Must a Christian Believe in God? (“Godless Christianity?”)

Last updated on: September 16, 2013 at 1:24 pm by Roger E. Olson

Must a Christian Believe in God? (“Godless Christianity?”) 2013-09-16T13:24:04-05:00 Roger E. Olson

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Must a Christian Believe in God? Is there a “Godless Christianity?”

Over the years I’ve had many encounters with people claiming to be Christians who also say they either do not believe in God or are not sure whether they believe in God. And I’ve read several theologians who claim to be Christian who deny the existence/reality of God (that is, they deny “theistic realism”).

Must a person believe in God to be Christian?

Well, first, we have to parse the question and terms carefully. What do people like this mean by “God?” What do they mean by “believe in?” What do they mean by “existence” when applied to God?

Theologian Paul Tillich famously denied the existence of God. But so did Søren Kierkegaard. So have many existentialist theologians and theologians inclined toward negative theology. But what did they mean?

Tillich made much of the brokenness of finite existence; for him “existence” is cut off from “essence.” God transcends the divide between essence and existence. Also, to “exist” is to be an object; God transcends object-ness. God is not an object, a thing.

So some philosophers and theologians who deny God’s existence believe in God’s reality; they believe in God.

I wrote my entire doctoral dissertation (Rice University, 1984) on Pannenberg’s phrase “God does not yet exist.” One thing is clear; Pannenberg believes in God. (Read my chapters on Moltmann and Pannenberg in my forthcoming book The Journey of Modern Theology to find out what “God does not yet exist” meant in “eschatological theology” and why Moltmann, who clearly believes in God, once declared that “only a Christian can be a good atheist.”)

So we can’t take “God does not exist” at face value; we have to ask people who say that what they mean.

However, beginning at least in the 1960s, some self-identified Christian theologians began to talk about “Christian atheism” and claimed that they were Christians without believing in God’s reality. That is, they denied theistic realism—any reality of God except as a cipher for some dimension of nature or human spirituality. Thomas Altizer and William Hamilton were the most famous examples. Later Don Cupitt joined them in his own way, putting his own spin on “taking leave of God for God’s sake.” For him, as for many modern and postmodern self-identified Christians, “God” is simply a cipher for “the call forward,” spirituality, self-transcendence.

So why did these people, the radical theologians, consider themselves Christians? As William Hamilton insisted, they are Christians because they “stand with Jesus” in the world. That is, their posture toward the world is one inspired by Jesus.

More recently one reads self-identified Christian thinkers like John Caputo and his popularizer Peter Rollins (not to say Rollins doesn’t have his own ideas or isn’t inspired by other thinkers than Caputo) and wonders whether they believe in God. I think they are being purposefully ambiguous about it in order to provoke thought about assumptions about “God.” They are bothered (to say the least) by what they consider distortions of God in folk religion and some scholarly religion as well. For them, it is a sin to objectify God. So most talk about God is demeaning to God. But that leaves us with little ability to talk about God. Of course, the mystics such as Meister Eckhart were saying much the same centuries ago. And Kierkegaard wrestled with this in his context of easy-believism in which “God” was often just a cipher for respectable Danish culture.

I worry, though, that these ideas are filtering down to non-theologically trained self-identified Christians in confused ways. I am hearing more and more about and from self-identified Christians who go to church, consider themselves Jesus-loving persons, engage in spiritual exercises, and yet say they do not believe in God or are not sure they believe in God. In fact, I would say this is an issue churches and church leaders must face.

A few years ago Reformed theologian Michael Horton wrote a book entitled Christless Christianity. I found myself in agreement with much of it. However, perhaps it’s time someone wrote a book entitled Godless Christianity—not to condemn genuinely concerned or confused self-identified Christians who are not sure they believe in God but to explore why some self-identified Christians do not believe in God or are not if they believe in God and then to explain why belief in God, faith in God (not proof of God) is necessary to authentic Christianity.

So why do many thoughtful, reflective, even “spiritual,” Jesus-loving people who consider themselves Christians either deny God or struggle with belief in God?

I’m sure there are many reasons, but here I’ll touch on a few.

First, I suspect many of them grew up thinking of God as a “God of the gaps” and finding out the gaps in knowledge they thought God was necessary to fill can be closed otherwise—for example by science. Second, I suspect many of them grew up thinking of God as a cruel judge and even author of evil and innocent suffering and came to think that this all-determining, judgmental God was not worth believing in. Third, I suspect many of them grew up thinking of God as the only source for moral living, that only believers in God could or would live “good lives,” and then found out agnostics and atheists can also live good, moral lives (often better than many people who believe in God!). Fourth, I suspect many of them grew up thinking their parents were “God-like” and then, under disillusionment about their parents (or pastors), discarded belief in God (the inevitable results of what Feuerbach and Freud called “projection”). Fifth, I suspect many of them found themselves unable to resist temptations, fell into sinful lifestyles, and simply decided believing in God was too much trouble for their consciences. Then they found intellectual arguments in the writings of atheists to support their preference not to believe in God (because believing in God would make them feel constantly guilty as they continued “living in sin”).

However, there’s a sixth reason—one more difficult to challenge than the first five. Many young self-identified Christians have simply come to identify “God” with the trivialized deity of much American Christianity who is little more than a cosmic prop for American values. They realize that what one author called “Good old plastic Jesus” is a farce and they want to hold on to Jesus as he really was and is, but they can dispense with God because he has been hopelessly trivialized by popular Christianity in numerous ways. In other words, for them, there simply remains no way to think or speak about God without including, implicitly if not explicitly, all those popular images.

I sympathize with these people. But I do not think it is necessary to give up on God just because it seems almost impossible to “rescue” God from cultural theisms. Our task as Christians ought to be to hold on to God (who is, of course, really holding on to us!) and rescue his reputation from the numerous ways in which he is demeaned, used, by “good Christian folks” and their leaders (politicians, television evangelists, popular apologetics writers, movie-makers, many pastors, etc.).

So, the proposed book Godless Christianity would have to deal with two issues—why belief in the real God, the God of Jesus Christ, is necessary for authentic Christianity and why much of what passes as belief in God in America (I won’t speak of other countries but I’m sure America is not unique in this regard) is the cause of thoughtful, reflective, even spiritual people giving up on God.

Finally, then, why do I think belief in God (as distinct from proof of God) is a necessary, indispensable part of authentic Christianity? That it is may seem obvious to most people, but my whole point in this post is that they ought to rethink that as many young people today do not see it as obvious. I don’t think it’s really possible to believe in Jesus in any robust sense and dispense with Jesus’s God. God was part and parcel of Jesus’s message. But, of course, we have to learn from him, not from culture, who God is. And, if Jesus was not God, then we have no real reason to consider him unsurpassable. Why hold to him if there could be others, even living today, who are what he was (without God)—just a human prophet and example?

Uncategorized

Previous Post

September 14, 2013

Excellent New Book about Calvin and Wesley

Next Post

September 19, 2013 Calvinism Appearing in Unexpected (and Innapropriate) Places

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Against Liberal Theology Uncategorized

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

I wanted a vineyard so badly that my wife arranged the owner's death through false witnesses. Who am I?

Select your answer to see how you score.

David Ahab Jezebel Naboth