Mike Morrell has a post up about Thomas J. J. Altizer's "Death of God" theology as seen throgh the lens of Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizik. It's fascinating to read and to watch Zizik's analysis (Zizik is always fascinating to watch perform). I was struk particularly by Altizer's assessment of his project, saying that it means "the opposite of what everyone thinks."
Unfortunately, the Emory Magazine article in which the quote is contained doesn't offer much further elaboration on the nature of the "opposite" character of Altizer's theology, but it does offer a useful primer on the "Death of God" theology moment in the 1960s, along with this helpful summary:
On a most basic level, Altizer studies God not as a separate presence but as a historical force that has been transformed by death. This God began giving himself to the world at its creation and ultimately died through Jesus Christ, whose earthly demise in turn poured the spirit of God into the world. Altizer calls for a dialectical form of faith that acknowledges the coincidence of opposites: through God’s death, the sacred becomes profane, and vice versa; one cannot exist without the other. Only in modernity, Altizer believes, can we fully realize the paradox of the death of God—that the very absence of God signifies God’s presence in all things.
This is clearly very different from Moltmann's approach in The Crucified God, which continues to rely on more traditional theological categories, but it is a useful reminder that there is often a difference between what is said and what is meant, particularly when what is said is framed in highly abstruse theological and philosophical language.
That said, clearly the core of this is the idea of the via negativa, the idea of encountering God in the midst of negation, which in our very positively oriented society, is always an important qualification.
We think we can know God, but ultimately any God worth knowing must be by definition beyond our capacity to truly know. That paradox stands at the heart of all things Christian.
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