In his book The Gay Science, Friedrich Nietzsche famously states that God is dead. The pieces 108 (New battles), 125 (The madman), 153 (Homo poet) and 343 (How to understand our joy) all deal with a particular aspect of this statement. Passage 108 states that God is dead but that it may be a long time before we recognize him. Passage 125 reiterates that God is dead and then goes on to say that we have killed him. Passage 153 shows that the homo poet takes culpable responsibility for the death of God. Passage 343 deals with the consequences of God's death and questions what will change. Through critical analysis and examination of these four passages, extending them to classroom discussion, a more complete understanding of this quote is possible. Passage 108, 'New Battles', states: 'God is dead; but given the way people are, there may still be caves in which his shadow shows itself for millennia.' In this passage Nietzsche is saying that God is no longer a transcendent thing; that the definition of God has changed in the mind of man to a physical God. Therefore, God became present in the Universe. While this does not explain how God died, this is an important argument that lays the foundation for the argument made by the "madman" in passage 125. Despite God's death, however, Nietzsche says that God's followers will continue to preach the existence of God, perhaps for a long time. The concept of God becoming immanent, rather than transcendent, was discussed in detail in class. In his article 'Immanence and Transcendence', Philip Leon defines an immanent God as 'within... the Universe' and defines a transcendent God as 'supra machinam... Whatever happens, it is the same thing; it has no beginning or end; it... middle of paper... free thinking on a level that has never been available to us before. This will bring about a new era of enlightenment, so to speak. He concludes by saying that «the sea, our sea, is open again; perhaps there has never been such an open sea.'Works CitedHorace. Satires, epistles, poetic art. London: William Heinemann Ltd, 1945.Leon, Philip. "Immanence and transcendence". Philosophy. 8. n. 29 (1993). Nietzsche, Friedrich. Gay science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001.St. Anselmo. Proslogium and Monologium. The Catholic Primer, http://www.catholicprimer.org/home/theologians/anselm (accessed November 20, 2011). The Pew Research Center. “Among wealthy nations…the United States stands alone in its embrace of religion.” The Pew Project on Global Attitudes. .www.pewglobal.org/files/pdf/167.pdf (accessed November 21, 2011).