Zadok Paper S95 Autumn 1998
Nietzsche: insight and immorality
by Greg Restall

Numbed to evil

NIETZSCHE'S FIRST CRITICISM IS that Christianity's morality is corrupt and inconsistent. This is manifest in the Christian conception of God, which is perverted so that it does not enhance life, instead, it contradicts life.

The Christian conception of God-God as God of the sick, God as spider, God as spirit-is one of the most corrupt conceptions of God arrived at on earth: perhaps it even represents the low-water mark in the descending development of the God type. God degenerated to the contradiction of life, instead of being its transfiguration and eternal Yes! In God a declaration of hostility towards life, nature, and the will to life! God the formula for every calumny of 'this world', for every lie about 'the next world'! In God nothingness deified, the will to nothingness sanctified! . . .14

Note that he does not argue against the concept of God as such, but simply the Christian concept of God. What is wrong with this notion of God? It amounts to a declaration of hostility towards life. If God and all things good are 'otherworldly' then of course the world in which we live is devalued. Of course Nietzsche is aware that this is not the only thread in Christianity. There is also the doctrine of creation. Christians believe that the world is good, it is a creation of God.

However, it is just as clear that Christianity as practiced does not always function in a way that observes those consequences of the doctrine of creation. Nietzsche explains why:

When misfortune strikes us, we can overcome it either by removing its cause or else by changing the effect it has on our feelings, that is, by reinterpreting the misfortune as a good, whose benefit may only later become clear. Religion and art (as well as metaphysical philosophy) strive to effect a change in our feeling, in part by changing the way we judge experiences (for example, with the aid of the tenet, "Whom the Lord loves, he chastens") and in part by awakening a pleasure in pain, in emotion generally (which is where tragic art has its starting point). The more a person tends to reinterpret and justify, the less will he confront the causes of the misfortune and eliminate them; a momentary palliation and narcotization (as used, for example, for a toothache) is also enough for him in more serious suffering. The more the rule of religions and all narcotic arts decreases, the more squarely do men confront the real elimination of the misfortune . . . 15

According to Nietzsche, real life is devalued because religious beliefs insulate us from the real problems of life. Judgments about suffering are filtered through a religious scheme, and so, they misread the true nature of suffering. Religion has a narcotic effect. Here, Nietzsche's critique is quite similar to that of Feuerbach and Marx. It was Marx who said that religions are the "opiate of the people", though this claim would not be out of place in Nietzsche's body of work. Why is this a problem? If someone is in real pain, then relief, of any kind, is welcome. The problem, for Nietzsche, is that a narcotic religious belief makes believers acquiesce in the face of suffering. The religious account of evil, that it's permitted by God, and hence, there's nothing we should do but grin (or pray) and bear it, drowns out any other voices which tell us to actually do something in the face of the suffering.

This critique of religious behaviour should be recognisable to Christians. Consider the story of the Good Samaritan. When Jesus was asked to explain what it was to love your neighbour, he told a story in which religious beliefs prevented people from helping someone in need. It was a Samaritan, who did not hold orthodox Jewish beliefs, who was able to see suffering for what it was and do something about it.

Many more examples can be given to show that religious belief can function in this way. The acquiescence of the church in the south of the United States in the face of the sufferings of African Americans who were slaves; the church's establishment and maintenance of apartheid in South Africa despite the manifest suffering of the black community; and I'm sure examples closer to home can be found quite readily.

Why does religious belief function in the way that Nietzsche describes? One reason is the way that religious believers conceptualise good and evil. If God is wholly good, and wholly powerful, and if God allows such manifest suffering, then why shouldn't I allow such suffering? If God isn't doing anything about it, then what can I do? And after all, God has ensured that I'm looked after (I have my religious life-insurance package paid up), so the most I ought to do is to ensure that others have their salvation assured as well. Nothing else is so important. Theodicy is a tricky business for believers. It is quite difficult to maintain that there is a wholly good God who is sovereign over the world, without somehow down playing the real evil of evil. And, in practice, that is what many religious believers do. We are drugged to the real presence of evil, as it doesn't really fit within the stories we tell ourselves.

This is not the only negative aspect of Christianity according to Nietzsche:

If one shifts the centre of gravity of life out of life into the 'Beyond'-into nothingness-one has deprived life as such of its centre of gravity. The great lie of personal immortality destroys all rationality, all naturalness of instinct-all that is salutary, all that is life-furthering, all that holds a guarantee of the future in the instincts henceforth excites mistrust. So to live that there is no longer any meaning in living: that now becomes the 'meaning' of life . . . So many 'temptations', so many diversions from the 'right road'-'one thing is needful' . . . That, as an 'immortal soul', everybody is equal to everybody else, that in the totality of beings the 'salvation' of every single one is permitted to claim to be of everlasting moment, that little bigots and three-quarters madmen are permitted to imagine that for their sakes the laws of nature are continually being broken-such a raising of every sort of egoism to infinity, to impudence, cannot be branded with sufficient contempt . . . 'Salvation of the soul'-in plain words: 'The world revolves around me'. . .16

Not only does religious belief function as a drug. It is also used for selfish purposes. If I'm on the side of God, then I'm the one in the right and the outsiders are not. If we use religious belief in this way, then we again fall foul of Nietzschean criticism. As Westphal writes "my greatest moral enthusiasm will be for principles that constrain others. Thus for example, preachers, who have been overwhelmingly men, can have much to say about Ephesians 5:22, 'Wives, be subject to your husbands, as to the Lord', but very little to say about the preceding verse, 'Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ'." 17 Religious stories are powerful stories. And they can be wielded in both positive and negative ways. If I have a story which explains how I stand in relationship to God, then this is quite dangerous. I can use this in all sorts of ways to promote myself and harm others. This is doubly true for those who control the stories.

We must watch out that we do not use morality as a constraint on others without first applying the lessons to ourselves. This is the only consistent way, according to Nietzsche. This is also, according to Jesus, the only way we can be moral. "Do not judge, and you will not be judged . . . Why do you see the speck in your neighbour's eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye? Or how can you say to your neighbour, 'Friend, let me take the speck out of your eye,' when you yourself do not see the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbour's eye".18

Nietzsche and Jeremiah would add to this that it is not enough to give yourself a cursory glance to see whether you're carrying any logs around.

To: Who thinks for whom?

Greg Restall lectures at the School of History, Philosophy and Politics, Macquarie University, Sydney. He is not a Nietzchian scholar, rather his disciplines are logic, the philosophy of language and the philosophy of religion. The author wishes to thank Fernando Gros and to Christine Parker for their thoughtful comments and encouragement.