Richard L. Rubenstein - Holocaust and Death of God

Holocaust and Death of God

Rubenstein emerged in the 1960s as a significant writer on the meaning and impact of the Holocaust for Judaism. His first book, After Auschwitz, explored radical theological frontiers in Jewish thought. In Rubenstein's argument, the experience of the Holocaust totally shattered the traditional Judaic concept of God, especially as the God of the covenant with Abraham. In the covenant, the God of Israel is the God of history. Rubenstein argued that Jews could no longer advocate the notion of an omnipotent God at work in history or espouse the election of Israel as the chosen people. In the wake of the Holocaust, he believed Jews have lost hope and there is no ultimate meaning to life.

"s children of the Earth, we are undeceived concerning our destiny. We have lost all hope, consolation and illusion."

In After Auschwitz, Rubenstein spoke of the "death of God" and that the covenant had died. He did not mean he was now an atheist, nor that religion had to be discarded as irrelevant. He tried to explore what the nature and form of religious existence could possibly comprise after Auschwitz (i.e., after the experience of the Holocaust). Rubenstein suggested that perhaps the way forward was to choose some form of paganism.

When his work was released in 1966, it appeared at a time when a "death of God" movement was emerging in radical theological discussions among Protestant theologians such as Gabriel Vahanian, Paul Van Buren, William Hamilton, and Thomas J. J. Altizer. Among those Protestants, the discussions centred on modern secular unbelief, the collapse of the belief in any transcendent order to the universe, and their implications for Christianity. Theologians such as Altizer felt at the time that "as 'Death of God' theologians we have now been joined by a distinguished Jewish theologian, Dr Richard Rubenstein."

During the 1960s, the "Death of God" movement achieved considerable notoriety and was featured as the cover story of the April 8, 1966, edition of Time magazine. However, as a movement of thought among theologians in Protestant circles, it had dissipated from its novelty by the turn of the 1970s.