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The Death of God: a Symbol for Religious Humanism
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 September 2014
Abstract
Thomas Altizer develops the theme of the death of God as an attempt to reverse the emphasis on transcendence which is central to a more traditional theology. He believes a theology of transcendence establishes a dichotomy between God and humanity which is unfaithful to the meaning disclosed in the Christ event. His concern is to interpret the positive aspect of God's death as an example of a self-giving which, by becoming empty, is able to stand open to all. By making use of themes from Buddhist thought, Altizer develops a richly paradoxical theology whose negations, when properly understood, hold within them even deeper affirmations.
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- Copyright © The College Theology Society 1983
References
1 Altizer, Thomas J. J., Descent Into Hell (New York: Seabury, 1979), esp. pp. 19–37.Google Scholar
2 Meyers, Eric, “Thomas J. J. Altizer's Construction of Ultimate Reality and Meaning,” Ultimate Reality and Meaning 1/4 (1978), 158–77.Google Scholar It is important to see that for Altizer the death of God is not, as with Nietzsche, something humankind accomplished, but is an event of God, as revealed in the uniquely Christian story.
3 Altizer, , Descent Into Hell, pp. 100–01, 54;Google Scholar and also his Total Presence (New York: Seabury, 1980), p. 48.Google Scholar
4 It is this acceptance and involvement in the human condition as such which is what I believe Altizer sees as the significance of the symbol of the descent into Hell of Jesus. See Descent Into Hell, pp. 120-32.
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8 This image of the process and movement of God is at the center of Altizer's thought and is to be found throughout his works. In particular, see Descent Into Hell, pp. 86–93; also, “Buddhism and Christianity: A Radical Christian Viewpoint,” Japanese Religions 9 (March 1976), 1–11;Google Scholar and “The Buddhist Ground of the Whiteheadian God,” Process Studies 5/4 (Winter 1975), 227–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
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10 This dialectical movement is spelled out clearly in his “Buddhism and Christianity: A Radical Christian Viewpoint.”
11 This is what I understand Altizer, to be saying in The Self Embodiment of God (New York: Harper & Row, 1977).Google Scholar He uses the dynamics of speech and communication as metaphor to interpret the events of Creation and Incarnation: the deed of speech, which establishes otherness, also negates otherness; e.g., only in and as being heard is there speaking as such. Thus, there is no speaking except as it passes out of itself and becomes instead part of the other from which it no longer is distinct. Similarly does Al tizer interpret the movement of God.
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14 In this section I will be drawing upon the thinking of Masao Abe and K. Nishitani as these are presented and interpreted in what I believe is an excellent book: Waldenfels, Hans, Absolute Nothingness, tr. Heisig, J. W. (New York: Paulist, 1980).Google Scholar
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23 See Suzuki, D. T., An Introduction to Zen Buddhism (New York: Grove, 1964), p. 45.Google Scholar The difficulty seems to be in understanding that the completely immanent is itself transcendent. This is a point which I believe is true in Buddhism, but one which Altizer seems not to develop.
24 This theme of a universal humanity (whose possibility is the ultimate grace) is addressed by Altizer in several places: Total Presence, pp. 86-87, 98; also Descent Into Hell, pp. 160-69. However, one cannot but recall the criticism leveled against such an idea by the Jewish theologian, Fackenheim, Emil in God's Presence in History (New York: Harper & Row, 1970).Google Scholar
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