With the exception of the negro passage, what seems to be the issue? As it stands the OP is just a kind of extended 'I don't like this. Don't you not like this too?'. — StreetlightX

Oh yeah, what seems to be the issue >:O

when people would not have missed for anything the pleasure of inflicting suffering, in which they saw a powerful agent, the principal inducement to living.

So you too share Nietzsche's admiration for "aristocratic" morality where joy is found in inflicting pain on others? You don't find anything wrong with that do you? Instead, the negro is the issue - typical leftist thinking.

In which asking for an argument is now a marker of 'leftist thinking'. Sigh.

Following the death of Denmark’s bishop Jacob Mynster, in 1854, Kierkegaard wrote this brief reflection:
"What the old bishop once said to me is not true–namely, that I spoke as if the others were going to hell. No, if I can be said to speak at all of going to hell then I say something like this: If the others are going to hell, then I am going along with them. But I do not believe that; on the contrary, I believe that we will all be saved and this awakens my deepest wonder."

"What the old bishop once said to me is not true–namely, that I spoke as if the others were going to hell. No, if I can be said to speak at all of going to hell then I say something like this: If the others are going to hell, then I am going along with them. But I do not believe that; on the contrary, I believe that we will all be saved and this awakens my deepest wonder." — Beebert

Yes, I am aware of this, which is especially why I said he hoped all will be saved.

You can see how he says "this awakens my deepest wonder" - precisely because he doesn't understand how this would happen, but he hopes for it.

No he clearly says he even believes it, and his conviction of this belief is what awakens his deep wonder

"But this is precisely the point. We have to question whether those really are the inner wants of man as such, or they're only the inner wants of SOME men."

All, but it expresses itself differently in each individual. Have you read the catholic Thomist-Aristotelian philosopher Alisdair MacIntyre? He rated Nietzsche as one of the absolutely greatest of all philosophers because of his deep and true realization that our morals are expressions of something else than we have traditionally admitted... BTW why not ask the same about original/ancestral sin? Has it really affected ALL and not just SOME?

Would you agree with Dostoevsky that the Only true sin is the failure to love?

No he clearly says he even believes it, and his conviction of this belief is what awakens his deep wonder — Beebert

Why does he wonder then? Wonder only makes sense if he doesn't understand how it will happen.

All, but it expresses itself differently. Have you read the catholic Thomist-Aristotelian philosopher Alisdair MacIntyre? He rated Nietzsche as one of the absolutely greatest of all philosophers because of his deep and true realization that our morals are expressions of something else than we have traditionally admitted... Otherwise why not ask the same about original/ancestral sin? Has it really affected ALL and not just SOME? — Beebert

Sure, but there's a reason why he ultimately sided with Aristotle in his After Virtue :P

Now, why would the will-to-power express itself differently in different people? I'm specifically now thinking about the moral v. the immoral, the cruel v. the kind, etc.

"Why does he wonder then? Wonder only makes sense if he doesn't understand how it will happen"

Wonder means amazement. He obviously believes all Will be saved, why does he otherwise say so?

when you say one is cruel and one is virtous; are you saying that one is in a way better than another? I side not with Aristotle but with Dostoevsky. The only real sin is failure to love. Kindness can also be an expression of something else. Love is all it is about, not moral virtues

Wonder means amazement. He obviously believes all Will be saved, why does he otherwise say so? — Beebert

Because we should pray and hope that all will be saved, we shouldn't wish anyone to be damned.

when you say one is cruel and one is virtous; are you saying that one is in a way better than another? — Beebert

What does "better" mean?

I side not with Aristotle but with Dostoevsky. The only real sin is failure to love. — Beebert

Sure, but a vice is a failure to love. The person who is cruel, fails to love.

"Because we should pray and hope that all will be saved, we shouldn't wish anyone to be damned."

True, but Kierkegaard did not Believe anyone would be eternally damned, it is quite obvious. That doesnt mean he knew that to be the Case, but he believed it

"Sure, but a vice is a failure to love. The person who is cruel, fails to love"

But if the Only true sin is failure to love, then the Only true virtue is love and its fruits, correct? And as Nietzsche said: "All true acts of love are beyond Good and evil"

True, but Kierkegaard did not Believe anyone would be eternally damned, it is quite obvious. That doesnt mean he knew that to be the Case, but he believed it — Beebert

Yes, his belief that none will be eternally damned is his hope that all will be saved. He doesn't claim to know that all will be saved, which would be to adopt universalism. It's not a matter of doctrine for him in other words.

But if the Only true sin is failure to love, then the Only true virtue is love and its fruits, correct? — Beebert

Nobody would disagree with this, it's just that the other virtues that are predicated by Thomistic-Aristotelian philosophy do stem from love anyway. They are the expressions of love.

And as Nietzsche said: "All true acts of love are beyond Good and evil" — Beebert

I wouldn't quite put it like that, but if by that you mean that acts of love are beyond "herd morality" then I would agree.

Nevertheless it still follows that the cruel person fails to love.

My problem with christianity is that I dont find it Good news, because the fact that God even created a world that would unfold in this way and, according to Christ's own words, a world where many will inevitably be damnned (narrow is the gate etc.), is bad news. So to me christianity seems dishonest when it calls creation good considering that eternal suffering for the multitude is inevitable. So left for me is to try to make a leap of faith for the sole reason that I fear punishment and dont want hell, but that again is dishonest and pathetic from my side.
Also in scripture I find typical of the "multiple personality disorder-problems" or whatever one would call it. On the one hand this forgiveness and even God's weakness in Christ, on the other hand an all-powerful and ruling God, a vengeful and wrathful judge who condemns others to suffer and there by shows a total unwilligness to forgive in eternity and worse; to want suffering that is MEANINGLESS for the sufferers to exist forever. Suffering that doesnt build up, doesnt Change ways or anything. But just typical despair and physical and mental torture. Unendingly.

A great part of why my whole critique about christianity is resting on many of the words of Paul: Because what do we find in Christ? The son of God, God incarnate who become crucified, mocked, beaten, tortured etc. Now Jesus came to show the face of God, right(He who has seen me has seen the Father)? He came to free the oppressed and poor etc. And he did all this in weakness. He was weak, powerless, suffering, poor, an outcast etc. And he was the image of God. To me that suggests Only one thing: God is all These things. He is not powerful in the way that has been suggested in Christian theology. The Only way he has power is in his weakness, love, suffering etc. This IS God and Christ. But from Paul onwards, God is this all-powerful and ruling Other, that only takes the ROLE of being an outcast, a sufferer, a weak man who gets crucified, while in reality being a ruling King, a judge with absolute power. This I find untenable. God MUST be crucified every time an evil act is committed; and thereby proving his complete powerlessness and love. He can only conquer evil by being weak. He transforms hearts because he HAS no power, because he is like a lamb, and that is his power. Eternally. Because he has no other power to destroy it. That must be the truth, not the schizophrenic contradiction I find in classical theology. It is too influenced by ancient Greek and its worship of passionlessness and a God that can neither feel passion nor suffer. But I believe God the father to be filled with passion and that he suffers. He IS in need of man. Is this out of Place and wrong? In what way lf so?

Universalism isnt about what you know Will happen, it is about belief. Nothing in christianity is about what you know. It is about that you trust in the claims made by the person Jesus.

Universalism isnt about what you know Will happen, it is about belief. Nothing in christianity is about what you know. It is about that you trust in the claims made by the person Jesus. — Beebert

There is a difference between something that is a doctrine and something that is a hope. Universalism is the doctrine that all will be saved. That doctrine is heretical.

According to thé Church yes, but then you must first also accept the Curch's truth claims (That it is infallible etc.), something Kierkegaard probably didnt

I believe Kierkegaard would say that hoping and even believing in universal salvation is tenable, but teaching it as a definite doctrine isn't

I agree with Augustino. Neitzsche is still automatically granted status as one of the modern eras most profound and influential philosophers, but he was, in fact, essentially a [/b][ poet[[/b] not a deep thinker. Re-reading his texts as an older man, it seems clear to me that he lacked the temperamental qualities, in particular, the kind of prudence, dispassionate equanimity, personal self-control and self- discipline that are the hallmarks and sine qua nonof any truly great philosopher. His notoriously intemperate scoldings of Christian morality are a case in point; for me, they bring to mind the violent temper tantrums of a very spoiled and naughty toddler in a supermarket , being "all sound and fury" that signifies nothing. More generally speaking, Neitzsche had, as a prose stylist a penchant for the outrageous, the histrionic, the pretentious and grandiloquent. He was, in common parlance, a self-obsessed, attention-seeking, literary "drama queen" of his era - a man who was, I would argue, highly, emotionally unstable. Given his suddenly descent into fully-blown , frank schizophrenia in 1889, perhaps this affective lability was a symptom of incipient psychosis?

Equally, I believe that Nietzsche's texts bear witness to the anger and frustration of a man who was a desperate seeker who was unable to find what he sought. What he sought was a concept of God that would transcend modern atheism and theism and prevent the advent of a catastrophic nihilism that he correctly predicted would devastate humanity in the two centuries following his announcement of the death of the Christian "Nicht Gott" of his time - a false god whom man had created and held hostage to teleological development progress in human history. A god who was merely a human idol.

Nietzsche was questing for the true living God, but he would never find that God because he would always be too arrogant, wilful, proud and vain to accept what Karl Barth termed the "humiliation" of the Christian Gospel. Barth was referring, in particular,to the Pauline doctrine of election by grace, which held that man could only begin to seek and know God ( who was the one absolute truth) through the freely bestowed divine gift of supernatural faith. The lesson that man not know God through any kind of human knowledge or thought process alone represented the utter humiliation of Enlightenment reason and here, Nietzsche was inherently unteachable.

Regards,

John

My problem with christianity is that I dont find it Good news, because considering what you just said, the fact that God even created a world that would unfold in this way and, according to Christ's own words, a world where many will inevitably be damnned (narrow is the gate etc.), is bad news. — Beebert

I find it curious that Nietzsche out of all people did not cure you of your weakness which perpetually demands salvation as if you or anyone deserved it in the first place... Why are you so worried about your salvation? Did you not hear that:

"Whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it"?

A discussion with a Talmudic Jew cured me of this anthropocentric and I believe fake view of God. God is not out there to "please" you. When God showed Himself to Moses, Moses trembled in fear and fell on his knees, unable even to look towards God! Abraham approached Mt. Moriah after God had asked him to sacrifice his own son Isaac with fear and trembling. Job called for God and there was no answer as everything around him was collapsing. Jesus Himself shouted from the Cross "Father hast Thou forsaken Me?"

If so be they will hearken, and turn every man from his evil way, that I may repent me of the evil, which I purpose to do unto them because of the evil of their doings. — Jeremiah 26:3

You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me — Exodus 20:5

I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things. — Isaiah 45:7

To me belongeth vengeance, and recompence; their foot shall slide in due time: for the day of their calamity is at hand, and the things that shall come upon them make haste. — Deuteronomy 32:35

The Bible describes a God who is beyond good and evil, who is beyond logic and beyond understanding, whose ways are incomprehensible, who decides who He shall destroy and who He shall exalt. It also describes a God who is Love, who sends His Son to die for the sins of the world. A God who will drag ALL people unto Him. A God whose Love is so strong that NOTHING shall escape it. But God is Loving in his Strength. The God described by the Bible is a God for whom nothing is impossible - a God who can create a stone so heavy he cannot lift it, and then proceed to lift it too. Indeed, that is why God is worthy of worship and reverence - otherwise he'd just be a more powerful man. The God of the Bible is One, and yet Three. God changes his mind, and yet He is unchanging. God transcends all understanding, and in that lies His Greatness and Mystery.

It seems to me that you're seeking for a "god" who will fulfil your desires, who you can control, because He's so and so, because he's a good guy, etc. And then you complain hypocritically that Schopenhauer rejected life because of his pessimism, that he's just an inverted hedonist. Well what are you when you're trying to make God in something that you can put in your pocket, that you can bound by your understanding, if not just another hedonist looking to control God for your own satisfaction (read salvation)? Why aren't you on your knees worshipping, and instead are here to complain that you don't like God's behaviour like Job? What did God answer to Job? Who are you to question my creation?

And he was the image of God. To me that suggests Only one thing: God is all These things. — Beebert

Yes, but He is also the God who comes in judgement, who will visit your iniquities unto future generations, who came to bring a sword and not peace, who allows even the righteous to be crushed (Job), who demands that those who follow him sacrifice even what they hold most dear (Abraham and Isaac), who is vengeful and jealous, who will cast all the unrighteous into a lake of fire, etc.

But from Paul onwards, God is this all-powerful and ruling Other, that only takes the ROLE of being an outcast, a sufferer, a weak man who gets crucified, while in reality being a ruling King, a judge with absolute power. This I find untenable. — Beebert

This is precisely the scandal of the Cross. And it's not from Paul onwards. It's ever since the beginning, ever since Noah, ever since Moses. God in His infinity and His greatness is multi-faceted and impossible to comprehend for us. That's why the highest truth we know about God - the Trinity - is a logical contradiction.

It is too influenced by ancient Greek and its worship of passionlessness and a God that can neither feel passion mot suffer. But I believe God the father to be filled with passion and to suffer. He IS in need of man. Is this out of Place and wrong? In what way lf so? — Beebert

Because that's an anthropomorphic god (an idol) that you have created just because you're scared, He's not the Hidden God that has revealed Himself in the Old and New Testaments.

"I find it curious that Nietzsche out of all people did not cure you of your weakness which perpetually demands salvation as if you or anyone deserved it in the first place..."

This view is repulsive to me. I dont think I deserve salvation, but I say that the opposite argument that "You deserve damnation because you are a wicked sinner" or "If you dont believe you will suffer in an everlasting fire" is wrong and wicked too, because God created man without man's consent. In a godless world, the hope of suicide and death at least exists if suffering becomes inendurable, but christianity eliminates this and demands a Faith I can not achieve. Therefore, it is christianity that causes one to lose Hope, to feel trapped in a person of existence that Will Only det worse if one doesnt make a leap of faith that I have tried to make. And this in combination with for example The fact that I havent asked for life is hideous to me. Deserve? It is not about what one deserves. It is about christianity saying "You are doomed to exist, and if you dont accept a 2000 year old event as being true and make a leap of faith, you Will be forever punished".

"You deserve damnation because you are a wicked sinner" or "If you dont believe you will suffer in an everlasting fire" is wrong and wicked too — Beebert

I agree. Only God knows and decides who deserves what.

because God created man without man's consent. — Beebert

Not because of this. You don't seem to get it. God is SUPREME - He doesn't need to ask you for permission! How can you even conceive of the absurdity that God would need to ask you for permission to create you?!

In a godless world, the hope of suicide and death at least exists if suffering becomes inendurable, but christianity eliminates this and demands a Faith I can not achieve. — Beebert

Oh, so you have read Nietzsche, but you can't affirm life with all its suffering?

So then if a man uses his own limited reason etc, the faculties thay makes us intstunctively value what is good and evil (the very thing you criticize Nietzsche for questioning), then it would not be so wrong to say that God is evil in a sense?

So then if a man uses his own limited reason etc, the faculties thay makes us intstunctively value what is good and evil (the very thing you criticize Nietzsche for questioning), then it would not be so wrong to say that God is evil in a sense? — Beebert

Yes, it would be wrong to say that. Because it would fail to see that God is beyond good and evil, the Creator of both, who rules over both. It would amount to blasphemy as it would degrade God's greatness & transcendence.

When it says, for example in the Psalms - "Taste and see that the Lord is good!" - that refers to the fact that God is maximally great. When I say God is perfect, I do not mean that imperfection is the absence of God. I rather mean that God subsumes both perfection and imperfection - He is, so to speak, more perfect than perfection.

Then every moral valuation is blasphemy in a certain sense if it is made by someone who stands in a true relationship with God and it would be unchristian of you to not agree with Nietzsche that all true acts of Love are beyond good and evil, wouldnt it?

"Not because of this. You don't seem to get it. God is SUPREME - He doesn't need to ask you for permission! How can you even conceive of the absurdity that God would need to ask you for permission to create you?!"

I get that, but that doesnt mean I am capable of accepting his creation. In the Christian view, that is why I deserve hell

Then every moral valuation is blasphemy in a certain sense if it is made by someone who stands in a true relationship with God and it would be unchristian of you to not agree with Nietzsche that all true acts of Love are beyond good and evil, wouldnt it? — Beebert

No, that wouldn't follow. I didn't say humans are beyond good and evil, I said God is beyond good and evil. We have been given commandments to follow by God, so we're not beyond good and evil. That is one of the differences between creature and Creator, which is emphasised in Orthodoxy.

But yes, God's Love is beyond good and evil, in that it is prior to both. That's why God is Love.