Monsoor Spensoir,
Looking forward to our livestream conversation on Wednesday. I’ve been thinking about where we’ve come so far.
This week on my podcast, I wanted to discuss the ideas of the 19th century Christian philosopher Soren Kierkegaard. Now, those people who have a mental image of me lounging about the Athenaeum with a saucy courtesan balanced on one knee and a copy of Fear and Trembling balanced on the other may find this difficult to believe, but it’s actually been some years since I’ve reread Kierkegaard — although it’s entirely possible I’m the only person with that particular mental image of me, in which case never mind.
Anyway, I wrested my dusty copy of Sickness Unto Death from the bookshelf in order to review the Great Dane’s work. Looking at the 1989 introduction by the Kierkegaard scholar Alastair Hannay, I was startled by how many words Hannay dedicated to helping the reader close “the distance that separates Kierkegaard from our own, post-Nietzschean culture.”
Speaking of Kierkegaard’s ideas about “spiritual need,” Hannay writes: “The modern way with such needs would be to prevent them occurring, as if they were disorders on a par with physical ailments.”
In other words, the assumption of post-Nietzschean man is that religion is something we only used until more scientific remedies became available.
I’m fascinated by how often Friedrich Nietzsche is cited as the dividing line between the age of faith and modernity. For instance, I recently read a book on evil by a philosopher who maintained: “To lament the loss of absolute standards for judging right and wrong ought to be superfluous a century after Nietzsche.”
There’s no doubt Nietzsche understood and foresaw the moral and philosophical ramifications of the death of Christian faith more clearly than anyone except Dostoevsky. From his insights arose much of post-modern philosophy, perhaps especially that of Michel Foucault, who could be considered the forefather of such social plagues as intersectionality, transgenderism and woke.
So far, so catastrophic. But what’s odd to me is that Nietzsche should be treated as if he’d discovered a scientific fact — heliocentrism, say — and thus ushered in an age in which previous concepts — spiritual needs, absolute standards of right and wrong — have been rendered obsolete.
But really — no. Nietzsche saw that the failure of faith led down a certain path and, as a non-believer, he took that path.
Dostoevsky saw something similar but, as a Christian, he went a different way.
Which is our way here. As we said in our opening essay, the philosophies of Foucault and company are inarguable if there is no God. But, as it happens, there is.
My question is this: have the post-Nietzscheans so colonized the language of modernity that honest religious thought will necessarily sound out-of-date? With all due respect to tradition, do we need a new way of talking about God?
I await your answer in my reinforced Nietzsche Brand bunker.
Dad
We do need new ways to talk about God and Jesus. That’s why I love Bishop Barron’s sermons and books - he knows and integrates scripture and philosophy and his deep understanding of man. His description of God, based on Thomas Aquinas’ work is stunning and it helped me better understand who God is and how He works.
I was brought up Anglican. In fact, my father was an Anglican priest. Some say the move away from scripture, and the poor education of the « third sons » who were offered to the Anglican church as clergy created Anglican cultural Christians. Time for more Jesus.
Dear Andrew, While I am not toga draped nor cloud floating, I am so full of words, words tumbling around as they all seek first expression. Your writing and speaking often leaves me in such a state. But after all, you are on a mission from God. I wonder whether the time in which I am living needs not new words but revelatory words of gleaming, genuine Glory, Honor and Power, and Love beyond description. Such words abide in my life because of four men: my father, and three pastors. Between them, they had studied great philosophers and Reformed Christianity, learned the songs of hymn writers like Charles Wesley, filled me up with reflections on novels like Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables, the works of Lewis and Tolkien, and on, and on, and on. At 73, I am one lucky girl. Even now, I recall the words which open John’s gospel. I wonder what Nietzsche might have felt, spoken, at the Foot of the Cross. Perhaps a weeping without words. Katherine