Nietzsche at the foot of the cross: a meditation on Good Friday.

Why bring up Friedrich Nietzsche on Good Friday? After all, he is the philosopher who announced the death of God and wrote a book specifically against Christians called The Anti-Christ. However, there is an old joke in Christian circles that says Nietzsche was right only one night a year. And Good Friday is Nietzsche's night.

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Let there be no mistake, Nietzsche was not fond of Christians. The Anti-Christ is a serious attack on much of history and Christian teaching. But deep in the heart of that work, in the middle of his criticisms of the church and churchgoers, Nietzsche changes course for a moment and says that while he dislikes Christians he admires Jesus. He even begins to discuss Jesus' death on the cross. Here's what Nietzsche says: Good Friday is about love. Christians have confused the issue, thinking it is about sacrifice and suffering and guilt. But it's not. It's about love.

Traditional atonement theology leads a person away from love, according to Nietzsche. He sees atonement theology as rooted in an unhealthy view of punishment which Jesus did not share. To understand his criticisms, one must first consider Nietzsche's psychology of crime and punishment. He claims that our desire to punish those whom we deem criminal comes from our ressentiment, our shameful desire to hurt others without admitting that we are hurting others.

Nietzsche thinks that human nature contains both creative and destructive desires. The current dominating morality, the slave morality as Nietzsche calls it, teaches that the latter desires are evil, hateful, and despicable. Thus, we suppress these urges; yet they creep to the surface in our every "moral" judgment. Because those who destroy are evil, we reason, they deserve to be destroyed, and because those who conquer are hateful, they deserve to be conquered by our hate.

The person who lives under the slave morality--and Nietzsche is convinced that includes most of us--resents deeply those who destroy and who conquer. The person knows he should not do these evil things, and yet he wants to do them. So when he sees the conqueror his resentment flares, and all the primordial urge to destroy comes to the surface as he turns his hatred on the conqueror. Finally, here is someone whom it is considered good to torture, to humiliate, to punish, to destroy. And the "moral" person rejoices in the conquest against evil, festively cheering the destruction of the "evil-doer." Nietzsche explains in Thus Spake Zarathustra, And others are proud of their handful of justice and commit outrages against all things for its sake, till the world is drowned in their injustice. Oh, how ill the word virtue comes out of their mouths! And when they say, "I am just," it always sounds like "I am just--revenged." With their virtue they want to scratch out the eyes of their enemies, and they exalt themselves only to humble others. (1)

Nietzsche finds this behavior hypocritical, unhealthy, and nauseating. And he sees this behavior in the followers of Jesus, but not in Jesus himself. He speaks of the disciples standing at the foot of the cross in a state of resentment. He writes, "shaken and disappointed to their depths, the suspicion that such a death might be the refutation of their cause, the frightful question mark 'why has this happened?'--this condition is only too understandable." (2) Of course the disciples asked "Who killed him?" Of course they looked for a scapegoat, says Nietzsche.

But as understandable as their questions and their behavior were, and as typical as it is of most Christians, Nietzsche insists that it was all profoundly un-Christ-like. Nietzsche writes, "Clearly the little community had failed to understand precisely the main thing, the exemplary element in his manner of dying, the freedom from, the superiority over every feeling of ressentiment...." (3) What was remarkable to Nietzsche is how Jesus died without vengeance, without hate. Jesus was not a member of the slave morality. He did not love the victim and hate the victor. He, as victim, died only with love. The reader of the Gospels knows that Jesus' first word from the cross, his only word about his fellow humans, was "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."

This was hard for the disciples to take, according to Nietzsche. It is hard for most of us to believe that someone could suffer so horribly and die so cruelly and feel nothing but love. It seems more natural that he would want to have his accusers punished. It seems that he should blame someone. Even if Jesus didn't, his followers then and now want to blame someone for this crime, as Nietzsche asserts. The history of Christianity is marred by the need to blame. Nietzsche writes of those disciples who quickly blamed the Jews, especially the Pharisees, and the ruling classes within Judaism. A quick glance at history reveals others who have been blamed. Poets put Judas in the lowest ring of Hell, his head being chewed by Satan himself. Others blame Pilate, or the Romans. And any historian knows Nietzsche is right; too many have blamed the Jews. Millions of Jews have suffered and died because they were blamed for the death of this Jew Jesus.

As Nietzsche knew, some who pride themselves on tolerance still are quick to blame others. Such persons might criticize anti-Semitism, but they are quick to say that the real villains are the rich, the oppressors. Not Judas but the rich corporate owner will lie tortured in Hell, while the oppressed migrant worker will be free at last, sitting at the feet of Jesus. The rich and powerful are always happy targets for those caught in the slave morality, according to Nietzsche. Slaves are taught to love the victim and hate the oppressor. Goodness is defined as being conquered, evil as being the conqueror. And the only person one can "morally" dream of conquering is the oppressive conqueror. Surely even Jesus blamed the rich and powerful! That is what his followers thought and still think.

But Jesus did not behave in this way. according to Nietzsche. Even as he hung on the cross, he continued to hang on to belief in the "evangelic equal right of everyone to be a child of God." (4) But it was too difficult for the followers of Jesus to think of the beloved hung upon the cross and not be able to blame someone. As Nietzsche writes. "And now an absurd problem came up: 'How could God have permitted that?'" (5)

The Christian is unsettled by that question. Deep inside, the thinking Christian knows Nietzsche is right to say that ressentiment is unChristlike. Thus, many Christians try to resist blaming the Jews, or Judas, or Pilate, or the Romans, or even the rich. Saint Paul and many parishioners in the pew know that it is hypocritical to blame and to hate on a day when Jesus welcomed even the criminal into his Father's kingdom. So what can they answer when they wonder "How could God have permitted that?" Nietzsche says, they ignore the love from the cross and embrace a "downright terrifyingly absurd answer": "God gave his Son for the forgiveness of sins, as a sacrifice." Nietzsche cries, "All at once it was all over with the Gospel!" (5)

From Paul to the modern Christian, Good Friday is marked by words of sacrifice for our guilt, according to Nietzsche. Like Paul, many Christians have decided the only person one can truly blame for the death of Christ is one's self. Rather than listen to a word of love, the Christian clings to the slave morality's hatred and resentment. But instead of turning this hate outward, the belief is taught that the only hate that is acceptable before the cross is self-hatred. And so it is to self-hatred that the Christian clings as he or she worships on Good Friday.

A glance at our practices may reveal that he is right. What do Christians do in Holy Week and on Good Friday? We force ourselves to play the role of the crowd and shout "Crucify Him! Crucify Him!" on Passion Sunday. We meditate during Holy Week on our sins. We tell ourselves that every harsh look, every coveted luxury, every adulterous thought grinds the nails deeper into Christ's flesh. We identify with the criminal hanging on the cross beside Jesus. We sing that we are Barabbas who is set free while the innocent Jesus dies for our sins. We mourn that we are Pilate who does not stand up against the crowd. We confess that we are like Peter who denies our Lord. We admit we are Judas who chooses money over God.

The dark church on Good Friday is filled with the self-debasing resentment Nietzsche decries. And if the words of Jesus' love are preached, they are preached in that twisted context of self-hatred. It is self-hatred when the pastor says something like "It's okay, because Jesus loves you anyway. And his death that you caused with your terrible sins will actually make you free." Our tears are tears of guilt and horror as much as gratitude that Jesus could still love us, such miserable sinners.

Nietzsche finds the scene nauseatingly horrible. He decries this view of the cross. Instead of appearing as the anti-Christ, Nietzsche confronts Christians with the gospel. "What atrocious paganism!" he declares. "For Jesus had done away with the concept 'guilt' itself--he had denied any chasm between God and man, he lived this unity of God and man as his 'glad tidings.'" (6)

Here in this sentence is the heart of Christian philosophical ethics and metaphysics. It is ironic that it is proclaimed so eloquently by an anti-Christian. But perhaps it takes a radical voice to shock Christians enough to realize that the point of the cross has been missed entirely. The "pagan" view of the cross misunderstands Jesus's death. It fosters the desire to hate and blame by encouraging the believer to turn against him or herself. And in doing so this view creates chasms between God and human, chasms which the cross was supposed to destroy.

When this view is preached, the need to blame is not exorcised but instead encouraged. Unlike Christ, the believer is encouraged to continue to blame and hate the self. At the foot of the cross, the worshipper is left in a state of self-debasing guilt. Worse, in this state of self-resentment the believer has set herself away from God. In the guilt she feels for having killed God she has dug a chasm that separates herself from God even as God had just collapsed such a chasm. The profound metaphysical move that was made on Good Friday is lost upon her.

When Nietzsche writes that Jesus "lived this unity of God and man as his glad tidings" he reminds Christians that the life and death of Jesus, Immanuel, is God with us. It is ironic that Nietzsche, who did not believe that Jesus is God, reminds Christians of the profound worldview they hold if they do believe Jesus is God. On Good Friday we did not kill God. God suffered as we suffer. God died, so that even in death we are not alone, not separated from God. God is with us everywhere, even in pain, even in torture, even in the darkness of death. The message of Good Friday is the same as Christmas is for the believer. As God was born with us, so God dies with us. God is with us. The chasm between God and us does not exist.

Nietzsche reminds us that when we feel guilt we blow open the chasm that Jesus preached had been closed. When we feel unworthy, we close our eyes to the very love of God and the very ontological reality of God in our lives that the cross proclaims.

Here we get a profound lesson in Christian ethics: We are called not to hate and resent but to love. And this calling to love includes not only the right attitude toward others but toward ourselves too. Suddenly, Nietzsche becomes the pastor his father was. He chastises those who teach that Christ suffered because of you or me. He criticizes those who preach that Christ suffered for you or me. The Anti-Christ proclaims that Jesus' teachings mean that Christ suffers with you and me.

What is a Christian to do with this message from Nietzsche? First, I do not claim that Nietzsche is a Christian. He certainly did not believe that Jesus was God. In fact, in the midst of these very passages Nietzsche firmly states that part of the disciple's "revenge consisted in exalting Jesus in an extravagant fashion, in severing him from themselves; just as the Jews, in revenge on their enemies, had previously separated their God from themselves and raised him on high. The one God and the one Son of God: both products of ressentiment...." (7) Nietzsche concludes that part of the misguided response to Jesus' death includes the belief that Jesus was the Son of God.

But Nietzsche profoundly reminds Christians about the philosophical consequences of their religious beliefs. He forces Christian thinkers to reexamine their ethics. By re-revealing that Jesus lives and dies without hate and resentment, he requires us to rethink our own hatred and resentment toward others and ourselves. This results in a reevaluation of all values, just as Nietzsche stated. We cannot rest content loving good but hating evil without seriously thinking about our own psyches and the causes of our own resentment. Such a study may lead to Christian health instead of the Christian sickness Nietzsche so deplored.

Nietzsche raises the important and often ignored issue of Christian metaphysics. When he claims that Jesus taught the unity of human beings and God, he reminds Christians of their fundamental metaphysical stance that separates them from nearly every other philosophical system. Indeed, Alfred North Whitehead proclaimed that Christian theology holds the only metaphysical innovation since Plato. The idea that God is with us, that God was born in the blood of a human woman, that God lived on the dust of the earth, that God died on a material cross, and that God was resurrected with fleshy scars upon his hands, is a shocking metaphysical view. It states that blood, dust, matter, and flesh are not ontologically or axiologically lower than God. Indeed, they can contain the fullness of God. This view has profound consequences for how we see ourselves, our value, and our importance. This view aids us in our ability to follow the ethical imperative that we are to love and not resent our fellow material beings--and ourselves.

In the end, I think Nietzsche has done Christians a great service in his short Good Friday sermon in the middle of The Anti-Christ. He has given us much to think about and discuss as we examine our views of what it means philosophically to believe in a God who died on the cross.

1. Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Virtuous, Thus Spake Zarathustra, in The Portable Nietzsche, ed. and trans. Walter Kaufmann (New York: Viking Penguin, 1954), 207.

2. Nietzsche, The Anti-Christ, ed. and trans. Walter Kaufmann (New York: Vintage Books, 1967), 162.

3. Nietzsche, The Anti-Christ, 163.

4. Nietzsche, The Anti-Christ, 163.

5. Nietzsche, The Anti-Christ, 164.

6. Nietzsche, The Anti-Christ, 163.

7. Nietzsche, The Anti-Christ, 163.

Jennifer Hockenbery

Assistant Professor of Philosophy Mount Mary College, Milwaukee, Wisconsin [e-mail]