The “Death of God” Theology

December 5, 1965
Plainfield

The “Death of God” Theology

My guess is that many persons have heard of the “Death of God” theology who ordinarily are not aware of the massive whirlings of words stirred by the windmills of theological debate. When theology not only receives the brief and teasing treatment of TIME magazine, but also is the subject of an extended three-part feature in THE NEW YORKER, one can surmise that something is happening which has wider appeal than most subjects discussed in “Angel Factories.” (Angel Factory – that was the totally inaccurate label attached to my theological school by students in the liberal arts college on the same campus.) Not only has the “death of God” warranted space in popular and sophisticated journals, but also there have been cries of alarm and the usual targets to the non-conformist. The “death of God” theology is my subject today; and the choice is beset with certain hazards: 1) the subject is not easily understood, and therefore I may not appraise it with sufficient lucidity. 2) it is more accurate to refer to “Death of God” theologies, because there is more than one variety, and 3) I may be quite wrong in guessing that radical revision is going to be a continuing feature of Christian theological thought. But I am taking such risks because one of the historic postures of both Unitarianism and Universalism has been that of being on the leading edge of theological revision; and if it is possible that we are being pre-empted on theological frontiers, then we should be aware of such displacement.

In less than thirty minutes, I can only sketch in broad strokes the following outline:

Why should this movement happen now?
How is it related to other modern philosophical and literary expressions?
Who are the advocates of the “Death of God” theology and how do they differ?
Is what they are saying significant?
Is there identity with the theologies represented among us? (theism, naturalism, humanism, etc.)
And lastly, is the authentic question being asked when one inquires, “Is God dead?”

1) Why should this movement gain momentum and gather interest at this particular time? There is nothing new about Bible criticism – for 100 years or more, the studies have accumulated, demonstrating that scripture is a complex weaving of many strands of time and place, cult and culture, literature and apologetic. Similarly there is nothing startling in the notion that different peoples have had differing ideas of God or no-god. This relativity has been observed since the time of the ancient Greeks. but WWII created considerable despair about man’s ability to save himself from self-destruction and subsequent events have not done much to restore self-confidence. Observers were disillusioned with professed values of human dignity and individual worth, which in practice were demonstrated to be values which did not apply to one’s enemies or even to unfortunate minorities within one’s own boundaries. As one writer (Fackenheim, COMMENTARY) put it, “the ancient belief that God is with us, loves and cares for us cannot be sustained in the light of undeserved catastrophe and tragedy.” The question of how God could be both good and all-powerful was inexplicable. Certain theologians tried to wrestle with these difficult questions. The name heard most often is Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German theologian who was confined in a concentration camp by the Nazis who eventually strangled him. Although Bonhoeffer wrote relatively little, his writings have had considerable impact, particularly his LETTERS FROM PRISON. Bonhoeffer called for a “religionless Christianity;” and this paradoxical phrase has been repeated again and again.

Paul Tillich, the refugee from the Nazis who taught in the U.S. for many years and who died quite recently, may prove to be the most influential writer on religious themes in our century. His writings, particularly his three-volume SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY, are ponderously phrased and difficult to understand, but of weighty importance in theological thought.

A couple years ago, John Robinson, the Anglican Bishop of Woolwich, England, drew worldwide attention with his little book, HONEST TO GOD, which presented in popular form some aspects of the difficulty involved in traditional ways of belief. In particular his skepticism about all historic ways of believing in God created as much consternation as any religious book within memory.

The “Death of God” theology is an intellectually serious grappling with the ideas that Bishop Robinson presented in oversimplified and under-developed forms in HONEST TO GOD.

As the “Death of God” theology is linked with our times, something should be said to relate it to current modes of thought in parallel studies.

We have seen the development of essential philosophy where those who hold to it see man as existing before he can be explained. “Existence precedes essence,” wrote Sartre. The existentialist confronts a universe where man can assume no eternal meanings, but rather man must carve for himself meanings out of the experience of existence and assume no more than that. Man cannot assume that the universe is rational, or even that man himself reasons in the light of the emotional sub-currents which produce rationalizations as well as rational thought. Simone Weil expressed some of the rather paradoxical nature of this attitude when she expressed the thought that the absence of God is the mode of the divine presence, “we have to belief in a God who is similar to the true God in everything but that he doesn’t exist.” (quoted by Alexander Czegledy, p. 1352, CHRISTIAN CENTURY) Existentialism sees only a void where more idealistic times saw meaning in the nature of the Universe. The existentialist holds that only “by facing the void that we may arrive at something positive, at authentic existence, at freedom, at responsibility, at the courage to make sense of the non-sense of being.” (Czegledy)

The second mode of thinking which relates directly to the “Death of God” theology is that linguistic philosophy generally known as relativism. Let me remind you that Positivism holds that knowledge is verified by experience and that if it cannot be verified by experience, it is not meaningful knowledge. Furthermore, that as testing has been found to be the way to validate physical science, humans have discovered a method that is a model of certainty and exactness (see Herbert Marcuse, ONE DIMENSIONAL MAN, p. 1-2).

Against these backgrounds of the disillusioning 20th century wars and troubles, together with the theologies of several Europeans, combined with considerable influence from existentialism and positivism, the names of three young American theologians are beginning to become well-known, or notorious, depending on the attitude one takes while reading their material: Van Buren, Altizer, Hamilton.

In this country they are identified with the “Death of God” theology, although their beliefs differ and they are not the only ones studying and writing on the theme.

Dr. Paul Van Buren teaches at Temple University, is an ordained Episcopal clergyman but chooses not to preach or administer the sacraments of that church. If I understand his point of view at all, he maintains that when using the measurement of positivism – that is, knowledge must be validated by experience in some functional way, nothing meaningful can be said about the word, “God,” that there is no exactness that can be assigned to it so that any discourse can be maintained which is tested discourse. The author of the New Yorker article quotes Van Buren as saying, “My own view is that God as an absolute has been dissolved. I don’t think God is on vacation or that the Bible God is relevant to anything.” Dr. Van Buren dispenses with God, but holds to Jesus. His basic linguistic measurement is shown in these words: “Jesus, son of God and what have you – my interest is in seeing how these terms function, what they accomplish, what difference it makes whether one denies these terms or subscribes to them. They are saying the most they could about a man.” (ibid)

When Van Buren was asked whether his is a Christian, he answered that he wouldn’t make an issue of it, “I am trying to raise a more important issue: whether or not Christianity is fundamentally about God or man.”

Thomas Altizer is an advocate of a different approach. He is not concerned with linguistic analysis to aid meaning in discourse, but he asserts that God was once alive and died. Dr. Altizer teaches at Emory University in Atlanta and acquired additional publicity when public attention to his “God is Dead” theology came at a time when Emory University was launching a capital funds drive. Some of the prospective givers of large gifts were somewhat agitated and were threatening not to sign pledge cards unless Dr. Altizer was dismissed from the faculty.

I happened to listen to a radio interview with Dr. Altizer and he did not seem disturbed at the threats, confident that academic freedom would continue to prevail at Emory; and I hope he is right.

In his theology, he insists he is not speaking figuratively or of ideas of God that have died, but that God was alive at one time in history, was the creator of the world, was a personal being, not a force or process, and He died. If I understand Dr. Altizer correctly, he said that God was in Christ and therefore God died on the cross when Jesus was crucified. This was an actual historical event, he maintains. Up to this point, I think I understand him, but I lose him, when like Van Buren he insists on holding to Jesus Christ, even though he contends that traditional Christian forms prevent an understanding of the “contemporary Jesus” (?) And I have to pass without comment when he writes, “Christian theology must proclaim the death of God if it is to witness the Word of faith...” and again, “If ours is truly a history in which God is no longer present, then we are called upon not simply to accept the death of God with stoic fortitude, but rather to will the death of God with the passion of faith.” (CHRISTIAN CENTURY, p. 1351-1415)

Dr. William Hamilton is on the faculty of Colgate Rochester Divinity School and his “Death of God” theology is one of passive rejection of old theological language. In his words, “atonement and redemption, regeneration, the Holy Ghost, the cross and resurrection, life in Christ and Christian discipleship, all these have become so problematic and so remote that we hardly dare speak of them ... our Christianity today will be confined to praying for and doing right by our fellow men. Christian thinking, speaking and organization must be reborn out of this praying and this action.” (quoted by Ilion Jones, CHRISTIANITY TODAY, 11/20/64)

Dr. Hamilton, like his colleagues holds to the necessity of holding to Jesus as an article of faith. But not as the Christ, not as a historical personality, but as the ethical model for those commitments in the human struggle to which we should be faithful and for which we should act. As he wrote, “we do not know, we do not adore, do not possess, do not believe in God ... We are not talking about the absence of the experience of God, but about the experience of the absence of God.” (quoted by J. Robert Nelson, CHRISTIAN CENTURY, p. 1414)

The New Yorker article mentions a rather irreverent jibe which may be include of what these three men hold in common: “There is no God and Jesus is His Son.”

That there should be this healthy radicalism in Christian thought is creating and encouraging, as far as I am concerned. I can see intellectual growth and new theological resolutions brewing in this ferment of God-talk. Some persons seem alarmed, however. Erwin Canham, editor of the Christian Science Monitor wrote that he had received a letter from a lady in California who was worried about the “Death of God” theologians, for she inquired, “Are they communists? Shouldn’t the F.B.I. do something about it?”

Some believe that the present upheaval in theology was more artistically expressed in Samuel Beckett’s play, “Waiting for Godot.” The two tramps, Estragon and Vladimir are waiting for Godot:

Estragon: Let’s go.
Vladimir: We can’t.
Estragon: Why not?
Vladimir: We’re waiting for Godot.
Estragon: Ah (pause despairingly) What’ll we do? What’ll we do?
Vladimir: There’s nothing we can do.
Estragon: But I can’t go on like this.

As far as I know, Samuel Beckett never identified Godot with God; and the play ended with the characters mired in their mournful waiting. But whether the playwright intended it or not, he identified with at least one of the moods in theological circles. The God of Genesis who molded man from common clay has been gone since the acceptance of the theory of evolution. The God who managed the three-story Universe and flung the stars into their places began to disappear with Copernicus and Einstein finished it off. There are many who believe that the “inner God,” the still small voice, the intuitive spark, was explained away by Freud and his successors. So people wait for some new and believable advent of God, but when all is said and done, the expectations are vague, depressed and uncertain as the the hopes of Vladimir and Estragon.

Just as an aside, one can raise the question, is an experience real because it is not subject to verification? The artist may not be able to express in functional statements the creative surge that produced paint on canvas in novel, visual form. The composer may not be able to state in words that can be verified what experience he was creating to be reproduced in intricate, intermeshings of multilevel tones and sounds. But can we state dogmatically that the experiences of the artist and composer have no validity – for them at least?

I’m sure I do not fully understand the “Death of God” theologians. Therefore it may be unfair to put it this way, but are they saying, “Old beliefs won’t do, but let’s keep all Christians together by keeping them under one large “Christian” umbrella which has such skillfully constructed ribs and artfully designed fabric that atheistic Christians and God-believing Christians can huddle together with not many aware of the astonishing differences in belief? The theologians who write for the journals that are read by other theologians and seminarians can conduct radical, even explosive discourse, while the people in the churches will have little awareness that what they believe literally or even symbolically, the theologians also using the words Jesus Christ, disbelieve literally and contend that the symbols no longer point to anything meaningful? Is this not like the nightmare concept that George Orwell made famous in his novel 1984 - “doublethink?” “Doublethink refers to the power of holding two contradictory beliefs simultaneously and accepting them both.” In Orwell’s novel, “doublethink” was a means of totalitarian political control. I’m certain that such technique is not the intention whatever of the “Death of God” theologians, but in a religious framework, that is the way it may work out.

It is at this point that one may inquire whether the “Death of God” theologies are taking over the frontier advance in religious thinking, which Unitarians and Universalists have maintained for a couple of hundred years. Is there identity between the “Death of God” theologies and the varieties of religious thought within our movements – liberal theism, naturalism, humanism, agnosticism?

It seems to me that while the scholarship of the “Death of God” theologians may be excellent, when they hold to Christian symbols, the Christian Christ, etc., they either demonstrate a lack of candor or an unwillingness to carry out the full implications of their radically revised beliefs. If God is dead, then to go on maintaining a Christology is a rather obscure way of announcing radical theological change. In Unitarian Universalist societies, the discussions we have had for a generation about Humanism vs. Theism have at least had some virtue in that “yes” has meant “yes” and our “no”[has meant “no”] as far as the traditional sayings and symbols are concerned. Permit me to cite two examples of the contrast between obscurity and candor. Paul Tillich was one of the trenchant and profound thinkers of modern time. But when he defined the word “God,” his definitions can mean all things to all people. For example, “The name of this infinite and inexhaustible ground of history is God. That is what the word means, and it is to that which the words ‘Kingdom of God’ and ‘Divine Providence’ point. And if these words do not have much meaning for you, translate them, and speak of the depth of history, of the ground and aim of our social life, and of what you take seriously without reservations in your moral and political activities. Perhaps you should call this depth hope, simply hope. For if you find hope in the ground of history, you are united with the great prophets who were able to look in the depths of their times, who tried escape it, because they could not stand the horror of their visions and yet who had the strength to look to an even deeper level and there to discover hope.” (quoted NEW YORKER, issue 11/13)

What I take seriously in my political and moral life may not be what you take seriously. Only confusion can result if each one of us says we both believe in God, because we may think there is identity in our beliefs when actually there is not.

Contrast the quote from Tillich with the words written long ago by courageous, wise Thomas Huxley (1825-1895) quoted p. 383 Selections from Philosophy:

“My only consolation lies in the reflection that however bad our posterity may become, so far as they are held by the plain rule of not pretending to believe what they have no reason to believe, because it may be to their advantage, they will not have reached the lowest depths of immorality.”

Many of us will follow the continuing theological discussion with great interest, but as long as obscurity prevails because of the reluctance to let go of the old concepts, even though no longer believable, we should not feel pre-empted. Rather we shall continue to advocate that religion can make sense; continue to hope that plain statements in the context of freedom will have enduring appeal for at least a minority of those persons who have given thought to this experience we call “religion.” We hope that we shall always be hospitable to innovations and creative re-thinking, or we would share Walter Lippmann’s opinion when he said, “Indeed though sometimes the evolution of ideas is rapid, and sometimes it is slower, we may say that the need and the ability to re-think and re-learn is the hallmark of a free society.”

One thing more – there is a parallel question implied in this radical theological approach which deserves more attention than the theological inquiry, “Is God dead?” These thinkers directly and by implication are asking, “Can man live?” I have commented earlier that one of the stimuli to this whole theological re-thinking was the catastrophic experiences of the 20th century – nuclear threat, over-population, the rightful rising expectations of persons in minority groups – these and many more critical problems trouble the conscience and threaten the very existence of the human family.

The “Death of God” theologians have not fashioned their reflections in an ivory tower; they have been wrestling with the real, obstinate, ambivalent nature of human society. Professor Rowlingson of Boston University observed, “Much of the Death of God thrust has actually been directed against the alleged failure of the church as an institution to live up to its ideals.”

Although I have difficulty following the thought of Dr. Altizer generally, he is quite clear when he writes, “To speak of the Death of God as a final and decisive event is to open oneself to the horizon of our history as the full avenue of faith.” (quoted THEOLOGY TODAY, p. 382)

We, too, should be convinced that effective religion is contemporaneous, finds its justification in the kind of persons we become because of its influence and the nature of the issues to which we give our attention. When Altizer speaks of “The concrete factuality of Time and Space as the locus of redemption” should we not say Amen to that?

Or take Dr. William Hamilton – although I don’t know him personally, I did know him by reputation as a person sensitive to ethical demands and responsive to moral issues. For example he wrote, (NEW YORKER, p. 142), “Jesus Christ is best understood not as either the object or ground of faith and not as a person or community but simply as a place to be, a standpoint. That place, of course, alongside the neighbor, being for him ... Today for example he is the Negro community in its struggle.”

William Hamilton not only said this, he behaves it. I recall that he was the CR faculty member who headed up a delegation of TS students who went to Mississippi after the three civil rights workers were murdered. Hamilton is asking the parallel question, “Will man live?” and attempting to be part of that answer.

Hamilton also wrote: “Radical theology is both describing and relating itself to a new feeling of hope and optimism in American life today, a conviction that substantive changes in the life of men can and will be made.” Again I have a recollection that he is not bashful in expressing what this implies in our lives today. I do not have the clipping but he created a minor furor when he stated plainly in print that northern cities, including the one he lived in specifically were too comfortable in their acceptance of discrimination, poverty and other conditions which limit the full lives of millions of people. He jarred the complacency of many who thought the South should mend its ways, but who had given little thought to conditions within their own cities in the North.

There are many of us who do not follow easily the theological convolutions of the “God is Dead” debate. But all of us, whatever our theism, atheism, or any variety of either, can speak to the question, “Will man live?”

We speak to that question by what we say about the human family in the world today. We speak to that question by what we do within our capacity in the world today. We speak to that question by the kind of persons we are in the world today.