NIETZSCHE, in his posthumous The Will to Power (1910), asks: “What does nihilism mean?” By way of reply, he adds: “That the highest values devaluate themselves.” Just as Nietzsche answers his own question, so too is he accounting for his more general statement that “God is dead”. What I mean by this, is that if God is really dead in the minds of men then surely the fact that the “highest values devaluate themselves” is explained by the rise of atheism and irreligiosity amongst the denizens of humankind?

The discarded object (God) is devalued and, consequently, becomes invisible or irrelevant to the subject (man). God is thus thought-into-being and then, depending upon whether you prefer Enlightenment reason to pure thoughtlessness and neglect, disappears in a puff of smoke. The fact that some people actively will God into oblivion, on the other hand, is another matter entirely but no less consistent with this interpretation of nihilism.