The truth of Being, freed from the error of nihilism, demands a profound reconfiguration of how we perceive reality. Inevitably, this also affects our understanding of God. Are our traditional concepts of God still adequate, or are they burdened by nihilistic assumptions? Can they be salvaged, or must we move beyond them? If theistic terms are too confining, what language can we use for what we once called God?
The challenge of rethinking our inherited notions of God is not new; many theologians and philosophers have grappled with it throughout history. This post explores four notable thinkers who have confronted this challenge: Meister Eckhart, Paul Tillich, Giuseppe Barzaghi, and Emanuele Severino.
Meister Eckhart: God Beyond God
Meister Eckhart (1260–1328), a German mystic and theologian, offers a way beyond conventional notions of God by transcending anthropomorphic understandings of the divine. His teachings emphasize interior union with the divine essence and a radical metaphysical reorientation of how we approach God.
Eckhart distinguishes between Gott (God as a relational being) and Gottheit (the ineffable essence beyond all being). To truly know God, one must move beyond religious symbols and finite conceptions, entering into the unconditioned essence of divinity. He famously prayed, “God, rid me of God,” reflecting his call to transcend all limited understandings of the divine.
At the heart of Eckhart’s thought is the practice of detachment (Abgeschiedenheit)—a process of releasing worldly attachments, including conventional religious images of God, to become fully receptive to the divine essence. Through this detachment, the soul encounters God as its very ground of being. He further describes the “spark of the soul” (Seelenfünklein), the innermost point where the soul and God are inseparably united.
Eckhart’s metaphor of the “birth of God in the soul” signifies the continuous realization of divine immanence. To live divinely, one must transcend dualities—creator and creature, sacred and secular—and recognize the divine in all things.
Paul Tillich: God as the Ground of Being
Paul Tillich (1886–1965), a German-American existentialist philosopher and Lutheran theologian, was one of the most influential theological thinkers of the twentieth century. Moving beyond traditional theism, he redefined God as the “Ground of Being” or “Power of Being”—a radical departure from conceptions of God as a supreme, personal entity.
Tillich argued that God is not a being but Being itself, the foundational reality upon which all existence depends. This avoids anthropomorphic distortions of God and instead positions the divine as the ultimate depth of existence. Traditional theology often portrays God as a subject interacting with the world as an object, but Tillich rejected this framework, emphasizing that God is neither a being among other beings nor an external entity. Instead, God is present in all things as their ultimate source.
A key element of Tillich’s theology is the symbolic nature of religious language. Terms such as “Father” or “Creator” are not literal descriptors but metaphors pointing toward divine reality. Faith, for Tillich, is not belief in a supernatural being but an existential surrender to an “ultimate concern”—that which gives life ultimate meaning and significance.
By balancing divine transcendence and immanence, Tillich’s theology critiques supernatural theism, which depicts God as a distant, intervening being. His Ground of Being model offers an alternative framework that avoids both nihilism and rigid dogmatism, making faith existentially relevant to modern thought.
Giuseppe Barzaghi: Beyond God
Giuseppe Barzaghi (b. 1958), an Italian philosopher, theologian, and Dominican priest, presents a radical theological vision in his work Oltre Dio (“Beyond God”). He reimagines the relationship between humanity and the divine, moving beyond dualistic conceptions of God as an external Other.
For Barzaghi, divinization (deificazione) is the essence of Christianity. Humans do not merely relate to a distant God; rather, they participate in divine life itself, transforming their very existence into something divine. He interprets the “death of God” not as the end of faith but as the dissolution of God’s role as a separate, external authority. Instead, God is understood as an immanent presence within humanity.
Drawing on Thomistic metaphysics, Barzaghi envisions God as actus purus (pure act), the ever-present ground of reality. Experiencing the divine requires moving beyond conceptual mediations and encountering the infinite through finite realities. To go “beyond God” means transcending anthropomorphic limitations and engaging with divinity not as an external force but as an ever-present foundation of being.
For Barzaghi, this culminates in a call to “live divinely,” where the sacred and secular are no longer distinct. Instead of compartmentalizing life into religious and non-religious realms, he encourages a holistic vision in which all of existence participates in divine reality.
Emanuele Severino: Beyond the Traditional God
Emanuele Severino (1929–2020) is profoundly reshaping theological discourse, with many scholars adopting his “structure of truth” as a foundation for rethinking traditional theological frameworks. His critique has made it increasingly difficult to sustain the classical notion of God as a supreme being distinct from creation. If God is conceived as finite, subject to contingency and temporality, then such a conception contradicts the nature of true Being.
A key consequence of Severino’s influence is the growing recognition that conventional theological language is insufficient. Since contingency itself is revealed as an illusion, theologians are being forced to move beyond personalist theism toward a more metaphysical and non-dual understanding of divinity. This has brought Severino’s thought into dialogue with apophatic traditions, which emphasize the limits of human language in describing the divine.
Severino’s critique also influences mystical theology, where his emphasis on the eternal and unchanging nature of Being challenges traditional views of divine action and presence. If Being is eternal, then union with the divine is not a future possibility but an ever-present reality.
While not all theologians fully embrace Severino’s conclusions, his work has compelled a radical reassessment of classical theism. His influence is particularly evident among those exploring post-theistic frameworks, metaphysical theology, and contemporary mystical thought.
Conclusion
The evolving perspectives of Eckhart, Tillich, Barzaghi, and Severino reveal a growing movement beyond traditional theism, challenging inherited notions of God as a supreme being distinct from creation. Each thinker, in their own way, pushes theology toward a more radical vision—whether through mystical union, ontological depth, participatory divinization, or the redefinition of Being itself.
This shift reflects a broader theological movement that seeks to transcend the dichotomy between theism and atheism, embracing a more ontologically rigorous and mystical understanding of the divine. Whether this movement will lead to a post-theistic reimagining of God remains an open question. What is clear, however, is that the language of divinity is undergoing a profound transformation, calling for a departure from past dualisms and a renewed engagement with the truth of Being itself.
It Is What It Is 
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