Bibliography:

Grenz, Stanley J and Roger E. Olson. 1992. 20 th Century Theology. Secunderabad: OM

Books.

Summary:

Christian theology always makes a balance between the biblical truths of the divine
transcendence and the divine immanence. On the one way God relates to the world as the
transcendence God and the other way He relates the immanent too. Bible clearly shows that
God is both beyond the world and present to the world. Theologians in every era faced with
the test of articulating the Christian understanding of the nature of God that a balanced
relation between theology and reason or culture. Where this balance is lacking problems
arise. So the twentieth century gave many attempts to balance these two aspects of the
relation of God to creation. So the theology of the 20 th century began in 1914 with a great
revolution in Western intellectual history, called the Enlightenment. It was the complete
transition from the ancient to the modern eras. In this era the light of reason held by each
individual defeated the ecclesiastical hierarchy as the foundation of authority. Here thinking
people wanted to be proved to that what they believed was reasonable.

The Enlightenment: The shattering of the Classical Balance: The enlightenment is

reoriented the way the theology was done. Basically it happened in the West which made a
completion of the transition from the ancient to the modern eras. It is both an event and era.
The thinkers were no longer willing to accept the old dogmas of church and the light of
reason made them to dethrone the ecclesiastical hierarchy. They wanted to be convinced that
what they believed was reasonable. Then through this enlightenment a primary change was
brought that the effect on the classic quest for a transcendent-immanent theology. So there
came a balance between the twin truths of the divine transcendence and the divine
immanence. It did not come from emptiness. But there were social, political, and
philosophical areas. There was an elevated status to humans and an elevated estimate of
human capabilities by the enlightenment. It placed humans on center stage in history rather
God. Here human reason replaced externally imposed revelation as the arbiter of truth and the
newer mindset could characterised as declaring that I believe what I can understand.

There were many people give their contribution for the foundation of the enlightenment. At
first it was the product of a philosophical revolution. This revolution was inaugurated by the
French thinker Rene Descartes, who is the father of modern philosophy. He wanted to
develop a method of investigation that led to discovery of truth that is found out the way to
find out the truth. So that no one questioned it. During this time he attempted to introduce the
rigor of mathematical demonstration into all fields of knowledge and his method was
accurate as like mathematics. So he developed a system that is ‘doubt’. He opined that doubt
is the first principle of reasoning. Doubt always leads to answer that are absolutely certainty.
Here human being differs from other beings. Human discovers absolute truth where we can
question. So this method greatly influenced the people and also it was end up with a great
conflict that is either accepts reason as capable f discovery everything or he/she has denied
reason by itself. By this people were divided into two groups. Thus, new method was applied
to every branches of philosophy.

The enlightenment was not only produced a system of philosophy. But now science was
developed or method of doing science also changed radically. So there was a change in
understanding of the physical world also forced science to develop different methods to talk
about it. The old cosmology says that everything has a purpose. The ultimate end is to fulfil
its purpose. But the enlightenment rejected this idea. So they began to develop a
mathematical kind of approach to study object that is ‘quantity approach’. Thus the
mathematic approach to all branches of philosophy is changed ultimate purpose to
measurable qualified methods. There are certain principles of enlightenment. In that first is
‘reason’. Enlightenment placed heavy emphasis on the capabilities of human mind to arrive at
absolute truth. They further believed that the mind is able to discern and come to know the
structure inherent in the external world. And also it says that the world has an order which is
arranged machine run by certain principles. We find it out using the human reason. The
second enlightenment principle is nature. It says that the universe is an orderly realm which
is run by its internal laws. So nature and natural law became the watch worlds of the
intellectual search. The enlightenment people believed the orderliness of the nature was due
to the working of a grant designer of the nature. The third principle was the autonomy which
means the dethroning of external authorities the arbiter f truth and actions. All the external
authorities they rejected and they opined that they know how to live themselves. So the
teaching authority of the church or Bible none of these appealed to the enlightenment
humanity what to believe or how to behave etc.

And also they believed in the harmony of the world. They opined that truth is a single
harmonious whole. And it is built on the idea of reasonableness and orderliness of the
universe. So the enlightenment talked about the development of a proper methodology. On a
look to the enlightenment religion which shows that enlightenment talked about release of
culture from the dominion of church and Christianity. They called the old religion as revealed
religion which taught doctrines and dogmas. Natural religion believed God but they did not
believe in the dogmas and doctrines. Thus they believed that Christianity is the most
reasonable religion.

The reconstruction of transcendence: Immanence of 19th century Theology: The end of the
age of the reason appeared to leave religion in a predicament. In nineteenth century certain
theologians rejected going behind the age of reason. In the task of reconstructing theology in
the post enlightenment theologians had in their arsenal the weapons created by three
intellectual giants. Immanuel Kant, G. W. F. Hegel and Friedrich Schleiermacher had
concluded that in the end reason is incompetent to answer the basic question about God,
morality and the meaning of life.

Immanuel Kant: He was a German philosopher came from aristocratic family. He never
married. In earlier times he worked as a tutor and after he became a professor. Those years he
wrote several books. He belonged to the enlightenment era. He brought a copernican
revolution to the philosophy. He himself believed as a radical transformation in the way the
philosophy would be done. The background of Immanuel Kant’s revolution lay in the grave
problem of epistemology bequeathed by empiricism, the philosophical movement that came
to characterize the Age of Reason in Britannia. Central to empiricism’s understanding of the
process of knowing was what might be called “the passive mind”. In his “Essay Concerning
Human Understanding” John Locke, rejecting a central thesis of Cartesian philosophy,
argued that the mind was a tabula rasa, an empty vessel devoid of any innate ideas. He
elevated mind to the center of human knowing. He tried to set metaphysics on a firm footing.
He said that the mind is active in the knowing process. And also he explained about
phenomena and noumena. Thus the theology produced by Kant’s method remained
anthropocentric.

G.W.F Hegel: Hegel is the first philosopher who gave history a central place in his thought.
He identifies theology with his doctrine of the absolute. He has known as the “Aristotle of
modern times”. George Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831) was a German Idealist
philosopher in the time of early modern period. He was born in Stuttgart, he was a
hardworking, serious and successful student and a greedy reader from a young age. In
addition to German and Latin he learned Greek, Hebrew, French and English. after a classical
education he entered the stift at the University of Tubingen as a Lutheran seminarian. After
his studies he became a professor of philosophy in Heidelberg and later in Berlin. He
developed a critical idealism of Kant. In the early 19 th century he took part in the German
Idealism movement and he founded a school of his own called school of Hegelianism. And
he developed a system of dialectic to describe the whole of the history of philosophy, science,
art, politics and religion. He wrote some books like ‘The phenomenology of mind’ (1807),
‘The science of Logic’ (1812), ‘The philosophy of right’ (1821) and ‘The philosophy of
History (1832) etc. Hegel died in Berlin on 14 th November 1831 from a Cholera epidemic,
and was buried in Berlin’s Dorotheenstadt Cemetery.

His contribution to the history of Christian theology is considerable. His philosophy can be
understood as a Trinitarian elaboration on the central idea of God as subject. He had many
theological disciples and his direct and indirect influence on the history of philosophy and
theology has been massive. He developed a new figure of thinking and Logic, which he
called speculative reason to try to defeat what he saw as the limitations of both common
sense and of traditional philosophy at snatching philosophical problems and the relation
between thought and reality.

In contrast to intellectual intuition, Hegel argues that knowledge of the ultimate nature of
reality is possible only by means of Dialectic. So it is a method to study the process. And also
it uses a method of argumentation. It has three steps like thesis, antithesis and synthesis. At
first the dialectical method was employed by Kant to show that the reason which seeks to
answer metaphysical questions about the world falls into contradiction with itself. For
example it can prove both the ‘thesis’ that causality in the form of free activity exists and the
‘antithesis’ that every event is the necessary effect of antecedent process. In contrast, the
dialectical method has a positive value for Hegel, since it corresponds to the tension of
opposites in reality and discovers behind this tension and underlying identity. So according to
Hegel this process is a “thesis” is advanced but when it is critically examined it shows its
one-sidedness and inadequacy. The second idea of his philosophy is his knowing of truth as
process. He claims that truth is not rational conclusions, but truth is process. It is tied with
human history. So truth is human history. And also it is not isolated facts of the history but
whole process of history. It is through historical process the absolute and right knowledge
emerged.

Albrecht Ritschl and classical liberal theologian: The immanence of God in Ethical culture.
Liberal theology is very difficult to define. It refers to a specific movement in Protestantism.
The liberals were committed to the task of reconstruction Christian belief in the light of
modern knowledge. A second characteristic of liberal theology was its emphasis on the
freedom of the individual Christian thinker to criticize and reconstruction beliefs. Third,
liberal theology focused on the practical or ethical dimension of Christianity. Ritschl and his
followers tended to shy away from what they considered empty. Albrecht was born in the
1822 into the family of a bishop of the Prussian Protestant church. He was musically inclined
as a child and early in life showed great intellectual capability. Ritschl receive his first
teaching position at Bonn in 1864 he moved to Gottingen, where he remained until his death
in 1846. Ritschl most important work was a three-volume treatise entitle “the Christian
Doctrine of Justification and Reconciliation” published in stage between 1870 and 1874.

Friedrich Schleiermacher: He was a German theologian who formulated hiss theology in

response to enlightenment. He was a father of liberal theology or modern theology. His father
was a army chaplain and they came to contact with pietism in early in life. He was deeply
influenced by it. He studied in Moravian seminary. He always emphasized on religious
feeling or experience. Theology for Schleiermacher involved drawing out the doctrinal
implications of this "feeling of absolute dependence." This feeling was analyzed in three
different ways: philosophically, historically and pastorally. Thus, Schleiermacher divided the
theological encyclopedia into three different disciplinary topics: philosophical theology,
historical theology and practical theology. These three types of theology were implemented
in the theology department at the University of Berlin, of which Schleiermacher was
cofounder with Humboldt. Schleiermacher appropriated this historical methodology to be the
interpretive key of his theological encyclopedia, for he saw the subject of theology as the life
of church unfolding in history. For Schleiermacher expanded the discipline of historical
theology; he thought it encompassed the entire development of the Christian religion,
incorporating in its purview the Bible, the subsequent history of Christianity, and the
dogmatic theology of the contemporary church. Thus, he looked the orthodoxy, the
traditional orthodoxy theology method. His theology is different; he believes that theology as
human reflection on human experience of God. Anything that starts is with liberalism. He
believes religion can get along without dogmas.

The Revolt against Immanence: Transcendence in Neo-orthodoxy: the Wold War 1 made
the end of the progressivism and prepared the stage for the pessimism. Like this way the end
of the theology of optimism permeated the 19 th century was signalled by the publication of
the commentary on Romans written by Karl Barth.
Karl Barth: Barth was born in Basel, the son of Fritz Barth, a professor of New Testament
and early church history at Bern, and Anna Sartorius. He studied at the universities of Bern,
Berlin, Tübingen, and Marburg. At Berlin he attended the liberal theologian Adolf von
Harnack’s seminar, and at Marburg he came under the influence of Wilhelm Herrmann and
became deeply interested in the thought of the early 19th-century German
theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher and in the nature of scientific method. After serving a
curacy in Geneva from 1909 to 1911, he was appointed to the working-class parish of
Safenwil, in Aargau canton. In 1913 he married Nelly Hoffman, a talented violinist; they had
one daughter and four sons. The ten years Barth spent at Safenwil as a minister of the Gospel
were the formative period of his life. Deeply shocked by the disaster that had overtaken
Europe in World War I and disillusioned by the collapse of the ethic of religious idealism, he
questioned the liberal theology of his German teachers and its roots in the rationalist,
historicist, and dualist thought that stemmed from the Enlightenment. Through study of the
teaching of St. Paul in the Epistle to the Romans, he struggled to clarify the relation between
justification and social righteousness, which governed all he had to say in later life about the
relation of the Gospel to the power of the state and the oppression of the poor. Particularly
important during this period were his visits to Bad Boll, where he met the Moravian preacher
Christoph Blumhardt and gained an overwhelming conviction about the victorious reality of
Christ’s resurrection, which ever afterward constituted for him both the starting point and the
bedrock of his theology. His understanding of divine revelation was radically changed with
the realization that the risen Christ meets and speaks to people in the Biblical revelation, for
God himself incarnate in Jesus Christ is the content of his revelation. This resulted in a
transformation of his interpretation and exposition of the Scriptures. Out of this experience
came a series of passionate addresses, sermons, and popular expositions of the faith, in which
he called for a return to the message of the Bible and to the theology of the Reformation.

Emil Brunner: Emil Brunner was born December 23, 1889, at Winterthur, near Zurich,
Switzerland. His early education was completed at the Gymnasium in Zurich in 1908.
Thereafter, he studied at the universities of Zurich and Berlin, receiving his Doctor of
Theology degree from the former in 1913. He says that evelation in nature was necessary in
order to provide God with a means of assessing humanity’s culpability. God could judge
humanity guilty only if there was some standard to which it either responded or failed to
respond. Brunner appears to follow the maxim of the Apostle Paul, “where there is no law,
there also is no violation”. For Brunner, this standard was theologia naturalistic and ignoring
it was to commit “the great sin of the heathen the sin of idolatry, upon this possibility of
knowing Him, given by God Himself. The denial of this revelation through the Creation in
the latest theology empties the Biblical idea of Creation of meaning and also, wrongly, denies
man’s relation to God, and with that the responsibility of the godless man”.

Rudolf Bultmann: Primarily he was a New Testament scholar. His main goal was to make
biblical, Christian faith understandable to the modern mindset. He rejected the deep gap
between the exegesis and systematic theology and he claimed that the task of both is to
explain human existence in relation to God by listening to the Word of God that addresses the
individual through the New Testament. He considered himself as a friend of Karl Barth in the
Neo-orthodox challenge to liberalism. Like Barth he believed that human person as the center
of theology rather than God. He spoke out that we can recognize God only we response to
God’s revelation. Which is come to us in the divine Word, the kerygma etc. He interpreted
God only in terms of the human situation and also he followed the existentialist philosopher.

Martin Heidgger: When look into his carer he is a German man. He got education from the
leading universities of Germany like Tubingen, Berlin, Marburg etc. He had a teaching career
and spoke out against certain aspects of the Nazi program. He developed a historical critical
method for studying the Bible. The traditional Christian picture of Jesus was corrupted that
time and he thought about how to discover the original Jesus. And also late 19 th century
onwards biblical scholars went on studying this. He made a study of all the study had done of
historical Jesus that was there. And at last Albert Schweitzer concluded that all these studies
are failure and the quest for historical Jesus as a failure wrote by Rudolf Bultmann. And he
claims that all the construction of historical Jesus made by scholars is their imagination and
He did not perform any miracles. He taught about ethical teachings of life and he died as a
martyr. He spoke out that the historical Jesus was an apocalyptic preacher who preached the
end of the world.

There was another man Martin Kahler spoke out something different from Albert that the real
Christ, the Christ who is preached by the church not the historical critical study of the New
Testament. He accepted what Kahler said. Rudolf was influenced by many people Luther,
Barth etc. Luthers theology and Barth’s audacity was influenced him very much. He remains
a lifelong disciple of Barth. He applied to the Lutheran theme of justification by faith to the
world of knowledge and thought. Faith is a gift of God’s grace that comes to us in the
kerygma but faith cannot be shared up by historical investigation. He strongly believed that
the occurrence in the past.

Eschatology: When we come to his eschatology we see that the 19 th century was an era of
optimism. But the people acknowledged the presence of apocalyptic elements in the NT. As
the century passed the scholars rediscovered the centrality of apocalyptic in the New
Testament. But Johannes Weiss and Albert questioned it. Apocalyptic is not peripheral but
central to Jesus’ message. But Bultmann said that early Christian community anticipated the
soon arrival of the kingdom of God, a hope that was not fulfilled. And he argued that both
Paul and John pointed in this direction, for they themselves had spoken of the eternal life
received in faith as a present, existential reality, and not a future, temporal anticipation.

Mythology: In the 19th century the liberal theology and the historical critical method observed
that the Bible contains plenty of myths. One of their goals was to remove the myth. But
Bultmann rejected it. He claims that removing myths could not be accomplished without
losing the kerygma. The message of the New Testament and myths are held so close together.
Thus he said that not remove myths but reinterpret it.

Hermeneutics: Bultmann rejected what the liberal theology wanted to bridge the gap between
the ancient text and modern mind by discovering the timeless truth found in those times. He
said that one need to approach the text with some pre understanding. The question that unites
the ancient text and modern mind is that of human existence.
God’s transcendence: Liberal theology taught about God as immanent. It was the Karl Barth
who brought the idea of God’s transcendence. There is an infinite qualitative distinction
between God and the world. Bultmann agreed this and his idea was different from this. He
said that special understanding of world is outdated so we need a non spatial understanding.
So he suggested that transcendence no more mean above, but it means God’s absolute
authority. Here God stands before us in the existential moment addressing us with his world
and confronting us with the challenge to respond to him in faith.

Bultmann’s response of human experience which he found in the New Testament itself and in
existential philosophy. He says that theology is discourse about God cannot but speak about
human existence at the same time. Another major existentialist concept used from him that
history. Here he said that history is not only the science of facts regarding the past followed
in a nonpersonal detached manner rather the real historical knowledge is always existential
knowledge. Again and about faith and gospel he said that the proclamation of this Christian
message gives rise to faith and by faith he shared the meaning of willingness to understand
oneself as crucified and risen with Christ.

Reinhold Niebuhr: Transcendence revealed through myth: He was an American theologian

and a social ethicist, an apologist and a circuit rider in the midst of nation’s colleges and
universities. He never considered himself as a theologian. After his education he became a
most influential American theologian of the first half of the twentieth century. One of his
utmost successes is that he made theology a science of secular urgency and significance. He
applied Christian faith to the social situations. Scholars have considered him as a neo-
orthodox theologian but he rejected it.

Practical Christianity and proximate justice: Throughout his writing he gave more emphasis
on ‘proximate justice’. His concern was theology applied to social situation. He opined that
the social situation is rooted in the unalterable reality of the human situation itself. So humans
always stand under infinite possibilities and are potentially related to the totality of existence.

Christian anthropology: His writings always emphasis on the human situation lying behind
the impossibility not only producing a fully just society but also gaining the ideal in any form
in the world of the real. For him anthropology is the basis of Christian thought. He discovered
in the biblical doctrine of humanity a depth that was looking in liberal Christianity. So his
doctrine of anthropology was twofold emphasis and that are a high stature of humanity as the
image of God. And the second one is the biblical theme of universal human sinfulness.

The human contradiction: His center of anthropology is his understanding of the

contradiction that characterizes the human situation. He argues that the human kind entails
both potential and a problem. In this he says that human person is a created and finite
existence in both body and spirit. Second, humanity is to be understood primarily from stand
point of God. Third, recognize that human are sinner. So they are to be loved but never
trusted. And fourthly, he rejected the idea of human kind is ontological categories.

Human sin: he says that through the misuse of our capacity of self-transcendence we refused
to accept our limitation. So sin is creaturely rebellion and Bible talks about how the human
rebellion to God and they can be reconcile. Therefore faith is the acceptance of our
dependence of God. So he suggested that a Christian alternative that is Christian realism. This
was the faith of applying the faith of the Bible to contemporary situation. He rejected the
liberalism and he suggested a double focus of the moral life. He kept his anthropological
differences with liberalism. He was a critique of liberalism and he proposed an alternative
that he found more in keeping with Christian realism. And he opined that myth is necessary
because some aspects of reality are paradoxical and so cannot be understood in terms of
scientific or rational categories.

For him the innermost Christian message goes beyond human sin to divine salvation and the
focal point of the Christian faith is the cross. About the divine transcendence, his view is that
the modern age was guilty of substituting the God of reason and the nature for the God of
revealed religion. Thus he made to call Western society back from its flight into the
immanence of God.

The Deeping of Immanence: Reformulations of the Liberal Tradition: From the 1920s until
about 1960 the Neo-Orthodox revolution against classical protestant liberalism dominated
theology. But some thinkers were suspicious and the one sided emphasis on immanence they
had detected in liberalism. Thus the neo-orthodox thinkers reformulated and deepen the
immanental theology of the older liberalism. They did not promote a simple return to the now
discredited older culture Christianity rather they sought to employ themes took from the
newer philosophies such as existentialism etc.

Paul Tillich: The Immanence of the ‘God above God’: In the twentieth century he became
the apostle to the intellectuals. He was a German theologian born in Germany in the town of
Starzeddel near Berlin on August 20, 1886. From his early age he had an interest in theology
ad philosophy. He studied major several universities and the World War 1 interrupted his
studies. After the war he was instrumental in the formation of the religious socialist
movement. Then he went too studied in theology. He questioned the nassy movement. His
theology must spoke to the contemporary culture. He wanted his theology to be apologetics.
He said that theology must formulate and communicate its message in a way that the modern
mind can understand. His basic presupposition was that the theology should be apologetic.

The method of correlation: This is basically a theological method deals with questions and
answers. It tries to explain the Christian message through existential questions and
theological answers. So there is a mutual interdependence between the philosophy and
theology. So this mutual interdependence we called correlation. And he rejected some
philosophy like super naturalistic method, naturalistic theologies, dualistic method etc.

Reason and revolution: His systematic theology attempts to establish a correlation between
reason and revelation. Here revelation is the answer to the questions implied in the existential
conflicts of reason. Reason doesn’t resist revelation and it asks for revelation. For him reason
based on ontology of essence and existence. Here essence is potential perfection of things
and reason belongs to existence.
The ‘God above God’: he said that the God who is the power of being is superior to the
supposedly finite God of traditional Christian doctrine of God. The real God is superior to
theism. The real God is above to all pictuarization.

Christology: In his systematic theology ‘Existence and the Christ’ the third part he presented
a powerful and controversial phenomenology of human existence. He opined that Jesus
Christ is not God became man. He was essential man appearing in personal life under the
condition of existential estrangement. He was not a man who existed who was in a stage of
existence. But he was an essential man appeared to be an existential man.

Process theology: Immanence within the Process: There are two Neo-orthodox responses
to liberalism in the mid-twentieth century. With the influence of Tillich’s work there was a
approach developed in the school of thought was process theology. So process is an activity
and comes from process philosophy. In this there are two major people there.

The first person is the Parmenides. He considers reality in terms of what remained the same
despite the appearance of change in the realm of sense of experience. And the second person
was Heraclitus. These people talked about two metaphysical concepts. Their ideas were
opposed each other. Parmenides declares that reality has a being in spite of the appearance of
the change but Heraclitus said that reality is involved in unbrokable change. Thus process
theology is a traditional idea of God and also it is a critique of classical theism. It says that
the idea of classical theism is wrong. And they argued for a bipolar God. Here God is both
absolute and relative.

It also believes in an evolutionary or processive view of the cosmos which means world is
undergoing processes. Not only is the world is evolving, God also evolving as well. God is
not only the supreme cause of all things but is also supremely affected by the causes that
proceed from God. This time there were two thinkers reflected two somewhat different
traditions. The Roman Catholic thinker Pierre Teilhard de chardin whose conviction that
science and Christianity are two phases of the same act of complete knowledge. This
conviction was based on the distinction between the without and within of all things. He
opined that the uniqueness of human kind lies in the capacity for reflection, in the ability not
only to know but to know that one knows. Thus process theology has not been able to
overcome the central problem of theology since the Renaissance.

Immanence within the Secular: The Radical Movement:

In the history 1960s was a period of ferment and rapid change in the theology. During these
years the predominance of neo-orthodoxy was challenged from many quarters and the neo
orthodox theologians made effort to eradicate what they saw as the native optimism of
nineteenth century liberalism. They made an ‘existential pessimism and the young
theologians reacted against it. And also there were rise and disappearance of several
theological ‘fads’. And during the decades there was an iconoclastic, antitraditional,
challenging and probing together formed what has been termed ‘radical theology’.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Transcendence in the midst of Life: He was a German theologian,
pastor, antiactivist and also a martyr of the church. He was born in Brslau from an elite
wealthy family in Germany in 1906. His father was well known specialist in psychiatry and
Neurology. His brothers are scientists. At the early age he studied theology. For his theology
he got appreciation from Karl Barth. Later he was impressed by American seminary students
of social activities and also influenced by the ecumenical movement. In 1933 the Nasis would
ascend the rule of Germany. He was the first person to challenge it. And he made a group
which known as confessing church. He trained future leaders for confessing church. He wrote
many books. And one is talked about the church Christianity.

One of his students divided his life into 3 phases. Firstly, the first period his focus was on the
church as a community of saints. Secondly costly discipleship and thirdly the worldly
holiness. All his teachers were liberals and he come under the influence of Barth. He said that
God’s revelation comes only through Jesus Christ. And he believed in a world of age.

Secular Theology: In 1960s theological history arose as both a response to and a deepening of
certain themes in the theology of Karl Barth, to which each of the leading voices of the
movement was indebted. On the other hand the gap between Christian faith and human
religion Barth created effectively removed God from the realm of everyday life. In doing this
Barth had exalted transcendence to the loss of immanence, except for the immanence of God
in the revelatory world. So this was resulted two movements which are death of God
movement and secular movement.

The death of God theology: it was proposed by two people who were William Hamilton and
Thomas Altizer. William was a professor of church history at Colgate Rochester Divinity
School in the 1960s. He previously had studied under Paul Tillich and Reinhold Neihbur. He
began to develop a new idea is the first book in the new essence of Christianity. And also he
wrote other book like ‘radical theology and death of God’. The other man Thomas Altizer
proposed Christian atheism. He was an associate professor of Bible and religion at the
Methodist related Emory University in Atlanta. His main theme was the absolute immanent
of God in humanity dissolving even the memory of the shadow of transcendence. He was
influenced by philosophers and psychologists and he said that the death of God is an event in
history. It is not just a symbolism.

John A.T Robinson: He was the proponent of secular Christianity. He was a pastor in the
Church of England and also he was a New Testament Scholar. He was more concerned with
secularization. Secularity is the work of God. Therefore the church needs to take the
leadership in joining with the movement and participate in the building of new humanity. He
wrote a book named by ‘honest to God’. He said that there is a growing gap between the
traditional orthodox supernaturalism of the church and the ideas of the modern world. The
world has come of age. The task of the church was to equip Christian to participate in the
secular strivings of the day. He also said that Christ is the man for others. Therefore he called
for a new reformation based on the secular gospel.

Harvey Cox: He was a Baptist professor who advocated secularization and became very
famous. His main concern was to draw out the implications of his thesis concerning
secularization for the church. In 1965 he wrote a book ‘the secular City’. It talks about that
the secularization is biblical and what is truly basic and authentic to the gospel namely liberty
and responsibility. The call of the gospel to conversion is therefore an admonition to the
acceptance of ‘adult responsibility’. He calls for finding God in the contemporary movements
of secularization. A proper doctrine of the church lies in a theology of social change even
revolution. This he opined that politics is what God is doing in the world.

The transcendence of the future: The theology of hope

Jurgen moltmann: He was not only the prophet of new, eschatologically oriented approach to
theology but through many book translations he became the best expositor in the English
speaking world. He was an influential German theologian in today’s world. Basically he was
born in very liberal protestant home in German. He did not have Christian upbringings.
During the 2nd world war time he was employed in army and fought. He was caught and
punished by British army. In prison he got New Testament and started to read it. And he had
a thorough profound Christian experience. Then later he was released. Then he started to
study theology. He wrote a first booked and its name was “The theology of Hope”. And
another book is “crucified God”. All the books talk about the hope. His theology is deeply
biblical and he made extensive use of both OT and NT. He was influenced by a philosopher
Ernst Bloch and he combined Marxist philosophy with a future idea of kingdom of God. He
said that a hope of future is very important for world. Along with Bible he borrows much
from Bloch’s ontology of the future. But he adds a powerful critique of ‘transcending without
transcendence. It is historical eschatology doctrines- talk about hope.

Wolfhart Pannenberg: He was born in 1928 on Poland. The basic outlook that drives his
theological programme came to be shaped quite early in life. The molding thing of his life is
coming to faith. A crucial factor in this molding process was the path he followed in coming
to faith, for this was at the same time the path that led to his choice of theology as life’s
pursuit. While walking home through the woods during sundown one winter afternoon, he
was attracted to a light in the distance. His conception of doctrine of the trinity is the most
interesting factor of his dogmatic synthesis, since he introduces Trinitarian reflection as a
new approach to the solution of some of the crucial problems of the traditional conception of
the doctrine of God. The result is a reversal of the traditional structure for the exposition of
the doctrine of God, which started from the existence of God, proceeded to the discussion of
the essence and attributes of the one God, and then added the doctrine of the Trinity.

The renewal of immanence in the experience of oppression: liberation theology: Black

liberation theology: Person of African descent living in the United States enjoyed a rich
religious heritage. Their experience, born as it was out of there of slavery and the social and
economic oppression that followed, gave rise to unique religious tradition that included
expression through the medium of Negro spirituals. In 1960s, a group of Black church leaders
set out a concise description of the new theology. As this description indicates, the
classification of Black theology as a type of liberation theology is appropriate. Like all such
theologies, it focuses on activity, not on contemplation. Black theology arose out of a specific
historical context -1960s- and therefore must be understood within the context. It witnessed
the activities of Martin Luther Jr., who more than any other leader came to personify the civil
rights movement. At issue in this period have been the relationship of the Black American
experience to that of other oppressed groups and the economic and political implications of
liberation. One important early treaties that paved the way for the rise Black theology was the
study by Joseph R. Washington offered an unflattering sketch of the history and current
situation of Black religion in America. Rejecting the thesis of earlier studies that viewed
Black religion as one aspect of the boarder category of North America Protestantism,
Washington asserted that it was actually a distinctive phenomenon in North America
religious life. The optimism toward the possibility so assimilation was proclaimed by
Washington was soon dispelled. As the decade wore on, the Black quest foe integration gave
way to Black militarism and a growing attack on White churches and their leaders. The attack
had been directed against mainstream Protestantism not only because of its traditional role as
the custodian of public righteousness but also because of the perception among Black leaders
that through its involvement in the civil rights movement the White religious establishment
had stimulated a climate of unrealistic expectation on the part of the Black community.

The transcendence of the human spirit: the new Catholic theology:

Karl Rahner: Karl Rahner was born 5 March 1904 in the university town of Freiburg-im-
Breisgau in the then Grand Duchy of Baden, the fourth of seven children. His father Karl was
an educator; his mother Luise, a homemaker. Rahner’s mother was pious, but in a healthy
sense: the atmosphere of a university town imbued that piety with openness. It can therefore
be said that Rahner’s childhood laid the groundwork for his later complex philosophical and
theological projects: a pious openness, seeking the most effective formulations to gain insight
into the character of the world. Rahner’s philosophy was at once the foundation and
framework for his far-reaching and in some ways radically different rereading of Roman
Catholic dogma. It is important to note, however, that Rahner’s philosophical system
precedes and is separable from the theological system built upon his theology.
Hans Kung: Hans Kung was born on March 19, 1928, in the small town of Sursee in the
Catholic part of Switzerland. His father owned a shoe store and a small inn. At first, Hans
Kung strongly supported that traditional authoritarian approach to the church life, theology
and society taken by Pope Pius XII, who was determined to stamp out any revival of
modernism or liberalism within the Catholic Church. Throughout the 1950s, Hans Kung
became more and more uncomfortable with heavy-handed approach to well-intentioned
adaptations of Catholic thought and life to modern society. Like many other twentieth-
century theologians, Hans Kung is concerned with overcoming the God world dualism he
sees implicit in much traditional theology, while avoiding any hint of pantheism. He never
tried tries to reasserting the transcendent freedom of God over the world. Hans Kung
considers his theology radically Christo-centric. His intention in his Christology is to return
to the earliest biblical teachings about Jesus Christ and place that testimony at the heart of the
Christian message. His Christology was the straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back.
Although action was already underway to discipline him in some way, when On Being a
Christian appeared in 1947 and church leaders had opportunity to evaluate Hans Kungs
statements on Jesus Christ, it seemed inevitable to many that he would receive a harsh
sentence. Yet Hans Kung considers his theology radically Christo-centric.