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Nietzsche: A Militan Atheist Without Proof

 

Nietzsche: A Militant Atheist without Proof

 

 

 

The choice of Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)

Early in his adolescence Nietzsche chose to reject the idea of the existence of God and remained a firm militant skeptic- atheist all his life.

Nietzsche, as a biased disbeliever, turned then to the universe to consolidate his personal choice of rejection: the world, life and religious arguments and find support for his disbelief. He rejects ‘cause and effect' on the grounds that ‘we have seen nothing but images of effects and of causes that make it impossible to see one link more essential than that of succession.' (1)

 

Hazard and Chaos as the Creator

 He rejects final causes in nature considering that: ‘they were manifested when hazard has constituted the machinery'. (2) He rejects also real phenomena as well as abstractions:

‘We are found in a world in which we can live- admitting the presence of bodies, lines, surfaces, causes and effects, movement and inertia, form and content : these articles, without faith, no man can support to survive without it ! But this does not prove these articles. Life is not an argument:

amid the conditions of life, there can be error.' (3)

Disorder, Disharmony and Disunity

Nietzsche rejects the existence of God by means of arguing against the arguments in favor of such existence like ‘order', ‘universal laws', ‘harmony and unity' in the multiplicity, rejection of ‘hazard and chance', rejection of ‘chaos', ‘utility of everything', ‘object and constancy as a reality', necessity

of metaphysics, including moral necessity, and finality.

 Reason and faith are often used to consolidate the arguments for the existence of a God. By opposing the foundations of theistic arguments he proclaims ‘hazard', ‘chaos' and ‘disorder' as decisive factors responsible for the existence of the universe, including man.

 Change and Incostancy

He explains the universe as ‘change' and rejects ‘constancy'. He explains the world as infinite interactions between the forces of ‘machtquanten' and ‘craftcentrum' within the framework of the ‘eternal return' and of ‘resistance'.

 Rejection of Design and Reason

Nietzsche rejects reason as an illusion. He rejects faith and rejects Christianity. In order to get rid of the idea of a God as a creator-designer he rejects metaphysics in its totality.

 Inutility of a God

He declares the ‘inutility of God' and that God must be replaced by science.

Man for Nietzsche is himself the ‘inventor of God' and by abolishing God man becomes master of himself and of the world through the ‘will to power' as ‘reality'.

He announces the "death of God" advancing the following argument:

‘After Buddha died, we still show his shadow in a cave during centuries, - a shadow formidable and terrifying. God is dead: but the human species is made in such a way that he will be still, during the millennia, in the heart caves where we display his shadow.' (4)

 Nietzsche considers that man has invented God and not the opposite. He ironically argues this point:

‘God loves us because he has created us! - Man has created God- retort, you the subtle ones.'(5)

 God Is Not but Man Is

In justifying his persistent choice of rejecting the existence of God Nietzsche proclaims in (Dawn)That the ‘counter-proof for the existence of God is superfluous', and in (The Will to Power): ‘Life without God liberates from the cumbersome chains of religion. It gives forces to man to become surhuman.'

In the arguments of Nietzsche we are confronted with repetitive assertions that do not provide evidence, not even a solid argument, in support of his rejection of the existence of God.

 This choice, made early in the teen age of Nietzsche, assumes counter arguments to order, laws and universal harmony. He considers hazard, chaos and disorder as the creating force for the Universe.

 Obviously the logic of Nietzsche is entirely fallacious; since there is no one evidence in support of his arguments. Nietzsche chose not to believe in God and imposed his conjectural illusions to proof his arguments. He is an example of a biased rejecter.

 But His thoughts have had considerable influence on atheistic and agnostic thinking.

 He could have simply declared  his ‘disbelief' without venturing into ‘falsely proving it'.

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1. Friedrich Nietzsche, Aurore, Traduction d'Henri Albert,

Librairie générale française, Paris, 1995. p. 127.

2. Ibid., 127

3. Friedrich Nietzsche, Le gai savoir, Traduction par Patrick

Wolting, GF Flammarion, 2e édition, Paris, 2000. p. 173.

4. Ibid., p. 161.

5. Ibid., p. 45.

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