Hell Comes Home: Nietzsche, Tertullian, and Islamic Suicide Bombing

Geoffrey Karabin

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Hell Comes Home: Nietzsche, Tertullian, and Islamic Suicide Bombing

In: Emotions and Actions of Revenge

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Geoffrey Karabin

Geoffrey Karabin
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Type:: Chapter

Pages:: 47–60

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1163/9781848883628_007

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For some religious believers, vengeance and a belief in the afterlife are intertwined. Tertullian’s visceral description of Judgment Day is an apt example. Tertullian describes how he looked forward to seeing ‘the magistrates who persecuted the name of Jesus, liquefying in fiercer flames than they kindled in their rage against the Christians.’ Bolstered by a hyperbolic vision of post-mortem vengeance, a Tertullianesque believer’s desire for retribution would seem to be sanctified. Even further, he/she would seem primed to engage in actual acts of vengeance. This potential for violence forms the heart of my essay. Friedrich Nietzsche, for example, saw impotence in Tertullian’s vision of post-mortem judgment. In Nietzsche’s view, Tertullian’s desire to see his enemies suffer is real, yet the fulfillment of his vengeance remains irretrievably supernatural. My reflection takes up Nietzsche’s claim of impotence in order to contest it. In responding to Nietzsche, I do not deny his assessment of Tertullian. What I deny is the general claim that a hope for post-mortem vengeance serves as an anaesthetic with regard to present action. I contend that a belief in the afterlife is able to generate not only action, but also violence and death. In offering my rebuttal to the charge of afterlife impotence, I first point out theoretical reasons as to why a hope for post-mortem vengeance is compatible with actual acts of vengeance. I then highlight the contemporary phenomenon of Islamic suicide bombing. I note how vengeance serves as an important motive in certain instances of this bombing and that an afterlife formulated in vengeful terms bolsters a bomber’s willingness to become an incarnate instrument of vengeance. My conclusion is that identifying the afterlife with retribution may well be a precursor to acts of vengeance rather than an expression of impotence.

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Emotions and Actions of Revenge

E-Book ISBN:: 9781848883628

Publisher:: Brill

Print Publication Date:: 01 Jan 2014

Subjects
- Literature and Cultural Studies
  - Comparative Studies & World Literature
- Social Sciences
  - Cultural Studies

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Hell Comes Home: Nietzsche, Tertullian, and Islamic Suicide Bombing

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Emotions and Actions of Revenge

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