Nietzsche and Nihilism

There are four main dimensions to Nietzsche's treatment of Nihilism: the pervasive phenomena of his era, his own efforts to accelerate those phenomena, his positing of the proximate cause of the phenomena, and his positing of the fundamental cause of the phenomena. The first is general disillusionment, the dawning disbelief in the predominant ideals that had, for centuries, given meaning to existence. The second is his own efforts to intensify, often in strident language, that disillusionment, in order to hasten its completion. The proximate cause of the disillusionment, on his diagnosis, is an internal contradiction in the Christian Morality that has been the source of those predominant ideals--at the same time that it posits the existence of a supernatural God and realm, it promotes the truthfulness that breeds the Science that disproves those existences. But, the source of the positing of the existence of that deity and world, is the Will to Nothingness, on Nietzsche's analysis. Now, for some interpetations, Nietzsche's definitive treatment of Nihilism is the second dimension, i. e. in them, Nietzsche is the most enthusiastic of Nihilists. While there is textual support for the thesis that Nietzsche does mean to intensify the disillusionment of the era, the limits of the scope of such interpretations are given in the difficulty they have in explaining a passage such as one to be found in Genealogy of Morals, II, 24, in which Nietzsche explicitly equates "Antichrist" and "Antinihilist". The latter confirms the interpretation that Nietzsche's primary concern with Nihilism is the diagnosis of its fundamental cause, and his offering of an antidote to it, i. e. the Will to Nothingness, and the life-affirming Will to Power doctrine, respectively.