Into the Abyss: The Death of God and the Rise of Existentialism

By Jeremy Johnson

Delve into the Abyss: Where God Died and Existentialism Was Born

In the ashes of a world where faith has crumbled, a new philosophy dares to rise. Into the Abyss: The Death of God and the Rise of Existentialism explores the intellectual earthquake triggered by Nietzsche's proclamation of "God is dead."

This gripping journey takes you from the iconoclasm of Nietzsche to the profound depths of Kierkegaard's anguish. Witness the birth of existentialism alongside the giants who shaped it:

Friedrich Nietzsche: The herald of a godless age, urging humanity to embrace freedom and forge its own meaning.

Søren Kierkegaard: Grappling with the weight of individual choice and the anxiety of an uncaring universe.

Jean-Paul Sartre: Championing radical freedom and the burden of creating our own essence.

Simone de Beauvoir: Expanding existentialist thought to dismantle societal constraints and define a path for women's liberation.

Into the Abyss is not just a chronicle of ideas; it's an invitation to confront the void and forge your own authentic path in a world without absolutes.

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Harmony Haven University
• Release date: May 25, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224669547

Book preview

Into the Abyss: The Death of God and the Rise of Existentialism

By

Jeremy Johnson

University of California at Los Angeles

Student Group

Los Angeles

Copyright © 2024 by Jeremy Johnson

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All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Frederich Nietzsche – Death of God

Existentialism

Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir

Being and Nothing

Existence Precedes Essence

Background to Existentialism

In Frederich Nietzsche's book, The Joyful Wisdom, Nietzsche represents the shocking story of a madman who, on a bright morning, lighted a lantern and ran to a marketplace to announce that God is dead.

And Nietzsche writes, We have killed him, cried the madman, you and I. We are all his murderers. And then, thinking about the world,

in the absence of God, the madman says, do we not now wander through an endless nothingness? Does not empty space breathe upon us?

Has it not now become colder? Does not night come on continually darker and darker? By the concept of the death of God, Nietzsche does not mean that God, who is defined, as an eternal being, can nevertheless die. To say that would, of course, be illogical.

What is eternal is like Parmenides' unchanging one. It does not come into being or pass out of being. By the death of God, Nietzsche means the death of our belief in God. It is our belief in God that is dead. It has finally succumbed to multiple attacks, including the savage battle, and beating it received from the empiricist David Hume, as we have seen. But if we have lost our belief in God, have we not lost the foundation of all our truth and morality?

Did not even Descartes, that supremely independent rationalist, have to call upon God to guarantee that his clear and distinct ideas were true, and so to be the foundation of all truth?

Is this not the crisis of the modern world? Is this not the crisis of the modern world, of our belief in God we have lost the foundation of our truth and value yes says Nietzsche but although man has lost the belief in God this will enable him to lose his childlike dependency upon God humanity will now find the courage to live like adults in a world without God.

The greatest need of civilization now says Nietzsche is to develop adults it is to develop a new type of individual to develop supermen who will be hard strong and courageous and who will be intellectually and morally independent.

These supermen will break the stone slabs on