three little words

Perhaps the simplest and most profound statement of my understanding of Nietzsche's contribution to human thought is expressed in a letter to his sister in 1865. Nietzsche writes "Every true faith accomplishes what the person who has the faith hopes to find in it; but faith does not offer the least support for a proof of objective truth." In this quote, there is the nature of faith, its relation to truth and the relationship of humanity, faith and truth; all three cast in Nietzsche's unique viewpoint. Faith finds its origins in humanity's desires. The truth, something external to humanity, is unaffected by the faiths of people. And though it is in the individual and collective minds of thinkers that these things reside, they are affected by the concepts as much as the concepts are affected by them.

The first notion, that faith is a purely human thing, may be the most revolutionary idea of the three. That truth was out of human hands may have been easily accepted by many in Nietzsche's day, just as many think truth is out of human hands today. That is what the rising tide of religious fervor would have you believe - all liberal and conservative, extremist and moderate forms of it. Truth is divine only, the swallow would fall from the sky were it not for the will of god. Or in the more moderate form: only god knows for sure. But faith is always portrayed as a gift. We are granted faith from above. This gift is one of a benevolent abundance of gifts in the religious view. It is faith that allows us to know god; it is requirement to know god. Faith is also seen as a gift bestowed from father to son, mother to daughter, generation to generation. The faith and ways of our forebears being part of the pantheon of tradition that we are all to revere without question. So for Nietzsche to say that faith is something wholly of the mind, something that is sourced from the individual, is very revolutionary. Of course, here in this quote, he only speaks of "true faith". That is a real living idea which animates people's actions; it is not the stories and ideas of a culture as "a faith" is sometimes used to name. We can take this "true faith" to mean something like the opposite of Sartre's "bad faith". For Nietzsche, a "true faith", faith that would motivate people to believe and act in some specific way, is always personal - even if it is appropriated from one's father. It takes a great act of personal will to have this kind of faith. People would be presented opportunities to break their faith daily, and so there is immense effort required to preserve faith. Even stranger, many do break their faith regularly and then twist their minds, even their memories, to somehow bring the world, their memory of the world and their faith into alignment again. So much energy is spent defending this faith, faith battered on by the world like cliffs of salt battered by ocean waves.

What are these waves? They are the ever present pressures of the senses telling us what the world around has to offer. And this stream of data, this font of potential in-formation, is the only source, the only possible root from which one can grow, objective truth. I think in this day anyone who utters "objective truth" gets a chill. It seems like a shadow or a myth. Postmodernism has banished it. "You can't know anything, knowledge is merely opinion" quips Tim Minchin via his characiture of our silly age, who labels herself Storm. And there is this feeling among people that all perspectives are of equal weight. That one idea is just as good as another. Worst of all, there is this notion that science and philosophy support this multi-truthed view. The notion is this: truth is dead. Its death contributes to the resurrection of god, the latest religious revivals. After all, if there is no truth to be had in science, if the efforts of math and physics have ended with a thud, if no answers are coming; why not turn to god and religion where all answers are right there for you on the page? But there are those nagging waves. The senses and their evidence. The data of what happens around us. There is the ever present reality we all share and the rules we know to govern it. The persistence of the light lit from electricity generated kilometers away, made to work by applying principles that work every time. And as long as religious fanatics broadcast themselves on youtube, they will reveal the deep irony of living in a world where our knowledge of our shared reality, our access to objective truth, will always mock their faiths in things we cannot see and cannot burn for fuel and cannot use to make light to read by or videos in which to opine.

Finally, there is the notion of how interconnected are truth, faith and humanity. Humanity needs truth. Humanity needs faith. It may be found that these things, our symbolic representations of our world and our fidelity to them, are our defining traits. It is already known that we are distinguished from other primates by our ability to learn what we are shown as we are shown. Even if something odd or off is completely evident in the things we are shown, we will take them in as given. And it is thought this is an adaptation to allow us to receive wisdom without having to fully grasp it. How can you tell the 3 year old that stepping on the green rocks is bad because the moss is slippery and you will fall? Instead the three year olds that have survived have been those who simply do not step on the rocks that grandma does not step on - simply because grandma did not do it and for no other reason. And that unquestioning acceptance is amazingly efficient at transmitting crucial information about how to traverse rivers. It is shockingly bad at allowing us to learn truth in a world that changes so fast that the generation born today will hardly have any experience in common with the generation born just 10 years before them - and so on into the future unless we commit some horrible act of war that resets the pace of change. If we cannot learn to reject the faith of our upbringing as new data demands it, if we cannot learn to change our thoughts about the world as it's presented to us as we find ever more clever ways to see, then we are advancing without hope and developing skills no one will wield. So where can we place faith, faith we so desperately need to have, such that it does not destroy our ability to see? From what kind of source can we extract truth that would not be corrupted by the instrument we use to learn it? How can we live, in faith, and with truth, as humanity? Of course, Nietzsche would say we must overcome our humanity. For now, I am too timid to guess what that may mean.