Critical Remarks on the Theoretical Significance of Vahanian’s Death of God Theology (Brief Review)

Abstract

The aim of this article is to briefly present and analyse in the context of radical theology the theoretical significance of Gabriel Vahanian’s death of God theology from the theological, philosophical and cultural viewpoints. Gabriel Vahanian was a French-Armenian distinguished theologian who played a significant role in the western religious, theological-philosophical thought. The main idea of Vahanian is that the death of God is a cultural phenomenon. God himself is not dead, but men’s religious and cultural perceptions about God are dead as modern man has lost the sense of transcendence and the presence of transcendent God. That is, the death of God means his absence in the modern world. The existence of God and his reality are not self-sufficient realities anymore but are irrelevant for modern people, hence dead.