Unlike Nietzsche, the Catechism views God’s free will as a positive entity if used correctly. One of the most important connections can be made through Chapter II, section 1740 of this article of the Catechism: “By deviating from the moral law man violates his own freedom, becomes imprisoned within himself, disrupts neighborly fellowship…” The Catholic Church views morality not as one of slavery and suffering, but of freedom and comradery. The imprisonment within oneself is precisely what Nietzsche had discussed when he accused Christianity of promoting the “painful” subject of the spirit (Nietzsche 62), but the Catechism also seems to reject this notion altogether. It promotes finding morality through God, but also by finding it through political, …show more content…
While Nietzsche once accused Christians of lamenting in their social positions, the current Catechism encourages Christians to explore and embrace the world around them. Nietzsche may have a rightful argument and problem with the Church’s grasp on God and a universal truth, but his search for the truth is much like the Christian’s exercise of free will, by happily using one’s intuition and research to arrive at a philosophical conclusion.
This brings into question the master, and with it the political and philosophical views of master morality. Nietzsche criticized Europeans at the time for striving for “mediocrity,” and that those in political power best exemplified master morality due to their wealth and usually optimal health (Nietzsche 201). While Nietzsche says that the concept of religion can promote structure and order of its subjects through its hierarchies, Christianity specifically aims to keep the lowliest in power by idolizing the absence of all possessions and instead making
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This is even more evident in America today, and it is not in the church’s favor. The number of Christians in the U.S. has gone down 7% since 2007, and the number of Catholics has dwindled by three million members. Conversely, the number of Americans who identify as “unaffiliated” with any religious group has shot up 7% to 23%. This suggests a shift from searching for an individual truth from God to searching for an individual truth within oneself. This is especially true of the young millennial population: 1/3 claim no religious affiliation and only 16% identify as Catholic (O’Laughlin 1). Many of today’s political issues revolve around choice, including the issues of abortion and gay marriage. The separation of church and state is still pressing, and even printing the words “In God We Trust” on American currency is being debated. The growing generation is tired of solely finding truth in God and sacrifice, tired of slave morality. They want to be independent; they want to be masters of their own lives and find truth through their experiences and research. In this way, Nietzsche would be right there, another “unaffiliated” statistic with a big