Grant Pierce answers “what exactly does "God is dead" mean, and...”

Timothy Morrison asked this question about The Gay Science: With a Prelude in Rhymes and an Appendix of Songs:

what exactly does "God is dead" mean, and what exactly is the role of the mad man in this book?

Grant Pierce That is a great question. The answer is complicated and gets at the heart of Nietzsche's philosophy but I will do my best to explain it.

When Nietzsche…moreThat is a great question. The answer is complicated and gets at the heart of Nietzsche's philosophy but I will do my best to explain it.

When Nietzsche writes "God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him" he does not literally mean that God has died, rather he means that the idea of God and by extension Judaeo/Christian morality and even the idea of morality have been destroyed by humanity's scientific, cultural and philosophical development. However, this often quoted line is misunderstood by many.

This is why understanding the madman is important. The madman in the parable is essentially Zarathustra (from Nietzsche's later work, Thus Spoke Zarathustra) and a representation of Nietzsche himself. He is a "madman" because he holds views and opinions that are far removed from those of common people (atheists included). He is prophetic. The beginning of the parable explains that the villagers standing in the market are common atheists who scoff at and mock the madman (Nietzsche) for his frantic search for God (morality, purpose, meaning, truth). They trivialize his desperate search and assume that the madman is either scared of atheists, a proselytizer from another land, or a religious fool.

None of these assumptions is correct. Because the villagers do not understand what he is doing and saying, the madman "jumped into their midst and pierced them with his eyes" and attempts to convey to the villagers how deep and profound the death of "God" is. He likens "God's" death to the earth being unchained from the sun, the wiping away of the horizon, continuous night, falling through an infinite nothing, etc.

In the next paragraph, the madman uses rhetorical questions to attempt to explain to the villagers why "God's" death is as calamitous as he just described. "Who will wipe this (God's) blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games will we have to invent?" These questions are really just one big question: Given the destruction of objective morality, meaning, and purpose, what principles can we believe in, what morality can we follow, what purpose can we live for, and do principles, morality, and purpose even mean anything anymore? Essentially, it is the question of nihilism.

The villagers do not understand what the madman means because although they do not believe in God, they have (unknowingly) retained the morality, principles, and purpose of people who do believe in God. But God is dead, so morality, principles, and purpose die with him. Because of their lack of understanding the villagers simply stare at the madman in silence. Seeing this, the madman smashes his lantern and says that he "has come too early" because the people have yet to grasp the implications of atheism.

The madman and Nietzsche himself were both confronted with the void of nihilism upon understanding the implications of their atheism. Nihilism, when lived or really understood, feels, as Nietzsche wrote, like "straying, as through an infinite nothing" or "plunging continually... backward, sideward, forward, in all directions." Understandably, this is not a pleasant experience and is potentially even less pleasant that extreme physical and emotional pain. Given this realization (nihilism) and the experience associated with it, no wonder the madman began desperately searching for some way to escape, to find objective morality, truth, meaning, and purpose.(less)

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