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Genesis and Apocalypse: A Theological Voyage Toward Authentic Christianity
Thomas Altizer's Genesis and Apocalypse engages a theological history of Western culture through the works of Augustine, Luther, Barth, and other important figures in theology, as well as critical theorists such as Hegel and Nietzsche, to ultimately offer a Christology for our modern times.
198 pages, Hardcover
First published December 1, 1990
22 people want to read
About the author
Thomas J.J. Altizer
36 books19 followersThomas Jonathan Jackson Altizer was a radical theologian who is known for incorporating Friedrich Nietzsche's conception of the "death of God" and G. W. F. Hegel's dialectical philosophy into his systematic theology.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
May 5, 2018
This is hard dark theology. It brings not comfort but responsibility. This is not an argument against it, though. Indeed, I'm troubled by how much theology seems, now, generally to soothe the (so-called) faithful into passivity and indolence in the face of injustice, inequity, and the self-serving destruction of God's Creation.
This will keep working on me for some time, I suspect. There is something here.
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Still thinking through and processing this one. Will be back to write more later, I suspect. Provocative and challenging.
This will keep working on me for some time, I suspect. There is something here.
-----------------
Still thinking through and processing this one. Will be back to write more later, I suspect. Provocative and challenging.
June 27, 2024
THE “DEATH OF GOD” THEOLOGIAN GIVES A “COINHERENCE” OF ABSTRACT AND HISTORICAL THEOLOGY
Thomas Jonathan Jackson Altizer (born 1927) taught religion at Wabash College, then he taught English at Emory University from 1956 to 1968; he is currently Professor Emeritus of Religious Studies at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. He has written other books such as Radical Theology and the Death of God; The New Gospel of Christian Atheism; The Descent into Hell: A Study of the Radical Reversal of the Christian Consciousness; The New Apocalypse: The Radical Christian Vision of William Blake; Total Presence: The Language of Jesus and the Language of Today; Godhead and the Nothing; The Call to Radical Theology; Genesis and Apocalypse: A Theological Voyage Toward Authentic Christianity; Living the Death of God: A Theological Memoir; etc.
He wrote in the Preface to this 1990 book, “This book is an attempt to evolve a purely apocalyptic theology by way of a full conjunction and even dialectical identity of genesis and apocalypse… The opening chapters of this book are a theological meditation upon genesis from the perspective of an apocalyptic faith and a contemporary apocalyptic situation. In large measure they are a continuation of a theological dialogue which I have conducted with Mircea Eliade for almost thirty years…. These opening chapters are also and equally so a continuation of my theological dialogue with Hegel, for… it is genesis that is the origin of that pure negativity which dominates his thinking… Lying at the center of this book is a quest for a theological conception of the eternal act or actualization of God, an actualization which is fully genesis and is fully apocalypse at once, but is so only insofar as it is simultaneously incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection. That bald and cursory statement has very little meaning, and can only have real meaning as it is theologically enacted… For this book intends to bring together the thinking of my earlier books… and to do so by attempting a coinherence of abstract or systematic and historical theology.” (Pg. 10-12)
He continues, “This book is foregoing all scholarly citation, and is doing so with the intention of striving for a purely theological thinking. There is no authority whatsoever present in this book which is not at least potentially present in the reader… This book is not simply addressed to everyone, but presumes in the spirit of ‘Here Comes Everybody’ of [[ASIN:8087888111 Finnegans Wake]] that everybody and everyone is the only real actor in a theological voyage. And if that is precisely the identity of a real theological voyage which distinguishes it from every other voyage, then … the reader is finally the author of this book, or is so at whatever points this book is real.” (Pg. 15)
He begins the Prologue with the statement, “The death of God is at once a primary if not the primary symbol of full or late modernity and also that symbol which most decisively distinguishes Christianity from all the religions of the world. Only Christianity knows that crucifixion which is a unique and actual death, a death occurring in the full actuality of history, and yet a death which Christianity knows as the one source of redemption, for it is a death that is crucifixion and resurrection at once. Therein a full and actual death is realized in Christianity as it is in no other religious tradition, and a death that is an ultimate death, for it is the actual death of Christ or the Son of God or the Word of God. That death occurs as a once and for all event, for even if it can be repeated and renewed in Christian faith and worship, it can only be so renewed as an absolutely unique event.” (Pg. 17)
He states, “Apocalypse is the ending of a once and for all and irreversible beginning, and while the pre-exilic prophetic oracles are wholly silent about apocalypse, or about an apocalypse which is nameable as such, they nevertheless evoke and embody the ultimate and final act of Yahweh, an act that is dawning now but will only be consummated in the future.” (Pg. 59) Later, he adds, “That is the future which Christianity knows as apocalypse, and an apocalypse released by the full and total actuality of the crucifixion, a crucifixion which can never be reversed, and can never be reversed because it is the total act of I AM, a total act which is the consummation of the acts of God, and that is the consummation which Christianity finally and ultimately knows as apocalypse.” (Pg. 63)
He asserts, “If Jesus was the first prophet to proclaim the full and actual advent of the Kingdom of God… then that advent could only be heard as an absolute and final assault upon both the present and the past… now and only now a future or apocalyptic totality is actually enacted which is both fully and finally present… Apocalypticism is at the very center of Western history, a center which is historically actual with the birth of Christianity, a center which thereafter is ever more fully realized throughout the multiple expressions of Western consciousness and society, for this is that center which is the primal ground of historical revolution, a revolution which becomes global and universal in the twentieth century.” (Pg. 65)
He says, “Consequently, resurrection is apocalypse, and is the apocalypse of the eternal act of God, an apocalypse which is the apocalypse of God, but nevertheless and even thereby the apocalypse of act or actuality, and thus an apocalypse which is all in all. Only the ultimate actuality of death realizes that apocalypse, but it realizes it in an absolutely new life, a life that is life and death at once… If that death is life, it is a life inseparable from death; indeed, it is a life identical with death, and identical with that death which is absolute death, and therefore that death which is absolute life and death at once. That is the apocalypse which is the center of Christianity, a center which is the one event of crucifixion and resurrection, and if that event is the center of history, it is the center of an apocalyptic history.” (Pg. 85-86)
He notes, “But I AM is simultaneously I AM NOT, a simultaneity which is the source of absolute otherness, and the course of an absolute otherness at the very center of itself, an otherness which is an essential and intrinsic otherness, and therefore an otherness which is not and cannot be either open to or an embodiment of a polar harmony or coinherence… So it is that that the very actuality of otherness is a decisive and irrefutable sign of the loss of an original harmony or coinherence… a loss that is nowhere more fully manifest than in the very self-naming of I AM.” (Pg. 108)
He suggests, “That predestination is a predestination which is simultaneously to eternal life and to eternal death; each is inseparable from the other, and each is willed simultaneously with the other, and so willed in the eternal act and will of God. Nothing less than a doctrine of double predestination can truly give witness to the eternal justice of God, and nothing less than double predestination can make possible a uniquely Christian theodicy, a theodicy which can celebrate every event whatsoever as an embodiment of the love and justice of God. Predestination is ultimately a Christian affirmation of the absolute grace of God, a grace which is truly everywhere, and is everywhere present as the eternal act of God… an absolute source which is likewise present in every absence or ‘privation of being.’ … only the eternal judgment of damnation can justify the reality of evil, and if that is the judgment which is known in the bad conscience of the empty and impotent will, that is a judgment which finally sanctions the most terrible evil, and sanctions it by the just judgment of damnation.” (Pg. 132)
He observes, “the dep cipher of ‘curse’ of Christian theology has always been the doctrine of damnation, and if damnation can be understood as having been realized in Christ alone, then damnation can then be understood to be the center of the gospel or the good news of Jesus Christ, a center which is a real and actual center which is the center of history. At no other point is Christianity so different or so distant from the other religions of the world. If Christianity has centered upon damnation as has no other religious tradition, just as Christianity and a uniquely Western history have realized a depth and power of guilt to be found in no other history or tradition…” (Pg. 153-154)
Later, he adds, “Alone among the great religions of the world, Christian celebration is primarily a celebration of death, a celebration occurring in a eucharist which is a renewal or re-presentation… of the death of Christ…” (Pg. 157) He concludes, “God must be sacrificed to Satan in the crucifixion, and that Satan must therein and thereby be self-annihilated and forever perish as Satan… and if this is the deepest reality of our history… that is a reality in which the fall is finally a fortunate fall, and therefore Satan is finally Christ.” (Pg. 173) He ends, “Therein lies what little is present of hope for us, but it is a real hope just because that is a real presence… and only thereby is apocalypse possible.” (Pg. 186)
Altizer’s theological writing is always dense and paradoxical---but is perhaps even more so in this book. This book will be of interest to those studying his writings.
Thomas Jonathan Jackson Altizer (born 1927) taught religion at Wabash College, then he taught English at Emory University from 1956 to 1968; he is currently Professor Emeritus of Religious Studies at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. He has written other books such as Radical Theology and the Death of God; The New Gospel of Christian Atheism; The Descent into Hell: A Study of the Radical Reversal of the Christian Consciousness; The New Apocalypse: The Radical Christian Vision of William Blake; Total Presence: The Language of Jesus and the Language of Today; Godhead and the Nothing; The Call to Radical Theology; Genesis and Apocalypse: A Theological Voyage Toward Authentic Christianity; Living the Death of God: A Theological Memoir; etc.
He wrote in the Preface to this 1990 book, “This book is an attempt to evolve a purely apocalyptic theology by way of a full conjunction and even dialectical identity of genesis and apocalypse… The opening chapters of this book are a theological meditation upon genesis from the perspective of an apocalyptic faith and a contemporary apocalyptic situation. In large measure they are a continuation of a theological dialogue which I have conducted with Mircea Eliade for almost thirty years…. These opening chapters are also and equally so a continuation of my theological dialogue with Hegel, for… it is genesis that is the origin of that pure negativity which dominates his thinking… Lying at the center of this book is a quest for a theological conception of the eternal act or actualization of God, an actualization which is fully genesis and is fully apocalypse at once, but is so only insofar as it is simultaneously incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection. That bald and cursory statement has very little meaning, and can only have real meaning as it is theologically enacted… For this book intends to bring together the thinking of my earlier books… and to do so by attempting a coinherence of abstract or systematic and historical theology.” (Pg. 10-12)
He continues, “This book is foregoing all scholarly citation, and is doing so with the intention of striving for a purely theological thinking. There is no authority whatsoever present in this book which is not at least potentially present in the reader… This book is not simply addressed to everyone, but presumes in the spirit of ‘Here Comes Everybody’ of [[ASIN:8087888111 Finnegans Wake]] that everybody and everyone is the only real actor in a theological voyage. And if that is precisely the identity of a real theological voyage which distinguishes it from every other voyage, then … the reader is finally the author of this book, or is so at whatever points this book is real.” (Pg. 15)
He begins the Prologue with the statement, “The death of God is at once a primary if not the primary symbol of full or late modernity and also that symbol which most decisively distinguishes Christianity from all the religions of the world. Only Christianity knows that crucifixion which is a unique and actual death, a death occurring in the full actuality of history, and yet a death which Christianity knows as the one source of redemption, for it is a death that is crucifixion and resurrection at once. Therein a full and actual death is realized in Christianity as it is in no other religious tradition, and a death that is an ultimate death, for it is the actual death of Christ or the Son of God or the Word of God. That death occurs as a once and for all event, for even if it can be repeated and renewed in Christian faith and worship, it can only be so renewed as an absolutely unique event.” (Pg. 17)
He states, “Apocalypse is the ending of a once and for all and irreversible beginning, and while the pre-exilic prophetic oracles are wholly silent about apocalypse, or about an apocalypse which is nameable as such, they nevertheless evoke and embody the ultimate and final act of Yahweh, an act that is dawning now but will only be consummated in the future.” (Pg. 59) Later, he adds, “That is the future which Christianity knows as apocalypse, and an apocalypse released by the full and total actuality of the crucifixion, a crucifixion which can never be reversed, and can never be reversed because it is the total act of I AM, a total act which is the consummation of the acts of God, and that is the consummation which Christianity finally and ultimately knows as apocalypse.” (Pg. 63)
He asserts, “If Jesus was the first prophet to proclaim the full and actual advent of the Kingdom of God… then that advent could only be heard as an absolute and final assault upon both the present and the past… now and only now a future or apocalyptic totality is actually enacted which is both fully and finally present… Apocalypticism is at the very center of Western history, a center which is historically actual with the birth of Christianity, a center which thereafter is ever more fully realized throughout the multiple expressions of Western consciousness and society, for this is that center which is the primal ground of historical revolution, a revolution which becomes global and universal in the twentieth century.” (Pg. 65)
He says, “Consequently, resurrection is apocalypse, and is the apocalypse of the eternal act of God, an apocalypse which is the apocalypse of God, but nevertheless and even thereby the apocalypse of act or actuality, and thus an apocalypse which is all in all. Only the ultimate actuality of death realizes that apocalypse, but it realizes it in an absolutely new life, a life that is life and death at once… If that death is life, it is a life inseparable from death; indeed, it is a life identical with death, and identical with that death which is absolute death, and therefore that death which is absolute life and death at once. That is the apocalypse which is the center of Christianity, a center which is the one event of crucifixion and resurrection, and if that event is the center of history, it is the center of an apocalyptic history.” (Pg. 85-86)
He notes, “But I AM is simultaneously I AM NOT, a simultaneity which is the source of absolute otherness, and the course of an absolute otherness at the very center of itself, an otherness which is an essential and intrinsic otherness, and therefore an otherness which is not and cannot be either open to or an embodiment of a polar harmony or coinherence… So it is that that the very actuality of otherness is a decisive and irrefutable sign of the loss of an original harmony or coinherence… a loss that is nowhere more fully manifest than in the very self-naming of I AM.” (Pg. 108)
He suggests, “That predestination is a predestination which is simultaneously to eternal life and to eternal death; each is inseparable from the other, and each is willed simultaneously with the other, and so willed in the eternal act and will of God. Nothing less than a doctrine of double predestination can truly give witness to the eternal justice of God, and nothing less than double predestination can make possible a uniquely Christian theodicy, a theodicy which can celebrate every event whatsoever as an embodiment of the love and justice of God. Predestination is ultimately a Christian affirmation of the absolute grace of God, a grace which is truly everywhere, and is everywhere present as the eternal act of God… an absolute source which is likewise present in every absence or ‘privation of being.’ … only the eternal judgment of damnation can justify the reality of evil, and if that is the judgment which is known in the bad conscience of the empty and impotent will, that is a judgment which finally sanctions the most terrible evil, and sanctions it by the just judgment of damnation.” (Pg. 132)
He observes, “the dep cipher of ‘curse’ of Christian theology has always been the doctrine of damnation, and if damnation can be understood as having been realized in Christ alone, then damnation can then be understood to be the center of the gospel or the good news of Jesus Christ, a center which is a real and actual center which is the center of history. At no other point is Christianity so different or so distant from the other religions of the world. If Christianity has centered upon damnation as has no other religious tradition, just as Christianity and a uniquely Western history have realized a depth and power of guilt to be found in no other history or tradition…” (Pg. 153-154)
Later, he adds, “Alone among the great religions of the world, Christian celebration is primarily a celebration of death, a celebration occurring in a eucharist which is a renewal or re-presentation… of the death of Christ…” (Pg. 157) He concludes, “God must be sacrificed to Satan in the crucifixion, and that Satan must therein and thereby be self-annihilated and forever perish as Satan… and if this is the deepest reality of our history… that is a reality in which the fall is finally a fortunate fall, and therefore Satan is finally Christ.” (Pg. 173) He ends, “Therein lies what little is present of hope for us, but it is a real hope just because that is a real presence… and only thereby is apocalypse possible.” (Pg. 186)
Altizer’s theological writing is always dense and paradoxical---but is perhaps even more so in this book. This book will be of interest to those studying his writings.
July 26, 2022
There is so much in here that to even try to summarize it I would be on pretty dicey grounds but here goes anyway. :) History is full of Apocalypses, which is a kind of Genesis, true apocalypse is both an ending and a beginning. Since the discovery of God as “I Am” to the discovery of consciousness as the little problematic yet tasty stew of being and non-being, being as the vessel of emptiness, or emptiness or non-being as the fulfillment of being.
Each sentence is kind of a little riddle, which is fun if your into riddles. Sometimes I would think I was reading some kind of mathematical, abstract poetry. I envisioned words having some kind of mechanism that generated movement and the movement was constantly being thrown back and forth being reversed and enacted and inverted and subtracted. Reminds me of the feeling you get when listening to some of the best Radiohead songs, like nothing really has a shape to it that is translatable to daily life, but its animating things on the periphery of consciousness. Needless to say I will base my whole life off of my cursory reading here and silently mock anyone who just doesn't get me now. ;)
Each sentence is kind of a little riddle, which is fun if your into riddles. Sometimes I would think I was reading some kind of mathematical, abstract poetry. I envisioned words having some kind of mechanism that generated movement and the movement was constantly being thrown back and forth being reversed and enacted and inverted and subtracted. Reminds me of the feeling you get when listening to some of the best Radiohead songs, like nothing really has a shape to it that is translatable to daily life, but its animating things on the periphery of consciousness. Needless to say I will base my whole life off of my cursory reading here and silently mock anyone who just doesn't get me now. ;)
March 8, 2023
Couldn't get past the prologue. Mainly because I couldn't wrap my head around what the author was saying. There were definitely words, but they were strung together in such a way that I could only get the barest hint of what they were saying.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews