Nietzsche’s Perspective: Rejection of All Objective Values

As the world is progressing in this millennium, the words of German Philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche—“God is dead”—are still echoing louder than ever before in the history of our time. This statement has been notably his widely known and esteemed remark on religions, especially organized and rational religions such as Christianity. His blatant pronouncement of the death of God necessarily does not reflect a literal sense of God as a living being who once lived and died; however, he meant the Christian God to be dead. When God is dead, all the universal ethical moral values of human life and the objective truth of the universe also follow suit, which leaves a man to replace God to become a god himself.

In my paper, I am going to argue how the pronouncement of the death of God leads us to Nietzsche’s philosophical perspectivism. What many people have understood about Nietzsche’s proclamation is not based on his philosophical investigation. Rather, he was merely positing the cultural fact of his time. The assertion came out from the cultural perspective in the great wake of the decline of Western Civilization, so it “must be understood from the viewpoint of his own life and that of the culture at large.” Nevertheless, the statement has had a significant impact on the human mind and society, and as a result, it has already caused considerable damage to people’s religious convictions. So, its influence and impact cannot be simply overlooked whatsoever.

In the meantime, the classical Greek culture and secularization were also dominantly saturating the entire horizon of European Christian society. They were going through a deep spiritual crisis. [2] The essence of the remark, however, has invoked the moral framework of the universe while “killing God.” In the metaphysical sense, the result of this remark cancels the normative description of absolute values and morality intrinsically, which is transcendental and also governs humankind. He challenges Christianity through his derogatory observational statement, stating that Christian ideas are far from reality. [3] This episode marks the end of Metaphysics as the discipline of philosophy in the modern era.

If, as Nietzsche says, “God is dead,” the objective truth and essential values also cease to exist. For Nietzsche, man is liberated from normative constituents, including the morality of religion, when God dies. In his words, “Life terminates where the ‘Kingdom of God’ begins.” [4] God has to die if human life with any higher potential is to begin. “The drive for individuality and freedom motivates the ‘death of God.'” [5] It appears that Nietzsche is making all these decisions based on his motivational instinct.

Accordingly, he summons people to believe in themselves as the most capable ones, who are brilliant, can do everything, achieve what they want, and whose actions are always good. [6] The notion of humanism is evidently present in this call. We have seen the consequences of humanism—the “self-realization” idea, which sought to make Adam and Eve like God in the Garden of Eden. Fundamentally, they were playing gods and becoming masters of their own, which ended up in a tragic story. Their rejection of the ethical-moral law and the lordship of God resulted in a fall that was followed by the murder of one of their sons.

When Nietzsche attempts to explicitly and methodically reject the Christian God by invalidating metaphysics, he paradoxically assumes the role of God himself. He envisions himself as a “madman,” and he states his idea of what we become after God’s funeral:

God is dead! God remains dead! And we have killed him! How shall we console ourselves, the most murderous of all murderers? The holiest and the mightiest that the world has hitherto possessed have bled to death under our knives—who will wipe the blood from us? With what water could we cleanse ourselves? What lustrums, what sacred games shall we have to devise? Is not the magnitude of this deed too enormous for us? Shall we not ourselves have to become Gods, merely to seem worthy of it? [7]

What is he saying here? The statement is so powerful, and the message is clear: we must take God’s place to fill the void after we kill him. We become gods; we deserve to be gods because we are capable of putting God to death, and we have proved it. He is not worth believing when we can kill him. With the death of God, he dogmatically condemns the Christian perspective on absolute or objective truth. He urges his readers to see things differently and interpret them accordingly. Nietzsche on the Genealogy of Morals sheds light on his perspectivism:

There is only seeing from a perspective, only “knowing” from a perspective, and the more emotions we express over a thing, the more eyes, different eyes, we train on the same thing, the more complete will be our “idea” of that thing, our “objectivity.” But if we could eliminate the will and switch off all emotions, what then? Would not that be called intellectual castration? [8]

He argues that our sense perception is the decisive factor in determining what objectivity is. It denies the objective facts and maintains that no human can establish anything like objective truth or fact in itself. “For Nietzsche, there are no objective personalities and therefore no objective points of view, only subjective persons and person-relative points of view.” [9] Thus, objective or absolute metaphysics is far from real and beyond the possibility of providing knowledge of the things in themselves.

Since Nietzsche’s perspectivism cannot define a thing from a universal perspective, it also rejects establishing coherent objective values. Objective facts, or truth, do not exist, according to Nietzsche. “Everything is subjective … it is our needs that interpret the world, our instincts, and their impulses for and against. Every instinct is a thirst for power, each with a perspective it wants to impose on the others. [10] The definition of truth, according to Nietzsche, is merely a hypothesis that injects satisfaction. [11] Therefore, our everyday perceptions shape our individual truths, and since there are no innate ideas, anyone can create their own version of truth. Ultimately, we cling to diverse perspectives because we possess multiple interpretations of specific concepts. As time goes by, our perception also changes, and it becomes more confusing and unstable.

The death of God reduces Christian understanding of objective truth and values and the universal moral law into plain natural law. We identify God as a Transcendent Moral Being. Contrarily, Nietzsche despises the Christian concept of God as one of the most corrupt concepts ever attained on earth, where “nonentity is deified in God, and the will to nonentity is declared holy.” [12] Interestingly, God turns out to be a mere product of human fantasy. Thus, the elimination of the absolute universal moral law frees us from our moral responsibility. This leads us to nihilism.

The very definition of nihilism comes from the heart of his rejection of Christian faith by discrediting objective morality. Nietzsche defined nihilism as the loss of the highest ideals. [13] In other words, nihilism is a state of nothingness. It is a rejection of all beliefs in all existing values.

Moreover, nihilism is a philosophy of despair. It begins with a denial of a metaphysical world and forbids itself from believing in the real world. [14] There is no meaning or purpose of human existence in this world. No truth claims and fixed values can be justified. Robert Solomon states that “nihilism is not only the collapse of traditional values, but it is also the demand for freedom from imposed values.” [15] The normative values have no meaning and purpose apart from suppressing the human will. “We have not the smallest right to assume the existence of transcendental objects or things in themselves, which would be either divine or morality incarnate.” [16] Once Christianity eliminates any kind of transcendental object, value, or morality, we have almost no metaphysical vantage point for reference to claim the “truth” as objective and transcendental.

Now, Nietzsche’s intention of wanting to get rid of the transcendental ideas of God and morality is clear: unless he denies the objective of moral values, he cannot get into nihilism. He was by far a moral pluralist. [17] He maintains his consistency in his argument by embracing perspectivism. So, he realizes Christian morality stands starkly against his practical and theoretical nihilism; thus, he argues that belief in morality dooms our existence. [18] To exist in the domain of his nihilism, one has to embrace this sort of nihilistic philosophy.

In his book, Twilight of Idols, we can see why he directs his venom against the Christian God and his morality. He is fully aware of the reasons behind his criticism of ethics. His leading doctrine is this: there are no moral phenomena, but only a moral interpretation of phenomena. The origin of this interpretation itself lies beyond the pale of morality. [19] In other words, there is no absolute morality or facts, but what one senses is only his perception of a particular thing and his interpretation that serves him better.

While he was doing so, he was also aware of a path that takes him to establish his version of morality by ditching the established universal moral laws, values, and ethics. “Christian morality is a command; its origin is transcendental. It is beyond all criticism and holds no right to be criticized; its truth is contingent upon the existence of God—it stands or falls with belief in God. [20] We see how Nietzsche is purpose-driven to put God to death first and make men gods soon afterward.

After rejecting all notions of metaphysics, what remains with us now is only this world as truth and nothing beyond that. The consequence of the death of God brings a moral vacuum in humanity that cannot be filled apart from God himself. Nietzsche’s ideal godless society would be chaotic, as no one would know right from wrong. Only our inborn instincts define the values of human life for us.

But he has his backdoor to get out of moral ethics, as other atheistic writers have done, by revaluing everything from his perspectivism and dividing it into his two categorical moral components: master morality and slave morality. In his view, master morality arises from individuals of noble character. They are the ruling class or caste who have influence and authority over people in society. They determine what “good” is and also establish values. The opposite idea of good is always harmful. They are judgmental and do not require any approval. [21] Therefore, they are the creator of values that govern human life and society. This also shows that they can impose rules and values without limits.

On the other hand, slave morality represents the weaker and underprivileged society. “Slave morality is essentially the morality of utility.” [22] Those who are downtrodden, beaten, abused, suffering, persecuted, and weary are the ones Nietzsche labeled as having an “unfavorable eye for the virtues of the powerful.” [23] The slave-morality comes out of master morality as a rebellion against the nobles when they have resentment against them. Nietzsche defines slave morality as the following:

The revolt of the slaves in morals begins in the very principle of resentment becoming creative and giving birth to values—a resentment experienced by creatures who, deprived as they are of the proper outlet of action, are forced to find their compensation in an imaginary revenge. [24]

His understanding of Christian piety, love, forgiveness, salvation, life after death, God, etc. falls into this category. He has distorted the biblical teaching of humility, forgiveness, and devotion to God as the signs of slave morality.

And it is not an utter surprise, as he employs life instinct as the ultimate explanation for rejecting all values and morality. By and large, he was only signifying how morality and values are developed within the society and how they operate. They are cultural entities that are largely based on the given social context. Additionally his formulation of a principle affirms that life instinct rules every moral in naturalism, and any sort of antagonistic morality that is hostile to naturalism and against life instinct must be condemned. [25] Anything against life-instinct is the enemy of naturalism.

That is why he says that he never thought about whether he was a sinner. He writes, “I have no experience. I have never known what it is to feel sinful because his inborn life instinct never instilled a sense of depravity and fall in his mind.” [26] In this manner, he succeeds in eliminating the concept of “original sin” from his philosophy. What matters most for him is action but not faith. His inborn instincts judge the action as per its demonstration, and so it will be determined morally right or wrong.

After considering all the arguments of Nietzsche, on my account, I do not see any new claims coming from him. The pronouncement of God’s death is nothing new. Long before he arrived at the scene, some other atheistic philosophers, like David Strauss and Schopenhauer, had made similar statements. Although they rejected the notion of God, they had borrowed Christian moral values, which they thought to be necessary to make life meaningful. But Nietzsche is adamant in his reasoning because he believes that you lose all rights to Christian morality instantly when you relinquish Christian faith. [27] He demonstrates his consistency in rejecting God and refusing to adopt Christian morals.

Assessing his position on perspectivism and nihilism, I think he can get nowhere from his principle of master-slave morality. Every theme we discussed is interconnected with each other and proceeds, therefore. Without killing God, he cannot have the freedom to posit his philosophical perspectivism. This opens the gate for nihilism. And this is very true; when God is removed from the picture, you lose the right of operating yourself in the moral framework of God.

In the mathematical equation, his perspectivism might not have that much impact because the perceived object is not sensible. What if someone perceives Nietzsche as a strange creature in a human form after reading his abhorrent atheistic philosophical writing? Indeed, perspective is changed, but objectivity is not. There is a problem with Nietzsche’s perspectivism. Therefore, his perspective on God changed in the course of his life, but the fact is that does not change the truth of and about God.

He does not believe that human beings are image bearers of God, nor that man has a sinful nature. Mores of cultures, for him, are the doctrine of morality. Morality is subjective, and every culture and society determines their morality. Also, the inborn instinct is the measuring stick to validate any human action as right or wrong. He commits a serious violation while implying his instinct is the moral law determiner.

How does he decide whether killing innocent people in the Kwakiutl Indian tribe on the Pacific Northwest coast is morally permissible or not? Among Kwakiutls, it is culturally acceptable to kill another person to insult death. Once they killed seven men and two children asleep, “Then they felt good when they arrived at Sebaa in the evening.” [28] Nietzsche himself, looking at this particular case from his perspectivism and nihilism lenses, how will he explain it from his inborn life instinct?

Therefore, Bruce Ellis Benson carefully synthesizes Nietzsche’s perspective on the metaphysical understanding of God and Heidegger’s comment on Nietzsche:

Even though Nietzsche sees himself as finally having overcome the philosophical failing known as metaphysics, Heidegger argues that Nietzsche gives us yet another instance of metaphysics. In fact, on Heidegger’s reading, Nietzsche’s metaphysics proves to be a particularly spectacular example of metaphysics, one that reduces everything to the basic category of will to power. [29]

Nietzsche’s perspectivism cannot explain why certain people maintain values of something that they have. He limits everything to the nothingness that cannot explain why anybody who did not even have a hint of his perspectivism and nihilism never intended to harm him. They do not harm others because they have a sense of right and wrongness in their hearts. When God is detached from the moral universal law, men are more prone to immorality. Making moral judgments is not like distinguishing red from white by using instinct. God has established his universal moral law. Crossing this boundary has cost dearly throughout human history.

Work Cited

1. Benson, Bruce Ellis. Graven Ideologies: Nietzsche, Derrida & Marion on Modern Idolatry. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2002. Print.
2. Naugle, David K. Worldview: the History of a Concept. Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans Pub., 2002. Print.
3. Nietzsche, Friedrich. A Nietzsche Compendium: Beyond Good and Evil, on the Genealogy of Morals, Twilight of the Idols, the Antichrist, and Ecce Homo. New York: Barnes & Noble, 2008. Print.
4. Nietzsche, Friedrich. The Gay Science. Trans. Thomas Common. New York: Barnes & Noble, 2008. Print.
5. Nietzsche, Friedrich. The Will to Power. Trans. Anthony M. Ludovici. New York: Barnes & Noble, 2006. Print.
6. Pojman, Louis P., and Lewis Vaughn. Philosophy: the Quest for Truth. New York: Oxford UP, 2009. Print.
7. Solomon, Robert C. Nietzsche: a Collection of Critical Essays. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame, 1980. Print.
8. Westphal, Merold. Suspicion and Faith: the Religious Uses of Modern Atheism. Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans Pub., 1993. Print.
9. Wicks, Robert. Nietzsche. Oxford: OneWorld Publications, 2007. Print.