Admirers of Nietzsche and admirers of nuns--broadly speaking, atheists and believers--assert very different things. Even if they both speak English, they speak opposing, often mutually incomprehensible languages. Depending on one's stance, one usually dismisses one side with scorn. But it is best to go deeper: once the words of one side and the words of the other are translated into the common speech of humanity, similarities often arise which are, each in its own way, helpful and wise. That is the subject of this essay We will first discuss a saying common to the religious, followed by one common to secularists. We will conclude with an adumbration of similarities.
1. God won't send you more than you can handle
One of the Christian bromides that has the opposite effect on secularists--that is, it tends to wake them up and make them angry--is the saying that "God never gives you more than you can handle." All of my friends and acquaintances who went to Catholic school--I'm not Catholic--attest that nuns, either lovingly or sternly, frequently told students in trouble that God will surely withhold the last straw that would break a burdened back. After all, God is omniscient and omnipotent and loves little Winston and Sally just the way they are. When God wishes to test us, he only sends just enough fire to purify the soul; he'd never send calamities which could destroy the inner pearl, safe within the vest of faith. If you believe as dogma that God has the whole world in his hands, there must be a reason when the gentle hand manifests itself more like an implacable vice.
Not only secularists, but discriminating religious people as well bristle at this piety. The Internet contains many arguments against God's love and its purported (nun)sequitor: What about children afflicted with cancer? What about Abu Zubaydah, who was waterboarded 83 times, under the program of "enhanced interrogation," until he became "completely unresponsive, with bubbles rising through his open, full mouth?" Even worse--What about the Jordanian pilot burned alive by ISIS? And worst of all: the Holocaust. If a fly on a cattle-car wall told someone on the way to Auschwitz that God would't send him more than he could handle, one would hope that someone in the car still had the strength to swat it.
The adage is absurd and non-biblical, some evangelicals argue. They invariably quote 1 Corinthians in this regard: No temptation has seized you that isn't common for people. But God is faithful. He won't allow you to be tempted beyond your abilities. Instead, God will also supply a way out so you will be able to endure it. The switch from trouble from without to trouble from within, over which one (supposedly) has more control, is an improvement, but only a slight one. Paul here sounds like one of Job's busybody friends who simply doesn't get it. If we follow Paul's argument, if we give into temptation from time to time, which we all do, it's always completely our fault. If one falls down the rabbit hole and eats only the wafer labeled mea culpa, one shrinks into unwonderland as a hapless, helpless guilt-ridden dwarf. God gives us more than we can handle for a reason, these same evangelicals argue. He does this so that we give up on ourselves and turn ourselves over to the mercy of Christ. This might be an example of Grade A medieval reasoning, but, logically speaking, it deserves a resounding F.
Yet are we to judge every (nun)sequitor as nonsense? Not so fast. Even these cons are cons that have pros. Before we mention the positive side; before we turn the notorious adage into a noteworthy one, we will first discuss a saying of Nietzsche, which has become almost as annoying to the religious as the (nun)sequitor is to their neighbors, the"secular humanists."
2. What Doesn't Kill Me Makes Me Stronger
I recently read an article by a conservative Catholic political commentator, in which he excoriates this above-quoted saying of Nietzsche. He could well have criticized this adage with the same words that a (once famous) contemporary critic said about the odes of John Keats, "Imperturbable driveling idiocy." His opposition reminds me of the philosophy of Alcoholics Anonymous, namely, that it is hubris for a human being, drunk on his own sins and inanities, to imagine, having inevitably fallen into a ditch, that he can extricate himself from his selfdug pit without the helping hand of a Higher Power. No comment.
As a pithy saying with universal applicability, one can refute Nietzsche's maxim as easily as one can dismiss the (nun)sequitor. It made me think of a young man I saw in a nursing home, while visiting an elderly friend. He had been in a car accident and sustained serious brain damage. He was now a three year old in an adult body; pleasant, clingy and and always asking for food, he had, once again, become a toddler. What almost killed him certainly didn't make him stronger. I can hear your objection: Nietzsche was referring to inner development, not to the overcoming of physical injury. There are objections, however, here as well. Depression can admittedly make one stronger once it is overcome; it also can kill. I leave it to the reader to think of other examples of the more usual outcome: what almost kills you makes you weaker.
We are, however, being unfair to Nietzsche, once the context of the quote is evident. It comes from a hundred-page work of his entitled, "Götzendämmerung" (Twilight of the Idols) a wonderful wordplay on Götterdämmerung, the famous opera by Wagner, whom Nietzsche considered to be an idol in the pejorative sense of that word. In the introduction, Nietzsche states his favorite motto: Increscunt animi, virescit volnere virtus, which I freely translate as follows: wisdom grows via wounds. He tells us that his intent is to smash all idols, even those considered to be sacred. He is willing to accept the painful consequences of his work: isolation, misunderstanding, scorn. This philosopher-iconoclast declares in the text that this work of his is nothing short of a declaration of war, a full-scale assault on ignorance.
The adage under discussion soon follows. The text begins with a collection of forty-four terse sayings under the title: Sayings and Arrows. The "Whatever doesn't kill me" assertion is number eight on the list. Number 11 is crucial, however, to our understanding of what Nietzsche meant. This is my translation: "Can a donkey be tragic? That one is being destroyed under a burden that can neither be borne nor discarded...The case of the philosopher." This is how Nietzsche saw himself. He left us with a very impressive body of work; his life, however, was anything but easy.
The eighth adage is almost never quoted in its entirety. Again, my translation: "From Life's school of war--what doesn't kill me, makes me stronger." It reminds me of something I read long ago. A very strict American Indian tribe trained potential warriors with a grueling task. They had to fill their mouths with water and then proceed on a marathon of arduous physical activity which included running for miles over difficult terrain. Once a brave completed this Herculean task, he had to spit out the water before an established warrior who acted as a judge. If a brave had swallowed the water during the course, he failed. The few that succeeded could now say of themselves; It almost killed me. And then, with triumph, he could proclaim: it also made me stronger. I am now a warrior. Once one translates this brave into a brave spiritual warrior, the sense of Nietzsche's adage becomes clear.
Nietzsche's dictum was not meant for universal application, which is the way it is most often used now. However, the common usage has its place. It conveys messages such as "Make the best of it," "Your'e going to you get through this", or "There is light at the end of the tunnel". Rather humdrum expressions, but, if spoken with sincerity, not bad advice.
Time now to discuss the benefits and similarities of both stances, Nietzsche's and the nun's, something that probably would have made each furious for different reasons. Nevertheless.
3. Conclusion
Both sayings are attempts to find solace despite adversity. What the nun is trying to say is some version of "You're going to be able to get through this with God's help," What Nietzsche wrote is a version of this: Your path is indeed difficult, yet if you keep going on, you will be better for it." Quite similar advice.
Overuse of common adages turn them into clichés, no doubt about that. But what exactly is a cliché? My definition of this word is the following: a truth spoken by someone who doesn't practice it. If either saying is spoken to someone suffering without much thought, or worse, with insincerity, either adage can be like throwing salt on a wound. If the nun, however, says hers with empathy, especially when combined with sincere willingness to help, the adage can indeed provide solace. Likewise with Nietzsche's statement.
Perhaps it would be better to avoid clichés altogether, and, after a period of empathetic silence, while holding the person's hand and/or giving that person a hug, to offer help.
The purpose of this essay, however, is to demonstrate that while atheists and religious persons speak different languages, they are both human, and, with a little interpretation, sometimes what they say are rays of light from the same bright center.
Both sayings have a common thread: difficult times can anneal, suffering can make you better. The ancients knew this well, as the following quote from Aeschylus's play, Agamemnon, written two and a half millennia ago, attests:
Zeus, who guided mortals to be wise,
has established his fixed law--
Wisdom comes through suffering.
Trouble, with its memories of pain,
drips in our hearts as we try to sleep,
so men against their will
learn to practice moderation.
Favors come to us from gods
seated on their solemn thrones--
Such grace is harsh and violent.
Yes, getting crushed by adversity can turn the mind into a diamond. Yet as anyone who has had a near-death experience knows, there can be light at the end of the tunnel. Is this a cliché? Yes; it is also (in most cases) true.
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