Friedrich Nietzsche: Master Morality and Slave Morality…and Jesus

In addition to talking about the will to power and the will to truth, Nietzsche also has a lot to say about what he coins master morality and slave morality. These two terms, obviously, have a lot of overlap with the will to power and the will to truth.

Now Nietzsche sees Christianity as the epitome of slave morality—it is simply a “projection of ultimate power to provide a crutch for its impotent believers who are incapable of harnessing the power of life for themselves” (A Short Introduction to Nietzsche, 12). Simply put, it is a matter of being so afraid and impotent to take on life itself, one just projects that power on a “big daddy” in the sky whom one deludes himself into believing will make everything all right, as long as you are a “good boy,” submit, and keep the rules.

By contrast, master morality, for Nietzsche, is shaped by the will to power and finds its morality based in whether or not something is useful for “the furtherance of creativity and life” (14). Basically—if something adds to your self-worth and self-confidence, it is good; but if something hinders you or stunts your growth, it is bad.

Slave morality is just the opposite. Its basis for morality is this: if something makes you feel good about yourself, it must be bad…you need to deny yourself, bend your knee, and submit to the great “other” who will simply tell you what to do. So, what is “good” becomes nothing more than denying the good things in life that, well…make you feel good! And, as everybody knows, the person who lives his life in that way ends up being quite a pessimistic, waspish, and petty person.

Let’s face it, throughout the history of Christianity, this sort of mentality is well known, whether it is the 19^th Century Victorian society in which Nietzsche lived, or the 21^st Century American Evangelical society in which we find ourselves today. What is that old adage? When a young boy was asked how can we know God’s will, he answered, “If there is something that is fun to do or makes you feel good, don’t do it.”

Nietzsche is to a certain extent correct. There is a tendency within the human heart that gravitates toward being a slave and that is too afraid to truly live life. Why is that? I think it is because true freedom scares us. There’s a part of us that wants to just be told what to do, just so we can feel safe. We feel unworthy, ill-equipped, and too weak to have the courage to step out and truly live life. We are, in a very real sense, still children in our thinking. Paul says in Romans that as long as we are children in our thinking, we, for all practical purposes, are still slaves—either to the “elements of the world” or to God.

The difference, of course, is that those who are slaves to the “elements of the world” will never be able to grow up, for those “elements of the world” want to keep us as subservient slaves who cowering in fear, just so they can maintain control over us. By contrast, the whole goal of the Christian life is to “grow into maturity in Christ.” It is not to remain childish slaves. It is to grow, mature, and to eventually reign over this creation with Christ.

So where Nietzsche goes wrong is that he doesn’t seem to see that, by virtue of our own humanity, we will always have a starting position of “slave morality,” simply because we start off immature, weak, vulnerable, and gullible. That is part of the growing and creative process of life. This is the part that Nietzsche doesn’t see. He sees master morality as directly opposed to slave morality—it is an “either/or” for Nietzsche. But the Christian message is that in Christ it is ultimately a “both/and.” We are born with a childish mindset that is essentially that of slavery. The way out of that immature/slavery mindset, though, is, ironically, to submit to the source of true life and freedom—namely Christ. Paul is correct when he says that when you are a “slave to sin,” you are free from righteousness, life, and maturity, and that when you submit to God and become a “slave to righteousness,” you are freed from the slavery of sin.

But by rejecting the notion of God, particularly Christ as both God and Man, Nietzsche has attempted to argue that although we all essentially have that slave morality, we can somehow, by our own will to power, free ourselves of that sort of bondage into true freedom, so we can truly be ourselves. But what’s the problem there? If our starting point is, in fact, slave morality, then that is, in fact, who we are. Breaking out of that entails that somehow we make ourselves into something else—but what is that “something else?”

Nietzsche ultimately has no real answer to that, other than, “Whatever you want to be.” But, of course, if that is the case, if a master morality is simply defined as that which furthers life and creativity for a particular individual, then there is bound to be endless problems whenever one bumps into another individual—what if his desire for life and creativity conflicts with yours? Nietzsche’s answer is, “Whosever will to power is stronger.” But then doesn’t that become simply a power-play, and the imposition of a far more insidious slave morality on the weak, the kind of which the Nazis, in the name of Nietzsche, imposed?

Now, I have a hard time believing that Nietzsche would endorse Nazi ideology. I think the extent of Nietzsche’s talk of the will to power and master morality was simply about one talking control of one’s life and living it to the fullest. But by denying God, Nietzsche’s quest for “the good and truly creative life” opens itself up to manipulation by the powerful who, by their sheer act of will, bring death and destruction upon others.

But Nietzsche was right to reject the sort of watered-down, childishly-simplistic brand of Victorian Christianity. For it reduced the truly living, active, and creative work of Christ through the Holy Spirit to a weak moralism that did, in fact, say, “To be a good Christian means to be a ‘good boy’ who has good manners, is polite, and keeps the rules.” ….and that is a ‘gospel’ that is no Gospel at all. Jesus would reject it, Paul would reject it, and the living Tradition of the Christian faith rejects it.

The true slave of Christ is one who is empowered by the Holy Spirit to rule with Christ over His creation—and that morality is one that is reduced to basically two things: to love God and to love your neighbor. Love through sacrificial living brings life, creativity and power to reign. Anything else ends up in hatred, power-games, death, boredom, and impotence….and in Nietzsche’s case, insanity.