Autor: Walsh, David

Buch: The Third Millenium

Titel: The Third Millenium

Stichwort: Christentum - Moderne; Differenziertheit; Nietzsche (anti-christliche Kritik als parasitär)

Kurzinhalt: He had grasped the incompatibility of the Christian virtues within a secular age, yet understood that their removal could only be in the name of higher virtues beyond the Christian;

Textausschnitt: 113a The suggestion is borne out by the unavailability of any more differentiated perspective than what has emerged through the Christian tradition. Modernity may be able to separate itself from Christianity by standing apart from it, but the modern self-understanding cannot attain a higher viewpoint that includes the Christian conception of existence. Whether we think of the universal equality of human beings, their fallibility and distance from moral perfection, the mutual need for repentance and forgiveness, their incapability of obtaining the unmerited grace of divine redemption and resurrection, the result is the same. In no other symbolic form is the apex of differentiation reached. Only through Christianity is the height and the depth of human existence fully disclosed in such a way that we are enabled to live profoundly at home in the world without confusing it in the least with our final home. The authority of Christianity derives from its moral truth. Only an advance in the moral imperatives of existence could establish the ground from which a judgment of its validity could be rendered. The so-called anti-Christian critique of the modern ideologues has been, as Nietzsche understood, parasitical on the very Christianity they sought to displace. (Fs) (notabene)

113b This was the problem that preoccupied Nietzsche most profoundly. He had grasped the incompatibility of the Christian virtues within a secular age, yet understood that their removal could only be in the name of higher virtues beyond the Christian. It was an impossibility that disclosed itself the deeper it was contemplated. Objection to Christianity ultimately must become a challenge, not just to the finitude of human virtue, but to its divine completion. How can the critique extend to the One whose infinite perfection redeemed all human defects? This is why Nietzsche was compelled to admit, "There was only one true Christian, and he died on the cross" (The Anti-Christ, par.39). How could a Christian disagree with this sentiment? Christ is indeed the measure by which we are all seen to fall short, but he is also the means by which the incapacity is completed. His perfection reveals the extent to which the deficiencies of human virtue are absorbed and transcended by the divine redemptive suffering in which we participate. A careful reading of the modern critics reveals a similar pattern. The critique of Christianity can ultimately not be extended to the figure of Christ, who escapes the strictures levelled against his disciples and, we are inclined to conclude, disarms even those who sought to oppose him. A higher viewpoint beyond Christ seems morally impossible.1 (Fs) (notabene)