Introduction
In my series on Genealogy of Morals, I point out that Nietzsche consistently sees profound truths which few others notice, yet he draws the most backward and twisted conclusions. Nietzsche is as brilliant as he is deviant, as cunning as he is radical. Nietzsche saw that the rise of nihilism would accompany the death of God, yet he welcomed it. He saw that morality as we know it will be overturned, but he invited it. He believed that Christianity’s foundation established culture, society and our ethics, but he called for its destruction. Nietzsche continually surprises with his keen observations, and then bewilders with his stunning opinions.
An Observation About Suffering
One of Nietzsche’s keen observations has to do with human suffering. In the Genealogy of Morals, Nietzsche points out that whenever we suffer, no matter how alone we feel, there is a deep suspicion that someone is witnessing our pain. This witness, says Nietzsche, allows us to escape the unacceptable idea that our suffering is senseless and meaningless. Here’s his quote:
“What makes people rebel against suffering is not really suffering itself but the senselessness of suffering; and yet neither the Christian, who projected a whole secret machinery of salvation into suffering, nor the naive primitive, who interpreted all suffering from the standpoint of the spectator or the dispenser of suffering, would have conceived of it as senseless. In order to negate and dispose of the possibility of any secret, unwitnessed suffering, early man had to invent gods and a whole apparatus of intermediate spirits, invisible beings who could also see in the dark, and who would not readily let pass unseen any interesting spectacle of suffering. Such were the inventions with which life, in those days, performed its perennial trick of justifying itself, its ‘evil’.”
Nietzsche recognizes that human beings believe no suffering goes unwitnessed, but he draws a radical conclusion. He concludes that human beings have invented a whole world of metaphysical beings (ancestors, angels, gods), or a structure of salvation in some cases, in order to believe that suffering has meaning. Of course, Nietzsche’s position is logical, given his atheism, and his belief that the world is a chaotic, meaningless, destitute rock filled with overgrown apes. Still, I cannot help but ask the question: what if his observation is correct, but his conclusion is wrong?
The Human Intuition of A Universal God
It seems to me that this is another example of Nietzsche’s incredible intellect meeting his absurd presuppositions. Why is it that human beings have an indomitable sensation that suffering is not meaningless, and there are secret observers of our pain? Rather than assume that our intuitions must be false, and build a complex view of religion as fabrication in order to explain our intuitions, why not let our intuitions speak for themselves? What if there really is an arbiter of truth and justice to whom our base souls cry out in our darkest hours of desperation? What if none of our suffering actually is purposeless? What if atheism is the true machination, with the sole purpose of dismissing what is inherently obvious to even the most primitive of human beings? It seems to me that this is the most straightforward explanation for Nietzsche’s observation. Perhaps humans feel like suffering is always witnessed and accounted for because somewhere in the fabric of our immaterial souls we know there is One who tallies every tear and will repay every wrong.