Encyclopedia of Philosophy: ETERNAL RECURRENCE - Nietzsche

« an imagined escape from the course of becoming.The element of challenge is just as evident in a powerful chapter of Thus Spoke Zarathustra (Third Part, ‘On theVision and the Riddle').

Zarathustra describes an episode in which he confronts his enemy, the dwarflike ‘spirit ofgravity', and initiates a contest of riddles.

He points out a gateway which stands between two lanes, stretchingforwards and backwards into an infinite distance.

The gateway, at which they come into conflict, has a name:‘Moment'.

Zarathustra poses a question: do the lanes contradict one another eternally? The dwarf answers that‘time itself is a circle'—implying that any conflict between past and future is a mere semblance.

Angered by theevasion, Zarathustra retorts with a direct statement of the thought of recurrence: must not everything that runs on theselanes do so again and again? The dwarf, apparently unable to confront this idea, disappears from the scene.

A newturn follows, as Zarathustra describes a vision which is also a riddle.

A young shepherd is choking on a ‘heavy blacksnake' which has crawled into his throat.

The shepherd bites the head off the snake, and leaps up, transfigured:‘one changed, radiant, laughing!' What does this mean? The question remains unanswered.

Perhaps Nietzsche isunwilling to eliminate the tension and enigmatic character of this situation, or alert to Emerson's suggestion that‘The answer to a riddle is another riddle'.Some aspects of the theme of eternal recurrence are shared by another main idea of Nietzsche, the ‘death of God',first announced in section 125 of The Gay Science:Have you not heard of that madman who lit a lantern in the bright morning hours, ran to the market place, and criedincessantly, ‘I seek God! I seek God!' As many of those who do not believe in God were standing around just then,he provoked much laughter.

Why, did he get lost? said one.

Did he lose his way like a child? said another.

Or is he inhiding? Is he afraid of us? Has he gone on a voyage? or emigrated? Thus they yelled and laughed.

The madmanjumped into their midst and pierced them with his glances.‘Whither is God' he cried.

‘I shall tell you.

We have killed him—you and I.

All of us are his murderers...

God is dead.God remains dead.

And we have killed him....

Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we notourselves become gods simply to seem worthy of it? There has never been a greater deed; and whoever will be bornafter us—for the sake of this deed he will be part of a higher history than all history hitherto.'As in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, the message is not received by the marketplace crowd; and the ‘madman'acknowledges the failure of his mission.

He has come too early, he says.This tremendous event is still on its way, still wandering—it has not yet reached the ears of man.

Lightning andthunder require time, the light of the stars requires time, deeds require time even after they are done, before theycan be seen and heard.

This deed is still more distant from them than the most distant stars—and yet they havedone it themselves.It must be noted that the message of the death of God is addressed not to believers but to ‘those who do notbelieve in God'.

The assumption is that there are no believers in the modern world, or at least in the marketplace,symbol of mass society.

When Zarathustra encounters one believer, a hermit who lives apart from society, herefrains from revealing that God is dead; the message is only for those who have brought it about.

The hermit is‘untimely' too, and would appear as absurd in the marketplace as the madman.

There, support for Christianity is notan error, Nietzsche alleges in The Antichrist, but a deliberate lie.

‘Everyone knows this, and yet everythingcontinues as before.' Nietzsche's target here is those who have abandoned traditional religion yet who assume thatmorality can be continued in the same way.

‘They are rid of the Christian God and now believe all the more firmly that theymust cling to Christian morality...

Christianity is a system, a whole view of things thought out together.

By breakingone concept out of it, the faith in God, one breaks the whole: nothing necessary remains in one's hands.' Nietzscheis insisting on understanding the full implications of disbelief.

It puts in doubt not just the explicit content of oldbeliefs but the standards of knowledge and morality whose foundations they supplied.

The madman expresses thisas the predicament he and his listeners are in, whether they realize it or not.As with the thought of eternal recurrence, Nietzsche's emphasis is on the consequences of the idea, rather than onreasons for supporting it.

His atheism does not arise from any critique of arguments for the existence of God.

Oncewe have a psychological account of the origin of belief in God, he argues, ‘a counter-proof that there is no Godthereby becomes superfluous' (Daybreak, section 95).

Elsewhere his atheism seems to be not a reasoned view but astipulation.

Zarathustra says: ‘If there were gods, how could I endure not to be a god? Hence there are no gods.'His real objection is to the concept of God, as a denial of life and, in turn, a symptom of a lack of creative powerwithin individuals and groups.In this way, the ‘death of God' is part of a wider theme: what Nietzsche, in his last years of work, termed ‘nihilism'.The collapse of all values, even that of truth, has led to a historical situation of hopelessness.

‘One interpretationhas collapsed; but because it was considered the interpretation it now seems as if there were no meaning at all inexistence, as if everything were in vain' (The Will to Power, section 55).

Within philosophy, scepticism andpessimism fit into this picture, as symptoms of decline— ultimately, Nietzsche suggests, owing to physiologicalcauses.

But he makes an important distinction between two kinds of nihilism.

Active nihilism is an expression ofstrength, while passive nihilism is a sign of weakness.

Active nihilism finds satisfaction in destroying old illusions, andthe will to pursue ideas through ‘to their ultimate consequences', even to absurdity.

This is just the truthfulnessthat leads to a paradox, by putting the question of its own origin and value, and thus undermining its own validity.Affirmative nihilism represents a preparation for a new phase of creativity.

In the symbolic language of Thus SpokeZarathustra, it is the strength of the lion, courageous and defiant, who destroys the authority of every ‘Thou shalt'and assumes the lonely task of setting up his own values.. »