We live, so to speak, in the time of the death of God, although that time will undoubtedly pass. One hears of the "new" theology, the secular, the radical, the death of God theology.
Radical Theology and the Death of God by Thomas Altizer and William Hamilton
Introductions to the Radical Theology
America and the Future of Theology by Thomas J.J
Altizer
It is precisely the acceptance of Nietzsche's preaching of the death of God that is the real test of a contemporary form of faith. Apart from a free acceptance of God's death, there is no way out of our profane present.
The Death of God Theologies Today by William Hamilton
Expositions of the Radical Theology
He is professor and dean at the College of Arts and Sciences, Oregon State University, in Portland.
Banished from the Land of Unity by William Hamilton
This can be established by noting the setting of the novel in Dostoevsky's own life. Each of the brothers (we're not including the "brother" who was the actual murderer) then participates in the father's death. It is not the actual emptiness of human life, but the possible emptiness of heaven that truly frightens.
But like many sensualists, he has a genuine sensitivity, especially for the suffering of the innocent. There can be little doubt about the identification of the novelist with Ivan Karamazov. It may be, but it is also the hardest part of the novel to get clear.
Another original (and perverse) interpretation of the legend is that of the Roman Catholic Guardini. But it didn't work, and in the course of the novel he rejects Ivan and gives himself to Alyosha. It can be described, but it is difficult to relate it to the Christ, of the legend.
Thursday's Child by William Hamilton
It is not that he is fashionably against idols or against God as a Being or as part of the world. He is not interested, and he no longer has the energy or interest to answer ecclesiastical questions about what the Church needs to do to revitalize itself. The theologian is alienated from the Bible, just as he is alienated from God and the church.
This leads to harmless fun, and he is careful to see that everyone is enjoying himself. But back in the private realm, he increasingly distrusts this kind of manipulation. He is not alone, but he does not usually live in a true community, although he is aware of the existence of such a community.
In his ecumenical work or in the emerging Roman Catholic-Protestant dialogue, he is obliged to see the church in this way. In the face of all this, he is a passive man who trusts in waiting, silence and in a kind of prayer that the losses are returned. If it be true that he is somehow without hope as well as without faith, he is not in despair of himself.
Theology and the Death of God by Thomas J.J
Again, to know “objectively” means to “exist objectively.” and such existence is the opposite of the 'subjectivity' that Kierkegaard identified as faith. Consequently, Nietzsche's view of the Eternal Second Coming is the dialectical correlate of his proclamation of the death of God. In Nietzsche we have witnessed that the deepest will of God's death turned into the deepest affirmation of eternal recurrence.
This Reality (the Kingdom of God) brings about a radical transformation of the reality of the world, reversing both its forms and structures. One form of this alienation can be observed in Nietzsche's condemnation of Christianity's naysaying. Neither Tillich nor Bultmann will follow Kierkegaard in his denial of Christianity, for both are closed to Nietzsche's proclamation of the death of God.
Perhaps we are finally ready to understand the true uniqueness of the Christian gospel. We can already see important parallels between Nietzsche's vision of the Eternal Return and Jesus' proclamation of the Kingdom of God. Like the New Testament original, the profane form of incarnation separates authentic existence from presence.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer by William Hamilton
It is not the world of the ecumenical movement, nor of dialogue with art, nor of psychoanalysis, nor of the politics of sin. It is the world of new forms of technology, of mass media, of great risk and great experiment -- what Kenneth Boulding calls the post-civilized world. First, from the prison letters, is the assertion of the coming age of the world.
Either way, Christians have almost always been offended by the self-righteousness of the Western secularist. Of course there are problems and needs, but the world itself is the source of solutions, not God. Technically speaking, what Bonhoeffer is saying is that in the modern world, which can endure without God, the idea of the innate religiosity of man, religious a priori, must be rejected.
It is simply one of the possibilities available to man today in a competitive and pluralistic spiritual situation. The communication of the Christian in our world is likely to be, at least for a time, essentially ethical and nonverbal. Christians themselves, at work in the world of the twentieth century, who say their "yes" as forcefully as possible to it, provide the dynamic evidence for the truth or falsity of their message.
Word and History by Thomas J.J. Altizer
The disappearance of the historical Jesus is but a particular expression of a much deeper reality, the death of God. 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 arena of faith. If this is true, we can only conclude that even Christian meditation in its traditional form cannot survive in the presence of the death of God.
But the uniquely Christian form of the Word of faith requires that it express itself in a movement of. It is precisely the forward movement of history that testifies to the presence of the Word. It is caused by the presence of that nothingness that followed the death of God.
However, must we not ultimately define Christendom as all that history that exists in the presence of the Christian God. Therefore the faith must recognize the death of God as a historical event that testifies to the arrival of a new form of the Word. Now the time has passed when the theologian can be silent in the presence of the moment before him.
The Sacred and the Profane: A Dialectical
Radical Theology and the Death of God by Thomas Altizer and William Hamilton Altizer and William Hamilton.
Understanding of Christianity by Thomas J.J
Again, a total epiphany of the sacred occurs only through a total abolition of the profane. His apparent negation of the profane is ultimately an epiphany or renewal of an original and primitive sacred. A mystical epiphany of primordial Totality dissolves the opposition between the sacred and the profane by annulling the fallen reality of space and time.
Only a saint who denies his own unfallen or original form can incarnate in profane reality. Furthermore, a dialectical turn in this sense cannot lead to an identification of the sacred with the profane or. Insofar as the religious movement of negation is dialectical, its negation of the profane is essentially an affirmation of the sacred.
This is really about a genuine and real shift from the sacred to the profane. We have seen that the religious repetition of the primordial Beginning nullifies or reverses the life and movement of the profane. However, this movement of the sacred into the profane is inextricably linked to the parallel movement of the sacred into the sacred.
The New Optimism -- from Prufrock to Ringo by William Hamilton
Old Niebuhrians tended to go to the back pages of the National Review to die. And the first session's legislative record — on domestic issues — has partially validated the rhetoric. McLuhan understands, enjoys and invites all people to enjoy the new media of the post-civilized world.
The man is gone, he is not coming back, and the only cure is in singing a song. For the presence of tragedy requires the presence of God or gods, and the presence of gods is what we do not have. And the disappearance of the tragic man is the result of the disappearance of the presence of God, which makes the tragedy possible.
Even Nietzsche's fool admitted that his message about the death of God came too soon. The death of God, which was only hinted at in the seventeenth century, is the breakdown of the dialectic between presence and absence. I think that the new optimism is both the cause and the effect of the basic theological experience that we now call the death of God.
William Blake and the Role of Myth in the Radical Christian Vision by Thomas J.J. Altizer
However, Blake celebrated this collapse as the path to a total and apocalyptic transfiguration of the world. But the vision can neither arise nor be realized apart from a transformation of the totality of experience. This vision arises in the context of a new and apocalyptic understanding of the "Mystery" of Godhead.
Already in the Songs of Innocence there is an underlying vision of the omnipresence of the. This movement to reverse the world of experience is the process of rebirth, and it only takes place in the full actuality of the body. For the first time in the history of Christian imagery, Blake gave the world a dynamic image of the cosmic Christ.
Despite its great importance for our situation, the faith of radical Christians still largely remains. Moreover, this Totality is the primordial Reality; it is both the fundamental identity of all reality and the original form of the cosmos. One might even say that Oriental mysticism must recognize movement as an origin.