RIGHTEOUS man SHALL LIVE BY FAITH." 18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, 19because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them.

  I think Paul beat him at his own game. The "real" question is, What is "real"?
• 

  Narkissos

  Rapunzel,

  I recently read a course by Nietzsche on the "pre-Socratics," from the early period when he was still teaching. I felt he closely related to several of them -- Heraclitus and Empedocles, too -- not Parmenides, of course!

  The "eternal recurrence" is rather obscure, and in a sense I think it is rooted in a sense of "reality," construed as a scandal to the creative will. Reality, especially the past, is first understood as that which will cannot change. This is, if I dare say, the "cross" of the will (and the temporary sadness of Zarathustra). But creative will triumphs by wanting it to be so -- making the unwanted fact wanted, hence, in a sense, the past an in(de)finite future. Through this act of the will comes the "revelation" or eternal recurrence.

  But ironically it is also a recurrence of metaphysics and eternity into Nietzsche's thinking...

  Btw, I found Deleuze's interpretation of eternal recurrence (as recurrence of the other, instead of the same) very interesting too, even though it is probably more creative than exegetical in relation to Nietzsche's concept.
• 

  Narkissos

  DD,

  Apparently you misunderstood my question. I didn't ask whether Nietzsche was right or wrong, but how a "Nietzsche-conscious Christianity" might react to Nietzsche's criticism of Christianity.

  I am quite confident in the ability of some "proud Christianity" to shrug at Nietzsche... that's what I meant by "apologetic denial," intending to leave it out of this discussion. If you don't mind, of course.
• 

  R.Crusoe

  Narky:

  I only came across Tolle a week ago = which shows how amateur I am at any philosophyt stuff!

  I declare I am not well read on anyone well known!

  I simply rely on my own experience , observation and interpretations for much of how I think!

  It's why I was intrigued by how Tolle views things. Apparently he is highly regarded as one of the foremost spiritual intellects in Western circles - but I only viewed a couple of references suggesting this so cant be certain!

  What I do feel certain of is that he has a very 'calculus' way of explaining human psychology!

  It has me hooked at present - and I am a deeply several years depressive so I have to work hard to focus so accept some of my analysis will be under par. Still I am unafraid to persevere with a gut feeling tht something is hitting a nerve and I suspect he is onto something! Maybe you viewed this in other philosophies but he claims it to be a collective evolution of next generation world spirituality in the making. I am curious as to what underlies such deep feeling essences!

  Living as if you are 'formless' is very tough!

  I am attempting it and failing constantly!

  It is why I currently keep redressing my self analysis to see if I can relive his Eureka experience of attuning to the self and staying there permanently!

  I half suspected it was easy for him because he speaks of nothing else and gets paid for doing so!

  But whether he is 100% sincere and what he speaks of is attainable I am sincerely attempting to experience.

  So it is work in progress for me!

  So far I have had odd lucid moments but nothing to quel repetetive ego pain resurfacing.

  I am my own test for what it is worth since no one I know seems even close to aiding my fall into despair and matrix like essence I constantly feel .

  I can see incredible value in the moral foundation of this concept in overcoming the increasing reliance of litigation and obsession with past ego in living a present pain-egoic reality which infiltrates future expectations! This is what I see but my reservations lie in how it may derail humanity from capitalist ideology in making materialism less of an ambition = in this sense it is advanced enough to focus on preserving natural resources and making do with less! It has much in its core which seems to answer world faith conflicts also whilst at the same time helping combine them!

  In fact it seems too good to be true and like such a giant leap for mankind that I wonder if only a few will realise the dream and set foot on its moon? It is an amazing copound-concept but I am seeking essence-ic flaws so that I can dismiss it - which currently I feel unable to do!
• 

  Narkissos

  R. Crusoe

  As this is a "Nietzsche" thread, here is Nietzsche's portrait (in The Antichrist, § 29ff) of a psychologically consistent Jesus -- not exactly the Jesus of the Gospels... it might resonate with what you are experiencing, and perhaps, help you step back a little, for perspective:

  What concerns me is the psychological type of the Saviour. This type might be depicted in the Gospels, in however mutilated a form and however much overladen with extraneous characters--that is, in spite of the Gospels; just as the figure of Francis of Assisi shows itself in his legends in spite of his legends. It is not a question of mere truthful evidence as to what he did, what he said and how he actually died; the question is, whether his type is still conceivable, whether it has been handed down to us.--All the attempts that I know of to read the history of a "soul" in the Gospels seem to me to reveal only a lamentable psychological levity. M. Renan, that mountebank in psychologicus, has contributed the two most unseemly notions to this business of explaining the type of Jesus: the notion of the genius and that of the hero ("heros"). But if there is anything essentially unevangelical, it is surely the concept of the hero. What the Gospels make instinctive is precisely the reverse of all heroic struggle, of all taste for conflict: the very incapacity for resistance is here converted into something moral: ("resist not evil !"--the most profound sentence in the Gospels, perhaps the true key to them), to wit, the blessedness of peace, of gentleness, the inability to be an enemy. What is the meaning of "glad tidings"?--The true life, the life eternal has been found--it is not merely promised, it is here, it is in you; it is the life that lies in love free from all retreats and exclusions, from all keeping of distances. Every one is the child of God--Jesus claims nothing for himself alone--as the child of God each man is the equal of every other man. . . .Imagine making Jesus a hero!--And what a tremendous misunderstanding appears in the word "genius"! Our whole conception of the "spiritual," the whole conception of our civilization, could have had no meaning in the world that Jesus lived in. In the strict sense of the physiologist, a quite different word ought to be used here. . . . We all know that there is a morbid sensibility of the tactile nerves which causes those suffering from it to recoil from every touch, and from every effort to grasp a solid object. Brought to its logical conclusion, such a physiological habitus becomes an instinctive hatred of all reality, a flight into the "intangible," into the "incomprehensible"; a distaste for all formulae, for all conceptions of time and space, for everything established--customs, institutions, the church--; a feeling of being at home in a world in which no sort of reality survives, a merely "inner" world, a "true" world, an "eternal" world. . . . "The Kingdom of God is within you". . . .

  The instinctive hatred of reality: the consequence of an extreme susceptibility to pain and irritation--so great that merely to be "touched" becomes unendurable, for every sensation is too profound.

  The instinctive exclusion of all aversion, all hostility, all bounds and distances in feeling: the consequence of an extreme susceptibility to pain and irritation--so great that it senses all resistance, all compulsion to resistance, as unbearable anguish (--that is to say, as harmful, as prohibited by the instinct of self-preservation), and regards blessedness (joy) as possible only when it is no longer necessary to offer resistance to anybody or anything, however evil or dangerous--love, as the only, as the ultimate possibility of life. . .

  These are the two physiological realities upon and out of which the doctrine of salvation has sprung. I call them a sublime super-development of hedonism upon a thoroughly unsalubrious soil. What stands most closely related to them, though with a large admixture of Greek vitality and nerve-force, is epicureanism, the theory of salvation of paganism. Epicurus was a typical decadent: I was the first to recognize him.--The fear of pain, even of infinitely slight pain--the end of this can be nothing save a religion of love. . . .
• 

  Deputy Dog

  Nark I guess I'm agreeing with Rapunzel So, I guess that I am asking whether you think that Nietzsche even had a concept of reality, and if he did, what it was. Finally, I don't see Christianity as willing to accept the confrontation of Nietzschean thought. I don't think that Christianity and Nietzsche have much common ground for dialogue or polemics. I believe the Romans passage would have been Paul's response to your question, had he been here today. Why would or should expect the church (Christianity) to be any different?