For the Life of the World / Yale Center for Faith & Culture Amor Mundi Part 3: Loving Our Fate? / Miroslav Volf's 2025 Gifford Lectures
Miroslav Volf, a prominent theologian from Yale Divinity School, offers profound insights into love and power by critiquing Nietzsche's philosophy. He argues that Nietzsche's will to power leads to endless striving and contempt, while Jesus's teachings champion unconditional love that accepts others despite their flaws. Volf contrasts human relationships through the lenses of suffering and growth, emphasizing the need for a transformative love amidst life's challenges. He also discusses theological distinctions, urging a shift towards love that fosters genuine connections.
01:03:48
Will To Power As Hyper-Good
- Nietzsche makes the will to power the highest value: growth of power is what counts as good and happiness.
- Volf argues this elevates striving itself while denying intrinsic worth to others, producing contempt.
Striving Requires Constant Opponents
- Nietzsche sees human flourishing as comparative superiority achieved through ongoing struggle and opponents.
- Volf notes this makes superiority temporary and fuels endless contest rather than stable goods.
Agon Without Guardrails Devalues Many
- Agonistic competition without moral/legal restraints will generalize social inferiorization.
- Volf likens unchecked agon to capital accumulation that leaves many relatively worse off.
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Intro
00:00 • 4min
Contrasting Philosophies: From Schopenhauer's Despair to Nietzsche's Affirmation
04:18 • 5min
Nietzsche's Will to Power and Love
09:11 • 13min
Contrasts of Existence: Genesis vs. Nietzsche
22:37 • 6min
The Tension of Love and Humanity
28:57 • 28min
The Nature of Unconditional Love
57:16 • 3min
Theological Distinctions of Love: Agape and Eros
01:00:07 • 4min
#253
• Mentioned in 59 episodes
Thus Spoke Zarathustra
Friedrich Nietzsche
Thomas Common
The book details Zarathustra's descent from his mountain solitude to share his transformative ideas about humanity and existence.
Nietzsche explores themes such as the rejection of traditional moral values, individualism, and the concept of the Overman.
Zarathustra's interactions with various characters reveal his struggle to articulate his vision and confront prevailing societal values.
The book also delves into the existential test of the eternal recurrence of the same and the importance of self-overcoming and personal transformation.
#1168
• Mentioned in 20 episodes
The will to power
Friedrich Nietzsche
The Will to Power is a compilation of Friedrich Nietzsche's notes and fragments, edited and published posthumously by his sister Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche and others.
The book is based on Nietzsche's intention to write a comprehensive work titled 'The Will to Power, An Attempt at a Revaluation of All Values.
' It explores his central philosophical concept of the 'will to power,' which he believed was the fundamental driving force in all living beings.
The work delves into various aspects of human life, including morality, art, science, and metaphysics, and critiques traditional values and morality.
Despite not being a completed work by Nietzsche himself, it remains a key component of his philosophical legacy.
#37527
Homer on Competition
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Friedrich Nietzsche
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#4387
• Mentioned in 7 episodes
Ecce Homo
Friedrich Nietzsche
Anthony Ludovici
In 'Ecce Homo', Nietzsche provides a self-portrait and an interpretation of his own development, works, and significance.
The book is characterized by its hyperbolic and sometimes self-mocking style, where Nietzsche discusses his life, his relationships with influential figures like Schopenhauer and Wagner, and his vision for humanity.
He also reviews his major works and reiterates his critiques of Christianity and modern morality.
The book is a testament to his philosophical beliefs and his unique approach to autobiography.
#18542
• Mentioned in 2 episodes
The Joyful Science
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche's 'The Gay Science' (also known as 'The Joyful Wisdom' or 'The Joyful Science') is a philosophical work that explores themes of knowledge, morality, and the human condition.
Nietzsche introduces the famous proclamation of the 'death of God,' which signifies the decline of traditional religious and metaphysical beliefs.
The book celebrates the power of individual creativity, self-overcoming, and the pursuit of joy in a world without inherent meaning.
Nietzsche's aphoristic style and provocative ideas challenge conventional wisdom and encourage readers to embrace a more affirmative and life-affirming philosophy.
#482
• Mentioned in 38 episodes
The Myth of Sisyphus
Albert Camus
In 'The Myth of Sisyphus', Albert Camus delves into the concept of the absurd, which arises from the conflict between humanity's desire for meaning and the apparent indifference of the universe.
Camus argues that this absurdity does not justify suicide but rather requires a revolt against it.
He introduces Sisyphus, a figure from Greek mythology condemned to eternally push a boulder up a mountain only for it to roll back down, as the ideal absurd hero.
Camus suggests that Sisyphus's acceptance of his fate and his continued effort to push the boulder up the mountain, despite its futility, exemplify the human condition and the possibility of finding happiness in the face of absurdity.
The essay also discusses other examples of absurd lives and includes an appendix on the works of Franz Kafka.
#1398
• Mentioned in 18 episodes
The world as will and representation
Arthur Schopenhauer
The book is divided into four parts.
The first part addresses the world as representation, the second details the world as will, the third discusses art and beauty as the only way to transcend the painful human condition, and the fourth discusses ethics and the ascetic ideal.
Schopenhauer argues that the will is the underlying reality of the world, beyond mere appearances, and that it is characterized by ceaseless striving and suffering.
#558
• Mentioned in 34 episodes
Beyond Good and Evil
Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future
Friedrich Nietzsche
In 'Beyond Good and Evil', Nietzsche challenges the traditional morality and philosophical thought of his time.
He argues that the Christian world is steeped in a 'slave morality' that demonizes strength and domination, and instead proposes a philosophy that celebrates the present and the individual's 'will to power'.
The book is known for its aphoristic style and its critique of past philosophers for their dogmatic premises.
Nietzsche advocates for a new kind of philosopher who values imagination, self-assertion, and the creation of values, and he introduces the concept of 'perspective of life' which denies a universal morality for all human beings.
Miroslav Volf critiques Nietzsche’s vision of power, love, and suffering—and offers Jesus’s unconditional love as a more excellent way.
The idea that competitive and goalless striving to increase one's power is the final Good, does very important work in Nietzsche’s philosophy. For Nietzsche, striving is good. Happiness does not rest in feeling that one's power is growing. In the modern world, individuals are, as Nietzsche puts it, ‘crossed everywhere with infinity.’ …
And therefore condemn to ceaseless striving … The will to power aims at surpassing the level reached at any given time. And that goal can never be reached. You're always equally behind.
Striving for superiority so as to enhance power does not just elevate some, the stronger ones. If the difference in power between parties increases, the weak become weaker in socially significant sense, even if their power has objectively increased. Successful striving for superiority inferiorizes.”
In this third installment of his Gifford Lectures, Miroslav Volf offers a trenchant critique of Friedrich Nietzsche’s moral philosophy—especially his exaltation of the will to power, his affirmation of eternal suffering, and his agonistic conception of love. Nietzsche, Volf argues, fails to cultivate a love that can endure possession, withstand unworthiness, or affirm the sheer existence of the other. Instead, Nietzsche’s love quickly dissolves into contempt. Drawing from Christian theology, and particularly Jesus’s teaching that God causes the sun to rise on the evil and the good alike, Volf explores a different kind of love—agapic, unconditional, and presuppositionless. He offers a vision of divine love that is not driven by need or achievement but that affirms existence itself, regardless of success, strength, or status. In the face of suffering, Nietzsche's amor fati falters—but Jesus’s embrace endures.
Episode Highlights
- "The sun, in fact, has no need to bestow its gift of light and warmth. It gains nothing from imparting its gifts."
- "Love that is neither motivated by need nor based on worthiness—that is the kind of love Nietzsche thought prevented Jesus from loving humanity and earth."
- "Nietzsche aspires to transfiguration of all things through value-bestowing life, but he cannot overcome nausea over humans."
- "God’s love for creatures is unconditional. It is agapic love for the states in which they find themselves."
- "Love can only flicker. It moves from place to place because it can live only between places. If it took an abode, it would die."
Show Notes
- Miroslav Volf’s engagement with Nietzsche’s work
- Friedrich Nietzsche’s critique of Christianity as life-denying and his vision of the will to power
- Schopenhauer’s hedonism vs. Nietzsche’s anti-hedonism: “What is good? Everything that heightens the feeling of power.”
- The will to power as Nietzsche’s supreme value and “hyper-good”
- “The will to power is not a philosophy of life—it’s a philosophy of vitality.”
- Nietzsche’s agonism: the noble contest for superiority among equally powerful opponents
- “Every GOAT is a GOAT only for a time.”
- Amor fati: Nietzsche’s love of fate and affirmation of all existence
- Nietzsche’s ideal of desire without satisfaction: “desiring to desire”
- Dangers of epithumic (need-based, consuming) love
- “Love cannot abide. Its shelf life is shorter than a two-year-old’s toy... If it took an abode, it would die.”
- Nietzsche’s nausea at the weakness and smallness of humanity: “Nausea, nausea... alas, man recurs eternally.”
- Zarathustra’s conditional love: based on worthiness, wisdom, and power
- “Joy in tearing down has fully supplanted love’s delight in what is.”
- Nietzsche’s failure to love the unworthy: “His love fails to encompass the great majority of actually living human beings.”
- Volf’s theological critique of striving, superiority, and contempt
- “Nietzsche affirms vitality at the expense of concrete human beings.”
- The biblical God’s love: “He makes his sun rise on the evil and the good.”
- “Even the poorest fisherman rows with golden oars.”
- Jesus’s unconditional love versus Nietzsche’s agonistic, conditional love
- Kierkegaard and Luther on the distinction between person and work
- Hannah Arendt’s political anthropology and enduring love in the face of unworthiness
- Volf’s proposal for a theology of loving the present world in its broken form
- “We can actually long also for what we have.”
- “Love that cannot take an abode will die.”
- A vision of divine, presuppositionless love that neither requires need nor merit