Editing God is dead (section)

{{Short description|Quote by philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche}}
{{About|the philosophical concept described by Nietzsche}}

"'''God is dead'''" ({{langx|de|Gott ist tot|nocat=y}} {{IPA|de|ɡɔt ɪst toːt||De-Gott ist tot.ogg}}; also known as '''the death of God''') is a statement made by the German philosopher [[Friedrich Nietzsche]]. The first instance of this statement in Nietzsche's writings is in his 1882 ''[[The Gay Science]]'', where it appears three times.{{Efn|In sections 108 ("New Struggles"), 125 ("The Madman"), and 343 ("The Meaning of our Cheerfulness").<ref name = "Plato2017">{{Cite book|url=https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2017/entries/nietzsche/|title=Friedrich Nietzsche|first=R. Lanier|last=Anderson|date=March 17, 2017|publisher=Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University |via=plato.stanford.edu}}</ref>|name=three|group=note}} The phrase also appears at the beginning of Nietzsche's ''[[Thus Spoke Zarathustra]]''.

The meaning of this statement is that since, as Nietzsche says, "the [[belief]] in the [[Christian God]] has become unbelievable", everything that was "built upon [[Christianity|this faith]], propped up by it, grown into it", including "the whole [...] [[Europe]]an [[morality]]", is bound to "collapse".<ref name="Plato2017" /> The time of [[the Enlightenment]] had transformed collective human knowledge to the point where many would question their beliefs. The framing of the construct suggests that God could exist, from an [[atheistic]] perspective, in the minds of men rather than in [[reality]], and so widespread disbelief would equate to God's death.

Other philosophers had previously discussed the concept, including [[Philipp Mainländer]] and [[Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel]]. The phrase is also discussed in the [[Death of God theology]].