Chapter II, "A Comparison of the Conceptions of God in the Thinking of Paul Tillich and Henry Nelson Wieman"
Author: King, Martin Luther, Jr. (Boston University)
Date: April 15, 1955?
Location: Boston, Mass.?
Genre: Essay
Topic: Martin Luther King, Jr. - Education
Details
Chapter II
THE METHODOLOGIES OF TILLICH AND WIEMAN
The question of theological method has been much discussed during the past century. Many hold that only as one settles this question can one expect to settle any other, for it underlies every other. Tillich and Wieman agree that the question of method is of fundamental importance, and both take pains to elaborate their methodologies.
Since the question of method is of such vital importance in theological construction, it is hardly possible to gain an adequate understanding of a theologian’s basic thought without an understanding of his methodology. So we can best begin our study of the conceptions of God held by Tillich and Wieman by giving an exposition of their methodologies. We turn first to Tillich.
1. Tillich’s method of correlation
Throughout his theology Tillich undertakes the difficult task of setting forth a systematic theology which is at the same time an apologetic. His aim is to show that the Christian message actually does answer the questions which modern man is being forced to ask about his existence, his salvation and his destiny.
Tillich’s theology is quite frankly a dialogue between classical Christianity and modern man. In this it is analogous to the work of the second century apologists who mediated between Christianity and late classical culture.
The method used to effect this apologetic task is the “method of correlation.” In Tillich’s first book entitled, Das System der Wissenschaften nach Gegenstanden und Methoden (“The System of Knowledge: Its Contents and Its Methods”), theology is defined as “theonomous metaphysics.” This definition was Tillich’s first step toward what he now calls the method of correlation. In the method of correlation Tillich seeks to overcome the conflict between the naturalistic and supernaturalistic methods, a conflict which he thinks imperils real progress in the work of systematic theology and also imperils any possible effect of theology on the secular world. The method of correlation shows the interdependence between the ultimate questions to which philosophy is driven and the answers given in the Christian message.1
Philosophy cannot answer ultimate or existential questions qua philosophy. If the philosopher tries to answer them … he becomes a theologian. And, conversely, theology cannot answer these questions without accepting their presuppositions and implications.\[Footnote:] Tillich, PE, xxvi.\
In this method question and answer determine each other; if they are separated, the traditional answers become unintelligible, and the actual questions remain unanswered. Philosophy and theology are not separated, and they are not identical, but they are correlated.2 Such a method seeks to be dialectical in the true sense of the word. In order to gain a clearer understanding of this method of correlation it is necessary to discuss its negative meaning.
i. The negative meaning of correlation
Tillich’s method of correlation replaces three inadequate methods of relating the contents of the Christian faith to man’s spiritual existence.3 These inadequate methods are referred to as supranaturalistic, naturalistic or humanistic, and dualistic. We turn first to a discussion of the supranaturalistic method.
(1) Supranaturalism
The supranaturalistic method sees the Christian message as a “sum of revealed truths which have fallen into the human situation like strange bodies from a strange world.”\[Footnote:] Tillich, ST, I, 64.\ The chief error in this method is found in its failure to place any emphasis on an analysis of the human situation. According to this method the truths of the Christian faith create a new situation before they can be received. At many points the supranaturalistic method has traits of the docetic-monophysitic heresy, expecially in its valuation of the Bible as a book of supranatural “oracles” in which human receptivity is completely overlooked.4 This method finally ends up seeking to put man in the impossible position of receiving answers to questions he never has asked.
It is chiefly at this point that Tillich criticizes Barth. Tillich is strongly opposed to anything of a heteronomous character.5\[Footnote:] Tillich uses the term heteronomous in relation to “autonomy” and “theonomy.” Autonomy means the obedience of the individual to the law of reason, which he finds in himself as a rational being.6 Heteronomy means imposing an alien law, religious or secular on man’s mind.7 Theonomy is a kind of higher autonomy. “It means autonomous reason united with its own depth … and actualized in obedience to its structural laws and in the power of its own inexhaustible ground.” (ST, I, 85.)8\ A completely foreign substance or authority, suddenly thrown at man could have no meaning to him.9
Revelation would not be even a divine possibility if it could not be received by means of forms of culture as human phenomena. It would be a destructive foreign substance in culture, a disruptive “non-human” entity within the human sphere, and could have had no power to shape and direct human history.\[Footnote:] Tillich, Art. (1935), 140.\
Tillich says in an even sharper criticism of Barth:
The “Grand Inquisitor” is about to enter the Confessional Church, and strictly speaking, with a strong but tightfitting armor of Barthian Supranaturalism. This very narrow attitude of the Barthians saved the German Protestant Church; but it created at the same time a new heteronomy, an anti-autonomous and antihumanistic feeling, which I must regard as an abnegation of the Protestant principle.\[Footnote:] Tillich, IOH, 26.\
In his Systematic Theology Tillich sets forth his criticism of Barth in still clearer terms. All theology as he sees it, has a dual function: to state the basic truth of the Christian faith and to interpret this truth in the existing cultural situation. In other words, theology has both a “kerygmatic” and an “apologetic” function. Barth’s theology performs the first of these tasks admirably. By lifting the message above any frozen formula from the past, and above the very words of the Scripture, Barth has been able to recover the great recurrent refrain that runs through all Scripture and Christian teaching. But he refuses, with the most persistent pertinacity, to undertake the apologetic task of interpreting the message in the contemporary situation. “The message must be thrown at those in the situation—thrown like a stone.”\[Footnote:] Tillich, ST, I, 7.\ Tillich is convinced, on the contrary, that it is the unavoidable duty of the theologian to interpret the message in the cultural situation of his day. Barth persists in avoiding this function, thus falling into a dogmatic “supranaturalism”.10
All of this makes it clear that Tillich is adverse to all supranaturalistic methods. His method of correlation, the basis of his whole theology, is expressly designed to avoid the pitfalls of supranaturalism without falling back into idealistic liberalism.11
(2) Naturalism
The method of naturalism is the second method that Tillich rejects as inadequate for relating the contents of the Christian faith to man’s spiritual existence. Naturalism tends to affirm that the answers can be developed out of human existence itself. Tillich asserts that much of liberal theology fell victim to this type of naturalistic or humanistic thinking. The tendency was to put question and answer on the same level of creativity. “Everything was said by man, nothing to man.”\[Footnote:] Tillich, ST, I, 65.\
Naturalism teaches that there is only one dimension in life, the horizontal dimension. There is no God who speaks to man beyond human existence. There is no vertical relationship whatsoever. Whatever is is in man completely.12
But this tendency to see everything in terms of the natural is as much an error as to see everything in terms of the supernatural.13 The error that Tillich finds in naturalism generally is its failure to see that human existence itself is the question. It fails to see, moreover, that the “answers must come from beyond existence.”\[Footnote:] Tillich, ST, I, 65.\ It is partially right in what it affirms; it is partially wrong in what it denies.14
(3) Dualism
The third method to be rejected by Tillich is called the “dualistic” method. Dualism seeks to build a supranatural structure on a natural substructure. It divides theology into natural theology and supranatural theology. Tillich admits that this method, more than any other, is aware of the problem which the method of correlation tries to meet. It realizes that in spite of the infinite gap between man’s spirit and God’s spirit, there must be a positive relation between them. It tries to express this relation by positing a body of theological truth which man can reach through so-called “natural revelation”.15 And herein lies the falsity of this method; it derives an answer from the form of the question. Like the naturalistic method, dualism fails to see that the answers must always come from something beyond existence.\[Footnote:] Tillich, ST, I, 65.\
It is essentially at this point that Tillich criticises so-called natural revelation. There is revelation through nature, but there is no natural revelation. Natural revelation, if distinguished from revelation through nature, is a contradiction in terms, for if it is natural knowledge, it is not revelation. Natural knowledge cannot lead to the revelation of the ground of being. It can lead only to the question of the ground of being. But this question is asked neither by natural revelation nor by natural theology. It is the question raised by reason, but reason cannot answer it. Only revelation can answer it. And this answer is based on neither natural revelation nor natural theology, but on real revelation.16 “Natural theology and, even more definitely, natural revelation are misnomers for the negative side of the revelation of the mystery, for an interpretation of the shock and stigma of nonbeing.”\[Footnote:] Tillich, ST, I, 120.\
Tillich is quite certain that the method of correlation solves the historical and systematic riddle that has been set forth by the method of dualism. It solves it by resolving so-called natural theology into the analysis of existence and by resolving so-called supranatural theology into the answers given to the questions implied in existence.17
ii. The positive meaning of correlation
We now turn to a discussion of the positive meaning of the method of correlation. The term “correlation” can be used in three ways. It can designate the correspondence of data; it can designate the logical interdependence of concepts, as in polar relations; and it can designate the real interdependence of things or events in structural wholes. In theological construction all three meanings have important implications.18 We shall discuss each of these meanings respectively. Then, in order to gain a clearer understanding of the method of correlation, we may go on to discuss how systematic theology proceeds in using the method of correlation, and how theology is related to philosophy.
(1) The correspondence of data
Correlation means correspondence of data in the sense of a correspondence between religious symbols and that which is symbolized by them. It is upon the assumption of this correspondence that all utterances about God’s nature are made. This correspondence is actual in the logos nature of God and the logos nature of man. There is an understandable contact between God and man because of this common logos nature.19
But one cannot stop here because God is always more than ground or reason; God is also abyss. This abyss-nature of God makes it impossible for man ever to speak about God except in symbolic terms.20 Since this idea of the symbol is such a basic facet of Tillich’s thought, we must briefly discuss its meaning.
Tillich regards every theological expression as being a symbolic utterance. Since the unconditional is “forever hidden, transcendent and unknowable, it follows that all religious ideas are symbolical.”\[Footnote:] Tillich, RS, X.\ No finite word, form, person or deed can ever be identified with God. There is an infinite gap between man and God.21\[Footnote:] Tillich, ST, I, 65.\
God, for Tillich, is not an object or being, not even the highest object or being; therefore, God cannot be approached directly as an object over against man as subject. The “really Real” grasps man into union with itself. Since for Tillich the really real transcends everything in the empirical order it is unconditionally beyond the conceptual sphere. Thus every form or word used to indicate this awareness must be in the form of myth or symbol. As Tillich succinctly states: “Offenbarung ist die Form, in welchem das religiöse Object dem religiösen Glauben theoretisch gegeben ist. Mythos ist die Ausdrücksform für den Offenbarungsinhalt.”\[Footnote:] Tillich, Art. (1925), 820.\22
Tillich insists that a symbol is more than a merely technical sign.\[Footnote:] Tillich, Art. (1940)1, 14 ff.\ The basic characteristic of the symbol is its innate power. A symbol possesses a necessary character. It cannot be exchanged. A sign, on the contrary, is impotent and can be exchanged at will. A religious symbol is not the creation of a subjective desire or work. If the symbol loses its ontological grounding, it declines and becomes a mere “thing,” a sign impotent in itself. ”Genuine symbols are not interchangeable at all, and real symbols provide no objective knowledge, but yet a true awareness.”\[Footnote:]Tillich, Art. (1940)1, 28. There seems to be a basic inconsistency in Tillich’s thought at this point. The statements, “all knowledge of God has a symbolic character” and “symbols provide no objective knowledge, but yet true awareness” are difficult to reconcile with each other. This contradiction becomes even more pronounced in Tillich’s discussion of the analogia entis between the finite and infinite. On the one hand he says, “Without such an analogy nothing could he said about God.” On the other hand he says, “It is not a method (analogia entis) of discovering truth about God.”24 It is very difficult for one to make much out of such contradictions. W. M. Urban has expressed the dilemma in his effort to understand Tillich (Art. (1940), 34–36). Urban’s position is that “unless there is ‘analogy of being’ between the ‘Creator’ and the ‘created’, between being in itself and being for us, it is perfectly futile to talk of either religious symbolism or religious knowledge.” (Art. (1940), 35)25\23 The criterion of a symbol is that through it the unconditioned is clearly grasped in its unconditionedness.26
Correlation as the correspondence of data means in this particular case that there is correspondence between religious symbols and that reality which these symbolize. Once a true religious symbol is discovered one can be sure that here is an implicit indication of the nature of God.27
(2) Logical interdependence of concepts
A second meaning of correlation is the logical interdependence of concepts. It is polar relationships that fall chiefly under this meaning of correlation. Correlation, as used here, determines the statements about God and the world. The world does not stand by itself. Particular being is in correlation with being-itself. In this second meaning of correlation, then, Tillich moves beyond epistemological considerations to ontological considerations.28
Tillich develops a very elaborate system of ontological elements. These elements are individualization and participation,\[Footnote:] Tillich, ST, I, 174.\ dynamics and form,\[Footnote:] Tillich, ST, I, 178.\ and freedom and destiny.\[Footnote:] Tillich, ST, I, 182.\ Each of these stands in polar relationship with each other, neither pole existing apart from the other. This ontological polarity is seen further in being and nonbeing and the finite and infinite. In setting forth these polar relationships Tillich is attempting to overcome the basic weaknesses found in supranaturalism, humanism and dualism. He admits that dualism, more than either of the other methods, is aware of the two poles of reality, but dualism conceives these in a static complementary relationship. Tillich maintains that these poles are related in dynamic interaction, that one pole never exists out of relation to the other pole. Herein is one of Tillich’s basic criticisms of Hegel. Hegel, according to Tillich, transcends the tension of existential involvement in the concept of a synthesis.\[Footnote:] Tillich, IOH, 166.\29 He identifies existential being with essential being. Tillich believes that no existing being can rise above ambiguity, tension, and angst.\[Footnote:] Tillich, IOH, 137, 141.\ Synthesis is reserved for God. Correlation, then, in the sense of logical interdependence of concepts, implies a polar structure of all existential reality.30
(3) Real interdependence of things or events
The third meaning of correlation designates the real interdependence of things or events in structural wholes. The particular relationship which Tillich is alluding to under this meaning of correlation is the relationship between God and man, the divine-human relationship. The implication of this view is clear, viz., that if there is a divine-human correlation God must be partly dependent upon man.31 Such a view has evoked strong protest from theologians such as Karl Barth. Tillich, in defending his position at this point, has this significant statement to make:
But although God in his abysmal nature is in no way dependent on man, God in his self manifestation to man is dependent on the way man receives his manifestation.\[Footnote:] Tillich, ST, I, 61.\
Here Tillich is apparently saying that God in his essence is to be distinguished from God revealing himself in existence.32 God as abyss is unconditioned while God as self-manifesting is conditioned by man’s receipt of the manifestation.
Tillich insists throughout that God and man are interdependent.
The divine-human relation, and therefore God as well as man within this relation, changes with the stages of the history of revelation and with the stages of every personal development. There is a mutual interdependence between “God for us” and “we for God”. God’s wrath and God’s grace are not contrasts in the ‘heart’ of God (Luther), in the depth of his being; but they are contrasts in the divine-human relationship. The divine-human relation is a correlation. The “divine-human encounter” (Emil Brunner) means something real for both sides. It is an actual correlation, in the third sense of the term.\[Footnote:] Tillich, ST, I, 61.\
In a real sense, then, God manifests himself in history. This manifestation is never complete because God as abyss is inexhaustible. But God as logos is manifest in history and is in real interdependence with man. The method of correlation seeks to express this relationship.33
(4) Correlation as existential questions and theological answers in mutual interdependence
“The method of correlation,” says Tillich, “explains the contents of the Christian faith through existential questions and theological answers in mutual interdependence.”\[Footnote:] Tillich, ST, I, 97.\34 In using this method systematic theology first makes an analysis of the human situation out of which the existential questions arise, and then proceeds to demonstrate that the symbols used in the Christian message are the answers to these questions. The analysis of the human situation is done in terms of “existentialism.” Here the individual becomes aware of the fact that he himself is the door to the deeper levels of reality, and that his own existence reveals something of the nature of existence generally. Whoever has immediately experienced his own finitude can find the traces of finitude in everything that exists.35
The analysis of the human situation employs materials from all realms of culture. Philosophy, poetry, drama, the novel, therapeutic psychology, and sociology all contribute. The theologian organizes these materials in relation to the answers given by the Christian message. This analysis of existence may be more penetrating than that of most philosophers.36 Nevertheless the analysis of the “situation” and the development of the “questions” constitute a “philosophical task.” Though this task is carried out by the theologian, he does it as a philosopher, and what he sees is determined only by the object as it is given in his experience.37
After the questions have arisen from an analysis of the human situation, the Christian message provides the answers. These answers come from beyond existence and are taken by systematic theology “from the sources, through the medium, under the norm.”\[Footnote:] Tillich, ST, I, 64. A word might be said concerning Tillich’s conception of the sources, medium and norm of systematic theology. Tillich sharply rejects the neo-orthodox claim that the Bible is the only source of theology, on the ground that the Biblical message could not have been understood and cannot be received without the preparation for it in religion and culture. However, the Bible is the basic source, since “it is the original document about the events on which the Christian Church is founded” (ST, I, 35). In addition to the Bible, the sources are church history, including historical theology, and the history of religion and culture. Experience is the medium through which the sources come to us. On this point Tillich is closer to the Protestant Reformers than he is to the theological empiricists for whom experience is the main source of systematic theology. He holds that “Christian theology is based on the unique event Jesus the Christ,” and that “this event is given to experience and not derived from it” (ST, I, 46). The norm of theology is “the ‘new Being’ in Jesus as the Christ.” Here Tillich transcends the norm of both Roman Catholicism and traditional Protestantism.\ Although the answers are spoken to human existence from beyond it, there is a mutual dependence between question and answer. “In respect to content the Christian answers are dependent on the revelatory events in which they appear; in respect to form they are dependent on the structure of the questions which they answer.”
We can better understand the method of correlation if we look at an example of its application: the “question” of Reason and the “answer” of Revelation.38 After one analyzes man‘s rationality, especially his cognitive rationality, it is revealed that under the conditions of existence reason falls into “self-destructive conflicts” with itself. The polarity of “structure” and “depth” within reason produces a conflict between “autonomous” and “heteronomous” tendencies, and this conflict leads to “the quest for theonomy.” The polarity between “static” and “dynamic” elements within reason leads to a conflict between “absolutism” and “relativism.” This leads to “the quest for the concrete-absolute.” The polarity between “formal” and “emotional” elements produces a conflict between “formalism” and “irrationalism,” and this conflict leads to the “quest for the union of form and mystery.” “In all three cases,” says Tillich, “reason is driven to the quest for revelation.”\[Footnote:] Tillich, ST, I, 83.\ Also a dilemma arises between “controlling” knowledge and “receiving” knowledge. “Controlling knowledge is safe but not ultimately significant, while receiving knowledge can be ultimately significant, but it cannot give certainty.”[Footnote:] Tillich, ST, I, 105.\ This dilemma leads to the quest for revelation which gives a truth which is both certain and of ultimate concern. The “final revelation” in Jesus Christ, Tillich argues, gives the answers to these questions implied in the existential conflicts of reason. It liberates and reintegrates reason and thus fulfills it.39 It overcomes the conflict between autonomy and heteronomy by re-establishing their essential unity.40 Says Tillich,
Final revelation includes two elements which are decisive for the reunion of autonomy and heteronomy, the complete transparency of the ground of being in him who is the bearer of the final revelation, and the complete self-sacrifice of the medium to the content of revelation.\[Footnote:] Tillich, ST, I, 147.\
Also the final revelation in Christ liberates reason from the conflict between absolutism and relativism by presenting a “concrete absolute.” “In the New Being which is manifest in Jesus as the Christ,” says Tillich, “the most concrete of all possible forms of concreteness, a personal life, is the bearer of that which is absolute, without condition and restriction.”\[Footnote:] Tillich, ST, I, 150.\ Again, the final revelation in Christ overcomes the conflict between the formal and the emotional elements in reason through the participation of the whole of a person’s life in it and the consequent bringing together of all the elements of reason.41
We have described the “method of correlation” and illustrated its application by reference to the correlation of the “question” of Reason with the “answer” of Revelation. This method determines the whole structure of Tillich’s system.42 He says,
The method of correlation requires that every part of my system should include one section in which the question is developed by an analysis of human existence and existence generally, and one section in which the theological answer is given on the basis of the sources, the medium, and the norm of systematic theology.\[Footnote:] Tilliich, ST, I, 66.\
Since the form of the “answers” is determined by the philosophical analysis of the situation, the way in which that analysis is conceived is important for an adequate understanding of the “method of correlation.” So we turn to a discussion of Tillich’s view of philosophy and its relation to theology.43
(5) The meaning of philosophy and its relation to theology
Tillich’s conception of the nature of philosophy and its relation to theology is clearly set forth in the following paragraph:
Philosophy asks the ultimate question that can be asked, namely, the question as to what being, simply being, means.… It arises out of the philosophical shock, the tremendous impetus of the questions: What is the meaning of being? Why is there being and not not-being? What is the character in which every being participates?.… Philosophy primarily does not ask about the special character of the beings, the things and events, the ideas and values, the souls and bodies which share being. Philosophy asks what about this being itself. Therefore, all philosophers have developed a “first philosophy”, as Aristotle calls it, namely, an interpretation of being.… This makes the division between philosophy and theology impossible, for, whatever the relation of God, world, and man may be, it lies in the frame of being; and any interpretation of the meaning and structure of being as being unavoidably such has consequences for the interpretation of God, man, and the world in their interrelations.\[Footnote:] Tillich, PE, 85.\44
This rather lengthy quotation reveals that Tillich conceives of philosophy as basically ontology.\[Footnote:] Tillich regards the traditional term “metaphysics” as too abused and distorted to be longer of any service. This abuse came through a misuse of the syllable “meta” in metaphysics, which in spite of the testimony of all textbooks on philosophy that it means the book after the physics in the collection of Aristotelian writings has received the meaning of something beyond human experience, open to arbitrary imagination.\ He affirms that the Kantians are wrong in making epistemology the true first philosophy, for as later Neo-Kantians like Nicolai Hartmann have recognized, epistemology demands an ontological basis.45 Since knowing is an act which participates in being, every act of knowing refers at the same time to an interpretation of being.
The attempt of logical positivism and related schools to reduce philosophy to logical calculus has also been unsuccessful. Logical positivism cannot avoid the ontological question.
There is always at least one problem about which logical positivism, like all semantic philosophies, must make a decision. What is the relation of signs, symbols, or logical operations to reality? Every answer to this question says something about the structure of being. It is ontological.\[Footnote:] Tillich, ST, I, 20.\
Philosophy necessarily asks the question of reality as a whole; it asks the question of the structure of being.46 Theology also asks the question of the structure of being. In this sense, theology and philosophy converge. Neither the theologian nor the philosopher can avoid the ontological question.47
Though both philosophy and theology deal with the structure of being, they deal with it from different perspectives. Philosophy asks the question of the structure of being in itself; theology deals with the meaning of being for us.48 “Theology deals with what concerns us inescapably, ultimately, unconditionally.”\[Footnote:] Tillich, PE, 87.\ There are two ways in which the ultimate concern can be considered. It can be looked at as an event beside other events to be described in detached objectivity; or it can be understood as an event in which he who considers it is existentially involved. In the first case the philosopher of religion is at work. In the second the theologian speaks. The philosopher of religion is only theoretically concerned with the ultimate concern, while the theologian’s interpretation of the ultimate concern is itself a matter of ultimate concern.49
Theology at its best unites two elements, viz., the existential and the methodical. Theology is the existential and methodical interpretation of an ultimate concern. Theological propositions, therefore, are those which deal with an object in so far as it is related to an ultimate concern. On the basis of this criterion, no object is excluded from theology, not even a piece of stone; and no object is in itself a matter of theology, not even God.50 Tillich is certain that this criterion “makes theology absolutely universal, on the one hand, and absolutely definite, on the other hand.”\[Footnote:] Tillich, Art. (1947), 18.\
So we can see that the first point of divergence between the philosopher and the theologian is found in their cognitive attitude. The philosopher seeks to maintain a detached objectivity toward being.51 He seeks to exclude all personal and historical conditions which might destroy his longing for objectivity. So in this sense the philosopher is like the scientist.
The theologian, quite differently, does not seek to be detached from his object. He is involved in it. He seeks a personal relationship with it. In other words, the attitude of the theologian is commitment to its object.52
He is involved—with the whole of his existence, with his finitude and his anxiety, with his self-contradiction and despair, with the healing forces in him and in his social situation.… Theology is necessarily existential, and no theology can escape the theological circle.\[Footnote:] Tillich, ST, I, 23.\
Another point of divergence between the philosopher and the theologian is the difference in their sources. The philosopher looks at the whole of reality and seeks to discover within it the structure of reality. He assumes that there is an identity between the logos of reality as a whole and the logos working in him, so he looks to no particular place to discover the structure of being. The place to look is all places.53
The theologian, on the other hand, finds the source of his knowledge not in the universal logos, but in the logos “who became flesh,” and the medium through which he receives knowledge of the logos is not common rationality, but the Church.
A third point of divergence which Tillich finds between philosophy and theology is a difference in their content. The philosopher deals with the categories of being in relation to the material which is structured by them, while the theologian relates the same categories to the quest for a “new being.” The philosopher deals with causality as it appears in physics, while the theologian discusses causality in relation to a first cause, i.e. the ground of the whole series of causes. The philosopher analyzes biological or historical time and discusses astronomical as well as microcosmic space, but the theologian deals with time in relation to eternity and space in relation to man’s existential homelessness.54 Tillich uses several such examples to prove that the content of theology is different from that of philosophy.\[Footnote:] See ST, I, 24.\
Just as there is a divergence between philosophy and theology, there is, insists Tillich, an equally obvious convergence. The philosopher like the theologian is caught in an existential situation and has an ultimate concern, whether he realizes it or not. Even the most scientific philosopher must admit this, for if an ultimate concern were lacking, his philosophy would be devoid of passion, seriousness, and creativity.55 “Every creative philosopher,” says Tillich, “is a hidden theologian.”\[Footnote:] Tillich, ST, I, 25.\
The theologian is also confronted with the same burden. In order to establish the universal validity of what concerns him ultimately, he like the philosopher must seek to be detached from his existential situation and seek obedience to the universal logos. He must take the risk of standing outside of the theological circle.\[Footnote:] Tillich, ST, I, 25.\
The conclusion that Tillich draws from the duality of divergence and convergence in the relation between theology and philosophy is that there is neither conflict nor synthesis between theology and philosophy.56 A conflict presupposes a common basis on which to fight. But then there is no common basis between theology and philosophy.57 When the theologian enters the philosophical arena, he must enter it as a philosopher; only as a philosopher can he be in conflict with another philosopher, that is, he must make his appeal to reason alone.\[Footnote:] Tillich, ST, I, 26.\58
There can be no synthesis of philosophy and theology for the same reason: there is no “common basis” on which they can meet. Therefore, the ideal of the “Christian philosophy” is both futile and self-contradictory, because it denotes “a philosophy which does not look at the universal logos but at the assumed or actual demands of a Christian theology.”\[Footnote:] Tillich, ST, I, 28.\ Of course, any Western thinker may be a “Christian philosopher” in the sense of one whose thinking has been in some measure shaped by the Christian tradition, but an “intentionally” Christian philosopher is a contradiction in terms because the philosopher must “subject himself” to nothing but being as he experiences it.59
2. Wieman’s scientific method
Throughout his writings Wieman contends that the only way to gain true knowledge is through the scientific method. He is convinced that all knowledge must depend ultimately upon science, since “science is nothing else than the refined process of knowing.”\[Footnote:] Wieman, RESM, 23.\ The scientific method is the very center of Wieman’s thought. As Van Dusen puts it:
Scientific Method is more than a thread running through all Professor Wieman’s writings; it is not too much to say that it is the central pivot around which everything else must revolve and in relation to which it must take its reference and obtain its validity.\[Footnote:] Van Dusen, Art. (1931), 711.\
In accepting the scientific method as the only way to distinguish between truth and error, Wieman automatically rejects most traditional “ways of knowing.” In order to gain a clearer understanding of Wieman’s use of the scientific method we may briefly discuss some tests of truth he rejects.
i. Tests of truth which Wieman rejects
It is often claimed that religious knowledge is peculiarly derived from revelation or faith or authority.60 Wieman emphatically rejects each of these tests of truth. We may discuss Wieman’s view of them in order.
(1) Revelation
Some things are held to be true because it is claimed that they are revealed by God to man.61 The Barthian theologians would insist, for instance, that the only avenue for religious truth is through revelation. Even Tillich, as we have seen, affirms that the final revelation in Jesus Christ gives answers to the questions implied in the existential conflicts of reason. Wieman, however, seeks to show that revelation provides no access to truth beyond the bounds of observation, agreement of observers, and coherence. Revelation in itself is not knowledge, notwithstanding the fact that revelation may be an avenue to knowledge.62 Revelation for Wieman is “the lifting of the creative event to a place of domination in the devotion of a continuing fellowship to form one enduring strand of history.”\[Footnote:] Wieman, SHG, 214.\ This lifting to a place of domination was not done by man, but by such events as the life and teaching of Jesus, the Crucifixion; the Resurrection; and the forming of the fellowship. The cheif consequence of this revelation is not an unveiling of knowledge, but the release of creative power to transform the world into richness of value. The immediate consequence of revelation is faith and salvation, rather than knowledge. In time, however, the religious man gains a knowledge from revelation that he could never have gained without. But this knowledge of revelation, if and when it is attained, demands the same tests of truth as any other knowledge.63
Wieman finds revelation to be an inadequate test of truth because it ultimately has to throw us back to some further test. Even if it be affirmed that truth is what God reveals, one must still ascertain what is revelation and what not. One may claim that the Holy Spirit shows what is truly revelation. But how can one know he has the Holy Spirit? In other words, one cannot know what is revelation by further revelation from the Holy Spirit. He must then prove not only the validity of the first revelation but also the second. Thus revelation demands some further test. It cannot itself be the test.64
(2) Faith
Faith is sometimes alleged to be a peculiar way of knowing that can cast off the ordinary tests of truth. For Wieman, however, faith is not knowledge primarily, but is a self-giving.65 Faith is
the act of deciding to live in a way required by the source of human good, to maintain association with a fellowship practicing that commitment, to follow the rituals designed to renew and deepen this commitment, to search one’s self for hidden disloyalties to this devotion, to confess and repudiate these disloyalties.\[Footnote:] Wieman, SHG, 46.\
“Since faith is an act,” says Wieman, “it is neither a belief going beyond the evidence nor knowledge.”\[Footnote:] Wieman, SHG, 47.\ It may be guided by the most thoroughly tested and accurate knowledge. But never does human knowledge plumb the full depths of the reality commanding religious commitment of faith. Even when the beliefs directing religious commitment become knowledge of the most precise and thoroughly tested sort, still the knowledge never exhausts the reality commanding faith.\[Footnote:] Wieman, SHG, 47, 48.\66
(3) Authority
Another test of truth which Wieman rejects is that of authority. He is quite aware that “authority is indispensable for any extensive accumulation of knowledge.”\[Footnote:] Wieman, NPOR, 118.\ Authority rightly used plays a large part in any form of knowledge.67 The great insights of science could have never appeared without individual scientists depending on their associates and predecessors by accepting their findings. If they had to test everything for themselves, they would never catch up with what is already known, not to mention going on beyond to some further discovery. Moreover, there are many fields in which we are not equipped to test for ourselves the body of accepted knowledge. Thus authority is an indispensable labor-saving device in the acquisition of knowledge.68
But reliable authority simply conserves and hands on to others what has been found to be true by some other test than that of authority.69 In other words, the trustworthiness of what is found in an authority does not depend upon the authority.70 Says Wieman, “an authority is reliable in so far as it states accurately what has been discovered, and sets forth fully and correctly the evidence on which this discovery rests.”\[Footnote:] Wieman, NPOR, 119.\ Thus authority like revelation depends on some further test of truth.71
We may now turn to a discussion of the positive meaning of the scientific method.
ii. The positive meaning of the scientific method
Wieman defines scientific method as the method in which sensory observation, experimental behavior, and rational inference are working together.72
It becomes more fully scientific as (1) observation is made more accurate, selective, and refined; as (2) rational inference is made more pure and rigorous; as (3) experimental behavior is made to operate under controlled conditions and (4) as these three are made to check one another more closely.\[Footnote:] Wieman, Art. (1936)1, 184.\
This method repudiates pure rationalism, pure behaviorism and pure observation. It demands that all three enter into the forming, the correcting and the validating of any belief about any reality. These three tests of truth apply to every proposition alleged to be true, whether it is in the field of common sense, science, philosophy, or religion.
Wieman seeks to make it clear at every point that the scientific method is not to be confused with positivism, the view that we get our knowledge from sensation alone. Sensation alone can never give knowledge. Neither can abstract reason alone yield knowledge. First observation under the control of reason must discover some order in the field of sensuous experience. After discovering such an order, it becomes possible to follow it by pure reason beyond the reach of sensuous experience. But the starting point is what is sensible, and it is necessary to be able to come back to what is sensible for verification. So according to this method, knowledge is not limited to sensation, but neither can it dispense with sensation.
It might be well at this point to say a few words concerning Wieman’s conception of observation, since it commands such a central position in Wieman’s methodology. Observation is a series of perceptual events. The perceptual event is not merely sense data.73 The perceptual event “includes everything within and without the biological organism, which experiment can demonstrate makes a difference to conscious awareness when the perceptual reaction occurs.”\[Footnote:] Wieman, SHG, 182.\ When the perceptual event is so interpreted it is clearly seen that is is only an infinitesimal part of the total universe. Innumerable happenings are constantly occurring in the wide reaches of the world which make no difference whatsoever to the conscious awareness accompanying the perceptual reaction of the organism.74
Many structures are present or ingredient in every perceptual event. Far fewer are common to a sequence of such events. From these that are common, selective attention picks out one, and that is what is perceived.75
Wieman is convinced that all knowledge is achieved by perception, even metaphysical knowledge. The only difference between metaphysical knowledge and other forms of knowledge is that the former is achieved “by a more elaborate analysis of perceptual events to the end of discovering structures not merely common to a selected series but those essential to all perceptual events whatsoever.”\[Footnote:] Wieman, SHG, 182.\ Time and space, for example, are essential ingredients in every perceptual event. This is discovered by an analysis of perceptual events. Wieman thinks that all categories sought by metaphysical or other philosophical inquiry can be uncovered by proper analysis of the perceptual event.76\[Footnote:] Wieman, SHG, 183.\ As we shall see subsequently, even God is known by way of perception. So we can say that, for Wieman, observation enters into all cases of getting genuine knowledge.77 Not even reason can gain knowledge without observation. There must be a working together of the two. In the final analysis the scientific method means “observation under control of reason, and reason under the control of observation.”\[Footnote:] Wieman, Art. (1932)2, 109.\
Wieman also stresses the point that the scientific method requires the utmost use of imagination. Nothing of great importance can be discovered without the great power of imagination. The imagination is needed to construct a theoretical order. But all such imagination must be constantly under the control of reason and observation, else it will give us only the constructions of human fancy and build around us a wall of dreams to shut out objective reality.
In his book, The Issues of Life, Wieman analyzes the scientific method in four steps:
(1) Forming an idea of what course of action will produce specified consequences by observing various consequences that have issued from specified conditions.\[Footnote:] Wieman feels that this is the most difficult step of all. It is here that the greatest genius is displayed, in religion and science, and in every other branch of life where discovery is demanded.\
(2) Ascertain as accurately as possible just what are the conditions under which this course of action can be profitably followed to produce the desired and anticipated consequences.
(3) Find or create these conditions, perform the course of action, and observe what happens.
(4) Develop by logical inference what further to expect in the light of what has been observed to happen and test these inferences, just as the original idea was tested, namely by steps one, two, and three just described.\[Footnote:] Wieman, IOL, 187–188.\78
These, in short, are the steps of the scientific method. Here it is again made explicit that the only valid test of any belief is observation combined with reason. In order to gain a clearer understanding of Wieman’s use of the scientific method, we turn to a discussion of the knowledge of God through the scientific method.
iii. Knowledge of God through the scientific method
Wieman rejects the view that knowledge of God is a special kind of knowledge which comes through special faculties like feeling, intuition, faith, and moral will. It is true that all of these designate a kind of immediate experience which provides the data that may lead to the knowledge of God. But it is erroneous to identify knowledge with immediate experience. “Immediate experience never yields knowledge, althought it is one indispensable ingredient in knowledge inasmuch as it provides the data from which knowledge may be derived.”\[Footnote:] Wieman, RESM, 22.\
All of this leads Wieman to affirm emphatically that we know God just as we know any other object; that there are no other faculties of knowledge except those by which we know ordinary objects.
The method by which Wieman seeks to gain knowledge of God is the same as that used to gain knowledge of any other object, viz., the scientific method. As we have seen above, Wieman is quite certain that without this scientific method we have no accurate method of verifying our ideas or of distinguishing between truth and error.79
Wieman admits that because of the exceeding complexity of the data of religious experience no method has yet been devised which can treat them scientifically. But all effort on the part of religious thinkers must be in that direction.
Only by developing a scientific technique which is fit and able to interpret correctly the significance of that which is given in immediate experience when immediate experience is at that flood-tide called mysticism can God be known. It is probable He can never be known completely; but we can increase our knowledge of Him by contemplation which draws on mysticism from one side and from scientific method on the other.\[Footnote:] Wieman, RESM, 84–85.\
Wieman proceeds to formulate the requirements for a scientific knowledge of God in the following manner:
In moving toward a more adequate, i.e., a more scientific knowledge of God, even though we approach from afar off, three things are required: (1) a clarification of the type of experience which can be called distinctively religious; (2) an analysis or elucidation of that datum in this experience which signifies the object being experienced and (3) inference concerning the nature of this object.\[Footnote:] Wieman, RESM, 33.\
In order to assure the success of the scientific method in obtaining knowledge of God men will have to relinquish all claim to knowledge of God except that obtainable by the combination of observation and reason. Sense experience of God is the first indispensable step in acquisition of knowledge of God through the scientific method. But the element of sense experience is only one side of the pole. The data of sense must be subjected to the scrutiny of reflection.
For Wieman, the adequacy of one’s concept of God must ultimately be tested by three questions: 1. Does the concept designate that something in all being upon which human life must depend and to which humans must adjust, in order to attain the greatest possibilities of good? 2. Does it deal adequately with the problem of evil? 3. Is it true to religious experience.\[Footnote:] Wieman, WRT, 198.\
There can be no doubt, asserts Wieman, that men are persistently meeting a reality like this. This reality must be God. When men come to the point of living the contemplative life, they know more about this God.\[Footnote:] By the contemplative life Wieman does not mean a life of passive reflection, but a life which includes both maximum awareness and appreciation of sense experience.\
Wieman continually affirms that God is an object of perception. He is just as capable of being perceived as any other object in the physical world.\[Footnote:] Wieman admits that the perception by which God is known is “perception wherein the analysis and the search are carried much further than the automatic and habitual analysis and selection made by automatic reactions of the organism.” (SHG, 183) These are sufficient for perceiving hills and houses, but not for perceiving God, “the everlasting creative event.”80\ Perception of God is possible because God reveals himself. Through revelation God provides the preliminary conditions for perception of himself.
Revelation is the development in some strand of history and in some community, of those meanings, of those perceptual events, and of that structured interrelation of events whereby God can be known. The development of meanings and perceptual events pertaining to God is the work of that creativity which generated all meanings.\[Footnote:] Wieman, Art. (1943)1, 28.\
But even after these meanings, perceptual events, and structures have been provided, men do not necessarily perceive God.
There are special commitments, discipline, and practices, as well as the general procedures of all empirical inquiry, to which men must subject themselves to perceive God after revelation is accomplished, just as they must do this to attain knowledge of any other complex object of cognition.\[Footnote:] Wieman, Art. (1943)1, 28.\
From this interpretation of revelation Wieman seeks to explain why God is hidden. He sets forth the following four explanations for God’s hiddenness. (1) God is hidden where and when he has not revealed himself. (2) He is hidden where and when men will not follow the methods and submit to the disciplines necessary to achieve true perception. (3) He is hidden when men hold to myth and revelation as a kind of knowledge. (4) He is hidden when men’s appreciations and evaluations are so formed and directed that they cannot appreciate the divine significance of that creativity which generates all real value.81\[Footnote:] Wieman, Art. (1943)1, 29.\ When the idea of the hiddenness of God is so interpreted, Wieman is certain that a major stumbling block to the perception of God is removed.
Another misunderstanding which must be removed if God is to be perceived is that concerning the nature and function of myth. “Myth,” says Wieman, “is a statement, rather complex as a rule by which conduct, attitude, and devotion are directed to deal religiously with important reality without intellectual understanding of what they really mean.”\[Footnote:] Wieman, Art. (1943)1, 30.\ Wieman admits that myth, while lacking cognitive proficiency, possesses pragmatic efficacy. It may even be indispensable in dealing with some of the most important and complex realities because of the limitations of man’s intellectual understanding. The central Christian myth of the crucified and yet living Christ, for instance, is a way of saying
that the reality with which we deal through the myth of Christ is so deep and so high, so intimate and so complex, that our intellectual understanding is inadequate.\[Footnote:] Wieman, Art. (1943)1, 30.\
Myths are not false; but neither are they true. The pragmatic efficacy of the myth in directing one to important reality is simply a fact. It simply happens when and if it does happen. These happenings either occur or do not. When they occur, they are neither true nor false. Only propositions about them can be true or false.82
The myth when rightly interpreted is seen to be a valuable way of directing conduct and devotion to important reality. But when myth is thought to be knowledge it confuses the mind and makes impossible perceptual knowledge of God.
A final confusion which Wieman seeks to dissipate in order to make perceptual knowledge of God possible pertains to the work of theology.83 He thinks that the work of theology should be limited to the job of
criticizing and revising the myths so that they will continue to be efficacious and reliable guides to God within the changing context of the prevailing culture.\[Footnote:] Wieman, Art. (1943)1, 31–32. It is difficult to follow Wieman at this point. In most instances he contends that theology should give us knowledge of God. But here he is contending that theology should only criticize and revise religious myths so as to nurture experience of creativity. It is hard to make much of this contradiction.
Since myths will always be there, some field of expert scholarship must be devoted to the task. When theology goes beyond this and pursues the cognitive job of getting knowledge of God, it ends in a morass of confusion and futility.84
Wieman is quite certain that once these misunderstandings concerning revelation, myth and theology are removed one can move toward perception of God. This point of the perception of God is so important to Wieman because he is seeking to be a thoroughgoing empiricist at every point. That which cannot be observed does not exist.
3. A comparison and evaluation of the methodologies of Tillich and Wieman
The methodologies of Tillich and Wieman are quite divergent at many points. As we have seen, Wieman contends that one only gains true knowledge through the scientific method. All knowledge, whether it is knowledge of God or knowledge of a stick or stone, is obtained through the scientific method. With this contention, Tillich is in strong disagreement. He looks upon this “methodological imperialism” as being as dangerous as political imperialism, for, like the latter, “it breaks down when the independent elements of reality revolt against it.”\[Footnote:] Tillich, ST, I, 60.\ It is Tillich’s conviction that the adequacy of a method cannot be decided a priori; rather it is continually being decided in the cognitive process itself. For Tillich, method and system determine each other, making it absolutely erroneous for any method to claim to be adequate for every subject.85
Another point of disagreement between Tillich and Wieman is on the question of existential participation. Wieman’s attempt to be a thoroughgoing empiricist causes him to look askance upon anything that smacks of existentialism. He seeks to deal with the data of theology through detached objectivity. Tillich, on the other hand, is convinced that the existential factor cannot be eliminated from theology. And so he contends, contrary to Wieman, that theology can never be an “empirical science.” The object of theology, asserts Tillich, is not an object within the whole of scientific experience. Theology does not deal with objects that can be “discovered by detached observation,” or “tested by scientific methods of verification.” In these methods the testing subject is always outside the test situation. But the object of theology, says Tillich, can be verified only by a participation in which the testing theologian risks himself in the ultimate sense of “to be or not to be.”86 Tillich contends that “this test is never finished not even in a complete life of experience. An element of risk remains and makes an experimental verification in time and space impossible.”\[Footnote:] Tillich, ST, I, 44.\
Tillich thinks that the demand for existential participation is confirmed by the results of scientific-experiential theology itself. Without such an existential participation Wieman’s “creative process,” for instance, is a nonreligious concept: with it, it is no longer a scientific concept.87 Tillich is certain that “in no case can scientific experience as such produce a foundation and source of systematic theology.”\[Footnote:] Tillich, ST, I, 44.\88
Tillich does not totally eliminate the empirical factor from his theological method. Like Wieman, he sees the importance of the empirical factor in theology. But he is not willing to carry it as far as Wieman. Tillich prefers to stand “on the boundary” between Barth and Wieman on the issue of theological empiricism.89
When it comes to the question of the rational factor in theological methodology, both Tillich and Wieman concur on its importance. We have seen how Wieman applies rational inference to sensory observation and experimental behavior to achieve the proper results of the scientific method. We have also seen how Tillich employs semantic, logical, and methodological rationality in his theological system. Tillich insists that the dialetical character of his method of correlation does not mean that it is opposed to logic and rationality; for “dialectics follows the movement of thought or movement of reality through yes and no, but it describes it in logically correct terms.”\[Footnote:] Tillich, ST, I, 56.\ So for Tillich and Wieman reason plays an important part in methodological construction.
Tillich goes beyond Wieman, however, by insisting that reason needs revelation. Therefore revelation receives a very prominent place in the methodology of Tillich. He holds that the final revelation in Jesus Christ gives answers to the questions implied in the existential conflicts of reason. Wieman seeks to show that revelation provides no access to truth beyond the bounds of observation and agreement of observers.90 His theory of revelation abjures any attempt to make revelation a part of supernaturally mediated knowledge. Tillich would agree that revelation adds nothing to the totality of our ordinary knowledge, i.e., to our knowledge about the subject-object structure of reality.91 But he would disagree with Wieman’s assertion that revelation mediates no form of knowledge. Tillich affirms that revelation mediates knowledge about the mystery of being to us, not about beings and their relation to one another. There is one other qualification that Tillich makes concerning knowledge of revelation, namely, that it can be received only in the situation of revelation, and it can be communicated—in contrast to ordinary knowledge—only to those who participate in this situation. According to this view, revelation cannot interfere with knowledge that is ordinary. Likewise, ordinary knowledge cannot interfere with knowledge of revelation.92
Several points concerning Wieman’s scientific method and Tillich’s method of correlation require comment.
1. Wieman insists that the religious inquirer seeking knowledge of God must stick to what is immediately given within the fluid process of “sensory experience, experimental behavior and rational inference.”93 This is what Wieman means by the requirements of thoroughgoing empiricism. Such a method seeks to eliminate faith and analogical reference from the quest for knowledge of God.
But is it possible to eliminate faith and analogical reference from genuine knowledge of God, or from any knowledge for that matter? The outcome of such an elimination would be, as Santayana has shown, a “solipsism of the present moment.”\[Footnote:] Santayana, SAF, 14–18.\ Without faith and recourse to analogy it is impossible to develop a working knowledge of the actual world.
Certainly Wieman is not consistent in his attempt to eliminate faith and analogical reference from the quest for knowledge of God. He says, for instance, that “the terms ‘process’ and “interaction’ apply to everything that exists because everything in existence is a process and interacts with other things.”\[Footnote:] Wieman, Art. (1936)2, 430.\ But how is this known? Certainly not by direct observation. In such affirmations one must assume that what lies beyond observation is analogous to what is observed. Since it is possible to observe only an infinitesimal portion of all that has been, is, and will be, it can be truly said that any assertion made about anything that exists will involve a bold use of analogy.
2. One of the weak points of the scientific method in religion is that this method omits so much valid experience. Science must inevitably be selective and exclusive. In a world of such infinite variety and richness, science by the nature of its instruments and procedures must limit itself to a few items or elements within that richness. Thus a vast wealth of potential experience is always deliberately ignored in any scientific endeavor. Whatever may be the merit of the foregoing, the surprising thing is that Wieman states categorically: “We do not yet have any knowledge of God that we can call scientific.” This would seem to mean that the purely scientific methodology is a hope and not a fact.
3. Even if the scientific method were a fact it would hardly be adequate for religion. The scientific method requires that the investigator maintain a detached objectivity toward his object. He must seek to exclude all personal and historical conditions which might destroy his longing for objectivity. The theologian, on the other hand, does not seek to be detached from his object. He seeks a personal relationship with it. In other words, the attitude of the theologian is commitment to his object. Tillich’s criticism of Wieman’s method at this point is quite sound.
4. It seems that Tillich begs the question as to the relation between philosophy and theology in his contention that the philosopher seeks the truth only in the whole of reality, and never looks for it in any particular place. There is nothing to prevent a philosopher from finding the key to the nature of reality in a particular part of reality. Indeed this is what the creative philosopher has done all along. He takes as his starting point some particular aspect of reality which seems to him to provide the clue to an understanding of reality as a whole.94
Now the philosopher who is a Christian does not differ from other philosophers in starting with a belief which he takes as the key to reality. He finds the key to reality in the event of God’s revelation in Jesus the Christ. This does not mean that having found the key in a particular event, he should cease to look at the universal structure of being. The fact that he has found the key enables him to look at the structure of being with a clearer understanding of it.95
So it seems that Tillich’s contention that there can be no Christian philosophy is somewhat exaggerated. He thinks that the ideal of a Christian philosophy is impossible because philosophy must approach the structure of being with detachment and without reference to its meaning for us. Yet Tillich himself, admits that every great philosopher has an ultimate concern, and has been in a sense a theologian. If this is so the distinction between philosophy and theology is relative, not absolute. Therefore Tillich’s effort to distinguish between theology and philosophy in the last analysis breaks down.\[Footnote:] For a further elaboration of this criticism see G. F. Thomas, Art. (1952), 101–104.\96
5. In seeking to distinguish between philosophy and theology it seems that Tillich leaves a too sharp dualism between the theoretical and existentialism or “practical.” This is one of the things that both existentialism and American instrumentalism have sought to break down. As J. H. Randall, Jr. puts it, “The theoretical interest or ‘pure reason,’ … is not something opposed to the practical and existential. Rather, theory and detached objectivity are moments or stages in a broader context or matrix of ‘practice’.”\[Footnote:] Randall, Art. (1952), 141.\ Tillich is quite aware of this, but he still does not entirely free himself of the old Kantian dualism in which “pure reason” is set over against “practical reason.” Tillich fails to take the existential character of theory seriously enough.97
1. Paul Tillich, The Protestant Era, trans. James Luther Adams (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1948), p. xxvi: “The method of correlation shows, at every point of Christian thought, the interdependence between the ultimate questions to which philosophy (as well as prephilosophical thinking) is driven and the answers given in the Christian message.”
2. Tillich, Protestant Era, p. xxvi: “Question and answer determine each other; if they are separated, the traditional answers become unintelligible, and the actual questions remain unanswered.… Philosophy and theology are not separated, and they are not identical, but they are correlated, and their correlation is the methodological problem of a Protestant theology.”
3. Paul Tillich, Systematic Theology, vol. 1 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1951), p. 64: “The method of correlation replaces three inadequate methods of relating the contents of the Christian faith to man’s spiritual existence.”
4. Tillich, Systematic Theology, p. 65: “In terms of the classical heresies one could say that the supranaturalistic method has docetic-monophysitic traits, especially in its valuation of the Bible as a book of supranatural ‘oracles’ in which human receptivity is completely overlooked.”
5. Boozer, “Place of Reason,” p. 97: “Tillich is strongly critical of anything of a heteronomous character.”
6. Tillich, Systematic Theology, p. 84: “Autonomy means the obedience of the individual to the law of reason, which he finds in himself as a rational being.” This sentence appears in Randall (“Ontology,” p. 144) without quotation marks.
7. Tillich, Protestant Era, p. 46: “Heteronomy imposes an alien law, religious or secular, on man’s mind.”
8. Randall, “Ontology,” p. 144: “‘It means autonomous reason united with its own depth … and actualized in obedience to its structural laws and in the power of its own inexhaustible ground (85).’ ‘Theonomous reason’ is thus for Tillich really a kind of higher autonomy.” Ellipsis in original. Randall’s quotation from Tillich is not accurate. Cf. Tillich, Systematic Theology, p. 85: “It means autonomous reason united with its own depth. In a theonomous situation reason actualizes itself in obedience to its structural laws and in the power of its own inexhaustible ground.”
9. Boozer, “Place of Reason,” p. 97: “A completely foreign substance or authority suddenly thrown at man could have no meaning to man.” The two quotations from Tillich that follow this sentence also appear in Boozer’s dissertation.
10. Horton, “Tillich’s Role in Contemporary Theology,” pp. 30–31: “Barth’s ‘kerygmatic’ theology performs the first of these tasks admirably. Without identifying the message with some frozen formula from the past, or with the very words of Scripture, Barth has been able to recover (for a generation that had lost it) the great recurrent refrain that runs through all Scripture and Christian teaching.… But he refuses, as though it were treason, the apologetic task of interpreting the message to the contemporary situation. ‘The message must be thrown at those in the situation—thrown like a stone.’ Tillich is convinced, on the contrary, that it is the unavoidable duty of the theologian to relate the Christian message to the cultural situation of his day. Barth persists in dodging this duty, thus falling into a ‘supranaturalism’ that ‘takes the Christian message to be a sum of revealed truths which have fallen into the human situation like strange bodies from a strange world.’”
11. Horton, “Tillich’s Role in Contemporary Theology,” p. 31: “Tillich’s method of correlation, the basis of his whole theology, is expressly designed to avoid this pitfall without falling back into idealistic liberalism.”
12. Boozer, “Place of Reason,” p. 262: “Humanism teaches that there is only one dimension in life, the horizontal dimension.… There are no absolute norms, there is no God who speaks to man from beyond man’s existence. There is no vertical relationship whatsoever. Whatever is is in man completely.”
13. Boozer, “Place of Reason,” p. 263: “To see everything in terms of the natural is as much an error as to see everything in terms of the supernatural.”
14. Boozer, “Place of Reason,” p. 263: “Each is partially right in what it affirms, each is partially wrong in what it denies.”
15. Tillich, Systematic Theology, p. 65: “The third method to be rejected can be called ‘dualistic,’ inasmuch as it builds a supranatural structure on a natural substructure. This method, more than others, is aware of the problem which the method of correlation tries to meet. It realizes that, in spite of the infinite gap between man’s spirit and God’s spirit, there must be a positive relation between them. It tries to express this relation by positing a body of theological truth which man can reach through his own efforts or, in terms of a self-contradictory expression, through ‘natural revelation.’”
16. Tillich, Systematic Theology, pp. 119–120: “‘Natural revelation,’ if distinguished from revelation through nature, is a contradiction in terms, for if it is natural knowledge it is not revelation, and if it is revelation it makes nature ecstatic and miraculous. Natural knowledge about self and world cannot lead to the revelation of the ground of being. It can lead to the question of the ground of being, and that is what so-called natural theology can do and must do. But this question is asked neither by natural revelation nor by natural theology. It is the question of reason about its own ground and abyss. It is asked by reason, but reason cannot answer it. Revelation can answer it. And this answer is based neither on a so-called natural revelation nor on a so-called natural theology. It is based on real revelation, on ecstasy and sign-events.”
17. Tillich, Systematic Theology, pp. 65–66: “The method of correlation solves this historical and systematic riddle by resolving natural theology into the analysis of existence and by resolving supranatural theology into the answers given to the questions implied in existence.”
18. Tillich, Systematic Theology, p. 60: “The term ‘correlation’ may be used in three ways. It can designate the correspondence of different series of data, as in statistical charts; it can designate the logical interdependence of concepts, as in polar relations; and it can designate the real interdependence of things or events in structural wholes. If the term is used in theology, all three meanings have important applications.”
19. Boozer, “Place of Reason,” pp. 265–266: “(1) Correspondence of data. Correlation means correspondence of data in the sense of a correspondence between religious symbols and that which is symbolized by them. It is upon the assumption of this correspondence that all utterances about God’s nature are made. This correspondence is actual in the logos-nature of God and the logos-nature of man.… The fact that God and man have a common logos-nature makes possible an understandable contact between God and man.”
20. Boozer, “Place of Reason,” p. 266: “There is a problem here because God is always more than ground or reason, God is also abyss. The abyss-nature of God makes it impossible for man ever to speak about God except in symbolic terms.”
21. Boozer, “Place of Reason,” pp. 123–124: “Tillich regards every theological expression as being a symbolic utterance. For since the unconditional is ‘forever hidden, transcendent and unknowable, it follows that all religious ideas are symbolical.’ The spirit of the Protestant protest is that no finite form, word, person, or deed shall be identified with God. There is an infinite gap between man and God.”
22. Boozer, “Place of Reason,” pp. 124–125: “God is not an object, not even the highest object.… The really real cannot be approached directly as an object over against man as subject. The really real grasps man into union with itself.… Since for Tillich the really real transcends everything in the empirical order it is unconditionally beyond the conceptual sphere. Thus every word or form man uses to indicate this awareness of the really real is in the nature of a symbol or myth. ‘Offenbarung ist die Form, in welchem das religiöse Object dem religiösen Glauben theoretisch gegeben ist. Mythos ist die Ausdrucksform fur den Offenbarungsinhalt.’”
23. Boozer, “Place of Reason,” p. 125: “A characteristic of the symbol is its innate power. A symbol possesses a necessary character. It cannot be exchanged. On the other hand a sign is impotent in itself and can be exchanged at will.… The religious symbol is not the creation of a subjective desire or work. If the symbol loses its ontological grounding, it declines and becomes a mere ‘thing,’ a sign impotent in itself. ‘Genuine symbols are not interchangeable at all, and real symbols provide no objective knowledge, but yet a true awareness.’”
24. Booker, “Place of Reason,” p. 126: “Even though Tillich is saying essentially that the analogia entis is a power of expression rather than knowledge, the statements, ‘without such an analogy nothing could he said about God,’ and ‘it is not a method of discovering truth about God,’ are difficult to reconcile with each other.” Schilling wrote on a draft of this chapter that King’s footnote was a “sound criticism, I believe” (King, Draft of chapter 2, 1954–1955, MLKP-MBU).
25. Boozer, “Place of Reason,” p. 128: “W. M. Urban has expressed the same dilemma in his effort to understand Tillich. Urban mentions two of Tillich’s statements—‘all knowledge of God has a symbolic character;’ ‘symbols provide no objective knowledge but yet a true awareness’— confessing that he cannot ‘make much’ out of such contradictions. Urban’s position is that ‘unless there is “analogy of being” between the “Creator” and the “created,” between being in itself and being for us, it is perfectly futile to talk of either religious symbolism or religious knowledge.’”
26. Boozer, “Place of Reason,” p. 125: “The criterion of a symbol is that through it the unconditioned is clearly grasped in its unconditionedness.”
27. Boozer, “Place of Reason,” p. 267: “Correlation as the correspondence of data means in this particular case that there is correspondence between religious symbols and that reality which these symbolize. Once a true religious symbol has been discovered one can be sure that here is an implicit indication of the nature of God.”
28. Boozer, “Place of Reason,” pp. 267–268: “(2) Logical interdependence of concepts. A second meaning of correlation is the logical interdependence of concepts. Tillich regards polar relationships as falling under this meaning of correlation.… The world does not stand by itself. Particular being is in correlation with being-itself. In the second meaning of correlation, then, Tillich moves beyond an epistemological consideration to an ontological consideration.”
29. Boozer, “Place of Reason,” p. 268: “These elements are individualization and participation, dynamics and form, and freedom and destiny. These stand in polar relationship with each other, neither pole existing completely apart from the other. The ontological polarity is shown further in being and non-being and the finite and the infinite.… Tillich is trying to develop positively what he finds lacking in supranaturalism, humanism and dualism. Dualism is aware of the two poles of reality, but dualism conceives these in a static complementary relationship. Tillich maintains that they are related in a dynamic interaction, that one pole never exists out of relation to the other pole. One feels here again that it is upon this issue that Tillich criticizes Hegel. For, according to Tillich, Hegel transcends the tension of existential involvement in the concept of a synthesis.”
30. Boozer, “Place of Reason,” pp. 268–269: “Tillich believes that no existing spirit has the perspective of God, the perspective of synthesis. All existing life is lived in ambiguity, tension, and angst. Correlation in the sense of the logical interdependence of concepts, then, implies a polar-structure of all existential reality.”
31. Boozer, “Place of Reason,” p. 269: “(3) Real interdependence of things and events. The third meaning of correlation is the real interdependence of things and events. The particular relationship about which Tillich speaks under this meaning of correlation is the relationship between God and man, the divine-human relation. The implication here is clear, that if there is a divine-human correlation God must be to some extent dependent upon man.” The following quotation from Tillich appears in Boozer (p. 269).
32. Boozer, “Place of Reason,” p. 269: “Tillich is apparently saying here, that God in his essence is to be distinguished from God revealing himself in existence.” Boozer also quoted the following passage from Tillich (p. 270).
33. Boozer, “Place of Reason,” pp. 270–271: “In a real sense, then, God enters history, God manifests himself in history. This manifestation is never complete because God as abyss is inexhaustible. But God as logos is manifest in history and is in real interdependence with man and man’s logos.… The method of correlation seeks to express this relationship.”
34. Thomas, “Method and Structure,” p. 98: “‘The method of correlation,’ says Tillich, ‘explains the contents of the Christian faith through existential questions and theological answers in mutual interdependence’ (60).” King’s citation to page 97 is incorrect; Thomas correctly cited the quotation to Tillich, Systematic Theology, p. 60.
35. Tillich, Systematic Theology, pp. 62–63: “In using the method of correlation, systematic theology proceeds in the following way: it makes an analysis of the human situation out of which the existential questions arise, and it demonstrates that the symbols used in the Christian message are the answers to these questions. The analysis of the human situation is done in terms which today are called ‘existential.’… And then he has become aware of the fact that he himself is the door to the deeper levels of reality, that in his own existence he has the only possible approach to existence itself.… Whoever has penetrated into the nature of his own finitude can find the traces of finitude in everything that exists.”
36. Tillich, Systematic Theology, p. 63: “The analysis of the human situation employs materials made available by man’s creative self-interpretation in all realms of culture. Philosophy contributes, but so do poetry, drama, the novel, therapeutic psychology, and sociology. The theologian organizes these materials in relation to the answer given by the Christian message. In the light of this message he may make an analysis of existence which is more penetrating than that of most philosophers.”
37. Thomas, “Method and Structure,” p. 98, quoting Tillich, Systematic Theology, p. 64: “‘The analysis of the ‘situation’ and the development of the ‘questions’ constitute a ‘philosophical task.’ Though this task is carried out by the theologian, he does it as a philosopher, and what he sees ‘is determined only by the object as it is given in his experience.’”
38. Thomas, “Method and Structure,” p. 98: “We can understand better the ‘method of correlation’ if we look briefly at an example of its application: the ‘question’ of Reason and the ‘answer’ of Revelation.”
39. Thomas, “Method and Structure,” pp. 98–99, quoting Tillich, Systematic Theology: “Under the conditions of existence, Tillich says, reason falls into ‘self-destructive conflicts‘ with itself. The polarity of ‘structure’ and ‘depth’ within reason produces a conflict between ‘autonomous’ and ‘heteronomous’ tendencies, and this conflict leads to ‘the quest for theonomy.’ The polarity between ‘static’ and ‘dynamic’ elements within reason leads to a conflict between ‘absolutism’ and ‘relativism.’ This leads to ‘the quest for the concrete-absolute.’ The polarity between ‘formal’ and ‘emotional’ elements produces a conflict between ‘formalism’ and ‘irrationalism.’ This leads to ‘the quest for the union of form and mystery.’ ‘In all three cases,’ Tillich remarks, ‘reason is driven to the quest for revelation’ (83). Also a dilemma arises between ‘controlling’ knowledge and ‘receiving’ knowledge. ‘Controlling knowledge is safe but not ultimately significant, while receiving knowledge can be ultimately significant, but it cannot give certainty.’ This ‘dilemma’ leads to the quest for revelation which gives a truth which is both certain and of ultimate concern (105). The ‘final revelation’ in Jesus as the Christ, Tillich argues, gives the ‘answers’ to these ‘questions’ by overcoming the conflicts within reason. It liberates and reintegrates reason and thus fulfills it (150).”
40. Tillich, Systematic Theology, p. 147: “Revelation overcomes the conflict between autonomy and heteronomy by re-establishing their essential unity.”
41. Thomas, “Method and Structure,” p. 99, quoting Tillich, Systematic Theology, p. 150: “For example, it liberates reason from the conflict between absolutism and relativism by presenting a ‘concrete absolute.’ ‘In the New Being which is manifest in Jesus as the Christ,’ says Tillich, ‘the most concrete of all possible forms of concreteness, a personal life, is the bearer of that which is absolute, without condition and restriction.’… Again, the final revelation in Christ overcomes the conflict between the formal and the emotional elements in reason through the participation of the whole of a person’s life in it and the consequent bringing together of all the elements of reason.”
42. Thomas, “Method and Structure,” p. 99: “We have described the ‘method of correlation’ and illustrated its application by reference to the correlation of the ‘question’ of Reason with the ‘answer’ of Revelation. The structure of Tillich’s whole system is determined by his use of this method.” The following quotation from Tillich also appears in Thomas (p. 99).
43. Thomas, “Method and Structure,” pp. 99–100: “Since the form of the ‘answers’ is determined by the philosophical analysis of the situation, the way in which that analysis is conceived is crucial for any evaluation of the ‘method of correlation.’ What is Tillich’s view of philosophy and its relation to theology?
44. This quotation also appears in Randall, “Ontology,” p. 137.
45. Randall, “Ontology,” p. 137: “The Kantians are wrong in making epistemology the true first philosophy, for as later Neo-Kantians like Nicolai Hartmann have recognized, epistemology demands an ontological basis.”
46. Tillich, Systematic Theology, p. 20: “Philosophy asks the question of reality as a whole; it asks the question of the structure of being.”
47. Tillich, Systematic Theology, p. 21: “Neither of them can avoid the ontological question.”
48. Tillich, Systematic Theology, p. 22: “Philosophy deals with the structure of being in itself; theology deals with the meaning of being for us.”
49. Paul Tillich, “The Problem of the Theological Method,” Journal of Religion 27 (January 1947): 17: “It can be looked at as an event beside other events, to be observed and described in theoretical detachment; or it can be understood as an event in which he who considers it is ‘existentially’ involved. In the first case the philosopher of religion is at work, in the second the theologian speaks.… For the theologian the interpretation of the ultimate concern is itself a matter of ultimate concern.”
50. Tillich, “Problem of Theological Method,” p. 18: “Theology is the existential and, at the same time, methodical interpretation of an ultimate concern.… Theological propositions, therefore, are propositions which deal with an object in so far as it is related to an ultimate concern. No object is excluded from theology if this criterion is applied, not even a piece of stone; and no object is in itself a matter of theology, not even God as an object of inference.”
51. Tillich, Systematic Theology, p. 22: “The first point of divergence is a difference in the cognitive attitude of the philosopher and the theologian. Although driven by the philosophical erōs, the philosopher tries to maintain a detached objectivity toward being and its structures.”
52. Tillich, Systematic Theology, pp. 22–23: “The theologian, quite differently, is not detached from his object but is involved in it.… The basic attitude of the theologian is commitment to the content he expounds.”
53. Tillich, Systematic Theology, p. 23: “The second point of divergence between the theologian and the philosopher is the difference in their sources. The philosopher looks at the whole of reality to discover within it the structure of reality as a whole.… He assumes—and science continuously confirms this assumption—that there is an identity, or at least an analogy, between objective and subjective reason, between the logos of reality as a whole and the logos working in him.… There is no particular place to discover the structure of being;… The place to look is all places.”
54. Tillich, Systematic Theology, p. 24: ”The philosopher deals with the categories of being in relation to the material which is structured by them. He deals with causality as it appears in physics or psychology; he analyzes biological or historical time; he discusses astronomical as well as microcosmic space.… The theologian, on the other hand, relates the same categories and concepts to the quest for a ‘new being.’… He discusses causality in relation to a prima causa, the ground of the whole series of causes and effects; he deals with time in relation to eternity, with space in relation to man’s existential homelessness.”
55. Tillich, Systematic Theology, pp. 24–25: “There is no reason why even the most scientific philosopher should not admit it, for without an ultimate concern his philosophy would be lacking in passion, seriousness, and creativity.”
56. Thomas, “Method and Structure,” p. 100: “The conclusion Tillich draws from this divergence between philosophy and theology is that there can be neither conflict nor synthesis between them.” Cf. Tillich, Systematic Theology, p. 26: “Neither is a conflict between theology and philosophy necessary, nor is a synthesis between them possible.”
57. Tillich, Systematic Theology, p. 26: “A conflict presupposes a common basis on which to fight. But there is no common basis between theology and philosophy.”
58. Thomas, “Method and Structure,” p. 100: “When the theologian enters the philosophical arena, he must enter it as a philosopher; only as a philosopher can he be in conflict with another philosopher, that is, he must make his appeal to reason alone.”
59. Thomas, “Method and Structure,” pp. 100–101: “There can be no synthesis of philosophy and theology for the same reason: there is no ‘common basis’ on which they could meet. Therefore there can be no such thing as a ‘Christian philosophy.’ Indeed, the ideal of a ‘Christian philosophy’ is a self-contradictory one, because it denotes ‘a philosophy which does not look at the universal logos but at the assumed or actual demands of a Christian theology’ (28). Of course, any Western thinker may be a ‘Christian philosopher’ in the sense of one whose thinking has been in some measure shaped by the Christian tradition, but an ‘intentionally’ Christian philosopher is a contradiction in terms because the philosopher must ‘subject himself’ to nothing but being as he experiences it.”
60. Henry Nelson Wieman, The Source of Human Good (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1946), p. 214: “It is often claimed that religious knowledge is peculiarly derived from revelation or faith or intuition or mystical experience or Bible or Jesus Christ or (more narrowly) the teachings of Jesus.”
61. Henry Nelson Wieman and Regina Westcott-Wieman, Normative Psychology of Religion (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1935), p. 118: “Some truths are held because it is claimed they were revealed by God to men.”
62. Wieman, Source of Human Good, p. 214: “[Revelation] provides no access to truth beyond the bounds of observation, agreement of observers, and coherence. Revelation in itself is not knowledge at all, although it may open the way to knowledge.”
63. Wieman, Source of Human Good, pp. 214–215: “This lifting to a place of domination was not done by man. It was accomplished by certain events which might be listed thus: the life and teachings of Jesus; the Crucifixion; the Resurrection; the forming of the fellowship.… The chief consequence of this revelation is not knowledge but the release of creative power to transform the world into richness of value and to save man from self-destruction and other evils which impoverish and break him. The first consequence of revelation for man is, therefore, faith and salvation. In time he gains knowledge from this revelation that he never could have gained without it. But this knowledge derived from revelation, when and if man attains it, demands the same tests of truth as any other knowledge.”
64. Wieman and Westcott-Wieman, Normative Psychology of Religion, p. 118: “One must ascertain what revelation is and what not. One may claim that the Holy Spirit shows him what is truly revelation. But how can one know he has the Holy Spirit? One cannot know what is revelation by further revelation from the Holy Spirit.… He must then prove not only the validity of the first revelation but also the second. Thus revelation throws us back to some further test. It cannot itself be the test.”
65. Wieman, Source of Human Good, p. 215: “Not only revelation but also faith is sometimes alleged to be a peculiar way of knowing that can cast off the ordinary tests of truth. We have tried to show that faith is not knowledge primarily but is a self-giving.”
66. Wieman, Source of Human Good, pp. 47–48: “But, still again, faith may be guided by the most thoroughly tested and accurate knowledge.… Never does human knowledge plumb the full depths of the reality commanding religious commitment of faith.… Even when the beliefs directing religious commitment become knowledge of the most precise and thoroughly tested sort, still the knowledge never exhausts the reality commanding the faith.”
67. Wieman and Westcott-Wieman, Normative Psychology of Religion, p. 118: “Authority rightly used plays a large part in any form of knowledge.”
68. Wieman and Westcott-Wieman, Normative Psychology of Religion, p. 118: “The scientist, for example, could not advance the frontiers of knowledge if he did not stand on the shoulders of his associates and predecessors by accepting their findings. If he had to test everything for himself he would never catch up with what is already known, not to mention going on beyond to some further discovery. Thus authority is a great labor-saving device in the acquisition of knowledge. Also there are many fields in which we are not equipped to test for ourselves the body of accepted knowledge.”
69. Wieman and Westcott-Wieman, Normative Psychology of Religion, p. 118: “But reliable authority simply conserves and hands on to others what has been found to be true by some other test than that of authority.”
70. Wieman and Westcott-Wieman, Normative Psychology of Religion, p. 119: “But the trustworthiness of what is found in an authority does not depend upon the authority.”
71. Wieman and Westcott-Wieman, Normative Psychology of Religion, p. 118: “Thus authority, like revelation, depends on some further test of truth.”
72. Henry Nelson Wieman, “Authority and the Normative Approach,” Journal of Religion 16, no. 2 (1936): 184: “Scientific method is the method of sensory observation, experimental behavior, and rational inference, these three working together.”
73. Wieman, Source of Human Good, p. 181: “Observation, as here understood, is a series of perceptual events. The perceptual event is not merely sense data.”
74. Wieman, Source of Human Good, p. 182: “Complex and intricate as the perceptual event is, when so interpreted, it is only an infinitesimal part of the total universe. Experiment easily shows that innumerable happenings can occur in the wide reaches of the world, and even in close proximity to the organism, perhaps also in it, which make no difference whatsoever to the conscious awareness accompanying the perceptual reaction of the organism.”
75. Wieman, Source of Human Good, p. 182: “Innumerable structures are ingredient in every perceptual event. Far fewer are common to a sequence of such events. From these that are common, selective attention picks out one, and that is what we perceive.”
76. Wieman, Source of Human Good, pp. 182–183: “Time and space, for example, are essential ingredients in every perceptual event. This we discover by analysis of perceptual events.… all the categories sought by metaphysics or other philosophical inquiry can be uncovered by proper analysis of the perceptual event.”
77. Wieman, Source of Human Good, p. 187: “We have tried to show that observation enters into all cases of getting genuine knowledge.”
78. Henry Nelson Wieman, The Issues of Life (New York: Abingdon Press, 1930), pp. 187–188: “(1) Forming an idea of what course of action will produce specified consequences by observing various consequences that have issued from specified conditions. This first step is the most difficult of all. It is here that the greatest genius is displayed, not only in religion, but in the sciences and in every branch of life where discovery is demanded.… (2) Ascertain as accurately as possible just what are the conditions under which this course of action can be profitably followed to produce the desired and anticipated consequences. (3) Find or create these conditions, perform the course of action, and observe what happens. (4) Develop by logical inference what further to expect in the light of what has been observed to happen and test these inferences just as the original idea was tested, namely, by steps one, two, and three just described.”
79. Henry Nelson Wieman, Religious Experience and Scientific Method (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1926), p. 46: “Without a science we have no accurate method of verifying our ideas and certainly distinguishing between truth and error.”
80. Wieman, Source of Human Good, p. 183: “These suffice for perceiving hills and houses and spoons, but not for perceiving God (the everlasting creative event).”
81. Henry Nelson Wieman, “Can God Be Perceived?” Journal of Religion 23 (1943): 29: “This interpretation of revelation explains why God is hidden. God is hidden, first of all, where and when he has not revealed himself. He is hidden, in the second place, where and when men will not follow the methods, submit to the disciplines, and use the categories required to achieve true perception. He is hidden, in the third place, when men hold to myth and revelation as to a kind of knowledge. He is hidden, fourth (and this is the most tragic cause of his hiddenness), when men’s appreciations and evaluations are so formed and directed that they cannot appreciate the divine significance of that creativity which generates all real value.”
82. Wieman, “Can God Be Perceived?” p. 30: “Myths are not false; neither are they true. . . . But the pragmatic efficacy of the myth in directing us to the uncomprehended reality of God is simply a fact. It happens, when and if it does happen, as thunder and winter and tides happen. These happenings either occur or do not. When they do not, they are not false, and when they do, they are not true. Only propositions about them can be false or true.”
83. Wieman, “Can God Be Perceived?” p. 31: “But when myth is thought to be knowledge it confuses the mind and diverts it from those procedures by which alone knowledge can be achieved.… The last confusion that must be dissipated, if we are to have the perceptual knowledge of God that we need, pertains to the work of theology.”
84. Wieman, “Can God Be Perceived?” p. 32: “Since we must always have myths, no matter how much more knowledge is now required to supplement them, some field of expert scholarship must be devoted to this task.… If we follow that trail with that intent, we end in a morass of confusion and futility.”
85. Tillich, Systematic Theology, p. 60: “Whether or not a method is adequate cannot be decided a priori; it is continually being decided in the cognitive process itself. Method and system determine each other. Therefore, no method can claim to be adequate for every subject.”
86. Horton, “Tillich’s Role in Contemporary Theology,” p. 39: “Macintosh and Wieman have claimed that theology is an ‘empirical science’ in this sense; Tillich finds the claim entirely groundless. Theology does not deal with objects that can be ‘discovered by detached observation’ or ‘tested by scientific methods of verification,’ which always eliminate the personal equation. ‘The object of theology can be verified only by a participation in which the testing theologian risks himself in the ultimate sense of “to be or not to be.”’”
87. Horton, “Tillich’s Role in Contemporary Theology,” p. 39: “Without such an existential participation Wieman’s ‘creative process’ and Brightman’s ‘cosmic person’ are nonreligious concepts; with it, they are no longer ‘scientific’ concepts.”
88. King submitted a draft of this chapter that ended with this paragraph. Schilling commented: “Here you should go on to show what you think of W’s criticism. I believe also that a brief Section 3 in Chap. II. summarizing the main points of similarity & difference betw. T. & W. would greatly increase the value of the chapter” (King, Draft of chapter 2).
89. Horton, “Tillich’s Role in Contemporary Theology,” p. 39: “Tillich’s place in American Protestant theology might be briefly summarized by saying that he stands ‘on the boundary’ between Barth and Wieman on the issue of theological empiricism.”
90. King used the previous two sentences earlier in this chapter; see footnote reference 62.
91. Tillich, Systematic Theology, p. 109: “Nor does [revelation] add anything directly to the totality of our ordinary knowledge, namely, to our knowledge about the subject-object structure of reality.”
92. Tillich, Systematic Theology, pp. 129–130: “Knowledge of revelation is knowledge about the revelation of the mystery of being to us, not information about the nature of beings and their relation to one another. Therefore, the knowledge of revelation can be received only in the situation of revelation, and it can be communicated—in contrast to ordinary knowledge—only to those who participate in this situation.… Knowledge of revelation cannot interfere with ordinary knowledge. Likewise, ordinary knowledge cannot interfere with knowledge of revelation.”
93. This quotation is from Wieman, “Authority and the Normative Approach,” p. 184.
94. Thomas, “Method and Structure,” p. 101: “But Tillich begs the question as to the relation between philosophy and theology when he asserts that the philosopher seeks the truth only in ‘the whole of reality,’ ‘the universal logos of being,’ and never looks for it in any particular place. For there is nothing to prevent a philosopher from finding the key to the nature of reality in a concrete manifestation, a particular part of reality. Indeed, every creative philosopher must take as his starting point some part or aspect of reality which seems to him to provide the clue to an understanding of reality as a whole.”
95. Thomas, “Method and Structure,” p. 101: “Now the philosopher who is a Christian does not differ from other philosophers in starting with a belief which he takes as the key to reality.… This does not mean that, having found the key in a particular place, he should cease to look at the universal structure of being.… But the fact that he has found the key enables him to look at the structure of being with a clearer understanding of it.”
96. Thomas, “Method and Structure,” p. 102: “The main reason Tillich rejects the possibility of such a Christian philosophy is that he thinks philosophy must approach the structure of being with detachment and without existential concern. For it is only on this supposition that philosophy has to be restricted to the purely ‘critical’ task of analyzing the structure of being without reference to its meaning for us. Yet Tillich himself admits that the creative philosophers have been moved by an ultimate concern, and hence have been in a sense theologians. If so, the distinction between philosophy and theology is relative, not absolute.” In the margin on a draft of this chapter Schilling wrote that King’s “criticism [was] well-grounded & developed.” He asked next to the last sentence: “What about his 3rd point of divergence?” (King, Draft of chapter 2).
97. Randall, “Ontology,” p. 141: “It clearly does not take the ‘existential’ character of theory seriously enough.”
Source: MLKP-MBU, Martin Luther King, Jr., Papers, 1954-1968, Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center, Boston University, Boston, Mass.