aphorism 14, A Human Strategy
Genuine Spirituality: Granted, there exist those rare individuals with genuine fear and trembling before the prospect of eternal consequences. But could we regard fear and trembling ... this flight away as a sincere attempt at the spiritual goal? The greater the coward the worthier the spirit?
Beyond the horrors of Christianity, could we not find at least a few attempts which are sincere and courageous? We protest, for we have seen attempts to rise higher, beyond the drive to dominate other people ... beyond complacency, greed or fear. Does not this rare and nearly extinct species consistently strive for greater and greater solitary difficulties? “What could be more difficult than to become a sincere Christian?” becomes “What could be more difficult than the impossible?” They seek greater resistance to prove greater ability ... to the point of finding the greatest resistance: “achieving the impossible.” They want this impossibility even more than the eternal victory. They want superiority over themselves ... to become something higher ... holy instruments, not so much of God as for proof of their own self-promotion within their own minds. They see themselves as fearless soldiers who will hold their ground against reality, using the cause to license their promotion.
This was the affirmative half of the seduction of Christianity ... an attempt to rival the universe, albeit with a presumption. The human species proved to be more insane than previously understood: it was the impossibility of Christ and Christianity that lured so many of the best toward this abyss of futility. Those few it could not frighten, it challenged.
Now, if Christianity had been other than impossible ... if it had been downright easy ... if Christianity had been the natural order of things, it would have gone nowhere ... having nothing to resist, nothing to strive after, the goal requiring not a gripping of oneself but a letting go. The sincere would have become bored ... with the reality. “Then what do I wait for in this next life? ... yet more boredom?” They would need a danger to resist, would rather become the Antichrist himself than to succumb to this ennui. They would renounce ... again! ... Eternal reality itself! … just so as to strive after yet another impossibility with which to prove that they are still fearless: a mechanical view so complete and fearsome it sets their bones trembling within their flesh, and in a way that Divine Anti-nature could never have inspired.