Many Christians have been quick to dismiss one of Friedrich Nietzsche’s most seminal quotes: “God is dead.”
Now, it is of course true that our God is not dead. It’s also true that Nietzsche was far from a Christian apologist. He believed society should replace the morality we derive from scripture with something new.
That said, the story that quote comes from — “The Parable of the Madman” — isn’t exactly optimistic about humanity’s ability to replace our Christian values.
The story follows a madman who stumbles into a local market looking for God. He then comes to a realization — God is dead and the people of the village have killed him.
This leads him to say the following:
“We have killed him—you and I. All of us are his murderers. But how did we do this? How could we drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? What were we doing when we unchained this earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving? Away from all suns? Are we not plunging continually? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there still any up or down? Are we not straying, as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? Is not night continually closing in on us? Do we not need to light lanterns in the morning? Do we hear nothing as yet of the noise of the gravediggers who are burying God?”
In truth, Nietzche’s story is not applauding the “death” of God — a metaphor for Christianity’s lessening influence on society.
Readers of the story quickly realize that the madman is not actually mad — he’s wise.
Rather, the villages who laugh at him are ignorant. He predicts the coming devastation that they are too smug to see themselves.
The madman knows that without an objective foundation supporting our society’s moral standards, they’ll wash away.
When that happens, as he points out, we won’t know “up” from “down.”
American society is already beginning to go mad in just this way … and the Biden-Harris administration bears responsibility for accelerating that mental and spiritual decline.
The Sixth Commandment Is Unique
When atheists pick apart the Ten Commandments, they often like to mock the simplicity of the sixth, as read in Exodus 20:13:
“You shall not murder.”
It is a simple statement.
It’s true that other cultures — many untouched by Christianity — have created their own prohibitions on unjust killing.
Despite this, the Sixth Commandment remains utterly unique, as noted in this series’ introduction.
Because the Sixth Commandment’s prohibition of murder is nestled under God’s authority, there are no exceptions. After all, as scripture tells us, all human beings share the imago dei, i.e. they are made in the image of God.
Therefore, while other societies and cultures untouched by Christian influence make exceptions for murder, a truly biblical reading of the law never does.
We are all equal because God said so.
Without God, there is no rock-bottom universal standard. Without that standard, who is to say what is “best” for society? Who gets to say what qualifies as “murder”?
Even more simple a question springs to mind: Who gets to determine what a “human being” is? And why should all “human beings” have an equal right to life?
You can’t solve an equation without following the laws of mathematics, and you can’t conduct a proper experiment without adhering to the scientific method.
In exactly the same way, you cannot preach morality without a universal standard to refer to.
To put it another way, telling society not to murder without appealing to the authority of God is like trying to solve a mathematical equation without knowing how to add or multiply numbers.
By dispensing with God’s authority, we’ve “unchained this earth from its sun.”
Without the biblical understanding of the imago dei to guide us, who is to say what is “best” for society isn’t ensuring only the smartest and hardest-working among us are allowed to live and procreate, while those with low intelligence and genetic defects need to be culled and castrated?
Many secular eugenicists have made such an argument.
Without the imago dei, you cannot claim that such a plan is objectively immoral.
Historically, for example, arguments were made that members of certain races weren’t truly human beings, and therefore weren’t subject to the same inalienable rights as others (thankfully, Christian apologists, following what scripture truly says about the imago dei, led the West to abolish such notions).
This sort of dehumanization of others isn’t lost to history.
Even today, there are classes of people marked not human enough to deserve a right to life by the Biden-Harris administration: babies in the womb.
The Biden-Harris Admin Has Blood on its Hands
As The Heritage Foundation’s Thomas Jipping puts it, the Biden-Harris administration will “stop at nothing to push abortion on the country.”
The liberal administration has worked hard to undermine the Supreme Court’s just overturning of Roe v. Wade.
“The Biden administration has tried to push its abortion agenda through every avenue from AIDS relief programs to the Department of Veterans Affairs,” Jipping wrote in a February report.
This is no secret.
In fact, the current administration’s relentless pursuit of death for the preborn seems to be one of its greatest points of personal pride.
That pursuit has proved successful.
Since Roe was overturned — sending the battle over so-called abortion “rights” back to the states — the number of U.S. abortions has actually risen slightly, as reported by the Associated Press.
As we continue to fall away from God, the line between good and evil continues to blur even further — It’s not only babies in the womb facing the threat of death.
Democrats today, under this admnistration’s leadership, have also fought hard to prohibit protections for babies who survive abortions.
This is in spite of the fact that there are documented cases of such babies being left to die by medical professionals — in other words, murdered via neglect.
But since our current leaders are following their own morality rather than God’s, this is not viewed as murder.
Rather, they’d describe it as an unfortunate side effect of a normal medical procedure.
Just another example of our current culture’s inability to see the moral world.
Without God to guide us, we’re doomed to continue our descent into madness.
Advertise with The Western Journal and reach millions of highly engaged readers, while supporting our work. Advertise Today.