m e d i t a t i o n s

on philosophy and religion

[philosophy-101]

Is god dead?

        Before Hume’s empiricism and the Scientific Revolution, people received truths from god or from their worldly superiors.  This can be the approximate marker after which society took the task of knowledge-seeking upon itself, less willing to receive doctrine from above.  In relation to god’s existence, it is fairly intelligible that this question cannot be answered empirically.  The only records of god existing on earth are mythological, purportedly occurring thousands of years ago.  Individual accounts of interaction with god do come up in history, as Luther’s theophany, for example, but as far as can be proven, these are only claims.  Judging whether god exists is not only unfeasible, but also unnecessary.  Put simply by Monica R. Miller, “though the question of god’s existence might matter to [believers]…[it] has little bearing on…the social circumstances…[people] encounter each day” (177).

       If deliberating god as a de facto object is extraneous, what relevance can be found in the question, “is god dead?”  The majority of modern theology says that god’s “death” (or god’s “life”) can be measured by the relationship between society and the idea of god.  In other words, it is possible and useful to assess how prevalent the god-idea is in culture, government, and other spheres.  Idea of god and “god-idea” are reminders to the reader that god, for the purpose of this essay, is “just another…way in which the social world is often discussed” (Miller 167), rather than an actual entity.  Additionally, Anthony Pinn states, “god has never been anything more than a symbol—an organizing framework for viewing and living life” (5).  These two contemporary theologians direct readers’ attention squarely toward the reflection of god-ideas in society, a shift made possible by years of radical ideas in the field.  Feuerbach proclaimed the beginning of the shift, that “the task of the modern era was the realization and humanization of God—the transformation and dissolution of theology into anthropology” (Principles 5).  Henceforth, in answering “is god dead?”, god is understood as an idea, and the question will be answered with respect to god’s pertinence in society.  

       To evaluate the extent to which god is dead in the modern period, we can look at the development of god’s absence from society, in intellectual, artistic, political, and other circles.  Bonhoeffer gives an apt chronology for the decline of god in philosophy.  He states that the demise began in 1624 when Lord Herbert proclaimed reason as the safest path to knowledge, over faith.  Montaigne and Bodin then created secular principles of morality, Machiavelli ideated the secular state, and even Descartes separated the world’s functioning from the hands of god (162).  Spinoza introduced pantheism, later adopted by Fichte and Hegel, which opposed the idea of rigidly singular religious worship.  Further along, Bonhoeffer adds that Cusa and Bruno’s ‘heretical’ idea of an infinite universe broke existing intellectual barriers concerning religion (163).  By this account, god’s presence in the intellectual domain has certainly atrophied over years and years. alongside the breakdown of tradition.  

       In the realm of art, there appears to remain a close relationship to god.  The relationship is especially evident in hip-hop culture of the United States.  Monica Miller notes that figures like Kanye West capitalize on “the prepackaged worth and value that society has already granted to particular words and ideas like ‘slave’ and ‘god’” (172).  The fact that Kanye’s album hailing Jesus reached number one on music charts proves that god is relevant to listeners of the world’s leading entertainment market.  Still, one article highlights that West failed to top the streams per song of his previous album, “Ye,” which focused on mental health issues like bi-polar disorder, rather than Jesus (Rolli).  This may indicate that the public relates more to concrete, human struggles like mental health than to an abstract concept like god. 

       God is also found in the politics of the USA, especially in the past few years.  The Republican Party is mostly Christian, a striking example seen in “Rick Perry’s belief that Trump was chosen by God,” a belief “shared by many in a fast-growing Christian movement,” according to Richard Flory, a sociologist at the University of Southern California (Flory).  Additionally, it was a shock to many when George Zimmerman claimed his killing of Trayvon Martin was God’s will, which is what “most good conservative Christians in America think right now” (Butler).  Both examples depict a nation of devout white Christians, which is not entirely untrue, considering Donald Trump was elected.  Black people make up around 15% of the US population, and James Cone would suggest that “the black community [too]…perceives its identity in terms of divine presence,” that should “kill the white God” (59).  God is present across multiple communities then, black, white, and also feminist: similarly to Cone’s rebranding of God, Mary Daly advocates for “Castrating ‘God’ [the father]” (19).  Independent to how how she defines god, she nevertheless makes the case that god is necessary for the feminist movement (28).  Lastly, despite being denounced in the bible, the LGBTQ community, represented by Marcella Althaus-Reid, likewise sought to find a reconciliation between god and sexual fluidity (46).  It could be argued that many of these theologies are not perpetuating god’s activity in society, as they are deconstructing traditional assumptions surrounding god.  On the contrary, irrespective of their purpose, these authors reveal the continued presence of god in the minds of people and communities.  Moreover, whether republicans or liberals make up the majority of people today, god still finds its way into news headlines and political discussion. 

       Though the god-idea may be less evident than it was two-hundred years ago in areas of academia, culture, and politics, its presence persists, suggesting that god is not dead, at least not by this measurement.

       Will god ever die?  Will society ever relinquish its reliance on god as a “need-fulfiller or problem-solver” (Hamilton 116), and beyond that, as an idea altogether?  It seems likely that humans will cease to consult god for answers or physical solutions.  The death of god movements are in closest agreement on this idea, concluding that god is no longer “with us,” in the sense previously believed.  With horrors like Auschwitz in our near past and daily news exhibiting terrorism and mistargeted drone strikes, an abandonment of the god-idea is impossible to avoid.  This helplessness is displayed in a character of Hochhuth’s, who proclaims, “for fifteen months…I’ve been sending people to God.  Do you think He’s made the slightest acknowledgement?” (140-141).  Despite all the death and suffering, god is silent and immotile.  We have been forced to accept that god is certainly useless in directly solving human problems.  

       The function that god previously served—finding meaning and solidarity within the human experience—is still needed, though we may come to define this endeavor in a way that does not rely on the idea of god at all.  There may be similarities between the function of our new conception and the function of god, but the differences will outweigh these similarities.  Take this quote from Feuerbach: “I openly confess that the workings of nature affect not only my surface…that the light of the sun illuminates not only my eyes but also my spirit and my heart” (Lectures 35-36).  The phenomenon described has likely been experienced by many, a markedly “spiritual” feeling given by nature or another stimulus, a joy of being human.  Though these feelings are likely to remain relatable for generations to come, the label of “spirit” may change as secularity increases.  Pinn likens labels like “god” to “intellectual machinery.”  Machinery does not die, it “lose[s] [its] function and [is] replaced” (6).  

       To answer the principal question, god is not dead as an idea in relation to society, and therefore, god is not dead.  Throughout the United States and the greater world, worship continues, god is talked about, and god is relevant.  Nietzsche stated god was dead in 1882, but his proclamation did not kill god.  Even so, it can be concluded that god is declining.  The more we become uncertain with this ever-changing world, the less consolation a god-idea provides.  It is the life’s work of countless theologians to make sense of a world without god, to redefine our central human search for meaning in secular terms.  

       God’s decline forces us to recognize that “we have constructed the conceptual arrangements of this world and we must alone bear the responsibility for this framing of life” (Pinn 6).  Though many might remain devout, those who have lost meaning in religion can often not find it again, and this group will only grow, elevating the importance of death of god theologians’ work.  Some theologians, like Rubenstein, have a grim view of the death of god, that it only heightens our awareness of impotence against nothingness (257).  I would suggest that a more fitting perspective is that the surest path toward solace in this turbulent period will be a focus on culture, human expression of innermost sentiments, as proposed by Tillich and others.  To understand that we are each subject to the same fundamental struggles is heartening, and arguably was the purpose “god” served all along.

Works Cited

Althaus-Reid, Marcella. The Queer God. Routledge, 2007, p. 46.

Bonhoeffer, Dietrich. Prisoner for God: Letters and Papers from Prison. Edited by Eberhard Bethge. Translated by Reginald H Fuller, Macmillan, 1954, pp. 162-163.

Butler, Anthea. “The Zimmerman Acquittal: America's Racist God.” Religion Dispatches, Religion Dispatches, 16 July 2013, religiondispatches.org/the-zimmerman-acquittal-americas-racist-god/.

Cone, James H. A Black Theology of Liberation. Orbis Books, 1989, p. 59.

Daly, Mary F. Beyond God the Father: toward a Philosophy of Women's Liberation. Beacon Press, 1974, p. 19.

Feuerbach, Ludwig. Lectures on the Essence of Religion. Harper & Row, 1967, pp. 35-36.

Feuerbach, Ludwig, and Manfred H. Vogel. Principles of the Philosophy of the Future. Bobbs-Merrill, 1966, p. 5.

Flory, Richard, and Brad Christerson. “Rick Perry's Belief That Trump Was Chosen by God Is Shared by Many in a Fast-Growing Christian Movement.” USC Dornsife College News, University of Southern California, 2 Dec. 2019, dornsife.usc.edu/news/stories/3126/rick-perry-and-christian-movement-believes-trump-chosen-by-god/.

Hamilton, William H. “Dietrich Bonhoeffer.” Radical Theology and the Death of God, by Thomas J. J. Altizer and William H. Hamilton, Bobbs-Merrill, 1968, pp. 112–118.

Hochhuth, Rolf. “Auschwitz or the Question Asked of God.” The Theologian at Work: a Common Search for Understanding, by Arthur Roy Eckardt, Harper and Row, 1968, pp. 136–146.

Miller, Monica R. “God of the New Slaves or Slave to the Ideas of Religion and God?” The Cultural Impact of Kanye West, by Julius Bailey, Palgrave Macmillan, 2015, pp. 167–179.

Pinn, Anthony B. The End of God-Talk: an African American Humanist Theology. Oxford University Press, 2012, pp. 5-6.

Rolli, Bryan. “Kanye West's 'Jesus Is King' Soared To No. 1, But He Can't Afford Another Album Like It.” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 4 Nov. 2019, www.forbes.com/sites/bryanrolli/2019/11/04/kanye-wests-jesus-is-king-soared-to-no-1-but-he-cant-afford-another-album-like-it/#3290780b2aec.

Rubenstein, Richard L. After Auschwitz: Radical Theology and Contemporary Judaism. Bobbs-Merrill, 1966, p. 257.

[philosophy-101]

Précis on Monica R. Miller

The Cultural Impact of Kanye West

“God of the New Slaves or Slave to the Ideas of Religion and God?”

12/2/19, 9:00a.m.

One of Miller’s central arguments is that religion is “just another (linguistic) way in which the social world is often discussed” (167).  She urges critics and listeners to avoid categorizing cultural representations as moral or immoral, sacred or heretic.  Her view is that, arguments concerning religious or ethical validity serve no real purpose in analyzing the relationship between culture and society.  It is more valuable to assess the effect of cultural representations like hip-hop on society, and its means of doing so.  Miller focuses primarily on Kanye West, whose relationship with religion and race have captivated the american public, sparking controversy more often than not.  

Miller demonstrates how Yeezy speaks on society, particularly american society, through the avenue of god.  He uses god-language to spark discussion, which involves not only his questionable “morals,” but also the society that he is speaking on.  Deciding whether he is a heretic or a believer, or what motivates him, are senseless endeavors.  The public can never truly know what he is thinking; often we aren’t sure of our own thoughts.  What we do know is that he has guided our attention toward the topic of race, and sometimes religion, collaterally.  

It seems as though this work by Miller is simply an argument that scrutiny of beliefs and morals is worthless, and we should rather investigate the methods of those that drive culture today.  The essay lacks a conclusion about what Kanye has done, and its propositions are too simple for the amount of evidence and explanation that was given.  It is possible that in further chapters of the book, she does just that, judging from the title.  

[philosophy-101]

Précis on RevSisRaedorah & Katie G. Cannon

Deeper Shades of Purple: Womanism in Religion and Society

“When Mama Was God” and “Structured Academic Amnesia”

11/27/19, 9:00a.m.

The first piece, authored by RevSisRaedorah, poetically illustrates the relationship between a daughter and her mother, likening mother to God.  At times she felt God-like, some compared her to her mother.  To me, the key point is that parallels may be drawn between god-human relations and parent-child relations, and the piece segways into Katie G. Cannon’s “Structured Academic Amnesia,” in that both are written by black womanists intending to disseminate their stories to combat marginalization.

Cannon’s first main argument is that anecdotal evidence and analysis is just as valid as objective, data-driven methods.  In fact, experiences must be given attention, because without them, whole peoples can be rationalized, and therefore dehumanized.  Theorization opposes embodiment.  Another central point she makes is that women’s work and black people’s work are measured against the standard of white, androcentric institutions.  This is particularly evident in academia, where the presence of a black woman like Cannon is disregarded if not directly subjugated, and her work is judged by its adherence to the existing status quo.

Cannon synthesizes these ideas into a concept of “traditionally capable” womanism.  To be a traditionally capable womanist is to wield power analyses, exhibit biotextual specificity, and assert embodied mediated knowledge.  She defines power analyses as the awareness of inherently oppressive social structures, and the need to reform these.  Biotextual specificity is the point of valuing personal stories, mentioned above.  Embodied mediated knowledge is that which is judged not by some external, scientific observer, but rather by the women involved themselves.  To be qualified by institutionalized expectations is to relinquish one’s power to be.

Her closing remark is an apt one, that academia and broader society are incomplete so long as they sweep aside those that do not match existing standards.  More knowledge, culture, and cohesion will be reached once these established benchmarks are dismantled.

I do not have any critiques of Cannon’s work.  My only note is that I’m not entirely sure how “When Mama Was God” is intended to tie into “Structured Academic Amnesia.”  I’ve given a surface level relation between the two in the first paragraph, but I may be missing some other connection. 

[philosophy-101]

Précis on Marcella Althaus-Reid

The Queer God, “Queering God in relationships”

11/25/19, 9:00a.m.

It is my understanding that Queer Theology intends to explore the multiformity of theological definitions, and in doing so, remove the authority of such definitions altogether, so as to reach an understanding of God and of humanity that does not rely on any one shape.  Particularly, Althaus-Reid centers this explorative dismantling on sexuality.  The historic single-sided nature of sexuality as hetero- has pervaded many other spheres of thought and culture, if not all spheres.  As a result, we have been conditioned to think within dualities, neglecting the many-sided nature of all things.

To create truly original theology, one must theologize outside the bounds of traditional, heterocentric, androcentric methods.  As such, many of the liberation theologies that have come before are redefinitions of their revolutions into agreeable terms, rather than authentic revolutions in themselves.  Christian theology of the past has disdained the human being.  In the author’s terms, “Theology can see blood in wine but not blood in blood” (47).  Perfectly following these classic theological ideals would lead to a “tortured, ill, accosted…[and] oppressed sexual body” (47).  

In a radically dynamic societal environment, outdated examples of mono-loving relationships may no longer provide the “creativity and nurture” (55) one needs.  To combat this dilemma, we must remove God as the figure of authority on such topics of relationships and sexuality, or simply to reimagine what God’s views on these topics would be.  Althaus-Reid describes this shift as God’s suicide, killing part of himself; namely, the counterproductive mono-love, hetero-oriented part of himself.  Post this omnisexual kenosis of sorts, God as a concept becomes just as ambivalent as sexuality and relationships do.  All three, and many other ideas, are without singular definition, as they should be.  A singular definition lacks the applicability and relatability of a diverse definition.

In fact, mono-love never existed, our reconciliation of a concept and reality was the closest approximation.  

[philosophy-101]

Reflection on Anthony B. Pinn

The End of God Talk

11/20/19, 9:20a.m.

This work of Anthony Pinn’s lays out a novel approach to theology itself.  Pinn might say theology is the method of molding ideas that relate to religion.  He defines religion as the quest for “a particular framing of human experience” (149).  

Pinn’s thinking incorporates death of God theology.  He suggests, theology need not revolve around proving God’s existence, or even the discussion of God at all, in the usual sense of the word “God.”  His take on theology may be termed as nontheistic theology, as counterintuitive as that may seem.  Instead of focusing on God, Pinn turns us toward investigating cultural underpinnings of all human endeavors.  Prior assumptions about what theology is and is not must be set aside.  

Death of God is not death of our desire for “spiritual” fulfillment, it is the death of previous attachments to the word “God,” because it is merely a symbol, a freshly outmoded one at that.  The symbol is no longer effective in providing existential comfort, simply because we have come to realize that God is a symbol.  To clarify, the function God formerly served is still needed, but a new route must be taken, since the streetsigns of “God” are henceforth illegible.  It requires religious maturity to fully accept that we leaned on God as a symbol.  “God” is a means to framing life, but God cannot frame human life, at least not effectively.

The sudden absence of belief in an omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent figure overwatching leads to the sudden presence of new responsibility for humans; namely, accepting that the task of comprehending ontological, epistemological, and ethical questions can never again be outsourced, the task is solely ours.  Pinn provides a theological first step on this journey, embracement of body and culture as a medium for meaningful understanding of the human condition.  Furthermore, what was called interaction with the “divine” can now be found in basic aspects of life, like sharing a meal with family.

Pinn’s work is clearly humanist at the core, but I might argue that it is too humanist.  He believes that nontheistic humanism can fully substitute religion after God’s death.  However, humanism does not grapple with the why.  Why am I on the earth?  Why are we conscious beings, capable of creating theology and endlessly deliberating it?  I don’t think a walk through my old neighborhood will quench this thirst to “why?”

Pinn avoids the idea of transcendence, possibly because he associates it with theism or God symbols.  I contend that transcendence is part of the human condition, and should therefore be included in humanism.  Transcendence can be manifest in a heavy beat of the heart when seeing the stars in the desert.  This has nothing to do with the body, nothing to do with culture or interpersonal connection.  Transcendence can also be manifest in a conjunction of occurrences in a moment, in a feeling of uber-awareness and presence.  This is without attributing the fortuity of the moment to God or dismissing it as coincidence, but simply by experiencing the moment as it is.  

It could be that I am saying the same thing as Pinn but in different terms, or it could be that I have failed to see how my addition was already addressed in his work, but from my current position, it seems that Pinn’s nontheistic humanism is not the whole answer to replacing God.

[philosophy-101]

Précis on Jones and Butler

Is God a White Racist and “The Zimmerman Acquittal: America’s Racist God”

11/18/19, 9:00a.m.

In, Is God a White Racist?, William R. Jones takes a novel perspective on the previously discussed black theology put forth by James Cone, and others.  Jones states that the black theologians who came before him consistently relied on the falsehood of divine racism.  In other words, they presupposed that God is not racist, and even that the black people are his people, in the case of Cone.  Jones wants to prove the idea of God not being racist rather than assuming its validity.  This proof is necessary for black theology because black people cannot worship a God that is against them.  

Jones holds that theodicy is of central focus for the refutation of divine racism.  In Jones’s view, theodicy is not justification of God’s actions, but an attempt to understand the cause of suffering.  This is quite logical because at the heart of, “is God racist?” is, “why are people racist,” or, “why would god be racist?”   

Jones proposes that one of the first steps toward alleviating black suffering is to start viewing humans as functionally ultimate—that is to say, we need to be the judge and the agent in our own history, rather than viewing God as the overarching power.  No longer can we claim that God is our only evaluator or that He will guide each of our lives.

Anthea Butler applies Jones’s work to modern tragedies of race in America, namely the death of Trayvon Martin, in “The Zimmerman Acquittal: America’s Racist God.”  She calls out against those who turn to the “touchy-feely” when discussing problems of race.  They claim that God doesn’t see race, but for God to not see race is for God to not see the oppression experienced by black people in America and many other parts of the world.  Butler closes by spurring each reader to unmask those who are genuinely racist but may seem only like bystanders or bearers of peace and equality.

[philosophy-101]

Précis on Vine Deloria, Jr.

Custer Died for Your Sins: An Indian Manifesto

11/13/19, 9:00a.m.

In Chapter 8, titled “The Red and the Black,” Deloria explains his view on the differences between white, black, and American Indian people.  First, he states that white people have historically dealt with black people and native-Americans in opposite ways; the white establishment excluded black citizens from everything they could, to keep them separate and non-white, conversely forcing the native-Americans to deal with them in treaties and attempted to americanize the culture.  In Deloria’s words: “The white man forbade the black to enter his own social and economic system and at the same time force-fed the Indian what he was denying the black” (173).

Deloria calls for all minority groups to understand the ways they have been manipulated by white officials, and to assert themselves specifically based on what has been denied in the past.  Namely, for American Indians, the struggle is all about sovereign land.  Their culture is deeply rooted in the land, and therefore it is their primary goal to maintain control over it.  Deloria denounces the grouping together of native-Americans, black people, Mexican people, etc., because this assumes all minorities have the same needs, but it is clear that they do not.

One critique I have of Deloria’s writing is its assumption that everyone operates under ideals similar to those of native-Americans.  For example, he claims that American settlers “violated the most basic principle of man’s history: certain lands are given to certain peoples” (177).  This is an opinion, and by taking it as a universal rule, he decreases the credibility of his argument.  Of course, by making this critique, I am projecting Western ideals just as he projects his own.  If the book is solely for other native-Americans to be empowered by, then this note is not relevant.

[philosophy-101]

Précis on Mary Daly

Beyond God the Father

11/11/19, 9:00a.m.

In “After the Death of God the Father,” the first chapter of her book, Beyond God the Father, Mary Daly identifies the patriarchal elements of Christianity in the past, with suggestions for what must be done to overturn these elements.  She first notes that we have historically considered God as separate and controlling, a characteristic we assign to men, as well.  Her pertinent observation that if God is male, then male is God, illustrates this idea clearly.  The patriarchal structure of society is perpetuated in religious understanding, and religion’s patriarchal elements justify those present in society.  The vicious cycle is not known of by most, and the structures therefore seem to stand validly in their solitude.  A general awareness of this would weaken the cycle.  

Daly calls for not only a castration of God.  She states that to simply begin considering God as female or focusing on God’s feminine qualities would be to settle for reform, a reform that would not actualize authentic change.  What she calls “human becoming” is the ultimate goal, advocating for an internal, individual change that will affect society rather than the converse.

One firm critique I have of Daly’s argument is that she seems to confuse the intent of Black theology.  She claims, “The Black God and Black Messiah apparently are merely the same patriarchs after a pigmentation operation—their behavior unaltered” (25).  Incorrect, because the Black God is truly one with the oppressed, one with the revolution of servant against servitude.  In this sense, Black theology of liberation is quite akin to the abolishment of patriarchal God.  Both theologies demand the eradication of inequality in society that is perpetuated by past interpretations of Christianity.

[philosophy-101]

Précis on James Cone

A Black Theology of Liberation

11/6/19, 9:00a.m.

Cone argues that black theology is inseparable from black liberation.  Part of black liberation involves killing white god.  Historically, God has been used to oppress the poor, as seen in Sartre’s The Devil and the Good Lord, set in the nascent stages of the Protestant Reformation and the Peasants’ Revolt.  To kill white god is to liberate oppressed groups from the theology which perpetuates a master-slave society.

It behooves the reader to focus on Cone’s thesis as it relates to the death of God as a whole.  To see this work only as a justification and guide for black liberation would neglect the its pertinence to death of God theology.

Particularly, the idea that it is possible to kill off an outmoded interpretation of God without killing God altogether, and idea not explicitly expressed by Nietzsche, Tillich, Altizer, Sartre, et al.

“…that does not mean that we cannot kill the white God, so that the presence of the black God can become known in the black-white encounter” (59).

To level the theological playing field is to liberate the black community, which perceives its identity in terms of divine presence (59).  

Conversely, to focus on the relation of this work to death of God theology is not to neglect the context of black america.  Cone suggests that, “culture, according to Tillich, is indispensable for God-talk” (60).  Very true, and by relating Cone’s ideas to death of God theology as a whole, we can place them not only in the context of black america, but also in the context of a worldwide age of meaninglessness, which has driven groups of all kinds to similar crossroads.

The rest of the text contains Cone’s redefinitions of other Christian ideas, but to me, understanding that the death of God may be less of a spiritual eradication and more of a spiritual redefinition was most important.  

[philosophy-101]

Précis on Jean-Paul Sartre

The Devil and the Good Lord, Act I

10/23/19, 9:00 a.m.

Being a play rather than nonfiction, Sartre’s The Devil and the Good Lord may not have a thesis, but it does have multiple themes and undertones.  I have gathered some sense of these ideas from the first act, in an attempt to relate the play’s themes to the death of god.  There are multiple instances of Goetz exposing God’s lack of control over him.  This is similar to Hochhuth’s scene of the doctor and the priest, in that the doctor emphasizes he can get away with the worst of crimes without repercussions from God.  What intrigued me most was on page 53, when Nasti shows Goetz that by being an agent of destruction, he is actually serving the established order.  I saw a parallel in this to atheism and anti-religion movements; Sartre may be suggesting that these oppositions to religion only make religion stronger.  Sartre’s negative view of religion can be seen in Nasti’s description of the churches as “erected by the power of Satan” (54).  

It is doubtless that a momentous point in this act is when Heinrich convinces Goetz that all is evil, and no good has ever been done.  Suddenly, the challenge for Goetz is not to be the ultimate evil, but rather the ultimate good, or the only good that has ever existed.  Why would Sartre make Goetz change his mind so quickly, what does this represent?  It is written that Goetz wants to “drive the Lord into a corner” (64).  Why, then, did he switch the dice so that he would lose?  This will be a point of discussion in class today.

[philosophy-101]

Reflection on Hochhuth & Rubenstein

Auschwitz or the Question Asked of God    -  and  -

After Auschwitz: Radical Theology and Contemporary Judaism

10/16/19, 9:20 a.m.

Hochhuth’s Auschwitz or the Question Asked of God reveals in a short scene how Auschwitz forces us to ask God, “why?’ and to find the only logical answer, that god does not exist.  The author presents this assertion through a doctor, facilitator of killing at the camp, and a Jewish priest with whom the doctor converses.  Because the doctor faces no opposition to his continuous slaughter, he is forced to believe that there is no god, otherwise he would have been stopped.  In a sentence, “Auschwitz refutes creator, creation, and the creature.  Life, as an idea, is dead” (142).

Rubenstein would agree with this transformation of theology after Auschwitz into an emphasis on the death of God.  However, in After Auschwitz: Radical Theology and Contemporary Judaism, he focuses more on disputing claims made by Christian radical theologians, primarily by Altizer.  He firmly negates the view of god’s death as liberating, suggesting instead that tragic acceptance is a more fitting sentiment.  To support this claim, Rubenstein cites Freud’s theory that “reality rather than the father is the author of repression” (254).  Furthermore, the view of Altizer et al. that god’s death brings the ultimate freedom of mankind is flawed because god does not withhold man’s freedom, man does.  Man needs repression to an extent, and thus places it on himself through societal norms, among other means.  But Rubenstein goes further, stating man is not ready for the death of god, which will bring up greater anxiety about life and death.  Ours is a turbulent time in which the rock of religion is needed more than ever, and without it, an abundance of issues will arise in the individual.  He concludes that religion is the only route to a futile attempt at adding some meaning to an otherwise meaningless life.

Hochhuth does not provide a valid argument for god’s inexistence.  The fact that millions were killed does not necessarily mean god was not watching.  In fact, it is naïve for us to think that a god would share our limited perspective on cause and effect, on right and wrong.  Should god exist, it is entirely possible that we cannot comprehend his reasons for allowing hatred to run rampant.

Rubenstein admits that he needs Altizer to define freedom if he is to formulate a more pertinent refutation.  Overall, I just see Rubenstein’s theology as excessively bleak, to an almost exaggerated extent.  If we take freedom in the sense of freedom from self-imposed limitations rather than externally-imposed law, freedom is indeed liberating, and there is hope that comes with that.  By self-limitations I mean the satisfaction with settlement, the belief that oneself is “not good enough,” or anything that curtails the power of the individual to actualize themselves.  I do believe that religion can be the perpetrator of this curtailing at times, voluntarily or involuntarily.  Of course, morality should be retained, with or without god, because it allows multiple individuals to function in one society.  Still, I cannot agree with Rubenstein because of his rigid, polar view of the death of god’s implications, while I see it as more nuanced, with positive and negative features.

[philosophy-101]

Précis on J.J. Altizer

Radical Theology and The Death of God

The Gospel of Christian Atheism

10/9/19, 9:20 a.m.

In his Radical Theology and the Death of God, J.J. Altizer formulates a reconciliation between Christian theology and the present death of God.  A fascinating point he makes in support of this argument is that humans are prone to create false gods, either with their minds or hands, and thus all “gods” must die before the transcendent God can emerge in all spheres of life.  Altizer notes that Christianity’s relationship with the death of God is more personal, because of its doctrine of incarnation, shared by no other religion.  Being a preface, few of his claims were substantiated, but relate to another work of his, The Gospel of Christian Atheism.  

The thesis of this text is essentially the idea that Christianity has a unique connection to death of God discourse, and Altizer goes so far as saying, “the Christian alone can speak of God in our time” (15).  He goes on to dispel the belief that the Word of God is static by claiming that, faith (as in Christian faith) can only exist if the Word transfigures to meet the needs of each given time period.  Furthermore, to try and transfigure the Word artificially, in order to defend Christianity from atheism and historical discontinuities, only furthers the Word from its incarnate truth.  The only way to allow the Word to transfigure itself into its relevant form is to accept the 19th century atheism and other perceived threats to Christianity, as these cannot be denied as characteristic of the time period.  

I believe Altizer did not make a great enough effort to prove why Christianity is the essential lens through which we must view radical theology and atheism of the present day.  In turn, his constant referral to Christian thought and doctrine becomes tiring and seems incomplete.  It would have been acceptable for Altizer to admit that he uses Christianity as his lens because it is the religion he is aligned with, but instead he makes the unnecessary and unsupported claim that Christianity is the only religion through which we can understand the death of God.

[philosophy-101]

Précis on Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Prisoner of God                                              

10/7/19, 9:00 a.m.

Bonhoeffer first contextualizes his argument on the present role of god.  He asserts that in this age god has been relegated to secluded corners of man’s life, and cites historical successes of reason, namely Herbert, Montaigne, and Machiavelli, as the “growing tendency to assert the autonomy of man over the world” (163).  Bonhoeffer’s thesis is that we must live on, even without viewing the world as god-given.  He believes that god’s power is in his powerlessness; the way god helps us is by leaving us to our own devices.  To live rightly in this godless world is not to pretend all is well, or to have faith that god will mend all problems, but to struggle, to suffer, to partake in the reality of life and the world.  In doing so, man experiences god’s suffering.  Death, being the most universal act of worldliness, is man’s supreme unity with god, which Bonhoeffer equates to freedom.  

Bonhoeffer seems to contradict himself on “the revolt of inferiority.”  I read this as his critique of contemporary society’s assault on god, or a defense of god in the traditional sense.  He later denounces those Christians who resolutely defend the traditional idea of god, who refuse to accept the godless world.  Put more clearly, Bonhoeffer criticizes Christians who refuse to accept the modern world, but he himself seems to do just that in his opening letter.  All the while, he compels the reader to accept the godlessness of the world. 

[philosophy-101]

Reflection on Paul Tillich

The Courage To Be

10/2/19, 9:00 a.m.                 Note: “man” is replaced with “human"

I will first explain Tillich’s unique definitions of words and concepts.  Courage is self-affirmation in spite of some opposition.  The deepest opposition to human is nonbeing.  Being is true self-expression of the individual, and nonbeing is everything which is not being.  Human experiences nonbeing as existential anxiety of three types: the anxieties of death, condemnation, and meaninglessness.  The only way to coexist with nonbeing is to take it into oneself.  This is attempted by undertaking the courage to be.  The courage to be is being in spite of nonbeing.  The courage to be as a part and the courage to be as an individual are the two types of courages to be.  Both types are insufficient in taking the anxieties upon oneself because the former leads to loss of self and the latter leads to loss of world.  The only courage to be which is sufficient is the courage to be as acceptance of the transcendent; that is, the courage to accept god.  Notice god is not capitalized.  This is not the conventional God, whom has been seen in sacred texts for millennia.  god is the essence in all theism, in all being, in all nonbeing.  This is the god above God, the transcendent.  The courage to be as acceptance of the transcendent is to say “Yes to being without seeing anything concrete which could conquer the nonbeing” (174).  In this way, the courage to be as acceptance of the transcendent may also be termed the courage to accept acceptance.  Human can overcome the disorientation of nonbeing by accepting nonbeing into itself, accepting this acceptance, accepting the god above God.

Tillich cannot “prove” this methodology in a traditional sense.  His evidence is logic-based, and to analyze each point any further would be to dissect them until only the axioms on which they are built remain.  That is the only critique I can give of Tillich’s work.  The evidences that he does propose are given as inherent truths, quickly employed as part of his logic, apparently not needing further examination.  I would have preferred a book tenfold in size that went into detail on how he arrived at his claims, from the significant to the minuscule.  

Nevertheless, Tillich can write in such a way because he does not intend this book for every audience.  It is not for the uneducated, for otherwise he would have written in more accessible language.  It is not for one who has not yet given deep thought to questions of humanity and existence.  For those who have questioned living at the root, Tillich’s arguments are intuitive, since they relate to essential qualities of the human condition.    

The flaw of The Courage to Be only proves its main point.  The book is a self-allegory.  You cannot “prove” anything about existence, it is something that we all relate to at a central level.  By tapping into this core understanding of the book, you have tapped into your courage to be.

[philosophy-101]

god is dead, and We have killed him.

Throughout my life, I have held varying levels of faith and skepticism on the existence of God.  I attended church from a young age with my family, but was never quite engaged, nor did I sense a connection with God.  It was a societal norm, a tradition, a constant in our lives.  By the time I was twelve, attending once a month turned to once a year, and by fourteen we had stopped going completely.  My mom wanted to expose us to religion, but did not mind whether we continued with it or not.  Why did we, fourteen and sixteen year-old kids, feel no attachment to religious practice?  Why had generations before ours marched into the chapel without question; what made us different?  My sister and I grew up in a new era, where any and all information was available at our fingertips, where the world was just a flight away, where parents’ knowledge was not doctrine.  The societies before ours were fairly uniform.  Religion was a free-standing pillar built on the foundations of this steady society for thousands of years.  The time of my childhood saw these foundations rumbling and shifting like never before, the pillar teetering precariously.  That trend of total societal transformation has only heightened as of late, and will continue.  It is fair to say that most generations of recent years have experienced what I did: informational overload led to critical thinking, which led to skepticism.  When skepticism gave no certitude, a kind of nihilism emerged.  Once our minds enter this vicious cycle, they will no longer accept such a transient concept as God.  

Some hundreds of years ago, David Hume and Friedrich Nietzsche each wrote on subjects of skepticism and nihilism, indirectly or directly.  In Hume’s work, An Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding, he illustrates the epistemological fallacy of induction.  Nietzsche forebodes the evolution from skepticism to nihilism to unfaith in The Gay Science.  Both arguments echo the conclusions I drew from my own life, and are applicable to the claim of God’s inexistence.

Deductive reasoning begins with a hypothesis and proves it by experiment, while inductive reasoning takes experiences and forms a conclusion from them.  Deduction cannot be used to prove God’s existence because we have no way of experimenting with God.  Individuals and groups claim to have experiences with God, and using these, one might try to induce His existence.  However, Hume explains how induction is unreliable due to the impossibility of a uniformity principle.  The idea that, because the sun came up every day for the past million years, it will come up tomorrow, is not reliable.  Experience cannot prove certainty, only likelihood.  Scientific models are utilized only until they encounter a situation which they cannot explain, upon which moment an updated model emerges.  In Hume’s words, “If there be any suspicion that the course of nature may change, and that the past may be no rule for the future, all experience becomes useless and can give rise to no inference or conclusion” (51).  He then decides that people’s naïve reliance on induction can be attributed to what he calls custom.  That is, “wherever the repetition of any particular act or operation produces a propensity to renew the same act or operation without being impelled by any reasoning or process of the understanding” (57).  In other words, humans have learned the patterns of the physical and social world around them, and base their  further reasoning on these patterns, rather than basing reasoning on objective cause and effect in each individual scenario.  Hume’s conclusions on the unreliability of induction and on human nature’s reliance on custom helps reveal that God does not exist.  People have believed in God because of custom, not because of reasoning, and to reason God into existence would be impossible.

Nietzsche is far more straightforward than Hume in “The Madman,” a chapter of The Gay Science, which deals directly with the ideas of skepticism, nihilism, and the “death” of God.  The madman is a prophet of sorts who descends on a village, spouting off questions and predictions concerning God and religion to whomever will listen.  Nietzsche likely chose to write on God’s death in a parable as a kind of irony, with much of the Bible and other religious texts having been written in similar forms.  The first half of the text is mostly composed of unsettling questions that challenge traditional beliefs about God, such as, “Do we still smell nothing of the divine decomposition?” (125).  The madman’s incessant questioning draws parallels to skepticism.  Where before, religion gave certain answers, now the entire responsibility of understanding is on the individual, driving him mad.  For the madman, uncontrollable inquiry leads to the conviction that God is no longer, as he exclaims, “God is dead!” (125).  In times past, religion was the centerpiece of life, so in comparison, the madman’s unfaith can be considered as nihilism.  Nietzsche also suggests how religion is nothing but a human cogitation when he writes, “what holy games will we have to invent for ourselves?” (125).  In saying this, Nietzsche insinuates that humans have a tendency to invent fantasies which help us withstand the reality of life, rather than accepting reality at face value.  Additionally, this line is a kind of prediction that most people will turn to new kinds of delusion instead of remaining in a state of nihilism.

Today, we are all skeptics like Hume and Nietzsche, to a certain extent.  We gasp for air in the sea of facts and perspectives available at an instant, the lifeguard of god nowhere to be seen.  As Hume showed, we build our thoughts on custom, but custom relies on patterns, patterns that become more convoluted and abstruse by the day.  Like the madman, we question everything, to no avail.  

The madman may have come too soon, but that was one hundred years ago.  Today, the pillar is fallen, and God is dead.

Works Cited

Hume, D. and Hendel, C. (1955). An Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, pp.51-57.

Nietzsche, F. (1974). The Gay Science. New York: Vintage, p.125.