the birth of adam & the death of god

7/30/2019 The Birth of Adam & the Death of God

1/4


2/4

2

GOD IS DEAD (German-"Gott ist tot") --- this utterance might

sound heretic or blasphemous but a German philosopher had

the courage to say this in the late 19th century and his name

was-Friedrich Nietzsche. Nietzsche first proposed this ground-

breaking idea in his book THE GAY SCIENCE (Published-

1882). The relevant paragraph reads thus---

God is dead. God r ema ins dead. And we have kille d him.

Nietzsche, The Gay Science, Section 125, tr. Walter Kaufmann

However the book which helped this concept to become

popular was THUS SPOKE ZARATHUSTRA (Composed infour parts between 1883 and 1885).

God, the omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent entity, was the

centre of everything from the very dawn of civilization. Human

beings thought themselves as mere pawns in the hands of god!

God was the ultimate authority, one who was unquestionable.

This started to change with the dawn of RENAISSANCE in the

15th century. The renaissance intellectuals questioned theauthority of god triggering the process of de-centring of god

and Nietzsches proclamation was perhaps the final nail in the

coffin of god. It was during the renaissance that Man started

hogging the limelight which had previously been the exclusive

property of god. The renaissance art, sculpture, literature

everything reflected this new belief.

In this article I will take one of the most famous Renaissance

paintings THE CREATION OF ADAM by Michelangelo and

will try to show the painting in the light of the new

renaissance belief.

Print to PDF without this message by purchasing novaPDF (http://www.novapdf.com/)
http://www.novapdf.com/http://www.novapdf.com/http://www.novapdf.com/http://www.novapdf.com/


3/4

3

The painting is a section of Michelangelo's fresco in the ceiling

of the Sistine Chapel, Rome and it was painted in circa 1511. In

the painting we can see god in the right stretching his hand

towards Adam who is also stretching his hand towards god

and the image of the near-touching hands has become an iconic

symbol of humanity (The image has inspired NOKIAs famous

Connecting People logo).The painting presents god in an

eagerness to reach Adam (The symbol of Human beings at

large) and no eagerness is shown on the part of Adam to reach

god.

Now my reading of the painting and its time period says that

the eagerness shown by god to reach Adam was due to the

dethronement of god during the renaissance. Earlier human

beings required god to validate their existence but now thetable had turned on its head and god now required human

beings to validate His existence. The literary reference to this

world-view can be seen in a poem namely Chad Saudagor by

the Bengali poet Kalidas Ray which had these lines

Print to PDF without this message by purchasing novaPDF (http://www.novapdf.com/)


4/4

4

jeoC -cha N-saqlC Lfl "f-lL-l -ch jqj eilIn the renaissance world god needed man to exist. And hencein the painting we find god desperately trying to reach Adam

as only the human beings could make the existence of god

possible. Faith had surged back and its place was taken by

reason. And reason didnt accept the existence of god. Almost

all the renaissance intellectuals held this view and this could

very well explain the indifference of Adam to reach god and

the desperation of god to reach Adam. It was as if god wassaying Adam to breathe Life to god. The traditional giver

of life here becomes the seeker of life. This might be a parodic

inversion of the traditional belief.

Michelangelo couldnt kill god as he was painting the ceiling of

a church so he might have presented the new belief in a more

nuanced and subtler way as Ive argued above. He was a

genius and geniuses dont explain away things but tease the

onlookers to find out the subtle tricks hidden in their creations.

Print to PDF without this message by purchasing novaPDF (http://www novapdf com/)

the birth of adam & the death of god

Documents