God is not dead, but is hyperreal

baudrillard's reluctant atheism + fellini's madonna scene

So I wrote about the Baudrillardian-Christian horseshoe for First Things:

The overlap between Baudrillard and these Christian thinkers is apparent. What are we to make of the fact that he couldn’t bring himself to hope in God’s grace? His atheism was less an ideological position than a result of his defeatist attitude. “God is not dead,” Baudrillard insists. But even if he exists, his grace is inaccessible to us because “he has become hyperreal.” He precludes the possibility of God entering “the matrix,” as “salvation by grace is unattainable . . . this frenzy, this berserk world of knick-knacks, gadgets, fetishes, all of which seek to mark out a value for all eternity,” convinces us that salvation is only attainable by human strength, which is concentrated into the hands of a select few.

Baudrillard’s insistence that escape is impossible should not be dismissed as the groaning of a defeated nihilist, but heeded as the cry of an apocalyptic prophet. Acknowledging consumer society’s comprehensive reign over our bodies, minds, and souls, and the concomitant futility of human efforts at resistance, should incite us to look to the One who alone can free us from our shackles.

Is it true that the postmodern person can no longer believe in God—even if he does exist?

Yes. And no.