The Death of God and Thomas Merton

The concept of ‘The Death of God” is one that has had different meanings throughout history. For most it is the belief that came about in the Enlightenment that God was in fact dead, that he had merely set the universe in motion but no longer exists in the sense that he is manifest in supernatural form or present currently in the world we live in. Yet “death of God theology” is a completely different approach to the same terminology. The concept behind “death of God theology” is that man “lacks the capacity to experience and apprehend religious thought and concepts of God.” The point relies on the axiom that “man is unable to have an authentic religious experience that is not an experience of God’s absence.” Therefore, believers in this theology claim that traditional theology has not only failed, but has alienated modern man and made it more difficult for people to find meaning in the concept of God.
The meat of this argument against traditional theology is what is seen as the ‘packaging’ of God into terms that can be used for man’s purpose and even manipulation. The difficulty lies in the conceptualization of God, the impossibility to make propositions about God that do not become in a way tailored to fit a specific purpose. For example, Merton writes of the conceptualization that western culture is God’s culture and that western man has become the manifestation of God (at least in their minds) and that the only way to salvation for peoples is in culturally and religiously ‘westernizing’ them. What then comes into play is the existence of Church in history as institution, and the dogmatic interpretations that come from the perceived need to fill a political position or further an agenda. The entanglement of matters of Church with matters of state is what Merton described as God being drafted to fight a war; with Church authorities supporting war efforts of governments in two World Wars. This aligning religious faithfulness with nationalism is one of the points that Merton seems inclined to agree with the argument for a “death of God theology.”
Yet Merton, and myself, find this theology unmoving and unhelpful. The main argument against this theology is that its main issue seems to be with the institutional church, and as Merton described it often is a sophomoric attack on clergy and organized religion in its collaboration with the cultural problems of western society. Merton also sees the problem that the “death of God theology” plays even more into a sense of secular Christianity that ascends even further into a nationalistic feeling, and as Merton puts it “renders everything to Caesar.” Personally, I see the belief in the “death of God theology” as missing the fundamental truths that religion of many kinds has to offer. Man has the capacity to, and often do, have significant and authentic religious experiences of God’s presence in our world. To throw out the notion of religious experience because of what seem to be mostly political reasons is to deny the fundamental truths that countless generations have come to realize. Merton called to disentangle Christianity with the crisis of western civilization, and I think that it is a good place to start in order to prevent the continual draft of God into service of political agenda. Far from the nationalistic calls of “Manifest Destiny” and “God-Ordained America,” traditional theology of Christianity and other faiths all point to a fundamental truth, that God is present in our world and we can all experience the divine authentically in our lives.