What do christians think of nietzsche

What lies beyond good and evil would look very different if approached from another vantage point, and even the redeeming creators of value Nietzsche envisages bear not only the hopes of mankind, but also the unmistakable marks of their ancestry.

To negate, after all, is in the first place to affirm, and it should follow that any critique that is so keenly set on destroying its object must, in some fundamental way, remain indelibly formed by and tied down to it. If there is any hope of real neighborly love in the world, it will have to be grounded in just such strength, on a compassion that celebrates life, rather than a pity that diminishes man. His article goes on to plumb some of the consequences this view opens up, illuminating in particular the similarities between a life that has transcended Christian ressentiment and one of compassionate Christian life, full of charity and love.

More than this, it also asserts that Nietzsche cannot be properly thought about apart from these views and that this relationship still remains to be fruitfully explored. If you are affiliated with an institution that is an online subscriber to Telos , you have free access to our complete online archive. If not, you can purchase hour access to this and other Telos articles at a per-article rate. Follow the article link for more details. Indeed, such was the enormous freedom that Nietzsche felt in throwing off his Christian upbringing that he came to describe it in terms of salvation.

With the most extraordinary rhetorical daring, he borrowed the language of Christianity to articulate the liberation he discovered in this new-found lack of faith. Which is why one of European culture's most dedicated atheists can sound so religious. And why the death of God story feels so much like a biblical parable. Nietzsche's case against Christianity was that it kept people down; that it smothered them with morality and self-loathing. His ideal human is one who is free to express himself yes, he's sexist , like a great artist or a Viking warrior.

Morality is for the little people. It's the way the weak manipulate the strong. The people Nietzsche most admired and aspired to be like were those who were able to reinvent themselves through some tremendous act of will. I have never seen anything to admire in Nietzsche's view of morality or immorality.

He was badly interpreted by the Nazis. But his ethics, if one can call them that, are founded on the admiration of power as the ultimate form of abundant creativity. His hatred of Christianity comes mostly from his hatred of renunciation and the promotion of selflessness.

Jesus was a genius for having the imaginative power to reinvent Judaism but a dangerous idiot for basing this reinvention on the idea that there is virtue to be had in weakness. The weak, Nietzsche insists, are nasty and cruel.

They take out their frustration on those who have the power of genuine self-expression. It may seem perverse but it was Nietzsche who was partly responsible for my own conversion to Christianity. As a philosophy student in the s, I had served my time with the analytic tradition and its logic-chopping ways.

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June 27, May 14, James Bishop. Friedrich Nietzsche: A Philosophical Biography 9. Share this: Twitter Facebook. Like this: Like Loading Let me know your thoughts!

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