Jesus of Nietzsche

JESUS OR NIETZSCHE

a volume in

Ethical Theory and Practice

ETP

Olli Loukola, Editor

VIBS

Volume 259

Robert Ginsberg

Founding Editor

Leonidas Donskis

Executive Editor

Associate Editors

G. John M. Abbarno

George Allan

Gerhold K. Becker

Raymond Angelo Belliotti

Kenneth A. Bryson

C. Stephen Byrum

Robert A. Delfino

Rem B. Edwards

Malcolm D. Evans

Roland Faber

Andrew Fitz-Gibbon

Francesc Forn i Argimon

Daniel B. Gallagher

William C. Gay

Dane R. Gordon

J. Everet Green

Heta Aleksandra Gylling

Matti Häyry

Brian G. Henning

Steven V. Hicks

Richard T. Hull

Michael Krausz

Olli Loukola

Mark Letteri

Vincent L. Luizzi

Hugh P. McDonald

Adrianne McEvoy

J.D. Mininger

Peter A. Redpath

Arleen L. F. Salles

John R. Shook

Eddy Souffrant

Tuija Takala

Emil Višňovský

Anne Waters

James R. Watson

John R. Welch

Thomas Woods

Amsterdam - New York, NY 2013

Raymond Angelo Belliotti

JESUS OR NIETZSCHE

How Should We Live Our Lives?

Cover photo: Dreamstime

Cover Design: Studio Pollmann

The paper on which this book is printed meets the requirements of “ISO

9706:1994, Information and documentation - Paper for documents -

Requirements for permanence”.

ISBN: 978-90-420-3658-1

E-Book ISBN: 978-94-012-0925-0

© Editions Rodopi B.V., Amsterdam - New York, NY 2013

Printed in the Netherlands

For

Marcia, Angelo, and Vittoria

Supra lu majuri si 'nsigna lu minuri.

(“We learn by standing on the shoulders of the wise.”)

CONTENTS

EDITORIAL FOREWORD BY OLLI LOUKOLA ix

PREFACE xi

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xv

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS xvii

INTRODUCTION 1

1. Introduction 1

2. Nietzsche’s Life 5

3. Problems of Interpretation in Nietzsche 7

4. My (Mis)Interpretation of Nietzsche 9

ONE Jesus: The Nature of Our World and Our Mission in It 13

1. Family Relations 13

2. Associating and Identifying with Undesirables 17

3. Unsettling Established Rituals 19

4. Interrogating Prevailing Norms of Just Distribution 20

5. Material Minimalism 31

6. Jesus and the Concept of Forgiveness 34

TWO Nietzsche: The Nature of Our World and Our Mission in It 51

1. Perspectivism 51

2. Genealogical Critiques 63

3. Crafting a Worthy Self 64

4. Values 65

5. Nietzsche’s Glad Tidings 66

6. Master and Slave Moralities 69

7. Going Beyond Good and Evil 80

8. Eternal Recurrence 84

9. Philosophy and Psychology 100

10. Style and Rhetoric 105

11. Tragic View of Life 110

12. Jesus and Nietzsche 114

viii JESUS OR NIETZSCHE

THREE Fundamental Understandings of Human Beings:

Unconditional Love and the Will to Power 115

1. The Power of Unconditional Love 115

2. The Paradoxes of Agapic Love 119

3. Parental Agape 123

4. The Will to Power 126

5. The Last Man and The Overman 131

6. Nietzsche on Jesus 136

7. Nietzsche on St. Paul and Christianity 141

8. Nietzsche’s Understanding of Jesus 143

9. Jesus and Engagement in this World 145

10. Daunting Normative Ideals 149

FOUR The Perfectionism of Jesus 151

1. Perfectionism and Unconditional Love 151

2. Extending Unconditional Love 154

3. Unconditional Love and Abstraction 158

4. A Summary of the Perfectionism of Jesus 159

5. The Ethic of Jesus and Contemporary Philosophy 161

6. Jesus’ Enduring Message 180

FIVE The Perfectionism of Nietzsche 181

1. Nietzsche’s Vision 181

2. Aristocratic Privilege 187

3. A Summary of the Perfectionism of Nietzsche 194

4. The Perfectionism of Nietzsche and Contemporary

Philosophy 195

5. Jesus and Nietzsche: Toward a Synthesis 205

NOTES 211

BIBLIOGRAPHY 219

INDEX 225

ABOUT THE AUTHOR 231

EDITORIAL FOREWORD

Ethical Theory and Practice (ETP) is a special series in the Value Inquiry

Book Series, and it is dedicated to works which attempt to close the gap

between ethical theory and practice. One of the goals of Jesus or Nietzsche:

How should we live our lives? is to examine the tension between the ways we

theorize our moral ideals and the practicalities of human life. Jesus and

Nietzsche were both sincere followers of the original Socratic mission of

moral philosophy, that is, how to live the good human life not only in some

distant idealized future, but also within mundane human existence. It is surely

here that Jesus and Nietzsche have made a lasting impact in the history of

morality, and most certainly in everyday life.

These two thinkers share an important starting point. They cast a critical

eye on everyday circumstances, especially as they are regulated, dictated and

controlled by established, traditional moral rules and beliefs. They both

interrogate the point and purpose of this realm. They search for sense and

purpose outside the conventional moralities of their day, and yearn to under￾stand the role of moral reformation in pursuing the good human life. Yet their

thinking reaches for the everlasting and transcendent.

Religion has probably been the single most influential element in the

history of Western moral thought after the Greek philosophers, and it has

continuously sculpted our moral reasoning, judged our motives, and dictated

our goals. As such it has tended to calcify into prejudiced dogmatism and

blind following of the arbitrary commands of omnipotent beings and of

systems of power, backed up by all-encompassing fears of punishment. In the

light of such extremism, it is easy to sympathize with the Nietzschean project

of dismantling these practices and institutions, and stripping them of their

undeserved dominance in defining human autonomy and potentials. Nietzsche

offers an alternative image of how we might direct our lives and fashion the

persons we might become.

In its reformative aspirations, Nietzsche’s project bears similarities to

Jesus’s radical moral message. But the two part company: Nietzsche an￾nounces the death of God, while Jesus supplies a forceful rejoinder. As

Raymond Angelo Belliotti convincingly shows in this book, Jesus and

Nietzsche are not merely historical icons or galvanizers of power-hungry

institutions. Instead, they are inspiring visionaries whose works can inform

our existential choices and energize our lives today.

Olli Loukola, Editor

Ethical Theory and Practice

PREFACE

Three stories explain the origins of this work.

The First Story

I was raised a Roman Catholic. I attended parochial school from kindergarten

through eighth grade. During my religious training—and religion was always

the focus of the first session of every school day—we spent considerable time

on the parables of the New Testament. This was unsurprising in light of the

moral lessons contained in those stories. The transmission of moral lessons

was, of course, the raison d’être of parochial school.

One day, when I was in fifth grade, we were ruminating over the Parable

of the Laborers in the Vineyard. During recess, I sidled over to our teacher, a

nun in the order of St. Joseph and enthusiastically offered my judgment,

“Sister, I think that Jesus was wrong on this one.” The nun made no effort to

conceal her shock. As Jesus could never be wrong, just who was I to call his

teachings into question.

A wiser student would have apologized for his impertinence, marched

resolutely back to his seat, and cut his losses. Unfortunately, a ten-year-old

boy with a big mouth and a curious, undisciplined mind rarely recognizes

much less embraces prudent strategy. Predictably, I doubled down on what I

took to be my wisdom. First, I outlined the reasons, expressed exquisitely and

articulately in my judgment, why I thought that Jesus’ conclusions were

erroneous. Second, I accepted the nun’s challenge, and provided an account of

how Jesus could be wrong: given by Catholic theology that he was at once the

son of God and a human being, he was susceptible to mistake when and only

when his human side was in play. Thus, he could be wrong when enunciating

a parable if and only if during the rendering his human fallibility clouded his

typically flawless divine judgment. This, undoubtedly, must have occurred

during his account of the Parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard.

You must remember that this encounter occurred in the 1950s, when the

Catholic Church was even less accommodating to quasi-heretical utterances

than it is today. The nun acted swiftly; she convened a meeting which was

attended by the parish priest, herself, my parents, and me. This unpleasant

religious intervention had only one agenda item: a host of authority figures

would confront an incorrigible youth and get his mind straight.

As always, my parents privately counseled a pragmatic stance: Maybe

you are on to something, but do not get kicked out of school; make whatever

atonements you must and get on with your education; for goodness sake (that

was not the phrase they used), do not turn stubborn on this matter. So I sat,

listened, was unconvinced, but feigned contrition, and returned to the good

graces of the parish. The Church was always a sucker for a sinner who had

xii JESUS OR NIETZSCHE

seemingly seen the light and offered repentance. But I remained unconvinced

that Jesus’ conclusions were right. (I now understand that one of the para￾mount points of the parable is its reformative aspiration: the story is not

designed to reflect the conventional economic wisdom of society but to call

for the transformation of dominant ideas. Thus, that I, using conventional

economic wisdom, concluded that Jesus was “wrong” is unsurprising. What I

missed then was Jesus’ enjoinment to renounce conventional economic

wisdom for a nobler standard. Even if we decide, all things considered, to

reject the loftier norm, Jesus was not “wrong” for the reasons I advanced

when I was ten years old.)

In any event, I always enjoyed contemplating the parables of the New

Testament, whether inspired by a priest’s sermon or the classroom instruction

of my nuns (who throughout the remainder of my parochial school years cast

suspicious glances my way whenever parables were recounted in class; word

about me spread quickly).

About fifteen years later, I was enrolled as a graduate student in philos￾ophy at the University of Miami. My chosen specializations within that field

were ethics, political philosophy, and philosophy of law. At some point in my

matriculation, one of my professors remarked that every philosopher that he

knew who specialized in ethics had a strong religious background. Perhaps

they had later strayed from organized religion or were even strident atheists,

but they all shared at least one characteristic: they were exposed thoroughly to

religion and its theological underpinnings throughout their formative years.

My years as a philosophy professor have only confirmed my mentor’s

view. I have retained my appreciation of the parables and find that when I

recall them today they raise uncommonly interesting philosophical issues.

Jesus challenged the conventional moral wisdom of his own time and

examining now his prescriptions for the good human life interrogates the

conventional moral wisdom of our time.

The Second Story

When I was an undergraduate, the work of Friedrich Nietzsche was beginning

to undergo rehabilitation in the United States which was animated mainly by

Walter Kaufmann's stunningly thorough scholarship of the early 1950s.

Although Kaufmann viewed him as a master philosopher and psychologist,

Nietzsche had been more frequently portrayed as a cultural prophet with a

strikingly eccentric literary style. This dominant portrayal, however, was a

step up from Nietzsche's earlier caricature as a philosopher of Nazism.

My first exposures to Nietzsche's work were typically accompanied by a

host of professorial disclaimers: Nietzsche is not really a philosopher because

he rarely advances arguments; his aphorisms may be stimulating but they

certainly are not susceptible to critical analysis; Nietzsche is important as an

historical figure, perhaps as a precursor of European existentialism, but his

Preface xiii

work is fatally flawed by pervasive self-contradictions; he embodied stylistic

flair and a poetic temperament, but his writing is unrigorous and undisci￾plined; Nietzsche's work too often degenerates into abusive ad hominem,

genetic fallacies, and self-referential paradoxes; and he too frequently

provokes and irritates readers by his rhetoric excess and by his idiosyncratic

subjectivism.

From the standpoint of the analytic strains of philosophy pervasive in

Anglo-America during the 1950s through the 1990s, such charges were and

are devastating. Nietzsche was permitted into the cherished enclaves of

Anglo-America philosophy more as an amusing side

show than as a full-fledged member.

Upon becoming a philosophy professor, I often taught Nietzsche in my

undergraduate classes but I did so only in introductory courses, as a way of

stirring the imagination of those still untutored in analytic philosophy, and as

a challenge to the stultifying conformity embodied by most freshmen.

But that changed in the spring semester of 1996, when I taught an ad￾vanced undergraduate seminar on Nietzsche. Spurred on by a group of bright

students and by other compulsions, I immersed myself in Nietzsche's thought,

voraciously reading most of his published work and a sizeable amount of the

secondary literature. The Nietzsche Seminar became part of my regular

teaching rotation. I found Nietzsche unique among philosophers: he was

impossible to ignore.

The Third Story

On June 24, 2011, a former student wrote the following, “You may not

remember me, but I took a couple of your courses at SUNY Fredonia￾Philosophy of Sex and Love, and the Socrates Seminar about 6 years ago. I am

at a very transitional point in my life and career and what happens for me at

these points in my life is that I begin to get nostalgic as I reflect on what has

led me ‘here.’ I am writing you to tell you that you have influenced me. I

completed my Masters in Social Work, and I am nearly done with my Masters

in Marriage and Family Therapy, and as I am working with my clients, or

thinking about my own happiness or fulfillment, I hear your voice in my head

asking the question, ‘How should I live my life?’ I only minored in philoso￾phy, but I want you to know that through these two classes, you taught me

how to be a critical thinker. At my clinic, I get labeled as the therapist who

‘thinks outside the box,’ when really I am just being a philosopher. I am a

philosopher because of my connection to you. I tell people all the time: ‘I am

not just a therapist. I am and will always be a Psychologist, a Social Worker, a

Philosopher and a student.’ Thank you so much for your inspiration.”

I remembered her well. She was uncommonly bright, graced with a

warm personality and a strong work ethic. Her success after graduation was

due entirely to her own efforts. That six years later she would be so thoughtful

xiv JESUS OR NIETZSCHE

as to attribute some reflected credit to me speaks more about her generosity

than it does about the value of my teaching.

But she reminded me of that enduring, paramount question, “How

should I live my life?” and thereby inspired the subtitle of this work. This

question, along with cosmological inquiries about the nature of the world,

animated Western philosophy in its earliest recorded years. Given that belief

in the Greek and Roman gods failed to provide substantive guidelines for

everyday living, philosophy arose in large measure as practical instruction in

the art of living the good human life. Thus, the predominant Greek philosoph￾ical schools—The Academy (originally Platonic), The Peripatetics (originally

Aristotelian), Stoicism, and Epicureanism—offered different definitions of

the good life; diverse recipes for attaining such a life; and competing accounts

of why those recipes were successful.

That Jesus and Nietzsche provide vastly different answers to the ques￾tion of “How should I live my life?” is well known. By studying carefully

their definitions, recipes, and accounts of what constitutes the good human

life we can understand better who we are and who we might be. Moreover, by

writing this book I can keep faith with my former student’s conviction that we

should all strive to be lifelong learners. Such is the genesis of this work.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Numerous people contributed to this work directly or indirectly. As always,

my family comes first. My wife, Marcia, as always, provided immeasurable

emotional support and critical commentary as I undertook this project. An

eighteenth-century Italian playwright, Carlo Goldoni, wrote “Muore per meta

chi lascia un' immagine di se stesso nei figi.” (“He only half dies who leaves

an image of himself in his sons.”) I am fortunate to have spawned and raised a

son, Angelo, who extravagantly exceeds my image in every important way. I

am blessed twice by having also a daughter, Vittoria, whose unwavering

sense of justice, boundless capability to love, and intense family pride are

prized by all who know her. As always, that this book will long outlive its

author and my words will be available to torment my children when I am no

longer here warms my spirit.

Thanks to Kathryn Glenwright, the former student who six years after

graduation thoughtfully posted me, for granting permission to reprint her

message here. Thanks also to Olli Loukola, editor of the Ethical Theory and

Practice series at Rodopi, who steadfastly supported this project and was an

ongoing source of sound advice and good cheer. I deeply appreciate Olli’s

contribution of a generous Foreword to this work. Thanks to Eric van

Broekhuizen, acquisitions editor for the Value Inquiry Book Series at Rodopi,

who, as always, added his expertise to the production process and who dealt

patiently and considerately with an author, who was too often impatient and

annoying. Finally, thanks to Joanne Foeller, the wizard of book formatting

who corrected my numerous errors and prepared the final manuscript with

unmatched efficiency, grace, and excellence.

The author and publisher gratefully acknowledge permission to reprint,

adapt, or revise material from my book, Stalking Nietzsche (Westport, CT:

Greenwood Press, 1998).

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

As is the common practice in Nietzsche and Biblical scholarship, when I have

cited from Nietzsche’s writings or from the canonical scripture, the references

in all cases have been given immediately in the text and not in the notes. I

used multiple versions of the texts. All references are to sections, not page

numbers. I have used the following abbreviations:

AC The Anti-Christ (1895)

BGE Beyond Good and Evil (1886)

BT The Birth of Tragedy (1872)

D The Dawn (1881)

EH Ecce Homo (1908)

GM On the Genealogy of Morals (1887)

GS The Gay Science (1882)

HAH Human, All-Too-Human (1878)

NCW Nietzsche Contra Wagner (1888)

TI Twilight of the Idols (1889)

UM Untimely Meditations (1873–1876)

WP The Will to Power (unpublished notebooks, 1883–1888)

WS The Wanderer and His Shadow (1880)

Z Thus Spoke Zarathustra (1883–1885)

Matt. The Gospel of Matthew

Mark The Gospel of Mark

Luke The Gospel of Luke

John The Gospel of John