Three “christian” approaches to nietzche’s thinking

Abstract

The relationship between the thinking of the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) and the Christianity has always been polemic and JUAN MANUEL MEDRANO EZQUERRO 314 BROCAR, 36 (2012) 313-339 controversial. From the most abrupt anathemas launched by the proclaimer of “God’s death”, who has even been considered “punished” with his insanity due to his “blasphemies”, to the critical temperance of the Christian philosophy and theologies. Although Nietzsche’s ideas were incompatible with the Christian belief (as his, at least apparently, condemnation of compassion and love towards one’s neighbor), during the second half of the twentieth century, the Christian philosophy valued German philospher’s ideas which emerged from a Christian ground and which could encourage to a reflexion and self-criticism of the way by which the Christianity had historically weakened its “religious” promise of the Kingdom to become a mere moral authority, among other things. Such proposals open to Nietzsche have appeared from both theology and philosophy authorities. In this article, we are going to present three approaches to Nietzsche from the Christianity. We will discuss the approaches proposed by the theologians Bernhard Welte and the Spanish Olegario González de Cardedal, and Gianni Vattimo’s proposal to reinterpret God’s death with a liberating sense for a revitalized and firm Christianity. Keywords: Christianity, God’s death