Leaving Kierkegaard |
Religion > Christianity
It’s time we outgrow the 19th-century philosopher who, in his own way, presaged post-modern views about Christianity.
Arthur Schaper | April 26, 2026
American social scientist Richard Hanania recently wrote about outgrowing German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. It was a fascinating read. That post-modern thinker has remained an interesting figure: a harbinger of the nihilism in modern life, a penetrating psychologist into man’s inner tensions between greatness and limitations, and a sardonic troll of the stuffy philosophical world before trolling emerged as a social media moniker.
Not only investing a Romantic approach to Western thought, but Nietzsche also denigrated the past as a source of all wisdom in itself. His push for radical individualism, disregard for systems, and an energetic drive to normalize faith in the self (since there wasn’t anything else to believe in) inspired and radicalized a generation of thinkers.
A lot of these rebellious thinkers, so-called iconoclasts, are indeed people who failed at life. Nietzsche clearly had Daddy issues, surrounded by women, put upon all the more because of his weak constitution. He struggled to be a man in a world that vaulted masculinity to an impossible ideal for those physically limited. Indeed, Hanania was onto something when he pointed out that Nietzsche is a crutch for men who (think they have) failed at life.
Hanania’s commentary also reminded me of another philosopher whom I had read during my high school and early college years. More Christian in bent regarding the authority of the Scriptures, he still rebelled against “the system and the man,” arguing that the established Church and Christian culture were failing in God’s mission. His own voracious reading and logorrhea run rampant, revealing many turns of humor and wit.
In some ways, this philosopher/theologian was a brighter, religious foil to Nietzsche’s dark, laughter-of-the-damned atheism.
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