Tuhan dan Manusia: Hubungan Yang Tidak Putus

İBRAHİM KALIN i.kalin@todayszaman.com

God is dead, so is man

When the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche had his “madman” declare that “God is dead,” he was referring to the death of metaphysics and morality in the West. The mortal humans who had killed God now had the chance to be the masters of the world. What kind of a world have they created after killing God? All the evidence suggests that “the brave new world,” in the words of Aldous Huxley, is neither more rational nor more humane.

What was Nietzsche's point? What does it mean to say that God is dead? With his typical flamboyant voice, Nietzsche was describing a turning point in Western metaphysics. The death of God does not mean the literal death of the Divine; such an understanding goes against the very definition of God, who is alive, infinite and absolute. It means the end of belief in any and all absolutes, the end of religion and ethics, the end of the ground of reality. The death of God means the loss of any higher principle against which man can be held responsible. It means that men have removed God from the world and now can claim to be the masters of the universe. The critical point here is not so much the death of God, but what comes after it. We return to Nietzsche for the answer. In the “Gay Science,” section 125, Nietzsche has his “madman” declare the following: “God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives; who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?” Yes, “we have killed Him.” Can man ever comfort himself after this greatest crime? Of course, the death of God does not mean that people have ceased to believe in God, left religion completely, stopped going to the mosque or the church, etc. No, it means something bigger, something graver. It means that modern man now charts a new course for modern civilization as if God never existed or mattered in the first place. It means that modern civilization has nothing but man as the measure of all things. It means that man has become the only absolute of the new world that he has created -- the very world which now threatens his own existence. This is not simple atheism. It is more than atheism. It is the crime of the greatest hypocrisy man can ever have. It is the deepest hubris the world can ever see. It is the greatest illusion that man, who is mortal, selfish, jealous and destructive, can claim the throne of God and declare himself to be the only absolute by which things are to be measured. And he believes he can do all this without any responsibility because now there is no one above to judge him. The atheists and secular humanists may celebrate this as the liberation of man from the shackles of religion, dogma, history, tradition and anything that transcends man. But Nietzsche warns again: The death of God has not made man freer, more rational or more ethical. The result is dreadful, more dreadful than man can ever imagine or admit to himself. The result is a “wasteland” that grows. The “wasteland grows” inside us, in the outside world, in nature, in our daily relations, in politics, in consumerism, in ruthless capitalism, in power politics, in international relations and in everything we touch as humans. It grows and burns everything from the Holocaust to most recently Oslo and Hama. “The wasteland grows,” and we can do nothing about it. With all the mighty armies, sophisticated technologies, trillion dollar budgets, faster communications, we can do nothing to stop it. We become the wasteland. With planes crashing into skyscrapers, with an Islamophobic terrorist murdering children, with tanks shelling unarmed people in Hama, Syria and countless other “triumphs” of modern civilization, we are the wasteland. This is the point at which man dies with God. His mortal, stubborn ego refuses to recognize it. But the fact remains: Modern man has died with the death of God. He has created a world of wonders, but now it threatens his own existence. The greatest achievement of the man who killed God has become his own destruction. Can man still be saved? Or is it too late? Catitan Sut: Ramai daripada kita tidak pernah menafikan kewujudan Tuhan, kita dengan keyakinan menyatakan Tuhanlah yang menjadikan alam dan segala isinya. Hanyalah Tuhan selepas mencipta alam dan segala isinya itu telah diketepikan , diperadakan di suatu sudut untuk sekadar memerhati apa yang kita lakukan. Manusialah segala pelaku dan penentu bagi seluruh urusan mereka, kecuali dalam keadaan yang jarang sangat berlaku; umpama apabila berlaku 'bencana alam'. Kita mengatakan alam bertindak balas terhadap apa yang kita lakukan, masih Tuhan sekadar memerhati ciptaan-Nya berintraksi.... Dengan kefahaman sebeginilah , tamaddun hari ini dibina. Ianya didirikan dengan tiang-tiang utama dan asasnya yang meminggirkan Tuhan, Tuhan telah dilupakan. Manusia merancang, manusia melaksana, manusia mendapat hasilan dari rencana dan perlaksanaan mereka. Tidak semua yang dirancang dan dilaksanakan itu keburukan dan pendurhakaan bahkan masih banyak nilai-nilai yang 'baik', nilai-nilai bertimbang-rasa dan 'pertanggung-jawaban kepada alam dan manusia', hanya tidak bertanggung-jawab terhadap Tuhan! Pada masa yang sama timbul pula gerakan kerohanian semasa, ianya biasanya bersifat sejagat, tanpa terikat kepada 'aqidah dan rituals yang ketat'; bahkan ianya menekankan falsafah dan orientasi pemikiran otak. Ia mengandungi sejumlah kebijaksanaan tahap manusiawi, gersang dari petunjuk Tuhan. Hasilnya pula mampu melahirkan manusia yang cekap serta produktif, manusia yang mesra dengan elemen-elemen alam, manusia yang berpuas-hati kerana dapat berkhidmat kepada manusia lain, walaupun tidak kepada Tuhan. Kemanusiaan yang mengambil alih ketinggian Tuhan dalam aqidah dan pemikiran manusia ini telah menelan sebahagian besar manusia, bukankah kemuncak manusia itu ialah pada kekuasaan dan kuasa penentu yang mutlak di tangan mereka sendiri, mengantikan pengabdian dan kerendahan hati dan jiwa yang faqir kepada Tuhannya. Lalu dibayangkan semua balasan dari hasil perancangan dan perlaksanaan seseorang itu akan dikecapi oleh belaiu semada beliau berada di bumi ini atau akan terus diwarisi oleh menusia dan makhluk yang lain selepas kematiannya juga di bumi ini, tiada alam lain kecuali bumi ini. Alam yang lampau, alam yang sekarang dan alam yang akan datang semuanya dicantumkan untuk berada semata-mata di bumi ini.... Tuhan sekadar memerhati. Ya Allah selamatkan kami dari kemusnahan ini.....