Paul Johannes Tillich 1886 1965 Apostle to the

Paul Johannes Tillich 1886 -1965 ‘Apostle to the Intellectuals’ “Teach Christianity to the 'humanistically educated sceptics‘”

Tillich’s early life • Paul Johannes Tillich was born on August 20, 1886 in Starzeddel, a province of Brandenburg, Germany. • Tillich attended Friedrich Wilhelm Gymnasium, an advanced high school for preliminary university education. • Influenced by Schleiermacher, Hegel, and Shelling • Ordained a minister in the Protestant church • Served as a minister in World War II. • Suffered two nervous breakdowns because of the brutality of war. • Seriously started to question his faith and beliefs in God during time serving in the war.

After the War • He wrote a book on socialist politics named 'The Socialist Decision'. This book was later publicly burned by the Nazis in 1933 , and he was to be imprisoned shortly thereafter. • Luckily he was offered and then accepted an invitation to teach at the Columbia University and Union Theological Seminary in New York • He remained teaching at the Columbian Uni. until he retired in 1955 after giving numerous lectures abroad. • ‘His lectures at other universities drew hundreds and even thousands of listeners, in spite of the fact that many critics claimed that his talks were nothing more than "unintelligible nonsense"' Grenz/Olson

Later • In 1951 he published the first book in the 'Systematic Theology' trilogy. • Tillich was beset with doubts about his own demise, and was fearful of death, despite having written a publicly acclaimed book on the subject. • Despite being an opinionated academic, he did not live according to his teachings. – He was known as an upright Christian, despite rarely attending church, and having a rather liberal lifestyle. – He taught and promoted socialism, yet lived a comfortable middle class lifestyle. – On the day he died, he was talking with his wife about the passing of the soul, Buddhist teachings, and the Tibetan Book of the Dead

Beliefs • He believed that ‘faith need not be unacceptable to contemporary culture and contemporary culture need not be unacceptable to faith' • He tried to develop a 'theology of culture' using the ‘method of correlation’ • 'Theology must be "answering theology"; it must adapt the Christian message to the modern mind while maintaining its essential truth and unique character'

Beliefs • He was searching for the essence or meaning of being, the centre of existence and came up with this basic conclusion; • '. . . anxiety about non-being is present in everything finite. It is natural for humans to wonder about their own status in relation to being, because in their moments of deepest thought they realise they are finite, transitory, temporal. They might "not be" just as easily as "be". In fact, non-being belongs to their existence, for they are faced with the threat of nonbeing every moment' (Grenz/Olson p. 118)

Ontology • 'Christian symbols of God. . . are images and stories about God, especially as Creator, that express the experience of the presence of the ‘power of being’ in a specially appropriate way' • Tillich also believes that revelation is the answer to reason's questions and that reason does not resist revelation in any way, and indeed they can compliment each other when used with the existential ontology.

Ontology • He expressed his fundamental ontology using the terms 'essence', 'existence' and 'essentialisation' • Essence is what a thing actually is, it is also what a thing can be, and what it should be in its ideal form. He also sees it as a ‘realm’ that cannot be entered or corrupted in any way by the human mind. • Existence refers to those things that have fallen from their essence, and so have fallen from their true being. In this realm there are the complex issues of argument, such as self created laws as opposed to society created laws. ‘ • In existence man is that finite being who is aware both of his belonging to and separation from the infinite' (Newport p. 67 f)

Ontology and Christianity • Essentialisation • Tillich’s essentialism tells us that essence can exist fully inside the confines of existence. It says that we can see the ‘New Being’ that is created by essentialism through the Bible, in Jesus Christ. God shows human kind what he can and indeed ought to be. • This however can only be achieved through regeneration, justification and sanctification. • 'That which is potential in every man is actualised in Jesus as the Christ. The doctrine of salvation is described as "participation in the New Being" (regeneration), acceptance of the New Being (justification), and transformation by the New Being (sanctification).

Christianity • Tillich, unlike other Christians believed that Jesus was not ‘God’ in such, but rather that he merely exposed god and was only more ‘holy’ because of what He did and was able to do, as opposed to who it was typically thought He essentially was. • 'Jesus was the finite individual who Christians believe became the Christ by his self-sacrificing life and death. He did so because he refused the demonic temptation inherent in finite existence to claim finality for himself. '

Ontology and Christianity • By this statement we are able to see that Tillich, by creating his idea of essentialisation, was simply trying to make a way in which human kind was able to find the middle path between ‘essence’ and ‘existence’ • Thus, Tillich made a major change in the way Christian theology ran with the statement; 'God does not exist. He is being itself beyond essence and existence. Therefore to argue that God exists is to deny him. '

Atheist? ? ? No, not quite. • 'God does not exist. He is being itself beyond essence and existence. Therefore to argue that God exists is to deny him. ' • Tillich was most certainly not an atheist, but merely saw that we cannot know God, while still living in finite, hence corrupted, world. • The infinite cannot remain infinite in the finite realm.

Tillich or not? • Tillich’s ideas cannot be related to any practices that would now be called religions that do not have a monotheistic father-like ‘God’ figure. • On the flip side, his views of the perfect (essential) realm and the corrupt (existential) human realm is a universal concept that can be put forward and hold constant to any religion in the world.

Your choice. Faith, scepticism, or both? Tillich’s with you whatever you choose