"The
attack by Christian apologetic on the adulthood of the world I consider
to be in the first place pointless, in the second place ignoble, and
the third place unchristian. Pointless, because it seems to me like
an attempt to put a grown-up man back into adolescence, i.e., to make
him dependent on things which he is, in fact, no longer dependent, and
thrusting him into problems that are, in fact, no longer problems to
him. Ignoble, because it amounts to an attempt to exploit man's weakness
for purposes that are alien to him and to which he has not freely assented.
Unchristian, because it confuses Christ with one particular stage in
man's religiousness. . . .
I therefore want to start from the premise
that God shouldn't be smuggled into some lost secret place, but that
we should frankly recognize that the world, real people, have come of
age, that we shouldn't run man down in his worldliness, but confront
him with God at his strongest point, that we should give up all our
clerical tricks, and not regard psychotherapy and existentialist philosophy
as God's pioneers."