No.The Christianity he critiqued was the Lutheranism his father taught him. Nietzsche said:
"Every true faith is infallible. It performs what the believing person hopes to find in it. But it does not offer the least support for the establishing of an objective truth. Here the ways of men divide. If you want to achieve peace of mind and happiness, have faith. If you want to be a disciple of truth, then search.”
This is a deeply Lutheran sentiment. That faith brings pure peace and happiness with no struggle is firmly based on the doctrine of “faith alone”. Nietzsche believed faith itself was an objective truth, not part of the search for truth. Therefore, once he abandoned this faith, his logical conclusion was that only the search itself is true. Objective truth was rendered unattainable.
The Lutheran concept of “faith alone” does indeed lack the will to power. It denounces questioning because it sees faith as the goal, not as means to the goal. It’s like finding a road and sitting down before traveling it. This concept of faith did not exist prior to the reformation. Catholics, from the Apostles until now, have always seen faith as a guide. Faith is inspiration, not knowledge itself. Faith is what gives us the confidence to travel down a road, and what keeps us going when we stumble on it. This is expressed in the New Testament. Consider this excerpt from the letter to the Hebrews:
“…about David and Samuel and the prophets, who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, and gained what was promised; who shut the mouths of lions, quenched the fury of the flames, and escaped the edge of the sword;…”
Notice how the word “faith” is used here. It is not merely faith that enabled these men to do these deeds. It was “through” faith. If David or Daniel had faith the way Nietzsche meant it, then David would have simply sat back on his throne and waited for God to give him these kingdoms, Daniel would have sat in the pit and waited for God to shut the lion’s mouth, instead of using his own hands. Consider also this excerpt from Saint James:
“What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him? …Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.”
He agrees with Nietzsche here. Faith, for James, means to put this faith into action. Faith to him means to love. The two are synonymous. Faith without love is not faith. It’s dead, a static ideal. As Saint Thomas Aquinas says, “To love is to will the good of the other”. Love is the ultimate will to power.
This is the essence of all saints. All those martyrs in the Roman Empire could have spared their lives by simply denouncing their faith and swearing an oath to the emperor. But they willed themselves into the coliseum and confronted the jaws of the lions. Think of the emperor who watched this. He, as emperor, exerted his will to power as Nietzsche would say. Would he, this man of power, be brave enough to confront these lions? Faith is what gave these Christians the courage to confront this horrific fate. If he were to lose his throne and be cast down into the coliseum too, he would have no hope, no courage, because he would have no faith. His will to power, while effective, is an illusion, because it is temporary.
Nietzsche said:
“Suppose nothing else were “given” as real except our world of desires and passions, and we could not get down, or up, to any other “reality” besides the reality of our drives–for thinking is merely a relation of these drives to each other: is it not permitted to make the experiment and to ask the question whether this “given” would not be sufficient…”
This means that his will to power is simply the exertion of the will for its own sake. Once this will dominates all other wills, the pleasure is the power felt by one’s will being dominant. It’s is entirely narcissistic. This is why Nietzsche found it acceptable to lie, kill, and never forgive if all these actions exert your will, since for him, there is no objective truth, only what we will is true. As “faith alone” is merely faith without works, Nietzsche’s will to power is merely will without works. He called those who excreted their will to power Ubermenschs, and gave Napoleon as an example. But Napoleon ended his life powerless and feeble on an island, despite all his conquests beforehand, and while his actions reverberated throughout history, his reputation is largely negative, since his actions caused mass deaths and paved the way towards World War II. Nietzsche’s inability to acknowledge this fate is telling. It reveals his romanticism, and his inability to look beyond the mere military conquests of Napoleon. Because Nietzsche sees the will for the will as some Lutheran Christians see faith for faith, he does not see the end these means are intended for.
Compare Napoleon with Christ. Christ willed his death, and yet the difference between their wills is that Napoleon’s will was based on temporal pleasures, whereas Christ’s will is based on love. Napoleon knew this. That’s why he said:
"Alexander, Caesar, Charlemagne, and myself have founded great empires. But our empires were founded on force. Jesus alone founded His empire on love, and to this day millions would die for Him. I think I understand something of human nature, and I tell you, all these were men, and I am a man. Jesus Christ was more than man.”
Nietzsche knew this too. That’s why he said Christ was his only true opponent. That’s also why his criticisms are harsh. He compared all Christians to the standards set by Christ, and found them wanting. But he did not demonstrate an understanding of what Catholics meant by faith, nor did he consider the acts of the Saints, and therefore his philosophy is based on a false dichotomy.
