08/16/2023 – Paul Tillich Systematic Theology: Volume III

What is the role of religious symbols? Why are they important? What is eternal life? Stick around to the end because it’s not what you think! We’re doing Paul Tillich’s Systematic Theology: Volume III today. Check this out. This is TenOnReligion.

Hey peeps, it’s Dr. B. with TenOnReligion. If you like religion and philosophy content one thing I really need you to do is to smash that sub button because it really helps out the channel. The transcripts are available at TenOnReligion.com and new episodes are posted about every two weeks, around noon, U.S. Pacific time, so drop me some views.

This is the last 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 been hitting the highlights to help you understand what the main points are in a simple and concise way so you can better understand what Tillich is doing here in these three works. 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. 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. In the last episode we talked about Volume II which contains Part III on Existence and the Christ. This episode we’ll go over Volume III which contains Part IV Life and the Spirit and Part V History and the Kingdom of God. Let’s get into it.

This going to be a really high-level overview because Part IV Life and the Spirit contains four sections and Part V contains three sections. So, there’s a lot to cover. The first section of Part IV Life and the Spirit is Life, Its Ambiguities, and the Quest for Unambiguous Life. In the previous two volumes of his Systematic Theology Tillich’s idea of existential estrangement is largely the focus, but in this third volume Tillich reframes the main issue as a contrast between the ambiguities of life and the striving towards an unambiguous life. In religion, the understanding of the role of symbols are important. For example, demythologization is not directed against the use of mythical images as such but against supernatural interpretations which takes them literally. Every religious term is a symbol using material from ordinary experience, and the symbol itself cannot be understood without an understanding of the symbolic material. God as “Father” would be meaningless for somebody who does not know what “father” means.

Tillich then describes three important polarities. The first polarity in the structure of being is individualization and participation. The second is dynamics and form. The third is freedom and destiny. The polarity of individualization and participation is represented by the self-integration function of life with dis-integration as the existential estrangement. In the dimension of Spirit this is morality. The polarity of dynamics and form is represented by the self-creation function of life with destruction as its existential estrangement. In the dimension of Spirit this is culture. Lastly, the polarity of freedom and destiny is represented by the self-transcendence function of life with profanization as the existential estrangement. In the dimension of Spirit this is religion. We are constantly moving back and forth in each of these polarities. Every life process has ambiguity because positive and negative elements are mixed in such that there can be no definite separation of the two. The quest out of this dilemma is the quest for unambiguous life. In this quest Christianity has produced three main symbols. The Spirit of God is the presence of the Divine Life within creaturely life. The Kingdom of God represents symbolic material taken from history. Eternal Life represents symbolic material taken from the temporal and spatial finitude of all life.

The second section of Part IV Life and the Spirit is The Spiritual Presence. Speaking metaphorically, the divine Spirit dwells and works in the human spirit. There is no way to express a relation to the divine ground of being other than using finite ideas and the language of symbols. Faith is the state of being grasped by the transcendent unity of unambiguous life – the “ultimate concern” which Tillich explained way back in Volume I. Love is the whole being’s movement toward another being to overcome existential separation. The Spiritual Presence, elevating humans through faith and love to the transcendent unity of unambiguous life, creates the New Being above the ambiguities of life.

The third section of Part IV Life and the Spirit is The Divine Spirit and the Ambiguities of Life. Conversion is not necessarily a momentary event. In most cases it is a long process which has been going on unconsciously long before it breaks into consciousness, giving the impression of a sudden, unexpected, and overwhelming character. In biblical and theological literature, the state of being grasped by the Spiritual Presence is called “new birth” or “regeneration.” People who are ultimately concerned about their state of estrangement and about the possibility of reunion with the ground and aim of their being are already in the grip of the Spiritual Presence. The potentialities in life remain unactualized and are sacrificed because of human finitude. The Spiritual Presence does not change that situation, but the Spirit can create an acceptance of one’s finitude. It can remove the ambiguous and tragic character of the sacrifice of life’s possibilities and restore the genuine meaning of sacrifice, namely, the acknowledgement of one’s finitude.

The fourth and final section of Part IV Life and the Spirit is The Trinitarian Symbols. The more the ultimacy of our ultimate concern is emphasized, the more the religious need for a concrete manifestation of the divine develops. The tension between the absolute and the concrete elements in the idea of God drives toward the establishment of divine figures between God and humans. Like every theological symbol, the trinitarian symbolism must be understood as an answer to the questions implied in the human understanding of predicament. The questions arising out of one’s finitude are answered by the doctrine of God and the symbols used in it. The questions arising out of one’s estrangement are answered by the doctrine of the Christ and the symbols applied to it. The questions arising out of the ambiguities of life are answered by the doctrine of the Spirit and its symbols.

So that’s Part IV Life and the Spirit with the four sections of Life, Its Ambiguities, and the Quest for Unambiguous Life, The Spiritual Presence, The Divine Spirit and the Ambiguities of Life, and The Trinitarian Symbols.

Next up is Part V History and the Kingdom of God which has three main sections. The first is History and the Quest for the Kingdom of God. The ideal of pure, unbiased historical research appears at a rather late stage in the development of the writing of history. It is preceded by combinations of myth and history, by legends and sagas, and by epic poetry. Tradition unites historical reports with symbolic interpretations. It does not report pure facts, but it does bring to mind significant events through a symbolic interpretation of the facts. In these forms of tradition, it is virtually impossible to separate the historical occurrence from its symbolic interpretation. In every living tradition the historical is seen in light of the symbolic, and historical research can partially disentangle this fusion only in terms of higher or lower probability. History writing depends on both what happened and on its reception by an audience or people group. In this reception, one cannot escape the destiny of belonging to a tradition in which the answer to the question of the meaning of life is given in symbols which influence every encounter with reality. The history of humanity is the history of various human groups. Ambiguities in history arise when the symbols of hope expressing the goals of a group have lost their inspirational power. The symbol “Kingdom of God” is an answer to the question of the meaning of history because it has the power to express both immanent and transcendent aspects of history.

The second section in Part V History and the Kingdom of God is The Kingdom of God within History. The center of national interpretations of history is the moment in which the nation’s awareness rose, be it an actual event or a legendary tradition, such as the Exodus, the founding of the city of Rome, or the American Revolution. Tillich does not prefer to talk about the Church or even churches, but rather a Spiritual Community. The Kingdom of God is larger than any one Spiritual Community and it is not the function of a Spiritual Community to control political powers and force particular solutions in the name of the Kingdom of God. It’s about finding a middle road between pacificism and militarism. The ambiguities of self-transcendence are caused by the tension between the Kingdom of God realized in history and the Kingdom as expected.

The third section in Part V History and the Kingdom of God is The Kingdom of God as the End of History. The word “end” can mean both finish or the idea of aiming towards a goal. The aim or telos of history is Eternal Life. This is the positive content of history fulfilled in its potentialities and freed from its negative distortions. Metaphorically one could say that the temporal continuously becomes eternal memory. Remember the chart from earlier? Characteristics of Eternal Life are unambiguous self-integration, self-creativity, and self-transcendence. In Eternal Life there is no religion because the gap between the secular and the religious is overcome. “Immortality” is a religious symbol of a quality which transcends temporality – the experience of ultimacy in being and meaning. The symbol of resurrection is often used in a more general sense to express the certainty of Eternal Life rising out of the death of temporal life. In this sense it is a symbolic way of expressing the central theological concept of the New Being, not as another being, but the transformation of the old being. In Christianity specifically, Christ as filled by the Divine Spirit is the embodiment of the New Being. The love Jesus showed was identical with divine love and this represents incarnation.

And now we’ve come to the end of our journey in Tillich’s three-volume Systematic Theology. So, what do you think about Tillich’s understanding of Life and the Spirit and History and the Kingdom of God? Leave a comment below and let me know what you think. In the next episode we’ll get into a group of essays written by Tillich and published as Theology of Culture. 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 III. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1963.