Here I will attempt a thorough investigation into one of Nietzsche's great works, The Will To Power. As it is very dense, the chosen excerpt is from the preface and within it are many of his summarized ideas. In this work lies Nietzsche's words on nihilism, something many people credit him as a proponent of. In my article, I will attempt to show how Nietzsche did not view nihilism as a solution or end goal but instead a stepping stone from one era to the next. Let us begin!

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"Why has the advent of nihilism become necessary?"

Well, it seems the nihilists only bothered to read this far. I guess they don't believe in reading either!

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"Because the values we have had hitherto thus draw their final consequence; because nihilism represents the ultimate logical conclusion of our great values and ideals-because we must experience nihilism before we can find out what value these 'values' really had."

What values does Nietzsche talk about? To give a short answer, he is speaking about the Judeo-Christian influence serving as a bedrock of Western spirituality. What is it about this value system that logically concludes with nihilism? As we'll see later, Nietzsche points out that when one of our value systems collapses, especially one we've put most of our energy into, we feel as if none are sufficient.

So, with the Judeo-Christian emphasis on truth and honesty, which has been used to intimidate, scare, and force people into belief, as well as overstep its bounds and explain things outside of the theological domain (science, history), our values draw their untenable consequence out of what was once thought to be an unforeseeable future. Of course, we all know where Christianity has overstepped it's bounds, and use that as the reason we shouldn't believe in it. Nietzsche concludes that the loss in one system, particularly the Christian one, leads to nihilism.

Noahs ark could never hold all the animals in existence twofold, and there could never be a world-wide flood! A burning bush that speaks? Oceans that are parted by command? Have these people even heard of evolution?

Well, have you heard of theological and moral interpretation? Chances are, most likely not. The reason for such a loss of moral interpretation will be addressed by Nietzsche shortly, but the reason that most people in Western countries don't bother with moral questions such as "is it better to tell the truth?" and "would it help our community if we trusted each other?" is because we've had a religious foundation that brought those values into existence for us. However, we've lost the notion that this is a truth brought by religion, and instead, post-enlightenment values have proven we accredit such behavior to our inherent nature.

So, if we're not bothering with moral questions, what are we asking? All that's left are scientific questions. Therefore, the only interpretation left is a scientific one. Did Noah's ark symbolize God cleansing the world of its sin after the story of Cane and Abel, to return mankind to a cleaner, washed-over state, renewed? No, it's an impossible story about a lunatic who stole all the animals and dreamed up a worldwide flood.

Does God speaking light into existence and calling some good and some bad mean that the most powerful and important of our abilities, with the most potential for creation or destruction, our ideas communicated through speech, should be held in high regard and trained to perfection? No, we only look for continuity in comparison to the Big Bang.

We've lost our moral interpretive lens. Nietzsche's words on that note would be not only that we've lost God, but killed him.

However, does this mean that our moral values are worthless? No, of course not. But for us to know "what value these 'values' really had " we must experience the loss of them. Perhaps then we'd appreciate them. I've mentioned this in articles before, but here's an example detailing the importance of ideas in Genesis regarding open speech and communication as creating a better world: remember how the Soviets had anti-soviet propaganda laws? If you spoke against the system, you'd be shipped off to forced labor!

We've--from a religious perspective--attempted to put ourselves in the shoes of a creator we conceptualized but did not create ourselves. When tens of millions die in a system with such failed laws--within decades, mind you, not over the course of multiple millennia --we see the consequences of a loss of the values Nietzsche knew we'd have to experience nihilism to value once more.

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"Nihilism stands at the door: whence comes this un-canniest of all guests? Point of departure: it is an error to consider 'social distress' or 'physiological degeneration,' or corruption of all things, as the cause of nihilism. Ours is the most honest and compassionate age. Distress, whether psychic, physical, or intellectual, need not at all produce nihilism (that is, the radical rejection of value, meaning, and desirability). Such distress always permits a variety of interpretations. Rather: it is in one particular interpretation, the Christian moral one, that nihilism is rooted."

"Social distress" and "physiological degeneration" can be put simply as things wrong with the world, and things wrong with you. However, Nietzsche clarifies we must be thankful for our time; "Ours is the most honest and compassionate age." In a nutshell, what he means is that the age we live in is substantially more enlightened morally, scientifically, and socially than the previous ones.

Speaking of corruption and disease, even in regards to one's self, isn't sufficient distress to produce nihilism because A) those things have always existed, and if everyone acted nihilistically we would all be dead, and B) we live in the time best suited to addressing those issues, so a bit of hope is appropriate and you can believe in what we have. In other words, your worries can be universal, but a solution has been in place that has yielded positive results.

Nietzsche goes a step further, claiming that "psychic, physical, or intellectual" distress need not produce nihilism because "such distress always permits a variety of interpretations." This is a bit tricky! On one hand, he concedes that people have distress itself, in a wide domain of categories as well, and they'd like not to. However, because such distress doesn't guarantee every person will act the same, nihilism is not necessary as the sole answer because there is the possibility of acting in a voluntarily triumphant and over-coming manner.

For example: if you are kidnapped (and that could fall under both psychic or physical distress), you could decide to NEVER kidnap anyone EVER if you get out. But, you could also thereafter be fall victim to Stockholm syndrome. You could even be convinced that this is good and become a kidnapper yourself. In one situation, one distress--kidnapping--a variety of actions can be taken by the impacted individuals.

"Such distress always permits a variety of interpretations." So, if nihilism is not a permissible response to the distress we all experience because our experiences can lead to a variety of conclusions, and we live in the age best suited to ameliorating our distress, ("whether psychic, physical, or intellectual") Nietzsche places the blame for nihilism on "one particular interpretation, the Christian moral one."

Part of this might be due to the fact that people, in the past, would pray for help from a Christian God no matter what their problem was--no matter what domain it fell under, whether moral or scientific. During the time of ancient Rome, when a historical Jesus hypothetically walked the Earth, people most likely considered physical abnormalities and physiological diseases a curse from evil spirits simply because this was the only interpretation of the world that they had.

With the development of medicine, for example, the loss of a moral interpretation was seen in the field that medicine rules over. You don't house demons, which are what is giving you seizures, 'because you have a bad character', you have epilepsy. Such a realization over time has caused us to look away from our Christian interpretation continually, and in our time now, soaked in rags of its morality but unbeknownst to our dress, we think we've abandoned it. However, because we feel it under our skin and within the air we breathe, pumping blood through our culture, we cannot help but realize how false it is when interpreted in certain domains--scientific--that came after it's Genesis, simply because the dissonance in the reasoning Christianity had to provide compared to the ones, say, science had to provide, lead us to look towards science.

Now, we have scientific answers to questions such as "what are things made out of?" However, if this is our only interpretation of the world, we struggle with the question "how should we act?" (Which is why we actually cannot abandon Christianity completely, which is why Sam Harris is a living, breathing, Christian. You don't get to keep the morality and dispense with the metaphysics. You are not God-- even though that was Nietzsche's solution, but he held Christianity in a more positive light even if incredibly negatively).

We've muddied how we look at Christianity, which causes nihilism because at a time when it was the only explanation for much of the questions people had--both "what are things made out of?" ('what's causing this disease?', say) and "how should we act?" (what helps a community)--it was necessary to provide answers to implement authority. Now it can freely abandon the scientific domain. However, we have not stopped criticizing its scientific claims.

Surely enough, we've lost hope in both its scientific and moral claims. But we live off of its moral claims! Confusing, right? Well, such distress need not produce nihilism. And it doesn't because we haven't abandoned it's moral claims.

The most amount of stress you can produce--which Nietzsche says can lead to nihilism!--comes when you lose within yourself a moral direction. From there, you literally do not know how to act. So, how can "non-believers" continue to act?

Even die-hard atheists live every day of their lives reciting the commandments through action. Acting every single one out is something they will admit to except for the one dictating we shan't hold Gods other than the one true Christian one. But if we're living his words, are we not embodying his will? And if we are embodying his will voluntarily, are we not choosing to believe?

Some will say no! But you can't call things what they aren't. That is the criticism brought up by the same aforementioned people to the claims Christianity has incorrectly made as evidence they don't believe in it.

It isn't true that the world was created in seven days! I won't believe it!

It is true that telling the truth, respecting the community, and helping the poor is good, I will act it out!

Do you see the problem with such an absolutist approach to a detailed matter, reader?

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"The end of Christianity--at the hands of its own morality (which cannot be replaced), which turns against the Christian God: the sense of truthfulness, highly developed by Christianity, is nauseated by the falseness and mendaciousness of all Christian interpretations of the world and of history; rebound from 'God is the truth' to the fanatical faith 'All is false'; an active Buddhism.

Skepticism regarding morality is what is decisive. The end of the moral interpretation of the world, which no longer has any sanction after it has tried to escape into some beyond, leads to nihilism. 'All lacks meaning.' (The untenability of one interpretation of the world, upon which a tremendous amount of energy has been lavished, awakens the suspicion that all interpretations of the world are false.)..."

Again, I'll restate what I've tried to say but perhaps more clearly. Nietzsche states "the sense of truthfulness, highly developed by Christianity, is nauseated by the falseness and mendaciousness of all Christian interpretations of the world and of history." Christianity, over time, has over-stepped its bounds. Should it interpret the world and history? Well, evolution exists, the world wasn't created in seven days, floods are not worldwide, etc, etc, etc.

However, the sense of truthfulness is both what makes it great and causes it to fall on its own sword. For, when Christianity interprets morality it has produced communities based off of the ten commandments, the beatitudes, and so forth. These moral interpretations tell us to serve, tell the truth, be compassionate, and love one another.

The sense of truthfulness within the moral claims has contributed to the belief in those moral claims. The sense of truthfulness within the non-moral--scientific, historical--claims has contributed to the loss of belief in not just those non-moral but also those moral claims over time.

This should be obvious! "The untenability of one interpretation of the world, upon which a tremendous amount of energy has been lavished, awakens the suspicion that all interpretations of the world are false. " Well, picture what a young person feels when they've just been cheated on for the first time. Who among us hasn't had a rough relationship and tempted themselves with concluding thatall relationships are too painful to be good! ...or something along those lines. The point is, humans can abstract the level of significance certain scenarios should bear and in doing so open ourselves up to miscalculated conclusions.

Just because one car breaks down, most others can, but most likely won't as a result of one breaking down. Most fruit will spoil but won't because one does. Even most people can kill but won't because one person does. But we often draw these kinds of conclusions, and this is Nietzsche's telling of our loss of God. We've found domains where it's been both true (moral) and incorrect (scientific), but one hint at anything about Christianity being incorrect and we jump to thinking that it is all false.

"...rebound from 'God is the truth' to the fanatical faith 'All is false.'"

There lies nihilism.

"Skepticism regarding morality is what is decisive. The end of the moral interpretation of the world, which no longer has any sanction after it has tried to escape into some beyond, leads to nihilism. " Here Nietzsche delivers a critical blow to Christian attempts to comfort us. Trying to "escape into some beyond " also has led to the "all is false" conclusion because we don't want to focus on the after-life and reward of Heaven when this life before us here and now is sufficient with suffering and needs to be addressed! But these little gaping holes have left us to be skeptics of the morality, and in Nietzsche's words, that "is what is decisive."

Nietzsche presents a hypothesis that we've stopped our "moral interpretation of the world" because the holes in its story (the Christian story--particularly it's scientific and historical interpretations) lead us only to see holes without words between them, nothing within which to provide faith. We, therefore, cling to science and rationalism, things we can hold in our hands and feel are true but will never guide us or direct us. The morality of a rock is non-existent, although science can tell you all about it! You, however, are not a rock...

Nietzsche brilliantly, later in the book, also claims this is a reason people flee into the arms of totalitarians. If "all is false," what is more comforting than totalitarian certainty, where there is no missing solution to a problem? (In fact, this was the very reason they didn't let people speak against the state in Soviet Russia if you did, you were evidence the system wasn't perfect!) This isn't addressed in the preface but is worth knowing. Totalitarianism must live in our memories and die at our hands.

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"Against this 'meaninglessness' on one hand, against our moral prejudices on the other: to what extent was all science and philosophy so far influenced by moral judgments? and will this not arouse the hostility of science? or an anti-scientific mentality?...A critique of Christian morality is still lacking."

The "extent [that] all science and philosophy [was] so far influenced by moral judgments " is a perfect way to explain Christianity overstepping its bounds. All the Christian stories that had to be told in order to provide Christianity authority in scientific and philosophical domains--because if it didn't have that authority, people wouldn't grant it moral authority--eventually ruined its credibility in the moral domain. Do you see now, reader, why you can't get your opinion from one doctrine?

By the same token though, won't devout believers begin to doubt science itself? For the absolute truth is that Christian moral interpretations have been correct to an extent, and Christian scientific interpretations have been incorrect to the furthest extent, but what has come about in the world are people who see the former and assume the latter must be false (evangelists, we could call them), and there are those who see the latter and assume the former must be false (atheists, they pretend to be...). So, why is it that we have managed to have both proof for evolution, and evolution-deniers?...

Do you see now, reader, why your opinion will require knowledge of multi-dimensional and widely different domains? But do not despair, the domains do not overlap, morality does not describe your physiology, science doesn't tell us right from the wrong action. You have nothing to worry about until you choose to.

"will this not arouse the hostility of science? or an anti-scientific mentality?"

Nietzsche's tension comes from the fact that we have not managed a true "critique of Christian morality."

My suggestion is this: if we truly want to find out what these values held, then judge them for what they are. We must dispense with their scientific claims because we know they are false, so there is no righteousness to be found in beating a dead horse. A better use of your time would be to critique the moral claims and moral axioms that have held Western civilization together. Even there, there is a lot to critique! For God's sake (or not, hahaha) Nietzsche wrote a book called The Antichrist!

This, however, all of this, in fact, is not in an effort to die in blind faith for Christianity or to destroy it (I've already expressed disdain for absolutist perspectives), but is done in hope that if we can truly critique it within the bounds it belongs, we'll improve ourselves within that bound. That bound is morality.

Arguably, morality is more important than science and progression. If we progress so much so that each and every one of us has the power of scientific tyranny at our fingertips, are we so sure we'll have scrutinized our moral beliefs well enough so that we know how to use that which we know how to create?

A nuclear bomb does not come with a moral instruction manual. The most truthful historical interpretation of the world and even predictions of its future yield enough evidence for that.

So, let's call morality what it is, accept Christianity where it belongs so we can improve it where it permits us and where it needs improvement, and live as close as we can to the Gods Nietzsche wanted us to be.

If not, we'll probably nuke each other to death.