Nietzsche argued that you cannot have Christian
morals without Christianity. Many in the west have rejected Christianity
yet have tried to hold on to Christian morals. This is futile
according to Nietzsche. Once you get rid of Christianity
you have to get rid of
Christian morals because you have no basis on which to rest those
morals. If Nietzsche was right, you would expect to see, with the decline in Christianity, a decline in Christian morals. The following was written in 1955.
The essential amorality of all atheist
doctrines is often hidden from us by an irrelevant personal argument. We
see that many articulate secularists are well-meaning and law-abiding
men; we see them go into righteous indignation over injustice and often
devote their lives to good works. So we conclude that "he can't be wrong
whose life is in the right" and that their philosophies are just as good
guides to action as Christianity. What we don't see is that they are not
acting on their philosophies. They are acting, out of habit or
sentiment, on an inherited Christian ethic which they still take for
granted though they have rejected the creed from which it sprang. Their
children will inherit somewhat less of it(Joy Davidman,
1955, Smoke on the Mountain, p.74).
Nietzsche believed
all morals enslaved and Christianity was the worst offender (Note:
Buddhist, Hindu and Islamic morals also enslave). He believed that to
do the will of another was a slave morality and anyone who sought to do
the will of another was the mental and emotional slave of someone else. If Nietzsche were alive today he would show contempt for those who, after having turned their back on Christianity, try to uphold Christian morals. Nietzsche would say such people refuse to be free from the moral shackles that enslave them.
It is important to note that Nietzsche admired
Jesus. He believed
that there was only one true Christian and that was Jesus himself. It is
true that only Jesus perfectly lived out all he taught, however, it
does not follow that a person must be perfect in order to be his follower. Nietzsche's insights into hypocritical Christianity have real value
though he fails to see how a man (or woman) can become free and strong willed as a
result of following Jesus. Both Jesus and Nietzsche talked about what freedom is. But as Dallas Willard points out, one view must enslave and the other make free. (We talk of strong willed children, but
infact they are weak willed; they lack self control. George MacDonald's
Lilith shows clearly what enslaves and what makes free.)
Nietzsche recognized that a real man is a man of action. Which is of course true. But unlike Jesus who said that the greatest among you must be the servant of all, the man of action, according to Nietzsche, exercises his will, not necessarily to serve, but as he sees fit. The stronger the man,
the stronger the will. But a strong will which is given to service is not something Nietzsche encouraged. For Nietzsche there is no right or wrong. Therefore, service is
no better than not serving, unless the individual deems it so. There is no overarching set of values on which to praise or condemn anything. To say pedophilia or necrophilia are wrong is no better or worse than saying they are right, it is nothing more than a personal moral judgement. Nietzsche believed that the strong person exercised their will to create their own morality. They can either be a good person if that is what they personally value or they can be a mass murderer. All things were but a means to an end, power! Right and wrong are simply constructs of our own imaginations. (This is why many have labelled Nietzsche a
radical relativist.) Moral
relativism, at first glance, seems bold, assertive and freeing. But there is another side to the story. There is a different kind of enslavement which Nietzsche clearly saw, a slavery which we are witnessing much of today. A slavery which Nietzsche sought to avoid, but a slavery, which his view of morality actually encouraged. (By the way, Lewis
soundly refutes moral relativism in "Right and wrong as a clue to the
meaning of the universe" which
is book 1 in Mere Christianity.) Nietzsche talked
about the last man, a Homer Simpson type character who was indifferent
to everything. Of course if there is no objective right or wrong why should
anything upset anyone? Unless of course one's will was crossed. Then a
person would be passionate. Then they'd be upset. Moral relativism, instead of
creating passionate self-sacrificing caring people creates selfish, angry and indifferent
people (depending on their will).
It seems like a
dillema, either we can have a society full of Homer Simpson's who only get angry when their selfish agendas are crossed or we can have a society where people like Ned Flanders make all the rules and tell people what to do. How are we to
avoid this loss of meaning and passion without having someone's morals
pushed down our throats? See Ideology and State Jesus believed he could take care of others because God was taking care of him, Nietzsche saw little
value in service as a result of trust. He never seriously considered that through service two wills could become one in a harmony of thought, feeling and action. And that when those two wills were in such harmony there would exist a deep intimacy between the two, an intimacy that we all long for. This intimacy is
what Jesus claimed he had with his Father. And it is this kind of intimacy that we long for more than power.
Nietzsche's philosophy was flawed because he misunderstood what humans desire the most. Power is that which they seek when they are unable to find the intimacy they long for.
Because Nietzsche believed it was all about power his idea of the real man is the 'uberman' or
superman. An uberman is someone who has to, who must, believe that no one is wiser or more trustworthy than him or herself when it comes to the things which are most important, for to do so would mean sacrificing one's will in service to another. In his own mind the uberman is a god. There is no one worth following with one's heart, soul, strength and mind; no one completely worthy of our trust. The ubermen are the masters and everyone else slaves. This is one reason Nietzsche was so
admired by Mussoline and Hitler, who viewed themselves as ubermen. Though in reality--apart from sociopaths--no such uberman exist, nor have they existed. For even the ubermen have masters. Who are their masters? Their peers. Those they either consciously or unconsciously seek to impress. Everyone is a slave to someone or something. Do you love someone? If you do they are your master. The freest person is the one who loves someone who is most trustworthy. We're all trying to please someone or some group. We are all trying to get something, and in this regard Nietzsche was right. To varying degrees we are all pragmatists, and we will do what ever we have to to obtain the love and respect we desire. Our problem is we fear people more than we fear God.
And this is a weakness with Nietzsche, his philosophy leads to pure unbridled pragmatism. The person who creates their own morals, whether they admit it or not, has a pragmatic mindset. For them, ultimately, the end justifies the means. Because Nietzsche believed that the pursuit of power was more important that the pursuit of truth he unwittingly replaced the god "truth" (which no relationship can survive without) with the god "pragmatism".*
Pragmatism is a good thing when your building a car but is pragmatism regarding morality good for society?
"...pragmatism
will always find ways to circumvent and misuse the law rather than to
revere it" ('Ravi Zacharias, 'The Storms of Conflict' in Deliver Us From Evil, p. 61).
Do we really want a society full of people with a pragmatic mindset? Nietzsche raised the
question, What is the value of truth? But now it is time we asked the
question, "What is the value of pragmatism?"
Does the end justify
the means or do the means justify the end?
When truth is valued more
highly than life life is enhanced. But "truth without love is brutality." So
for truth to be truly liberating it must go hand in hand with love.Truth is a necessary
part of freedom.
It is time we valued truth and love more than power and pragmatism.
---
One of the good things about Nietzsche was he was far
more honest than many of the new atheists. Ravi Zacharias highlights
some of the problems with the New Atheism in The End of Reason.
One man who wrote at
the same time as Nietzsche, and was his equal as a philosopher, was
George MacDonald. He also believed that a true man is a man of action. He even described being born again as having one's own will born. In other words going from being weak willed to strong willed. Nietzsche was a better writer than MacDonald, few would argue with that, but MacDonald is the more mature of the two. Nietzsche is like the little kid who acts tough, MacDonald like the mature adult who does not need to act tough. What? You haven't heard of George MacDonald? Not many had heard of Nietzsche
in the 19th century as his time had not yet come. But in the 20th
century Atheists came to love him. MacDonald faced a different problem
to Nietzsche. A very fixed and narrow minded Church rejected him and
because he was a follower of Jesus the secular world ignored him.
Nietzche's views would have made little progress if the Church had the
courage to embrace MacDonald. C.S. Lewis expressed disappointment that
so few people read MacDonald. If God is as MacDonald says he is there
would still be atheists in this world, but if they knew what MacDonald
taught they would find themselves wishing that such a God did exist and that they might know him.
If you want your will to be born but to also be in harmony with this universe, a good place to begin your search is chapter one of Unspoken Sermons.
*For Nietzsche, the value of a truth or a lie depends on what it helps you achieve. Truth has pragmatic value only, it does not have value in and of itself. (Conversely, lies can also have pragmatic value. One is not to be favoured over the other.) For a good definition of what it means to be truthful see "What is meant by 'telling the truth'? in Ethics by Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
Nietzsche's revaluation of values creates serious problems. He claims that there is no overarching set of values by which all values should be ordered. But just ask the alcoholic or workaholic who has destroyed their life and their family if somethings are not always more valuable than others. Jesus told us what the overarching set of values by which all values should be ordered are.
