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

Authors

  • Andranik STEPANYAN Department of Philosophy and Logic Named after Academician Georg Brutian at Khachatur Abovian ASPU

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.24234/wisdom.v9i2.190

Keywords:

radical theology, death of God theology, transcendent, immanent, religiosity, religionism, religiousness, religious formalism, secularism, secularity

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.

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Author Biography

Andranik STEPANYAN, Department of Philosophy and Logic Named after Academician Georg Brutian at Khachatur Abovian ASPU

Andranik STEPANYAN (PhD) is Associate Professor of Religious Studies and Cultural Anthropology in the Department of Philosophy and Logic Named after Academician Georg Brutian at Khachatur Abovian ASPU, Yerevan, Armenia. His areas of interest are: religious studies, philosophy of religion, philosophical theology, anthropology of religion, cultural anthropology, philosophical anthropology and hermeneutics. Stepanyan is the author of 1 monograph and 14 scientific articles. Recent publications: “Death of God Theology” monograph, “Gabriel Vahanian as a Radical Religious Thinker,” “Science of Religion” and Religious Studies as Self-reliant Sciences,” “The Religious Features of Radical Thinking”.

References

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Stepanyan, A. (2015). Gabriel Vahaniany’ orpes r’adikal kronakan mtac’ogh (Gabriel Vahanian as a Radical Religious Thinker, in Armenian). Wisdom, 1(4), 81-96. https://doi.org/10.24234/wisdom.v1i4.117
Stepanyan, A. (2017). Astc’o mahvan usmunqy’ (Death of God Theology, in Armenian), Yerevan: VMV Print.
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Published

2017-12-25

How to Cite

STEPANYAN, A. (2017). Critical Remarks on the Theoretical Significance of Vahanian’s Death of God Theology (Brief Review). WISDOM, 9(2), 56–66. https://doi.org/10.24234/wisdom.v9i2.190

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Articles