Life’s Affirmation and Denial: Nietzsche as a Christian

This paper seeks to challenge the interpretive orthodoxy that Nietzsche was unqualifiedly hostile to Christianity. Nietzsche’s opposition to Christianity is well-attested. He described Christianity as ‘the greatest misfortune of mankind.’ It is argued, however, that there are in fact significant similarities between Christian and Nietzschean values. Taking up an argument first present by Georg Simmel in 1907, the author argues that both value systems are to be subsumed under the same categories: the intrinsic value of the individual (man in Nietzsche, soul in Christianity), his struggle for deification, the tension between giving absolute value to the passing moment and being forced to subsume it under a transcendent whole which has a final value. In addition, the author points out several inconsistencies and ambivalences in Nietzsche’s attitude towards Christianity. Finally, he attempts to show that Nietzsche adopted, like Christianity, a life-affirming transcendent value-system, which is visible in his conception of Yes-saying. Thus his vision of a fully affirmative life in fact involves a reiteration of certain central elements of the Christian theological perspective.