08/02/2023 – Paul Tillich Systematic Theology: Volume II

Did you ever wonder about the relationship between the historical Jesus and his connection to the “Christ” concept? Paul Tillich explains this and also why other narrative symbols of Jesus like “Son of God” and “Logos” are related to the human predicament of existence. We’re diving in to Systematic Theology: Volume II today. Come join us. This is TenOnReligion.

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This is the second of a three-part series on Paul Tillich’s three-volume Systematic Theology. These are fairly deep works invoking philosophy and theology to create a new line of thought now referred to as philosophical theology. We’re going to try and hit the highlights and help you understand what the main points are in a simple and concise way to help you better understand what Tillich is doing here in these three works. Now, on the philosophical side it continues the line from German philosophers Husserl and Heidegger. On the religious side it continues the line from the German religious scholar Ernst Troeltsch. In the last episode I feel like I didn’t fully clarify that Tillich’s Systematic Theology has five parts. Volume I, which we covered in the first episode, contains Part I Reason and Revelation and Part II The Reality of God. Volume II, this episode, contains Part III on Existence and the Christ. And Volume III contains Part IV Life and the Spirit and Part V History and the Kingdom of God, which will be our third and final episode in this series. Now that we’ve cleared that up, let’s get into Volume II.

Part III Existence and the Christ contains two sections. First, Existence and the Quest for the Christ. Tillich states that the existence of the individual is filled with anxiety and threatened by meaninglessness. Sometimes people wonder what does this word “existentialism” mean, and for Tillich, it’s simply an analysis of the human predicament. He believes that the answers to the questions implied in the human predicament are religious, whether open or hidden. This is why Tillich’s philosophical theology is described as correlationist. Later in his career, Tillich would begin to relate other religious traditions to the human predicament and those that followed him, such as Robert Neville, would greatly expand this. But in these three volumes of Systematic Theology he uses Christianity exclusively in his correlation.

Christianity asserts that Jesus is the Christ. The term “the Christ” is contrasted with the existential situation of people. It represents a new reality vs. the old reality – the state of the estrangement of people and their world from God. But the systematic theologians cannot explain this alone; they need the help of creative representatives of existentialism in all realms of culture. For example, the symbol of “the Fall” has universal anthropological significance. Theology must clearly and unambiguously represent the fall as a symbol for the human situation universally, not as the story of an event that happened “once upon a time” in the past history of humanity in some way. It shows that humans have finite freedom because they are excluded from the divine world of infinity. The difficulty is that the state of essential or perfect being before “the Fall” is not an actual stage of human development which can be known directly or indirectly. This stage or nature of humanity is present in all stages of development, although in existential distortion. In myth and dogma man’s essential nature has been projected into the past as a history before history, symbolized as a golden age or paradise, as in the Eden narrative in Genesis chapter 2.

Psychologically this is known as “dreaming innocence” in which dreaming refers to something being simultaneously real and non-real. The word “innocence” points to non-actualized potentiality. One is innocent only with respect to something, which, if actualized, would end the state of innocence. It can mean lack of actual experience, lack of personal responsibility, and lack of moral guilt. Humans are not only finite, as all are other creatures; they are also aware of their own finitude. And this awareness is “anxiety.” Things get even more tricky when other supernatural beings come into the picture. The myth of the fall of the angels can be criticized because it confuses powers of being with beings. Angels and demons are mythological names for constructive and destructive powers of being. They are not beings but powers of being dependent on the whole structure of existence.

Not get this because it’s the most important point. “Adam before the Fall” and “nature before the curse” are states of potentiality. They are not actual states. The actual state is that existence in which humans find themselves along with the whole universe, and there is no time in which this was otherwise. The notion of a moment *in* time in which man and nature were changed from good to evil is absurd, and it has no foundation in experience or revelation. The state of existence is the state of estrangement. Humans are estranged from the ground of their being, from other beings, and from themselves.

To be a self and to have a world constitute the challenge to humans as the perfection of creation. The Greeks, for example, attributed humans’ potential infinity to the gods, calling them “the immortals.” This represented the relationship between freedom and potential infinity. Humans are mortals because they stand between actual finitude and potential infinity. The lack of acknowledgement of this situation was what the Greeks called hubris – the elevation of people beyond the limits of finite being and provokes the divine wrath which ultimately destroys them. This is the main subject of many popular Greek tragedies.

Finitude also includes uncertainty in every other respect. It is an expression of the general insecurity of the finite being, the contingency of one being a being at all, and the fact that humans do not come into existence by themselves but are “thrown into being,” a phrase made popular by Heidegger. Tillich lists several categories of ways humans have attempted to deal with this human predicament of contingency and the feeling of finitude. He calls them ways of self-salvation: legalistic, ascetic, mystical, and sacramental/doctrinal/emotional ways. But, all of these ways of self-salvation distort the way of salvation. What is needed in the quest for New Being can be found in the symbol of “Christ,” or “Messiah,” which, Tillich argues, transcends both Christianity and Judaism. It cannot be historically limited to be of value to other groups both now and in the future.

And now on to the second section of Part III Existence and the Christ, titled The Reality of the Christ. Tillich states, if one dismisses a supernaturalistic literalism with respect to the eschatological symbols, then one must understand in a different way the relation of Jesus as the Christ to human history. He then describes some of the background behind the various searches for the “historical Jesus” which began back in the 1800’s. He concludes that, at best, they are more or less probable results, and thus can neither of the basis for an acceptance nor of a rejection of the Christian faith. The funny thing about this is that people who are not familiar with the methodological aspects of historical research and how the academic discipline of history actually operates, and are afraid of its consequences for Christian doctrine, like to attack historical research generally and the research in biblical literature specifically, as being theologically prejudiced. But if they are consistent, they cannot deny that their own interpretation is also prejudiced, or, as they would say, dependent on the truth of their faith. But they deny that the historical method has objective scientific criteria. Such an assertion, however, cannot be maintained in view of the immense historical material which has been discovered and often empirically verified by a universally used method of research. Even though historical research cannot liberate itself from any conscious or unconscious prejudice and be absolutely certain, it can reach high degrees of probability. Historical certainty doesn’t magically appear by a judgment of religious faith.

Now listen to this next idea because it’s huge. This clear distinction is often confused by the obvious fact that the understanding of the meaning of a text is partly dependent on the categories of understanding used in the encounter with historical texts and records. Understanding demands one’s participation in what one understands, and we can participate only in terms of what we are, including our own categories of understanding. There is a difference between the historical Jesus and the recognition of Jesus as the Christ. There is a difference between historical and mythological elements in the various Gospel narratives. Symbols in the narratives such as “Son of Man,” “Son of God,” “Messiah” or “Christ,” and “Logos” became alive as expressions of interpretation which were answers to their existential predicaments. Later in history it was common for them to either become distorted by popular superstition or theological literalism, or both.

The appearance of that reality which has created the faith is the New Being, which conquers existential estrangement and thereby makes faith possible. Doubt is not the opposite of faith; it is an element of faith. Therefore, there is not faith without risk. The risk of faith is that it could affirm a wrong symbol of ultimate concern, a symbol which does not really express ultimacy. It is wrong, therefore, to consider the risk concerning uncertain historical facts as part of the risk of faith. The risk of faith is existential. It concerns the totality of our being, while the risk of historical judgments is theoretical and open to permanent scientific correction. These are two different dimensions which should never be confused. A wrong faith can destroy the meaning of one’s life, but a wrong historical judgment cannot.

These christological symbols are the way in which the historical fact, called Jesus of Nazareth, has been received by those who consider him to be the Christ. These symbols must be understood as symbols, and they lose their meaning if taken literally. In dealing with the christological symbols, Tillich writes people were engaged not in a “demythologization,” a main idea from the German scholar Rudolf Bultmann, but in a “deliteralization.” “Demythologization” can mean the fight against the literalistic distortion of symbols and myths, but it can also mean the removal of myth as a vehicle of religious expression and the substitution of science and morals. Symbols and myths cannot be criticized simply because they are symbols. They must be criticized on the basis of their power to express what they are supposed to express, namely, in this instance, the New Being in Jesus as the Christ.

Finally, get this. The sequencing of events in history to the gospel narratives is nothing short of fascinating. The “Cross” is first an event and then later a symbol. The “Resurrection” is first a symbol and then later narrativized as an event. Resurrection is a familiar mythological symbol representing the death and resurrection on the part of the initiated as a ritual center. The presence of the New Being in the concrete individual life of the man Jesus of Nazareth is raised above the passing historical existence into the eternal presence of God as Spirit. It has been interpreted through the symbol “Resurrection” which was readily available in the thought forms of that day. Salvation as understood as healing, corresponds to the state of estrangement as the main character of existence.

And there you have it! So, what do you think about Tillich’s understanding of Existence and the Christ? Leave a comment below and let me know what you think. In the next episode we’ll get into Tillich’s Systematic Theology III, on the two topics of Life and the Spirit and History and the Kingdom of God. Until next time, stay curious. If you enjoyed this, support the channel in the link below, please like and share this video and subscribe to this channel. This is TenOnReligion.

Paul Tillich, Systematic Theology: Volume II. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1957.