The Auron MacIntyre Show - What Can Christians Learn from Friedrich Nietzsche？｜ Guest： Athenian Stranger

00:00:00.300 Hey everybody, how's it going? Thanks for joining me this afternoon. I've got a great

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00:01:05.000 faith, and inspiration. All right, guys, speaking of deepening your understanding of faith,

00:01:12.080 many people in the modern world I think are seeking meaning right now. I think a lot of people

00:01:18.020 are turning to Christianity, recognizing not only that they need a deep spiritual connection,

00:01:22.240 but they need to connect with the faith of their fathers, the faith that helped to spawn

00:01:26.660 the civilizations in which they live. But of course, unfortunately, in many cases,

00:01:31.880 that Christianity has been watered down. It's a real problem that has been talked about for a long

00:01:36.260 time and very decisively by Friedrich Nietzsche. So as Christians, is there something we can learn

00:01:42.360 by reading one of the most arch opponents of our faith? Joining me today to discuss this is a man

00:01:48.800 with great philosophical knowledge. Athenian stranger, thank you so much for coming on.

00:01:53.720 Man, thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate this. It's a very great honor. So

00:01:58.360 I'm glad to be here.

00:02:00.540 Of course. And I know you are someone who is a Christian, but is also deeply read in Nietzsche.

00:02:05.540 And I think a lot of people are afraid to approach Nietzsche because obviously he is someone who's going to

00:02:11.540 challenge one's faith. And we'll get into the question of whether Christians should be even

00:02:17.320 reading this up front, or maybe only some Christians should. Maybe it will test others,

00:02:21.940 but others it's too much. But I think most importantly, there's a depth of thought that

00:02:26.920 exists in Nietzsche that if you are prepared, if you are strong in your faith, will allow you to

00:02:32.420 look at it critically and then recognize that ultimately the truth is there, but that there are

00:02:37.900 parts of modernity that have changed the way that we see the world and affected the way that we live a

00:02:43.020 effective Christian life. So we're going to dive into the question of Nietzsche and whether he can

00:02:47.940 help us better understand the strengths of our Christian faith. But before we get started with

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00:03:45.800 All right. So stranger, I think the biggest question for most people, like I said, is going to be the

00:03:50.660 one that ends up getting asked first, which is should Christians even bother to read Nietzsche?

00:03:59.540 Because I think there is a level at which people should guard their hearts. They should understand

00:04:04.320 that ultimately their faith is the most important thing and maintaining it is the most important

00:04:10.040 thing. Some people say, oh, well, if you don't test it, if you're not willing to question it in

00:04:14.160 every way, then is it really faith? But I'm not always sure that's true. I think some people have

00:04:19.820 a deep enough understanding and are solid enough in their faith to gain even more strength from

00:04:25.520 reading someone like Nietzsche, as where others perhaps are not familiar enough with the arguments

00:04:30.800 or the theology, the spirituality underlying their beliefs. And someone like Nietzsche could

00:04:36.700 ultimately push them in a bad direction. What are your thoughts in general about Christians of

00:04:41.880 different levels of experience and perhaps intellectual have diving into Nietzsche?

00:04:48.340 Right. So what I've said for a very long time is that thoughtful Christians are the ones who,

00:05:00.940 if they simply dismiss or ignore the thought of Nietzsche, I need to correct that. When you studied at a

00:05:10.260 certain level, your professors will yell at you if you don't pronounce it with the German

00:05:15.160 Nietzsche. But I don't like those kinds of pretensions. I speak English for English people.

00:05:21.220 That's correct.

00:05:22.240 But I don't call them Spangler either.

00:05:25.700 Right, right. I can't stand that stuff. It's so pretentious. Here's the thing. Thoughtful

00:05:32.380 Christians should be extremely concerned with familiarizing themselves with the thought of

00:05:39.160 Nietzsche because the way that the best expression Rousseau hands it to us is he says his books are

00:05:49.480 so successful because he takes his readers as they are. In other words, he doesn't require of them that

00:05:59.280 they meet him on his level. He meets them on their level. Nietzsche more than anybody else diagnosed,

00:06:09.160 the ills of what we understand is the world that we live in today, which is to say nihilism more than

00:06:15.660 anything. Now, that being said, the vast majority of Christians, they don't care about, you know,

00:06:25.320 depth of thought with regards to either theology or philosophy. And I personally think that that is

00:06:30.740 healthy. I don't think that people of faith, you know, should so much concern themselves with

00:06:40.160 all this kind of depth of thought and philosophy and deep theology and things like that. I mean,

00:06:45.880 but there's a place for it, of course, for, you know, because if you're going to, for instance,

00:06:52.180 attempt to proselytize, which we are as Christians called to do, then you have to understand the world

00:06:58.960 around you in which you're going to be proselytized. And you have to understand in a sense,

00:07:03.940 like, for instance, this is Plato's Socrates. He's always asking questions and not really giving

00:07:10.400 answers because he knows that to truly reach somebody, you have to be able to understand

00:07:18.860 their soul. And you understand their soul by understanding what their beliefs are. And most

00:07:25.240 people's beliefs are informed in one way or another by this culture that we live in that is so thoroughly

00:07:33.460 nihilistic. And that's why I think it's important to understand Nietzsche, because, as I said, he has

00:07:42.720 diagnosed so well everything from the culture to what he refers to as the enlightenment ideals, which is to

00:07:52.780 say, everything of the modern world that we value so greatly, things like egalitarianism, democracy.

00:08:00.620 He even talks about it with regard to Christianity and things like that. But also and especially

00:08:06.740 people who are not Christians or who have an axe to grind against Christians, they are going to

00:08:14.120 gravitate towards Nietzsche because Nietzsche is just about the most eloquent of all philosophers who have

00:08:22.320 ever lived. And he knew it. You cannot separate Nietzsche's rhetoric from his philosophy. And so that's

00:08:31.080 important because of the attacks that Nietzsche hurls mercilessly against Christianity. Christians are

00:08:40.260 well served understanding what those attacks are. So they know what they're up. So they know what they're

00:08:48.300 going to face as they go out, for instance, and just live their daily lives with other people and, you

00:08:55.980 know, conversation or at the furthest extreme with regard to actually living their piety, witnessing or

00:09:04.620 proselytizing, these kinds of things. And so that's what makes Nietzsche just so absolutely crucial. He

00:09:10.100 overtook the world. Most people are Nietzscheans without even really knowing it, because the world we live

00:09:16.300 is so thoroughly, like I said, nihilistic and things like that.

00:09:21.520 Yeah, it's definitely one of those scenarios. And I certainly have not read as much of him as you

00:09:25.680 have. But the few books I have read, the thing that I get out of them very clearly is a accurate

00:09:32.420 representation of where the world was going and the kind of men we are producing now. You don't have to

00:09:38.860 like his solutions for those problems. I certainly don't. But as an accurate description of how we

00:09:46.380 got here and why and the condition that we find ourselves in and how much of this, like you said,

00:09:51.580 has been absorbed into the culture without them really knowing it, those insights, I think,

00:09:56.640 ultimately are very valuable. And so I, you know, to just kind of condense what you were saying there,

00:10:01.300 I think kind of what you're saying is, you know, for the average person who is, you know, just going to

00:10:06.460 church on Sunday and trying to live their best life, but isn't overly contemplative about their

00:10:11.460 faith because they have to, you know, they're, they're working and they have a family and other

00:10:14.700 things. Nietzsche might just not be something you want to dive into. If you haven't read other,

00:10:18.700 you know, deep thinkers in the Christian tradition that can help you to buttress some of your beliefs

00:10:24.300 alongside what Nietzsche is saying. But if you are someone who has done that, if you have looked into

00:10:29.140 a little bit of, you know, the deeper thought in the Christian world, and you are more interested in,

00:10:34.520 and kind of challenging and understanding your faith, then Nietzsche can be a valuable companion

00:10:40.440 because like any good enemy, it can sharpen you. It can point out where your weak spots are. It can

00:10:46.160 help you to understand why you find yourself in a world that is in this particular condition and why

00:10:51.040 it feels the way or thinks the way, the way it does about Christianity, and then can, you know,

00:10:56.000 adjust and, and, and figure out a way forward from there. But you mentioned, uh, nihilism,

00:11:01.720 obviously several times there. That's a word that a lot of people associate with Nietzsche.

00:11:05.700 Uh, now I think when people throw around the term nihilism, they often have this very loose

00:11:12.160 understanding. They think of maybe, you know, the big Lebowski and the nihilists, you know,

00:11:16.000 they believe in nothing, you know, that kind of thing. Uh, but obviously Nietzsche's nihilism

00:11:21.460 was somewhat different. Now he did, I think, uh, diagnose the condition a lot of people think of as

00:11:28.460 nihilism, but his nihilism, uh, had a prescriptive nature to it, which was much different than I think

00:11:34.280 a lot of people understand. So could you give us kind of your understanding of the term nihilism as

00:11:40.080 you're using it here? Sure. Um, now for the listeners, I, I think this is so important. I mean,

00:11:46.660 I have an entire series that I've done hours and hours of recorded, uh, lectures on this topic of

00:11:54.480 technology and nihilism and in particular, uh, Nietzsche, et cetera. Uh, everything's transferred

00:12:01.180 over to Substack right now because the websites are just so difficult. Uh, but, uh, the issue of

00:12:07.660 nihilism is nothing new under the sun. Uh, in fact, it is, uh, book one of Plato's Republic, uh, where

00:12:16.540 Glaucon, the youth, the most talented of the youth, uh, they flat, they flatly say, uh, Socrates,

00:12:23.500 will you please defend justice for us? Because our ears have been talked off, uh, by people like

00:12:30.140 Thrasymachus who are telling us that the, the just man is a sucker. Uh, the way that Machiavelli

00:12:37.900 phrases it, uh, when he's critiquing Christianity, uh, is he says that the problem with good men is

00:12:44.120 that we live in a world of so many bad men. Uh, and effectively what this is, this, think of it as

00:12:53.320 an ism, like the, it's the Latin there, Nihil, uh, just means nothing. So nothing ism, uh, in other

00:13:03.800 words, no, no truths, uh, nothing, nothing grounds anything. Uh, the, the, the, now this is extremely

00:13:12.760 important for, uh, in many respects, Nietzsche is the culmination of all of these things. Nietzsche

00:13:20.200 is not, uh, most people know that Nietzsche shouted, God is dead from the rooftops, right?

00:13:24.140 That's what he's famous for is the, the phrase God is dead. Uh, but this was nothing new. Uh, it was

00:13:31.300 something that had been a longstanding issue within the European tradition, uh, even from the beginning

00:13:38.940 of modernity, uh, and, and one can even say even further, but the thing about nihilism is that it is

00:13:46.840 so pervasive, uh, the way that, uh, the things that we consider to be virtue, right? Uh, courage,

00:13:57.260 moderation, justice, wisdom, these things, um, those are the foundations, the conceptual foundations

00:14:05.960 upon which we understand how to live the good life, right? Uh, what nihilism is, is it says, no,

00:14:12.920 these things are not, they're not virtues. They are what we call values. Nietzsche is the one who

00:14:19.120 introduces this term. He takes it from painting, uh, painters create different colors by blending

00:14:27.120 them together. They shade them together to be become, uh, values. And so that's why whenever you hear

00:14:33.340 people say, well, these are our values or those are their values. Well, that's when you say stop,

00:14:37.280 uh, that's all, that's directly a product of nihilism because what it claims is that there's

00:14:43.040 no such thing as, you know, a universal concept of, uh, like the good, which is to say, uh, justice,

00:14:51.080 moderation, software scene of prudence, right? These kinds of things. But it's so pervasive. Many

00:14:56.240 people believe that they can critique nihilism from somehow standing outside of it as if they're not

00:15:01.100 already deeply infected by it. They don't even realize that the jokes we laugh at, uh, the

00:15:06.140 television shows we watch, the movies we watch, all of these things are already so thoroughly

00:15:10.620 nihilistic. We're all tied up in it. Nietzsche never really gives to a definition of it. He gives

00:15:18.720 many different descriptions and sometimes he gives definitions of it, but ultimately what it comes down

00:15:23.880 to, what I think is his best approach to saying what nihilism is, is that modern man no longer really

00:15:30.940 knows what to believe. And the way he phrases it is he says that we don't have any firm, uh, firmness,

00:15:38.020 any resolve behind our yeses and our nos. In other words, someone proposes something to us and we say,

00:15:45.080 well, okay, yeah, sure. Whatever. Or we'll say, ah, you know, I don't really know about that. Uh,

00:15:49.900 most people today, they don't have that firmness where they say, no, we don't do that here.

00:15:55.440 Or yes, of course we do that here, right? Something, something like this. Uh, and that's

00:16:00.440 ultimately what it is. I mean, the, the, one of the, probably the, the most common definition of

00:16:05.020 nihilism is that all values, uh, undermine themselves, right? In other words, if you pursue,

00:16:10.180 if you examine them closely enough, it turns out that, uh, they don't, the, the, the method of inquiry

00:16:16.900 by which you use, whether it's science or philosophy or logic or something, it's just going to show that

00:16:21.940 it's, it's not as, uh, Immanuel Kant would say, apodictic certainty, right? In other words,

00:16:28.020 you can't, you can't establish it as objective, uh, a very dangerous word itself, uh, objectivity

00:16:36.100 there. But that's, that's effectively it is that people mostly just sort of shrug, uh, their shoulders

00:16:41.780 and say, well, okay, sure. Uh, or, well, I don't really know, but, uh, we'll see. Right. And that shows

00:16:46.900 itself, unfortunately, in the most important circumstances, for instance, attending church

00:16:51.740 on Sunday, people will say, ah, you know, I don't have to go to church to be a pious Christian or

00:16:56.180 whatever. Or, you know, if you're on a date or something like that, and it's going really well,

00:17:00.240 and, you know, that's like, well, you want to go back to my place? Okay, sure. Uh, and then,

00:17:04.640 you know, what happens from there? It's like, well, well, you know, this is sort of this kind of thing.

00:17:09.900 Uh, and we see it in modern cultures, people saying things like, well, you know, they're living their

00:17:13.900 best life, uh, as if there's multiple lives that are, that are all, you know, on the same playing field,

00:17:19.300 where they're saying, you know, he or she is living their truth, uh, as if truth is a deck

00:17:24.200 of cards that one can sort of take out of one's pocket and say, well, here it is today. And here

00:17:27.580 it is tomorrow. Blah, blah, blah. I know that this term has become almost a meme at this point

00:17:33.820 because it's been so overused, but a lot of people will point to Nietzsche as the first postmodernist

00:17:40.880 because of his direct declaration of, you know, a lack of this foundation, this truth, this binding

00:17:49.360 understanding of the good. Um, do you think that's, uh, an accurate, I don't want to spend 20 minutes

00:17:55.420 debating postmodernism, but do you feel like that's an accurate, uh, description for Nietzsche? Or is this

00:17:59.920 just a recognition of a process, as you said, that's been on, you know, ongoing since Plato?

00:18:04.660 Uh, well, you are correct. Of course, that that is the standard, uh, approach to defining whatever

00:18:11.740 this thing is called postmodernism that people say, they say Nietzsche started it. Uh, he did not.

00:18:18.940 Uh, he's the culmination of it. Uh, and he's the one who makes it, he, he, he's the culmination of it.

00:18:25.480 And he clarifies it better than anyone else has. Uh, what happens effectively is that this,

00:18:31.800 uh, in Nietzsche credits, in fact, Rousseau with this is that, uh, Rousseau, uh, looks at modernity,

00:18:40.860 modern liberalism. And he says, you know, uh, there are some fundamental problems here that

00:18:47.920 undermine all of it. Uh, this business about the social contract and the state of nature and these

00:18:54.480 kinds of things, uh, upon which you have built the entirety of this new politics that we all celebrate,

00:19:00.980 uh, it has such fundamental flaws in its premises that all of it is a, it's a, it's a, it's a sandcastle

00:19:10.200 built too close to the ocean or something like this. Right. Uh, and this has to do with what's

00:19:16.360 going to eventually become known as evolutionary theory, right? These kinds of things. Uh, and

00:19:22.460 Kant is the one who responds to this. Kant is responding to Rousseau on the one hand, uh, because

00:19:29.160 what Rousseau says is that there's no getting civilization itself. There's a thing we call

00:19:34.820 civilization. Uh, Rousseau gives us the word, the bourgeois, uh, the man who is nothing, uh, because

00:19:40.880 this thing called civilization is just a thin patina, a tincture of, uh, thinking that we have

00:19:47.300 progressed beyond others. And the problem in fact is our, our technology has, it creates new desires.

00:19:54.720 And so, uh, we are always in pursuit of those new desires. Uh, and so we can never find an inner

00:20:02.100 stability. Uh, we can never be at peace from whatever our natural state would be or something

00:20:08.360 like that. And then Hume of course is the one who attacks the notion of causality. Uh, and you

00:20:15.020 combine those two together, uh, and you have just this deep, deep, uh, philosophical nihilism.

00:20:22.380 Kant is the one who responds to both of them. And then you're off and running with the entirety of

00:20:27.740 German idealism, uh, that tries to solve this problem. Uh, the solution of which is what becomes

00:20:34.600 this word culture. Uh, and, uh, that ends up, it's a, it's a heavy emphasis upon human reason.

00:20:41.720 Uh, and that ends up ultimately failing. Uh, and most, most everyone has already recognized

00:20:46.880 that it's failed and Nietzsche just flatly is the one who says, look, it's over guys. Uh, uh,

00:20:52.900 none of these things are believable anymore. Uh, and so what do we do now? What, what do we do? And

00:20:59.720 so what Nietzsche is the founder of effectively, uh, is the so-called return movements. He's looking back

00:21:07.680 over the entire tradition and he's saying something fundamental has gone wrong. Uh, and it's not just

00:21:14.780 Rousseau, it's not modernity, it's not the middle ages. It is in fact, uh, Socrates, Plato's Socrates.

00:21:24.180 And this is where Nietzsche is fundamentally a philosopher of science. He is fundamentally

00:21:30.880 concerned with science, technology, and this thing that we're going to know of as culture.

00:21:36.000 How do we make these things work going forward? Uh, because according to Nietzsche's analysis,

00:21:42.260 uh, what it has all resulted in is that man is a domesticated house plant. He calls him a dwarf of

00:21:50.200 a man, a dwarf of a man. That's a plant more than anything, an effeminate plant, unmanly, uh, these

00:21:58.060 sorts of things. And so he's deeply concerned with that. Now that the fundamental elements there are going

00:22:02.780 to be twofold. Modern science on the one hand is the problem. And on the other hand, Nietzsche is

00:22:08.160 going to associate Christianity with that problem. Because when you, when you combine those two things,

00:22:14.060 science, which is to say the pursuit of the knowledge of the natures of things. And then what

00:22:19.340 Nietzsche refers to as the newest virtue, redlichite, uh, honesty, he says, that's what's coming from

00:22:25.660 Christianity. When you combine those two things, when you have Christians who are honest, they are also in

00:22:32.540 pursuit of science. Then that is what ultimately leads to the condition in which all values or all

00:22:39.600 virtues, uh, undermine themselves because the scientists can no longer deny the fact that he

00:22:46.620 can't find. Now, this is, I'm not saying this, this is Nietzsche speaking. He's saying the scientists

00:22:51.500 can no longer deny the fact that he can't find God in his science. Uh, that's going to be, that's the

00:22:59.280 great problem. And so then you have this with Nietzsche, you have this word probity, uh, intellectual

00:23:05.380 honesty. And what he said, what he's saying is that that is fundamentally diagnosed, uh, because of, as I

00:23:12.220 said, uh, science, which, uh, Nietzsche associates with Socrates. He, in fact, he flatly says Socrates is the, is

00:23:20.340 the origin of cause and effect, the notion of cause and effect. Uh, and then Christianity on the other hand, which

00:23:26.280 is honesty, no such thing as a line anymore. Um, in fact, line is a sin. Uh, so it is to be avoided at

00:23:33.280 all costs. And that's, that's ultimately what it, what it ends up, uh, being in the grand scheme of

00:23:38.620 things. That's now that's the diagnostic aspect of Nietzsche. Uh, the helpful way to understand

00:23:43.440 Nietzsche is in two broad chunks. On the one hand, he's diagnosing what has happened. And then on the other

00:23:49.240 hand, he's saying, okay, now we have to have a prognostic. What do we do going forward? And then that's

00:23:54.720 going to be the elements of the so-called overman, et cetera, these kinds of things. But, but, but the

00:23:58.800 God is dead and we killed him. That's the important point. Uh, the, the, what Nietzsche refers to as God

00:24:05.640 is dead and we killed him is in nihilism through science and Christianity, according to him, is that

00:24:11.000 it is the most unique, uh, death in the history of mankind. It's utterly unlike the death of Zeus or

00:24:18.800 something like that. Uh, because not only it is, is it a death, a murder, but it's a suicide. The suicide

00:24:28.280 being what he's going to say is the, the, the Christian role of honesty, uh, and the fact that man has just

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00:25:10.380 So it's kind of interesting. And obviously this is some speculation, but that's why you're here as

00:25:15.740 well. Uh, what do you think would have been his response or what ultimately is your response to the

00:25:21.500 fact that actually what we've seen now is that science has needed to become very dishonest in order

00:25:30.140 to avoid the evidence of God in its practice. I think we see pretty regularly at this point,

00:25:36.720 scientists who are ignoring data or possible solutions, uh, because they could point to a

00:25:42.840 metaphysical reality. Uh, we see a lot of the, you know, the Reddit atheist types, but even the serious,

00:25:48.560 uh, scientists knock around things like simulation theory and multiple universe theories and all these

00:25:55.140 things that are radical speculations that are wildly unscientific and are clearly just there

00:26:00.360 to paper over the fact that they keep running into the logical evidence, I think of an existence beyond

00:26:06.260 our own. Uh, and so it feels like now the religion of science that is to be dishonest about these truths,

00:26:13.960 uh, and to, to shield the public from the idea that there could be things beyond science that it can no

00:26:19.700 longer define. I know that's probably not directly in, in, in the storyline, but I just kind of thought

00:26:24.960 that as an interesting development, we've seen that Nietzsche never would have, obviously.

00:26:28.960 No, I'm, I'm glad you asked that because, uh, that's a fundamental question for Nietzsche himself.

00:26:33.720 Uh, so, uh, first of all, let's be clear. Uh, Nietzsche was a trained classical philologist. Uh, and what

00:26:40.720 that means is that he was, I mean, it's, there's more to it than this, but he was, uh, uh, expert. He was,

00:26:48.620 in fact, the youngest tenured professor in German history. He was such an expert, uh, at languages,

00:26:54.800 particularly Greek and Latin. The word science is episteme, and it just means from Greek, it just

00:27:01.340 means knowledge. Now it's going to take on a particular format. It, it, it requires that we

00:27:07.360 say, okay, well, well, what is characteristic of that form of knowledge now for Nietzsche, what he takes

00:27:14.060 as a premise. Uh, and I'll just sort of read this. This is in his essay on history, which is really

00:27:20.220 an essay on science. Uh, he calls them the deadly truths of science. Uh, and he says, uh, the doctrine

00:27:28.200 of sovereign becoming, in other words, everything is fundamental flux. Uh, he says, uh, of the fluidity

00:27:35.140 of all concepts. In other words, fundamental concepts, things like good and evil, right? Uh,

00:27:41.140 they're fluid. Uh, they're, in other words, they're the same. This is right up and down. These things

00:27:46.660 are the same. Uh, and then he says, uh, uh, no cardinal distinctions between species, uh, between

00:27:55.480 man and animal, these kinds of things. Uh, so fundamental fluidity of all things. Uh, he is a thorough,

00:28:01.760 we could say, uh, Heraclitian, uh, or, and, uh, as I like to say, that's why he loves Thucydides now.

00:28:09.440 Uh, but Nietzsche, but because of those things, because they are so fundamentally fluid, what that

00:28:16.880 means is that science itself, uh, is a kind of, uh, well, uh, a kind of poetry, a kind of making, uh,

00:28:26.640 because there's no stability within the flux. And so, uh, in late in his career, when he's looking

00:28:32.880 back over all his published publications in 1886, 1887, he goes back and he writes prefaces for all

00:28:39.360 of his works except Zarathustra because Zarathustra is both the beginning and the end. Uh, he would call

00:28:44.960 it the alpha and the omega. Uh, he loves to bring in Christian imagery and what he says about his first

00:28:52.480 book, the birth of tragedy from the spirit of music, uh, is he says he's, he's looking back at

00:28:59.040 it and he says, you know, uh, what really that book was about. I had gotten ahold of a question

00:29:04.720 that no one before me had ever understood. And he said, he calls it the problem of Socrates, but he

00:29:10.080 says, uh, it's really the problem of science. And then he says, science, the problem of science

00:29:15.440 cannot be solved from within the realm of science. Uh, and then he goes on and he says, uh, he says

00:29:22.720 what we, and, and what I've referred to it as the kind of kaleidoscope theory. Uh, this is how,

00:29:27.680 now the reason this is important is because this speaks to the fundamental unity of all of Nietzsche's

00:29:34.320 thought, which is so thoroughly political. Uh, it's a kaleidoscope. What he says, the way he ends

00:29:40.960 the second section is he said, well, I lost you there for a second.

00:29:56.320 Yeah. Sorry guys. Oh, stranger, you're back. Oh, when did you lose me? Sorry. You dropped out for

00:30:01.600 about 10 or so seconds there. Oh yeah. Okay. So, so, so, so he's looking back over his career,

00:30:06.880 uh, and he's in the birth of tragedy. He's writing these prefaces and he says, I had gotten a hold of,

00:30:12.160 of, of the problem of Socrates, which is really the problem of science. And he says, it can't be

00:30:17.040 solved from within the realm of science. And then he has what I, this is so fundamental because it's

00:30:23.200 the unity of all of Nietzsche's thought here, because it's so thoroughly political. Uh, he says,

00:30:28.560 what I was attempting to do, which no one had done was I was looking at science. And this is like

00:30:35.040 the kaleidoscope theory of the phenomenal hole that is philosophy. That is, we understand is the

00:30:41.520 world around us, uh, our life of man. And he says to look at science through the prism of the artist,

00:30:49.840 but also to look at art through the prism of life. And so to return to your question about how it is

00:30:55.440 that science is so thoroughly not scientific, they're a bunch of liars. They manipulate the data.

00:31:00.880 Nietzsche would say, well, yeah, that's what science is for. You have to, he said,

00:31:06.400 they're poor artists. They, they're all, they're horrible. They're last men. He calls them the,

00:31:10.000 the dung beetle. Uh, but what he says is that, uh, you, because science effectively teaches today,

00:31:20.400 at least that humans are just mostly hairy bags of water. Uh, that's why Nietzsche says we have to use

00:31:27.600 art. We've got science has been too mean to man. And the only way to justify life going forward,

00:31:34.160 uh, is to use art somehow, uh, to make the findings of science more amenable to man so that man can

00:31:42.720 flourish in life instead of being, uh, just an acid bath upon all of his sacred truths.

00:31:49.200 But he would not be surprised whatsoever at what we're seeing with the perversion of science.

00:31:54.560 Uh, as we all saw over COVID and we continue to see in all of peer review, the journal, I mean,

00:32:00.320 everything, it's just so thoroughly corrupt. He was so ahead of the times. He, he trashed the

00:32:05.200 universities before anyone was really tracked. He trashed the universities when the rest of the

00:32:10.000 world was saying that the German universities were the greatest in the world, uh, because they had just

00:32:15.280 been corrupt. I have no hard time, uh, believing he's a contrarian at every possible turn, but, uh,

00:32:21.200 but, but how does this, this, uh, this is what I'm trying to grasp here. How does this jive though,

00:32:27.200 with his assertion that Christian honesty is like part of this process of killing God then? Because

00:32:34.880 if he says the honesty of the Christian compels the scientist to tell the truth that he cannot find God

00:32:41.680 in his science, but then the scientist actually is not compelled towards truth and he's easily

00:32:47.600 corrupted and can lie for his own advantage or even, you know, forget, you know, just the, the COVID

00:32:53.040 narrative and all that stuff. But again, the direct denials of God's presence, even when it's found

00:32:59.040 inside the work, how do these things work simultaneously? That's what's confusing me here.

00:33:03.440 Yeah. Uh, so, so, uh, the, the problem is that, uh, and this goes back to the fact that Nietzsche is not

00:33:09.600 the first he's, as I said, he's the culmination. People are no longer believers. They, the, that,

00:33:16.640 that, that war has been lost. Now this is Nietzsche talking, but again, it's not just Nietzsche. It's

00:33:22.480 the entirety of the 19th century, uh, at the levels of academia. Uh, what they had found they believed to

00:33:31.520 have found was that, uh, they just could not find. And this is where philology comes back into play.

00:33:36.960 Uh, because what philology does is it, it teaches us, uh, how to understand the ancient,

00:33:43.680 the most ancient of all of our manuscripts. And again, this gets back to why it's so important

00:33:48.800 for Christians to familiarize themselves with the thought of Nietzsche, because that has everything

00:33:54.080 to do with the Bible itself. How reliable are this, are the texts of, of, of the Bible, uh, these kinds

00:34:01.200 of things. And so what you have in the 19th century is the search for the historical Moses.

00:34:06.000 And then it culminates in the search for the historical Jesus, these kinds of things.

00:34:09.920 And what the, what the academics are finding is they're saying, we can't find any, but there's,

00:34:14.640 there's, there's, it's not there. Uh, you know, and then, and then, so you get the rise of the

00:34:19.520 so-called allegorical or the mythical understanding of what the Bible teaches. And then next thing,

00:34:24.640 you know, you've got people that are saying you can be a Christian without the Bible at all.

00:34:27.760 Uh, and so, so it was long already standard practice that academics just were not Christians

00:34:37.280 for the most part. They, they were not believers. Uh, and so Nietzsche would say, well, yeah,

00:34:43.200 of course. I mean, the, the, the honesty remained and the honesty just told them that, you know,

00:34:49.280 their God is dead, but they're going to, but they keep the honesty and keep going. Uh, you know,

00:34:54.480 it's sort of to make themselves these new gods and the new gods that Nietzsche is always railing

00:35:00.800 against are what he refers to as the modern ideals, uh, egalitarianism, democracy. Uh, he has his

00:35:07.680 harshest credit. Uh, he rails against, uh, socialism. He has such a particular hatred for socialism

00:35:16.960 that it's almost, uh, uh, impossible to put into words. Uh, some of the funniest lines he ever has to

00:35:22.720 say, uh, are about socialism, but also progress, the notion of progress. Uh, he says that is the,

00:35:28.560 the most insane idea that man has ever created. Uh, because look around, look, what's happening

00:35:34.640 to Europe. Look, what's happening to modern man. Uh, and well, anyway, I'm sort of rambling here.

00:35:41.360 I'll let you, sorry. That's okay. No, I was, I was just listening. Cause I was,

00:35:45.760 that, that was very helpful in, in grasping the totality of that answer. It makes much more sense

00:35:50.240 that, yeah, they basically. No, that's, that's his turn to culture, by the way. I mean, he,

00:35:55.760 he says this in his, in his, uh, uh, second and his third book. Uh, he's so fundamentally concerned

00:36:03.280 with the notion of science and culture. They go hand in hand, uh, because he says,

00:36:08.720 we have to find a way to, to live flourishingly now. Uh, and what he flatly says is, is, uh,

00:36:14.880 in human all to human is he says, people often think that he announces the death of God, for instance,

00:36:20.000 and, uh, it's book for joyous science. And then of course, Zarathustra, uh, that's not true. I mean,

00:36:25.600 he's simply, he flatly talks about it and a human all to human. He says now, he says now that most

00:36:30.480 people don't even believe anymore, uh, we have to get on with the business of life. And he says,

00:36:35.440 in order to do that, we have to come to a rigorous scientific understanding of what this thing called

00:36:42.720 culture is, uh, because everything that has passed for culture, whether it was a Christian culture,

00:36:49.360 whether it was commercial culture, what, and then what he diagnoses as the most dangerous of all

00:36:54.880 cultures, machine culture technology, uh, he says, these things are death spirals. Uh, and so that's,

00:37:02.880 that's what has to be taken forward, uh, going forward, uh, with these, uh, philosophy and science.

00:37:10.960 And, and that's his radical redefinition of science. He says, uh, looking back over the

00:37:16.000 entirety of the tradition of philosophy, science, and politics, he says, every true artist, every

00:37:22.000 true thinker, every true philosopher has always been threefold. He's been the philosopher, he's been

00:37:28.720 the lawgiver, and he's wanted to stamp the impress of his values, what he thinks is good and evil

00:37:36.800 upon the rest of mankind, uh, as a kind of stamp upon the wax, uh, something to that effect. And so

00:37:45.600 that's what he's pointed to going forward. And from all of that is going to come, uh, the overman,

00:37:51.440 but I do have to say though, uh, he, this is what he says about Christianity. I mean, it would, it would

00:37:58.720 be a, uh, an entirely incomplete discussion. Uh, if, uh, one didn't at least include what he says

00:38:05.920 about the Christianity is he says, the greatest thing about it, uh, is, uh, historically, at least

00:38:12.560 he says it was such a success. Uh, and that's why he has this famous line of Caesar with the soul of

00:38:20.080 Christ. Uh, and so when people realize that he wrote this book called antichrist and he calls

00:38:28.320 himself the antichrist, uh, really the book should be titled anti-Christian because he has the greatest

00:38:34.320 respect for Christ, but not for the reasons that a Christian would, right? This is thoroughly

00:38:39.920 Machiavellian. He's saying that Christ was the greatest of all founders, uh, because look at what

00:38:45.040 he accomplished, look at the tradition that came out of him. Uh, but in his, his greatest, uh,

00:38:51.120 animosity and hatred though, is for Paul. Uh, he said, he said Christ had things right. Uh,

00:38:57.840 and then he says, Paul messed it all up. So. Well, before we move to the application, uh, for,

00:39:07.280 for Christians in the modern world, are there any other critical, um, criticisms or, you know,

00:39:13.200 parts of Christianity or modern Christianity, things that he found weak that weak or otherwise,

00:39:19.280 uh, hollowed out or, uh, you know, uh, not being sincere. Are there any things that we need to,

00:39:25.120 to address before moving forward to, you know, how Christians can then take those lessons into the

00:39:30.880 modern world? Well, uh, just sort of a kind of an itemized listing here of what people, uh, can expect

00:39:39.360 if they look into the thought of Nietzsche. These are, these are thematic. They're, they're

00:39:43.600 definitive of Nietzsche's thought. He's fundamentally concerned with the relationship between faith and

00:39:49.040 reason. He has numerous entire aphorisms devoted to it. Uh, he has entire aphorisms devoted to telling

00:39:56.080 us what faith is, what it was in the Christian tradition. He also tells us what, uh, our new faith

00:40:03.840 is. And he says, we talking to his reader who sympathizes with him. And then later, hilariously,

00:40:11.040 he says, I only say we to be polite, uh, because no one's ready for my truths. Uh, in a letter in

00:40:17.520 1886, he actually tells someone, he says, it's probably gonna take about 2000 years for anyone

00:40:21.920 to even be ready to read beyond good and evil. Uh, but, uh, one thing I left out, and this is what is

00:40:27.680 so important, uh, is that because we in America, uh, have short attention spans, look at the timeline

00:40:35.120 on X, uh, the new cycle, uh, Nietzsche took America by storm in the 20th century. Uh, and he did it by

00:40:45.280 way of Christianity. It was the Christians who brought Nietzsche into America and popularized him. Uh,

00:40:54.320 and not just any Christians, uh, it was the academics. So the same people that you see railing

00:41:01.520 against, uh, all of the people on X who, uh, are, I don't know, whatever dissident, right. Or whatever

00:41:07.920 you want to call it, the Nietzsche answers. Uh, they are the ones, the academics are the ones who

00:41:12.960 brought Nietzsche to, uh, America and celebrated him. Uh, he was taught in all of the, the, the most

00:41:19.760 prestigious of the Ivy Lee theological seminaries. This is both in the Catholic tradition in America

00:41:25.360 and the Protestant tradition. I mean, I could provide an avalanche of, uh, just how definitive

00:41:32.720 he was in the early 20th century of America, uh, both in Catholicism and in Protestantism.

00:41:40.080 Uh, it's just absolutely incredible. Uh, but the one thing that would, that stands out the most

00:41:46.480 is, uh, that people should be aware of just as a matter of historical fact. That's I think just

00:41:52.800 profoundly deep. Uh, many people blame what happens in America. They point to the sixties. They are not

00:41:59.920 correct. The civil rights movement was nothing more than the culmination of what began as the social

00:42:06.000 gospel movement in the late 19th and early 20th century. The social gospel, uh, the most prominent

00:42:15.280 of them, the advocates of the social gospel, they were arguing directly on behalf of Nietzsche. And in

00:42:21.920 fact, uh, many of the greatest professors in these theological seminaries were flatly saying, uh, that

00:42:29.520 the question going, going forward, the capital T H E question is whether or not Christ is the overman.

00:42:37.760 Uh, and then Margaret Sanger, uh, the infamous Margaret Sanger was making arguments for, uh,

00:42:43.760 an Uber frau, an over woman, uh, these kinds of things. So, I mean, Nietzsche just defined, uh,

00:42:51.200 the first half of the 20th century in America at every level. Uh, he, everyone pretended that that

00:42:57.920 didn't happen. Of course, after the 1950s in world war II, uh, with Nazi Germany, uh, they, uh, the

00:43:04.000 academics want to pretend that they didn't do it all. They brought it all to us. They, they disseminated it

00:43:08.720 to us. Uh, and they want to pretend that their hands are clean of it. And now they can't stop

00:43:13.520 scribbling out all their essays and books, trashing the hell out of conservatives or anyone on the far

00:43:18.560 right. So that's, uh, it's important, very important. So we can obviously, you know, this

00:43:26.720 topic is vast. Nietzsche is obviously, you know, people spend their entire lives studying this guy.

00:43:31.520 So we're not going to be able to do it all justice in an hour. But, um, if there are a few

00:43:36.960 things that you could leave the audience with as Christians, if they are Christians, and if you're

00:43:42.560 not guys, you should, should become Christian. Christ is indeed King and the only way to heaven,

00:43:47.520 the only way to save your soul. However, um, if, if we're talking to the Christians in the audience

00:43:52.560 and they are looking at, you know, Nietzsche's work, what can they take? Are there a couple things

00:43:58.800 that they could take into the modern world from Nietzsche that will help strengthen them,

00:44:04.000 their faith or make them more effective Christians or make them more effective

00:44:07.520 at addressing the nihilism that we find ourselves adrift in, in the modern world?

00:44:14.960 Yes. Um, and, and, and in many respects, that's why I mentioned that sort of digression just a

00:44:19.520 second ago about how Nietzsche overtook early 20th century America by way of Christianity,

00:44:27.360 both Catholicism and Protestantism. Nietzsche is so much of, uh, the, the two things one could say

00:44:37.600 that really are the pillars of all of his thought, uh, are on the way. Now this is going to sound

00:44:42.480 strange and I've been attacked for saying it, but I mean, I can, again, this is, I can, I can speak for

00:44:47.920 hours literally just reading textually and, and from his pub unpublished, uh, notebooks and letters

00:44:54.720 where this is simply true that this is what made Nietzsche so appealing, both to people who dislike

00:45:00.560 Christianity and in many cases hate it, uh, and Christians who are very pious and want to see

00:45:07.840 Christianity succeed. Uh, the two pillars are on the one hand, Nietzsche advocates that we have to relearn

00:45:15.440 what it means to actually love. We have a corrupt understanding of what love is and associated with

00:45:22.480 that. And one could maybe even say more foundational, uh, uh, is the notion of, uh, compassion or pity.

00:45:29.840 And the German word is mit Leiden, which means Leiden being to suffer and mit meaning with, uh, so with suffering.

00:45:37.440 Uh, and Nietzsche is the one who says the problem is that, uh, Christianity has turned into a religion of pity,

00:45:44.960 of compassion. And it, and this is going to be, uh, what we often speak of as, uh, the, the people who

00:45:53.840 will wear the dead skin, uh, of that, which we hold most sacred. Right. And they'll say that they are it.

00:46:00.400 Right. Uh, and so you have the people, the Christians who were saying, you know, Christ would have

00:46:05.200 not only embraced, but loved and accepted, uh, transgenders, homosexuals, illegal immigrants,

00:46:11.360 all these kinds of things. Uh, and Nietzsche would say, no, uh, what you have there is the perversion

00:46:18.160 of, uh, this concept of pity, uh, that you have appropriated and turned it into your Christian

00:46:25.680 religion. Uh, so that's extremely helpful. I mean, some of the most important things that he ever says

00:46:32.640 concern, uh, this notion of pity and such. In fact, one way that one way he defines nihilism is through

00:46:40.640 pity. Yeah. Well, one thing we can see is it's not, you know, you're, you're exactly right,

00:46:45.200 of course. And he's exactly right that there are, you know, people claiming to be Christians who will

00:46:49.600 pervert the faith, uh, by this exploitation of the idea of pity. Um, but there, at this point,

00:46:54.560 there's even the meme of the non-Christians doing this, right? Like this is the Twitter meme of the,

00:46:59.540 well, I'm not a Christian, uh, but you know, you are. And so I'm going to use my faith, your faith

00:47:04.720 and calls to pity to manipulate you. And so now it's not just people inside the faith who recognize the

00:47:10.640 yeah, that they perhaps can, can use this this way, but it's even non-Christians cynically

00:47:15.680 will, will say, oh, well, this is what I've reduced your faith down to. And you're so weak

00:47:19.860 in your faith that you will follow this call to compassion and pity, even if it has no foundation

00:47:25.640 in the actual teachings of Christ. And that's a way that you can constantly attempt to manipulate

00:47:31.240 people. Even if you yourself don't believe. Yes. Uh, and also something that just occurred to me,

00:47:38.400 uh, is that, um, and I see this all the time, uh, this could be of help at least, uh, because remember,

00:47:46.560 look, I, I, I am, I am a Christian, but, uh, I see my job, uh, as you know, on X and such,

00:47:52.680 and with my little Athens corner, uh, and all the tutoring and stuff that I do is to be someone who

00:47:57.780 just, uh, shares the genuine teaching to be found in the great books. Uh, I don't particularly take

00:48:05.120 sides because, uh, I mean, I have sides, but I don't take them when I'm teaching it because you,

00:48:09.420 you can't, you have to be fair, right? That's the role of honesty. Uh, but, uh, what you will find

00:48:15.940 is many times people will say that they are Nietzscheans or you will get, for instance,

00:48:20.860 academics, uh, critiquing the far right or something is saying a bunch of godless Nietzscheans.

00:48:26.120 Uh, Nietzsche would laugh hilariously hysterically at anyone who said there was even such thing as a

00:48:33.180 Nietzschean. Uh, Nietzsche says over and over and over again, he does not want people who are his

00:48:40.400 mere followers. Uh, he said he wants people that will reach for his crown. In other words, he wants

00:48:46.960 people that are going to overcome him. And so the concept of the fact that one, that, that you would

00:48:52.840 say someone is an Nietzschean, uh, and if someone were to say that they are an Nietzschean, they don't

00:48:58.740 understand Nietzsche. They haven't read him or something like that. Uh, so, so these are, these

00:49:04.740 kinds of things are, again, important, uh, as things that one can carry in one's little intellectual

00:49:11.400 toolkit, uh, as they go out into the world and are confronted, uh, by these things that on the one

00:49:17.560 hand are going to be, I mean, we always have to recognize is, is this person friend or foe, right?

00:49:22.940 Uh, what are their beliefs? Uh, and so, uh, you know, you have to have this kind of little

00:49:27.640 toolkit with you of knowledge and say, well, you know, I know at least this much about it,

00:49:32.340 which is kind of makes what you're saying either, right. Uh, so you might be a friend or it makes

00:49:37.180 what you're saying wrong. So I, you know, I'm going to hang a question mark over whether you're a

00:49:41.120 friend or an enemy or something like that. So. So you mentioned, uh, the manipulation through,

00:49:48.080 uh, you know, the idea of pity, uh, and compassion, the, the, the warping of those things. Are there

00:49:54.220 other things that we should be watching out for as Christians that Nietzsche highlighted or,

00:49:59.220 uh, you know, things that'll help us understand again, that the kind of overcoming the nihilism

00:50:04.120 that we find ourselves in? Yeah. I mean, that, that's the question is, is, is it even possible

00:50:08.820 to overcome it at this point, uh, because it is so unique in the history of mankind? Like I said,

00:50:15.600 the death of the biblical God is unlike the death or the disappearance of any other gods prior in man's

00:50:22.740 history. Uh, and what Nietzsche is fundamentally concerned with what I try to get across to people

00:50:28.500 is, uh, these two words, culture and civilization. Uh, what Nietzsche is going to effectively say,

00:50:37.180 he has a number of fascinating comments about this is he says that, you know, civilization is that

00:50:43.100 which we see around us, right. That we pride ourselves on, right. The beautiful buildings,

00:50:47.500 these kinds of things, the culture is going to be what that civilization is supposed to have created

00:50:55.420 within us. That is exemplary of how we achieved that civilization. So think of it this way. The culture

00:51:03.500 is the education of the soul or of yourself that makes you, you know, human, separates you from all

00:51:11.980 the other animals. And what Nietzsche says is our problem is that there is a conflict between culture

00:51:18.620 and civilization. What we have is a, uh, in other words, we're, we're civilized barber, barbarism,

00:51:25.980 right. That's, uh, the, the thing that he emphasizes the most is that, uh, because this belief in progress

00:51:32.780 is so just visceral and everyone just simply believes it. Nietzsche says, look, you have to

00:51:38.860 understand this thing you call civilization. You scratch the surface on that just a little bit,

00:51:44.780 and you're still barbarians for God's sake. Uh, and so finding a way, uh, forward absolutely has to

00:51:53.180 entail the, in other words, the political solution going forward is how can you make the civilization

00:52:00.380 and the culture, uh, how can you reconcile these two things, right? That's the key thing. And that's

00:52:06.860 ultimately going to come down to the issue of education. And, uh, for Nietzsche, at least it's going to be

00:52:12.060 hierarchies, the order of rank among men, uh, that kind of thing. That's ultimately what's at issue with, uh,

00:52:19.820 everyone's familiar with the master slave morality he speaks of, uh, or for instance, the overman and

00:52:25.260 the last man, uh, all of that has to do with the order of rank among human beings. But, but the

00:52:31.660 question though, is how do you establish that order of rank? If there's a fundamental, uh, fluidity to

00:52:36.940 all concepts, right? If nihilism is in fact true, uh, and then you get into the question of, well,

00:52:42.940 what's like for, for Nietzsche, the answer is, uh, that which is good is always that which is life

00:52:47.500 affirming, uh, which is going to come down to a kind of instinctual, uh, understanding like attracts

00:52:54.060 like something like that. And that's where things become very, very complicated to understand because,

00:52:59.500 uh, Nietzsche, what Nietzsche has done, and this is where we are in postmodernity, Heidegger takes it

00:53:05.020 even further. The French just go insane with it is that we're at the limits of language, the

00:53:11.740 possibility of logos. In other words, what mind itself can actually articulate versus what one

00:53:18.460 feels in a kind of experiential or revelationary, uh, way. And so that's why it's one of the funniest

00:53:26.620 phenomena in the study of Nietzsche is there are many people, well, not many, but there are people who

00:53:31.020 published books, tenured professors saying that Christianity is in fact, or Nietzsche is in fact

00:53:37.100 reconcilable with Christianity. Uh, I have exactly zero, uh, uh, patience for that whatsoever. It's

00:53:43.580 completely false, but you can see how that element is there once you're into the realm of the breaking

00:53:48.940 down of, of speech or, or mind to articulate things. Uh, and that's why we've had this turn to

00:53:56.220 so-called poetic thinking, uh, poetic philosophizing, these kinds of things that

00:54:01.180 Nietzsche really, one could almost say Nietzsche really kicks that off. But again, that was a

00:54:07.980 longstanding tradition, uh, in the German idealist tradition, going back at least to Schelling, uh,

00:54:13.740 and all the romantics and things like that. So. Well, stranger, uh, we are stacking up the

00:54:21.500 super chats. And like I said, obviously this is a very deep, deep subject that we could go on and

00:54:26.700 you have gone on, uh, for hours at length, uh, about. So if people have enjoyed this talk and

00:54:32.300 they want to further understand this topic and find the rest of your work, where should they go?

00:54:38.540 Um, so I have my website, Athenscorner.com, but, uh, I'm transferring everything over to

00:54:47.260 Substack. So you can find me on Substack at, uh, Athens Corner. Uh, that's where things are until I

00:54:53.820 can get the website situated much better. Uh, that's, and find me on Twitter, of course, at, uh,

00:55:01.420 you know, Athens Stranger. Uh, but I, I really enjoy, I'm enjoying Substack, uh, like I said, at, uh,

00:55:08.140 Athens, uh, Athens Corner. You can find me there. Uh, and, and I, this is, this is just what I do. I mean,

00:55:13.980 I have hours and hours and hours of these lectures going through everything from, uh, the Bible, uh,

00:55:21.180 to Homer, to Thucydides, uh, to Nietzsche, uh, to the moderns, uh, I'm particularly interested

00:55:29.020 in biblical interpretation and the history of it. Uh, the problem of the rise of the German,

00:55:34.300 of the German universities, which is to say that the German, the universities, as we understand them

00:55:38.460 today, all of these things, uh, and I have, uh, the body of work is growing. So that, that, and when

00:55:44.700 you asked me about coming on to talk about this, I was, it was almost one of those things like,

00:55:48.460 this is the hand of God itself, uh, because I've been working for eight months now, uh, on, uh,

00:55:54.060 what's at this point over four hours of an introduction to the entirety of the thought of

00:55:59.020 Nietzsche that's encompassing of an entire history of nihilism itself, what it is, where you can find it,

00:56:05.100 uh, how it's transformed, uh, how it has, uh, defined and affected, uh, the world that we live in.

00:56:13.500 Fantastic. Well, you definitely let me know when that is finished and we'll share that out. And

00:56:17.660 of course, all of your other work is available over at Substack. So if people would like to know

00:56:21.980 more, would like to find more, they have that opportunity and they should, of course, avail themselves

00:56:26.780 of it. All right, guys, let's head to the questions of the people here real quick.

00:56:31.180 I've got weird E curve who says, I lived in the Bible belt my whole life and never, uh,

00:56:36.540 hear the true gospel until 29. I can testify to water down Christianity being real. Yeah.

00:56:42.300 That that's such an incredible tragedy because of course, obviously, uh, just the watering down

00:56:47.340 of the Christian message. But the other thing that really drives me nuts, uh, for a lot of the modern

00:56:52.060 churches, of course, you know, evangelism missionaries, these things are critical, but oftentimes people

00:56:57.820 are skipping over the vast sea of people right next to them, uh, who do not know Christ because

00:57:04.700 of the nihilism they swim in, uh, to go to Africa or, you know, Eastern Europe or, you know, the middle

00:57:11.660 of Asia and not that those people don't need Christ, but just amazing how many people, uh, ignore the

00:57:17.740 nihilism at their doorstep, uh, to, to jump over to some, some other country, uh, rather than worrying

00:57:23.580 about witnessing to the neighbor, uh, right around them. Yeah. Um, I, I would just also add, uh,

00:57:30.860 again, this is extremely thematic in many ways, definitive of the thought of Nietzsche. Nietzsche

00:57:35.980 refers to it in many different ways. Uh, but one of his best phrasings of it that I think, uh, is

00:57:42.060 helpful is he refers to it as the residue of Christianity. Uh, what you end up having is just

00:57:48.060 this sort of the shadow, uh, the fingerprints here and there, uh, in, in churches, uh, but it's

00:57:54.700 really not Christianity. I mean, look at what they're there. Well, I mean, I'll just leave it

00:58:00.300 at that. Yeah. Much to be said on that topic for sure. Uh, tiny stupid demon says was going to ask

00:58:07.500 for a thorough definition of nihilism because Athenian talks about it so much, but you beat me

00:58:12.460 to it. Great job on Tucker. Keep it all up. Well, thank you very much, man. And yes, uh, that's, uh,

00:58:17.500 you know, stranger is definitely great at that. That's one of the core things that I wanted to

00:58:21.500 make sure we understood because like I said, nihilism is thrown around so often and so casually.

00:58:26.220 So, uh, definitely glad that we could clarify that at the beginning. Cause it is such a key concept,

00:58:30.940 obviously to what, uh, Nietzsche is talking about and just to understanding the world around us.

00:58:37.660 A creeper weirdo says, so Nietzsche hates Elon. Also, I find it, uh, it funny. A man so obsessed with

00:58:44.100 power ended life, a cripple. Yeah. You know, um, obviously another topic you could probably go

00:58:49.460 out on length, but a lot of people point obviously to the fact that for all of his insights, um,

00:58:55.700 all of his incredible, just, you know, deep insights into the world around us and, you know,

00:59:02.020 predictions about what would happen. Nietzsche, like many philosophers seem not to be able to apply

00:59:07.380 any of that wisdom to his own life. Does that say anything about Nietzsche and his philosophy?

00:59:13.620 Well, um, I, I really dislike those approaches, uh, to reading philosophers because, uh,

00:59:24.020 you could also point to just as many of your own heroes, anyone's own heroes,

00:59:29.060 and even in Christianity and say, well, look at how their life ended or something like that. Right.

00:59:34.260 I mean, you would have, you would have people who hate Christians, uh, say, well, look at how,

00:59:38.340 look at what happened with your Christ or something like that. Right. Um, we have to be very careful in

00:59:43.860 reducing philosophy to biography, uh, because, and this is what, and, and, and this is the most important

00:59:51.700 key here, uh, very often. And Nietzsche actually speaks about this at length, uh, regarding the so-called

00:59:58.260 free spirit, the ones who's the ones who are the possible, the only hope going forward is if you can

01:00:03.220 have these various free spirits. In other words, they're able to break away from culture

01:00:07.300 that is already just smothering the vitality of them. And he says, the problem is that very often

01:00:12.420 they're weak because they're so ostracized from the culture in which they live. They've seen, and

01:00:17.860 Nietzsche says this, he says, he says, it's a sham fraud culture, but if you stand too far outside of it,

01:00:24.100 they shun you. Uh, and you end up having to live a very, in many cases, poverty stricken life.

01:00:30.260 Uh, you're, you're also often very weak. This is his critique of Darwinism, by the way,

01:00:35.140 he does not at all. He's an evolutionary thinker, but he does not believe in Darwinism because he says,

01:00:40.180 survival of the fittest is stupid. If survival of the fittest were true, then it would just be the

01:00:44.260 status quo. Uh, that's all it would be. Uh, and so you have to take into consideration that, uh,

01:00:50.580 separating oneself from the herd, right? Very often renders one very vulnerable,

01:00:56.100 uh, to things which would otherwise be quite just embarrassing as a man, uh, or, you know,

01:01:03.940 affecting of your health, these kinds of things. So, but as an Uber mentioned, shouldn't you be able

01:01:09.620 to exist without those things? Shouldn't there be some level of ability to overcome that dependence on

01:01:15.700 the culture or the, you know, the, the world around you that you'll be deprived of by setting yourself

01:01:20.660 apart from the herd? Well, that's where Nietzsche did succeed. Uh, like I said, I mean, he was the,

01:01:26.340 he was the youngest tenured professor ever, uh, in, in Germany at 24, uh, retired shortly thereafter

01:01:32.900 because he just couldn't stand what was happening in the universities. Uh, and then just spent his life

01:01:37.300 traveling around, literally walking up and down the, the Alps, uh, and writing and things like that.

01:01:43.140 Uh, so, so he was able to overcome that aspect of it. I mean, but I mean, if, if people are,

01:01:49.620 we have to also be careful with the overman. It's not at all clear that Nietzsche himself believes that

01:01:54.900 the overman is a possibility when you, you, most people judge the status of the overman by where he

01:02:00.260 first occurs in Zarathustra. Uh, but then you have to ask yourself, uh, that's just the beginning.

01:02:05.940 Where does the overman stand at the very end of Zarathustra? Uh, the, it's a kind of thought

01:02:10.500 experiment or something. Uh, so. Interesting. All right. Uh, Matt Gredir says really great

01:02:16.260 Tucker interview. Probably one of the best I've heard on his channel. Tucker did great asking

01:02:20.420 the right questions too. Well, thank you very much, man. Again, just an honor to be able to do it.

01:02:25.140 Uh, and yeah, obviously Tucker is a world-class interviewer. He knows exactly what he's doing.

01:02:30.580 Um, it's a little nerve wracking cause he changes subjects so often. It's a little bit like squirrel,

01:02:35.380 you know, and you kind of go the other direction. So especially when you're trying to discuss heavier

01:02:38.820 topics, you know, you're like, oh man, I hope this hangs together. I hope this makes sense.

01:02:42.740 I hope that, uh, we, we didn't pivot away too quickly and, uh, didn't get into the important

01:02:47.140 parts. So that's confusing, but, uh, overall seems to have gotten a great reception and I'm very

01:02:51.700 grateful to him. And of course, very grateful to you guys for all the support that has made that

01:02:56.100 possible. Yeah. I mean, it's literally a dream come true. So what, what, what else are you going to say?

01:03:00.180 Uh, Omens says, any advice for Nietzscheans who are aligned with the interest of Christians

01:03:07.940 who do not believe Christianity has the power to stave off decline? So yeah, this is an interesting,

01:03:13.620 uh, topic. Obviously, uh, we see very often that kind of, uh, what's often called the Nietzschean or

01:03:20.260 pagan rite, uh, and the, uh, kind of traditional Christian, more throne and altar rite are often

01:03:27.300 pushing in a similar direction and that they are rejecting, uh, some of the problems of modernity

01:03:32.500 and liberalism and these things. Uh, they see themselves broadly in a, some kind of right-wing

01:03:37.140 coalition. Uh, but you know, they, they often clash. I recently had, uh, you know, made, made some,

01:03:43.140 some Nietzscheans, uh, angry about my, you know, my assertion that ultimately they leave their

01:03:48.180 civilization vulnerable to being overtaken by foreign faith because we will never truly be

01:03:54.580 without one. Uh, so is, is there a way, uh, that, uh, we can work together? I mean, you,

01:04:00.740 you kind of already said that Nietzsche, that, uh, Nietzsche's philosophy cannot be synthesized with

01:04:05.220 Christianity, cannot be compatible at some level, but is there, is there a political coalition or are

01:04:10.100 these things necessarily at odds simply because they're foundational differences? Uh, well, the,

01:04:16.420 the thing to keep in mind is Nietzsche himself says, uh, he provides, I mean, it's, it's,

01:04:21.620 the context in which he says this, it's, it's difficult to understand. It's not easy,

01:04:25.940 but he says Caesar with the soul of Christ. So there's something about the soul of Christ that

01:04:31.940 is extremely important for Nietzsche's thought of the human type going forward. And what I would

01:04:39.140 suggest to people is that this gets back around to Nietzsche's understanding of his profound

01:04:44.340 understanding of human psychology and what drives history itself, the master slave morality, blah, blah,

01:04:51.940 all of that comes from the notion of resentment. The soul of Christ is one that is not filled with

01:04:58.980 resentment. Uh, that's the thing. And so when you, you have a lot of young men and trust me, I tend to

01:05:05.620 be one of them who are extremely angry about the world around us. Uh, and Nietzsche is at pains in every

01:05:11.460 single one of his publications to say, uh, those, uh, who anger too easily or are too reactionary,

01:05:19.940 they make for very poor students of philosophy, uh, because you can't allow yourself to be overcome

01:05:26.180 with the kind of, uh, resentment that usually results from anger. Now, Nietzsche is a fan of anger

01:05:32.340 because it's needed, uh, for overcoming, uh, you know, for unknotting one's stomach to do the things

01:05:37.620 needed. Uh, but that would, if there's a way in which to, uh, align, uh, and there are, by the way,

01:05:44.100 I mean, I'm friends with people who would otherwise, I mean, they would otherwise burn each other at the

01:05:48.820 stake. Uh, the way to understand it is that, uh, there is great virtue for both of these things.

01:05:54.900 Uh, and the tension of course is keeping them together without, uh, just, you know,

01:06:00.980 a kind of suicide or something like that. So. All right, guys, well, we're going to go ahead

01:06:06.900 and wrap this up. Once again, want to thank Athenian Stranger for coming on. Always fantastic

01:06:11.540 and fascinating to talk with him. If you have not checked out his work, you of course should do so

01:06:16.980 as soon as we're done here. If it's your first time on this channel, then you need to go ahead and

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The Auron MacIntyre Show - August 20, 2025

What Can Christians Learn from Friedrich Nietzsche？｜ Guest： Athenian Stranger ｜ 8⧸20⧸25

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