The ‘Death of God’ or Easter?
Toward the end of the nineteenth century, Friedrich Nietzsche announced the Death of God. The German philosopher’s commentary, which has been interpreted as prophetic, hyperbolic and much in between, has been nothing if not unforgettable.
Nietzsche’s idea is multi-layered. At one level, Nietzsche observed that, with the onset of modernity in all its dimensions — urbanization, the expansion of public education, technological advancement, the industrial economy and, most importantly, scientific rationality — it has become more difficult, if not impossible, to believe in a transcendent reality.
The commentary also amounted to a theory about why science emerged where and when it did. Some may be tempted to believe that the Enlightenment was a random development insofar as it emerged spontaneously and without reason. The scientific method was an attempt to hedge against the human mind’s proclivity for error and omission, paving the way for genuine knowledge. It took human beings eons to develop a reliable method to parse truth from falsity.
By making God coterminous with the Truth, Nietzsche argued, the Catholic Church had disciplined the European mind. The scientific method, formalized by Francis Bacon in the seventeenth century, which gave rise to the Enlightenment, was the outgrowth of that cognitive discipline. Those same Europeans who developed the scientific outlook then took their new tools and turned them on the very religion that had spawned their emergent science. They then began to dissect the Christian religion with their new scientific instruments. Modern science killed off the theology that had spawned it, leaving the centerpiece of that theology — God Himself — a superfluous and empirically unverifiable entity.
Third and finally, the comments Nietzsche made about the Death of God were prophetic, since they pointed to a metaphysical mutation that had vast psycho-social implications. With the death of the Judeo-Christian God, society at large lost its metaphysical anchor. In the absence of that divine anchor, the European mind would rush to the polarities of nihilism, on the one hand, and totalitarianism, on the other, Nietzsche contended. The twentieth century experimented with totalitarian ideologies of the far right (National Socialism) and far left (international revolutionary socialism) with disastrous consequences.
In the twenty-first century, is God Dead?
Ironically, the Christians predicted Nietzsche’s idea nineteen centuries before he penned it. Having grown up in a devoutly Christian household and having received a thoroughly Protestant education, Nietzsche must have been aware of the obvious rejoinder to his morbid observation.
The Christian answer is embedded in the Easter plot line. Were God to come down on a rescue mission to save humanity from sin (moral error), He would certainly be put to death (but not before He was betrayed, publicly humiliated and tortured). Nietzsche was right about the first part — if we haven’t killed God already, we would certainly try if given half the chance.
To paraphrase G.K. Chesterton, however, while we may have killed God we shouldn’t get too far ahead of ourselves by planning for His burial. Despite His death, the Christians believe He has risen. We may have expelled Him from our world, but He has returned. Despite our best efforts to erase Him, He has reappeared. His death was an illusion that no science could pierce through.
So what does this mean?
God has multiple definitions in the Judeo-Christian Bible, including Truth, Goodness and Love, so does it mean that, no matter how hard we try, we cannot rid ourselves of these concepts?
Perhaps it means that, whether we like it or not, we must forge a relationship with the Truth, difficult as that is. There are uncomfortable truths, to be sure, and the human effort to deny the truth, suppress it or turn away from it is hardly surprising. However, it reappears despite our best efforts, often with harsh consequences. Perhaps God is like that.
Christians also define God as Love. Is love not the most powerful force in the universe? A force strong enough to compel people to sacrifice everything else they value, including their own lives?
Certainly, the idea of God has not perished. In China, some 70 years after the communist revolution, there are more Christians than there are members of the Communist Party of China. The Christians only have a book and the ideas it contains. The CPC has the coercive apparatus of the state at its disposal. The pen is mightier than the sword, as the saying goes.
God remains present in the twenty-first century, and not just in those societies that are traditional in their fundamental orientation. So who is right: Nietzsche or the Christians?
An Easter-themed question for Easter.
