Nietzsche and the Antichrist: Religion, Politics, and Culture in Late Modernity by Daniel Conway

Author:Daniel Conway [Conway, Daniel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Philosophy, Metaphysics, Political, Religious, Religion, Christian Theology, General
ISBN: 9781350016903
Google: qxGEDwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Published: 2019-01-24T21:58:57+00:00

7

Nietzsche and the Critique of Religion

Tracy B. Strong

Born of the mysteries of dawn, they ponder on how, between the tenth and the twelfth stroke of the clock, the day could present a face so pure, so radiant, so joyfully transfigured—they seek the philosophy of the morning.

HH 638/KGW IV-2/3741

On the title page of the draft of Der Antichrist, Nietzsche had given “Umwerthung aller Werte” as his subtitle. He crossed that out and replaced it with “Fluch auf das Christenthum”—Curse on Christianity. Indeed, it appears that he was debating issues of priority in his mind. The planned original title page had as subtitle “Versuch einer Kritik des Christenthums/Erstes Buch/der Umwerthung aller Werte”—“Essay on a Critique of Christianity/First Book/The Revaluation of all Values.” His original plans saw The Antichrist as the first book in a four-volume work to be entitled the “Revaluation of All Values.” After the critique of the religion, he planned to proceed to a “critique of philosophy as a nihilistic movement,” then to a critique of “the disastrous species of ignorance—morality.” The last book was to be the “philosophy of the eternal return” and would be called “Dionysos” (KGW VIII-3, 347; see also 397).

The last three were never written, but why the change to the designation of the first book? The most likely explanation is that he realized that it would not be possible to undertake the Umwerthung aller Werte until there had been set forth a Fluch auf das Christenthum. The curse appears to be a necessary prerequisite for the revaluation. Why might a curse on Christianity be the necessary prerequisite for a revaluation of all values? In this, as is so much else, Nietzsche rejoins Marx. At the beginning of the Introduction to a Contribution to a Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, Marx wrote that the “criticism of religion was the premise of all higher criticism.” Presumably he meant that if religion were left without critique, it made impossible any critique of the society in which we actually live, thus any understanding of human society. It did so because it posed an impossible requirement for the true knowledge of an other: it required that knowledge of the other be like the knowledge of God. And since we could have no knowledge of God—although God could of us—conclusive knowledge of other human beings and of one’s self was rendered impossible. We would, willy-nilly, remain captured by an error-picture.

I might note that neither Nietzsche nor Marx stands alone here. For Freud, practically echoing Marx’s designation of religion as the “opium of the people,” religion was an “illusion” that served to paper over the distresses inherent in civilization. While Lenin was willing to tolerate religion when it was politically advantageous, his judgment on religion was severe. It was “religion for the people.” “Just because any religious idea,” he writes to Maxim Gorky, “any idea of god at all, and flirtation even with a god is the most inexpressible foulness . . . [especially when accepted by the bourgeoisie]. . . .

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