Descriptive Review of The Essential Tillich, Ch 5

Engaging with Paul Tillich’s writing has been refreshing and challenging to my soul. So, as I attempt to do a descriptive review of his chapter on “The Nature of Religious Language,” I am certain that my own enjoyment of Tillich will show through; however, I also will attempt to be as honest and critical of Tillich’s arguments and methods as I would of any other author.

Question: The question for this chapter is illuminated by the title of the essay from which it was collected: “Religious Symbols and Our Knowledge of God” (Tillich 44). Tillich attempts to answer the dilemma that he has created in previous chapters, as he has established that God is the being beyond being, or Being-Itself. If God is beyond being, then how can we speak of God? Tillich writes this piece in 1955, in America, at a time when the world was picking up the pieces from a foundation-shaking war (44).

Answer: Tillich answers this question through his description of symbols over against signs, then through his refinement of the specifically religious symbols. To the author, one obviously cannot understand any reality without some kind of sign or symbol to point to that experienced reality (45). Tillich differentiates between signs and symbols, and this is the key to his answer. A sign can only represent something, but it is arbitrary (45). The letters in this sentence have no internal significance; if they had any originally, it has since been lost. Symbols, however, “participate in the meaning and the power” of the reality which they represent (45). Furthermore, a religious symbol both participates in and points to the “fundamental level … of being itself” (49). Therefore, the concept of God, while insufficient, is the religious symbol for the transcendent reality of the Being-Itself (51). Not only this, but all of the materials that make up our conception of God are from our own experienced reality (52); therefore, our conception of God can only be a symbol, since God, by definition, is greater than all of our experienced reality.

Method: Tillich engages in a philosophical method aptly named dialectic. All of Tillich’s syntheses in this chapter are forged from the theses and antitheses that Tillich brings up. First, Tillich juxtaposes the concepts of sign and symbol (45); his synthesis states that symbols are those concepts that participate in the reality to which they point, and he arrives at this conclusion by illustrating that signs are excluded from this definition, in that they are arbitrary. Next, Tillich holds up symbols to a more specific religious symbol (49). Symbols in general point to a deeper reality, but religious symbols point to the ultimate transcendent reality. Then the theologian holds up the transcendent reality itself as an antithesis to the previous thesis in order to arrive at this synthesis: “participation is not identity; they [the religious symbols] are not themselves the Holy” (49). This kind of logic and approach intermingled with existential language and reasoning drive Tillich’s arguments.

Significance: For all those who have suffered under the yoke of existentialism, and for any and all who feel infinitely distant from a transcendent God, this chapter offers a light unto the path back to speaking of God. We must be careful, Tillich notes, but we must still attempt to point to the deep dimensions of reality with symbols and to the ultimate dimension of Being-Itself with religious symbol. For any and all who have become worshippers of the symbols themselves, this chapter is a warning and a reminder of just how limited our symbols actually are.

Evaluation: Following Tillich’s lead, the thesis is that this chapter logically demonstrates for us how we can and why we should still attempt to speak of the Holy; the antithesis is that the very arguments made are made with signs, rather than symbol. We can then move to our synthesis that this chapter examines language with language, and thus is limited; but Tillich acknowledges this limitation in his tone and structure. One weak point in Tillich’s chain of reasoning is the seemingly simple dichotomies that the author moves through to get to his point. We must ignore all gray in order to clearly delineate the black and white. Sign and symbol, we are led to believe, are the only ways to communicate reality. Conversely, Tillich’s method of differentiating between the two is one of degrees and personal judgment, leaving much open ended and unclear. Furthermore, Tillich appears to work in a world of universals – there is little room in these arguments for different perspectives. Overall, a great chapter that is effective and important; but like all reasoned arguments, it has its flaws.