Christianity as authentic atheism: is the Crucifixion the moment God himself becomes atheist?

Slavoj Žižek, answered from the texts and cited to the page.

The position in brief

Christianity is the religion in which God himself becomes atheist. The Crucifixion is not the sacrifice of the Son to placate the Father; it is the death of the transcendent big Other and the passage of the divine into the immanence of the community of believers (the Holy Spirit as the community itself). Christianity, properly read, is the religion of the death of religion — the only religion that contains the resources for its own dissolution into atheist materialism.12345

Sources

  1. By declaring his solidarity with Job, God declares himself to be the "public" God—a fact which is accomplished in Christian revelation. That is to say: what dies on the Cross is precisely the "private" God, the God of our "way of life," the God who grounds a particular community.
    The Monstrosity of Christ, pp. 304–305
  2. A materialist does not deny miracles, he just reminds us that they live behind disturbing material leftovers. Apropos of Christianity and its overcoming, Jean- Luc Nancy proposed two guidelines: (1) "Only a Christianity which envisages the present possibility of its negation can be relevant today." (2) "Only an atheism which envisages the reality of its Christian provenance can be relevant today." With some…
    The Monstrosity of Christ, p. 296
  3. The formula of true atheism is thus divine knowing and existence are incompatible, God exists only insofar as he doesn't know (take note of, register) his own inexistence. The moment God knows, he collapses into the abyss of inexistence, like the familiar cartoon cat which falls only when it notices there is no ground beneath its feet. So why did Christ have to die?
    Less Than Nothing, pp. 104–105
  4. They will not find another god who has himself been in revolt. Nay (the matter grows too difficult for human speech), but let the atheists themselves choose a god.They will find only one divinity who ever uttered their isolation; only one religion in which God seemed for an instant to be an atheist.
    The Puppet and the Dwarf, pp. 15–16
  5. In true ethics, one acts from the position of the inexistence of the big Other, assuming the abyss of the act deprived of any guarantee or support.
    Less Than Nothing, pp. 118–119

Where the argument is made

  • The Fragile Absolute (2000), On Belief (2001), The Puppet and the Dwarf (2003), The Monstrosity of Christ (2009, with John Milbank — co-authored debate volume)

How the argument was received

Developed consistently from The Fragile Absolute (2000) through The Monstrosity of Christ (2009). Position remains stable in the late period; the Substack writings on Christianity, Pope Francis, and Western secularism continue to defend it.