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“Pessimism of Strength in Christianity”

A Reflection from Nietzsche’s Birth of Tragedy By

Christopher D. Salino

In order to become a good Christian or a genuine religious observant, one must

live in Jesus’ character and faith. Exemplifying the true Christian character, Jesus did not

turned away from his terrors such as facing suffering and death instead embraced it

powerfully with love. This was manifested in Jesus’ agony in the garden wherein

pessimism of strength was expressed. Jesus said, “Father take this cup of suffering away

of me, not my will, but your will be done” 1. From here, Jesus was seen struggling to

overcome his worries and fears to follow the Will of his Father by becoming the

sacrificial lamb of the world. Truly, Jesus transcended from His free will and defeated

pessimism by strength of faith.

The spirituality of Jesus was somehow mirrored in Nietzsche’s philosophy.

Particularly, in Nietzsche’s Birth of Tragedy the pessimism of strength is characterized as

“the way of joyous affirmation in the face of terror”2. Although Nietzsche hated

Christianity for its “slave morality”3, Nietzsche nevertheless affirmed the life of Jesus as

an example of embodiment of strength and a balanced unity of Dionysian and Apollonian

elements in living. Hence, Nietzsche and Jesus who found ecstasies in the cross were

affirming life in the face of terrors and miseries in life.

1
Luke 22: 42-43, God the Father’s will and Jesus’ will is one based on the Trinitarian Mystery
2
R. Kearney, “Friedrich Nietzsche: The Value to Existence”, Modern Movements in European Philosophy,
(New York: Manchester University Press, 1994), 491.
3
S. E. Stumpf and J. Fieser, “The Master Morality versus Slave Morality”, Socrates to Sartre and Beyond:
A History of Philosphy, 7th ed., (New York: McGraw-Hill Companies Inc., 2003), 385.
Nietzsche saw Jesus’ life as a tragedy, a beautiful art of human life. For

Nietzsche, it was interplay of Dionysian and Apollonian element or the power of the will

and constraint of reason. In the agony in the garden, the humanly Jesus struggled to

accept his Father’s will (the primordial and omnipotent Will that give force and life to all

beings) and while the God Jesus humbly and gladly affirms the call to be offered as

ransom of men from sin. In this sensational and passionate drama in Jesus’ life, tragedy

was born. Indeed, Jesus’ response of accepting the Father’s Will perhaps for Nietzsche an

art of great aesthetic value that pictures out a tragedy- joyous and passionate “affirmation

of the suffering and destruction of an individual”4.

Not only that Jesus considered himself the perfection of God’s plan for salvation

but also the manifestation of God’s Will for the universe. Jesus then in Nietzsche’s

philosophy is can be interpreted as the actual realization of the primordial will or the

hero- the “highest manifestation of the will”5. In the agony in the garden, Jesus was

affirmed again as truly the Son of God. Looking at this perspective, Jesus was the only

Christian for Nietzsche not only because Jesus was only the Son of God but its Jesus’

experience of “fusion with the primal being as the eternal, non individualized, primordial

root of the world”6 which was the will of his Father. For Nietzsche, “we are only images

and artistic projection for the true authors of our lives”7.

Tragedy expresses life. In tragedy, “the suffering of human life is not veiled or

withdrawn from sight”8. For life will be colorless and dry without experiencing any terror

4
R. Kearney, “Friedrich Nietzsche: The Value to Existence”, Modern Movements in European Philosophy,
(New York: Manchester University Press, 1994), 490.
5
Ibid, 491.
6
Ibid.
7
Ibid.
8
Ibid, 489.

2
and ecstasy in life. Nietzsche like Jesus saw tragedy not only as an expression of

pessimism of life but a way to affirm the value of life.

Life is not easy, and if it was easy what reward can we get from it. Experiencing

anguish, agony, torment mixed with joys and laughter gives the aesthetic value of life.

Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount reminds his disciples, “the gate to life is narrow and

the way that leads to it is hard, and there are few people who find it” 9. Indeed,

overcoming all the suffering and persecutions in life leads anyone to affirm the beauty

and value in life.

The apparent world does not promise comfortable life but a life of continuous

struggle to overpower. Both Jesus and Nietzsche had foreseen of the coming of chaos

and wars in the world. For Jesus, it was death to overpower, and for Nietzsche, denial of

life to overcome. To conclude, Nietzsche like Jesus transcends pessimism by strength in a

drama called tragedy- a life of the will made manifest.

The birth of tragedy for theists was found in Christianity. To become a Christian

was to be born in tragedy. A genuine Christian lived a tragic life like Jesus. Jesus said,

Those who does not take up their cross are not fit to be my disciple. Those who
try to gain their own life will lose it; but those who lose their life for my sake will
gain it”10.

To experience persecutions because of God’s name was to be a true follower of Jesus.

From here, Nietzsche’s pessimism of strength in a way reflects the passion of Jesus and

found its value in Christian living. Accepting joyfully and passionately these persecutions

exemplify Nietzsche and Jesus’ pessimism of strength.

9
Mathew 7: 14
10
Mathew 10: 38-39

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