The aim of parousiatic gnosticism is to destroy the order of being, which is experienced as defective and unjust, and through man's creative power to replace it with a perfect and just order. Now, however the order of being may be understood - as a world dominated by cosmic-divine powers in the civilizations of the Near and Far East, or as a creation of a world-transcendent God in Judaeo-Christian symbolism, or as an essential order of being in philosophical contemplation - it remains something that is given, that is not under man's control. In order, therefore, that the attempt to create a new world may seem to make sense, the givenness of the order of being must be obliterated; the order of being must be interpreted, rather, as essentially under man's control. And taking control of being further requires that the the transcendent origin of being be obliterated: it requires the decapitation of being - the muder of God.
The murder of God is committed speculatively by explaining divine being as the work of man...Man should stop creating gods because this sets absurd limits to his will and action; and he should realize that the gods he has already created have in fact been created by him...There may be no being or image of being that might make human will and thought appear finite..In order to appear the unlimited master of being, man must so delimit being that limitations are no longer evident. And why must this magic act be performed? The answer is: "If there were gods, how could I endure not being a god! Therefore, there are no gods."
It does not suffice, therefore, to replace the old world of God with a new world of man: the world of God itself must have been a world of man, and God a work of man which can therefore be destroyed if it prevents man from reigning over the order of being. The murder of God must be made retroactive speculatively...The murder of God, then, is of the very essence of the gnostic re-creation of the order of being.