Thomas J. J. Altizer
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Thomas J. J. Altizer is a liberal theologian who postulated in the early 1960's the "death of God". While teaching at Emory University (from 1956 to 1968), Altizer's religious views were featured in two TIME magazine articles in 1965 and 1966. The latter issue was published at Easter time, and its cover asked in bold red letters on a plain black background, "Is God Dead?"
Altizer has repeatedly claimed that scorn, outcry, and even death threats he received were misplaced. On a pure level, Altizer's religious proclamation viewed God's death (really a self-extinction) as a process that began at the world's creation and came to an end through Jesus Christ -- whose crucifixion in reality poured out God's full spirit into this world.
In Godhead and the Nothing Altizer examined the notion of evil. He presented evil as the absense of will, but not separate from God. Orthodox Christianity—considered nihilistic by Nietzsche—named evil and separated it from good without thoroughly examining its nature. However, the immanence of the spirit (after Jesus Christ) within the world embraces everything created. The immanence of the spirit is the answer to the nihilistic state that Christianity, according to Nietzsche, was leading the world into. Through the introduction of God in the material world (immanence), the emptying of meaning would cease. No longer would followers be able to dismiss the present world for a transcendent world. They would have to embrace the present completely and keep meaning in the here and now.
Altizer now lives Mount Pocono, Pennsylvania. His memoir is entitled "Living the Death of God".
