ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that Nietzsche's voice abstracts from the grammar of theological-prophetic discourse; he seeks to out-do it, to appropriate its rhetorical extremity, its pathos, which he sees as the rightful possession of self-determining man. It entails a reading of Barth's early theology, especially his Romans commentary, as a response, a rejoinder, a riposte to the Nietzschean voice. There is a comic element to the Promethean mistake; there is cause to deride it as well as to condemn it. In response to Nietzsche's 'prophetic' mode of attacking Christianity, Barth rediscovers the prophetic mode of proclaiming it. The Nietzschean pathos of heroic daring is thus applied to the very un-Nietzschean ideal of submission. Nietzsche's discourse relies on rhetorical violence because it is (pseudo-) prophetic; it represents an absent authority. His work and its reception reminds us that the realm of rhetorical violence is not necessarily, not 'naturally' distinct from that of actual violence.
