Fear and Trembling in the Postmodern World: Part Three - Untergang
"The way upward and the way downward is one and the same." - Heraclitus
NOTE: This article is one part of a long-form essay. It is recommended that you read the parts in order for maximum clarity.
Part Three: Untergang
It is early morning in Germany, and the sun is rising. A new book has made its way into the world. A few years on, this work will inspire a tone poem by Richard Strauss, which will later go on to provide the triumphant opening to the film 2001: A Space Odyssey. But that is all in the realm of the future. This is today, and Friedrich Nietzsche is delivering to the world what is to become his most cherished book: Thus Spoke Zarathustra, a narrative that claims to present the teachings of the eponymous prophet.
This Zarathustra is nothing like the historical one, who founded the religion of Zoroastrianism. No, he has descended to earth upon a different purpose, and his arrival has the force of a lightning bolt. In awe at his teachings, a young man proclaims, “Yes, Zarathustra, you speak the truth. I desired my own going-under when I aspired to the heights, and you are the lightning for which I was waiting!”1
The truth that Zarathustra reveals to the world in Nietzsche’s work is complex, but it centers around the idea that, “The human is something that shall be overcome.”2 There is a higher state to which we must aspire: that of the Übermensch (usually translated “Overhuman”), in which we will no longer be slaves to primitive moralities and duties. A new freedom is offered to man, and the first thing he must do to reach this height is accept the truth that, “God is dead.”3
Nietzsche deserves respect for his willingness to address our greatest fears with brutal honesty, even if he was too optimistic about the possibilities that lay ahead once the “truth” was revealed. In a society where men no longer believed in the supernatural, he concluded that God was, for all practical purposes, dead. That is, loyalty to an all-powerful deity could no longer be the guiding light of man. To his credit, Nietzsche realized that this would lead irreversibly into a kind of nihilism. Once the traditional sources of morality were removed, the only meaning in life would be whatever humans create for themselves by strength of will.
“What is the great dragon that the spirit no longer likes to call Lord and God?” Zarathustra asks in one typical contrast. “‘Thou shalt’ is the name of the great dragon. But the spirit of the lion says ‘I will.’”4 The title of another one of Nietzsche’s classic works, The Will to Power, seems to encapsulate this idea. The philosopher saw mankind perched upon the brink of nihilism, afraid to jump. He sought to give them a push, that in their descent they might somehow right themselves.
What Nietzsche was promoting was a kind of crisis of faith, or at least an intellectual crisis. He describes this in Thus Spoke Zarathustra as an “Untergang” (going under/down) which is then followed by an “Übergang” (going over/beyond). At the beginning of the book, Zarathustra descends from the mountain where he has been engaged in contemplation to preach the truth to those below. This symbolizes what Nietzsche has in mind for those who seek to become Übermenschen. They must enter into a kind of psychological struggle in which the primitive ideas of the earthy man are extinguished, and a new, empowered identity emerges. Importantly, the fate of the individual in this struggle is not entirely certain. Untergang can also be translated as “downfall”, and thus there is an implied danger in this process. However, the goal is to transition to a new normal—or rather, a kind of super normal.
I am reminded of Kierkegaard’s description of “going further” than faith and how he saw this as a folly of his age. He likely would have sympathized with certain aspects of Nietzsche’s description of moral and intellectual struggle, even if he would have strongly objected to his conclusions. After all, the idea that one must in a sense “go under” or descend into the depths to ascend to a higher level of knowledge is almost as old as dirt.
More than half a millennium earlier, Dante Alighieri had composed his Divine Comedy, widely regarded as one of the greatest works of literature in the Western canon. At the beginning of his epic, Dante finds himself in “a dark wood” whose “very memory gives a shape to fear”.5 He endeavors to depart the wood and climb the celestial hill, but his way is blocked by a leopard, a lion, and a she-wolf. The ancient poet Virgil comes to his rescue but informs him that the only way to escape both the wood and the beasts is to descend with him into the abyss of Hell, then rise through the fiery hill of Purgatory until reaching the blessed heights of Heaven. Again, notice the pattern: you must go under to go up, only Dante aspires to an eternity in the divine presence while Nietzsche dreams of becoming an Übermensch in the here and now.
The concept of Untergang closely mirrors the dying and rising motif that has appeared at various points in mythological history. The ancient Egyptians saw this power in the phoenix, but Christianity likely contains the strongest version of Untergang. The Son of God descends to earth and endures a life of suffering, culminating in his death and burial, at which point he descends further “into hell”, to use the terminology of the Apostles’ Creed. This seems to be an ultimate perversion of divine justice. However, the Son of God is then raised to life and ascends into heaven. As symbolized in the ritual of baptism, this same model of death and rebirth is repeated in the life of the Christian. Nietzsche’s Untergang marked the end of faith and the death of God. The biblical Untergang is the beginning of faith and the resurrection to life.
The message of Christianity is therefore two-fold. On the one hand, it acknowledges that the spiritual path of the individual involves a kind of Untergang: a dying to self. It is full of Anfechtungen, or trials of faith. However, it also says loudly and clearly that there is one who has gone under on your behalf, and if you hope to rise, you must do so not only by listening to his teachings and putting them into practice, but by becoming united to him. Thus, the Apostle Paul wrote in his epistle to the Philippians of his desire to know Christ “and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.”6
This narrative, in which the spiritual journey of the individual is linked with and fulfilled in Christ, runs throughout the Christian scriptures. In the Old Testament, the oracle Agur laments,
Surely I am more stupid than any man,
And I do not have the understanding of a man.
Neither have I learned wisdom,
Nor do I have the knowledge of the Holy One.
Who has ascended into heaven and descended?
Who has gathered the wind in His fists?
Who has wrapped the waters in His garment?
Who has established all the ends of the earth?
What is His name or His Son’s name?
Surely you know!7
Likewise, Zophar rebukes his friend Job, saying,
Can you discover the depths of God?
Can you discover the limits of the Almighty?
They are high as the heavens, what can you do?
Deeper than Sheol, what can you know?8
In the ancient Hebrew understanding, Sheol was the place of the dead. It is also referred to in the Psalms as the “depths” or “pit”. King David speaks of it as both a physical location and a state of psychological torment. At one point, he complains to God, “You have put me in the lowest pit, in dark places, in the depths.”9 Thus, there is a sense in which God desires David’s going under, but the Almighty is also the one who will “bring me up again from the depths of the earth”.10
Leaving aside the scriptures, let us consider what Nietzsche is really proposing: a journey by which we may come to understand the ultimate truth. Is this reality subjective or objective? It is a general characteristic of humankind that we consider our own truth objective and all others subjective. But we can say with certainty that if there is a truth that is hidden from us, then it must somehow be revealed if we are to know it.
Perhaps we can seek it out by our own striving, but depending on how obscured it is, this might be insufficient. We may need someone “from the other side” to reveal it to us. Is that “other side” above or below? Is it in the depths or at the summit? And must we not descend into the depths to ascend to the heavens? That was what Nietzsche taught: we must all have a going under before we can go beyond. Untergang before Übergang.
The Christian scriptures make an exceedingly bold claim. They say that the man Jesus Christ was also divine. He was once unbound by space-time but entered into it. He knew the deep things and revealed them, and he was able to do so because he descended to ascend. The Gospel of John records his words: “If I told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things? No one has ascended into heaven, but He who descended from heaven: the Son of Man.”11 The Apostle Paul also wrote of him, “He who descended is Himself also He who ascended far above all the heavens, so that He might fill all things.”12
Nietzsche’s Zarathustra is more akin to Christ than his namesake. Like Christ, he withdraws from society to have a private encounter with the ultimate reality: if you will, a going under of spiritual testing or even temptation. Like Christ, he descends to earth to reveal truth to the people. Even the style of narrative chosen by Nietzsche mirrors the Gospels, but there is a major difference.
Zarathustra is unlike Christ in that he does not descend to suffer. No, he is the first Overhuman. He has come purely to conquer: not with weapons, but with words. Christ did not come to see his will done, but to see his Father’s will done. He descended not only to earth, but into death itself. He sought to change the people of the world not simply by convincing them of a higher truth, but by creating the higher truth that would be applied to them. His words were not presented as mere abstractions, but concrete reality. He did not call men to create a subjective truth for themselves, but to embrace the objective truth.
I suppose the chief question is, who creates the reality that we seek? Is it the lion who says, “I will,” or the God who says, “I will”? This consideration creates internal conflict. Which revelation should we believe? Where is the ultimate truth? We strive toward freedom, but are confronted with our own limitations. Even so, the Apostle Paul once instructed the Philippians to “work out your salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.”13 What kind of Untergang is this?
TO BE CONTINUED…
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Nietzche, Friedrich. Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Trans. Graham Parkes. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005. 38.
Ibid, 11.
Ibid.
Ibid, 24.
Alighieri, Dante. The Inferno. Trans. by John Ciardi. New York: New American Library, 2009. 4.
Philippians 3:10-11. The New American Standard Bible. Updated edition. The Lockman Foundation, 1995. (All biblical quotations are from this source.)
Proverbs 30:2-4
Job 11:7-8
Psalm 88:6
Psalm 71:20
John 3:12-13
Ephesians 4:10
Philippians 2:12-13