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Friedrich Nietzsche's proclamation of the 'Death of God' has come to function as something akin to a heuristic device in International Relations (IR) signifying the shattering of metaphysical and ontological certainty in European (post)modernity. According to Chris Brown, Nietzsche's declaration is commonly believed to signify a 'crisis in thought' which constitutes a 'genuine danger' insofar as it risks 'the collapse of the foundations of the old world order'.1 Roland Bleiker notes that such a crisis is deemed by many to be symptomatic of the loss 'of a generally accepted worldview that provided a stable ground from which it was possible to assess nature, knowledge, common values, truth, politics - in short, life itself'.2 This forum seeks to interrogate the substance and consequences of the claim that 'God is Dead' in the context of global politics, and specifically its implications for IR theory, contemporary political violence, and questions of ethics and responsibility.3 Before providing an overview of the points of synergy, agonism and divergence in the papers, this introduction will offer some contextualising remarks relating to the metaphysical, conceptual and historical parameters of the 'Death of God', marking its emergence in European political thought and provisionally mapping the terrain of its pertinence to contemporary IR.
While the claim that 'God is Dead' can be traced to Hegel,4 as F. Thomas Trotter notes the 'striking' and problematic 'shape of the term belongs, of course, to Nietzsche, who gave [it] extended expression.'5 He explains that the claim represents not a singular moment of rupture with a recent God-fearing past, but rather the culmination of an increasing scepticism towards revealed religion in Europe. God, he suggests, had been 'attacked' and 'out-flanked' in Europe over the course of several centuries, from Copernicus, through the Philosophes, culminating '
