Thomas J. J. Altizer

Thomas Jonathan Jackson Altizer (born September 28, 1927) is a radical theologian who incorporated Friedrich Nietzsche's conception of the "death of God" into his teachings.

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Education

Altizer was born in Charleston, West Virginia, and attended St. John's College, Annapolis, Maryland. He was educated at the University of Chicago and graduated with B.A., M.A., and PhD degrees. His master's thesis examined the concepts of nature and grace in St. Augustine. His doctoral dissertation of 1955 examined Carl Gustav Jung's understanding of religion.

He took up a post at Wabash College, Crawfordsville, Indiana, from 1954 to 1956 where he taught religion. He then became an associate professor of Bible and religion at Emory University where he taught from 1956 to 1968.

"Death of God" controversy

While teaching at Emory, 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 developing his position Altizer drew upon the dialectical thought of Hegel, the visionary writings of William Blake, the Anthroposophical thought of Owen Barfield, and adapted aspects of Mircea Eliade's view of the sacred and the profane.

In the mid-1960s Altizer was drawn into discussions about his views with other radical Christian theologians such as Gabriel Vahanian, William Hamilton, and Paul Van Buren, and also with the Jewish rabbi Richard Rubenstein. Each of these thinkers appeared to form a loose network of thinkers who held to different versions of the death of God. Altizer also entered into formal critical debates with the evangelical Lutheran John Warwick Montgomery, and the Christian countercult movement apologist Walter Martin. The evangelical theologians faulted Altizer on philosophical, methodological and theological questions, such as his reliance on Hegelian dialectical thought, his idiosyncratic semantic use of theological words, and the interpretative principles he used in understanding Biblical literature.

In Godhead and the Nothing, Altizer examined the notion of evil. He presented evil as the absence 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 in Mount Pocono, Pennsylvania. His memoir is entitled Living the Death of God. He is currently Professor Emeritus of Religious Studies at the State University of New York at Stony Brook.

Critical assessment

Bibliography

See also

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