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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 September 2014
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.
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.
5 Ibid., pp. 106-11.
6 Rahner, Karl, Foundations of Christian Faith (New York: Seabury, 1978), esp. pp. 44–89.Google Scholar
7 Altizer, , Descent Into Hell, p. 38Google Scholar: “Thus Christ is also the Christian name for the fullness of life and the world … for the Christian confesses the Christ who is present wherever life and experience are most active and real.”
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
9 Meyers, , “Thomas J. J. Altizer's Construction of Ultimate Reality and Meaning,” pp. 272–73.Google Scholar For Altizer's own (mostly positive) assessment of Process Thought, see his “The Buddhist Ground of the Whiteheadian God.”
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.
12 Altizer, , Descent Into Hell, pp. 56–57.Google Scholar
13 Altizer, Thomas, “History as Apocalypse” in Deconstruction and Theology, ed. Raschke, Carl A. (New York:Crossroad, 1982), p. 174Google Scholar: “Now grace is everywhere because it is nowhere, nowhere that is where it can be known and named as the grace of God.”
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
15 Buber, Martin, I and Thou, tr. Smith, R. (New York: Scribner's, 1958).Google Scholar Also see his Between Man and Man, tr. Smith, R. (New York: Macmillan, 1965).Google ScholarPubMed
16 Waldenfels, p. 85. See also Suzuki, D. T., “Lectures on Zen Buddhism” in Zen Buddhism and Psychoanalysis, ed. Fromm, Erich (New York: Harper & Row, 1960), p. 13.Google Scholar
17 Buber, , I and Thou, pp. 75–79.Google Scholar
18 Suzuki, D. T., What Is Zen (New York: Harper & Row, 1971), p. 97.Google Scholar
19 Altizer, , Descent Into Hell, pp. 151–55.Google Scholar
20 Ibid., p. 160.
21 Ibid., pp. 160-69.
22 Waldenfels, p. 100. I believe this statement by Waldenfels captures the heart of the Buddhist sense of the positive nature of Nothingness which Nishitani develops.
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
25 Driver, Tom, “From Death Into Life: Altizer Challenged,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 41/2 (June 1973), 229–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Driver does seem to make that charge.
26 Butler, Clark, “Hegel, Altizer and Christian Atheism,” Encounter 41/2 (Spring 1980), 103–28.Google Scholar This is the interpretation of religion which Altizer develops in order to reject in The Gospel of Christian Atheism (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1966).Google Scholar
27 For an extended development of this theme as it relates to Altizer, see Sabatino, Charles, “Care as Healing: A Religious Phenomenon,” Encounter 43/2 (Spring 1982), 185–95.Google Scholar
28 Altizer, Descent Into Hell; I believe this sense of Wholeness beyond all fragmentation is the eschatological vision which guides his final chapter, “The New Jerusalem.”
29 See Lamb, Matthew, Solidarity With Victims (New York: Crossroad, 1983), ch. 3.Google Scholar
30 This notion of Compassion is the major theme of the final chapter of Descent Into Hell, esp. pp. 199-214.
31 Ross, James, “From World Negation to World Affirmation: A Study in the Development of the Theology of Thomas J. J. Altizer,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 37 (December 1969), 353–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
32 Altizer, , Descent Into Hell, p. 106.Google Scholar
33 Ross, , “From World Negation to World Affirmation,” p. 359.Google Scholar
34 Altizer, , Descent Into Hell, pp. 37, 86–93;Google Scholar also Total Presence, p. 48.
35 Rahner, Karl, Theological Investigations, 4 (New York: Seabury, 1971), p. 114;Google Scholar also, his Foundations of Christian Faith, pp. 55-66.
36 Altizer, Total Presence, esp. the second chapter: “The Anonymity of God,” pp. 19-36; also, “The Buddhist Ground of the Whiteheadian God,” p. 231.
37 Altizer, , “Buddhism and Christianity: A Radical Christian Viewpoint,” p. 10.Google Scholar
38 Butler, p. 123.
39 Driver, pp. 236-37.