Author: Lizeth Castillo
On Thursday, March 4, Thomas J.J. Altizer, a former professor at Wabash College and Emory Univerisity and leading “death of God” theologian, visited Occidental to discuss his own radical Christian theology, religiosity and atheism with students.
Altizer delivered a sermon declaring the transcendent, No- Saying God dead and then took student questions for two hours.
The Religious Studies Department invited Altizer to speak to students enrolled in the course “What is Enlightenment?” taught by professors Dale Wright and Malek Moazzam- Doulat. As part of the class, which seeks to explore and develop different definitions of enlightenment, students were required to read Altizer’s memoir, “Living the Death of God.”
“Death of God” theology dates back to Friedrich Nietzsche,the founder of the theory, who fundamentally believed that God was an outdated institution that could no longer be sought for insight. According to Nietzsche, mankind killed the idea of God over time through scientific inquiry and must rise above the notion of God to find wisdom within themselves.
According to Altizer’s theology, Jesus was the first to proclaim the death of God. This proclamation and this “original” Jesus were both supplanted by the later Christian tradition. In place of the “Yes-Saying God” that affirms present bodily existence, the transcendent God of the Christian tradition, an other worldly “Absolute No-Saying God” was created.
“As the church gradually and decisively establishes itself, it reverses [the “Yes-Saying God”], and we have instead the advent of the absolute creator, the absolute ancient one, the absolutely primordial God,” Altizer said.
According to Altizer, his creed allows for spirituality that produces a closer connection to God. During the talk, he emphasized that the Christian tradition has created an alien, transcendent God that is out of reach and only present in another world. The death of God then inverts this idea, and leads to what Altizer calls “a real Christianity.”
Altizer, who was internationally renowned for this theology in the 1960s, explained that his radical beliefs are grounded not only in biblical scripture, but also the modern literary and philosophical works of William Blake, Hegel, James Joyce as well as Nietzsche.
In response to questions from students, Altizer discussed the way religiosity and theology manifest themselves in the modern world.
Altizer’s theology, heavily inspired by Nietzsche’s idea ofthe “eternal recurrence,” calls for individuals to literally affirm everything that happens in their life, as opposed to denying things experiences simply because we don’t want them to be true.
“One of the things that’s most clear in Nietzsche is that there’s a kind of absolute responsibility that he calls for,” Altizer said. “There’s nothing that’s simply given to us, nothing that we simply inherit, nothing that we are the victim of, or the consequence of.” This, according to Altizer, is the absolute affirmation called for by Nietzsche’s idea of eternal recurrence.
Clara Sherman (sophomore) asked how it is possible to enact affirmation in daily life. “You live it,” Altizer responded. “Create the world, not just be responsible for the world . . . we are called upon to make the world, make our world.”
Relating his own affirmation of life, Altizer spoke about his tumultuous relationship with his violent, alcoholic father and his own struggle to assume responsibility for his past.
“I realized that I’m called to accept responsibility for my father, not just be his victim. I’m called to will, to accept, all that he did to me,” Altizer said. “In a fundamental sense, that curse that he gave me was liberating. He gave me a terrible burden which I somehow had to accept and live.”
Altizer contended that living life, in a post-theistic death of God world, is the true path toward spirituality. Recalling the idea of “absolute affirmation,” he explained that simply living in this way is “real” prayer – prayer we enact every day.
“Well frankly, I think we all live the death of God in our daily lives,” he said. “I think that you can’t be really alive without living the death of God . . . and we all proclaim the death of god in those moments in which we are alive.”
Alex Wolf (senior) inquired about the necessity of the phrase “the death of God” to Altizer’s project.
“God’s whole being is a continual dying, a dying forward. So that’s a living forward also, because how can we be living if we were not living toward death,” Altizer scholar Lissa McCullough elaborated. “It’s speaking through the negatives so we understand that it’s a necessary aspect . . . you might say it’s not the life of God, but the death of God that really matters.”
Moazzam-Doulat said hearing Altizer speak about his theology presented students with an invaluable experience.
“As people start talking about distance learning and on-line courses, there’s something crucial about being in the classroom, being there in the performance and engaging the person,” he said.
Peter Beer (senior), another student who attended the lecture, shared the same sentiment as Moazzam-Doulat.
“Regardless of the man’s doctrine, he was an impressive presence and an impassioned speaker,” he said. “Most certainly, he was an ardent believer in his credo and it was a pure joy to watch this 83-year-old man at war for his most controversial reading of our experience of the divine.”
Students were moved by Altizer’s passion.
“It was a great experience to listen to him preach his radical theology and then have a dialogue with him,” Adam Greenhouse (senior) said. “The passion and confidence in his own theology, along with his booming voice, were quite stirring.”
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