Paul Tillich, Apologist

Paul Tillich was an apologist. His most important arguments are intended to protect the doctrine of God from those who would pollute it by meaningless rational abstractions, those who would make it dependent on certain historical propositions, and those who would separate it from revelation and faith commitment. Even the method of correlation, for Tillich, “is especially the method of apologetic theology” (Paul Tillich: Theologian of the Boundaries, 139). The questions he wants to correlate with theological answers are not ethical questions; they are apologetic ones. Why the “tragic ambiguities of life”? What is the “meaning of history”? What of man’s “existential disruption and despair”? Tillich’s more heretical beliefs, like his universalist and adoptionist leanings, also probably serve an apologetic function: they make Christian teaching easier to stomach. Tillich, apparently, is driven by existential angst. He seeks answers that will lay to rest his—and others’—angst and finally provide a sense of peace and purpose.

Tillich argues very strongly against a “rational” or “natural” theology. Yes, he admits, “there is revelation through nature” and “there is theology dealing with nature,” but “there is no natural theology. Reason elaborates but does not produce theological propositions” (ibid., 138). The problem here is the distinction between what he says is theological and what he says is philosophical. When someone, taking nature as their sole source, tries to draw inferences about God or reality, what they are engaging in is not theology but philosophy. However valid these inferences may be, they have no practical value. They do not represent the divine reaching out to us, but only us reaching out to the divine. If reaching is only done in one direction, then there are no existential consequences; the divine cannot be grasped by human reason or human efforts, no matter how enlightened. But when God is understood to be reaching out to humanity to reveal himself, a person who pledges allegiance to the revealed superstructure of a religion (biblical Christianity for example) may also find God’s self-revelation in nature. The superstructure then becomes the foundation from which to interpret nature. This is what Tillich wants to say: it is impossible to do theology without being within a religious tradition; else all that is done is philosophy, and the study has no existential value.

Tillich also has a problem with “historical” biblical criticism. History as Tradition is important to him because it’s a frame of reference; it’s a guiding force. It tells us where to look for revelation, it gives us questions to ask, it gives us a set of answers that are acceptable, and it gives us a set of answers that are not acceptable. Tradition is a frame of reference, and we should strive for continuity with it. Biblical criticism, however, is not important. He argues that it is “the event of the appearance of the new reality in history” and the “biblical picture of Jesus as the Christ” (ibid., 134, emphasis added) that are important. What is not important is “the historical character of Jesus as the Christ” or whether “Jesus has said or done or suffered this or that” (ibid., emphasis added). It sounds to me like he is not even all that concerned that the “new reality” be connected specifically with Jesus, as long as we recognize that the new reality has entered history and is consistent with the biblical portrayal of Jesus. Now, he likely believed that the new reality was connected with Jesus, especially since he had developed his own Christology. But he argues that Christianity does not depend upon that, nor does the new reality necessarily reflect the actual historical character of the actual historical Jesus; instead we should be concerned only with what Tradition and the Bible say Jesus was like. This is the new reality.

I disagree with Tillich’s argument against natural theology for this reason: he assumes that one must be within a religious tradition to draw any useful inferences about God, because one must understand God to be revealing himself in order for it to qualify as theology rather than philosophy. I would say that one could be outside all known religious traditions but still understand God to be revealing himself in nature, and thus do natural “theology” without any revealed superstructure. I also disagree with his objections to biblical criticism, though I hardly know where to begin to explain why. Perhaps it will suffice to say that if there was no Jesus then there is no “event”. The gospels all assume that Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection was the event by which the new reality entered the world. If then we accept their characterization as reliable (which Tillich apparently does), we must also accept their attribution of its source. The gospels find meaning in the historical Jesus, not in themselves.