“Anyone who tries to prove God’s existence by demonstrating the need for God makes the same mistake as those who claim that in our modern secularized society God no longer has any function and has thus become superfluous. Both begin from the usefulness of God. . . . God is not useful. God does not serve any purpose, since God is an end in himself. . . . God has often either been reduced to a useful, predictable idol, or is experienced as absent.”50
