Nietzsche and the death of God: History and epistemology (Friedrich Nietzsche)

The claim that God is dead means that belief in any metaphysical or transcendent concept that serves as a basis from which value systems gain their value is untenable. Most writers claim that Nietzsche's historical analyses of the concept of God provide the most support to justify this claim. However, these analyses do not provide this support. These analyses presuppose that such belief is untenable, and the psychological and sociological motives Nietzsche hypothesizes as underlying the ‘invention’ of the concept of God are problematic. Nietzsche's epistemological positions provide the support needed for his claim. He argues that all knowledge is from a certain perspective and ultimately one can never get ‘outside’ one's human perspective in order to gain metaphysical knowledge even if a metaphysical world exists. Consequently, knowledge of concepts such as God, or any transcendent basis for value, is unattainable, and belief in such concepts is intellectually untenable.