Nietzsche and the Idea of God

David Leo Tracey

Nietzsche tells us that he is more interested in the idea of God than in God assuch. The idea of God is not a mind-independent entity; it is a human idea. Hewrites: “In former times, one sought to prove that there is no God—today oneindicates how the belief that there is a God could arise and how this beliefacquired its weight and importance.”1 He continues, “The ‘kingdom of heaven’ isa state of the heart—not something lying ‘above the earth’ or coming ‘afterdeath.’”2 And finally, “the kingdom of God does not ‘come’ chronologicallyhistorically,on a certain day … it is an ‘inward change in the individual.’”3 Asone commentator writes, Nietzsche asks “a series of questions that concern thereligious man, not religion itself.”4 Whether or not one believes in God, the factthat people do believe in God is still a phenomenon in the world for which wemust account. Nietzsche’s question is not ‘does God exist?’ It is: why do peoplebelieve in God, and what insight does this yield into human psychology? Underthe influence of Feuerbach, he answers that “religion can be exhaustivelyaccounted for by the psychology of error,”5 and he demonstrates how basichuman psychology accounts for the idea of God. Hence, if naturalism is anattempt to account for phenomena without reference to the supernatural, thenshowing that human psychology accounts for the idea of a supernatural God is aquintessential instance of naturalism: the idea of God has its origins in nature.

Nietzsche, God, religion, philosophical psychology, naturalism, health, organizing principles, degeneration, vitality, creativity