Footnote that I wrote in a paper for a class called 'Christianity Engaging Modernity' last semester:
'Nietzsche’s entire project is of course needlessly incendiary by design, putting us in the awkward position of rightly calling it uncalled-for and excessive but at the same time recognizing that that is precisely the point. The human
figure of Nietzsche rather than any specific aspect of Nietzsche’s thought is perhaps the best place to begin an analysis of him. Nietzsche also himself contains the seeds of a possible answer to him. “God is dead” originally (and in its more famous context) appears in
The Gay Science but it behooves us here to look at the context in which it appears in
Thus Spake/Spoke Zarathustra: Zarathustra meets “this old saint in the forest” who has not heard that God is dead and does not disabuse him of his notions. (Nietzsche, transl. Alexander Tille,
Thus Spake Zarathustra (London: Everyman’s Library, 1933), p. 5. Originally published as
Also sprach Zarathustra: Ein Buch für Alle und Keine (Chemnitz: Verlag von Ernst Schmeitzner, 1883). I am using a different translation again, for the same reason as before.) It is an odd, ambiguous, patronizing show of something resembling mercy and something resembling respect. Nietzsche assays to attack the entire scope and relevance and all the presuppositions of Christianity but he actually leaves Christianity as way of life more intact than do many figures working ostensibly within the Christian tradition. For many people it might prove easier to continue living a Christian life after encountering Nietzsche than after encountering Kierkegaard.'
Poll
