We had a saying in medical school that learning medicine was like trying to take a sip of water from a fire hydrant.
You need to understand that when I talk about the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche, I’m trying to take a sip of water from a fire hydrant that is at the center of a volcano. Or maybe, I’m a dog trying to lap up puddles on the ground before the heat dries it up.
Which is just my way of saying…
I’m not a philosopher.
Nietzsche was a genius, and though there may be many ways in which we disagree, there is still much to learn from him.
Although he was an atheist and seemed to hate Christianity, there may have been more similarities to what he taught and Jesus’s message than first understood.
Today I want to talk about his parable the camel, the lion, and the child.
Watch this video for a quick primer on the story (this was my re-telling, not the actual story) :
The story is our spiritual journey. The 3 stages of becoming who you are.
A mythology on how we become the Overman…..or our greater selves.
Most in society live as the herd. They go where they are led. They do as they are told to do.
But some are strong enough to escape the herd. They become a camel.
The camel is a beast of burden.
He carries heavy loads and does not hesitate to add more. He is proud of his strength. The more he carries, the stronger he becomes.
The camel represents the courageous in our society. The ones brave enough to take risks and ask questions. The camel faces the suffering of life and does not hide, but embraces it.
As Jesus said:
If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also.
It is through our suffering and growth that we are able to become more than we currently are.
You see….to know things, to really learn new things, we must take the burden on ourselves. Sometimes what we find is troubling. We may have to ask difficult questions, find the answers aren’t so simple, and discover the things we thought were right were actually wrong.
Our world may come undone. This is why a camel must be strong. This is why he wanders in the desert.
At some point, the camel begins to feel weighed down. His search for truth….illusory.
Maybe he asks: What’s truth? Who’s truth? Maybe he thinks there is no truth to know. Maybe he thinks the morality he learned as a child was a lie and only kept him from becoming his true self.
And with this he transforms from the camel to the lion.
The lion desires to be king of the desert. He is a destroyer of worlds.
Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.
—Matthew 10:34
But to be king, he must slay the dragon that rules the desert.
The dragon has thousands of scales and on each scale, his name is written. His name: Thou Shalt.
The dragon is our society. It is the culture we have been raised in. All the rules and regulations. It is our parents ideals for us. It is the standard and the status quo. He is the enemy of self transformation and self knowledge.
To kill the dragon, you have to speak the sacred word.
The sacred word…..”No”.
By speaking “No”, the Lion rejects the values and morality that had been placed before him and becomes the king of the desert.
Compare this to Jesus’s teaching:
If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters–yes, even their own life–such a person cannot be my disciple.
To be a disciple of truth, we must reject what we’ve learned and what we’ve been forced to become by the outside world.
For Nietzsche, there was no God. But he knew that to reject purpose in life would be to reject life itself. And with this he sought to bring a philosophy that was life affirming.
He rejected nihilism, materialism, and scientism. Instead, he believed in the human’s ability to overcome.
Jesus teaches us to reject nihilism and materialism as well. He said it like this, “Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.” In other words, you can not live a life without a greater purpose and expect to feel the full joy of life.
Now why would a Christian spend so much time learning from an atheist philosopher? Because, to quote Nietzsche, “All truths are bloody truths to me”.
The lion may seem ferocious (and he is), but he is not the end of the story. Because to say no to everything doesn’t create anything.
Now I know what you’re thinking……
How is saying no to morality and virtue a good thing?
For Nietzsche, morality was actually a very important aspect to having a full life. But to become our higher selves, we must reject the authority over us. If you stared into the abyss and your answer was death/suicide/apathy, then you were weak.
To overcome this you must be aware that while rejection of convention is part of the process, it is not the end stage.
Because the last metamorphosis is the most important one.
The lion must turn into a child.
“But say, my brothers, what can the child do that even the lion could not do? Why must the preying lion still become a child? The child is innocence and forgetting, a new beginning, a game, a self-propelled wheel, a first movement, a sacred “Yes.” For the game of creation, my brothers, a sacred “Yes” is needed: the spirit now wills his own will, and he who had been lost to the world now conquers his own world.”
— From Thus Spake Zarathustra
The child has a power that the lion does not.
It speaks the sacred word “Yes!” And thus is able to create it’s own destiny.
By approaching our world as a child, we invoke bewilderment and innocence. Eyes wide open. Ready to soak up everything around us.
We are able to play and be creative. To invent our world and our meaning.
Jesus said it like this:
Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.
He said you must be born again to see the kingdom of God.
So maybe Nietzsche wasn’t as much an anti-christ as he thought. Maybe he just had a different way of explaining things.
There is a danger to Nietzsche’s thinking. If we all create our own worlds, what stops you from creating a world where cruelty and dishonesty are distinguishing characteristics? What stops you from creating your own Epstein Island?
Nietzsche also critisized the individual that looked only to his own enjoyment. The hedonist. Or as Nietzsche called him, The Last Man. He saw this “Last Man” as wasting his potential and his life in vain pursuits only motivated by fear, comfort, and entertainment. Instead man should seek to become something greater than he already is…The “Overman” or the “Superman”.
He wrote this: “The modern individual focuses too narrowly on his own short lifespan… and wants to pluck the fruit himself from the tree he plants, and so no longer likes to plant those trees that demand a century of constant tending and are intended to provide shade for long successions of generations.”
The truth is, truth can be known. It can be reasoned and argued and experienced. It may be difficult, but that shouldn’t keep us from trying.
I’ll leave you with this thought, and I think it was this that Nietzsche was opposing most: There is a strange fixation in some Christian circles to focus only on the afterlife. Which leads to a process of neglecting the current life, living by useless rules, and hiding our true selves.
The hope that if we do this, then one day we’ll get to live in the “real” world. The more-perfect world.
But, is this not the opposite of what Jesus asked us to do?
To live life in the balance.
Enjoying the moment but cognizant of the future.
To understand that this world matters. That this life is beautiful. And that there is more than what meets the eye.
He called us to live in this world and do great things.
To reject apathy….
Fight nihilism….
And live a life of purpose.
Now go and find yours.
p.s.
This article was a thought experiment more than anything. It’s not meant to be comparative religion or a study of philosophy. You can no more gain enlightenment reading commentary on Nietzsche and Jesus than you can reading the cliff notes of Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Some things just have to be experienced.
Also, I make no apologies for any mistakes of understanding or disagreements that you may have from my conclusions. You are free to comment and critique and come to your own conclusions.
p.p.s.
I can’t tell you what to do. So by all means, do not click this link.
p.p.p.s.
Every now and then, you need to bite off more than you can chew.
So kudos if you read this far.
Kudos to you Dr.
Thanks!