(Doctrine of Eternal Recurrence — INTRODUCTION, aph. 5)

Those who choose to believe in the Eternal Return are those for whom neither religion nor science is sufficient. Only for those to whom ancient religious texts appear unconvincing and mean nothing — but who, on the other hand, are terrified by the scientific image of the world, especially by the idea of the heat death of the universe — and who cannot reconcile themselves with the thought of a final end, can the thought of Eternal Return become appealing and offer consolation. In other words, although it may at first seem impossible, the Eternal Return can console, for in its own way it offers — if not an otherworldly — then at least a “this-worldly” immortality. In doing so, it denies both the final, “eternal” death into which contemporary science would have us believe, and the eternal life in one and the same skin, with ever new possibilities, promised by religions. What the Doctrine of Eternal Return offers in return is nothing spectacular — only this wretched life that endlessly returns.

On the other hand, we do not wish to appear frivolous and take our fear of death as an argument that in any way undermines or denies the scientific conviction that there is no one standing behind the nature of this world. Our fear of death merely brought us back to the beginning — to the point of origin, and at the same time to the crossroads of eschatological beliefs about the nature of the world in which we live — or merely feel alive — and where, after some necessary clearing, we discover that neglected “middle path” leading toward the thought of Eternal Return. From this crossroads of eschatological beliefs about the nature of the world, despite the clearly signposted two remaining paths — the religious and the scientific — we set out on a third path and there encountered the “thought of all thoughts”: that of the Eternal Return.

It is important to understand that the thought of the Eternal Return of the Same is reached through a particular philosophical–eschatological mode of thinking that does not rely on religious or scientific intuitions; neither religion nor science can present it in its original form. This can be done only by philosophical thinking. Only through this particular philosophical–eschatological way of thinking (which will be set out in more detail in the fifth chapter of this book) does the individual necessarily arrive — or fail to arrive — at the conviction of the certainty of the Eternal Return of the Same. For this reason, the thought of Eternal Return possesses a profoundly philosophical character.

It requires neither God nor scientific proofs as guarantees of its credibility, although it leaves open the possibility of both. For although God is denied any role in the thought of Eternal Return, it does not exclude Him; and although it is not supported by scientific insights today, it does not exclude them either. Whether it will one day be shown that God stands behind the mechanism of the Eternal Return, or whether — following insight into the nature of quantum reality or the Big Bang — it might be scientifically proven, is of no concern to the Eternal Return. What matters is to remember that the most authentic conviction in the certainty of the Eternal Return is reached by philosophical means. And that this is sufficient in itself.

Even in the case that certain ultimate possibilities — such as the existence of God or the multiverse — were to become certain, this thought would not lose its relevance. Whatever may ultimately be the case, due to the inherent finitude — and not infinity — of this world, of the Whole, after innumerable temporal moments this very moment will return: the moment in which this book is being written, as well as the moment in which it is being read.

Accordingly, when it is claimed that this thought is philosophical in nature before it is theological or scientific, what is meant is that conviction in its certainty is achieved through the logic of the eschatological thinking outlined here, accessible to those who penetrate into it, rather than through rational or theological reasoning. For this reason, the thought of Eternal Return is a kind of “god” of philosophers and of philosophical thinking.