Being Tillich used the concept of being (
Sein) throughout his philosophical and theological work. Some of his work engaged with the fundamental ontology of Martin Heidegger. Tillich's preliminary analysis of being ascends from the human
subject's asking of the ontological question ("What is being itself?"), upwards to the highest categories of
metaphysics. He distinguishes among four levels of ontological analysis: self-world; dynamics and form, freedom and destiny, and
individualization and participation; essential being and existential being; and
time,
space,
causality, and substance. Being plays a key role throughout Tillich's
Systematic Theology. In the opening to the second volume, Tillich writes:
God as the ground of being in
New Harmony, Indiana Throughout most of his work Tillich provides an ontological view of God as being-itself, the ground of being, and the power of being, one in which God is beyond essence and existence. He was critical of conceptions of God as a being (e.g., the highest being), as well as of pantheistic conceptions of God as universal essence. Traditional medieval philosophical theology in the work of figures such as
St. Anselm,
Duns Scotus, and
William of Ockham tended to understand God as the highest existing being, to which predicates such as omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence, goodness, righteousness, holiness, etc. may be ascribed. Arguments for and against the existence of God presuppose such an understanding of God. Tillich is critical of this mode of discourse, which he refers to as "theological theism," and argues that if God is a being, even if the highest being, God cannot be properly called the source of all being. With respect to both God's existence and essence, moreover, Tillich shows how difficulties beset
Thomas Aquinas' attempt to "maintain the truth that God is beyond essence and existence while simultaneously arguing for the existence of God." Though Tillich is critical of propositional arguments for the existence of God as found in natural theology, as he considers them objectifying of God, he nonetheless affirms the reality of God as the ground of being. A similar line of thought is found in the work of
Eric Voegelin. Tillich's concept of God can be drawn out from his analysis of being. In Tillich's analysis of being, all of being experiences the threat of nonbeing. Yet, following Heidegger, Tillich claims that it is human beings alone who can raise the question of being and therefore of being-itself. This is because, he contends, human beings' "infinite self-transcendence is an expression of [their] belonging to that which is beyond nonbeing, namely, to being-itself ... Being-itself manifests itself to finite being in the infinite drive of the finite beyond itself." Tillich addresses questions both ontological and
personalist concerning God. One issue deals with whether and in what way personal language about the nature of God and humanity's relationship to God is appropriate. In distinction to "theological theism", Tillich refers to another kind of theism as that of the "divine-human encounter". Such is the theism of the encounter with the "Wholly Other" ("Das ganz Andere"), as in the work of
Karl Barth and
Rudolf Otto. It implies a personalism with regard to God's self-revelation. Tillich is quite clear that this is both appropriate and necessary, as it is the basis of the personalism of biblical religion altogether and of the concept of the "Word of God", but can become falsified if the theologian tries to turn such encounters with God as the Wholly Other into an understanding of God as a being. In other words, God is both personal and transpersonal. Tillich's ontological view of God has precedent in Christian theology. In addition to affinities with the concept of God as being-itself in
classical theism, it shares similarities with Hellenistic and Patristic conceptions of God as the "unoriginate source" (
agennetos) of all being. This view was espoused in particular by
Origen, one of a number of early theologians whose thought influenced Tillich's. Their views in turn had pre-Christian precedents in
middle Platonism. Aside from classical and Christian influences in Tillich's concept of God, there is a dynamism in Tillich's notion of "the living God," reflecting some influence from Spinoza. Tillich combines his ontological conception of God with a largely existential and phenomenological understanding of faith in God, remarking that God is "the answer to the question implied in man's finitude ... the name for that which concerns man ultimately." This is notably manifest in his understanding of faith as ultimate concern. Following his existential analysis, Tillich further argues that theological theism is not only logically problematic, but is unable to speak into the situation of radical doubt and despair about meaning in life. This issue, he said, was of primary concern in the modern age, as opposed to
anxiety about fate, guilt, death and condemnation. While on the one hand this God goes beyond the God of
theism as usually defined, it finds expression in many religious symbols of the Christian faith, particularly that of the crucified Christ. The possibility thus exists, says Tillich, that religious symbols may be recovered which would otherwise have been rendered ineffective by contemporary society. Tillich argues that the God of theological theism is at the root of much revolt against theism and religious faith in the modern period. Tillich states, sympathetically, that the God of theological theism Another reason Tillich criticized theological theism was because it placed God into the subject-object
dichotomy. The subject-object dichotomy is the basic distinction made in
epistemology. Epistemologically, God cannot be made into an object, that is, an object of the knowing subject. Tillich deals with this question under the rubric of the relationality of God. The question is "whether there are external relations between God and the creature". Traditionally Christian theology has always understood the doctrine of creation to mean precisely this external relationality between God, the Creator, and the creature as separate and not identical realities. Tillich reminds us of the point, which can be found in Luther, that "there is no place to which man can withdraw from the divine thou, because it includes the ego and is nearer to the ego than the ego to itself". Similarly, if God were made into the subject rather than the object of knowledge (The Ultimate Subject), then the rest of existing entities then become subjected to the absolute knowledge and scrutiny of God, and the human being is "reified," or made into a mere object. It would deprive the person of his or her own subjectivity and creativity. According to Tillich, theological theism has provoked the rebellions found in atheism and Existentialism, although other social factors such as the
industrial revolution have also contributed to the "reification" of the human being. The modern man could no longer tolerate the idea of being an "object" completely subjected to the absolute knowledge of God. Tillich argued, as mentioned, that theological theism is "bad theology". Alternatively, Tillich presents the above-mentioned ontological view of God as Being-Itself, Ground of Being, Power of Being, and occasionally as
Abyss or God's "Abysmal Being". What makes Tillich's ontological view of God different from theological theism is that it transcends it by being the foundation or ultimate reality that "precedes" all beings. Just as
Being for
Heidegger is ontologically
prior to conception, Tillich views God to be beyond being. God is not a supernatural entity among other entities. Instead, God is the inexhaustible ground which empowers the existence of beings. We cannot perceive God as an object which is related to a subject because God
precedes the subject–object dichotomy. Since the Ground of Being ontologically precedes reason, it cannot be comprehended since comprehension presupposes the subject–object dichotomy. Tillich disagreed with any literal philosophical and religious statements that can be made about God. Such literal statements attempt to define God and lead not only to
anthropomorphism but also to a philosophical mistake that
Immanuel Kant warned against, that setting limits against the transcendent inevitably leads to contradictions. Any statements about God are simply symbolic, but these symbols are sacred in the sense that they function to participate or point to the Ground of Being. Tillich also further elaborated the thesis of the God above the God of theism in his Systematic Theology.
Method of correlation The key to understanding Tillich's theology is what he calls the "method of correlation." It is an approach that correlates insights from Christian
revelation with the issues raised by
existential, psychological, and philosophical analyses. Tillich states in the introduction to the
Systematic Theology: For Tillich, the existential questions of human existence are associated with the field of philosophy and, more specifically,
ontology (the study of being). This is because, according to Tillich, a lifelong pursuit of philosophy reveals that the central question of every philosophical inquiry always comes back to the question of being, or what it means to be, and, consequently, what it means to be a finite human being within being. To be correlated with existential questions are theological answers, themselves derived from Christian revelation. The task of the philosopher primarily involves developing the questions, whereas the task of the theologian primarily involves developing the answers to these questions. However, it should be remembered that the two tasks overlap and include one another: the theologian must be somewhat of a philosopher and vice versa, for Tillich's notion of faith as "ultimate concern" necessitates that the theological answer be correlated with, compatible with, and in response to the general ontological question which must be developed independently from the answers. Thus, on one side of the correlation lies an ontological analysis of the human situation, whereas on the other is a presentation of the Christian message as a response to this existential dilemma. For Tillich, no formulation of the question can contradict the theological answer. This is because the Christian message claims,
a priori, that the
logos "who became flesh" is also the universal
logos of the Greeks. In addition to the intimate relationship between philosophy and theology, another important aspect of the method of correlation is Tillich's distinction between form and content in the theological answers. While the nature of revelation determines the actual content of the theological answers, the character of the questions determines the form of these answers. This is because, for Tillich, theology must be an answering theology, or
apologetic theology. God is called the "ground of being" in part because God is the answer to the ontological threat of non-being, and this characterization of the theological answer in philosophical terms means that the answer has been conditioned (insofar as its form is considered) by the question. Throughout the
Systematic Theology, Tillich is careful to maintain this distinction between form and content without allowing one to be inadvertently conditioned by the other. Many criticisms of Tillich's methodology revolve around this issue of whether the integrity of the Christian message is really maintained when its form is conditioned by philosophy. The theological answer is also determined by the sources of theology, our experience, and the norm of theology. Though the form of the theological answers are determined by the character of the question, these answers (which "are contained in the revelatory events on which Christianity is based") are also "taken by systematic theology from the sources, through the medium, under the norm." There are three main sources of systematic theology: the Bible, Church history, and the history of religion and culture. Experience is not a source but a medium through which the sources speak. And the norm of theology is that by which both sources and experience are judged with regard to the content of the Christian faith. Thus, we have the following as elements of the method and structure of systematic theology: • Sources of theology • Bible • Church history • History of religion and culture • Medium of the sources • Collective experience of the Church • Norm of theology (determines use of sources) • Content of which is the biblical message itself, for example: • Justification through faith • New Being in Jesus as the Christ • The Protestant principle • The criterion of the cross As McKelway explains, the sources of theology contribute to the formation of the norm, which then becomes the criterion through which the sources and experience are judged. The relationship is circular, as it is the present situation which conditions the norm in the interaction between church and biblical message. The norm is then subject to change, but Tillich insists that its basic content remains the same: that of the biblical message. It is tempting to conflate revelation with the norm, but we must keep in mind that revelation (whether original or dependent) is not an element of the structure of systematic theology per se, but an event. For Tillich, the present-day norm is the "New Being in Jesus as the Christ as our Ultimate Concern". This is because the present question is one of estrangement, and the overcoming of this estrangement is what Tillich calls the "New Being". But since Christianity answers the question of estrangement with "Jesus as the Christ", the norm tells us that we find the New Being in Jesus as the Christ. There is also the question of the validity of the method of correlation. Certainly one could reject the method on the grounds that there is no
a priori reason for its adoption. But Tillich claims that the method of any theology and its system are interdependent. That is, an absolute methodological approach cannot be adopted because the method is continually being determined by the system and the objects of theology.
Life and the Spirit This is part four of Tillich's
Systematic Theology. In this part, Tillich talks about life and the divine Spirit.
Absolute faith Tillich stated the courage to take meaninglessness into oneself presupposes a relation to the ground of being: absolute faith. Absolute faith can transcend the theistic idea of God, and has three elements.
Faith as ultimate concern According to the
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Tillich believes the essence of religious attitudes is what he calls "ultimate concern". Separate from all profane and ordinary realities, the object of the concern is understood as sacred,
numinous or holy. The perception of its reality is felt as so overwhelming and valuable that all else seems insignificant, and for this reason requires total surrender. In 1957, Tillich defined his conception of faith more explicitly in his work,
Dynamics of Faith. Tillich further refined his conception of faith by stating that, "Faith as ultimate concern is an act of the total personality. It is the most centered act of the human mind ... it participates in the dynamics of personal life." An arguably central component of Tillich's concept of faith is his notion that faith is "ecstatic". That is to say: In short, for Tillich, faith does not stand opposed to rational or nonrational elements (reason and emotion respectively), as some philosophers would maintain. Rather, it
transcends them in an ecstatic passion for the ultimate. It should also be noted that Tillich does not exclude
atheists in his exposition of faith. Everyone has an ultimate concern, and this concern can be in an act of faith, "even if the act of faith includes the denial of God. Where there is ultimate concern, God can be denied only in the name of God"
Tillich's ontology of courage In Paul Tillich's work
The Courage to Be he defines courage as the self-affirmation of one's being in spite of a threat of nonbeing. He relates courage to anxiety, anxiety being the threat of non-being and the courage to be what we use to combat that threat. For Tillich, he outlines three types of anxiety and thus three ways to display the courage to be. 1) The Anxiety of Fate and Death a. The Anxiety of Fate and Death is the most basic and universal form of anxiety for Tillich. It relates quite simply to the recognition of our mortality. This troubles us humans. We become anxious when we are unsure whether our actions create a causal damnation which leads to a very real and quite unavoidable death (42-44). "Nonbeing threatens man's ontic self-affirmation, relatively in terms of fate, absolutely in terms of death" (41). b. We display courage when we cease to rely on others to tell us what will come of us, (what will happen when we die etc.) and begin seeking those answers out for ourselves. Called the "courage of confidence" (162-63). 2) The Anxiety of Guilt and Condemnation a. This anxiety afflicts our moral self-affirmation. We as humans are responsible for our moral being, and when asked by our judge (whoever that may be) what we have made of ourselves we must answer. The anxiety is produced when we realize our being is unsatisfactory. "It [Nonbeing] threatens man's moral self-affirmation, relatively in terms of guilt, absolutely in terms of condemnation" (41). b. We display courage when we first identify our sin; despair or whatever is causing us guilt or afflicting condemnation. We then rely on the idea that we are accepted regardless. "The courage to be is the courage to accept oneself as accepted in spite of being unacceptable" (164). 3) The Anxiety of Meaninglessness and Emptiness a. The Anxiety of Meaninglessness and Emptiness attacks our being as a whole. We worry about the loss of an ultimate concern or goal. This anxiety is also brought on by a loss of spirituality. We as beings feel the threat of non-being when we feel we have no place or purpose in the world. "It [Nonbeing] threatens man's spiritual self-affirmation, relatively in terms of emptiness, absolutely in terms of meaninglessness" (41). b. We display the courage to be when facing this anxiety by displaying true faith, and by again, self-affirming oneself. We draw from the "power of being" which is God for Tillich and use that faith to in turn affirm ourselves and negate the non-being. We can find our meaning and purpose through the "power of being" (172-73). Tillich writes that the ultimate source of the courage to be is the "God above God," which transcends the theistic idea of God and is the content of absolute faith (defined as "the accepting of the acceptance without somebody or something that accepts") (185). == Political views ==