• 3 directions in regard to the existence of God:

• unreachable God
• evolving God
• non-existing God

a.    Main points [Christianity in terms of man's subjective existence]

• existentialism: existence precedes essence (the existence of the individual self is more important than the being one in the humankind)
• knowledge of God impossible or incomplete
• existence affirmed by the encounter with God which is brought about by subjective faith
• the Bible provides little help in the way of faith

b.    Kierkegaard [the infinite gulf between God and man]

• infinite qualitative distinction between God (the Wholly Other) and man; rational knowledge of God impossible
• God is always the subject, not object
• existential self: "To exist is to be with oneself alone before God", by encountering with God in isolation from the group (church)
• leap of faith where God confronts a person in crisis (as a result of anxiety about life), an arbitrary act in defiance of reason

c.    Bultmann [demythologization, gospel without myth]

• experience and ethics more important than doctrine
• critical research into the past is unable to recover the actual historical events of Jesus' life; concludes that we know very little about the person, teachings or life of Christ
• Faith is not centred in the historical figure of Jesus but in the presently proclaimed Christly message.
• Myths are the result of exaggerations of the writers and historical and cultural limitations of the readers. To understand the real message, all myths in the gospel must be dispelled.
• rejects virginal birth as a myth
• death on the cross must be accepted through faith and experienced in the eucharist to be meaningful
• resurrection is an unnecessary myth
• second coming is not necessary as faith is to solve meaning of present existence, not the future
• Christ opens up a new existential self-understanding not only of oneself but also of oneself in relation to God and to the world. This is faith.

d.    Tillich [God as ground of being]

• God is "that which concerns us ultimately" or "the ground of our being", different from the personal God recorded in the Bible
• encounter with God is experiential and existential
• religion is the ultimate concern and commitment to God
• Sin is estrangment from God which can be overcome by a person having religion
• message basically philosophical, not biblical

e.    Evaluation: often degenerates into a description of human existence; low opinion of the Bible; biblical truth obscured by philosophical arguments; gospel of salvation neglected; influence the development of death-of-God theology
 

a.    Main points [the evolving God]

• dynamic (always evolving) concept of reality, both in relation to the material world and to God.
• reality is not "I" as an individual who happens to pass through time, but the series of experiences which make up the process of my life
• Human beings are called to make genuine choices. The genuine freedom of choice is necessary for fulfilling freedom to realize our optimum divine potential.
• Each individual has a role to play in the cosmic, creative movement of God and the world.

b.    Hartshorne [God as both cause and effect]

• God is an eternally becoming reality and He both affects and is affected by the world (cause and effect).
• God gives the universe a real though limited freedom so that we can become cause and He become effect. If I reject Him, I grieve Him.

c.    Teilhard de Chardin [evolutionary theology]

• Roman Catholic
• evolution as a universal law of existence
• creation as the process of evolution, sin and evil as the inevitable imperfection that accompanies evolutionary process
• redemption as the evolutionary process
• human history evolving to the climax when all will be consummated in Christ - 'the Omega point'

d.    Evaluation: a fresh and new approach which sheds light on the biblical doctrine of God; but distorts some biblical doctrines; denies that God knows the future on the ground that it does not yet exist (God as a prisoner of time); making God dependent upon the universe
 

a.    Main points [absence of God from all aspects of mankind]

• questions the reality of God
• Modern world is characterized not by the absence of the experience of God but the experience of the actual absence of God.
• The secular world is all there is. Human responsibility for our world is the major task of human beings.
• Everything gets along without God and just as well as before.

b.    Altizer [God died on the cross]

• God is gone from the present times, history, and existence.
• To completely enter human history, God died in the form of Jesus (self-annihilation).
• To seek Christ must go through a non-religious way.
• Christianity with God restricts the freedom of choice
• God as the "transcendent all", a concept from eastern mysticism

c.    Hamilton [losing hope with God]

• against the formalism in the church
• Christianity to concentrate on Jesus, a man serving the world
• lose hope with God, only live the present with love

d.    Van Buren [a religion suitable for modern man]

• need to forget God and reestablish Christianity without the a priori God
• take Jesus as the model of mankind, as the influence of love
• interprets the Bible through linguistic analysis

e.    Evaluation: complete deviation from theism; cannot be properly described as Christianity; religion becomes a moral way of life; indicates a breakdown of civilization as mankind approach the point of despair