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\n Prabhupada and the \u201cGod Is Dead\u201d Controversy<\/strong>\n<\/p>\n By Satyaraja Dasa<\/p>\n \n In Die frohliche Wissenschaft (usually translated as The Cheerful Science or The Gay Science), published in 1882, Nietzsche puts the words in the mouth of a fictional character known simply as \u201cthe madman.\u201d After entering a busy marketplace, the character asks, \u201cWhere is God?\u201d Reacting to his audacity, mobs of people ridicule him, prompting him to respond to his own question:<\/p>\n \n God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. Yet his shadow still looms. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?<\/p>\n \n Thus, Nietzsche\u2019s decree was not a denial of God but a proclamation that the modern world (for him, nineteenth-century Germany) had moved beyond the traditional God of Christianity and the sense of morality that had come from the Bible. When Nietzsche wrote, \u201cGod is dead,\u201d he was referring to the plight of modernity, indicating that its people had outgrown contemporary European society, its laws, customs, and religious institutions. But now what? Through the mouth of a madman, Nietzsche questions what we should do now that society has taken God \u2013 at least as He was previously understood \u2013 out of the equation.<\/p>\n \n Nietzsche does not mean that God has experienced a physical death (since God is not a physical being). Instead, he hypothesizes that if a Christian society starts to doubt the existence of a spiritual being, the moral fabric of such a society will be pulled apart. Nietzsche is not trying to kill God himself; society had already done that. He is trying to posit a way for humanity to reconstruct itself in the vacuum left by the destruction of Christian morality.<\/p>\n \n \u201cGod Is Dead\u201d Reprise<\/strong>\n <\/p>\n \n After Nietzsche\u2019s time, the \u201cGod is dead\u201d notion died down \u2013 until the 1960s, when it reincarnated by way of an informal group of Protestant theologians, including Thomas Altizer, Gabriel Vahanian, Paul van Buren, William Hamilton, and others. They expressed the need to make God more relevant in the modern world. Preferring Paul Tillich\u2019s conception of the divine as \u201cthe ground of Being\u201d (as opposed to a personal deity), and heeding Dietrich Bonhoeffer\u2019s insistence that Christians \u201ccome of age,\u201d these theologians wanted to recreate religion from the ground up, beginning with the \u201cdeath of God\u201d as we know Him. Theirs was an attempt to accommodate secularization and a world enamored more by science than by spirituality. To this end, they made prodigious use of Nietzsche\u2019s phrase.<\/p>\n \n Their modernist position garnered considerable popularity in the West, reaching a highpoint with Time magazine\u2019s cover story on April 8, 1966: \u201cIs God Dead?\u201d The article addressed possible reasons for America\u2019s growing atheism and the work of the \u201cGod is dead\u201d theologians. Just a few months earlier (January 9, 1966), The New York Times had run a similar story that also focused on the new Protestant theology. Nietzsche would have been proud.<\/p>\n \n But not everyone bought the idea, then or now. For example, theologians such as Karl Barth and John Warwick Montgomery countered \u201cGod is dead\u201d theology to good effect. More currently, Michael Shermer\u2019s article \u201cWhy Nietzsche and Time Magazine Were Wrong\u201d pokes holes both in Nietzsche\u2019s prediction of increasing secularization and in the philosophical position of the \u201cGod is dead\u201d theologians. As evidence, he cites the fact that an ever-increasing number of people in the West are still religious or spiritual, despite the emphasis on science. Additionally, Shermer notes, statistics indicate that few have felt the need to shift their belief to a depersonalized God or to nontraditional forms of religion.<\/p>\n \n Bringing God Back to Life<\/strong>\n <\/p>\n \n In the spring of 1966 \u2013 when Time and other news media were rife with \u201cGod is dead\u201d coverage \u2013 Srila Prabhupada was starting his movement in New York City. Judging by how frequently he used the phrase \u201cGod is dead,\u201d he was aware of the relevant news items. His first documented use of the phrase, in fact, occurred in April of 1966, just as national periodicals were first apprising people of this new trend in Christian theology. From then on, it would consistently arise in his public lectures: \u201cIn America,\u201d he said, \u201cwhen I first went, they were popularizing the theory that \u2018God is dead.\u2019 But they again accepted and said: God is not dead, but He is here with Swamiji.\u201d<\/p>\n \n Prabhupada seemed to know about the Protestant dimension, too, or at least that the idea had penetrated the Christian tradition: \u201cAt the present moment in many Christian churches, this philosophy is being taught that God is dead. But so far we are concerned, we cannot accept this philosophy, that God is dead. But we preach on the other hand that God is not only not dead, but He can be approached finally face to face. And the method is very simple, chanting the holy name of God.\u201d<\/p>\n \n Prabhupada\u2019s guru, Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura, had briefly referred to the \u201cGod is dead\u201d theme in his introduction to the Brahma-samhita, written in the 1930s. Since this predates the Time magazine article by several decades, he was likely recalling Nietzsche, but Prabhupada\u2019s usage seems to suggest his awareness of the theme\u2019s more contemporary manifestation.<\/p>\n \n As for Prabhupada\u2019s books, \u201cGod is dead\u201d appears in his Bhagavadgita As It Is, Srimad- Bhagavatam, Beyond Illusion and Doubt, Mukunda Mala Stotra, Quest for Enlightenment, Elevation to Krishna Consciousness, A Second Chance, The Laws of Nature, and several others. It appears most frequently in books generated from lectures and conversations, such as The Science of Self- Realization and The Journey of Self-Discovery, indicating that he found the topic useful when speaking in public. An online search reveals that he used the phrase well over a hundred times in dialogues, lectures, and letters.<\/p>\n \n Why Was Prabhupada So Concerned?<\/strong>\n <\/p>\n \n The phrase \u201cGod is dead\u201d encapsulates much of what Prabhupada came to correct in the western world. For example, consider the last sentence uttered by Nietzsche\u2019s madman: \u201cMust we ourselves not become gods . . .?\u201d Prabhupada equates the notion of \u201cGod is dead\u201d with the attempt to usurp God\u2019s position. After all, why kill off the Supreme if we don\u2019t want, at least on a subliminal level, to replace Him? Prabhupada says, \u201cSo these atheistic theories, that \u2018Everyone is God,\u2019 \u2018I am God\u2019 \u2018You are God,\u2019 \u2018God is dead,\u2019 \u2018There is no God,\u2019 \u2018God is not a person\u2019 \u2013 we are fighting against these principles. We say, \u2018God is Krishna . The Supreme Personality of Godhead is Krishna . He is a person, and He is not dead.\u2019 This is our preaching. Therefore it is a fight.\u201d<\/p>\n \n Implied in \u201cGod is dead\u201d is this: \u201cIf God is dead, then I can do as I please. I answer to no one. I am, in effect, God.\u201d \n There is a nice Bengali proverb, sakuni svape garu more na<\/em>. Sakuni means the vulture. The vulture wants some dead carcass of an animal, a cow especially. So for days together it does not get it, so it is cursing some cow. \u201cYou die.\u201d So does it mean that by his cursing the cow will die? Similarly, these vultures, sakuni, they want to see God is dead. At least, they take pleasure. \u201cOh, now God is dead. I can do anything nonsense I like.\u201d This is going on. Sakuni is cursing. The vulture is cursing the cow.<\/p>\n \n Many of the \u201cGod is dead\u201d theologians based their work on the prominent twentieth-century Protestant philosopher Paul Tillich, who famously referred to God as the \u201cground of Being,\u201d as opposed to a Supreme Person, or as a \u201cGod who is above the God of theism.\u201d Thus, he perpetuated the Mayavada doctrine of an impersonal Absolute, albeit in western terms. In fact, the word Brahman, the Sanskrit term for the impersonal Godhead, is often translated as \u201cground of being,\u201d the phrase popularized by Tillich. Prabhupada came to the West to show the limitations of this impersonalistic conception. For God to be complete, Prabhupada taught, He must have both impersonal and personal features.<\/p>\n \n This whole cosmic manifestation is nothing but the expansion of the potency or energy of Krishna . This is the conclusion. This expansion of energy is impersonal. Krishna . . . He is the original source. The sunshine is coming from the sun globe, but the sun globe is more important than the sunshine. Similarly, Krishna \u2019s personality is more important than His impersonal feature, the expansion of His energy. If we understand the example of the sun, then it is very easy to understand the difference between the impersonal and the personal features of the Absolute Truth.<\/p>\n \n Prabhupada saw the \u201cGod is dead\u201d philosophy as a simple lack of intelligence, or at least a lack of the kind of intelligence that allows one to distinguish matter from spirit.<\/p>\n \n God is not dead; your intelligence is dead. You have a dead body, and you\u2019re proud of it. The body is just like a motorcar. A motorcar is dead, and if there is no driver it does not work. Similarly, the body is dead, and as soon as you, the soul, leave the body, it stops working. That means you are occupying a dead body. It is working only as long as you are there, but actually the body is dead. And you are decorating a dead body. All your acquisitions are simply decorations on a dead body. Apra\u222basyaiva dehasya ma\u222b- \u2202anam loka-ra\u00f1janam. Some rascal may applaud, \u201cOh, you are so intelligent; you are decorating your body so nicely.\u201d But an intelligent man will say, \u201cWhat a fool he is, that he\u2019s decorating a dead body.\u201d<\/p>\n \n An Inaccurate Conception, To Say the Least<\/strong>\n <\/p>\n \n In the Bhagavad-gita (2.27) Krishna declares, \u201cOne who has taken his birth is sure to die, and after death one is sure to take birth again. Therefore, in the unavoidable discharge of your duty, you should not lament.\u201d Consequently, the death of God is necessarily an inaccuracy, to say the least, since He never took birth. He says this Himself later in the Gita (7.25): \u201cI am never manifest to the foolish and unintelligent. For them I am covered by My internal potency, and therefore they do not know that I am unborn and infallible.\u201d Of course, proponents of the \u201cGod is dead\u201d doctrine do not literally say that God suffers conventional death. But their conception has many other flaws, as Prabhupada has shown in the few examples cited above.<\/p>\n \n Hari Sauri Dasa, who served as Prabhupada\u2019s secretary and traveled with him extensively in 1975 and 1976, documented how Prabhupada spoke about \u201cGod is dead\u201d while in his presence:<\/p>\n \n In class, Srila Prabhupada continued to preach on points raised during the walk, especially the idea that \u201cGod is dead.\u201d . . . Once again Srila Prabhupada\u2019s common sense logic revealed the narrow and limited thinking of atheistic philosophers. \u201cThis is our position. . . . God is not dead; God is coming very soon. Wait a few years. . . . You rascal, God is not dead. God is coming to kick you, to kill you. . . . What is death? You have to change your body. It may be lower degree or higher degree, but you have to change your body. There are 8,400,000 species of life, forms of life. You have to accept one of them. That is our real problem. If we forget the real problem and blindly or foolishly say that God is dead \u2013 God may be dead \u2013 but God\u2019s law is not dead. Suppose a king dies, does it mean the government dies? Hmm? The government will go on. You can say God is dead \u2013 God is not dead, neither you are dead \u2013 but if you foolishly say that God is dead that does not mean His law is also dead. The law will go on. One king may be dead. The next, his son or somebody will become king and the government law will go on. So what is the use of talking foolishly like God is dead. God is never dead. This is going on. . . .\u201d<\/p>\n \n Prabhupada declared that anyone who proclaims such a philosophy is actually dead, because he identifies with the gross physical body, which is always dead. It is simply a machine and moves only due to the presence of the soul. As Krishna chastised Arjuna in the beginning of the Bhagavadgita for his bodily concerns, Srila Prabhupada similarly criticized the modern-day thinkers. \u201cSo all these rascal philosophers they are writing about this body. That\u2019s all. But this is not the subject matter for the learned scholars. What is this body? A combination of matter. It is moving and as soon as the living soul is out of the body it is useless. So what is the importance of talking about this dead body?\u201d<\/p>\n \n His conclusion was as crushingly final to the foolish philosopher\u2019s speculative talk as death itself. \u201cWhen death will come no one will save you. You are challenging God is dead. When God will come and make you killed, nobody can save you. We are so foolish for thinking that God is dead and I shall continue my life and my wife, my children, my countrymen, my nation will save me. That is not possible.\u201d<\/p>\n \n In his \u201cGod is dead\u201d philosophy, Nietzsche was reacting to the rulebound Christianity of his rigid era, as were the Protestant theologians of the 1960s. But they went too far. Prabhupada came to set the record straight through a devotional process of chanting and dancing. Nietzsche, in fact, would have appreciated Prabhupada\u2019s process, for it is said that the German philosopher showed his appreciation of the sacred through dance. Indeed, Nietzsche danced daily, saying it was his \u201conly kind of piety,\u201d his \u201cdivine service.\u201d To conclude, then, I\u2019ll invoke one of Nietzsche\u2019s most famous sayings: \u201cI should only believe in a God who knows how to dance.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\n Although Friedrich Nietzsche (1844\u2013 1900) was not the first philosopher to proclaim that \u201cGod is dead\u201d \u2013 indeed, his predecessor Hegel had used the same phrase almost twenty years earlier \u2013 it was Nietzsche who brought the idea into public consciousness.<\/p>\n
\n In Prabhupada\u2019s words:<\/p>\nPrabhupada and the \u201cGod Is Dead\u201d Controversy By Satyaraja Dasa Although Friedrich Nietzsche (1844\u2013 1900) was not the first philosopher to proclaim that \u201cGod is dead\u201d \u2013 indeed, his predecessor Hegel had used the same phrase almost twenty years earlier \u2013 it was Nietzsche who brought the idea into public consciousness. In Die frohliche Wissenschaft<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[94],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-100984","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-testing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100984","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=100984"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100984\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":110570,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100984\/revisions\/110570"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=100984"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=100984"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=100984"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}