Nietzsche and the Paradoxical Affirmation of Nihilism
Sean Christy, Class of 2009
Minds in the Making

In The Gay Science, Nietzsche first mentions the death of God. In a section entitled "The Madman," Nietzsche describes a man who is looking for God in the marketplace. The people in the marketplace mock the man for such foolishness because they do "not believe in God" (The Gay Science 119; hereafter cited as GS). Suddenly, the
madman shouts, "'Where is God? [. . .] I'll tell you! We have killed him – you and I! We are all his murderers. But how did we do this? [. . .] Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon?'" (119-20). God does not die a passive death, but he is murdered—murdered by humans. Because Nietzsche believed that God is a human construction, God can die. God is just an idea, a purely fictional human creation. Human beings have shown through their actions that what goes by the name “God” is simply a word from which all meaning has been siphoned out.

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