Philosophy and Theology

Volume 19, Issue 1/2, 2007

“God Himself Is Dead!” Luther, Hegel, and the Death of God

This paper traces the origins of the phrase “God is dead!” back to Hegel and Luther. It proceeds in the following four steps: Section I investigates the appearance of the theme of God’s death in Lutheran theology. Section II elaborates on Hegel’s adaptation of this theme in the context of his early work Faith & Knowledge. In section III, the paper continues on how the theme of the death of God developed from Luther to Nietzsche via Hegel, before concluding, in section IV, by indicating the link between Protestantism and modern atheism.