We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 June 2011
Modern German thought owed much to classical Greece. Yet in philosophy and theology, beginning with Hegel and his contemporaries, the debt to Platonic idealism was radically modified by insistence on the reality of history. Construed dialectically, history became a key to overcoming difficulties with both Platonic and Cartesian dualism left unresolved by Kant. In theology, after World War I dialectical theologians, including Barth and Tillich, embraced in varying degrees the existentialists' critique of Hegelian essentialism and belief in progress. This affected how they understood incarnation in christology, sacramental presence in ecclesiology, and Christian responses to what they saw as the demonic threat of German National Socialism. Anglo-American critics, especially of Tillich, often miss the dialectical nuances of his admittedly abstract theology and his religious socialist response to Marxism.
1 See Scharlemann, Robert P., “Demons, Idols, and the Symbol of Symbols in Tillich's Theology of Politics,” in Despland, Michel, Petit, Jean-Claude, and Richard, Jean, eds., Religion et culture: Colloque du centenaire Paul Tillich (Québec: Presses de l'Université Laval, 1987) 377–89;Google Scholar he refers to the cross (p. 384) as “the symbol of symbols.” I have also heard Carl Braaten make this point. For Tillich himself see, for example, Systematic Theology (3 vols.; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1951-1963) 1. 134–36Google Scholar.
2 Tillich, Paul, Theology of Culture (ed. Kimball, Robert C.; New York: Oxford University Press, 1959) 169Google Scholar.
3 See Bulman, Raymond F. and Parella, Frederick J., eds., Paul Tillich: A New Catholic Assessment (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1994)Google Scholar.
4 Iwrote on “Religion as Culture and More,” International Journal for Comparative Philosophy of Religion 2 (1995) 97–110;Google Scholar and “Tillich on the Fall and the Temptation of Goodness,” JR 65 (1979) 196–207Google Scholar.
5 At the 1997 North American Paul Tillich Society (NAPTS) meeting, Erdmann Sturm (Münister), speaking on “Paul Tillich's Interpretation of Greek Philosophy,” showed that Tillich's Berlin lectures of 1920-23 analyzed Greek philosophy in terms of content, form, and import. The form changed, while the import did not. Reduced to the form of beauty, the gods lost their power.
6 See Tillich, Paul, The Construction of the History of Religion in Schelling's Positive Philosophy: Its Presuppositions and Principles (trans. Victor Nuovo; Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell University Press, 1974)Google Scholar from the Breslau doctoral thesis in philosophy of 1910; and idem, Mysticism and Guilt-Consciousness in Schelling's Philosophical Development (Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell University Press, 1974) from the Halle licentiate in theology thesis of 1912. Nuovo is faithful to the German originals. Tillich read Schelling as a forerunner of existentialism.
In the Gesammelte Werke, vol. 1: Frühe Hauptwerke (ed. Albrecht, Renate; Stuttgart: Evangelisches Verlagswerke, 1959),Google Scholar for which Tillich wrote the foreword while at Harvard, the earliest indexed reference to Dynamik in connection with Sein (as contrasted with Tillich's use of it with reference to the physical sciences) is in the 1923 entry, Das System der Wissenschaften nach Gegenständen und Methoden, concerning art, (p. 123) where he remarks, “Die metalogische Methode dagegen ist dynamisch” (his emphasis). My sense is that the adjective “dynamic” did not become prominent in his theological vocabulary until his North American period, and then partly for apologetic reasons, when he began publishing in English. This would, however, require a separate paper to explore.
7 Addressing the 1937 Oxford Conference on Life and Work, Tillich dismissed “dialectical theology” as positing a unique kairos to the exclusion of all others, which makes “Christian historical action” meaningless. See “The Kingdom of God and History” in Tillich, Paul, Theology of Peace (ed. Stone, Ronald H.; Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox, 1990) 46.Google Scholar As Durwood Foster noted in his 1996 address to the North American Paul Tillich Society, however, Tillich's complaint was that what many called dialectical theology was not dialectical enough (NAPTS Newsletter 23 [1997] 6–7. I find Tillich's own theoretical position on what Christians could do in times of crisis to be not as different from Barth's as he supposed (compare Theology of Peace 46-47).
Counted among dialectical theologians besides Barth and Tillich were Brunner, Gogarten, and Reinhold Niebuhr. These should not be confused with the “neo-orthodox,” a term reserved for Neo-Lutheran and Neo-Calvinist revivalists.
8 Tillich, Paul, What Is Religion? (trans. Adams, James Luther; New York: Harper & Row, 1969) 60Google Scholar; see also 73. The word translated “substance” on p. 73 is not Substanz but Inhalt, which reflects a play on Inhalt, Gehalt, and Haltung.
9 See Tillich, , What Is Religion? 124–26Google Scholar.
10 Tillich, Paul, A History of Christian Thought (ed. Braaten, Carl E.; New York: Simon & Schuster, 1967) 360–61.Google Scholar On the Kant of the third Critique and its significance for Tillich, see Davidovich, Adina, Religion as a Province of Meaning: The Kantian Foundations of Modern Theology (HTS; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993) esp. 84-99, 221-68, 277–78Google Scholar.
11 During Tillich's last graduate seminar at Harvard in 1961-62, he remarked that “method of correlation” was a label suggested to him by a teaching assistant at Union Theological Seminary (1 believe William Coleman). His own method in philosophy of religion is described in What Is Religion I, c (ii) and (iii). In theology, the concern is with the meaning of being for humans and the critique is of religious expressions. About this, Tillich insisted that a theologian “cannot affirm any tradition and any authority except through a ‘No’ and ‘Yes’ …” (Systematic Theology 1. 25). That is, the method is critical-dialectical, as contrasted with an Hegelian synthetic-dialectical. On “dialectical realism” as “the philosophical analogue to monotheistic trinitarianism,” see Systematic Theology 1. 234.
12 The trinitarian principle in ontology is general, whereas the doctrine of the Trinity is specific to Christianity, based on the symbolic references to Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. See Tillich, , Systematic Theology, 3. 284:Google Scholar “the trinitarian symbols are dialectical; they reflect the dialectics of life, namely the movement of separation and reunion.” See on this, Lai, Pan-Chiu, Towards a Trinitarian Theology of Religions: A Study of Paul Tillich's Thought (Kampen: Kok Pharos, 1994) 149–71Google Scholar.
13 For literature about Tillich's use of Schelling see O'Meara, Thomas F., “The Presence of Schelling in the Third Volume of Paul Tillich's Systematic Theology,” in Despland, , Petit, , and Richard, , Religion et Culture, 187–203Google Scholar.
14 Foster, , NAPTS Newsletter, 4Google Scholar.
15 See Tillich, Paul, Love, Power, and Justice (New York: Oxford University Press, 1954) 54-86, 96-100, 113–15Google Scholar.
16 Plato, Tim. 37d–38bGoogle Scholar.
17 Tillich, , What Is Religion? 79–81Google Scholar.
18 The term ’principle” in Tillich applies to springs of action whose meaning is articulated symbolically and whose ground can only be described dialectically, not comprehended categorically, for example, most notably the “Protestant” principle. The usage here is analogous to that of “style” in Tillich's theology of art. On “principle” and “power of being” see Pasewark, Kyle A., A Theology of Power: Being Beyond Domination (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993) 239–40Google Scholar.
19 What Is Religion? 165 (Adams, ed., his italics)Google Scholar.
20 See the special issue of Journal of Religion 46 (1966) 92–103CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
21 On this I agree with Kelsey, David H. (The Fabric of Paul Tillich's Theology [New Haven: Yale University Press, 1967]),Google Scholar but I find that his explication of Tillich on form and power neglects the dialectical aspect.
22 See, for example, Tillich, Systematic Theology, 1. 179-80.
23 I am indebted for this observation to the late Professor William Dunphy of the Philosophy Department of the University of St. Michael's College, Toronto.
24 On “New Being,” see Systematic Theology, 2. 118-37. On “concrete universal” see ibid., 1. 16-17.
25 See, for example, ibid., 1. 56-57 on dialectics and paradox.
26 Tillich, , What Is Religion? 133Google Scholar.
27 Ibid., 132-37.
28 Tillich, , Systematic Theology, 1. 178–81Google Scholar.
29 Tillich, Paul, The Interpretation of History (trans. Rosetski, N. A. and Talmay, Elsa L.; New York: Scribner's, 1936) 80.Google Scholar The phrase “divine antidivine” comes from the Dogmatik of 1925 (ed. Werner Schuessler; Diisseldorf: Patmos, 1986). On this point I am indebted to a presentation to NAPTS in November, 1994, by Uwe Scharf.
30 lbid., 79-80.
31 See Tillich, , Theology of Culture, 163.Google Scholar On Tillich's disillusionment during World War I and concept of kairos in connection with religious socialism, see Tavard, George, “The Kingdom of God as Utopia” in Bulman, and Parella, , Paul Tillich: A New Catholic Assessment, 138–39;Google Scholar and on his sense of exile in America, see p. 143.
32 Tillich, , Interpretation of History, 88Google Scholar.
33 I wrote an article on the nuances here “Seeing As, Seeing In, and Seeing Through,” Sophia 19/3 (1980), 10–21Google Scholar.
34 See Tillich, Paul, On Art and Architecture (ed. John, and Dillenberger, Jane; New York: Crossroad, 1987) 12.Google ScholarSee also Nuovo, Victor, “Tillich's Theory of Art and the Possibility of a Theology of Culture,” in Petit, Despland, and Richard, , eds. Religion et Culture, 393-404, esp. pp. 398–400.Google Scholar Neglect of this point is a weakness in Kelsey's critique of the aesthetic analogy.
35 Journal of Religion, special 1966 issue, 187 (emphasis mine).
36 Foster, , NAPTS Newsletter, 3.Google Scholar Tom F. Driver also recalls Tillich at Union Theological Seminary contradicting the assumption behind a question in class that the historical Jesus was somehow not intrinsic to the kerygma.
37 Although Kelsey, (Fabric of Paul Tillich's Theology, 37-38 and 46)Google Scholar acknowledged this, he tended to assume that religious symbols are nevertheless human constructs.
38 See Tillich, , Protestant Era, 194Google Scholar.
39 Tavard, George H., Paul Tillich and the Christian Message (New York: Scribner's, 1962) 79.Google Scholar See also idem (“Kingdom of God as Utopia”) for a critique of Tillich's discussion of the Kingdom of God, especially p. 143 on how Tillich's response to Nazism as a demonic betrayal of kairos and secularized sacramentalism reinforced his emphasis on the prophetic principle.
40 Ibid., 27.
41 Tillich, , On Art and Architecture, 138Google Scholar.
42 Tillich, , Interpretation of History, 91Google Scholar.
43 Ibid., 92-95 and 100. Note Pasewark (Theology of Power, 195) on Luther's sacramental theology: “The introduction of God's gifts means that Luther's theology is not exhausted by constant repetition of the doctrine of justification by grace, but rather that the notion of grace must be explicated in its direction to the earthly realm and the theology of gift.”
44 So Tillich, , Theology of Peace, 74.Google Scholar On “counter-apocalypse” see Keller, Catherine, Apocalypse Now and Then: A Feminist Guide to the End of the World (Boston: Beacon, 1996) 19-32, 273–310.Google Scholar On p. 299 she invokes Tillich's distinction between sign and symbol when discussing “undignified literalism.”
45 Tillich, , Theology of Peace, 105–7Google Scholar.
46 Tillich, , Theology of Culture, 166–67Google Scholar.
47 See Gandhi, Mohandas K., The Story of My Experiment with Truth (2d ed.; Ahmedabad: Navajivan, 1940)Google Scholar; and analyses by Bondurant, Joan V., Conquest of Violence: The Gandhian Philosophy of Conflict (rev. ed.; Berkeley: University of California Press, 1965).Google Scholar For a biography, see Brown, Judith M., Gandhi: Prisoner of Hope (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989).Google ScholarFor Moltmann, Jürgen, see the essays in Religion, Revolution and the Future (trans. Meeks, M. Douglas; New York: Scribner's, 1969), esp. 129-47Google Scholar.
48 So Eberhard Amelung during thefinalHarvard seminar (see note 11), similarly Scharlemann on “the symbol of symbols” (“Demons, Idols,” above).
49 Tillich, , Theology of Peace, 40Google Scholar.
50 Ibid., 55.
51 On this, see Buren's, Paul van later work, beginning with Discerning the Way: A Theology of the Jewish-Christian Reality (New York: Seabury/Crossroad, 1980).Google Scholar On the gestalt of the corporate personality shaped by the churches' experience of the risen Christ see Carnley, Peter, The Structure of Resurrection Belief (Oxford: Clarendon, 1987) esp. 266–326,Google Scholar drawing on John Knox's interpretation of 1 Corinthians 13.
52 Note Marion, Jean-Luc, (God Without Being [trans. Carlson, Thomas A.; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991] 12)Google Scholar on the process of idolizing: “the idol would not fix any gazeable object if the gaze by itself did not first freeze.” On the eschatological orientation of traditionsee Brown, Delwin, Boundaries of our Habitations: Tradition and Theological Construction (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994) 87:Google Scholar “a tradition will always appear to be conservative. That is misleading, for two reasons. First, it is the tradition itself that opens itself to provocation. … Second, inherited elements, once reformulated and reconfigured, introduce novelty.” Quoting Bynum, Caroline Walker, adds, Brown “traditional symbols can have revolutionary consequences.” (Bynum, Caroline Walker, Harrell, Stevan, and Richman, Paula, eds., Gender and Religion: On the Complexity of Symbols [Boston: Beacon, 1986] 15–16.)Google Scholar For Tillich on a critical rendering of tradition, see Systematic Theology, 1. 88: “‘Criticism’ is an attempt to overcome the conflict between absolutism and relativism.”
