Is There a True Religion and Morality

Between Nietzsche and Nishitani, is There a True Religion and Morality

15/12/2019

Nietzsche wants to follow basic instincts that lead to the superman. Nishitani wants to give up the personal religion for the universal God and morality through a Buddhist nothingness. The positions are hard to reconcile, and reality most likely lies in between. Nietzsche calls for a different morality, many people understood it as relative morality in the sense of subjective value system. However, when we examine his works albeit in a fast mode, we realize that he has a more complicated concept. In one sense he calls for rejecting the mainstream or religious moralities of universal values, he says, “In Christianity neither morality nor religion come into contact with reality at any point” (BrainyMedia). He later adds that real morality is your instincts, “I reduce a principle to a formula. Every naturalism in morality–that is, everything healthy morality- is dominated by an instinct of life” (Kaufmann, 489). Considering the general confusion of his philosophy, it is hard to figure exactly what he wants to say.

The best side, one can conclude from the above statements is that basic instincts are the driver that leads us to converge into a common good. However, his ideal superman who works for his own good negates that conclusion, “Let your will say: The Superman shall be the meaning of the earth!” (Nietzsche). He does not think basic instincts converge based on agreement, but through struggle until the stronger wins, and an echo system of control and submission ensues, creating a hierarchy from the strongest to the weakest, “All things are subject to interpretation whichever interpretation prevails at a given time is a function of power and not truth” (BrainyMedia). He considers wars as a necessary outcome of the settings and life will remain that way forever, “Another thing is war. I am naturally warlike. Attacking is one of my instincts” (Voegelin). If we compare this to the animal life, or the state of nature as Hobbes suggests in the Leviathan, there could be an echo system under stable operation. But animals do not have the intellectual capacity to learn, speak, write, and accumulate knowledge. These attributes make the difference.

Nishitani comes from an opposite school of thought with his Zen Buddhism. In his book “religion and nothingness”, he makes a critical review of the decaying role of religion in the West, where it is reduced to a personal choice until God becomes personal after a while, “we want to know whether nature as understood by modern natural science, in spite of its insensitivity…to the good and evil can still be thought of as belonging to god, and connected to the question of the free independence and subjectivity” (Nishitani, 61). We create his image to fit our thoughts and sometimes instincts resulting in a local God. Considering this is not the starting point of monolithic religions, where they have a universal God and value system, he thinks Western culture materialism and positivism is responsible, because it cannot accept God beyond local experiences, “It is because this manifold problem has proved so difficult to dispose of in our times that we must question the notion of the personal in God” (Nishitani, 61). Beyond that he must have a measure and fit into the new thinking of science or God loses his value.

In some sense he agrees with Nietzsche, albeit from an opposite perspective. His starting point is on the other side, and his direction is just the opposite of Nietzsche. His end point is to cover the whole universe, “a great harmony among all things in the universe that brings them into being and sustains them in mutual dependence and cooperation, a mystical order that rules over all things so that God can be seen in the most trivial of things.” (Nishitani, 8-9). Nishitani’s God does not have to be a physical being, but he is the definer of the universe limits which we consider emptiness, “God himself means nothing other than to consider ecstasy as applying to the existence of God as well as of man” (Nishitani, 68). During this long journey of meditation, we act as pioneers spanning the universe, and we don’t localize our souls. He concludes, “bears witness to God as present in the Dasein (being there) of the soul itself.” (Nishitani, 64). This is his path to find the universal values of morality or religion.

Here, we have some problems too. Yes, localizing is primitive and at some point, it loses value, but Western religions did not start that way. They are universal and God is not materialistic, or local even though over most their histories people dealt with him near that way. On the other side, the soul’s eternal journey to reach the knowledge provides a good path, and such state of mind favors peace and mediation and a tendency to generalize. However, if each of us goes that way it may end up losing control of life realities and needs.

I have another point of view. I believe the governing law of nature that controls all forces is “maximum freedom with least action”. It creates what we see and provides a level of stability and checks runaway inflations. In this paper, we will extend this concept to humans. The individual is driven by three instinct forces similar to natural bodies, namely the self-survival, survival of genetic being, and the integration with the universe. They correspond to the nuclear, electromagnetic, and gravitational forces respectively. The strongest locally is self-survival, and the only long range and accumulative is integration. Locally, we do not significantly feel this force, and that is why many modern thinkers do not consider values a real force. The main difference of this model between humans and animals is the addition of an advanced brain. Humans with such a brain speak extensive language, learn, read and write, and teach others; and that enables creation and accumulation of knowledge. The local self goes away after death, and we only leave a signature through descendants or knowledge. The integration’s impact due to the brain capacity and accumulation is the most dominant force, similar to star formations due to gravitational force. Hence, morality is our cosmos form, generation is our electromagnetic form, and self is the nuclear form. Without the universal force served by the brain, we will not differ much from the rest of animals. The integration force is the driver, and the brain gives the solutions. If we accept this logic, we can explain the rise of morality through the same universal law of “maximum freedom with least liability for all”. From science we know basic laws are universal and objective. There is a good reason to assume similar validity to humans, and there is no compelling reason why we must dismiss that possibility.

We know that there is no universal standard for good and evil to cover all living things, let alone all forms of matter, but that does not exclude getting some terms, if we classify concepts based on common needs and attributes, then generalize them to maximize benefits for the largest number of groups. It can be risky to apply some rules that govern relations between two district groups to relations within the same group. For example, we my justify or accept the relation between predators and herbivores because predators’ fundamental survival depends on such relation. This does not justify generalizing to relations between nations or human classes. In the following we put an abstract definition of good and evil in terms of the needs and perceptions of the relevant groups. If we get to some working outcome, then we may extend to more than one group until we get optimized albeit not complete universal concepts that serve the maximum number of groups and nature in general.

Good is what makes life better for the most, and evil is the anti-thesis. We are built with needs; physical and psychological, and we use our brains, imagination, and learning to make conclusions about these needs and their satisfaction. If our needs are satisfied, we are generally happy, and will not be inclined to commit evil. But if threatened by any means, real or assumed by imagination, then we tend to push back, and evil starts from there. Hence, evil is the wrong solution to possibilities, and good is the correct ones. Without interaction between all possibilities, we may not find the correct answers, hence we will not accomplish the good in the first place. The universe with a built-in component of conflict allows for finding the correct solutions based on our free will and intelligence. Most of the time we do not get the correct answers, because they are a small subset of all answers. Hence, we “commit errors or sins” that are forgivable as long as they are made with good intentions. We cannot always get the right answers, but at the end we learn and transcend to get them and advance. Religion’s role is to give such initial good solutions and follow the science logic to keep track.

Now we apply our model to Nietzsche. He gave the local instincts a universal role but that is a contradiction. He borrowed from the animal kingdom, and based good and evil on local instincts. Hence he reduced the role of the brain to create controlling structures. He ends up with a selfish superman who does not see love and care beyond personal interest. Such a conclusion does not seem fair and just. Our model agrees with Nishitani conclusion, but his road map is not guided by the scientific method. He seems to rely more on the wisdom of those special mediators. In our model we assume the initial wisdom from the morality of religion, but then we follow scientific methodology. It is not clear if Nishitani believes in the application of science into the methodology. He seems to rely more on meditation for the whole matter.

Nietzsche’s anger towards religion is a result of its corruption, but he does not offer corruption proof universal solutions. What bothers Nishitani is the reduction of the universal religion to a pity local one. Their dissatisfaction is justified, but the original problem seems to be the corruption of religion due to a wrong methodology, in addition to the loss of clear definition of terms for the initial conditions. The corruption is a direct result of some sinister forces of basic instincts like greed, self-preference, and corrupted logic. That means they will never disappear. All good concepts can be corrupted, and local forces acting on individuals tend to localize all concepts. Since we spend most of our time struggling for local survival, while those who don’t worry about survival are busy satisfying their selfish superiority dreams, then every good concept is venerable to corruption. The needs, greed, and self-preference can corrupt their lives especially if they hold power positions; that is being religious, political, or economic. Even intellectuals can be corrupted through blackmail and greed. This means you may start with a perfect ideology for human interaction, but it takes only 2-3 generation to corrupt it to a level of inflicting major damage. Accordingly, religion needs updating, which is what we call normally reformation. Update fits better because the meaning of reform itself has been corrupted, while update is technical and quantitative. It simply means adding features that prevent corruption of the original functionality.

Every person should be able to participate in this update, but rules must be observed strictly to keep the original role and operations. The basic role should not change, and if there is a need, it must be done through a wide acceptance from all wise and ordinary folks after deep analysis of long-term ramifications. We just apply the scientific method when we do the cleaning or updates, and we strictly observe the basic laws or constitution. The natural social constitution is the moral values. They are universal and it is easy to agree on most of them. Dismissal of such values comes only from corrupted minds and an honest scientific method can expose such minds.

Works Cited

BrainyMedia Inc. “Friedrich Nietzsche Quotes.” BrainyQuote.com. 13 March 2020. https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/friedrich_nietzsche

Hobbes, Thomas. Leviathan. Edited by G.C.A. Gaskin. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.

Kaufmann, Walter (ed.). The portable Nietzsche. New York: Penguin (1977).

Nietzsche, Friedrich. Thus Spake Zarathustra. (Trans. Thommas Common). 2008.

Nishitani, Keiji. Religion and nothingness (trans. Jan Van Bragt).[CA]: university of California press (1983).

Voegelin, Eric. “Nietzsche, the Crisis and the War.” The Journal of Politics, vol. 6, no. 2, 1944, pp. 177–212. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/2125271. Accessed 13 Mar. 2020.