Is God Dead?
The famous line from Time magazine that came before Time existed was, “Is God Dead?” The question, while asked today by many in different words, finds roots in a Fredrich Nietzche parable in the 1800’s where he critiqued a culture that killed God along with the now famous phrase, “God is dead.” This prophetic voice is covered in Chapter 1 of Brian Zahnd’s book “When Everything’s On Fire.” Neitzche’s madman in the parable says after his rant about those who killed God, “I have come too early my time is not yet.”
I affirm Zahnd’s conclusion that now, his time has come.
What is it to proclaim things that are always true, right on time, yet out of the timing of the ones who deny the present moment? Neither Neitzche nor Zahnd are the first to say what they essentially said, yet they echo the history of our prophets, messengers, and ultimately, they echo the words that find their roots in the Word before time, or even magazines, existed. The question “Is God dead?” finds its roots around a tree we are told about where the temptation of its fruit causes humans to question if God said what God said. To some this led to wondering if God existed because if I can’t hear what God said then maybe God doesn’t exist? Besides, how many have called out to God and heard no reply?
Yet time is deceptive when we allow it to define our meaning. If we are locked in a prison of Chronos we will forget the freedom of Kairos. Kairos is that opportune time of the present moment where the fullness of a thing has come. Eventually, those unaware of Kairos will meet the side effects of perceiving all things through time rather than eternity. This is to say, right now is the day of salvation, or the day in which God will resurrect in the many people who have killed him, or at least, thought him dead.
Death, as many seem to think they know it, is an interesting thing. Interesting because it can seem so final, like the end of time, yet it is not the end of time but rather it is the end of time as some know it. Like many who thought they were living in the end times or the end of the world, the world went on to reveal it wasn’t true as they had perceived it to be. Their death did not prove them right, but there is a response to death that can.
Herein is the secret: The death of God will never come.
Some may say, “But what about that man Jesus who many believe to be God in the flesh who was killed?” Ah yes, but what happened to this Jesus after a few days? The story says he resurrected and conquered death. The question now becomes, “How can God be killed inside of time, while showing us inside of time that death is not what we think it is and that outside of time death does not actually exist?”
God is surely dead to all our interpretations of God that do not mean what God means when God means. God is resurrected to all our interpretations of God that mean what God means when God is meaning. This meaning “God””, the essence of our life, movement, and being, as in our ability to even be, is the meaning by which we know. This is not understandable to a mind that tries to define as definitive what is being said in time. It is only when we become “partakers of the divine nature” that we see the nature of things beyond what the human mind can see. The divine nature situates us in Kairos time, not Chronos. It is not that you are not in Kairos right now, it is that some are not aware of it. It is not that God is dead, it is that some are not aware how alive God is. Thus, if we have become “alienated in our minds” we are only perceiving reality through time which is an alien concept to our actual being.
Being then, is the essence of our real life and is the essence of God. God is not a noun, as any good translator of the scriptures will tell you, as the verbiness of God is closer to understanding the truth. When I spelled verbiness just now my computer said it was an unrecognizable word that is potentially misspelled. It is not misspelled, it is just unrecognizable to a language that seems to define everything it thinks it knows. Others would say it would be better said this way or that. Yet how is it when the Word was made flesh it was unrecognizable to its own people? How is it when I spell God by using G-d, as some do, some would say it is incorrect? Do you really think we can spell the name of God? Would you rather spell the name of God correctly or would you rather know God correctly?
I stand corrected in meaning rather than in spelling.
This brings us to the conclusion. Of course God can be found dead inside the limits of language and time, but God can also be found alive here too. God can be seen as all in all when we are looking through the glass that is not as dark as before. As we look through the window of time from the window of eternity, which is Now, we can come closer to seeing we are fully known. As veils, glasses, and windows are removed from our use of them as protection, our eyes and selves are opened to know God could never be dead and never will be. Oh how we protect ourselves from the Truth in the name of Truth! Oh how Truth is truer still! When we know this, the time has come to realize that many in the world may kill God for their safety, but God will always and forever resurrect….again and again and again.
Only that which is not really “God”, will remain in the grave to decompose and provide nutrients to what is Real. And what is Real is what we are after. What is Real has been after us the whole time because all of time is enough to teach us what we need to know.
-PH
