American Nietzsche: A History of an Icon and His Ideas

by Jennifer Ratner-Rosenhagen

Nietzsche’s “bitter tonic,” Figgis contended, was necessary insofar as it showed the bad faith of liberal faith. Nietzsche reminded modern Christians that any life worth living comes at a cost, and any faith worth having is a faith which demands something of the believer. Nietzsche had performed a “direct service to the Christian, and is far less antagonistic than he supposed,” for he helped retrieve the true meaning of Christian living from those tendencies in modern life that were cheapening it. Why call Nietzsche an enemy for demonstrating that the modern church was increasingly peopled with half-hearted believers who used their Christianity as a moral conceit? Let the all-too-human masses have their easy comforts, their blind faith in progress, their delight in breezy entertainments, and their romantic attachment to moral platitudes. But those who recognize the “tremendous greatness of life” understood with Nietzsche that true Christian faith is intractably difficult. Likewise, any God worthy of belief must be a God worthy of awe. Nietzsche had shown that “life is tragic, and that man needs redemption.” Impressed by his commitment to martial virtues, Figgis affirmed that “the price for the world’s ransom must be paid in blood. The world would not be worth redeeming could it be paid in any lower coinage.”