God Is Dead Because I Wanted to Be Free

When Friedrich Nietzsche wrote, "God is dead," he was not celebrating. He was warning.

He knew that the death of God would lead not to liberation, but to disintegration – moral, social, and spiritual. And he was right.

Modern man didn’t reject God because he outgrew Him. He rejected God because God got in the way.

God stood in the way of total self-determination. Of defining reality on our terms. Of living without judgment, boundaries, or moral obligations. And so, we dismissed Him. Not because we proved He doesn’t exist, but because we preferred a world where He wouldn’t interfere.

We Wanted Freedom Without God

The modern age redefined freedom as self-rule – the power to do what we want, be who we want, and answer to no one. But God, if He exists, places limits. Not arbitrary rules, but real moral order. Real purpose. Real accountability.

And so, we told ourselves a lie: that belief in God was childish. That the moral law was repressive. That true maturity was casting off ancient burdens and walking into the future alone.

But it was never really about maturity. It was about control.

The Dream of Liberation

For a while, it felt like progress:

• Tradition gave way to expression

• Authority gave way to autonomy

• Dogma gave way to self-affirmation

The old foundations were cast off. And for a time, we mistook the falling sensation for flight.

But it didn’t last.

What Happens After God?

Without God, the ground disappears beneath us. There is no shared moral foundation, no final truth, no given meaning. Just personal preference and shifting norms.

We have more choices than ever, but less clarity.More technology, but less wisdom.More freedom, but less love.

Without God, we don’t become gods. We become lost.

The very self we tried to elevate becomes fragile and fragmented. We build identities on shifting sand, and then wonder why they collapse. We demand affirmation from others, but can’t find peace within ourselves. We call this liberation, but it feels like drift.

We Were Made to Be Dependent

The human person is not designed for total autonomy. We are finite, embodied, limited, and relational. We come into the world through others. We grow through formation. We flourish in love and community.

True freedom does not mean being without limits. It means living in harmony with the truth of who we are.

And the truth is, we are not our own makers.

We were made. We were called. We were meant to be children of a Father who loves us.

The Lie of Self-Creation

The modern myth is that we create ourselves. That we define our identity from the inside out. But this is a heavy burden, and a false one.

If everything is chosen, then nothing is given. If I am whatever I say I am, then I am never truly known or received. And if nothing outside me is sacred, then nothing can call me higher.

The result is not freedom. It is loneliness. It is exhaustion.

We need to be named. We need to be called. We need to receive our lives as gifts, not projects.

God Is Not the Enemy

We didn’t reject God because He failed us. We rejected Him because we wanted something He wouldn’t give us: the illusion of sovereignty.

But God is not a tyrant. He is not in competition with our freedom. He is its source.

His laws are not walls to trap us, but paths to guide us.His judgment is not a rejection, but a call to return.His presence is not a threat – it is the home we have forgotten.

The Übermensch and the Collapse of Meaning

Nietzsche was right about the diagnosis: remove God, and meaning begins to unravel. But his solution – the rise of the Übermensch, the man who creates his own values – has not borne good fruit.

Sartre saw the same emptiness: if existence precedes essence, then we are left to define ourselves without reference to any stable truth. But this is not strength. It is a burden. We cannot sustain the role of creator and creature. The result is not liberation, but anxiety, despair, and spiritual fatigue.

Modern man cannot bear the weight of being his own god. And we were never meant to.

Come Back to Reality

When Nietzsche said God was dead, he also said we had killed Him. And now we live in the shadow of that act, trying to make sense of a world we unmade.

But the truth remains, steady and quiet:

You were not made to rule yourself.You were not made to carry the weight of self-definition.You were made to belong. To be loved. To be free in truth.

God is not dead. But we are very far from Him.

It is not too late to come home.

For the earlier essays in this series, see Freedom Isn’t the Power to Do Anything – It’s the Power to Love and The Illusion of Total Bodily Autonomy.