# Nietzsche on Luther



## Scott (Jul 2, 2004)

Interesting theological analysis from someone outside the church, Nietzsche. While Nietzsche was a devil, this analysis is fascinating. Comments?

[quote:53385ac2b0]
The Lutheran Reformation, in all its length and breadth, was the indignation of the simple against something &quot;complicated&quot;; to speak cautiously, it was a coarse, honest misunderstanding. Today we can see plainly that, with regard to all the cardinal power issues, Luther was fatally limited, superficial and imprudent. He fumbled, he tore things up, he handed over the holy books to everyone; which meant that they got into the hands of the philologists, that is, the destroyers of any belief based on books. He demolished the concept of &quot;church&quot; by repudiating faith in the inspiration of the councils; for the concept of &quot;church&quot; can only remain vigorous as long as it is presupposed that the inspiring Spirit which had founded the Church still lives in her, still builds her, still continues to build its own dwelling-house. 

He gave back sexual intercourse to the priest: but three-quarters of the reverence of which the people are capable (and particularly the women of the people) rests on the belief that a man who is exceptional in this regard will also b exceptional in other matters. It is precisely here that the popular belief in something superhuman in man, in the miraculous, in the saving God in man, has its most subtle and suggestive advocate. Having given the priest a wife, he had to take from him auricular confession. Psychologically this was appropriate, but thereby he practically did away with the Christian priest himself, whose profoundest utility was ever consisted in his being a sacred ear, a silent well, a grave for secrets. 

&quot;Every man his own priest?&quot; such expressions and their peasant cunning concealed, in Luther, the profound hatred of the &quot;superior man&quot; and the rule of the &quot;superior man&quot; as conceived by the Church. Luther destroyed an ideal, which he did not know how to attain, while seeming to combat the degeneration thereof. It was he, who could not be a monk, who repudiated the rule of homines religiosi; he consequently brought about within the ecclesiastical social order precisely what he so impatiently fought against in the civil order, namely, a &quot;peasant revolt&quot;. He knew not what he did.
[/quote:53385ac2b0]

- Friedrich Nietzsche Die Frohliche Wisssenschaft, 358.


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## luvroftheWord (Jul 2, 2004)

Neitschze's &quot;overman&quot; philosophy is showing through loud and clear in this excerpt.


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## Irishcat922 (Jul 2, 2004)

Something about Nietzche that always angers me when i read him. I really despise that Guy.:flaming:


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## crhoades (Jul 2, 2004)

*More on Nietzsche...*

For those interested this is a good book to pick up:

[b:637ddad77f]Graven Ideologies: Nietzsche, Derrida &amp; Marion on Modern Idolatry[/b:637ddad77f]
By: Bruce Ellis Benson
Click below to read a larger excerpt.
http://www.christianbook.com/Christian/Books/cms_content/150618760?page=414260&amp;event=ESRCN

[b:637ddad77f]Description:[/b:637ddad77f] What do the philosophers Friedrich Nietzsche, Jacques Derrida and Jean-Luc Marion have in common with Christianity? Surprisingly they are all concerned about idolatry, about the tendency we have to create God in our own image and about what we can do about it. Can we faithfully speak of God at all without interposing ourselves? If so, how? Bruce Benson explores this common concern by clearly laying out the thought of each of these postmodern thinkers against the background of modern philosophers such as Descartes, Locke and Hume and in light of the rise of phenomenology as developed by Husserl and Heidegger. All these thinkers he brings into conversation with a full range of biblical teaching. The result is an illuminating survey of some key postmodern thinkers and profound insight into the nature of conceptual idolatry. Benson also exposes some for the limitations in postmodern attempts to provide a purely philosophical solution to the problem of ideological idolatry. Ultimately, he argues, there is a need for something greater than human philosophy, religion or theology-namely, the biblical revelation of God in Jesus Christ.

[b:637ddad77f]Table of Contents[/b:637ddad77f]

Preface 9 
Abbreviations 14 
INTRODUCTION: A History of Idolatry 17 
Graven Ideologies 17 
The Danger of Vain Philosophy 24 
Phenomenology and Idolatry 27 
The Idolatry of Adaequatio 28 
The Hammer of the Postmoderns 39 
Jesus the Deconstructor 48 

[b:637ddad77f]FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE[/b:637ddad77f] 
1 The Idol of Philosophy 53 
Lying About &quot;Truth&quot; 54 
The Idols of Simplicity, Systemism and the True World 60 
Philosophy's logos and Christ the Logos 66 

2 &quot;God Had to Die&quot; 70 
Who Died? 71 
God's Death and the Possibility of Life 82 
Heidegger on Nietzschean Idolatry 88 

3 Jesus and &quot;Morality&quot; 95 
Nietzsche and Jesus 95 
Faith as Anti-agon 100 

[b:637ddad77f]JACQUES DERRIDA [/b:637ddad77f] 
4 Levinas and Derrida 110 
A New Derrida? 111 
The Other as Radical Transcendence 112 
The Ultimate Other 118 
Does Levinas Escape Violence? 121 

5 Deconstruction and Justice 125 
Deconstruction, Undecidability, Différance 126 
Foundations as Antimorality 134 
Being Just 140 

6 Faith and Dogma 146 
Saying God's Name 147 
Faith and Its Reasons 155 
Dogma Against Idolatry 163 

[b:637ddad77f]JEAN-LUC MARION [/b:637ddad77f] 
7 Husserl and Heidegger on Otherness 169 
The Problem of the Transcendental Ego in Husserl 169 
Heidegger and the Logos of Phenomenology 174 

8 The Objectifying Idol and the Transcending Icon 188 
Icons versus Idols 190 
How Should We Speak of God? 196 

9 Logos versus logos? 201 
Getting &quot;Outside the Text&quot; 201 
The Call and the Horizon 208 
Is There Truly a &quot;Third Way&quot;? 215 

Epilogue 224 
The Aporia of Knowing God 225 
Should Faith Overcome Philosophy? 232 
Bearing Witness 238 

Index 241

[Edited on 7-2-2004 by crhoades]


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## Scott (Jul 2, 2004)

There are so many ideas in the article that each could be discussed at length. Let's take this one:

&quot;He fumbled, he tore things up, he handed over the holy books to everyone; which meant that they got into the hands of the philologists, that is, the destroyers of any belief based on books.&quot;

I think that Bible was meant to be an ecclesiastical book. That does not mean that the laity should not study, learn and meditate on it - they should and this is essential and what it was designed for. But this learning should ordinarily be in and bounded by an ecclesiastical context (in the same way a child learns in the context of family, especially parents). 

The handing of the Bible over to academia, and people's willingness to listen to academia, has been a profound problem with the church. These people take the Bible out of context, distort it, and as they tend to be unspiritual anyway, of course they misunderstand it. Medical charts and books are best understood in the context of a medical community, legal cases are best understood in the context of a legal community, engineering plans are best understood by the engineering community, and so the Bible is best understood by the ecclesiastical community. 

Scott


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## fredtgreco (Jul 2, 2004)

[quote:967fd58e20][i:967fd58e20]Originally posted by Scott[/i:967fd58e20]
There are so many ideas in the article that each could be discussed at length. Let's take this one:

&quot;He fumbled, he tore things up, he handed over the holy books to everyone; which meant that they got into the hands of the philologists, that is, the destroyers of any belief based on books.&quot;

I think that Bible was meant to be an ecclesiastical book. That does not mean that the laity should not study, learn and meditate on it - they should and this is essential and what it was designed for. But this learning should ordinarily be in and bounded by an ecclesiastical context (in the same way a child learns in the context of family, especially parents). 

The handing of the Bible over to academia, and people's willingness to listen to academia, has been a profound problem with the church. These people take the Bible out of context, distort it, and as they tend to be unspiritual anyway, of course they misunderstand it. Medical charts and books are best understood in the context of a medical community, legal cases are best understood in the context of a legal community, engineering plans are best understood by the engineering community, and so the Bible is best understood by the ecclesiastical community. 

Scott [/quote:967fd58e20]

I agree Scott, but I don't think that anyone can argue that Luther handed the text to academia, any more than one could say that Aquinas handed over philosophy to academia.


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## C. Matthew McMahon (Jul 2, 2004)

It is impossible to say Luther handed it over to them, when he was a product of &quot;them.&quot;


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## Scott (Jul 2, 2004)

Fred: Yeah, I do think the analysis is interesting, though. Certainly modern deconstructionists, higher critics and their ilk have brought allot of woe to the kingdom.

[Edited on 7-2-2004 by Scott]


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## fredtgreco (Jul 2, 2004)

[quote:cdda899274][i:cdda899274]Originally posted by Scott[/i:cdda899274]
Fred: Yeah, I do think the analysis is interesting, though. Certainly modern deconstructionists, higher critiques and their ilk have brought allot of woe to the kingdom. [/quote:cdda899274]

Scott, 

I agree. And I will go you one further. Non-deconstructionist &quot;well meaning&quot; publishing houses have done a great deal of damage both by proliferating translations of the Bible and making an &quot;ecclesiastical text&quot; all but a present impossibility.


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## luvroftheWord (Jul 2, 2004)

I think its good to read deconstructionists because I think they help us come to grips with the fact that there is a subjective nature to reality. As Christians, we scoff at such ideas, but its there nonetheless.

But although its good to read them, its hard to take them TOO seriously when they contradict themselves by writing books to convince people of their ideas. If language has no meaning, then why write books and sell them to the public when they can't understand what you're writing anyway?

Richard Rorty's answer to this question is classic: &quot;Well, I have to feed my family don't I?&quot; 

Yeah, who cares about consistency anyway, right?


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## JohnV (Jul 2, 2004)

I am always struck by these nay-sayers who say that we've made God in our image, when the underlying criticism is really that they make God in their image. They have this figment in their imagination that God is a figment of our imgination. But they never really criticize the God we believe in, but hone in on the God they say they don't believe in. And underneath you can see that they will do anything at all to avoid the God they should believe in.


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## TertiumQuid (Jul 4, 2004)

*Antithesis*

Hi,

I found Nietzsche's comments facinating. 

[quote:2b5e4e1f85]
&quot;Every man his own priest?&quot; such expressions and their peasant cunning concealed, in Luther, the profound hatred of the &quot;superior man&quot; and the rule of the &quot;superior man&quot; as conceived by the Church.
[/quote:2b5e4e1f85]

Indeed, Luther must be abhored by Nietzsche. Luther's emphasis on paradox, particularly the &quot;hidden God and the revealed God&quot; stand in antithesis to Nietzsche. 

Luther saw that God was found clearest suffering on the cross, in weakness. Luther saw that the Church was not a Church of power and &quot;glory&quot; (i.e. Rome), but rather was a collection of people oppressed and suffering.

Nietzsche could never grant the Christian truth that real strength is found in weakness.


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