Nietzsche’s Philosophy: Death of God and Will to Power
The Death of God in Nietzsche’s Philosophy
Nietzsche’s Proclamation
Nietzsche proclaims the death of God and claims that this is the most important event of the current epoch. The death of God is the maximum expression of nihilism. With the death of God, Nietzsche refers to the loss of the ultimate abstract, ideal foundation of religious and cultural values that have dominated Europe. Such values, especially as they are understood by Nietzsche, are tantamount to submission to an order imposed on the senses, an abandonment of the self, and contempt for the cultivation of the senses.
The Void Left by God’s Death
These actions prevent man’s will from creating the power to live the good and the truth, known as abstract values. We cannot talk about modern values. Now, the good is that God, the ultimate reference of all religious and cultural values, the pillar holding the dominant moral culture in Europe, has fallen. God is dead because man has killed him. Modern man has had to create idols that had to be brought down, and the only thing that remains is the void of nothingness. Man is finally perceived as nothing, and God is not there to hide him.
The Death of God and the Transformation of Nihilism
The idea of the death of God is related to the idea of nihilism. It is worth taking the first and transforming it. As we have seen, it is an assessment of modern times and a thorough review of the image of the human from the exercise of morality, metaphysics, and even theology and religion. Thus, recovering the values of the earth turns nihilism into a renewal of philosophy. This means that Nietzsche’s nihilism is optimistic. The death of God is an opportunity to seek and cultivate new values related to creativity and self-improvement.
Life as Will to Power and the Transmutation of Values
The Will to Live as Will to Power
Vitalism for Nietzsche owes much to the influence of Schopenhauer’s work, in particular, the importance that recognizes knowledge as a factor of will. However, Nietzsche clearly censors passive nihilism, and optimistic life would be reduced to a resigned willingness in Schopenhauer. Instead, Nietzsche represents life as a will to power, as a struggle of the self that is alive to survive and overcome itself.
The Will to Power
The characteristics of life transcend the mere concept of life, and a good exercise could be metaphysics: the will as a constant change that underlies the universe in general, not only plants and animals. It is both the action that would be attributed to something as its subject and the action itself. The will in nature that governs life is a will to power, evident in the struggle of all against all in nature. The will to power is an overcoming of oneself. The will to power is not only a physical and historical phenomenon but also a moral phenomenon, as it expresses itself in human behavior. The will to power is not synonymous with any case of willpower but with dominion or complex life affirmation. The will to power is self-affirmation, individual development, or growth; it is not the surrender of control to others.
The Need for the Creation of New Values
Nietzsche was a very unconventional person, not conforming to morality without more being established. However, he had the ability to intensely exercise moral judgment and cater to reaching ideological correctness in any order. This is a good transmutation of values. If you add no complex philosophy, it leads to nihilism when just replacing the values of weakness and submission.