Depth and the void

Clayton Crockett

pp. 193-207

in: Retrieving the radical Tillich, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2015

Abstrakt

In his Preface to The Gospel of Christian Atheism, Thomas J. J. Altizer proclaims his appreciation of Tillich. He writes, "Among twentieth-century theologians, it was Tillich alone who made possible a way to a truly contemporary theology."¹ Altizer, the important death of God theologian, claims that while he has had to disagree with Tillich's conclusions: nevertheless, "I do so with the conviction that they are not yet radical enough, and with the memory of Tillich 's words to me that the real Tillich is the radical Tillich."² This is a strange statement by Altizer. Tillich 's manifest theological conclusions are not radical enough, and yet the "real" Tillich is the radical Tillich, and this is reportedly from Tillich himself.