The death of God: a retrospective

On the other hand, in support of the "yes", the culture of the West is still Christian to the roots. While it may not claim Christianity as the centre of its life, it is Christian and not Buddhist or whatever. Unlike the Asian religions, we believe that the future is undecided and that we can act in the present to influence it. This is an orientation that comes from Israel’s understanding of history as being directed towards a fulfilment (the possession of the land) and of the eschatological orientation of Christianity that looks forward to the rule of God on earth. The materialism of Israel de-divinised nature a long time before it was confirmed by the natural sciences.

The egalitarianism of Christ (There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. Gal.3:28) is at the basis of our democracy in a way that was unfamiliar to the Greeks. The original Judeo/Christian tradition took the body seriously and provided the ground for modern medicine. In all areas of our modern life we can point to this heritage, from the idea that public service is noble to our instincts that control our avarice. From this perspective, we are definitely not in a post-Christian era even though the church has decreasing influence in our society. Rather, we are still living on the heritage, it is only that the child thinks it has come of age and spurns the parent. Having said all this, there is increasing evidence that the heritage is in decline and that new and seductive idolatry is emerging.

Nietzsche saw that the death of God would have profound repercussions. "Are we not plunging continually? Backwards, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is here any up or down left? Are we not straying as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? Is not night and more night coming on all the while? Must not lanterns be lit in the morning?" We might ask how long our institutions might survive once the voice of the church is smothered forever. Already we see the signs of decline. The community of justice has been replaced by individual human rights with disastrous consequences. Science increasingly collapses the view of the human back into nature. Medical technology voraciously absorbs our resources in an attempt to keep everyone alive as long as possible. Death has assumed such power over us that no one questions the open heart surgery performed on the 80 year old. Everything is for sale, if the philosophy dept cannot earn its keep we will abolish it. Nietzsche was right too when he said that the news of the death of God will take time to reach our ears. The dying is protracted and we still do not see what we have lost. All we can do is to watch and wait and look for Christ to be born from a decaying church.

Vahanian starts his article by saying that God is man’s failure. Just as Israel failed God, having to be called back again and again to worship the God who was no idol and just as the disciples in the New Testament never really understood what Jesus was on about, we too fail God. This is surely the crisis of the church and henceforth the crisis of our society. To not fail God is to bear witness to "the radically other whose reality man attests by attesting the very integrity of his own reality".