Yet another reaction to Kant's synthesis was the bold philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900). While his father and grandfather were both pastors in Prussian Saxony, Nietzsche became a committed opponent of the Christian faith. His principal contributions have been two: the "will to power" and "postmodernist relativism."

First the "will to power." Nietzsche believed that every drive we experience is but a variant of the one basic drive--the will to gain power. All goods, all values, all virtues are expressions of the power positions of various individuals and groups.

The best way to live is to embrace this will to power, according to Nietzsche. The "superman" is the person who takes for himself power from the world. The Christian, on the other hand, with his stress on humility, is weak and must be rejected. Happiness comes from power, and the more, the better.

Second, his contributions to what has become "postmodern relativism." In brief, Nietzsche argued that our language does not reflect reality as such, but only our experience of it (in agreement with Kant). There is no such thing as "leaves," only individual leafs which we experience and synthesize into the universal. Language is purely individual and subjective, absolutely the product of our own experiences. And so language cannot reflect a larger, objective reality or truth. This linguistic assertion will be crucial for the development of postmodernism we'll track in the last chapter.

Nietzsche is right: the "will to power" is the dominant drive in fallen human nature (cf. Genesis 3). But he is wrong: we must not embrace it but surrender it to God. Only then can his power (far greater than any we can claim) be ours, and his purpose fulfilled by our lives.