Philosophy of Religion Research
Nietzsche’s Death of God: An happy announcement or sad mourning?
Document Type : Original Research
Author
Assistant Professor at the Department of Contemporary Culture, Institute for humanities and cultural studies (IHCS), Tehran, Iran
Abstract
The theory of 'Death of God' is Nietzsche's most famous theory. In this article, we will attempt to analyze Nietzsche's idea of the functions of ‘Death of God’ at three levels. The first level (the level of belief) is the primary level of ontological and ideological discussion about the existence or non-existence of God; the second level (humanistic encounter with the death of God) is the atheistic happiness of the absence of God, and the third level (the critical encounter with the world after God) is about the legacy of the Killers. Finally, we will discuss the question that whether Nietzsche is happy or sad about the death of God.
Given that Nietzsche has adopted different approaches to the issue of "death of God" in his various works, it will be attempted to provide an interpretation of Nietzsche's position as "a whole" without regard to the temporal primacy of these works. Meantime, there are three key passages from the three books that guide our interpretation: first, Human All Too Human, second, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, and third, The Gay Science. From a critical perspective, it will be shown that 'Death of God' in Nitsche's philosophy should not be regarded as an ontological or creedal theory, but it depicts a cultural situation.
Keywords
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