The Name Game

The title of this blog has been in flux. It was initially called “Society of St. Nietzsche” but was then changed to “Nietzsche and Theology” to offer a “less heretical title.” I hope to use this name change as a hook, an apt background, to propose a point followed by questions. I wish to suggest that the current title conveys something I find useful when thinking about Nietzsche and theology.

Any title connecting Nietzsche to theology is going to appear brash and controversial, particularly if such a title claims The Atheist as our own (‘our’ referring to religious folk). I suspect that being brash and controversial was intended, at least in part. But that aside, the first question for this message board is: How is this thing possible? Nietzsche and Theology?

Secular Nietzsche scholars would positively squirm at the notion that Nietzsche was offering anything to encourage religious folk, particularly Christians. To put it plainly, they are right: Nietzsche was not attempting to encourage religious folk; quite the opposite. This is why “Nietzsche on Theology” and “Society of St. Nietzsche” are inappropriate titles for this blog—because an honest discussion of Nietzsche on theology would be abusive to the cause, so to speak.

So what are we doing here? We are not interpreting Nietzsche in the sense that we might glean words of encouragement directly from him. After all, if an abusive father told his son that he is a failure, we would not expect the son to search for an interpretation that could be seen as an encouragement; that is, unless we were promoting delusional interpretations.

When religious folk attempt to redeem Nietzsche, they are first assenting to at least some of Nietzsche’s descriptions of the world or human nature, and then also some of his prescriptions. They are claiming that they share some value or values with Nietzsche that Nietzsche himself did not believe were applicable to the religious life. Maybe this is delusional. Maybe it is like the kid taking his father’s abuse as a way to think about how he can improve himself.

It is interesting to compare Nietzsche with others who have often been associated with him, but who were religious. Here I am thinking specifically of Dostoevsky and Kierkegaard. For example, compare the ‘Ubermensch’ with the ‘Knight of Faith;’ the similarities are remarkable. Dostoevsky also dealt with the superior personality in many of his novels, including “Crime and Punishment” and “The Possessed,” although he rejects value of this notion in favor of more humble heroes. In addition, Nietzsche and Dostoevsky have also both been acknowledged for prophetically predicting 20th century totalitarianism. Their perspectives on good and evil have many similarities and their description of the human psyche is extraordinarily consistent. Nietzsche said, “Dostoevsky is the one psychologist from which I have something to learn.”

Thus, it would not be appropriate to form the title of the blog as a disjunction: “Nietzsche or Theology,” for we want to say that this is not an either-or sort of discussion.

So what is different here? What puts such similar minds on different ends of the spectrum in terms of religious thought? These are good questions—ones that I do not have anything close to an answer for. It seems that amidst the turmoil, the senselessness, the despair and the chaos, Dostoevsky and Kierkegaard saw a spark; another kind of extra-sensory awareness.

So, in conclusion, I think a conjunction: “Nietzsche and Theology” could successfully convey an attempt to combine two fundamentally distinct philosophies. To say “A and A” would be trivial—we should not conflate Nietzsche’s philosophy with theology. Yet, what we should be doing is asking the questions: When we compare and contrast Nietzsche with theological thought, what do we get? What is the difference between Nietzsche and religious thinkers? What values did they share? Why did they end up in different places despite these shared values? I suspect that many other questions are relevant to this discussion…