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Radical Theology and the Death of God
Preface
1 Introduction to the radical theology:
American theology, radicalism & the death of God/ Hamilton America & the future of theology/ Altizer
The death of God theologies today/ Hamilton
2 Expositions of the radical theology:
banished from the land of unity/ Hamilton
Thursday's child/ Hamilton
Theology & the death of God/ Altizer
Dietrich Bonhoeffer/ Hamilton
Word & history/ Altizer
The sacred & the profane: a dialectical understanding of Christianity/ Altizer
The new optimism: from Prufrock to Ringo/ Hamilton
Wm Blake & the role of myth in the radical Christian vision/ Altizer
Bibliography
1 Introduction to the radical theology:
American theology, radicalism & the death of God/ Hamilton America & the future of theology/ Altizer
The death of God theologies today/ Hamilton
2 Expositions of the radical theology:
banished from the land of unity/ Hamilton
Thursday's child/ Hamilton
Theology & the death of God/ Altizer
Dietrich Bonhoeffer/ Hamilton
Word & history/ Altizer
The sacred & the profane: a dialectical understanding of Christianity/ Altizer
The new optimism: from Prufrock to Ringo/ Hamilton
Wm Blake & the role of myth in the radical Christian vision/ Altizer
Bibliography
216 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1966
5 people are currently reading
245 people want to read
About the author
Thomas J.J. Altizer
36 books20 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 - 12 of 12 reviews
April 6, 2016
Good in the sense that it is an early foray into postmodern radical Christianity and radical theology. The author indicates that the book was written a bit hastily, while the passion for writing it remained, and that fact shows in the prose.
It makes a good start, and presents a lot of introductory ideas that have since been taken further. It's important to note that, like a lot of radical theology, this book uses the "death of god", or terms like "atheism", in a specifically and openly Christian sense. So the book won't be helpful to use as a resource to argue your fundamentalist aunt out of her positions. Rather, it's a first foray into what is now a much more developed academic genre of radical theology that remains firmly rooted in Christianity.
It makes a good start, and presents a lot of introductory ideas that have since been taken further. It's important to note that, like a lot of radical theology, this book uses the "death of god", or terms like "atheism", in a specifically and openly Christian sense. So the book won't be helpful to use as a resource to argue your fundamentalist aunt out of her positions. Rather, it's a first foray into what is now a much more developed academic genre of radical theology that remains firmly rooted in Christianity.
August 1, 2019
Nice little sampler platter of what Altizer and Hamilton (et al) were up to. It's pretty early, and also *very* situated in the 1960s. But the careful engagements with Blake, Kierkegaard, Dostoevsky, Bonhoeffer especially are fascinating. I appreciate how attuned and responsive to literature these theologians are.
(You can find this online with a little googling.)
(You can find this online with a little googling.)
December 27, 2022
I had not read Nietzsche before this but was pleased with how the concepts were relayed and the pieces chosen seemed relevant. I found it interesting 👍🏽
June 27, 2024
A SERIES OF ESSAYS BY THE TWO MAJOR “DEATH OF GOD” THEOLOGIANS
The cover of the April 8, 1966 edition of Time magazine---the Easter edition---had the stark headline, 'IS GOD DEAD?', and the accompanying article dealt with a brief movement in American theology usually called the 'Death of God Theology,' or 'Christian Atheism.' This 1966 volume contains most of the early writings on this subject by William Hamilton, and Thomas J.J. Altizer. Gabriel Vahanian (The Death of God: The Culture of Our Post-Christian Era) and Paul van Buren (Secular Meaning of the Gospel: Based on an Analysis of its Language) were the two other theologians most associated with the 'Death of God' theological movement.
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.
Coauthor William Hamilton (1924-2012) taught Theology at Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School (until he lost his endowed chair in 1967, in response to the “God is Dead” controversy), then taught at New College in Florida and Portland State University.
They wrote in the Preface of this 1966 book, “Radical theology is a contemporary development within Protestantism… which is carrying the careful openness of the older theologies toward atheism a step further. It is, in effect, an attempt to set an atheist point of view within the spectrum of Christian possibilities… The aim of this new theology is… to strive for a whole new way of theological understanding… it is no less a pastoral response hoping to give support to those who have chosen to live as Christian atheists.” (Pg. ix)
They note that there are ten possible answers to the question, ‘Just what does the “death of God” refer to?’, but they explain that their own position is: “That there once was a God to whom adoration, praise and trust were appropriate, possible, and even necessary, but that now there is no such God. This is the position of the death of God or radical theology.” (Pg. x)
Hamilton states, “It certainly must be clear that this theology has neither the power nor the ability to serve the Protestant Church in most of its present institutional forms. I do not see now preaching, worship, prayer, ordination, the sacraments can be taken seriously by the radical theologian. If there is a need for new institutional forms and styles, however, this theology doubtless has a great deal to say.” (Pg. 7)
Altizer asserts, “a theology that accepts the destiny of history, must first assess the theological significance of the death of God. We must first realize that the death of God is an historical event, that God has died in our cosmos, in our history, in our Existenz. While there is no immediate necessity in assuming that the God who has died is the God of ‘faith,’ there is also no escaping the inevitable consequence that the dead God is not the God of idolatry, or false piety, or ‘religion,’ but rather the God of the historical Christian Church, and beyond the Church, of Christendom at large… What we know as the Christian Church is the product of the Bible and history. A fully biblical form of the Church, as the sects have demonstrated, would lose all genuine continuity with the Church of history.” (Pg. 11-12) He adds, “contemporary theology must be alienated from the Church… it can be neither kerygmatic, dogmatic nor apologetic, and thus its deepest immediate task is the discovery of its own ground.” (Pg. 15)
Hamilton observes, “It used to be possible to say: we cannot know God but he has made himself known to us… But somehow, the situation has deteriorated… This is more than the old protest against natural theology or metaphysics… It is really that we do not know, do not adore, do not possess, do not believe in God. It is not just that a capacity has dried up within us; we do not take all this as merely a statement about our frail psyches, we take it as a statement about the nature of the world and we try to convince others. God is dead. We are not talking about the absence of the experience of God, but about the experience of the absence of God. Yet the death of God theologians claims to be theologians, to be Christians, to be speaking out of a community to a community.” (Pg. 27-28)
He continues, “My Protestant has no God, has no faith in God, and affirms both the death of god and the death of all the forms of theism. Even so, he is not primarily a man of negation, for if there is a movement away from God and religion, there is the more important movement into, for, toward the world, worldly life, and the neighbor as the bearer of the worldly Jesus… toward the world and away from religion.” (Pg. 37)
He further asserts, “The breakdown of the religious a priori means that there is no way, ontological, cultural or psychological, to locate a part of the self or a part of human experience that needs God. There is not God-shaped blank within man. Man’s heart may or may not be restless until it rests in God. It is not necessarily so. God is not in the realm of the necessary at all; he is not necessary being, he is not necessary to avoid despair or self-righteousness. He is one of the possibilities in a radically pluralistic spiritual and intellectual milieu.” (Pg. 40)
Later, he acknowledges, “Does the theologian go to church? The answer is ‘no.’ He may, in the past, have concealed this ‘no from himself by escaping into church work, speaking to church groups, preaching at church or college, slaking his thirst for worship and word in more protected communities. But now he is facing up to this banal answer to the banal question, and he wills to say ‘no’ openly… What does the theologian read? Does he read religious books…? Less and less, perhaps not at all, except when he has a free copy for a review or a bibliography to prepare. He has been unable to read books of sermons for a long time… Is the theologian reading the Bible? Of course, he is forced into a kind of affable semi-professional relationship with Scripture in his daily work. But what has gone is the rigorous systematic confronting of Scripture, expecting the Word of God to be made manifest when one approaches it with faith or at least with a broken and contrite heart.” (Pg. 88-89)
Altizer proposes, “the contemporary Christian can rejoice because the Jesus whom our time has discovered is the proclaimer of a gospel that makes incarnate a Kingdom reversing the order of ‘history’ and placing in question the very reality of ‘being.’ Perhaps we are at last prepared to understand the true uniqueness of the Christian Gospel.” (Pg. 110)
This book is still “must reading” for those who want to understand this movement (short-lived, and long since defunct; yet showing some signs of a modern “revival”).
The cover of the April 8, 1966 edition of Time magazine---the Easter edition---had the stark headline, 'IS GOD DEAD?', and the accompanying article dealt with a brief movement in American theology usually called the 'Death of God Theology,' or 'Christian Atheism.' This 1966 volume contains most of the early writings on this subject by William Hamilton, and Thomas J.J. Altizer. Gabriel Vahanian (The Death of God: The Culture of Our Post-Christian Era) and Paul van Buren (Secular Meaning of the Gospel: Based on an Analysis of its Language) were the two other theologians most associated with the 'Death of God' theological movement.
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.
Coauthor William Hamilton (1924-2012) taught Theology at Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School (until he lost his endowed chair in 1967, in response to the “God is Dead” controversy), then taught at New College in Florida and Portland State University.
They wrote in the Preface of this 1966 book, “Radical theology is a contemporary development within Protestantism… which is carrying the careful openness of the older theologies toward atheism a step further. It is, in effect, an attempt to set an atheist point of view within the spectrum of Christian possibilities… The aim of this new theology is… to strive for a whole new way of theological understanding… it is no less a pastoral response hoping to give support to those who have chosen to live as Christian atheists.” (Pg. ix)
They note that there are ten possible answers to the question, ‘Just what does the “death of God” refer to?’, but they explain that their own position is: “That there once was a God to whom adoration, praise and trust were appropriate, possible, and even necessary, but that now there is no such God. This is the position of the death of God or radical theology.” (Pg. x)
Hamilton states, “It certainly must be clear that this theology has neither the power nor the ability to serve the Protestant Church in most of its present institutional forms. I do not see now preaching, worship, prayer, ordination, the sacraments can be taken seriously by the radical theologian. If there is a need for new institutional forms and styles, however, this theology doubtless has a great deal to say.” (Pg. 7)
Altizer asserts, “a theology that accepts the destiny of history, must first assess the theological significance of the death of God. We must first realize that the death of God is an historical event, that God has died in our cosmos, in our history, in our Existenz. While there is no immediate necessity in assuming that the God who has died is the God of ‘faith,’ there is also no escaping the inevitable consequence that the dead God is not the God of idolatry, or false piety, or ‘religion,’ but rather the God of the historical Christian Church, and beyond the Church, of Christendom at large… What we know as the Christian Church is the product of the Bible and history. A fully biblical form of the Church, as the sects have demonstrated, would lose all genuine continuity with the Church of history.” (Pg. 11-12) He adds, “contemporary theology must be alienated from the Church… it can be neither kerygmatic, dogmatic nor apologetic, and thus its deepest immediate task is the discovery of its own ground.” (Pg. 15)
Hamilton observes, “It used to be possible to say: we cannot know God but he has made himself known to us… But somehow, the situation has deteriorated… This is more than the old protest against natural theology or metaphysics… It is really that we do not know, do not adore, do not possess, do not believe in God. It is not just that a capacity has dried up within us; we do not take all this as merely a statement about our frail psyches, we take it as a statement about the nature of the world and we try to convince others. God is dead. We are not talking about the absence of the experience of God, but about the experience of the absence of God. Yet the death of God theologians claims to be theologians, to be Christians, to be speaking out of a community to a community.” (Pg. 27-28)
He continues, “My Protestant has no God, has no faith in God, and affirms both the death of god and the death of all the forms of theism. Even so, he is not primarily a man of negation, for if there is a movement away from God and religion, there is the more important movement into, for, toward the world, worldly life, and the neighbor as the bearer of the worldly Jesus… toward the world and away from religion.” (Pg. 37)
He further asserts, “The breakdown of the religious a priori means that there is no way, ontological, cultural or psychological, to locate a part of the self or a part of human experience that needs God. There is not God-shaped blank within man. Man’s heart may or may not be restless until it rests in God. It is not necessarily so. God is not in the realm of the necessary at all; he is not necessary being, he is not necessary to avoid despair or self-righteousness. He is one of the possibilities in a radically pluralistic spiritual and intellectual milieu.” (Pg. 40)
Later, he acknowledges, “Does the theologian go to church? The answer is ‘no.’ He may, in the past, have concealed this ‘no from himself by escaping into church work, speaking to church groups, preaching at church or college, slaking his thirst for worship and word in more protected communities. But now he is facing up to this banal answer to the banal question, and he wills to say ‘no’ openly… What does the theologian read? Does he read religious books…? Less and less, perhaps not at all, except when he has a free copy for a review or a bibliography to prepare. He has been unable to read books of sermons for a long time… Is the theologian reading the Bible? Of course, he is forced into a kind of affable semi-professional relationship with Scripture in his daily work. But what has gone is the rigorous systematic confronting of Scripture, expecting the Word of God to be made manifest when one approaches it with faith or at least with a broken and contrite heart.” (Pg. 88-89)
Altizer proposes, “the contemporary Christian can rejoice because the Jesus whom our time has discovered is the proclaimer of a gospel that makes incarnate a Kingdom reversing the order of ‘history’ and placing in question the very reality of ‘being.’ Perhaps we are at last prepared to understand the true uniqueness of the Christian Gospel.” (Pg. 110)
This book is still “must reading” for those who want to understand this movement (short-lived, and long since defunct; yet showing some signs of a modern “revival”).
April 11, 2025
Readers need to be aware of what this book actually is and what it attempts to accomplish.
(1) It consists of a series of articles and response essays published in academic theology journals responding to the question(s) of “What is radical theology?” “What is theology in the wake of God’s historical death?”
(2) It attempts to offer a clear, working definition for radical theology (Death of God theology).
Working toward this two-pronged goal, the book offers…
(1) A valuable historical record of the origins of this form of radical theology as it is in the process of developing intellectually and spiritually.
(2) An interesting dialogue (of sorts) between Altizer and Hamilton – the former is the philosopher; the latter is the literary critic.
(3) Some confused and tedious tangential material that appears to be included because of the lack of substantial writings on “Death of God Theology”.
(4) One solid essay by Altizer titled, “Theology and the Death of God” – written in a highly readable style that is wholly uncharacteristic of Altizer’s later Continental-inspired writings.
It’s basically an antiquated historical record written for those who are already “in the know” or steeped in the history and development of Protestantism – if readers are intimately familiar with Tillich, they will find much to enjoy. If readers are not familiar with themes inherent to Tillich’s revaluation of the traditional Lutheran faith, this book will be exceedingly and even deadly boring.
Dr. James M. Magrini
Former: Philosophy/College of Dupage
(1) It consists of a series of articles and response essays published in academic theology journals responding to the question(s) of “What is radical theology?” “What is theology in the wake of God’s historical death?”
(2) It attempts to offer a clear, working definition for radical theology (Death of God theology).
Working toward this two-pronged goal, the book offers…
(1) A valuable historical record of the origins of this form of radical theology as it is in the process of developing intellectually and spiritually.
(2) An interesting dialogue (of sorts) between Altizer and Hamilton – the former is the philosopher; the latter is the literary critic.
(3) Some confused and tedious tangential material that appears to be included because of the lack of substantial writings on “Death of God Theology”.
(4) One solid essay by Altizer titled, “Theology and the Death of God” – written in a highly readable style that is wholly uncharacteristic of Altizer’s later Continental-inspired writings.
It’s basically an antiquated historical record written for those who are already “in the know” or steeped in the history and development of Protestantism – if readers are intimately familiar with Tillich, they will find much to enjoy. If readers are not familiar with themes inherent to Tillich’s revaluation of the traditional Lutheran faith, this book will be exceedingly and even deadly boring.
Dr. James M. Magrini
Former: Philosophy/College of Dupage
January 18, 2023
An interesting document of two so-called "death of God theologians" in their early phase. While suggestive, these essays barely begin to convey the full scope of the authors' ideas as developed in their later books. Nevertheless, they are prophetic in their insistent warnings of a coming crisis for Christian faith in America.
November 13, 2011
The concept of the book was rather interesting to me. The notion of 'Christian Atheism' is not new (or a necessary contradiction) to me and I appreciate any and all rational use of Nietzsche's 'death of God.' What didn't interest me is the method. Whereas dialectics have been used in the past to better understand (Christian) theology; here's it's more as if Christianity is used as a tool to understand dialectic theology. The problem is to do so they must effectively whittle down the corpus of Christianity into the smallest units of division (a task many Protestant theologians have been at for decades--how to make the Bible an equation.)
September 24, 2014
The "Death of God" movement didn't last very long; fair enough. But that this was written in the 60's notwithstanding, Altizer and Hamilton present some serious inquiry utilizing Nietzsche, Dostoyevsky, and Kierkegaard quite liberally. Following their line of thought, through agreement and repudiation, was more than exciting, stimulating my own theological dialectic as I continue to work out my own theological synthesis of Calvin and Kierkegaard that doesn't end up down the Neo-Orthodoxy road, which the authors were right, died out for good reason. Great read.
September 14, 2012
Good read... collection of essays by different writers, if I remember right. Very interesting in that Altizer basically uses Hegel to create his theology. Good writing. Later, his stuff got a lot more cryptic and impenetrable. I understood him in this book but not sure I buy his argument.
June 14, 2011
It is always good to be appraised of the bad. Truth shines all the brighter when compared to these dark lies of a lost world.
July 7, 2012
This book stinks.
November 25, 2014
Some of the work presented in these essays can be a little outdated, but a great introduction to Radical Theology.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews