The ontological theology of Paul Tillich

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THE ONTOLOGICAL THEOLOGY OF PAUL TILLICH

R. ALLAN( KILLEN, )D. TH. II

THE !ONTOLOGICAL THEOLOGY OF PAUL TILLICH/

J.

H. KOK N.V. KAMPEN 1956

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OL()G't AT CLAiG

The Courage to Be, p. 9 ff. Systematic Theo logy, p. 2 5 1 . Loe. cit.

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nothing more" for the Trinity, and that only after the doctrine of Christ has been developed is it possible to discuss the Trinity. 97 In other words there must be more of an existentialistic approach from a Christomonistic starting point. It is not however to be the Christomonism of Barth in which there is no general revelation, but one in which both general and special revelation point to "Jesus who is called the Christ" as the center and meaning of history. He wants to start with his view of Christ as the center of all meaning and work back from that to explain the Father, the Logos, and the Holy Spirit. He wants to make this concept of the three principles in God an assumption in his view of God and then to try and prove it from his own type of Christomonistic approach. It is hard to see what difference there actually is between his doctrine of the Trinity and this assumption of the three principles, because he is only calling this "preparation" in the confidence that he can prove it by a more round about approach, through an existentialistic Christomonism. The claim that the doctrine must be begun with the doctrine of Christ is probably due to Barth's insistance upon "Christomonism" on the one hand and to Tillich's existentialism on the other hand. What is the relationship between the three hypostases? Tillich clafms that they stand in a dialectical relationship. The Trinity is not something illogical but something dialectical because dialectics and formal logic do not exclude one another. 98 In dialectics the movement of thought goes through a "Yes" and a "No" perhaps through many Yesses and No's till it finally reaches a "Yes", 99 and since this process describes the thought "in dialectically correct terms" logic and dialectics do not contradict one another. It is logical in that the same concept is used in the same sense, and when there is a change in the meaning of a concept "the dialectican describes in a logically correct way the intrinsic necessity which drives the old into the new". 100 Tillich maintains that formal logic was not contradicted by Hegel when he described the identity of being and non-being by showing the emptiness of reflecting on the concept of pure being. "The doctrine of the Trinity does not affirm the logical nonsense that three is one _, and one is three ; it describes in dialectical terms the inner movement of the divine life as an eternal separation from itself and return to itself." 1Ql It describes the movement of God going out from Himself in the Son and returning to Himself in the 97

98 99

100 101

Loe. cit.

Ibid., p. 56. The Protestant Era, p. xxviii ; 206-7. Ibid., p. 56. Loe. cit.

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Spirit. "In His Son, God separates Himself from Himself, and in the Spirit He reunites Himself with Himself." 102 In this description of the Trinity Tillich uses an Hegelian triad to explain that which makes God dynamic and living. 103 He calls it a "symbolic" way of speaking but this does not mean that it is not a correct way of speaking of God since the only thing that can - he claims - be said of God that is not symbolic is that He is Being-Itself. 104 This means that to speak of God going out of Himself and returning to Himself is as definite as anything else we can say which describes God. It is then, we could say, just as definite for Tillich as to say for example that God creates, or He sustains, or He loves. Tillich, as already seen, uses an Hegelian triad, to explain the problem of evil - that is in his rationalistic development of it namely Being, Non-Being and Power of Being, and here in his explanation of the Trinity he uses another Hegelian triad for the Trinity - God or Being, God going out from Himself in the Logos and God returning to Himself in the Spirit. If it should be argued at thispoint that he is not actually speaking of the three hypostases in the Trinity when he describes the "inner movement of the divine life" as dialectic - and this is very possible in view of the fact that he tries to distinguish between his presentation of the "three principles" and the doctrine of the Trinity - this would be difficult to maintain, since in this context he makes it clear that this is a dialectical presentation of the Trinity. 105 It is his explanation of what would be otherwise "logical nonsense" namely "three is one and one is three", but which is not logical nonsense but a dialactical expression of the internal life of the Trinity, that is of the three hypostases. 3

The abyss in God

In his description of the first principle, that principle which corresponds to God the Father, Tillich speaks of this as the "unapproachable intensity of his being" 106 but says that, "without the second principle the first principle would be chaos, burning fire but it would not be the creative ground. Without the second principle God is demonic . . . " 107 There is an Abyss of inex102 103 104

Love Power and Justice, p. 107. Systematic Theology, p. 56. Paul Tillich, The Theology of Paul Tillich, "Reply to Interpretation and Criticism", p. 334. "'The unsymbolic statement which implies the necessity of religions symbolism is that God is being itself, and as such beyond the subject-object structure of everything that is." This he regards as the only unsymbolic thing which can be said of God. 10 5 Systematic Theology, p. 56. 106 Ibid., p. 250. 107 Ibid., p. 251.

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haustibility and chaos in the first principle which needs to be controlled. In other words there appears in Tillich at this point an irrational element. He has a very rationalistic explanation of the dynamic in God and of evil based upon the triad of Being, Non-Being and the Power of being - that is rationalistic in the sense that it is .based upon an Hegelian triadic dialectic - but there is also this irrational element of the Abyss in God and of a contradictory quality which he finds in God himself. There is still the same idea of the "abyss", "inexhaustibility", "the demonic" in God as he had in Das Damonische, 108 only that today it is definitely con­ nected with the "first principle" in the Godhead. It would undoubtedly prove a very interesting and worth while study to trace the background and the history of this irrational principle in Tillich's concept of God, but that must be left for a fuller study, possibly later, since it would divert our attention too much from the purpose of this dissertation. We must limit ourselves to a brief consideration of it's origin. The important point for our present analysis is that it is clear that Tillich is still presenting a view of God which contains the same irrational element as he had in his earlier German period. The main difference consists in the fact that, while he formerely s poke of the Abyss in God as the source of the demonic - and gave the demonic personal qualities in at least a metaphorical sense - he now _ makes the demonic simply the abstract quality of anything which asserts itself as ultimate. 109 Nevertheless the Abyss still remains in his concept of God, and God as the first principle would still have been de·monic except that He has gone out from Himself in the Logos and returned to Himself in the Spirit. It will help to grasp the significance of the phenomena of this irrational element of the Abyss in God if it is borne in mind that Tillich found this, as mentioned, in Schelling and Boih.me and that he also had seen a similar thought in Rudolf Otto's Das Heilig·e. In his introduction to The Theology of Paul Tillich he acknowledges the impact which Otto's book The idea of the Holy, (Dias Heilige) had upon him and says, "When I first read Rudolf Otto's Idea of the Holy, I understood it immediately . . . it determined my method in the philosophy of religion . . . Equally important . . . were the mystical, sacramental and aesthetic implications of the idea of the holy . . . " 110 Otto stresses in his book that there are two strong lines of "development" concerning the conception of God, one of which is entirely rational and the other "non-rational", and heads ios

109 1 10

Cf. Post. p.

Das Damonische, pp. 10-1 1. The Theology of Paul Tillich, p. 6.

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one of the chapters of his book "The two process-es of development''. He ends chapter XII with the statement, "It will be the task for contemporary Christian teaching to follow in his ( Schleiermacher's, A. K. ) traces and again to deepen the rational meaning of the Christian conception of God by permeating it with its non-rational elements." 111 And then he opens his discussion of "The Two Processes of Development" with the statement, "This permeation of the rational with the non-rational is to lead, then, to the deepening of our rational conception of God . . . we must always understand by it the numinous completely permeated and saturated with elements signifying rationality, purpose personality, morality." Otto sees the "non-rational" development of the idea of God as starting in the first place in an a priori feeling in the mind concerning the numinous in God, and becoming "schematized" by the a priori rational components of the mind, or, as he expresses it, "The 'holy' in the fullest sense of the word is a combined, complex category, the combining elements being its rational and non-rational components. But in both . . . it is a pur-ely a priori category." 112 As has been already seen in the chapter on "Truth" Tillich also sees Philosophy as having a dual development. There was the methodical-rational line to .b e seen in Plato, Descartes, Kant and Western Philosophy and the metaphysical-irrational line to be seen in Bohme, Schelling and Luther. Tillich tried to combine and make a synthesis of the two. This fitted in with what he had found in Otto of the two lines of development of the concept of God, and the schematization and synthesis which Otto maintained ought to be worked out between the rational and the non-rational developments of the concept of God. Tillich has clearly incorporated both the rational and the irrational or "non-rational" into his concept of God, and when compared with Otto there seems good reason to conclude that he has, in this, been most definitely influenced by him as well as by Bohme and Schelling. In his later works he gives just enough stress to the non-rational element in God to make it clear that it remains a part of his doctrine of God, evil, creativeness and sin. The main example of a "two process development" in Tillich's theology is his solution of the problem of evil and the two ex­ planations, namely that it is caused by "the demonic" ( the "non­ rational" development) and that it is caused by Non-Being ( the rational development) . It is this which is reflected in his ex­ planation of the problem of the Trinity, because he has a non111 112

The Idea of the Holy, p. 108.

Ibid., p. 112 .

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rational element in God, - namely the Abyss which we are now considering - in which God is consuming fire, demonic etc., except for the presence of the second principle or the Logos, combined with a rational triadic dialectical explanation. Schelling's and Bohme's ideas of the Abyss, the Abgrund, are the basis the "non-rational" element in his doctrine of the Trinity. 4 Some difficulties

A real difficulty arises when it is seen that Tillich ends with two explanations for the dynamics and creativity of God. Already in his exposition of the triad Being, Non-Being and Power of Being he had claimed that it was Non-Being which made God dynamic. "Nonbeing makes God a living God. Wjthout the No he has to overcome in himself and in his creature, the divine Yes to himself would be lifeless." 1 13 But now he states that it is the dialectic within the Godhead, that is within the three hypostases which makes God creative. He writes, of the third principle in the Trinity and its relation to the other two: "It makes them creative." 1 14 There thus develops either a contradiction or an unnecessary reduplication between the functions of Non-Being and the function of the Spirit in God in that they both perform the same function - The Spirit and Non-Being both make God dynamic and creative ! Unless we are to say that Non-Being makes God dynamic and that then, and only then can the Spirit make him creative ? We are convinced that for Tillich they are both parts of the same thing, namely of the inner movement of the life of God. He apparently sees no inconsistency between the two but regards them as necessary in order to express all that is contained in his concept of God. Just how would he put them into one picture of God ? Probably in the following manner: There is the one monistic principle of God or Being and in logical posterity to it there is the principle of Non-Being, which is dependent upon Being for its existence as the contradiction depends upon that which it contradicts, and can not exist except as a contradiction. Non-being receives its very characteristics from Being to the extent that the negation depends upon what it negates for its character. It is Non­ being which brings the monistic principle of being into movement and makes it active and dynamic. After being made dynamic by Non-Being, Being develops a movement within itself which consists The Courage to Be, p. 180. Cf. Systematic Theolo[! Y, p. 56. "I � trans­ static ontology behind the logical system of Aristotle and his follo­ the forms wers into a dynamic ontology . . . " 114 Systematic Theology, p. 251. 1 13

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in an eternal going out from itself and returning to itself. ___rp.at which goes out from Being and separates from it is Reason or the Logos. If Being did not separate from itself it would remain chaos, burning fire, inexhaustibility and would not become the creative ground, "Without the second principle God is demonic, is characterized by absolute seclusion, is the 'naked absolute' (Luther) ." 115 The second principle is the going out of God from Himself - that is if the two explanations really can be fitted together as we are attempting to do. As the second principle returns into God there is produced a third principle or the Spirit. "As actualization of the other two principles, the Spirit is the third principle." ns This makes Him the living God. "The statement that God is Spirit means that life as spirit is the inclusive symbol for the divine life." 117 As Spirit He is the unity of power (the first principle ) and meaning, the Logos or second principle. God is thus dynamic within Himself and creative. A greater difficulty arises over the two explanations of evil. If evil is due to a principle which is not distinctly a part of God, such as Non-Being, then it can be maintained that God is not the author of evil, but if there is evil in God himself how is it possible to main­ tain that he is not the cause of evil? If Tillich could confine all that is evil to Non-Being he would not have to admit any evil in God but when he speaks -of the first principle in God as chaos, consuming fire, the Abyss, inexhaustibility, except for the tempe­ ring effect of the .second principle, he greatly complicates his con­ cept of God and implies there is evil in Being-Itslf ! This non­ rational element in God is clearly a part of Tillich's concept of Being and therefore it must be remembered that it is a part of his view of the Trinity. In this specultative view of the Trinity we have seen that God is explained in a unitarian manner. Tillich starts with the one principle Being-Itself and sees this as becoming dynamic by means of Non-Being. Dynamic Being-Itself next divides from itself or goes out from itself in the principle of the Logos, a principle of meaning and reason, and as it returns to itself produces the prin­ ciple of Spirit. Non-Being makes the unitarian principle of Being 115 116

Systematic Theology, p. 251. Loe. cit. 117 Ibid., p. 250. Cf. Love Power and .Justice, p. 107: "In his Son, God separates Himself from Himself, and in the Spirit He reunites Himself with Himself." Tillich continues, "This, of course, is a symbolic way of speaking . . ." but when we remember that according to him we can only speak of God symbolically it follows that it is nevertheless not an incorreet way of speaking of God. The only correct way according to him is symbolical speaking of God. This citation proves clearly that when he speaks of God going out from Himself and returning to Himself in his Systematic Theology on p. 56, he is speaking of the Trinity and of the Father' the Son' and the Holy Spirit.

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dyna_mi�, and _ the_ dialecticaLprocess which .follows__within Being makes Him creative so that as a result there is man and the universe. Non-Being in itself, when not abso�bed by Being, is _destructive and evil. Being once made dynamic is chaos and con­ suming fire until it passes through the dialectical process of Being, Logos of Being, and Spirit. After this process Being becomes creative and there results the world and man. This is Tillich's speculative explanation of God and the Trinity.

CHAPTER VI

THE DOCTRINE OF CHRIST Tillich's ontological theology comes to its crowning and most important question in his doctrine of Christ. Unfortunately we are faced with certain difficulties at this point due to the fact that only Volume I of his Systemiatic Theology is yet available at the time of this writing, and since it is in the first part of the second volume that he will consider ' 'Existence and Christ" and develop fully his doctrine of Christ. The first volume takes up parts one and two of his theological system and expounds the propositions which he used to give to his students in systematic theology under the headings of: "Reason and Revelation'', and "Being and - God" ( called "Being and the Question of God" in Vol. I). The Second Volume will take up the third and fourth parts of his system and expound the propositions which were considered under the hea­ dings of: "Existence and Christ", and "Life and the Spirit". There is a fifth part, which might well form a third volume, which will actually be his eschatology, and which he calls, "History and the Kingdom of God". 1 This means that the second volume will be dealing with the doctrines of Christ and of salvation. In his study of "Existence and Christ" he will take up man's existential state, his estrangement and sin, "the question implied in this situation" , and the idea and the actuality of Christ, and this, he maintains, will be presented in true existential manner so that existence poses the question and revelation and theology give the answers. 2 In "Life and the Spirit" he will take up a study of "life" which is "complex and dynamic" and a mixture of essenital characteristics -what man ought to be and is in the mind of God-and existen­ tial characteristics-what man is in his estrangement in existence. This study raises the question concerning the ambiguities of life "and is must give the answer which is spirit". 3 All of this would

1 Systematic Theology, pp. 66-7. There are indications that he will actually have a "triology", of which this will form the third part or Volume III. Time magazine writes, "his lifework is a formidable triology of which only the first part has appeared . . . " Time, Oct. 17, 1955, p. 47. The last part of The Interpretation of History gives much of his eschatology. 2 Ibid., p. 66. 3 Ibid., p. 67.

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be very pertinent at this point, together with what will also be contained in his eschatological climax. However our task is not so impossible as this might make it appear since Tillich has already written much on all the subjects which will be considered in this second volume, both in his other books and in separate articles, and since some of the most impor­ tant of his propositions concerning the doctrine of Christ have been already quoted by others, and thus been made available for the public. 4 Besides this there is a surprising amount of pertinent material to be found even in Volume I. When collected this gives ample material for our study, particularly since-though this is the key doctrine in any theology-nevertheless it only forms a part of our present study. 1

Christ formed by the union of a human person with the Divine

Tillich has much to say about the complete union between Jesus and God or Jesus and the Logos-a union which makes Jesus "The Christ"-but he does not mean by what he says about this union that Jesus of Nazareth is the Christ in any real sense. Jesus was a man who so surrendered himself to the divine, the Logos, that he finally became completely united with it, and it was only then that He became "The Christ". He surrendered Himself con­ stantly to God in his life and finally in his death on the cross, and in so doing surrendered Himself as Jesus to "Jesus as the Christ". The Incarnation does not begin with the birth of Jesus of Naza­ reth but is inaugurated by the complete "transparency" of the man Jesus to God, and the resulting union with the Logos, together with a constant and complete surrender of Himself as Jesus as a man. The Incarnation is then a process which develops with the growing union between Jesus and the Logos. Jesus was a man, and at the time of his birth was in no sense a divine person come down from heaven or from God. Tillich does not say this in so many words, but he does nevertheless teach it -as will be seen in this chapter. It is stated at this point so as to better orientate the reader to what he clearly means in his doctrine of Christ, when he speaks either of Jesus "becoming" the Christ or of "Jesus who is the Christ". There are places at which it is easy to become confused, however, and to be momentarily convin4 Odd propositions have been quoted by several _of the writers of The '!'he? ­ logy of Paul Tillich : particularly in regard to Christ by A. T. Mollegan m his article "Christology and Biblical Criticism in Tillich", pp. 230-244 ; and the Church, in that by Nels Ferre in "Tillich's vieV: of the Churc�", PP : 248-26.� . L. J. van der Lof in his dissertation on De Figuur van Christus in de VriJ­ zinnige A merikaanse Theologie, Chapter VIII, "Paul Tillich en Rei ��old Niebuhr", pp. 10 1-112, also gives some of the most important propositions Tillich uses in his class lectures in Systematic Theology.

THE D O C TR I N E OF CHRIST 144 ced that he does not really hold such an unorthodox view but actu­ ally teaches that God became man in Jesus Christ. When his con­ cept of the Logos, as given in the section on "The Trinity", is kept in mind, together with the things which follow in this present chapter, it proves clear that these are only places where he speaks in general and inclusive terms and that they do not change the clear outlines of his concept of Jesus becoming "The Christ". First of all, the personality of Jesus is that of a man. The second person of the Trinity has not come down from heaven and taken upon Himself the nature of a man-this is impossible in Tillich's ontology since, as already seen, there are not three real persons in the Godhead, but only three hypostases which he defines as three "faces" or "manifestations" of the divine being, three "descrip­ tions in dalectical terms" of "the inner movement of the divine life", as an "eternal separation from itself and an eternal return to itself". 5 This view of the "three principles" or three "faces" rules out the possibility entirely that any Divine person can come down from heaven as a person and become incarnate in a man, taking upon Him a human nature but not assuming a human person -there is no Second person to come down from heaven. By this view of the Trinity he has put himself in such a position that he cannot accept the Biblical Reformed doctrine of the Incarnation. He has no heavenly person or persons who can become incarnate in man, he has only Being or the Power of Being, or the Logos, or the Spirit, but none of these are persons. The personality of Christ must therefore be found in man. If he found it in God, in any way whatsover, he would be making God into a person and thus into an object amongst objects-according to his transcenden­ talist thinking-and God would cease to be God in that He would cease to be infinite. Because of such reasoning he is forced to make· the personality of Jesus a human personality. The following citation shows something of how he deals with the problem of the two natures of Christ and also proves that he sees in Christ only a human person. "The older Christology was concerned exclusively with the problem of "nature" . . . Yet even here a universal view, embracing all temporal events whose center is the appeariance of divine nature in the human personality of the historical Jesus was pr,esupposed." 6 He does not seem to consider the discussion of the natures of Christ a matter of great importance. The important thing is "the appearance of the divine nature in the 'human per­ sonality' of the historical Jesus". This, and his view of an imperso­ nal God, make it clear and beyond dispute that for him Christ's person is human. 5 6

Systematic Theology, p. 56. The Interpretation of History,

wirklichung", p. 110.

p. 242. Translated from "Religiose Ver­

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At the same time Tillich objects to the great emphasis that is placed upon the person of Jesus, and it is natural that he would object to a human person being stressed, both since that was a characteristic of old Liberalism and since he has a theory that Jesus in becoming "The Christ" became divine. Liberalism stres­ sed the human personality of Jesus, and maintained that Christ was the greatest man that ever lived, but it could only make him into a great man, and Tillich wants to escape its errors and to make Him truly divine. "We must recognize the inadequacy," he says 'of Protestant Personalism' and overcome the tendency to focus attention on the so-called 'personality" of Jesus instead of on the New Being that he expresses in his person". 7 If Jesus were a divine person then we can see that it would be fitting to empha­ size his person, but the human person of Tillich's ontology cannot bear such an emphasis. It must be surrendered by Jesus and there­ fore passed over by us. The stress must be placed on what he did-brought the New Being into existence-and on what he be­ came-"Jesus who is the Christ". We can readily see that a human person does not bear emphasis. Throughout Tillich's theology there is a constant effort to establish the uniqueness 'of Christ, and Tillich well knows that it is difficult to maintain the uniqueness of a Ghrist who is only a human person, and therefore places all his emphasis upon Jesus becoming divine, and his becoming "The Christ", while diverting attention from the "human personality of the historical Jesus". 8 The question must naturally arise as to whether Tillich has produced a doctrine of Christ that makes Him anything more than the Jesus of the Liberals. After all his Christ is only a man who was more "transparent" to the divine than any of his predecessors amongst the Old Testament saints. His Jesus is only quantitatively different from other believers, while his great stress upon Jesus becoming "The Christ" is an herculean effort to prove that the human person Jesus could progress from a quantitative difference from other men to a qualitative difference and become divine. The personality of Jesus is a human personality and Tillich objects to any emphasis being placed upon it. All the stress must be placed on the New Being as realized and revealed in Christ. There must be an end of "Jesusology". 9 The paradox of Christia­ nity is that Jesus of Nazareth is identified with the divine Logos, that "the mediator between God and man is identical with a 7

The Protestant E�a, p. 124-5. . . . s This will receive more stress in Vol II where he will deal spec1f1cally with Christ and in his last part on "History and the Kingdom of G?d" where he will deal with eschatology and present his arguments for Christ as the center of history. o Systematic Theology, p. 136.

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10 personal human life the name of which is Jesus of Nazareth ". It is not that a divine person is come down from heaven, but that a human person has been made divine. How does Tillich endeavor to make his Christ into a divine being ? Is there something whioh he can use as a stepping stone from the old view of Liberalism, that Christ was just a man more conscious of God than the average, to the view that though Christ was only a man still at the Cross He really became divine and thus became "The Christ" ? Yes, Tillich uses what he names the "Infra­ Lutheranum" for this purpose. 11 The Extra-Calvinisticum main­ tained he says that "the finite is not capable of the infinite ( non capax infiniti) , and that consequently in Christ the two natures, the divine and the human, remained outside each other". 1� But the "Infra-Lutheran um" maintained that the finite is capable of the infinite and that therefore there is a mutual indwelling of the two natures, and thus theologically affirmed "the vision of the presence of the infinite in everything finite". 13 It is this view that the in­ finite can indwell the finite, a view which is reflected in the Lutheran doctrine of the ubiquity of Christ's body in the Lord's Supper-that His body partook of the qualities of His divine nature and therefore Christ is actually present "in, under and with'' the elements-which Tillich takes as a warrant for claiming that Jesus was only a human person but that he could and did nevertheless become divine. Luther, and the Lutheran Confessions, certainly had not meant to suggest that Christ was anything but the very Son of God, the second person of the Trinity, but Tillich overlooks that and adopts the view that "the finite is capable of infinity" in order to prove an entirely different possibility. He wants to be able to prove that the finite is able to partake of the infinite in order to be able to maintain that a human being, a man with a human personality, could surrender all that is human and finite in himself and become so filled with and united with the divine that he himself became divine. He needs to be able to prove this in order to have a Christ since he starts with a Jesus who is wholly human in every respect. This is a very interesting develop­ ment of the "lnfra-Lutheranum" for Tillich starts his doctrine of Christ at the same place as the Liberals, and using this Lutheran view maintains that such a Jesus could becomedivine, so divine that he could be called by anticipation "the man from heaven" and the "Son of God" and receive titles never offered to any but God Him­ self. No heavenly person came down from heaven and returned ·' 10

Ibid., p. 229. The Theology of Paul Tillich, p. 5. Tillich has invented this term to express Luther's position in contrast to the Reformed view. 12 Loe. cit. 13 Loe. cit. 11

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only "essential God-manhood"-that is man as he ought to be and was before the Fall and is still in the mind of God in union with God-was united with existential manhood in a human person called Jesus, who, by a process of self-surrender, was becoming "The Christ". As Tillich puts it in one of his theological proposi­ tions, "The symbols of the 'pre-existence' and 'post-existence' of Christ express the characteristic of 'Essential God-manhood' of being above time and its eternal root in the godly self-objectifica­ tion or the principle of the Logos. They must be protected against b•eing turned into a myth of a godly person who deseiended from and ascended to a heavenly place." 14 This "Essential God-man­ hood" came down in the form of the Logos and became united with a human person. Tillich does not make it too clear just what is the relationship between "Essential God-manhood" and the Logos. In one place in his Systematic Theology he speaks of man in his essential being existing in the mind of God, and when so speaking he seems to resort to a pure Idealism in the sense that what exists in the mind of God is a reality-even though man has already fallen and is no longer what he was, essential manhood exists in God's mind and is therefore a reality. 15 By a resort to idealism the idea in God is regarded as a reality and man is seen as fully united in an "Essential God-manhood", and this in turn is united in the Incarnation in existence with the human person Jesus. The principle of reason, the Logos, in which "Essential God-man­ hood" has its root, at the same time became united with Jesus, and he was thus made entirely and wholly divine. When conside­ ring this explanation of the Incarnation it is important to keep in mind that, as he puts it, ' 'The symbols of 'pre-existence' and 'post-existence' . . . must be protected against being turned into a myth of a godly person who descended from and ascended to a heavenly place." There is only one person involved in the Incar­ nation for Tillich, namely a human person who became so "transparent" to the "divine mystery" and who so completely surrendered 16 himself that he ceased to be Jesus, as a human 14 L. J. van der Lof, De Figuur van Christus in de Vrijzinnige Ameri­ kaanse Theologie, (Arnhem, Van Loghum Slaterus, 1949) , p. 1 0 2 (Italics. ours) , Quoted from Paul Tillich's Systematic Theology, Notes Part three, "Existence and the Christ" - stencilled propositions - p. 19. 15 Systematic Theology, p. 255. "In the creative vision of God the individual i s present in his essential being and inner telos . . . " Ti � lich ad� its that he is an idealist so far as knowledge goes in The Interpretation of History, p. 60, "I am an idealist if idealism means the assertion of the identity of thinking and being as the principle of truth." But he doe � not at that place see it_ as applying to other realms of reality. Since he considers t�at su1?Ject and obJect are united in God's knowledge completely he can easily swmg over to an idealism and say that the thought of man as essential being in God is reality. This is what he appears to do with this concept of "Essential God-manhood". 16 Systematic Theology, pp. 133-4.

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person, and became "Jesus who is the Christ" or a divine person. There is in Tillich an Adoptionist tendency in that the Logos principle in God becomes united with a human person, but it is not full Adoptionism since no "godly person descended from and ascen­ ded to a heavenly place". The only person involved was a human person called Jesus. Tillich has what Kuyper classed as a certain humanization of God in which the essence of God became mani­ fest in a human being, 17 (except that in Tillich's theory only one aspect of the being of God, the Logos principle, was involved) . The assertion that there is "no assumption of a human per­ son" 18 in the Incarnation of Christ would prove utterly destructive to Tillich's theorv, because it is the very claim that Christ is a human person which is so important to his view. God is not a person ;:md the Logos is not a person in the Godhead but a prin­ ciple in God, and therefore the personality of Christ must be found in a human Jesus. The remarkable thing with this theory of Tillich's is, that it is not a person in the Godhead that assumes the human personality, but the essence of the Godhead or one of the manifestations of God, namely the principle of the Logos or of Reason. It is most important to him therefore to be able to argue that the human is capable of infinity or of the divine, in other words that the human nature of Christ can be so impregnated with the divine that it can come to have the very nature of the divine. If this were not so then the human person Jesus could not become for him a divine person, and could not come into such a close union with God as that which he so often describes when speaking of "Jesus who is the Christ." A further indication that Jesus is only a human person for Tillich can be seen in the fact that he is ascribed the position and autho­ rity of someone who is only conditional and fallible. It j_s the place of things, when they become the mediums of revelation as sacra­ mental objects, to retain their position as mediums and not to assume individual ultimacy, because when something conditional claims to be unconditioned it becomes demonic. "The claim of any­ thing finite to be final in its own right is demonic." 19 It would have been demonic therefore, Tillich maintains, for Christ to have claimed that his words, traditions or individual piety, his. world 17 Kuyper, Vleeschwording des Woords, p. 72. "You often hear spoken by a group of them, not of the Word becomin g flesh, but of God becoming man ; thus of a self revelation of the Being of God in a man, apart from a further mention of the difference between the Triune Being and the person of the Son." In Tillich's dynamic view of the Trinity it is the presence of God in the form of the Logos in Christ which makes Him divine ; The Being of God is present in a man but particularly in His appearance as Reason or Logos. 18 Ibid. The heading of chapter 8 in this book was : "Geen Menselij ke persoon aangenomen." 19 Systematic Theology, p. 134.

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view or his ethics were final revelation. w All of these as a part of his whole life, and he Himself, must be completely surrendered to God. Two things were necessary for him to become "The Christ", first that ":he become transparent to the mystery he reveals", 2 1 and secondly, that he completely possess himself and be able therefore to "surrender Himself completely". "Only he can possess-and therefore surrender-himself completely who is united with the ground of his being and meaning without separation and disruption." 2-i It was then Christ's complete "trans­ parency" to the Logos or to God, and his complete surrender of everything belonging to his finitude, which enabled the Logos to so infill him as to make him divine. He was a medium of revelation but as every other medium he must not raise Him­ self to the position of revelation itself. As the bearer of the final revelation he must "Surrender his finitude-not only his life but also his finite power and knowledge and per/ection". 23 In other words all that pertained to Christ, in that he was a human perso­ nality (his finite power, his knowledge and even his perfection) together with his "special traditions" and "individual piety" and "conditioned world view", along with "any legalistic understand­ ing of his ethics", were things which he surrendered to God and from which therefore we are delivered from his authority. 23 a This works in two directions: first to prove that nothing in the life of Jesus was infinite in itself, and secondly to show that therefore we are not held responsible to look upon him as an authority in knowledge piety or ethics. This is another strong indication that Jesus-so far as Tillich is concerned-is only a fallible human person. What then of the places in which Tillich speaks of Christ bemg in unity with God and uses such terms as "the basic unity between Jesus and the 'Father"', and, "the presence of God in him which makes him the Christ", and, "his complete transparency to the ground of being", and, "Jesus maintained unity with God". -i4 Do such expressions not seem to point to a real Incarnation of Christ the eternal Son of God ! Do they not prove that only · a human nature and not a whole human person was assumed by the Logos as the second person of the Trinity ! Tillich speaks in terms similar to these in many places including an article on, "A Reinterpre­ tation of the Doctrine of the Incarnation" in which he states that 20

Loe. cit. Ibid., p. 133. 2 :l Loe. cit. 23 Loe. cit. we are liberated from 2.3a Loe. cit. " For us this means that in following him etc. the authority of everything finite in him, from his special traditions", 2 4 Ibid., pp. 135-6. 21

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the New Testament does not affirm that God becomes a man "but that a divine being, either the heavenly man, or the pre-existent Christ, or the divine Logos appeared in the shape of a physical man or a man in the flesh. The stat,ement is not that God became man: but that a divine being with human characteristics, the spiri­ tual or heavenly man, or a moral being who chooses self-humi­ liation, or the creative Reason and Word, appears in time and space . . ." 25 In this quotation it is to be noticed that several things are said about Christ which are contradictory. Two things seem almost to suggest that Tillich regards him as a divine person, namely "the· pre-existent Christ" and "creative reason and the word" but at the same time one thing denies this namely that "the statement is not that God became man". It is a very mixed de­ scription but is clarified by the closing sentence, "The statement does not mean that God becomes man". What this does really amount to is that a man called Jesus beoame divine and that therefore all these descriptions can be applie·d to him. The very mention of the Logos is most significant in this quotation since the Logos is not a person but only the "second principle" in God for Tillich: this therefore in itself makes it clear that such a descrip­ tion has nothing to do with a divine person becoming man. All that Tillich is really saying in such a description of Christ is that the unity which he has with God, which makes him into "The Christ", together with the presence of God in him, is so real that he becomes divine and the transmitter of the New Being to man. It is not that the New Being has not appeared at all before. Wri­ ting on Tillich Mollegan says: "The New Being in Christ there­ fore fulfills every partial and broken appearance of essential being in prophets, thaumaturges, saints and martyrs. They are all pre­ paratory and expectant revelations which point to Him." 26 Jesus is not the first man who became transparant to the divine. "Reve­ lation can occur through every personality which is transparent for the ground of being." 27 Every saint to some degree then has been transpavent to the divine and a revealer of the New Being. What distinguishes Jesus from the prophets and saints is that he had a complete and they only a partial transparency. It is a quan­ titative difference. In order to understand Tillich's view of Christ, Jesus has been first considered with particular attention to the problem of his person. And now, before considering him from the standpoint of 25 Paul Tillich, "A Reinterpretation of the Doctrine of the Incarnation", Church Quarterly Review, Vol. 147, No. 2·9 4, Jan-March, 1949, pp. 113-48. Italics ours. 26 A. T . Mollegan, "Christology and Biblical Criticism in T illich", The Theology of Paul Tillich, p. 241. 27 Systematic Theology, p. 121 .

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the Logos-from the viewpoint of his divinity-it is important to consider Tillich's view of Him as an historical person. Following this will be considered how Jesus "became" Christ-how he gained divinity in union with the Logos-and the chapter will conclude with a consideration of what was accomplished by "Jesus as the Christ". 2

The historicity of Christ

What about Jesus as an historical person ? Tillich was a student under Martin Kahler and was greatly influenced by his views of the historicity of Christ. Kahler had written a booklet called, Der sogenannte historische Jesus und der geschichtliche biblische Christu..'f, in which he maintained that it is impossible to construct a historical biography of Christ-we do not have a biography of Christ, but rather an account given by his disciples and the early church expressing their faith in Him. "The risen Lor.d is not the historical Jesus behind the Gospels, but the Christ of apostolic preaching of the whole New Testament." 28 It is not the so-called historical Jesus of which we have a recor,d. There is no historical record of Jesus but rather we have the record of the Jesus of history as we find him pictured in the faith of the early believers. Tillich was confirmed in Kahler's viewpoint by the reading of Albert Schweitzer's book The Quest of the Historic:a l J, esus. 29 It is on the basis of what he has accepted from Kahler and Schweitzer that Tillich can say that Christ is only a probability and at that "a very faint probability", 30 and that he puts his stress upon the ' 'picture" of Christ while rejecting the idea that the Gospels give us a real historical record of Him. "The foundation of Christian belief is not the historical Jesus but the Biblical picture of Christ." 3 1 Not the historical recor.ds concernnig Christ but the interpretation of Christ given by the apostles is the foundation of Christian belief. The Christ of history is the Christ as inter­ preted in the faith of the early Christians. Tillich is not trying to say, it seems clear, that there was no historical Christ, and no events which could have been photo­ graphed or words which could have been recorded, but that we do not have such a history, nor such a picture, nor such records of Christ. The history of Christ has not been recorded in such 2s Martin Kahler, Der sogenannte historische Jesus und der geschichtliche biblische Christus, (Miinchen, Chr. Kaiser Verlag, 1953) p. 41. :'Der aufge­ standene Herr ist nicht der historische Jesus hinter der Evangehen, sondern der Christus der apostolischen Predigt, des ganzen Neuen Testamentes". 29 Albert Schweitzer, The Quest of the Historical Jesus. New York, 1910 . 30 The Interpretation of History, p. 265. "The exposition of those facts can probability (- "facts behind the rise of _the Biblic�l . Ch,; ist", A. K.) lend only and with respect to the historical Jesus, a very famt probab1hty. 31 Ibid., p. 34.

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a manner that we can have any historical certainty concerning Him and yet the interpretation given by the Apostles of their faith in Christ gives us a picture which corresponds and witnessed to an historical person. Christ was photographic, but we have no photographic picture of Him. After all the important thing, ac­ cording to Tillich's view of Christ, is not the historical human person called Jesus but the fact that he became "Jesus who is the Christ", namely that he was so filled with the divine that he became divine, and that in doing this he united man again with essential being-that is with what he ought to be-and overcame the estrangement between God and man. When Tillich calls his theology a "Kerugmatic" theology he means to distinguish between a kerugrna of eternal truth and a Biblical kerugrna. There is the Biblical kerugma of the New Testa­ ment writers which is their message about Christ and expresses the message of the faith of the Apostles and the early church in Christ, and there is the kerugma of eternal truth which he calls, "the unchangeable truth of the message (kerugma) ", 32 which is contained in the Bible but not identical with it. "This message is contained in the Bible but is not identical with the Bible." 33 A theological system is attained by a correlation between the eternal kerugma or "eternal truth"-found in the Bible but not identical with it-and the "temporal situation" at the time the system is stated. "A theological system is supposed to satisfy two basic needs : the statement of the truth of the Christian message and the interpretation of this truth for every generation. Theo­ logy moves back and forth between two poles, the eternal truth of its foundation and the temporal situation in which the eternal truth is received." 33 a It needs to be seen that this means that a theological system and Christian doctrine can and must change for Tillich with the times, that is as the "temporal situation" changes. The Biblical kerugma about Christ is only the interpretation of the apostles and of the early Church of Christ, and it is open to the evaluation and "interpretation" of theology in its search for the eternal truth. This gives some idea of how, with such a "Kerug­ matic Theology" Tillich can construct such a doctrine of Christ as is now being examined. Not only do the Gospels give only an Apostolic kerugma concer­ ning Christ but the message of the Bible and of the early Church comes to us in the form of myth and symbol. The New Testament needs to be "demythologized" that is the myths need to be identi­ fied as myth and then to .be interpreted. Tillich agrees with Rudolf 32 33 33 a

Systematic Theology,

Loe. cit. Ibid., p. 3.

p. 4.

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Bultmann's theory of the need for the "demythologization " of the New Testament, and it is possible that he feels that he is as much the inventor of this new art as Bultmann himself. The symbols them­ selves are not the product of man but they must be interpreted by man. "Theology as such has neither the duty nor the power to confirm or to negate religious symbols. Its task is to interpret them according to theological principles and methods." 34 3

Jesus the man and "Jesus who is the Christ"

What is Jesus' view of Himself ? According to Tillich he was careful not to raise himself to a place of ultimacy, and he rejected the possibility of being final in his own rights. "Jesus rejected this possibility as a satanic temptation, and in the words of the Fourth Gospel he emphasized that he had nothing in himself but that he had received everything from his father." 3 5 In the Cross he sacrificed the medium of revelation which his followers saw as Messianic. 36 The disciples tried to make him an object of idolatry by urging him to avoid sacrificing himself. They would have elevated the medium of revelation "to the dignity of revelation itself." 37 Jesus completely sacrificed himself to God in the Cross. "For us this means that in following him we are liberated from the author­ ity of everything finite", whether "his special traditions", or "his individual piety", or the conditioned world view, which he held, and from accepting his ethics in any legalistic manner. 38 What then is the real meaning and value of Christ's example ? "The final revelation does not give us absolute ethics, absolute doctrines, or an absolute ideal of personal and communal life." 39 When we make Christ into the giver of absolute laws, either for thinking or acting, we open the way either to revolutionary revolt or to "relativistic undercutting". The fear Tillich seems to be expres­ sing is that then Christ's laws and teachings become comparable with those of others they must become of relativistic worth. There is only one law which stands under the criterion of finality, namely the law of love. "The law of love is the ultimate law because it is the negation of law ; it is absolute because it concerns everything concrete. " 40 In other words everything that Jesus did and said is only relative and not final except for the law of love. He did not claim any "heteronomous authority" but said "He who 34 35

36 37 38

39 40

Ibid., p. Ibid., p. Loe. cit. Ibid., p. Ibid., p. Ibid., p. Ibid., p.

240. 134. 133. 134. 151. 152.

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believes in me does not believe in me . . . destroying any heterono­ mous interpretation of his divine authority". 40 a In this manner Tillich uses such a quotation from Scripture-and he uses very few in his whole Syst,ematic Theology-to prove that Jesus in himself does not have any final authority in his acts, his ethics, his knowledge or in his words. Like every other medium of reve­ lation, whether man or thing, he finally only points to what is ultimate, namely God. Speaking of the cross and Christ's "conti­ nuous acceptance of the cross" he says, "This sacrific,e is the end of 1all iatt.empts to impose him, as a finite being, on other finit,e beings. It is the end of J,esusology. Jesus of Nazareth is the medium

of the final revelation because he sacrifices himself completely to Jesus as the Christ." 41 The question naturally arises as to in what way Jesus, even as "The Christ", is different from others who have surrendered their lives. The answer which is given is that he possessed Himself com­ pletely and therefore he could surrender himself completely. "Jesus as the Christ" was so rooted in the Ground of Being that there was no separation and disruption. We might say that quantitati­ vely Jesus stands out ahead of other men in several ways, in the sense that he was more surrendered-so surrendered that he was entirely without separation and disruption-and that he was en­ tirely transparent to the Ground of Being-so transparent he finally became divine. Tillich would try to reason that this is a qualitative difference, but since he starts with a human persona­ lity in his doctrine of Christ how can it be more than a quantita­ tive one ? The reason why he thinks that he can maintain a quali­ tative difference is that he accepts the "Infra-Lutheranum" and therefore sees the finite as capable of the infinite, the human as capable of becoming the divine. He admits that an attitude such as this "it suspect of pantheism" on Calvinistic grounds, 42 but with his view that every man has something of the Ground of being in him, added to his view that · the finite is capable of in­ finity-the first of which is definitely pantheistic in nature and the second admitted by him to be "suspect of pantheism"-it can be seen how readily he can work out a theory of Christ in which a human being is made into a divine creature. It is also important to approach Tillich's doctrine of Christ from the standpoint of the Logos. As has already been seen the Logos is not a person but a principle within the Godhead, one of the faces or the manifestations of God. He calls the Logos and the other principles "moments within the process of the divine- life". 43 The 4 oa 41 42

43

Ibid., p. 148. Ibid., p. 136. Italics ours. The Theology of Paul Tillich, p. 5. Systematic Theology, p. 251. Cf. 56. "The doctrine of the Trinity . . .

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Logos represents the principle of reason in God. Tillich uses the words in John 1 : 14 "The Logos became flesh" as a proof that the Logos principle - as the principle of the universal -was unit­ ed with a man called Jesus - as the principle of what is concrete - in order to bring salvation. Salvation must come by something that represented everything universal and at the same time everything concrete. "The Logos which itself is the principle of universality" became manifest in "the event ' Jesus as the Christ"'. 44 The Incarnation must both be able to represent everything par­ ticular - in order to be "absolutely concrete" - and it must be able to represent everything abstract in order to be "absolutely universal" . Tillich claims that "this leads to a point where the 'absolutely concrete and the absolutely universal are identical' " 45 in the Logos who became flesh. In other words the problem of the one and the many was solved in Christ in that the Logos represented the universal ( the one) and Jesus represented the particulars ( the many) . In becoming "Jesus who is the Christ" he was united with the Logos and God. Arianism failed to be either universal or concrete. It deprived Christ of his absolute universality - he was not as much as God - and also of his absolute concreteness - he was more than man. "The half-God Jesus of Arian theology is neither universal enough nor concrete enough to be the basis of Christian theology." 4 6 It is not because of the denial of true diety to Christ that Tillich rejects Arianism but because Arius' Christ was neither God nor man. For Arius, as a created being he was not God, and as the created Logos he was more than man, while Tillich maintains Jesus was a man with a human personality who became divine and thus united God and man. How did Jesus become the Christ ? Jesus was in the first place only a human person who was "transparent" to the divine but he surrendered himself so completely and continually to "Jesus who is the Christ'' - and in doing this surrendered himself to God that he became divine. He was the one man who possessed himself completely and was therefore able to completely surrender himself. The final act of this surrender occurred in the Cross of Christ. "And only he can possess - and therefore surrender - himself completely who is united with the ground of his being and meaning without separation and disruption." Tillich sees the man Jesus as having become so totally united with the Ground of being or describes in dialectical terms the inner movements of the divine life as an eternal separation from itself and return to itself." 44 Ibid., p. 16. 45 Loe. cit. 46 Ibid., pp. 17-18.

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God that he could do this. 4 7 In other words the life of Christ is not the important thing, nor his keeping of the Law, nor His ethical code and commandments, nor what he said, but the fact that he surrendered himself as Jesus the man in order to become "Jesus who is the Christ". Tillich has a sermon entitled, "He who is the Christ", which he ends with the words, "To the crucified alone can we say 'Thou art the Christ !' ". 48 In this sermon he maintains that when Peter called Jesus the Christ the word Christ was "still a vocational title". 49 This agrees with Tillich's idea that Jesus became the Christ by a proc,ess of continual self-surremler which was finally consummated on the Cross. A. T. Mollegan, commenting upon this sermon, goes so far as to say, "Tillich says that Peter's confession at Caesarea Philippi was that of a preparatory faith which had to be negated by the Crucifixion and transformed by the Resurrection as well as affirmed." 50 He sees that with Tillich's view of Jesus only a "preparatory· faith" would have been possible for Peter, since it would not be possible to believe in the human person Jesus, but only in the Jesus who had finally become the Christ and a divine person at the Cross. A quotation from another sermon makes this even clearer. "As Jesus the man, Jesus is neither an authority nor an object of faith. None of His superior qualities . . . neither His religious life, nor His moral perfection, nor His profound insights - ma:ke Him an object of faith or the ultimate authority." 51 Christ does not judge anyone on the basis of his ultimate authority - if he did he would be a tyrant "imposing Himself and His greatness upon others". In other words, in ·Tillich's concept of Christ, Jesus did not have any inherent authority, nor was he an obj ect of faith, nor were any of his qualities of ultimate authority - it was only when he became the Christ that he could be believed in. Peter's faith and confession were only anticipatory. Tillich's feelings about Christ are such that he acknowledges that he cannot bring himself to pray to Jesus Christ. He says, "Many Christians, many among us, cannot find a way of joining honestly with those who pray to Jesus Christ. Something in us is reluctant . . . the fear of becoming idolatrous . . . the fear of looking at two faces instead of at the divine face." 52 The thought is that it would be impossible to pray to the human person Jesus or even 47 48

Ibid., p. 133. Paul Tillich, The Shaking of the Foundations, (London, S. C. M. Press, 1949), p. 148. 49 Ibid., p. 144. 50 A. T. Mollegan, "Christology and Biblical Criticism in Tillich", The Theology of Paul Tillich, p. 233. 51 Paul Tillich, The New Being, (New York, Chas. Scribner's Sons, 1955), p. 98. 52 Ibid., p. 99.

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to him after he became so united with God as to be called the "Son of God" and divine. How then are we to look at Christ ? There is nothing left in his face "which is Jesus of Nazareth" nothing which is the face of only one individual among others. Everything in Christ's face is transparent to the divine. "In the face of Jesus the Christ, God 'makes His face to shine upon us"'. 53 The idea he seems to be trying to express is that the human person Jesus of Nazareth has faded away and become so "transparent" to the divine that he has become divine, and that this was finally consummated by the surrender which ended in his death on the C ross. 4

The work of Christ

What did Jesus Christ accomplish by His life and His death upon the cross ? Tillich approaches this question from an existent­ ialistic viewpoint, starting from the experience of man in his present existential situation which is one of "disruption, conflict, self-destruction, meaninglessness, and despair in all realms of life". 54 Since his theology is based upon such an existential approach the answer which he develops is based upon the question arising out of man's experience. He states the question thus : "The queston arising out of this experience is not as in the Reformation, the question of a merciful God and the forgiveness of sins ; nor is it, as in the early Greek Church, the question of finitude, of death and error . . . It is the question of a reality in which the self-estrangement of our existence is overcQme, a reality of reconciliation and reunion, of creativity, meaning, and hope." 55 From this two things are clear : first that Tillich fits his view of Christ to his existential analysis of existence and man's present need, and secondly that the Christ which he develops upon this basis is one whose work it is not to satisfy the divine justice of God and make a provision whereby there can be the forgiveness ;of sins, but rather one who will overcome the estrangement of our existence, bring reconciliation, reunion, creativity, meaning and hope - he calls such a reality the "New Being". In other words Tillich rejects the idea of the doctrine of the substitutionary atonement, and presents a theory of reunion. Tillich is definitely opposed to any doctrine of satisfaction for "Sin by the death of Jesus Christ on the Cross and rejects even the use of the terms "Redemption" and "Satisfaction". "The symbol -0f 'redemption' applied to reconciliation points to a price which is paid for the freeing from existential slavery .by Christ as 63 54

.5 5

Ibid., p. 100. Systematic Theology, p. 49 . Loe. cit.

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mediator. The symbol 'satisfaction' applied to reconciliation points to a freeing from punishment by a meritorious work of the mediator. Both symbols originate in a quantitative legalistic understanding of the relationship between God and man and ought not to be used in the doc·trine ,of r, econciliation." 56 The truth in the Cross of Christ is the self-surrender of Christ to God and the need for man to surrender himself likewise to God. In the Cross God surrenders Himself to man, and man in turn must surrender himself to God. "The doctrine of reconciliation has a double interpretation in the cross of Christ: the cross is interpeted in the first place as a divine action or as an act in which the infinite surrenders itself to the finite. It is interpreted in the second place as a human action or as an action in which the finite surrenders itself to the infinite. The doctrine of Reconciliation is the description of this double movement." 5 7 When these two citations are compared it becomes very clear that he is pointing out that for him the doctrine of the Cross is not a matter of the satisfaction of divine justice, but, .both a divine act with the complete surrender of God to man as the infinite to that which is finite, and a human act with the surrender of Jesus to God as the finite to the infinite. Both acts, or perhaps we should say both sides of the same act, occur in Jesus Christ. Because of the two sides of his character - both being a human person and becoming a divine person - he can offer this double surrender. The union of the human personality in Christ and the divine through the infilling with the principle of the Logos is so complete that Tillich can call "Jesus who is the Christ" divine. As in Lutheran theology the humanity of Christ is completely permeated and taken up into the divine. The Cross is not a satisfaction for divine justice, an atonement for the sins of man, but this double act of complete surrender through Christ, or what he calls Reconciliation. A further quotation makes this even clearer: "The Cross of Christ cannot be understood as the merit of an individual 56 Van der Lof, De Figuur van Clvristus . . . , p. 104. Italics ours.: "Het symbool van de 'Ver lossing' op de Verzoening toegepast, wij st op een prij s, die betaald is voor de bevrijding van de Existentiele slavernij door de Christus als Middelaar. Het symbool van de 'Satisfactie' op de Verzoening toegepast, wij st op een bevrij ding van straf door een verdienstelijk werk van de Middelaar. Heide symbolen stammen af van het quantatief-legalistisch verstaan van de verhouding tussen God en mens en zouden niet gebruikt mogen worden in de leer van de Verzoening." ( Ibid., p. 2 1 ) . 57 Loe. cit. "De leer van de Verzoening heeft een dubbele vertolking van ��t Kruis v�n de Christus : Het Kruis wordt ten eerste vertolkt als een godde­ bJ ke ? a1: delmg of als e �n handeling waarin het oneindige zich overgeeft aan � et emd1ge. Het wordt m de tweede plaats vertolkt als een menselijke hande­ lmg of als een handeling waarin het eindige zich overgeeft aan het oneindige. De le � r van de Verzoening is de beschrijving van deze tweevoudige beweging." ( "Existence and Christ", stencilled propositions, p. 20 ) .

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man whose imitation is asked of each other man. No finite being is able to surrender himself to the infinite except in the unity of the New Being which precedes every special act of surrender, in Christ even as in all whom he represents." ·ss It is not satis­ faction which has been accomplished but the overcoming of the estrangement, the reuniting of the finite and the infinite by a mutual self-surrender. This has occurred in the life of the man called Jesus who in his complete self-surrender to God became so filled with the divine as to become divine Himself, the bearer of the "New Being" and the reconciler of both God to man and man to God. What then is justification? It is not based upon the satisfaction of Christ for our sins and our acceptance by God on the basis of what Christ has done on our behalf as a substitutionary atonement. The idea of a substitutionary atonement is entirely outside the "picture of Christ" which Tillich gives. Justification and regeneration are simply different descriptions of the same thing, namely of the reunion of the finite with the infinite through the overcoming of the estrangement between them. "Justification and regeneration are different descriptions of one and the same godly action : the reunion of the infinite with the finite under the conditions of their existential separation. Regeneration describes the action itself, Justification the paradoxal character of it." 59 Of justification he says: "Justification is the action of the godly life through which the judgement and self-destruction of existential being are revealed as the negative expression of Godly love and therefore as unable to prevent the reunion between the infinite and the finite in the New Being." ·00 In other words Justification reveals the fact that the judgment and destruction which are seen in everyday life, or the judgment of God and His punishment of evil, are only "the strange work of love" as Tillich expresses it 58 Ibid., p. 105. "Het Kruis van de Christus kan niet verstaan worden als de verdienste van een individuele mens, wiens navolging gevraagd wordt door ieder antler individueel mens. Want geen eindig wezen is in staat om zich op te offeren aan bet oneindige behalve in de eenheid van bet Nieuwe Zijn, dat vooraf gaat aan iedere speciale handeling van zelfovergave, in de Christus zo goed als in allen die h ij vertegenwoordigt." ("Existence and Christ", stencilled propositions, p. 22 . 59 Loe. cit. "De rechtvaard iging en Wedergeboorte zijn verschillende beschrijvingen van een en dezelfde goddelijke handeling : De hervereni ?'ing :'.�n het oneindige met bet eindige onder de voorwaarden van bun Ex1stenbele scheiding. De Wedergeboorte beschrijft de handeling zelf, de Rechtvaardiging, bet paradoxale karakter er van." ( "Existence and Christ", stencilled propositions, p. 23 ) . .. . 60 Loe. cit. "De Rechtvaardiging is de handelmg van het Goddel]J ke Leven, waardoor de veroordeling en Zelfvernietiging van het Ex ! �tenti_ele Zijn geopen­ baard wordt als de negatieve uitdrukking van de GoddehJ ke L1efde en daarom als ongeschikt om de hereniging tussen het oneindige en het eindige in het Nieuwe Z ij n te voorkomen." ("Existence and Christ", p. 22) .

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in other places, 0 1 and therefore are not able to prevent the reunion between the infinite and the finite. When God acts in j udgment against the sins of individuals He really acts in love in order to show them the futility of their actions and to bring them back to Himself ! Even Christ's death upon the Cross comes under this category. It becomes a typical example of what happens when God brings judgment upon those who resist Him, in order to bring them back to Himself. The whole stress in Tillich's view of the life of Christ and His death upon the Cross comes upon the idea of His complete surrender. It is not the perfect sinless life which He led that is of importance, because. Christ's active obedience is transformed into self-surrender. This can be seen in the following: "However, it is never a moral, intellectu_al, or emotional quality which makes him the bearer of a final revelation." 62 There is no Atonement but a Reconciliation in the sense of overcoming the estrangement between man and God through a surrender of God to man and of man to God in the death of Christ. In the picture of Christ crucified we look at "the rejection of the divine by humanity" as the divine surrenders to man, and see also that "the highest representatives of mankind are judged" 63 when Christ as man surrenders to the divine. The only way that this can be understood is that since Christ united the human and the divine He accomp­ lishes both acts in one. Speaking in existential Kierkegaardian terms of God's surrender to man he says, "Yet when the divine is rejected, It takes the rejection upon Itself." 64 The divine accepts "our crucifiction" and "our refusal to accept" and in doing this surrenders itself to us and conquers us. At this point Tillich is very close to teaching a substitutionary repentance. What we need to do in turn is first to accept ourselves and then to accept ourselves as accepted. Paul "found himself accepted in spite of his being rejected", in his experience on the Damascus road, in "the picture of Jesus as the Christ". 65 Christ becomes the "chosen" and the "rejected" one at this point in Tillich's view of the Cross. This aspect of the Cross is a part of his view of condemnation but not the central point of salvation. The central point for Tillich is the union of essential and existential being in Christ that is the event of a man Jesus becoming ''the Christ''. Tillich sees a tension between the love of God and the justice of God in the Anselmian doctrine of the Atonement, in which God 61 62 63

64 65

Love, Power and Justice, pp. 113-14. Systematic Theo logy, p. 135. The Shaking of the Foundations, p. 147.

Loe. cit. Ibid., p. 160.

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is made subject to a law of justice given by Himself. According to this classical view, God had to find a way which would not conflict with His merciful love to escape the consequences of His own retributive justice. Tillich rejects both the Anselmian view and the orthodox view of the substitutionary death of Christ on the Cross in one sentence : "The solution is the undeserved, substitutional death of the God-man, Jesus Christ." He says it remained the predominate doctrine of the atonement in Western Christianity, in spite of its "theological weakness", because of its psychological power. 66 It was correct to the extent that "ultimately love must satisfy justice" if it will be real love, but unsatisfactory because justice must be brought into unity with love if it is to "avoid the inj ustice of eternal destruction." 67 The unity of love and justice is accomplished for Tillich by making justice a part of Gods love - "the strange work of God's love". Tillich has his own view of condemnation and judgment which it is necessary to understand in order to grasp his view of the Cross of Christ. He explains that justice can be an act of love, as for example in the punishment of a young man who appears to be entering into a criminal career. If he did not receive punishment he would neither receive justice or love - leniency in such a case would not be love. '67 a But justice must be kept in unity with love and with the fact that love could not permit eternal punishment. Furthermore eternal punishment would be a defeat of God to the extent that there would then be something which He could not overcome. To affirm an eternal hell is to speak in eternal terms of something which is not temporal, and therefore such a concept is contradictory in its very nature. "Hell has being only in so far as it stands in the unity of the divine love." 68 "Ontologically, eternal condemnation is a contradiction in terms." '69 Eternal punishment in Hell would mean that there is an eternal split in Being-itself or God, and that "the demonic" had reached co-eternity with God. Eternity is a quality of God and of the divine life and cannot therefore be a quality of Non­ Being. Eternity can become a quality of individuals in the sense that they can have eternal life, but it is not possible to attribute eternity to a being which is separated from the divine life because of condemnation. "Where the divine love ends being ends." 70 Insofar as man can be united with Being-itself in the sense of having the New Being he can enjoy eternity. Temporality is joined Love, Power and Justice, p. 14. Loe. cit. 67 a Loe. cit. 68 Systematic Theology, p. 284. 09 Ibid., p. 285. 10 Ibid., p. 284.

66

t1 7

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THE DOCTRINE OF CHRIST

with eternity when man is in unity with God. The doctrine of immortality must be rejected because non-being cannot be eternal. Eternal life - not immortality - is the part of those who receive salvation, but those who insist upon rejection - if such is possible in his system - must pass away with the passing away of Non­ Being. 7oa ( This is his answer to universal salvation) . The very fact that being - and man is a part of being - is created out of nothing means it must return to nothing unless it becomes united with Being-itself. In this way Tillich implies that it would be possible for man to refuse indefinitely to be united with God to indefinitely resist reunion - and to pass into oblivion. However before this happens there is judgment or condemnation which "is the work of the divine love". Hell or condemnation is only a preliminary limit in the resistance of a finite creature to God. "Hell has being only in so far as it stands in the unity of the divine love." 71 In this manner Tillich rejects the doctrine of natural immortality and substitutes for it the doctrine of eternal life for those who are willing to be reunited with Being-itself, and implies annihil­ ation for those who insist upon resisting reunion. This is his answer to the problem of universal salvation. At the same time he makes punishment and Hell only instruments of God's love by introducing his theory of "the strange work of love" to replace any real condemnation and eternal punishment of sinners. Condem­ nation and Hell are only remedial in character. They do not reveal the condition of sins which have not been covered and atoned for by the blood of Jesus Christ. There is no eternal punishment. This theory of "the strange work of love" is fitted by Tillich into his doctrine of Christ. Condemnation is. explainable by an Hegelian triad - it is the negation of the negation of God's love. "Condemnation is not negation of love, but the negation of the negation of love. It is an act of love without which Non-being would triump over being." 72 In this act of love that which resists the divine love is left to separation with the implication that self­ destruction is certain. There are two sides to God's _ work of condemnation : when God brings punishment upon someone that is the negation of that person's negation, or God's negation of that person's rejection of His love. At the same time in punish­ ment and condemnation God exercises His power in a remedial manner in order to bring men back to Himself. This is "the strange work of love". "Love destroys at its strange work that which is against love . . . Love, at the same time, as its own work, saves 7

oa

71

72

Ibid., p. 283. Loe. cit., cf. p. 188. Ibid., p. 283.

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through forgiveness that which is against love." ·73 This is the destruction of that which destroys love, and the synthesis. But there is another side of love, namely God's participation in the destruction into which man is thrown when he rejects God's love. "The Cross of Christ is the symbol of the divine love, participating in the destruction into which it throws him who acts against love : This is the meaning of atonement." 7 4 Thus Christ bears on the Cross just what man suffers in "the strange work of God's love" , not as a satisfaction, but as an example of sur­ rendering to God. There is also the rejection of the divine in the Cross by man and the mystery of Christ is that he accepts the rej ection both on God's part and on our behalf. "Yet when the Divine is rejected It takes the rej ection upon Itself . . . It accepts our refusal to accept and thus conquers us. That is the center of the mystery of the Christ.'' 75 The divine Itself accepts both this strange work of God's love and man's rejection of God at the same time. It is the picture of a father punishing a son for a remedial purpose and then suffering a punishment similar to the son. The son is estranged and needs to be reunited with the Father but will not be reunited, so he is punished in order to bring him back, and when he still will not come back the Father accepts the rejection by his son and goes and suffers a similar punishment. There is no real substitution however by the Father for the son i Tillich has rejected satisfaction. Reunion is Tillich's goal and not I redemption from sin. Sin is only separation ; it is not transgression : of the law of God, but separation from the Power of being or God. 7 6 As has been seen Tillich rejects any idea of merit on the part of Christ or of satisfaction offered to God for redemption as a price that is paid. If Christ did something meritorious, or kept or proclaimed an absolute law of God, he would become an absolute challenging the only Ultimate and Absolute who is Being-Itself or God. Tillich places all the stress upon the idea that this man Jesus - a human person - completely surrendered Himself and became transparent to the divine. He even sees the paintings of the Madonna by the great artists of the Middle Ages as a proof that Christ was absolutely transparent for the divine, when for example they placed a halo above the head of the child Jesus or made His face and His clothing shining and transparent. 77 I

73 74

75

Love, Power and Justice, pp. 113-14.

Ibid., p. 115.

The Shaking of t he Foundations, p. 147.

Ibid. p. 1 54. "I should like to suggest another word to you . . . as a useful clu; in the interpretation of the word 'sin' : 'separation'. Perhaps the word sin has the same root . . . In any case sin, is separation." 11 The New Being, p. 99. 76

TH E DO C TR I N E O F C H R I S T

164

Man exists in two different forms. He exists "hidden" in the "creative vision of God" in his essential being. Before the Fall man was essential being, but when he exercised his freedom and became man he "fell". "Fully developed creatureliness is fallen creatureliness." 78 Man also exists "outside" the process of the divine life estranged from God in a state of disruption. The problem therefore is how "existential being" - man as he existR on the earth - can be united with "essential being" - that is man as he exists as essential being in God's creative vision and as he ought to be and was before the Fall. 78a The answer is that Christ unites the two. "Jesus as the Christ is the New Being in which essential 'God-manhood' appears and conquers the gulf between the unity of God and man." 79 The reuniting of essential being with existential being is salvation and this occurred in Christ and occurs now through the New Being. Reunion and not redemption is the problem solved by Christ. Tillich's idealism appears, as already seen, at this point as he speaks of man existing as essential being "hidden" or "inside" the divine life or "creative vision" of God, and also existing at the same time as existential being. When he proceeds to claim that essential being and existential being are again united in the event of Jesus becoming a divine person in Christ, he brings a pantheistic element into the plan of salvation. As A. T. Mollegan explains this, "The communication of the New Being in Christ to others is the saving work of Christ who 'at ones' God and man, and through man unites God and the whole creation. It is Pentecost, J ustific­ ation, New Being, Regeneration, Sanctification according to which aspect is emphasized." 80 Jesus who is the Christ gives us final revelation. But this does not mean that we receive revelation in the form of words through Christ. "The final revelation does not give us absolute evidence, absolute doctrine, or an absolute ideal of personal and communal life." 181 It only gives examples pointing to what is absolute. The final revelation he is talking about is not the Bible, nor is it a part of the Bible in distinction from the whole, nor is it some particular words, nor a particular revelation, but "a concrete event 78

System,atic Theology, p. 255. Ibid., p. 259. Where he approves of the term "dreaming innocence" for the condition before the fall. 79 Van der Lof, De Figuur van Christus, . . . p. 101. "Jesus als de Christus is het Nieuwe Zijn waarin de Essentiele 'God-manhood' verschijnt, die de kloof van de eeJ].heid tussen God en mens verovert." ("Existence and Christ" sten­ cilled propositions, p. 14). Essential God-manhood means essential being or manhood united with the Logos. 80 A. T. Mollegan, "Christology and Biblical Criticism in Tillich" The ' Theology of Paul Tillich, p. 241. 81 Systematic Theology, p. 151. The New Being, p. 122. 78

a

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which on the level of rationality must be expressed in contradictory terms." 82 By this he means that it is the event of the Logos principle becoming united with a man and bringing the New Being into existence, or the reunion of God-manhood or essential being with existential being in the event of Jesus who became the Christ. Revelation is then an "event" and not a revelation in words or facts. All the assertions made in the Bible about final revelation are paradoxical in character because of the fact that it surpasses our opinion that the mystery of God or Being is manifested in man's time and space categories - that is in existence - in historical fullness. 83 There are no statements or commandments in Tillich's view of revelation but only revelatory events. "There are no revealed doctrines, but there are revelatory events and situations which can be described in doctrinal terms . . . The 'Word of God' contains neither revealed commandments nor revealed d octrines ; it accompanies and interprets revelatory situations." 84 The final revelation in Christ is "the event" of "Jesus as the Christ", or in other words the fact that in history a human person called Jesus became "The Christ" by becoming so absolutely "transparent" for the divine, that he became divine. He united essential and existential being and thus brought the New Being into existence. The New Being had appeared partially and fragmentarily in the prophets and the saints of the Old Testament but appeared "absolutely" in Christ. It can be seen that because of Tillich's view of "Jesus as the Christ" the actual historical life of Christ becomes of little real importance. There was probably an historical Jesus, but there is no actual history of Jesus ; we have only the Jesus of the faith of the disciples and of the early church in the Gospel records. Jesus is not important since he was j ust a man, and since what He did and said and taught as a man was finite and not final. The value of his life to us is the example which he gave of self-surren­ der to God and of "transparency" to the divine, and we are to follow and imitate him in these things. If we had the history of Jesus even it could become a stumpling block and a snare in that there would always be the danger that men would believe on Jesus, and what he said and did, rather than believing on God. This was the very thing Jesus was anxious should not happen and therefore Loe. cit. Ibid., pp. 150-51 ; The New Being, p. 72. Tillich maintains that if we will only "seriously ask the question, 'Am I of the truth you wre of the truth . . . On this road you will meet the liberating truth in many forms except one for : you never will meet it in the form of proposition� which you _ �an learn or write down and take home." (last italics ours). In this manner T1lhch empties the Bible promises of their value and the commandments of their force. 8 4 Ibid., p. 125. 82 83

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he said "He who believes in Me does not believe in Me. " In saying this he' was "destroying any heteronomous interpretation of His divine authority". ;s,5 His purpose was not to make men listen to him as an authority but rather to listen to and believe in God. The person of Christ has to be a human person in this ontological system of theology. There is no divine person to come down from heaven since the Logos is only a principle in God. There is not the possibility of even Sabellianism .being the explanation of the Incarnation since God Himself is in no sense a person. Since Tillich has no personal God it is not surprising to see that he has accused the World Council of Sabellianism in its confession of "Jesus Christ as God and Savior". 86 Jesus is in no sense God : he is neither a person come from heaven-that is one of the three persons in the Trinity-nor is he God the Father appearing in a particular form upon the earth ( Sabellianism) . Jesus was a finite man with finite qualities. Only because Tillich regards Jesus as a human person can he say, when speaking of him as the final revelation, "No finite being imposes itself in the name of God on other finite beings." 87 And when he says that the claim of some­ thing finite to be infinite is demonic and a claim which Jesus re­ jected, 88 he again shows that for him Jesus was only a man. It w.as only because of his self-surrender that the "symbol" Son of God was applied to Him. 89 The human person Jesus surrendered himself to God so com­ pletely and continually, and became so absolutely "transparent" to the divine, that in the course of time a process occurred in which Jesus as "existential being" was united to the Logos or "Essential God-manhood" and finally at the Cross became "Jesus who is the Christ". In this process the New Being appeared. It is only "Jesus who is the Christ" who is an object of faith. Even Peter's confession at C eserea Philippi does not prove the contray. Peter only used Jesus' "vocational" name, or as Mollegan puts it, Peter's confession of faith in Jesus had to be negated by the crucifixion and transformed and confirmed again by the re­ surrection. 90 Only Jesus who is the Christ is the object of faith. Jesus Christ did not die as a sacrifice to satisfy divine j ustice. Justice and love are finally one so that cannot be the explanation of the Cross. The punishment and condemnation of the sinner is remedial-it is "the strange work of love". In the Cross Christ effected a double reconciliation : God surrendered Himself in Christ 85 86 87 88 89

90

Ibid., p. 148. Tillich did this in his lectures to his classes in Theology. Systematic Theology, p. 134. Loe. cit. Loe. cit. The Theology of Paul Tillich, p. 233.

THE DOCTRINE OF CHRIST

167

to man and Himself suffered the "strange work of love"-as the Logos became flesh, or the divine united with Jesus-and man surrendered himself to God-as Jesus the man surrendered Him­ self to God. We in turn are to surrender ourselves to God. The sur­ render Jesus made was not a satisfaction for sin, nor a redemption from sin. The election and rejection of Christ was not substitutio­ nary but rather exemplary. The New Being had appeared partially and fragmentarily even before Christ in other men-it only appea­ red more fully in Him. The surrender and transparency had occur­ red also in the saints and prophets and it was only more complete in him-it was absolute in him. Jesus quantitatively surpassed all other men before him till he reached such a union with God that he was divine. The whole picture given by Tillich of Jesus becoming "the Christ" is one of the gradual divination of a man. A divination which occurred fully in him and which must occur to some extent in all if they are to have what Tillich calls "eternal life", that is enjoy reunion with the Ground of their being or God. The sin which Christ had to overcome was not that of the breaking of the laws of God. The Old Testament's Ten Command­ ments are only "the interpretation of a new reality", 91 the com­ mandments of Christ are only of relative value, and, since he sur­ rendered himself completely, they do not hold for us. The real sin which had to be overcome was not then the breaking of laws but separation from God. "Sin is separation". Therefore all Christ had to do was to overcome the separation, and affect a reunion with God. Finally it is not Jesus who is of importance, nor his life but "the event" of essential being, Essential God-manhood, or the Logos united with essential manhood, becoming reunited with existential being in a human person called Jesus so that he became "The Christ". This made him the center of history. From the doubt which Tillich expresses concerning the historical existence of Jesus it could almost be said that even if he never did exist as a person the "event" spoken of in the New Testament has occurred and existential being-man as he is since he fell-has been reunited to essential being. It is this event, the fact of this reunion, which proves of such importance to Tillich, and not the person Jesus. The "event" means salvation and even if Jesus were only a myth still the myth proves there is salvation. 92 nt

Systematic Theology, p. 125. . . . . . The Interpretation of History, p. 33. � ilhch hkes. to �onsider m his classes the possibility that Jesus never did exist as an h1stor1cal J?erson 3:nd the consequences this would have for theol? gy. He_ commenc: d this . peculiar speculation when he -gave a paper on it to his theological friends at Whitsuntide in 1911. !l2

CHAPTER VII

EVIL AND SIN In this chapter it is our purpose to take up the problem of evil and sin as they are dealt with in Tillieh's theology. This proves a very important study since upon the views held on these closely allied subjects very largely rests his view of salvation. A light view of sin leads to a correspondingly shallow view of salvation and a serious view of sin to correspondingly deep view of salvation. Up to this point we have seen the great influence of Tillich's ontology upon his theology, in his doctrine of God 1 , his doctrine of the Trinity 2, his doctrine of Christ 3 and even in his doctrine of revelation 4, and will be seeing it also in his doctrine of eschatology and the Kingdom of God in the chapter which follows.. The antithesis between Being and Non-Being made Being dynamic and into the Power of being. Being became dynamic by the presence of Non-Being and it became creative by means of the dialectical movement which occurred thereafter within Being. Being-Itself developed in a dialectical manner by a separation from itself in the Logos and a return to itself in the Spirit. This produced a kind of trinity which can be classed theologically as a form of dynamic monarchianism. The second principle within the Trinity-the principle of the Logos which is the principle of meaning and reason-united in the In­ carnation with a man called Jesus in such a manner that this human being became a divine person. Revelation is not the giving or receiving of words, or statements, or commands, but an event in which a new reality is revealed, and by which man partakes of the New Being. Salvation-which is contemporaneous with reve­ lation-is the restoration of the union-lost in the fall-with Being-Itself or God. Man has always retained something of the­ power of being or he could not hav,e continued to exist, but he has lost his real union with Being-Itself. The doctrines of evil and sin are likewise ruled in Tillich's theo1 2

�{

4

Cf. Cf. Cf. Cf.

ante., ante., ante., ante.,

p. p.· p. p.

110 ff. 130 ff. 142 ff. 54 ff.

1 68

E V I L AND S I N

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logy by his view of ontology, therefore as we approach them, it is necessary to bear in mind that they are based upon his ontological system. Should sin not be considered prior to the consideration of evil? Is evil not a result of sin and therefore logically posterior to it? This would be a correct line of procedure, particularly in view of the fact evil and sin are so closely connected in Tillich's thinking, except that his view of sin rests ultmately upon an- original "Ge ""'. stalt" of evil or the demonic. In view of this it proves more expe­ ditious to consider his explanation of the problem of evil before his explanation of the problem of sin. Ontologically evil preceeds sin in Tillich's system. Therefore, in order to better understand his view of sin it proves advantageous to first of all consider at some length his concept of "the demonic". One of the first of Tillich's important brochures in his German period was the f ourty-f our page booklet Das Damonische ( The Dem­ onic) written in 1926. The demonic has the character of sin, though not all sin is necessarily demonic. 5 The concept of the demonic explains original sin, though it explains only a part of sin in man, namely that kind of sin, which has to do with man assuming in pride the place of God or the unconditioned. Tillich stressed its impor­ tance for his doctrine of original sin in this early booklet writing: "What was meant by the doctrine of original sin cannot really be understood without the concept of the demonic." 6 In his intro­ duction to The Protestant Era he wrote in 1951, "The idea of the demonic is the mythical expression of a reality that was in the center of Luther's experience as it was in Paul's, namely, the struc­ turial, and there! o�e inescapable, power of evil." 7 This proves that the concept is just as important for him at the maturity of his American period as in it was the middle of his German period. The conflict going on in the universe is one between the divine and the demonic and he writes, ' 'Grace is in all history and a continuous fight is going on between divine and demonic structures." 8 Realizing the importance of Tillich's ontology for his theology, and that he names "the demonic" a structural element along with the structure of grace and identifies is with the "inescapable power of evil", we will first consider the place of the demonic in the problem of evil and then go on to consider its place in OriginaJ sin, and finally take up man's existential sin. This. means therefore that the order followed will be: the problem of evil, original sin and last sin as an act of man. 5

6 7

s

Das Damonische, p. 20. Cf. The Interpretation of History, p. 93. The Interpretation of History, p. 94. The Protestant Era., p. xxxv. Ibid., p. xxxvii.

EV I L AND

170 A.

1

S IN

THE PROBLEM OF EVIL

Two explanations--The Demonic and Non-Being

Tillich has two explanations of the problem of evil. There is a rational explanation-which has irrational features attached to it, but is worked out in a prevailingly rational manner-and there is an irrational one which has an irrational starting point but much rationalization in its development. A man must use rationalism to make any case for irrationalism ; it is not possible, nor does anyone try to be utterly irrational. We cannot think consistently without using the law of identity, A is A, and the law of contradiction, A cannot be both A and non A. 9 In the irrational explanation given in The Int,erpretation of History Tillich starts out with an analysis of art, particularly expressionism, in which he finds that, "There is something positive­ ly contrary to form that is capable of fitting into an artistic form. There exists not only a lack of form but also a contradiction of form ; there exists not only something less than positive but also something contra-positive." 10 This is the revelation which comes from the abyss of God himself of a demonic depth in life and all existence. Evil actually starts in God. The existence of "the demonic" can be followed through from God into existence and can be seen in man as revealed by depth psychology. This new psychology has revealed the phenomenon of the split personality, a condition due to the personality destroying nature of "the demonic", upon the personality of man. According to the rational explanation of evil God has, opposed to himself, the principle of Non-Being. Non-Being is not a second principle independant of or equal to God in any sense, but is a principle logically posterior to God and dependant upon Him both for its existence and for its character. The negative is decided in its character by what it negates. Because of this Non-Being is in no sense a second ultimate beside God. There are not two ulti­ mate principles, not dualism, but one ultimate principle with its negation and therefore monism. 1 1 How does God overcome Non­ Being ? By taking it up into Himself. Since He is infinite He can take up an infinite amount of Non-Being into Himself and over­ come it. But in overcoming Non-Being God becomes dynamic and active. It is this which prevents God from being the static un­ moved-mover of Aristotle. In other words Non-Being, so far as

9 An Introduction to Christian A pologetics, pp. 162-3, "The law of contradiction (and the law of being and excluded middle, too, of course) must be innate if meaningful sense perception . . . truth . . . speech is to be possible". 10 The Interpretation of History, p. 79. 11 The Courage to Be, p. 40.

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God is concerned, proves to be a dynamic principle and the cause of that which is creative in Him. 12 In man, on the other hand, Non-Being has a destructive in­ fluence. It constantly threatens man with the loss of his own being. ' 'Non-Being threatens man's ontic self-affirmation, relatively in terms of fate, absolutely in the terms of death. It threatens man's spiritual self-affirmation, relatively in terms of emptiness, absolutely in terms of meaninglessness. It threatens man's moral self-affirmation relatively in terms of guilt, absolutely in terms of condemnation." 13 Thus Non-Being threatens man with meaning­ lessness, condemnation, guilt and death. It is the cause of man's anxiety for meaninglessness-"emptiness and loss of meaning"­ condemnation-"guilt and condemnation"-and death-' 'fate and death." 14 But a man can have the "courage to be" and take Non­ Being up into himself since he has the "power of Being" in him­ self. When he does this he asserts the "Power of being" already in himself and thus affirms himself and God at the same time. "By affirming our being we participate in the self-affirmation of Being-itself." 1 5 In his explanation of the problem of evil Tillich explains the problem of guilt as a threat to man's moral self-affirmation in the terms of "condemnation". He writes, "Man's being, ontic as well as spiritual is not only given to him but also demanded of him. He is responsible for it ; literally, he is required to answer, if he is asked, what he has made of himself. He who asks him is his judge, namely he hirns,elf, who at the same time sbands against him.

This situation produces the anxiety which in relative terms is the anxiety of guilt ; in absolute terms the anxiety of self-rejection or condemnation." 16 As has already been mentioned Non-Being is the rational expla­ nation of evil so this can be called the rational explanation of guilt. This ,explanation starts from the Hegelian dialectic Being, Non-Being and Power of Being and partakes of the irrationalism which at­ taches to that form of dialectic. In other words the premise from which Tillich starts his explanation of evil is irrational insofar as the Hegelian dialectic is irrational, even if the outworking is car­ ried along in a distinctly rational manner. The other explanation of the problem of evil is based, as already mentioned, upon the work of depth psychology and psychoanalysis together with the application of these to expressionism in modern painting and art. The irrational explanation starts out from the 1·2

13

14 15 16

The Courage to Be, p. 179 ; cf. p. 34. Ibid., p. 141. Loe. cit. Ibid., p. 181. Ibid., p. 51. Italics ours.

172

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A ND S I N

idea that in being there is a depth, Abgrund, or abyss, which is inexhaustible in nature. From this abyss there emanates an in­ fluence which is both creative and destructive. The fullest expla­ nation of this is to be found in the booklet, Das Diimonische. This was translated into English to form the first chapter of part two of Tillich's book The Intertpretation of History, and entitled "The Demonic: a contribution to the interpretation of history". Tillich is not easy to understand either in the German original or in the English translation. His own explanation of this lack of clearness is that he used to express himself, in his German period, in the indefinite forms of German idealism. When he returned to Germany after the end of the war in 1948 his friends noticed a great change in his addresses in the increased clearness of the expression of his thoughts in comparison with former years. Com­ menting upon this he writes, ' 'The English language . . . has made me understandable." 1•7 Has there really been a change in Tillich's ability to express himself as he claims? If there has it has been largely in the sense that he has put more stress on the rational line in his thinking than on the irrational. The picture which he gives of Being and existence in his ir­ rational presentation is one which he maintains he acquired from Schelling ( in his latter period) and Jacob Bohme. Schelling had spoken of the Abgrund and Tillich found in Bohme a similar idea. It is this idea of the abyss which he has retained in this irrational or non-rational presentation of the problem of evil and of the dynamic in God. Underneath and behind everything which exists there lies a dimension which cannot be penetrated iby the human mind, because the human mind as something which exists itself rests upon it. "We say of this depth, that it is the basis of being of things, whereby 'Being' is taken absolutely, transcendently as the expression of the secret into which thinking cannot penetrate, because, as something existing, it itself is based thereon . . . the depth of things, their basis of existence, is at the same time their abyss ; or in other words that the depth of things is inexhaus­ tible." 18 This idea of the abyss appears in his early writings and also in his Systematic Theiolog'y when he says, "It could be. called the 'substance' which appears in the rational structure, or 'being­ itself' which is manifest in the logos of being, or the 'ground' which is creative in every rational creation, or the 'abyss' which cannot be exhausted by any creation or by any totality of them, or the 'infinite potentiality of being and meaning' which pours into the rational structures of mind and reality, actualizing and transfor17

Paul Tillich, "How my mind has changed in the last decade", The

Christian Century, Jan. 15, 1949, p. 732. 18 Interpretation of History, p. 83.

E V I L A ND

S IN

173

ming them." 19 "The inexhaustibility denoted here, however," he said in The lnter]Yr,etation of History, "is not to be interpreted as passive inexhaustibility, . . . but to be understood as an active inexhaustibility, as a productive inner infinity of existence, i. e., as the 'consuming fire', that becomes a real abyss for every form." � Tillich speaks further of the abyss in his systematics thus, "The divine life is the dynamic unity of depth and form. In mystical language the depth of the divine life, its inexhaustible and ineffable character, is called 'Abyss'." -n 2

The Divine and the Demonic

The form of being and the inexhaustibility of being belong to­ gether and are united in the depth of the essential nature or the divine but they can be separated in existence. "Their unity in the depth of essential nature is the divine, their separation in exis­ tence, the relatively independant eruption of the "abyss" in things, is the demonic." 22 What Tillich seems to :be trying to say is that two things can happen because of the inexhaustibility of the abyss : it can and does work in a creative manner when it is in in proper . unity with form, but it works destructively when not in unity with form, and then it becomes the demonic. It is not that there is simply nothing creative in the demonic even when it is working without form, but that when the proper balance between the depth of being or the abyss and form is lost it becomes more destructive than creative. "In the demonic, on the other hand, the divine, the unity of bottom and abyss, of form and consumption of form, is still contained ; therefore the demonic can come to existence only in the tension of both elements. The tension is really in everything which is produced by the creative power." 23 It is difficult to determine just what Tillich meant by such a quo­ tation as this because he said, for example. "In the demonic . . . the divine, the unity of bottom and abyss . . . is contained", and yet it seems clear as one reads his explanation of "the demonic" that it is not the same as the divine itself, but that what he actually meant was that the creative power of the abyss in God, can and does work in a destructive manner when it works without form. 'The important thing is that "the demonic", or that which comes from the abyss is "ambiguous" and can work either creatively or destructively. A few additional quotations may make this dearer. "Demonry is the reign of a superindividual, sacred form 19 20 21 22

:2 3

Systemati 1952. 232 pp. Peursen, C. A., Cultuur en Christelijk Geloof. Kampen, J. H. Kok, 1955. 105 pp. Pfeiffer, Otto, Recent Developments in German Protestantism. Ridderbos, S. J ., Compromis. Kampen, J. H. Kok, 1955. 152 pp. Runes, Dagobert, D., editor, The Dictionary of Philosophy. New York, Philosophical Library, 1941. 343 pp. Schleiermacher, Friedrich, Der Christliche Glaube. Halle, Otto Hendel, 2nd. ed., 1830. 3 vols. Schweitzer, Albert, The Quest of the Historical Jesus. New York, 1950. Schrotenboer, P. G., A New Apologetics : An Analysis and Appraisal of the Eristic Theology of Emil Brunner, Kampen, J. H. Kok, 1955. 224 pp.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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279

Sevenster, J. N., "Chronos en Kairos in het Nieuwe Testament", Chronos en Kairos. Assen, Van Gorcum, 1952. Soper, David Wesley, Major Voices in American Theology. Philadelphia, The Westminster Press, 1953. 217 pp. Thayer, J· oseph Henry, editor, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, a revision and translation of Grimm's Wilke's Clavis Novi Testamenti. New York, American Book Co., 1889. Translated by J. H. Thayer. 727 pp. Tillich, Paul, The Courage To Be. New Haven, Conn., Yale University press, 1952. 197 pp. Das Diimonische. Tlibingen, J. C. B. Mohr, 1926. 44 pp. "How My Mind Has Changed in the Last Decade," The Christian Century, Jan. 15, 1949. p. 732 ff. The Interpretation of History. New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1936. "Kritisches und Positives Paradox", Theologische Blatter, Vol. II, 1923. Love, Power and Justice. New York, and London, Oxford Uni­ versity Press, 1954. 127 pp . "Nature and Revelation", Contemporary Religious Thought. New York, Abingdon-Cokesbury, 1941. pp. 64----68. The New Being. New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1955. 179 pp "The Present Theological Situation", Theology Today, Vol. VI, No. 3, Oct. 1949. "Das Problem von D iastase und Synthese in der heutigen theolog­ ischen Situation", Sweizersche Theologische Umschau, Feb. 1950, xx p. 36-4 1 . The Protestant Era. London, Nisbet and Co. 1951. Trans. and ed. by James Luther Adams. 205 pp. "Rechtfertigung und Zweifel", Vertriige der Theologischen Kon­ !erenz in Gies sen. Giessen, Topelmann, 1924. Die Religiose Lage der Gegenwart. Berlin, Ullstein, 1926. 153 pp. Religiose Verwirklichung. Berlin, Furche-Verlag, 1930. 312 pp. "A Reinterpretation of the Doctrine of Incarnation" . Church Quarterly Review, Vol. 147, No. 294, Jan-Mar. 1949, pp . 113-148. Die religionsgeschichtliche Konstruktion in Schelling's positiver Phil0sophie, ihre Voraussetzungen und Principien. Breslau, H. Fleishmann, 1910. The Shaking of the Foundations. London. S.C.M. Press, 1949 . 186 pp. Die Sozialistische Entscheidung. Potsdam, Alfred Pratte, 1933. 201 pp. Das System der Wissenschaften. Gottingen, Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1923, 167 pp. Systematic Theology. Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 195 1 . 300 pp. "Ueber die Idee einer Theologie der Kultuur" , Religions-Philosop­ hie der Kultuur, Berlin, Reuther and Reinhard , 1920. ·w eiman, Henry Nelson, The Growth of Religion. New York, Harper and Brothe rs, 1938.

INDEX A

C

Absolutism, 60. Abyss, 95, 132, 134, 136 ff. (in God) , 172 f ., 176, 182, 265. Adam, 259 f ., 266. Adams, Luther, 270. Adoptionism, 148. Ambiguity, 103. Anhypostasis, 261. Anselm, 161 . Aquinas, 9 . Arianism, 1 55, 258. Aristotle, 25, 128, 241. Assumption, the one, 107. Augustine, 8. Autonomous, 26.

Calvin, 8, 209. Calvinism, 209. Calvinisticum, extra-, 14, 146, 275 . Capitalism, 42, 178, 203. Catholic, Roman, 8, 27, 40, 94, 180, 209, 210, 275 ; doctrine, 15. Christ, doctrine of, Ch. VI ; center of history, 194 ff. ; historicity of, 151, 165 ; person of, 145, 246 ; Christ human, 145 ; humanity of, 158 ; transparant, 155, 157 ; as truth, 249 ; union of divine and human, 143, 199 ; uniqueness of, 204, 276. Christomonism, 228. Chronos, 224 ff. Columbia University, 49. Commandment, New, 65. Commandments, ten, 59, 65, 167, 257. Concrete absolute, 61, 155, 195. Confessio Belgica, 260. Conscience, 27 4. Correlation, 152, 207. Creation, 186, 267, 268 ; creativity, 241 f. Cross, 153, 160, 163, 263. Culture, 33, 247 f.

B Barth, Karl, 7, 27, 36, 48, 135, 223. Bavinck, H., 254. Bavinck, J. H., 248. Being, 1 18 ff., 126 ff. Belief-ful realism, 44, 48. Berdjaev, N., 243. Bergson, H., 272. Berkouwer, G. C., 248, 261. Berneuchener Conference, 40. Boheme, 28, 32. Bohme, J., 18, 1 00, 101, 102, 133, 138, 172, 176. Border, 18, 19, 43. Bourgeois, 29, 32. Brunner, E., 48, 198, 271 . Buddhism, 263, 270, 276. Bultmann, R., 232 ff.

D Decision, 106, 108, 196, 216, 218. Demonic, 41, 127, 148, 169, 174 (creative ) ; demonic and objects 180. Demythologization, 83, 152, 264.

281

INDEX

282

Depth psychology, 21, 32, 71. Dialectics, 135, 168, 171, 202, 214. Dilemma, 62, 94, 257 ; absolute-relative, 108. Dissertation, Tillich's, 20. Doctrine, Sc. gives none, 65. Doubt, 24, 25. Duns Scotus, 100. Dynamic Monarchianism, p. 27 4, cf. 166. E Eclectic, 272. Ecstasy, 44, 67, 68 ff. Epistemology, 89. Eschatology, Ch. VIII, 194, 268 ff. Estrangement, 90. Essential Being - in man, 187, 200, 204, 260. Essential God-Manhood, 166-7. Eternal Life, 162, 230, 244, 269. Ethics, 81, 88, 191, 232, 243, 273 . Evil, 136, 265 f. Existential, 117. Existential being, 164. Existentialist, 35, ( fails as ) 256. Existentialism, 52.

F Faith, 190, 196 ; preparatory, 156 ; absolute, 70. Fall, 64, 183, 186 ff., 192, 239, 266. Fate, 101. Father, 11 ; mother, 10. Federal headship, 218. Ferre, Nels F. S., 203, 211. Fichte, J. G., 19. Finite and Infinite, 15, 208 . Freud, S., 18. Fundamentalism, 208 .

G Gifford lectures, 9. Gnosis, 89. Gnosticism, 239. God, definition of, 215, 276 ; dyna­ mic, 102 , 128 ; demonical in, 181 ; not an object, 113 f. ; not a per­ son, 114, 121 ff., 130, 255 ; ,,per-

sonal God", 123 ; phil. doctrine of God, 253. God, Three Principles in, 1 14, 132 ff., 214 ; not three persons, 131 ff. Grace, 68 ff. ; and possession, 175 f., 189. Greene, T. M., 5, 21 1 . Greek Orthodox, 208, 275. Guardian position, 105. Guilt, 52, 1 16, 171, 182, 189, 219, 267 ; social, 28, 29.

H Hamilton, Sir Wm., 106, 253. Hartmann, E., 18. Hegel, 4, 8, 9, 128, 271, 272. Heidegger, M., 4, 35, 44, 52, 265. 272. Heimann, E., 34. Hell, 161 . Heteronomous, 26. Hie et nunc, 44 . Hinduism, 84. Hirsch, E ., 222 . Historicity, 23. Hitler, 47, 224. Hodge, C., 247. Holy, the, 15, 41, 180. Humanism, 18. Husserl, E., 4, 21, 35, 272.

I Identity, phil. of, 13, 90, 243 ; and epistemology, 21. Imagination, 14. Immortality, 162, 203, 230, 244, 269. Incarnation, 61, 149 ff., 166, 258. Infra-Lutheranum, 146. Innocence, 185. Dreaming Innocence, 164 n., 191 , 260, 264, 266. Inspiration, 247, 262. Irrational, 95 ff., 100, 138, 1 70 f. Israel, 262 .

J Jaspers, K., 272 .

INDEX

Jesus relative, 61, 149. Jewish, 46 . John, Gospel of, 259. Jung, C. I., 18. Justification, 23, 24, Scriptural 220, 274.

283

N 25,

159 ;

K Kahler, Martin, 4, 21, 22, 25, 151, 151 n. Kairos, 15 f., 50 f., 100 ff., 200 ff., 210, 222 ff. Kant, I., 4, 19, 188, 27 1. Kerugmatic, 23, 1 17, 152, 197, 207. Kierkegaard, S., 4, 14, 52, 272. Kingdom of God, 265, 223 ; dialectical, 269. Knowledge, controlling, 63, 92 ; re­ ceiving, 92. Kuyper, A., 8, 148. L Law of God, 22 1. Lazarus, 198. Liberals, 145. Logos, the, 167, 196, 206 , 258 ; in man, 91, 1 15 ; in things, 11 5, 154 f. Love, 16, 108, 153, 189, 212, 217 ff. ; decisions in love, 218 ; Scriptu­ ral, 220 ff., 243, 273 . Love's strange work, 159, 161 f. Luther, 8, 100, 138, 140. Lutheran, 32, 275 .

M Mansel, H. L., 106, 253. Marxism, 4, 45 ff. , 196, 203, 272. Mediation, 22. Medicus, Fritz� 20 . Me on, 127, 26 6. Miracle, 69 ff. Mollegan, A. T ., 164. Monarchianism, Dynamic, 27 4, cf. p. 166. Morality, 182, 185, 190, 207 ; moral dilemma, 212, 242. Myth and Symbol, 82, 84, 255.

National Socialism, 47, 178, 224. New Being, 51, 145, 150, 164, 199, 202, 215, 218. New Reality, 67, 80, 232, 237. Niebuhr, R., 48, 252, 266. Nietzsche, 18, 25, 29, 272. Non-B eing, 18, 36, 37, 69 ff., 1 15, 126 f., 139 f ., 161, 168 f ., 176 f ., 191 ; shock of, 87, 244. Norm, 86, 208 ff.

0 One and the many, 115, 195, 251 f. Ontology, Ch. v., 111 f., 169, 180, 241 . Origin, 188. Original goodness, 187. Original sin, 182, 184 f. Otto, Rudolph, 16, 137. Ouk on, 37.

p Pantheism, mystical, 13, 129, 181, 242, 255 . Paradox, absolute-concrete, 77 ff. ; in Christ, 145. Parminides, 18, 272. Person, 44, 123, 181 ; definition of in God, 131 f. ; super and sub, 123. Peter, 166. Philosophy, 1, 112, 271 ; and theology, 113, 250. Plato, 25 ; Platonic, 102, 188, 272 . Polar relationships, 59, 62, 90. Participation, 122. Polytheism, 38. Possession, demonic, 86, 175. Prayer, 124, 126, 130, 156, 243, 256. Predestination, 196. Protestant Principle, 43, 180.

R Realism, self-transcen ding, 47. Reason, autonomous, 57, 64 ; depth of, 26, 56 f., 245 ; subjective, 56� 91, 95, 98 ; objective, 95, 98 ; con­ flicts in, 58.

INDEX

284

Reconciliation, 189. Redemption, 157. Relativism, 60, 10 3 ff., 206 ff., 276. Religious Socialism, 4, 28, 3 4, 45 ff., 201, 222 f ., 27 3 . Responsibility, 267. Revelation, general, 55, 208, 212 ; final, 62, 164 ; is an "event", 165 ; natural rev. 54. Revelation, special, 54 f., 212 ; sub­ jective aspect, 66 ; obj ective as­ pect, 66 ; kinds of, 73 ff. ; univer­ sal, 55, 74, 41 . Risk, 211, 26.

s Sabellianism, 166. Sacramental element, 16, 199 ; sac . thinking, 3 0. Sacraments, 40, 84 f., 180, 199, 245 . Satan, 174. Satisfaction, 158, 16 3 , 220. Scheler, M., 18. Schelling, F. W., 4, 12 f., 21 f., 29, 1 32, 1 3 8, 172, 176, 188, 272. Schizophrenia, 175, 266. Schleiermacher, F·., 9 3 , 247. Schopenhauer, 18. Schweitzer, A., 151. Schwegler, 19. Scripture, lack of, 1 17 ; infallibility of, 2 38. Semantics, 41, 245. Sermon on the Mount, 251. Sevenster, J. N., 225. Silence, 106, 254. Sin, conviction of, 87, 1 16, 182 ; definition of, 185, 267 ; sin in existence 188 ff. Social contacts, 27. Speculation, 214. Spirit, Holy, 140, 2 3 7 ; H. S . and truth, 249. Substitutionary Sacrifice, 166, 200, 222, 262 ff., 275. Summa, 6, 8 f. Surrender, Christos, 78, 149, 154, 160.

Symbols, pre-existence, 147 ; post­ existence, 200. Synthesis, 19, 20, 49. Synthesis and Diastasis, 202, 22 3 , 27 3 , cf. 4 3 .

T Theism, 85. Theistic arguments, 120, 1 57, cf. 256. Theological circle, 1 1 3 . Theonomy, 59. Theonomous, 26. Tillich, lectures of, 1 1 . Time, 195 ; formal time 229 ; rev. and time, 229. Transmoral conscience, 191 f., 274. Transparent, 155, 1 57. Triad, Hegelian, 1 3 6, 162, 241. Trinity, 3 9, 1 3 0 ff., 1 3 6, 140, 144, 166, 168, 179. Truth, dynamic, 94, 97, 101, 21 3 , 216 ; Christian view of, 250 f., 2 3 1 ff. ; truth and the kairos, 207 ff. ; problems of truth, 94 ff. ; static truth, 97, 99, 101, 213.

u Union and separation, 90. Union Theological Seminary, 47 f., 247. Unmoved Mover, 95, 24 1 . Urgrund, 13 3 , 172.

V Vital Forces, 177 f.

w Westminster Confession, 260. Word of God, 65.

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SCHOOL OF THEOLOGY AT CLAREMONT · CA L '. l=ORNIA

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