The Yes of Nietzsche and Hegel in Altizer

Abstract

Thomas J. J. Altizer read both Hegel and Nietzsche as he read all thinkers he enlisted with a canonical routine: as theologians. This is not to say he confused their agenda and their task. Hegel remained the philosopher of philosophers, Nietzsche the master of all suspicious masters, a poet-philosopher with critique as his hammer. But their thinking was to be understood, in Altizer’s view, principally as theological thinking, which is to say, whatever else we may think theology is in today’s world, it cannot be thought without Hegel and Nietzsche. And this is because, as Altizer would audaciously write, these two figures “met the modern crisis of theology by recreating theology itself.” This paper will examine what this re-creation looks like for Altizer, and how, under his reading, such an odd pairing, Hegel and Nietzsche, become more than partners in the process: they become, as Altizer would say emphatically, in “full union” with one another.