The 13-Year-Old Genius: How Nietzsche Traced the "Origin of Evil" to God

Have you ever had a question from a book stick with you for decades? When I was a junior high school student, I read a book called Genius (Tensai) by the famous Japanese psychologist Otoya Miyagi. In it, Miyagi mentioned that Friedrich Nietzsche, as a young student, wrote an essay on the "Origin of Evil." For years, I wondered if this legendary childhood essay actually existed. Recently, I decided to dig into the truth, and what I found reveals the terrifyingly sharp mind of a young genius. The Truth Behind the "Essay" While Nietzsche never explicitly stated that he wrote a formal paper titled "The Origin of Evil," the core of the story is absolutely true. In the prologue of his 1887 masterpiece, On the Genealogy of Morals, Nietzsche looks back at his childhood and writes: "When I was thirteen years old, the problem of the origin of evil possessed me." He confesses that during this time, he wrote his very first "philosophical childish pastime" (a playful essay), where he tackled the ultimate contradiction of religion. The 13-Year-Old's Logic: If God Created Everything, God Created Evil Nietzsche grew up in a deeply pious Christian household; his father was a Lutheran pastor. Religion is generally something meant to be accepted through faith, not torn apart by logic. Yet, young Nietzsche couldn't stop thinking. His childhood logic was terrifyingly simple and bulletproof: The Premise: God is the all-powerful, all-knowing creator of everything. The Reality: Cruelty, suffering, and evil exist in this world. The Conclusion: Therefore, God must be the source of evil. Nietzsche humorously recalled that his solution was to "give honor to God and make him the father of evil." From Faith to Philosophy Imagine the immense mental anguish this 13-year-old boy must have suffered. To logically conclude that the God his family worshipped was the root of all evil must have felt incredibly lonely and frightening. He was trapped between the comfort of faith and the unstoppable gears of his own critical mind. But Nietzsche didn't stay stuck in that dark place. He soon realized that blaming God - or looking for answers in "another world" - was a dead end. As he grew up, he shifted his focus entirely to human psychology. Instead of asking "Where did God put evil?" he began asking, "Under what psychological conditions did humans invent the concepts of 'good' and 'evil'?" This eventually led to his famous critiques of Christian morality and his theory of Ressentiment (resentment). Final Thoughts It is incredibly rewarding to finally clear up a mystery I carried since reading Otoya Miyagi's book as a teenager. Nietzsche's childhood "playful essay" may not be sitting on a library shelf today, but the raw spark of his legendary philosophy was already burning bright when he was just thirteen. He proved that even as a child, he was destined to become the philosopher who would "philosophize with a hammer."