The Death of God-Language?

The way I see it, there is a major problem with theology today, and it is this: it is not theology. As is obvious, theology means instruction about God. I think it would be reasonable to assume that if I picked up a book on theology, I would find lots of God-language and, at least in a Christian context, I wouldn’t have to look too hard to find reference to Jesus Christ. But it turns out I am insane. A wide swath of theology today has divorced itself from God and rattles down the road of history without Him, like a car without an engine. And just like an engineless car, this theology will only roll downhill. God is the focus and the drive of theological study. Without Him in the mix, we are simply talking. I cannot understand how theology can be theology when the word and the propositional content are separated. But perhaps I’m old-fashioned.

Let me tell you my context: I am a white, male, middle-class American college student. I grew up in a Southern Baptist Church but am now Reformed Baptist. Some of my assumptions and commitments are that the Bible is absolutely authoritative and that it is divinely inspired. As such, I cannot speak to or about the experiences of many, many Christians. But my context does not dictate silence. I too have a voice, and though people like me have been speaking for centuries, it does not mean that I cannot speak now, and it does not mean that they were wrong then. In this paper, I want to argue that theology is only itself when it speaks of its subject, that is, God. I want to argue that the Bible has Something to say, and that the Gospel has been discarded in favor of the doctrines of humans. This position is controversial because it is traditional. It is unorthodox precisely because it defends orthodoxy. This paper is the refuse of secularism, dropped into the bag of common sense and set aflame on the doorstep of modern man. This is, in the colloquial parlance, the ding-dong-ditch of the death of God.

We have to pause for a moment, lingering on the brink of this earth-shattering epistle. Isn’t one of the primary assertions of contemporary theology (as set out in the handouts on secularism, assertions of contemporary theology, and the rise of modernism) that a conception of Christianity limited to the authority of the Bible and founded in an orthodox conception of Jesus as the historical God-Man and Savior a result of the exclusion of other voices from the discussion? Should we not listen to other, and (reportedly) equally valid, interpretations of the central meaning of the Message? Yes and no. In my erudite opinion, anyone who proposes a view of Christianity which rejects the Bible as the standard of knowledge and God’s message to the world, as well as replacing the historical and actual death of Jesus with myth-language or some sort of “higher” interpretation of what seems to me to be a common-sense reading of the text as a historical account, must examine their motives. Are they truly trying to reveal to people what they think the true message of Christianity has been all along? Or are they hijacking traditional language to mask the replacement of orthodox systems with their own ideologies in order to make it easier for the Church to swallow? I think this is what Tillich does, and I think it is ultimately dishonest. When a normal (and by normal here I mean not an academic) person on the street talks about God, they are not talking about the impersonal ground of being. Let’s not turn theology into a country club and have high and educated discussions in our ivory towers full of code words and secret meanings that the rest of the populace is oblivious to. Many contemporary theologians argue this, but does their message reflect it? If what you mean by “God” or “Gospel” is not what your audience means, are you truly communicating?

The sort of linguistic camouflage that Tillich or Hick presents is ultimately the enslavement of the universal to the particular. Culture and prevailing human thought forms, the absolute rulers of our minds, have dictated that we must reject the supernatural in favor of scientism and place absolute truth (and its supporters) in the furnace; in that place there is wailing and gnashing of teeth. And so Christianity, which does not anymore realize that it is a Message from Above rather than a human construction, blindly follows the spirit of the age which is itself the age of blindness to truth, and both fall into the pit. This spirit says that there is no universal truth, no claim to knowledge which applies to all peoples in all situations. And it is right, if it limits itself to speaking of humanity. But humanity, that limited, ignorant, pain-filled mass, is exactly where the Gospel did not come from. The Gospel is the message to the world, not the message from it. God reached down from the heavens and men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. And He spoke universally. It is ridiculous to say that the universal message of salvation and life does not apply to some situation. All you have succeeded in saying is that you don’t understand the concept “universal.” If the Bible is universal, it speaks to you. It applies to you. Take it and use it. Your context can dictate superadded meanings to the text, but do not mistake them for the primary ones.

What about liberation theologians like Gutierrez who claim that poor and oppressed people are not concerned with abstract metaphysical claims, but rather practical and particular changes to oppressive and evil worldly systems? Well, in a certain sense I understand that pure theology is perhaps not the most pressing need of the downcast. But in another sense the Gospel of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus is of utmost importance. Let’s assume that the orthodox Christian conception of the world is correct, and that after this life there are two eternal destinations contingent upon a person’s response to the work of Jesus, namely, heaven and hell. Now, if one assumes that an eternity of happiness and fulfillment are available upon acceptance of Jesus, then that eternal reward infinitely outweighs any improvement to the conditions of this life. Does this mean that Christians should ignore social reform? By no means! I like Gutierrez and I think he makes an important point, but I think he takes it too far. What I mean is that if we focus only on preaching a message of liberation from social or worldly oppression we are denying the oppressed a much greater good—liberation from sin and the wrath of God.

While most contemporary theologians argue that the legitimacy of established Christian doctrine is less than solid (in part) because entire swaths of people were left out of its formulation, I want to argue a more practical point. I want to assert that the ecumenism of orthodox Christian creeds and doctrines are at this point irrelevant on the ground level. Key terms and ideas have been established in lay consciousness for hundreds to thousands of years, and a radical reevaluation of these concepts and a reassignment of their referents seems to me to be simply impractical. Words like ‘God’ and ‘salvation,’ the role of Jesus in the doctrine of the Christian church, these things are already defined in the public lexicon, and use of the same words with totally new referents, many of which (such as Tillich’s or Robinson’s conception of God) stand in stark contrast or outright opposition to the traditional and pre-established concepts behind those words. This strikes me as somewhat disingenuous. It is as if theologians want to capture the allegiance of unwitting laypersons with comfortable language while at the same time undertaking a secret revolution and rejection of everything those laypersons hold ‘Christianity’ to be.

So what then are we to say to theologians like Kwok Pui-lan and other syncretistic or inclusivisic writers, or to “Christian” pluralists like John Hick, or to proponents of liberation theology like Gustavo Gutierrez? Is there no place for them in the discussion? Once again, yes and no. I suggest that this more modern or liberal approach to Christianity, characterized by the reassignment of traditional language, should be given its own vocabulary. New ideas should have new ways of speaking. Old and firmly established ideas should retain the old words. Christian theology should retain traditional God-language as being about the personal, transcendent, God of the Bible as interpreted for thousands of years. New conceptions of God should be easily identifiable and fall under their own umbrella. Those who attempt theology without God should no longer claim to be continuing the course of orthodox thought, but rather depart from it to make their own world with their own history. Let the people decide which they prefer, rather than attempting to sway them with the shell of familiarity masking an alien worldview. I am not here arguing with scholars like Susan Thistlethwaite who challenge the inclusivity or appropriateness of God-language in terms of gender, etc. I am arguing with people like Hick, who call themselves Christian and depart from virtually every standard of definition for what Christianity means.

Theology without God is impossible. We have fooled ourselves into accepting it only because God-language has fallen prey to a linguistic Invasion of the Body-Snatchers, or to some other equally appropriate pop culture reference. The point is, the only reason we think it even exists is because it looks the same on the outside. But it isn’t. This is something new; this is idolatry. We worship ourselves or we worship the universe or we worship life or love or being or any of a million other things, anything to avoid worshiping the God we once knew. We have said that the traditional idea of God is irrelevant to modern society… have we ever considered that the dictates of modern society are irrelevant to God?

The point is that the idea of a transcendent and active God is only irrelevant because we have abandoned it. In our rush to seek fulfillment in individualism and self-actualization, we have made man the measure of all things, and thrown out the Ruler. And then the theologians come and say that theology must speak to the culture, and so theology must discard God. But what if theologians concerned themselves, not with “limping after reality” but with proclaiming the Reality of God? Let culture drift in the sea of relativism, and let true theology be the port that the ship of faith returns longingly to, tired of the restless waves and storms of changing cultural norms and social pressures. Theology will endure not by being water, but by being stone. Let us look to our Rock and shape our theology around Him, and not try to chisel Him small enough to fit into the box we want to give Him.

In this paper I want to sound the death knell of the death of God. Let us move beyond the declaration of God’s death at the hands of a mustachioed German iconoclast to the divine declaration of His death on a tree on the outskirts of a Middle Eastern city in 33 AD. Nietzsche said, “God is dead, and we killed him.” This was the cry of the Gospel writers, and then the triumphant Yes of “He is risen!” Let us not forget it.