PAUL TILLICH- His Existential Method

Introduction: Paul Tillich develops his theology between the liberal theology and neo-orthodoxy. He was against the humanistic approach of liberal theology as “it develops its answer out of human existence, unaware that human existence itself is the question”. He also criticizes neo-orthodoxy, which neglect the role of situation in theology accusing of ‘throwing the Christian message at people like a stone”.

Life: Paul Tillich was born in 20^th August 1886, in Starzeddel, Germany. He was raised in a conservative Lutheran pastor’s home. He said “I am Lutheran by birth, education, and theological reflection”. In the word of his biographer Pauck, “He knew himself as a Lutheran and wanted to be known as such”. He studied at several major German Universities including Halle and Berlin, coming under the influence of critical philosophy, theology and biblical studies. He entered the German Army in 1914 as a chaplain and left the army in 1918. His 4yrs spent witnessing the carnage and suffering of war utterly transformed him, which represent the turning point in his life. So the traditional monarchist had become a religious socialist, the Christian believer, a cultural pessimist and the repressed puritanical boy a wild man. He had to flee to America in 1933, Nazi authority suspended him from his academic position at Frankfurt because his book “The Socialist decision” attacked the Nazi ideology. His American friends then arranged an appointment to the faculty of Union Theological Seminary in New York City. In the year 1965, perhaps the most widely known theologian in America ended his worldly life while the legacy lives on.

Existence and Essence: The root meaning of to exist in Latin ‘existere’ is to stand out. For Tillich “we stand out of non-being. ‘Things do exist’ means they have being, they stand out of nothingness. So to exist means to stand out of one’s own non -being. Standing out means ‘falling away from what man actually is”. And for Tillich “the non being out of which we stand out is a potentiality which, until it is realized, is simply possible, it is our essential nature. To exist is to be distanced, standing out from our essence.”

Essence is potentialities. Potentiality is the state of real possibility, that is, it is more than a logical possibility. The potential is the essential, and to exist, i.e. to stand out of potentiality, is the loss of true essentiality. To actualize potentialities is to fall into existence.

Method of Correlation: The method of correlation explains the contents of the Christian faith through existential question and theological answers in mutual interdependence. It tries to correlate questions and answers, situation and message, human existence and divine manifestation. The questions are raised by philosophy through careful examination of human existence. The theologian who draws on the symbol of divine revelation to formulate answers to the questions implied in the human existence that philosophy could discover but not answer.

Systematic Theology uses the method of correlation and in using it; it proceeds in the following ways:

a. it makes analysis of the human situation out of which the existential questions arise.

b. It demonstrates that the symbols used in the Christian message are the answers to these questions.

The answers are contained in revelatory events on which Christianity is based but, which cannot be derived from the questions that is, from analysis of human existence. They are spoken to human existence from beyond it. Otherwise they would not be answers, for the question is human existence itself.

God above God: God is the answer to the question implied in human finitude. As such God cannot be a being. God does not exist. God is being itself beyond essence and existence. So, God is not a being otherwise he could not be the power that answers the questions of finitude. Something else could then be God. This is what Tillich meant by the God above God. However, Tillich also affirmed the immanence of God. God id transcendent as well as immanent. God is in or above the world of both. God is immanent in the world and the world is immanent in God. If God is outside the world and the world is outside God, he would not be truly infinite and unconditioned, but limited and unconditioned by something other than himself.

Sin: First of all, the word sin is not synonymous with estrangement but points to the element of personal responsibility in ones estrangement and ‘the personal acts of turning away from that to which one belongs. Tillich discussed the concept of sin in terms of unbelief. Unbelief means the act or state in which man in the totality of his being turns away from God, it is the first mark of estrangement, and it character justifies the term estrangement. Hubris is the self elevation of human into the sphere of the divine. It is the moral quality of pride, but it is the failure to acknowledge finitude. It has been called spiritual sin and all other forms of sin have been derived from it, even the sensual ones. Concupiscence is the unlimited desire to draw the whole of reality into one’s self. It refers to all aspects of human’s relation to himself and to his world. Concupiscence wants one’s own pleasure through the other being, but it does not want the other being.

Christology: The message of a new creation summed up the Christian message for our time. Following Paul’s second letter to Corinthians, Tillich held that “if anyone is in union with Christ he is a new being; the old state of things has passed away; there is a new state of things”. (2cor 5:17).

Christianity is the message of the New Creation, New Being, New Reality which has appeared with the appearance of Jesus who for this reason, and just for this reason, is called the Christ. For Christ, Messiah, the selected and anointed one is he who brings the new state of things.

Human existence asks for New Being that will break through estrangement by reuniting us with our essence. For, Tillich, Christ is the answer. The Christian symbol of Christ is the symbol of a New Being appearing under the conditions of existence yet conquering the gap between essence and existence.

The New Being is not something that simply takes the place of old being. But it is renewal of the Old, which has been corrupted, distorted, split, and almost destroyed. But now wholly destroyed. Salvation does not destroy creation, but it transforms the Old creation into New one. It is new in relation to essence because it is actual not potential and new in relation existence because it overcomes alienation.

Critical Evaluation:

1. Tillich employs several new concepts or ideas to formulate his theology. For e.g., he uses the term ‘dreaming innocence’ to mean what he called essential state. This shows his theological as well as linguistic excellence, even though English was his second language.
2. Paul Tillich gave much importance to what he called ‘situation’ in formulating his theology. He tries to adapt the Christian message to the modern mind while maintaining its essential truth and unique character. For such we can say that his theology is contextual.
3. Tilllich’s concept of God is problematic. He was criticized in his attempt to solve the problem of God’s transcendence and immanence, he actually tore them apart, so that he risk positing two separate ideas of God.
4. Regarding methods of correlation, he was criticized of giving secular philosophy too large a role in theological construction. As such he was criticized of interpreting the Christian faith so as to make it conform to his preconceives ontological system but did not truly correlate questions and answers.