Bulletin The North American Paul Tillich Society

Volume XLIII, Number 2 Spring 2017 Editor: Frederick J. Parrella, Secretary-Treasurer Religious Studies Department, Santa Clara University Kenna Hall, Suite 300, Room H, Santa Clara, California 95053 Associate Editor: Jonathan Rothchild, Loyola Marymount University Assistant to the Editor: Vicky Gonzalez, Santa Clara University Telephone: 408.554.4714 or 408.554.4547 FAX: 408.554.2387 Email: [email protected] Web: www.NAPTS.org/Webmeister: Michael Burch, San Rafael, California ______

In this issue:

❏ Requiescat in Pace: John J. Carey and John Page ❏ New Publications about Tillich or by Tillich Scholars ❏ “Applying Tillich’s Creative and Transformative Justice to the Problems of Middle Eastern Violence” by Kirk R. Macgregor ❏ Formulating Questions, Facilitating Change: Tillich’s Method of Correlation” by Sharon Burch ❏ “Michael and Paulus: A Dynamic Uncoordinated Duo” by A. Durwood Foster

If you have presented a paper at the 2016 meeting of the NAPTS or the AAR Tillich Group in San Antonio, Texas, please send the paper to the editor for publication in the Bulletin. Since this is a privately circulated Bulletin, publication elsewhere is permissible.

this winter with the death of John Carey. Requiescat in Pace: Dr. Carey was beloved by many as a gifted John Carey teacher, compassionate friend, wise mentor, and devoted father. He will be remembered for his e are saddened to share the news that Dr. kindness, intellect, and wonderful sense of humor, WJohn J. Carey, retired professor of religion in addition to his remarkable memory, love of and Presbyterian minister, passed away peacefully dogs and lifelong commitment to social justice, on March 2nd in Durham, N.C. surrounded by inclusive ministry, and higher education. loving family members. He was 85. The North Dr. Carey had a rich and fulfilling life and ca- American Paul Tillich Society lost one of its giants reer, with many important achievements and ad- Bulletin of the North American Paul Tillich Society, vol. 43, no. 2 2 ventures, but he would always say his greatest ac- see, Florida; Beth Ann Carey, Tallahassee, Florida; complishment was being the proud father to five Joanna Carey Cleveland, Chapel Hill, North Caro- daughters—Sarah, Mary Lynn, Beth, Joanna, and lina (Sam Cleveland); and Jessica Carey Graham, Jessica. Born and raised in Fort Wayne, Indiana, Anchorage, Alaska (Jason Graham); and five he attended Duke University as a first-generation grandchildren (Jada Marina Graham, Jolie Cay student on a football scholarship, serving as de- Graham, Jersey Meridian Graham, John Carey fensive captain of the 1952 Duke team that won [“Jack”] Cleveland, and Susanna Elizabeth Cleve- the Southern Conference championship. He was land). He is also survived by his first wife and named to various All-Southern and All-American dear friend, Sally Stanback Malloy. teams. Among his extracurricular activities, he John Carey will always be remembered and served as President of the Campus YMCA, and as will be deeply missed by his family. They intend President of Alpha Tau Omega fraternity and to hold celebration of life services for John later honored as the national fraternity member of the this year in Tallahassee, Florida, and in Anchor- year his senior year. He was elected to Phi Beta age, Alaska. Details about those services when Kappa. Following graduation from Duke, he en- planned will be shared with the institutions and tered the Yale Divinity School, receiving his B.D. congregations that Dr. Carey served. The family and S.T.M. degrees from Yale in 1956 and 1957. encourages all those who loved and cared about He received his Ph.D. degree from Duke in 1965 John to go forth and act with kindness and com- and conducted post-doctoral work in Germany passion to all in his honor. and several institutions throughout the United States. Obituary in The Tallahassee Democrat Dr. Carey had served for more than 26 years 13 March 2017 at Florida State University, coming on board first in 1960 as University Chaplain, then later in a va- John Carey, a progressive ordained minister riety of positions, including Professor of Religion, who was the moral compass of university admini- Dean of Students, Vice President of Student Af- stration during a tumultuous time at Florida State fairs, Chair of the Department of Religion and University, has died. Director of Graduate Studies in Religion, receiv- Carey died March 2 in Durham, N.C., the city ing several teaching and service awards. He also where he was a football star at Duke University in served as the President of Warren Wilson College the 1950s. Carey, who had suffered a series of se- in Swannanoa, NC from 1986 to 1988, and as the vere illnesses in recent years, was 85. Pendergrass Professor of Religion at Florida Carey spent 26 years at FSU, from 1960 to Southern College in Lakeland, Florida. 1986. He arrived as university chaplain, helped In 1989, he joined the faculty at Agnes Scott found the department of religion and served in College as the Wallace M. Alston Professor of several administrative roles. He was FSU’s first Bible and Religion and Chair of the Department vice president for student affairs in 1967. of Religious Studies. He remained at Agnes Scott He left FSU in 1986 for a two-year stint as until his retirement in 1999. A year after his re- president of Warren Wilson College, a private tirement from Agnes Scott, after his daughter Jes- Presbyterian school in North Carolina. He then sica had moved to Alaska, Dr. Carey agreed to resumed his career as a college professor of relig- serve as Interim Pastor of Immanuel Presbyterian ion for 12 years at Florida Southern University Church in Anchorage, Alaska. He served Im- and Agnes Scott College. He came out of retire- manuel for two stints, finally retiring in 2009. ment in 2000 to become pastor of a church in He moved back to the “lower 48” in 2014, re- Alaska and returned to North Carolina in 2014. siding in Chapel Hill and in Durham, N.C. with In Tallahassee, Carey was renowned as a lib- his wife of 47 years, Mary Charlotte McCall, who eral political activist, both on campus and in the survives him. Also surviving are a sister, Mary community. He was involved in the civil rights Whitmore, of Cedarburg, Wisconsin; his daugh- movement, spoke out on women’s issues, led vig- ters Sarah Kathryn Carey (Chad Hunsaker) of ils against the death penalty, and started a peace Gainesville, Florida; Mary Lynn Carey, Tallahas- studies program at FSU. Bulletin of the North American Paul Tillich Society, vol. 43, no. 2 3

He wrote or edited 12 books and published Letter from Mercer Press Editor more than 60 scholarly articles. He was one of the Fred nation’s leading authorities on influential theolo- As the publisher of a book with John, I would gian Paul Tillich. He won major FSU awards for like it to be known that he was a delight to work undergraduate teaching and service to the univer- with. I would like to have published a book every sity. season with John just to have the chance to work “John was just a born leader,” said FSU pro- with him. fessor emeritus Robert Spivey, Carey’s college We at Mercer University Press will miss him classmate at Duke who joined Carey at FSU to greatly. found the religion department. “He had good Marc courage and excellent judgment. He made a career Marc Jolley that reflected his faith and personal priorities. If Director, Mercer University Press something needed done, John was there to lead 1501 Mercer University Drive it.” Macon, Georgia 31207 After graduation from Duke, as a Phi Beta 478-301-2880/ www.mupress.org Kappa member, Carey earned two divinity de- grees from Yale University. He then spent three Requiescat in Pace: John Page years as a professor of religion at Catawba College in Salisbury, N.C. Editor’s Note: The North American Paul Tillich He was hired as FSU’s university chaplain in Society regrets the passing of John Page. Al- 1960, just as civil rights demonstrations were be- though not a scholar, John was one of the most ginning in Tallahassee, with black students from devoted Tillichians that I have met. His gentle Florida A&M University and white students from and gracious manner, when he could attend our FSU staging sit-ins at Tallahassee’s segregated meetings, will be missed. Here is a letter from his lunch counters. daughter: Carey joined the Tallahassee Council on Hu- man Relations, a group of black and white resi- [From John Page’s Daughter, Carolyn Webb] dents, seeking racial change in Tallahassee. As I am writing to let you know of the death of John university chaplain, he served as liaison between Page—928 S. Chicago Apt. 24, Geneseo, IL protesting students and the FSU administration. 61254. He died on Oct 14, 2016 shortly after he In 1965, after earning his Ph.D. from Duke, had renewed his membership to the NAPTS. Carey became one of the half-dozen founding He had been a member since the late 90s, and faculty members of FSU’s Department of Relig- I believe attend a couple of conferences. He never ion and later served six years as department chair. forgot having afternoon tea with Jane Owen in Previously, religion courses had been taught New Harmony. through the philosophy department. But FSU be- He was a self-taught student of Paul Tillich came one of the first public universities in the na- since the 1960s; what Tillich wrote was important tion to establish a religion department, fending off to him and he liked to share Tillich with others. claims a public institution should not be in the At his funeral service, Tillich and some things business of promoting religion. my dad wrote in response were referenced. One “There was a fear that the study of religion of the attendees, a 30-year old friend of our son’s would be a study FOR religion rather than was deeply moved by Tillich’s words. I think her ABOUT religion,” said Spivey, the department’s quote was, “What beautiful writing.” My father first chair. “It was unusual for a public university would have been pleased to think he might have to go about teaching religion in an unabashed sparked an interest in Tillich in a young person. way.” Thank you for welcoming my father into your group. He was not a scholar, but he was a deep ------thinker. Sincerely, Carolyn Webb

Bulletin of the North American Paul Tillich Society, vol. 43, no. 2 4

New Publications other group of being (i.e., to destroy another group or to unite with another group at the price Danz, Christian and Werner Schüßler, eds., Paul of its distinctiveness), transformative justice, via Tillich im Exil. Berlin/Boston: Walter de power, demands whatever level of coercive force Gruyter, 2017. is sufficient (i.e., no more and no less) to arrest the (https://www.degruyter.com/viewbooktoc/p aspirations of the aggressor. Both the democracy roduct/477337?rskey=LWcIDo&result=1) of the first pole and the compulsion of the second Danz, Christian, ed. Paul Tillich’s “Systematische pole should, per love, be (initially) facilitated by a Theologie.” Ein werk- und problemgeschichtlicher third party or parties that have the energy and re- Kommentar. Berlin/Boston: Walter de Gruyter, sources to maintain these poles without threat to 2017. their own being. (https://www.degruyter.com/viewbooktoc/p ______

roduct/465999?rskey=LWcIDo&result=2)

Religious Zionism Applying Tillich’s Creative and Transformative Justice The root issue of religious Zionism is the ten- to the Problems of Middle sion between the fulfillment of certain Jews’ relig- Eastern Violence ious aspirations and the possession of space, and therefore of being, of the Palestinians. As Tillich Kirk R. MacGregor points out, “The basis of all power of a social group is the space it must provide for itself. Being Among the most intractable problems of the means having space or, more exactly, providing postcolonial era stands Middle Eastern violence, a space for oneself.”1 Although in 2012, the Gen- phenomenon of which the world has become eral Assembly of the United Nations granted Pal- painfully aware since the birth of the modern state estine non-member observer state status—a of Israel in 1948. Any hope of finding a lasting statehood recognized by 136 of the 193 member solution to this problem must lie in the combina- states of the United Nations2—the Israeli gov- tion of a metaphysically deep understanding of ernment continues to occupy most of the areas justice and an accurate assessment of the world- comprising Palestine and refuses to acknowledge views of groups endorsing violence in the Middle Palestinian statehood. This refusal is backed by East. Just as Tillich ranks among the most percep- the governments of the United States (Israel’s tive recent philosophers of justice, so the con- most important foreign ally), Canada, Mexico, temporary scholar of religion, Reza Aslan, ranks most of Western Europe, and Australia. Despite among the most perceptive observers of current the position of Israel’s government, no less than religious extremism. Accordingly, this piece brings 52% and as many as 74% of Israelis desire peace Tillich’s Love, Power, and Justice into conversation with Palestine, including the withdrawal of troops with Aslan’s Beyond Fundamentalism for the purpose and a two-state solution where Israel recognizes of applying Tillich’s ontological analysis of crea- Palestinian statehood and vice versa.3 The realiza- tive and transformative justice to the root issues tion of this aspiration is demanded by transforma- of religious Zionism, Islamist violence, and Ji- tive and creative justice. Although Tillich used hadist violence. This application will support two “transformative justice” and “creative justice” mutually polar and synthetic theses regarding synonymously, I differentiate the two according group relations. First, where there exists the drive to the various works of love that constitute the of one group toward some form of unity with an- principle of each. The principle of transformative other group that maintains the distinctiveness of justice is the strange work of love, utilizing com- each, creative justice, via love, demands democ- pulsion to destroy what is against love. The prin- racy (i.e., the free and equal political participation ciple of creative justice is the proper work of love, of the members of each group) as the way to cre- exhibiting charity and forgiveness. Transformative ating unity. Second, where there exists the drive and creative justice, respectively, uphold the of one group to directly or indirectly deprive an- Bulletin of the North American Paul Tillich Society, vol. 43, no. 2 5 autonomous being of both Palestine and Israel tion,” the “holy community” that Israel seeks to and unify the separated parties around their mu- be.6 Such persuasion occurs through what I call a tual national recognition, thus actualizing power hermeneutic of creative justice, reading the dis- and love. However, Aslan detects that such a re- puted passages in conversation with the wider alization is presently blocked by religious Zionists, canonical witness through the lenses of listening, whose allegiance is to the biblical land rather than giving, and forgiving.7 Listening to the Palestini- the secular state of Israel and who exert a dispro- ans’ religious claims in the context of the Tanakh portionate influence on Israeli politics through the as a whole discloses that Allah is not analogous to right-wing Likud party, led by current Israeli any Canaanite deity but is the same as the God of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.4 Israel (Ps. 47:1, 8; 65:5; 66:1; 67:7; 68:32; 82:8; Isa. To this problem, the second (transformative) 37:16; 45:22; 55:5; Zech. 8:23). In light of this pole and first (creative) pole regarding group rela- fact, the Palestinians must be granted the Torah- tions pertain, in that sequence. The coercive force guaranteed right to be included alongside the to arrest the religious Zionists should stem pri- twelve tribes of Israel and to share in its inheri- marily from the majority of Israelis, whose indi- tance: “The alien living with you must be treated vidual power of being is compromised if they fail as one of your native-born. Love them as your- to act. This, oftentimes silent, majority ought to self, for you were aliens in Egypt” (Lev. 19:34; cp. use its democratic power both to remove from Ex. 12:48-49; Num. 9:14; 10:32). Contending that office politicians who support Jewish settlement true justice demands that even persons unaccept- of land recognized by the United Nations as be- able in terms of proportional justice should be longing to Palestine and to install politicians who accepted into the unity of forgiveness, the Israel- will pass and enforce laws preventing any future ite majority might induce the religious Zionists to Jewish settlement. They should also demand, seek their own unity with Israel’s longsuffering through vote and voice, that all elected officials God by forgiving the Palestinians for any per- desist from the exploitation, damage, depletion, or ceived or real wrongs, such as those perpetrated endangerment of Palestinian natural resources and by Hamas. To the problem of Hamas and other support the right of Palestinians to seek restitu- Islamist groups we now turn. tion for previous destruction. Such tactics amount to an appropriate conjunction of love with com- Islamism pulsory power, as power is used only to destroy the work of those who foment hostility toward Pal- The root issue of Islamism is the desire of estine but not to destroy those who foment hostil- certain Muslims to establish their countries— ity toward Palestine. As Tillich observes, “Love, whose perceived borders may not align with those through compulsory power, must destroy what is demarcated by the United Nations—as distinc- against love. But love cannot destroy him who tively Islamic nations, founded on an Islamic acts against love. Even when destroying his work moral framework. Islamists hold that citizens of it does not destroy him,”5 that is, his essential be- majority Muslim nation-states should create their ing. collective identity not based on some measure of Consequently, the Israeli majority should, in ethnic homogeneity, culture, or civic agreement, love, reach out to the minority of religious Zion- but on the religion of Islam. All instances of relig- ists in its midst in an attempt to reestablish inter- ious nationalism, Hamas, Hezbollah, and the nal unity. This, I submit, will occur if the majority Muslim Brotherhood respectively aim to trans- can persuade the minority that its interpretation form historic Palestine, Lebanon, and Egypt into of various passages of the Tanakh—specifying Islamic nations.8 There is nothing inherently that Yahweh gives to Abraham’s descendants the wrong with Islamism, so long as Islamism tran- land from the Wadi of Egypt to the Euphrates spires through non-violent means. Indeed, many River (Gen. 15:18; cp. Jer. 12:14-17) or everyplace Islamist groups are quite willing to use democratic upon which the invading Israelite armies set their means to achieve the goal of a state predicated on feet during the Conquest (Josh. 1:3-4; cp. Joel Islamic values and mores. However, when indi- 3:2)—is not in accord with the “ultimate rela- viduals work peacefully and steadfastly for nation- Bulletin of the North American Paul Tillich Society, vol. 43, no. 2 6 alistic social change only to have their aspirations volatile region. It could be argued that the 2006 suppressed—and suppressed violently—it is only war between Lebanon and Israel, sparked by a natural that they would turn to violence and revo- Hezbollah attack on an Israeli army patrol and the lution. To borrow an illustration of such violent subsequent war between Hamas and Israel in the suppression from Aslan, today if a politician in Gaza Strip, are powerful reminders of the dangers Egypt says, “I would like to change the constitu- of promoting democracy in this part of the world. tion of Egypt so that it is in better alignment with Indisputably, some governments that will emerge the Qu’ran,” that politician will never be heard from truly democratic elections in the Middle from again. S/he will be thrown into prison, tor- East may maintain positions and pursue policies tured, and very likely executed. Simply being a contrary to America’s interests. member of the Muslim Brotherhood today is Nevertheless, whatever risks there may be in enough to get one killed.9 And outrages like this promoting democracy in the Middle East, they provoke the violent rejoinder. pale in comparison to the risks involved in con- To this complex problem the first (creative) tinuing to stifle political reform in the hope of pole regarding group relations applies, and the achieving stability in the region. As Tillich re- United States and its allies should be the principal minds us, the law of justice “must be applied to actors owing to their security and sole possession the concrete situation in a daring decision, and the of the requisite power. As poll after poll in nearly decision is made by members of the ruling every Muslim majority state has indicated, mem- group… a foreseeing risk…is taken by members bers of Islamist groups (and Muslims in general) of the ruling group.”14 For so long as dictatorial feel disempowered by their lack of political rights regimes in Middle Eastern countries ignore their and desire democracy.10 For instance, a Pew poll demands of their people—with at least the covert found that, although most of the Western public if not the overt approval of the United States— thought democracy was “a Western way of doing while Islamist groups like Hamas, Hezbollah, and things that would not work in most Muslim coun- the Muslim Brotherhood work to address their tries,” majorities in every single Muslim country socioeconomic needs, populations throughout the surveyed flatly rejected this argument and called region will continue to throw their support be- for democracy in their own nations.11 Hence only hind the Islamists, as they arguably should. Even through genuine democratic reform can the tide if some positions of Islamist groups (such as Ha- of Islamist militancy be stemmed. So the United mas’ proposal that Palestine re-expand to swallow States and its allies should ensure that, for any up Israel) are inimical to the interests of the Islamist group that is willing to put its guns down United States, at least Islamist groups fundamen- and pick up ballots, this group possesses the abil- tally want something concrete—they want an Is- ity to participate equally in the political process, so lamic nation. In that case, there is room for dis- renewing their power of being. This requires that cussion, dialogue, and negotiation. As recent his- the United States put vigorous and sustained pres- tory has shown, as Islamist groups gain increasing sure on Middle Eastern nations receiving billions responsibility to “keep the lights on” (i.e., run a of American dollars in economic and military aid national infrastructure), the radical elements of every year to yield to the growing demands of their ideology proportionally go by the wayside. their populations for a voice in government, to Aslan observes that after the Justice and Devel- halt arbitrary imprisonments and the silencing of opment Party (AKP) in Turkey—a banned Isla- political opponents, and to allow for full political mist group fifteen years ago—was given the op- participation by religious nationalist groups willing portunity to take part in the political process, it to commit to responsible governance. As a ful- grew to become the single most democratic po- fillment of its vocational consciousness,12 the litical force Turkey has ever known. It has United States must therefore do all in its power to brought Turkey back from the edge of fiscal col- forestall, in Tillich’s words, “social conditions lapse, improved ties with Israel, the United States, which prevent spiritual freedom either generally and the European Union, and granted the coun- or for the great majority of people.”13 But there try’s oppressed Kurdish minority greater free- are obviously risks in pushing political reform in a doms. Conversely, when Islamist opposition has Bulletin of the North American Paul Tillich Society, vol. 43, no. 2 7 been suppressed, militancy and extremism have help recruit new members. After all, at no point mushroomed. The civil war that ravaged Algeria did the Jihadists think that bringing down the for nearly a decade in the 1990s is a case in point: Twin Towers would suddenly bring peace to Pal- the rise of the ultraviolent Armed Islamic Group estine. Certainly, the Jihadists have no interest in (GIA) was the direct result of the Algerian gov- the Palestinian aspiration for nationhood; they ernment’s decision to ban political participation want to get rid of all nations, Palestine or not. by the Islamists of the Front Islamique du Salut To the Jihadist problem, the second (trans- (FIS).15 formative) pole regarding group relations applies, as Jihadist groups seek to either destroy or forci- Jihadism bly subjugate the members of other groups. Un- like Islamists, Jihadists cannot be negotiated with The root issue of Jihadism is its humanly un- because of their lack of interest in any material or realizable aim of erasing all borders and eliminat- political resources. Hence the only option left to ing all nations, thereby creating a single world or- transformative justice is the police response: to der of religious communalism under one caliph. It hunt down Jihadists, either destroying or incarcer- is a movement that has elevated jihad into, in ating them. In Tillich’s words, transformative jus- Osama bin Laden’s words, “an object of wor- tice “includes the possibility of sacrificing the ship.”16 One of the hardest things for a Western other one in his existence…it may mean the de- audience to understand about Jihadism is that Ji- mand to resist and to restrain and to deprive.”19 hadists want nothing at all that can be actualized Owing to its basis in love, however, Tillich per- in real or measurable terms, such as land, re- ceives the redemptive grace that comes out of sources, or peace in Palestine. Their ideology and such necessary tragedy: “[L]ove’s strange work, hopes rest on a completely different plane. All the compulsory element of power, is not only the instances of religious trans-nationals, ISIS, al- strange but also the tragic aspect of love. It repre- Qaeda, and Book Haram are fighting what Aslan sents a price which must be paid for the reunion calls a “cosmic war” of good versus evil, a war of the separated”20—namely, the reunion of the over existential identity in an indeterminate Muslim Ummah (community) and the reunion of world.17 Employing an “us versus them” mental- the Ummah with the rest of the world. The strange ity, Jihadists identify themselves as good and eve- work of love, per Tillich’s phenomenology of ryone not themselves (especially the majority of power, ought to be carried out by nations who the world’s Muslims) as evil. Although often re- can take it upon themselves without threat to ferred to as anarchists, Jihadists are closer to uto- their own existence, using their power to serve pians, who believe that God will solve all the nations currently lacking the power of self- world’s ills if only they fight to the end for God defense and so lovingly enhancing these nations’ against the forces of evil. Accordingly, Jihadists power of being, such that they can maintain a dy- have no policies. Aslan observes that in all the namic self-affirmation which conquers internal writings and speeches of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and external resistance.21 (ISIS’s stipulated caliph) and Osama bin Laden, But Aslan perceives that merely seeking out there is never any attempt to provide a social pro- and destroying Jihadist militants, though an essen- gram, alternatives to the world’s ills, or answers to tial response, is not enough to extinguish the fires the many grievances they submit. These griev- of Jihadism around the world, fueled by the ances include the suffering of the Palestinians, aforementioned grievances. Any sufficient re- American support for Arab dictators, the lack of sponse must work to solve the grievances, taking political, social, economic, and religious rights, away the appeal of Jihadism and so making its and development in the Middle East, and the cosmic impulse irrelevant.22 And these grievances West’s treating the Middle East like a giant gas can only in fact be solved by putting power into station.18 While legitimate grievances, for Jihadists the hands of the Muslims whose lives are directly these are not issues to be addressed or opportuni- affected by them. In short, the sufficient response ties for new policies to be enacted; they are no to Jihadism is the previously outlined response of more than abstract symbols to rally around which creative justice to Islamism. As a manifestation of Bulletin of the North American Paul Tillich Society, vol. 43, no. 2 8 nationalism, Islamism stands as the best foil to the that score, it will be the firm, patient, aggressive trans-nationalist Jihadism. For contrary to Ji- push for greater political participation by all Mid- hadists whose aims and aspirations rest on a cos- dle Eastern parties that ultimately defeats Ji- mic plane, Islamists possess material goals and hadism, since it is precisely the absence of such legitimate ambitions that can be addressed by the participation and the resultant grievances that state. While Jihadists interpret political participa- keep the movement alive. In sum, Western pow- tion as an act of apostasy, Islamist parties ers must strive to create, wherever they can with- throughout the Middle East have demonstrated out infringing on other Middle Eastern nations’ that, given firm political rules to obey and a fair autonomy, an open religious and political envi- chance to govern, they can develop into responsi- ronment in these nations that will blunt the appeal ble political actors committed to addressing Ji- of religious Zionism, violent Islamism, and Ji- hadism’s stated grievances.23 They have shown a hadism.24 commitment to democratic ideals of human rights, women’s rights, government accountability, the rule of law, pluralism, and judicial reform. So 1 Paul Tillich, Love, Power, and Justice (Oxford: Ox- predictions that electoral victories by Islamist par- ford University Press, 1954), 100. ties would inevitably result in the collapse of de- 2 United Nations General Assembly GA/11317, mocracy have proven false. 29 November 2012 (http://www.un.org/press/en/2012/ga11317.doc. Concluding Reflections htm). 3 Gallup Poll, “Israelis, Palestinians Pro Peace Process, but Not Hopeful,” 21 March 2013 We close by creatively synthesizing our prof- (http://www.gallup.com/ poll/161456/israelis- fered solutions to the root problems of religious palestinians-pro-peace-process-not-hopeful.aspx); Zionism, Islamist violence, and Jihadist violence United States of America Embassy, “Polls Show Vast in the light of recent historical events. However Support for Two-State Mideast Peace Solution,” 2 July one views the cycle of violence between Israel and 2009 (http://iipdigital.usembassy.gov/st/english/ arti- the Palestinians (as a conflict over land and re- cle/2009/07/200907021105032sademahom0.6612164. sources or a religious war for divine favor), what- html#axzz4L6oxODXA). ever confidence one places in the idea that Isla- mist groups can evolve into responsible political 4 Reza Aslan, Beyond Fundamentalism: Confront- parties, and however one views the hope for ing Religious Extremism in the Age of Globalization (New York: Random House, 2010), 83. peace in the Middle East, one fact is clear. It was 5 not the promise of democracy but the retraction Tillich, Love, 50. 6 Ibid., 107, 115. of that promise that caused the splintering of the 7 Ibid., 84-86. Palestinians, the blockade of Gaza, the war be- 8 Aslan, Fundamentalism, 32. tween Hamas and Israel, and the destruction of 9 Ibid., 169-170. 1.5 million Palestinian lives. Democracy is, I pro- 10 Ibid., 172. Gallup International found that 78% pose, the ontological concatenation of love, of people in the Middle East considered democracy power, and justice in intra-national relations, and “the best form of government” (www.voice-of-the- safe negotiation between democratic nations of people.net). varying power is the ontological concatenation of 11 Pew Research Center, “The Great Divide: How the three Tillichian metaphysical elements in in- Westerners and Muslims View Each Other,” 22 June ternational relations. So it will not be the reversal 2006 (http:// www.pewglobal.org/2006/06/22/the- of democracy but rather its continued promotion great-divide-how-westerners-and-muslims-view-each- other/). that, over the course of time, brings peace and 12 Tillich, Love, 103-104. stability not simply to Palestine but to the whole 13 Ibid., 61. of the Middle East. In support of this argument, 14 Ibid., 97. we need only look to the many successful peace- 15 Aslan, Fundamentalism, 173. ful Islamist democratic movements in Indonesia, 16 Osama bin Laden, interview given to Ummat Malaysia, Senegal, Morocco, and Bangladesh. On magazine, Karachi, 28 September 2001. Bulletin of the North American Paul Tillich Society, vol. 43, no. 2 9

17 Aslan, Fundamentalism, 5. 21 Ibid., 40. 18 Ibid., 154-155. 22 Aslan, Fundamentalism, 176. 19 Tillich, Love, 85-86. 23 Ibid., 173-174. 20 Ibid., 50-51. 24 Ibid., 176. ______

Formulating Questions, Facilitat- carefully with these assumptions, I realized that I ing Change: Tillich’s Method of had failed to grasp something critical to Tillich’s Correlation method of correlation. I had appropriated what he said in a way that made sense to me, but I real- Sharon Burch ized that in some ways I was unaware of impor- tant aspects of his teaching. Editor’s Note: This paper was first presented at the The major reason I returned to an examina- annual meeting of the North American Paul Tillich Soci- tion of the method of correlation at this time is ety, Friday, November 22, 2013, Baltimore, Maryland. that I am impressed by the number of ideas, basic to how human beings make sense of their every- Throughout my career, I have found the day existence, have collapsed in recent history. method of correlation a compelling idea. When I First and foremost is moment that human was teaching it was an organizing principle of my beings encountered the 1968 picture of our globe pedagogy. from space. Suddenly we had before us a photo- I wanted to train a generation of seminarians graph of the finite boundaries of our home planet. to thoroughly investigate, to sensitively formulate, The phrase “the other side of the world” and to creatively address the existential questions shifted—no longer was it far, far away. It was lit- that faced the people to whom they ministered. erally our own backyard. We were floating in My goal was to prepare students to accurately de- space on a “blue green marble,” and it was a scribe their faith in terms of their Christian heri- planetary body like other planetary bodies we had tage by identifying the major movements out of pictures of. which critical tenets of the Christian faith were Second was the discovery that Newtonian crafted. They would be equipped to explain physics does not function in the atomic realm. clearly why the doctrines, dogmas, rules, and ritu- Those principles were the ones that reassured hu- als now in place best expressed the system of faith man beings that they had been able to define how that they espoused and taught. the world works. Releasing them meant letting go I assumed that a creative analysis of the of an assumption that was deeply reassuring be- movements out of the inherited their faith tradi- cause of its stability and predictability. Such as- tions would lead them to adapt, expand, and/or sumptions about how much control and certainty revise some of their assumptions and religious human beings exercise are remarkably difficult to practices. As these well trained ministers pro- release—especially in light of the current astro- posed modifications, their insights would illumine physical interest in measuring dark matter and the ineffable, illustrate its power, and provide dark energy, neither of which have scientists, as ways for human beings to experience how our yet, been able to either quantify or define. Ultimate Concern provides certainty and meaning Third is our awareness that although language in the midst of the anxiety and despair that indicates something about what we hold to be plagues human beings. true and what we treasure, it is always relatively That is the way that I imagined the Christian accurate, relatively true, and relatively able to answer best would be provided to people facing communicate. There exists within it an element of contemporary existential questions. the ephemeral that prohibits its being able to do Please note the use of the past tense. To my more than approximate finality and permanence. surprise (if not horror!) when I began to work This one I think particularly affects those of us engaged in the theological endeavor because it Bulletin of the North American Paul Tillich Society, vol. 43, no. 2 10 makes it far harder to discuss the aseity of God method of correlation explains the contents of the when relative linguistic constructions undermine Christian faith through existential question and the effort even as it is being made. This list is my theological answers in mutual interdependence”? own idiosyncratic assessment, but these are the I began to reexamine a number of Tillich's sorts of sweeping changes that have created shifts writings. One of them was a beautiful sermon en- in the elemental assumptions that humans have titled “The Yoke of Religion,” which he had de- long used to make sense of the world. When livered at Union Theological Seminary in the late shifts of such magnitude occur, questions about 1940s. It was not at all reassuring. In fact, it drove the meaning of life and how is it to be found be- a stake into the heart of my naiveté on the matter. come both urgent and persistent. The text of the sermon is the passage in Mat- Such considerations fall clearly into the realm thew in which Jesus says “Come to me, all you of theology. Who other than theologians are that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you mandated to sensitively formulate the inchoate rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for questions about the meaning of life? Who other I am meek and lowly in heart: and you shall find than theologians have the charge to creatively rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my guide people out of the despair and anxiety that burden is light.” results from the collapse of principles that have Tillich reports that this passage was, for him, long provided a framework of meaning? Our universal in scope, simple yet profound, redolent mandate, almost our raison d’etre, is to carefully of inexhaustible meaning, and he was grasped by examine the effects of such changes and attempt its majesty. He explains he finds the actual teach- to show how the religious impulse, in whatever ings of Jesus often to be characterized by this sort form, and specifically the current state of the of truth, a truth that is absent from the words of Christian message provides meaning in light of disciples, theologians, saints, and preachers. them. In 1951, 62 years ago now, the first volume And he says that when we, as Christians, find of the Systematic Theology appeared. Tillich says: ourselves responding like that to the words of Je- It is not an exaggeration to say that today sus we are to “…point to the ground of the human beings experience their present situa- power [of those words] over our souls; we must tion in terms of disruption, conflict, self- explain why, in their emotional force, the force of destruction, meaninglessness and despair in all an ultimate truth is involved; and we must attempt realms of life. The question of contemporary to view our human situation in their light.” [Paul human beings is not...as in the Reformation, Tillich, The Shaking of the Foundations (New York: the question of a merciful God and the for- Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1948), 93.] In compari- giveness of sins; nor is it, as in the early Greek son to such a remarkable call to action, I realized church, the question of finitude, of death and that my interpretation of what he meant by the error; nor is it the question of the personal re- method of correlation was both trivial and tame. ligious life or of the Christianization of culture Once I had glimpsed that I had missed this far and society. It is the question of a reality in more radical application of the method of correla- which the self-estrangement of existence is tion, I began to find evidence of it throughout his overcome, a reality of reconciliation and reun- work. For example, later in that same sermon, he ion, of creativity, meaning and hope. said Again, please note. Tillich says that the ques- It would not be worthwhile to teach tion that human beings experience in their present Christianity, if it were for the sake of Christi- situation is not the question of the personal relig- anity. And believe me, you who are estranged ious life. And he says that it is not the question of from religion and far away from Christianity, the Christianization of culture and society. And I it is not our purpose to make you religious realized that I had thought, I had believed, I had and Christian when we interpret the call of Je- trusted that I was to provide a way to Christianize sus for our time. We call Jesus the Christ not culture and society, and I was to support the de- because He brought a new religion, but be- velopment of the personal religious life of human cause He is the end of religion, above religion beings. What else would he mean by saying “The and irreligion, above Christianity and non- Bulletin of the North American Paul Tillich Society, vol. 43, no. 2 11

Christianity. We spread His call because it is for the humanly devised laws of religion to remain the call to every human being in every period coherent and believable. to receive the New Being, that hidden saving People, pressed to obey, rebel. No more will power in our existence, which takes from us they conform to the rules dictated by doctrines labor and burden, and gives rest to our souls and rituals that do not make sense. No more will (102-103). they accept the imposition of a belief structure And in The Courage to Be Tillich suggests that urged upon them by their parents, their church although non-being cannot be obliterated and ministers and priests, the traditions of their relig- anxiety cannot be vanquished, Christian theology ious heritage. They will free themselves of all that nonetheless can mediate the power of being that nonsense. In other words, they become spiritual enables human beings to withstand the darkness but not religious, and when asked about their re- of doubt and meaninglessness, a moment that ligious affiliation, they mark “none.” often occurs when the symbols and constructs As Tillich says: (such as those I’ve cited) that have provided They cast away the yoke; but none can meaning are no longer effective. Tillich argues live in the emptiness of mere skepticism, and that it will take releasing the God of theism, and so they return to the old yoke in a kind of encountering the God beyond God. “The courage self-torturing fanaticism and try to impose it to be is rooted in the God who appears when on other people, on their children or pupils. God has disappeared in the anxiety of doubt” [The (97)…[Or] unable to stand the emptiness of Courage to Be (New Haven: Yale University Press, skepticism, they find new yokes outside the 1952), 190.] Church, new doctrinal laws under which they I realized with astonishment that Tillich was, begin to labor: political ideologies which they writing some 65 years ago, accurately and poign- propagate with religious fanaticism [certainly antly describing the situation we find ourselves in Tillich’s experience, the Nazi Regime would living through today, and most specifically ad- have represented this]; scientific theories dressing our contemporary disaffection with relig- which they defend with religious dogmatism ious practices and the institutional church. For [the Dawson and Hitchens crowd might be a example, he characterizes those “who labor and good example here]; and utopian expectations are heavy laden” as those who are burdened by they pronounce as the condition of salvation the practices, attitudes and behaviors required by for the world [perhaps both Democrats and religion. Republicans are suffering with this at this During the time of Jesus, religion was con- moment], forcing whole nations under the trolled and regulated by temple authorities, the yoke of their creeds which are religions, even scribes and the Pharisees. The rules, the doctrines, while they pretend to destroy religion. the dogmas, and the rituals were firmly in place, I was driven to ask—if the existential question regulated, and enforced. Worship was a privilege of the day is not the personal religious life, and is granted to those who were not unclean. Access to not the Christianization of culture and society and the sanctuary was limited. These specifics were we are in a situation of profound change, then humanly devised, yet invested with salvific what is my role as a theologian, educator, and pas- power—this was the religious law that burdened tor? The more I considered it, the more I became people and under which they labored. He points aware that I am one of the seminary graduates out that humanly devised laws are, by definition, that Mark Richardson of the Graduate Theologi- inconsistent. They do not suffice for everyone, in cal Union refers to as “administrative oil in the every era, and at all times. Changes, especially the machinery of congregational life.” He suggests sweeping ones that change our conceptions of that in place of that outlook, seminarians should how the world works, introduce new understand- be trained to “participate in God’s mission out- ings of what comprises truth, and suggest that side the parish gates with an attitude of generosity how things make sense and cohere can be under- and trust that this is the place of God’s presence.” stood in more than one way, make it impossible I find that when the time comes to actually step beyond the parish gates I have a lot invested Bulletin of the North American Paul Tillich Society, vol. 43, no. 2 12 in my set-apart, robe-wearing authority. I like be- to make sure they were accessible to those gath- ing considered spiritually advanced and deserving ered for the Sunday assembly. of at least a little bit of awe. I even like it when In other words, I would go about putting in people have to fight with me because I am the place all that I knew was best. That would be authority against which they are struggling. formulating questions and facilitating change. But I am not so fond of anonymity, being treated with the new reality that I have glimpsed, I realize with a sort of contempt because my education that Tillich charges me with a far different task. and point of view are considered irrelevant, and Jesus represents not a new demand, not a new having people I meet assume they know how I doctrine or new morals, but a new reality—a real- feel about abortion and same-sex marriage. But ity that transforms life. It is not something that we the cost of avoiding this discomfort is becoming can strive for, something that we can produce for increasingly apparent. My mandate as a theologian ourselves, no matter how learned and how pre- and pastor is not to become ever more precise pared we are in the traditional ways of doing the- about the clarity of the answers I have. It is to ology. The transcendent, the true, grasps us. We comfort, console, energize, reconcile, and restore cannot find it but it can find us—it is in every- those who yearn for meaning. thing, because everything derives life from it. For example, what has appeared recently in So, to paraphrase what Tillich said and I the media—the advent of what is being termed quoted at the beginning of this paper, I am the “atheist mega-church”? One of its founders, charged with pointing to why I find something in Sanderson Jones—incidentally a comedian by oc- the teaching of Jesus to have elemental power cupation—is quoted as saying “If you think about over my soul; I need to be able to explain why, in church, there’s very little that’s bad. It’s singing its emotional force, I receive what it means to be awesome songs, hearing interesting talks, thinking in the presence of an ultimate truth; and I must about improving yourself and helping other peo- illustrate what it means and the difference it ple—and doing that in a community with won- makes if I understand our human situation in this derful relationships. What part of that is not to light. And I have to do that from the standpoint like?” of the Sunday Assembly, from the ache that On their website, www.sundayassemby.com, drives Dawson and his compatriots to deny the their description of themselves reads, “The Sun- existence of a theistic concept of God, from the day Assembly is a godless congregation that cele- polarization that has resulted from the cynicism brates life. Our motto: live better, help often, and skepticism that follows the rejection of relig- wonder more. Our mission: to help everyone find ion. and fulfill their [sic] full potential. Our vision: a How do I do that? How do I develop the godless congregation in every town, city and vil- awareness that will allow me to release the appara- lage that wants one.” tus of my discipline when it is creating dissonance What does this indicate about the method of instead of apprehending the problem before me? correlation? Before I encountered my own com- How do I let go of the practices that have shaped plicity in judging people from the set of humanly my understanding of what it means to worship? devised rules and rituals that I considered essen- How do I release the concepts I have created tial to religion, I would have wanted to study about God that I am far too likely to mistake for these gatherings and help them clarify that what God, Godself? they sought was indeed God. I would have imag- Tillich points out that the one thing that dif- ined that in order for them to proceed with such a ferentiates Jesus from all others is his awareness search, I would have useful suggestions about cer- that he did not create the New Being—that he tain conventions that would be helpful for them was created by it. He knew that he could not find to observe. I would then develop a list of the ex- it—it had to find him. Can I be as bold, as faith- pressions of belief I hold to be necessary to ac- ful, as patient, as open? I am beginning to under- complish the purpose that I discerned was their stand that such a search constitutes a very differ- existential question, and I would tinker with them ent definition of the method of correlation, and Bulletin of the North American Paul Tillich Society, vol. 43, no. 2 13 an even greater difference in what is demanded of Wissenschaften. Three years later, his Religious Situa- me as a follower of Jesus as the Christ. tion critiques every cultural domain as enthralled ------by “self-sufficient finitude” through which, how- ever, the Transcendent is perceived to break Michael and Paulus: A Dynamic anew. This book classically models theology of Uncoordinated Duo culture until, arguably, upstaged by a more pro- vocative work, Polanyi’s Gifford Lectures of A. Durwood Foster 1951—i.e., “upstaged” substantively though Po- lanyi never appropriates Tillich’s idea of such a 1. theology. Tillich meanwhile mainly addresses Polanyi and Tillich are congruent and diver- church theology, the counterpart to that of cul- gent heroes in modernity’s ongoing struggle for ture. In the same year as Part One of Personal meaning, especially with a Christian twist. They Knowledge there emerges the first volume of System- are indeed a dynamic duo but never gelled as they atic Theology. Each magnum opus, Tillich’s Systematic might, which challenges their Societies with unfin- Theology and Polanyi’s Personal Knowledge, aims to ished business. Born six years apart, Tillich first in overcome malignant loss of meaning in modern 1886, they share bourgeois middle Europe in har- life. For Polanyi, the problem’s core is the ideal of rowing transition from 19th Century progressiv- impersonal detachment pervading science and ism through scientific upheaval, social convulsion, epistemology, typified by Laplace in the 18th Cen- and Nazi barbarism, under threat of which the tury and Skinner now. There results from this targeted Jew and the distrusted academic—first to ideal of positivist objectivism—which Polanyi re- meet decades later—emigrate to England and buts as untenable—not only undermining ethics America. Both devote serious attention to social- and religion but also conceptual abolition of the ism, but come to eschew Marx as well as Soviet free person and free society. Tillich’s overlapping oppression. In Eliot’s postwar Wasteland they diagnosis of the human predicament (elaborately join—philosopher-scientist and philosopher- rethinking original sin) is much more complex but theologian—the insurgency of humanist existen- has come by 1951 to include a critique of that tialism against objectivist scientism, as titanic new “controlling” knowledge which denies pervasive ethnic and global energies start to seethe. From participation of the subject and reduces the hu- early on, Tillich the Christian strikingly appreci- man to manipulable objectivity. The stage is set ates Judaism, while Polanyi the Jew receives bap- for our duo to meet, and Richard Gelwick gets tism and saliently intones Christian faith—which Charles McCoy to arrange this in Berkeley during may be the reason Jewish thought stays cool to Tillich’s Earl Lectures of February, 1963. him. In 1914, our duo enters the military of the Central Powers, as chaplain and medic respec- 3. tively. Ailing, discharged early, they return to their To use Polanyian parlance, there are several research. Tillich, the burgeoning Berlin Privat- documentary sources that crucially comprise the dozent, startles his profession with the “Idea of a subsidiary matrix focusing to the “Berkeley Dia- Theology of Culture” (1919), just as Polanyi re- logue” at the Claremont Hotel, which lasts about ceives a Karlsruhe Ph.D. and emigrates from an hour and a half on the evening of February 21, Hungary, a promising new hands-on talent in 1963. (The hotel is not actually in Berkeley, but German physical chemistry. He corresponds with just over the Oakland line.) It seems pertinent to Einstein and will awaken thoughts of a Nobel recall that in Personal Knowledge a decade earlier, Prize, yet feels increasing pan-disciplinary duty to Polanyi, had named Tillich his favored theologian “Science and Society.” It becomes his transcen- (pp. 280, 283n.), citing from Biblical Religion and the dental “calling” to restore the humanity of knowl- Search for Ultimate Reality and Systematic Theology, edge and reinsure the significance of culture. Vol. 1, the coupling of doubt and faith and cri- tique of fundamentalism. More recently he was 2. troubled in reading Dynamics of Faith by Tillich’s In 1923 Tillich publishes a system of all the “separate dimensions” strategy for avoiding con- Bulletin of the North American Paul Tillich Society, vol. 43, no. 2 14 flict between science and faith. [Hereto, see Mi- ture at U.C. Berkeley on “Science, Philosophy and chael Polanyi’s article “Science and Religion: Religion,” which (from a remark attributed to him Separate Dimensions or Common Ground?” in in Polanyi’s summary) Tillich might be taken to Philosophy Today 7 (Spring. 1963) 4-16, written assume Polanyi did hear. (I cannot, by the way, right after the Berkeley encounter.] Contrary to locate any extant text of this lecture.) Finally, as to Tillich, Polanyi affirms (p. 4) his own belief “that salient documents bearing on the Claremont Ho- our knowledge of nature has a bearing on our re- tel encounter, it seems pertinent to cite Tillich’s ligious beliefs; that, indeed, some aspects of na- statements in his letter to Polanyi of May 23, 1963 ture offer us a common ground with religion.” (Gelwick, op. cit.) that he first envisaged an epis- (Bob Russell, on our panel, will recall how such a temological “hierarchy of involvement and de- belief later moved some of us in Berkeley to tachment” when he wrote System der Wissenschaften found under his lead the Center for Theology and and that he has “carried it through “rather fully” the Natural Sciences.) Here indeed is one of the in the forthcoming third volume of the Systematic big issues between Polanyi and Tillich, but it was Theology. This clearly implies that an assessment of left very much unpacked on February 21. For where Tillich stood and came to stand vis-à-vis what actually transpired that night between them, the Polanyian epistemological project calls for a the most essential record is Richard Gelwick’s close look also at both those works. 1995 article in Tradition and Discovery XXII, 1, which includes Polanyi’s four and a half page 4. summary of the conversation. Regretfully, there is However, the first document of interest in our no resume by Tillich, though some weeks later in case to examine is doubtless Tillich’s essay “Par- two letters to Polanyi (included in Gelwick, op. ticipation and Knowledge,” regarding which he cit.) he is pleased by how much they agree and makes his most meaty intervention during the notably with Polanyi’s assertion that Tillich has Berkeley conversation and then follows up in the “fought for the purification of faith from religious second letter to Polanyi with bibliographic data dogmatism” while Polanyi supplemented “this by and the promise of help if needed in finding the purifying truth from scientific dogmatism.” Tillich piece. The Frankfürter Beiträge were in fact hard to adds that Polanyi has excellently shown “the con- access, and I understand Polanyi never did get to tinuity between the different types of knowledge” read what Rob James calls Tillich’s “little gem” of and then in the second letter identifies the essay epistemology. Ironically, Tillich could have given to which he refers Polanyi in the conversation as far simpler directions to the document. It was “Participation and Knowledge: Problems of an widely available (in a German translation of the Ontology of Cognition,” his contribution to the original English) in Band VI of his Gesammelte Festschrift Max Horkheimer zum 60 Geburtstag (pub- Werke, 1961. Like Karl Barth, Paulus could not lished in Sociologica, pp. 201-9, hrsg. Adorno and recall where to find all he had published! It is even Dirks, Frankfurt a.M., 1955, bound in Frankfürter more ironic, however, that the pith of what Tillich Beiträge zur Soziologie, Bd. 1.) had to say epistemologically, so far as it bears on This statement has been put on the website as the Polanyi project of establishing personal par- the most axial “subsidiary clue” to the interface ticipation in all cognitive domains, had already been from Tillich’s side. With these sources I would before Polanyi when he read Systematic Theology, Vol. further place the second of Tillich’s Earl Lectures, 1. This we know from Polanyi’s article, referred to “The Nature of Present Day Thought: Its above, in Philosophy Today wherein the author, after Strangeness to Traditional Christianity” (available citing what he does not like from Dynamics of Faith in the published lectures, The Irrelevance and the (viz., the “separate dimensions” strategy), says the Relevance of the Christian Message, Pilgrim Press, following in Footnote 1: “The present paper re- 1996, pp. 23-41.) Polanyi heard Tillich deliver this sponds to this statement (from p. 81 of Dynamics lecture just prior to their conversation, but did not of Faith) and more directly to recent lectures (sic) at (I understand from Richard Gelwick) attend any Berkeley in February, 1963. The following formu- other of Tillich’s formal presentations that lation that comes nearer my own position (to week—including the Wednesday afternoon lec- which my attention has been called) can be found Bulletin of the North American Paul Tillich Society, vol. 43, no. 2 15 in Systematic Theology I (which we recall was cited in 6. Personal Knowledge as a favored theological source), While the final version of Tillich’s “Personal p. 97: “The element of union and the element of Knowledge” still largely coincides with Systematic detachment appear in different proportions in the Theology, Vol. 1, there is one new idea: a proposal different realms of knowledge. But there is no in the third paragraph from the end as to how knowledge without the presence of both ele- knowledge can include, besides the moment of ments.” separation, also the moment of union which tran- scends the subject-object structure. The key, he 5. says, is temporal alternation. “It is the time differ- We find ourselves knee deep herein the ques- ence between the moment of uniting participation tion: How does Tillich’s “Participation and and separating objectivation which makes relig- Knowledge” of 1955 differ from the epistemology ious and—in some degree—all knowledge possi- formulated in Systematic Theology, Vol. 1 (1951), ble. This does not mean that a former participa- (especially pp. 94-100, dealing with the cognitive tion is remembered and made an object of cogni- function of existential reason)? One might pre- tion. But it does mean that the moment is present sume there is variance, given the four-year hiatus in the cognitive moment and vice versa. Participa- in publication—for Tillich’s detailed conceptuali- tion still persists in the moment of cognitive sepa- zation continuously mutated. But in this respect ration; the cognitive encounter includes moments there is something that does not meet the eye, of predominant participation, which I have called namely that Tillich’s “Personal Knowledge” (not the perceptive moments, as well as moments of to be confused with Polanyi’s!) originated pre- predominant separation, which I have called the cisely at the time Systematic Theology, Vol. 1 was cognitive moments. These alternate and establish coming out. The impression given in Polanyi’s in their totality a cognitive encounter. This is the summary of the Berkeley meeting (see Gelwick, situation in all realms, and it is the structure which op. cit.) that Tillich says he did the piece while makes religious knowledge possible.” (Main “still in Germany” (i.e., before emigrating in 1933) Works, 1, 389.) Do we find anything like this is quite misleading; Tillich must have said some- elsewhere in Tillich? One has to think a moment, thing like “for a German publication.” Peter John, but then yes, we do, in Systematic Theology, Vol. 3’s to whose voluntary labors as amanuensis to Til- elucidation of the mystical element in a Protestant lich (despite the latter’s discouraging attitude) we theology determined by faith. “The question are manifoldly indebted, has preserved a very which arises,” declaims Tillich, “…about faith and early (and obviously not entire or un-garbled) ver- mysticism in Protestant theology is that of the sion of the “Personal Knowledge” essay from its compatibility and, even more, the interdepend- provenance in the spring of 1951. It seems that in ence of the two. They are compatible only if the the late winter of that year it was Tillich’s turn to one is an element of the other; two attitudes to- give the paper for a club of philosophers who met ward the ultimate could not exist beside each monthly for dinner and discussion at Columbia other if the one were not given with the other. University. Obviously he drew from thematiza- This is the case in spite of all anti-mystical ten- tion in press for Systematic Theology, Vol. 1, which dencies in Protestantism; there is no faith (but would appear in May, no doubt using a com- only belief) without the Spirit’s grasping the per- pressed outline, as was his wont. Soon thereafter sonal center of him who is in the state of faith, (April 30) Peter John was among a group of stu- and this is a mystical experience, an experience of dents at a Tillich open house to whom Paulus the presence of the infinite within the finite. As an presented a redaction of what he had shared with ecstatic experience, faith is mystical, although it the group of philosophers, with their salient re- does not produce mysticism as a religious type. sponses. True to form, Peter preserved a short- The same is true from the other side. There is hand account showing many of the elements re- faith in mystical experience” (Systematic Theology, formulated and polished a few years later for the Vol. 3, p. 242). Here Tillich desists from the Horkheimer Festschrift. “temporal alternation” floated in “Personal Knowledge.” His thinking of “one within the Bulletin of the North American Paul Tillich Society, vol. 43, no. 2 16 other” suggests rather the “eschatological panen- schaften in 1923! Beyond the “Personal Knowl- theism” affirmed at the very end of Systematic The- edge” text Peter John reports Tillich relating, at ology, Vol. 3 (p. 423). However, temporal move- that open house in 1951, that some of his phi- ment reappears when normative Protestant mysti- losophical acquaintances, apparently in the club cism is described as “every serious prayer leading that met monthly at Columbia, had urged him into contemplation” (Systematic Theology, Vol. 3, p. now to turn his creative powers, still at high tide, 192). In contemplation “the paradox of prayer is to a major work in epistemology. Having com- manifest, the identity and non-identity of him pleted the arduous task of getting Systematic Theol- who prays and Him who is prayed to: God as ogy, Vol. 1, into galley proofs, if he plowed on Spirit” (ibid.). What is notable in the wrestling with the system he faced the controverted terrain with these matters, in relation to Polanyi’s episte- of Christology and Pneumatology where he was mological project, is Tillich’s evident awareness of less systematically au courant. Besides, he seems to a cognitive bifocality fusing—without being abol- have experienced a somewhat galling frustration ished—into a unity. One term is more participa- in not having secured yet better underpinnings in tory, the other more detached. At the much more the philosophy of cognition, where he once scin- primitive stage of “Personal Knowledge” pre- tillated prodigiously. Hence the somber remark of served by Peter John (p. 3 of his transcription), Paulus remembered by Sarah Terrien: “I will be Tillich gets into heated discussion with Prof. damned for my mystical theory of knowledge.” Hendel of Yale as to how cognition “must par- Tillich asked the students in his home that eve- ticipate in terms of the presence of sense impres- ning, says Peter John, after they heard the resume sions, otherwise we cannot have even controlling of “Personal Knowledge,” what they thought he knowledge.” I am sure Polanyi’s ears would have should do. It was a typical gesture of the theologi- pricked up at that! His “tacit dimension” theory cal giant. But the seminary middlers, of course, compasses sensation far more thoroughly than were way beyond their depth. Providence decreed, does Tillich, but it is surprising how much the two if partly by default, that the magnum opus should be of them, mutually unaware, fished in the same completed. Maybe it was, as some thought might waters. be true of Barth’s Kirkliche Dogmatik, that the Lord God could not bear to miss the denouement of 7. such magisterial constructs. In Tillich’s case, at This pertains not only to cognition’s sensory least here on earth most would rejoice that the or “material” component but also to what Aris- Systematic Theology got finished. Yet who has read totle further taught Western philosophy to call the both Tillich and Polanyi can doubt that, in epis- “formal” and the “final” aspects of any causative temology and the whole gamut of culture as well, transaction. Note in Tillich’s published “Personal something still profoundly needed could have Knowledge” what he dubs the “structural presup- commenced to flower had the one’s immense gift positions of experience” (Main Works, p. 384). for theo-philosophical conceptualizing somehow “There is,” he insists, despite the disputes over melded with the other’s prophetic genius in em- particular renditions of these—whether by Plato pirical scientific and cultural diagnostics. Suppose (the ideas), Kant (the categories), Husserl, Scheler, after that April evening, which Peter John was or whomever—“an irreducible though indefinite privy to, Paulus had tabled the Systematic Theology minimum” of such presuppositions in every cog- and gone to Britain to hear Polanyi deliver the nitive encounter. They comprise a medium of in- Gifford Lectures. Suppose Michael, settling in escapable participation of the subject in the object Berlin to do science at the Faber Institute in the of knowledge and vice versa. Math and logic are, 20s, had also walked blocks away to the Kant Ge- of course, in the front rank here, without which sellschaft and let his irrepressible mind ingest dispa- the “hardest” of the physical sciences would dis- rate yet dynamically pair-able Tillichian stem cells? solve. Actually, from early on, Tillich is as aware Dream on, ye fatuous! Or maybe get busy, for the of this as is Polanyi. We could certainly wish, at need—our cultural crisis, darkened by deadly this precise apposition, that the latter would feuds with fanaticism—is no less ominous. somehow have read the former’s System der Wissen- Bulletin of the North American Paul Tillich Society, vol. 43, no. 2 17

8. (Schleiermacher) or “cosmic whole’ (Hock- But we’ve gotten ahead of ourselves. Because ing), whether it is ‘value creating process’ it is so important also to Polanyi, I want to bring (Whitehead) or ‘progressive integration’ out Tillich’s emphatic recognition for all knowl- (Wieman), whether it is ‘absolute spirit’ edge of the determining valuational Gestalt. In so- (Hegel) or ‘cosmic person’ (Brightman)—each ciety as well as the individual or the research team, of these concepts is based on an immediate knowing is always established and sustained, ex- experience of something ultimate in value and panded or corrected, within a contextualizing tra- being of which one can become intuitively dition. Meaning, devolving from ultimate valua- aware (pp. 8-9). tion and commitment, shapes the whole matrix within which physics, as much if not more than 9. theology, transpires. This is the zone of the Aris- In these passages Tillich is talking focally totelian “final” or teleological cause, which as about religion and theology, but it is clear what he modernity unfolds Francis Bacon and Galileo, says intends to apply to cognition generally. He unknowingly preparing for Laplace and Skinner, repeats this in the “Personal Knowledge” essay. will bracket for untrammeled study of nature. Po- When did he begin to think this way? Here let me lanyi as physical chemist (ipso facto becoming phi- cite from System der Wissenschaften thematization losopher too) blows here a shrill whistle and en- which is the obvious preformation of what was gages the now humongous phalanx of purposeless just quoted from Systematic Theology, Vol. 1, three objectivism in no-holds-barred dissent. After decades latter. “Erkannt ist, was als notwendiges Glied much earlier lightning flashes this begins to hap- einem Zusammenhang eingeordnet ist” (Main Works, p. pen programmatically, I take it, by the time he 115). The necessary Zusammenhang, if it too shall writes the lectures for Science, Faith and Society, belong to knowledge, must finally fit into an all 1946 (Cf. Moleski/Scott, Michael Polanyi, 2005, pp. embracing system, and 200, 258, 100, 154, passim). It gains a grand if Die lebendige Kraft eines Systems ist sein Gehalt, sprawling fruition, of course, in the Gifford Lec- sein schöpferisches Standpunkt, seine Urintuition. tures, 1951-2. Tillich’s contemporaneous Systematic Jedes System lebt von dem Prinzip, auf das es gegrun- Theology, Vol. 1, wherein Polanyi found salient det und mit dem es erbaut ist. Jedes letzte Prinzip points of agreement, contains upfront the follow- aber ist der Ausdruck einer lefzten Wirklichkeitss- ing pregnant passages. chau, einer grundlegenden Lebenshaltung. So bricht In every assumedly scientific theology there is durch das Formalsystem der Wissenschaften in jedem a point where individual experience, tradi- Augenblick ein Gehalt hindurch, der metaphysisch ist, tional valuation, and personal commitment d.h. der jenseits jeder einzelnen Form und aller For- must decide the issue…If an inductive ap- men liegt, und darum nie nach Art einer falschen proach is employed, one must ask in what di- Metaphysik selbst eine Form neben anderen sein rection the writer looks for his material. And kann. Das Metaphysische ist der lebendige Kraft, der if the answer is that he looks in every direc- Sinn und das Blut des Systems” (p. 118). tion and toward every experience, one must By no means had Tillich always so envisaged the ask what characteristic of reality or experience basic layout of knowledge. In this frenetically is the empirical basis of his theology. What- creative phase of his maturation, spurred by fa- ever the answer may be, an a priori of experi- vorable attention from Ernst Troeltsch, concep- ence and valuation is implied.…In both the tual breakthroughs were attaining warp speed. empirical and metaphysical approaches, it can Only four years earlier, in the thunderclap that be observed that the a priori which directs the first gained him wide attention, he opened his lec- induction and the deduction is a type of mys- ture “On the Idea of a Theology of Culture” by tical experience. Whether it is ‘being-itself’ contrasting the “empirical sciences” with the “sys- (Scholastics) or the ‘universal substance’ (Spi- tematic sciences of culture” in just the way Po- noza), whether it is ‘beyond subjectivity and lanyi would later indict as nefariously deceptive. objectivity’ (James), or the ‘identity of spirit “In der Erfahrungswissenschaften,” avers the opening and nature’ (Schelling), whether it is universe’ sentence of that lecture, “ist der Standpunkt etwas, Bulletin of the North American Paul Tillich Society, vol. 43, no. 2 18 das überwunden werden muss,” whereas, continues the was said to be the largest audience ever to crowd next paragraph, “in den systematischen Kulturwissen- the gym, Tillich would have diverged drastically schaften…gehört der Standpunkt des Systematikers zur from what had been for decades his standing Sache selbst” (Main Works 2, p. 70). In other words, view? Well, in public presentations, he did some- at this point Tillich was quite aware that both par- times foreshorten his complex positions, and ticipation and detachment were integral to (what there are many oddities in what has come down he later mainly calls) the Geisteswissenschaften, but he to us about the whole affair. Why, for example, does not yet see what Polanyi would become par- would Tillich parry Polanyi’s opening thrust the ticularly concerned to drive home, viz., that par- way he does—i.e., by reminding that his lecture ticipation—or indwelling, or a matrix of per- had also noted the wider responsibility of scien- sonal/subjective presuppositions—is pervasively tists for our shared world—if the lecture had involved also in the natural (also dubbed empiri- more relevantly addressed Polanyi’s pivotal con- cal) sciences, including the so-called “hardest” of cern. Polanyi’s following intervention justifiably them. However, the text of Das System der Wissen- dismisses Tillich’s riposte as irrelevantly adducing schaften shows that Tillich just four years later had a “dual function” (the social responsibility of sci- wised up—at least to some extent—to what was entists). Of course, we must not forget we are en- to be the Polanyian insight. This is further con- closed here within Polanyi’s notes, which hardly firmed in Tillich’s Marburg Dogmatics of 1925, can accurately embody all Tillich said. The plain which he sometimes spoke of as the Systematic truth is we never can precisely know what went Theology’s beginning. (Cf. Dogmatik, ed. W. back and forth that evening between our dynamic Schüssler, pp. 100, 23 8, passim): “Bei näherem Zuse- duo, but it is incontestably about as uncoordi- hen ergibt sich…daß diese drei Gruppen (the mathe- nated as one can get. matical, empirical, and geistestwissenschaftlich sci- ences) gar nicht so radikal geschieden sind, daß jedes 11. Element in jeder mehr oder weniger vertreten ist” (p. 100). It is disappointing that Tillich knows nothing It is also fully reflected in The Religious Situation’s about Polanyi. Further, it is hard to avoid con- overview of science (Die religiöse Lage der Gegenwart, cluding, in spite of epistolary courtesy, that he 1926, trans. 1930). also failed to learn anything from the interface. Renate Albrecht had reason for not mentioning 10. Polanyi among the many “Encounters” of Tillich Polanyi’s summary of the Berkeley dialogue she records in Volume XII of the Gesammelte shows he is emphatically unsatisfied with Tillich’s Werke (Begegnungen, 1971). The Paucks similarly did attempt to envisage participation also in the natu- not regard anything that happened in Berkeley in ral sciences (Cf. Gelwick’s article referenced 1963 as deserving notice in their account of Pau- above). But how well has he understood Tillich’s lus’s life (Paul Tillich, vol. 1, 1975). Systematic Theol- attempt? I do not see how we can ever know, but ogy, Vol. 3, when it appears the following summer, prima facie he seems to misrepresent Tillich in the does show passages we might argue are tinctured opening assertion that “The method of absolute Polanyianly, except for knowing they were in detachment you (Paul Tillich) ascribe to science in press when our heroes met—and that, as seen, contrasting it with philosophy and religion is a propitious Tillichian soil for them existed earlier. method which scientists falsely ascribe to them- Tillich never did become privy to Polanyi’s coura- selves.” (If Gelwick is right that Polanyi did not geous and brilliant expeditions in the infrastruc- attend the afternoon lecture at University of Cali- ture of empirical science. He never grasped, or fornia, Berkeley on “Science, Philosophy, and Re- even confronted in its prime thrust, the theory ligion,” then Tillich must have lent him the text spelled out in The Tacit Dimension. Nor could Til- before the dialogue commenced. I have already lich assimilate Polanyi’s completely unintimidated noted I cannot now discover anything about this attitude of bearding practitioners of science in text—even whether it existed; it seems if it had it their own den. He felt keenly his lack of creden- would be in the Harvard archives). But can we tials—which Polanyi had—to debunk scientific believe that at UCB that afternoon, before what dogmatism at the laboratory level. Besides, Tillich, Bulletin of the North American Paul Tillich Society, vol. 43, no. 2 19 especially as he aged, was almost overly “nice,” the mid-50s Polanyi’s work was hardly known by close sometimes to being unctuous. Note him anyone. Before I left in 1953, the only sounding saying (in Polanyi’s resume) that when philoso- of his name I ever heard was by Aristotelian ex- phers like Nagel “would accept none” of the pert Richard McKeon of Chicago. He had to spell “Personal Knowledge” essay’s inclusion of par- it as he told Rabbi Finkelstein and his steering ticipation in every branch of knowledge, he “did committee of the Conference on Science, Phi- not dare to pursue it further.” Even though what losophy and Religion of this “Hungarian scientist he states here (i.e., what Polanyi says he states) is now living in Britain” who argued Aristotle’s pistis rather misleading, since he had long previously (in the Prior Analytics) was a skeleton in the closet held and kept right on holding there is participa- of modern natural science. Some at Union would tion in all knowledge, the utterance is attitudinally have picked up on a possible relation to the credo true to Tillich. It resonates completely with his ut intelligam of Medieval Christian theology, but deference vis-à-vis Martin Buber, Hans Reichen- Tillich was not one of those. I do not know when bach, and others when they visited Union during he may first have heard of Polanyi, but it was rela- my student days there. (I think what Tillich must tively late, after becoming preoccupied with Sys- actually have said to Polanyi is illumined by Peter tematic Theology, Vols. 1 and 2, and all the folderol John’s report from the open house (cf. supra). of moving to Harvard and then Chicago. Then, After the presentation of “Personal Knowledge” following the Berkeley dialogue, Tillich had but a at University of California, Berkeley in early 1951, short time to live. He returned to Chicago ab- some friends of Tillich urged him to shelve the sorbed in his history of religions teamwork with Systematic Theology and undertake a major work in Mircea Eliade, worried at East Hampton about epistemology, but Ernest Nagel, who had great glitches in the English text of Systematic Theology, prestige around New York City and certainly with Vol. 3 as he tried to oversee its German transla- Tillich, advised against it. Though a stringent tion, kept frenetically responding to multifarious positivist, Nagel fraternized genially with Rabbi initiatives, including a post at New York’s School Louis Finkelstein and others in the local theologi- of Social Research, and barely mustered strength cal community.) for that notable swan song lecture in Chicago. There was just no chance to mull over Polanyi. 12. Among my puzzlements about the tangled skein How could Tillich be so nescient of Polanyi of how come and what if is why the Conference on prior to the meeting? Was not this the Paulus Science, Philosophy and Religion did not seek out justly famous since the 1920s for an almost too Polanyi, as his interests and qualifications were watchful eye on contemporary culture, especially very much in their ballpark. From about 1940 philosophy, with which to “correlate” his theo- they had a cosmopolitan program going annually logical work? Yes, but it seems even would-be in New York to which he could have spoken very polymaths can overbook. For one thing, Tillich’s incisively, and then a much more receptive Tillich speed in English never matched what it was in would perforce have become aware of him. Did German; he concentrated on learning to write. the animus toward Polanyi (e.g., in British analytic Meanwhile, a spate of invitations had pulled him philosophy), or his endorsing Jewish assimilation, from every direction since Time magazine’s cover also poison more distant waters? Even today one (ca. 1950) christened him “Mr. Theology.” But for notices, in the quite recent Oxford Companion to the last years, pressing anxiety to complete the Philosophy, edited by Ted Honderich, there is, for system overhung everything, as his angina pecto- all the hundreds of modern trivia, no entry at all ris worsened. He did for that matter read val- for Polanyi. iantly—Heidegger, Whitehead, Hartshorne, re- cently Teilhard de Chardin, even novels like 1984, 13. de rigueur scholarly papers for meetings and disser- All the initiative for and in the Berkeley en- tations, always trying as well to scrawl a personal counter was taken by Polanyi. He had been sig- word on the term papers his assistants graded. On nificantly impressed by Tillich’s writing for at least the other hand, for whatever reasons, at Union in a decade. But, that being the case, why is he as un- Bulletin of the North American Paul Tillich Society, vol. 43, no. 2 20 steeped, as it seems he is, in the complexity of of all, a dealing with human beings as with Tillich’s thought? Polanyi was a phenomenally things. In psychology and sociology, in medi- omnivorous reader. Why would he not have di- cine and philosophy, man has been dissolved gested, if not earlier then down at Stanford where into elements out of which he is composed he was spending the semester, Tillich’s treatise on and which determine him. Treasures of em- the sciences? (I happen to know it was in the li- pirical knowledge have been produced in this brary there.) Even closer in, why would he not way, and new research projects augment those have carefully reread Systematic Theology, Vol. 1, treasures daily. But man has been lost in this which he praised in his Gifford Lectures? During enterprise. That which can be known only by or after the encounter, he tells us in the Philosophy participation and union, that which is the ob- Today article, someone had to call his attention to ject of receiving knowledge, is disregarded. the passage from that volume, which he acknowl- Man actually has become what controlling edges is closer to his own position. There are in knowledge considers him to be, a thing fact lots of passages in the volume that resonate among things, a cog in the dominating ma- quite deeply with Polanyi’s concern and “calling.” chine of production and consumption, a de- Here is one further example (from pp. 98-9): humanized object of tyranny or a normalized Most cognitive distortions are rooted in a object of public communications. Cognitive disregard of the polarity which is in cognitive dehumanization has produced actual dehu- reason. This disregard is not simply an avoid- manization. able mistake; it is a genuine conflict under the This is vintage Tillichian theology of culture. conditions of existence. One side of this con- Polanyi’s distinct and original voice harmonizes flict is the tension between dogmatism and well with it, and we can be gratified and hopeful criticism within social groups. But there are in the power of their modulated consonance. But other sides to it. Controlling knowledge claims any actual duet to come forth from our duo is one control of every level of reality—life, spirit, we shall need ourselves to arrange. personality, community, meanings, values, even one’s ultimate concern, should be treated 14. in terms of detachment, analysis, calculation, Alas, these two “kings of high C” never get to technical use. The power behind this claim is sing together. When they meet in Berkeley, why the preciseness, verifiability, the public ap- does Polanyi (once again if we follow his resume, proachability of controlling knowledge, and, our sole definitive source, unless Richard Gelwick above all, the tremendous success of its appli- will correct it) so aggressively pin Tillich to the cation to certain levels of reality. It is impossi- wall with his summation of the latter’s position? ble to disregard or even to restrain this claim. And then follow with a staccato recital of his own (The last clause here is not acceptable to Po- views? Why not ask Tillich whether he has him lanyi, and yet the resistance and frustration he right? Polanyi’s impatience does show a throbbing experiences in pursuit of his “calling” exem- earnestness we cannot but salute. On to the Sache plify its truth—or let me rather say its partial selbst! Still, might we not have expected more truth. For Tillich himself is pursuing the same scrupulous prior review of his favored religious calling—and so are others like Karl Jaspers thinker? And why no reference at least to the Earl and Buber, and the cause has never been alto- Lecture given just several minutes before, which gether lost.) The public mind is so impreg- Polanyi came to hear, and in which Tillich had nated with its methodological demands and indicted “Skinnerism’s” turning persons into astonishing results that every cognitive at- things as the current extreme of “calculating rea- tempt in which reception and union are pre- son” run amok (Irrelevance, pp. 25, 31, passim)? Fo- supposed encounters utter distrust. (Shall we cus on this point alone would show the inade- here call Prof. Nagel to the stand?) A conse- quacy of casting Tillich simply as the seminary quence of this attitude is a rapid decay of teacher countering fundamentalism, vastly impor- spiritual (not only of the Spiritual) life, an es- tant as that is. True, Paulus seems to acquiesce in trangement from nature, and, most dangerous this settlement with Polanyi, like a harried busi- Bulletin of the North American Paul Tillich Society, vol. 43, no. 2 21 ness man “agreeing quickly with the adversary” so disenchantment with Dynamics of Faith, published as to get on with his main agenda. But there are in 1958. His disillusion—re: his own cutting bones to pick that Wednesday evening that are edge—probably began whenever it was he pe- still far from ever having been stripped clean. One rused that work. His deep respect for the “upper we already have noted is that Tillich does not per- story” of Tillich’s theology apparently stayed in ceive how manifoldly and thoroughly the empiri- place, even while he pigeonholed Paulus off to the cal sciences in their experimental infrastructure side of the axial quarrel with science. In my case, and their existential underbracing and control de- animadversion to the “separate dimensions” strat- pend tacitly upon a fiduciary matrix of social and per- egy (cf. Par. 3 above) for mutually pacifying relig- sonal preconditions. On the other hand, he is ion and science seems in Berkeley to have gone awed by the achievements of science while being on engrossing his attention in a practical parallel unexposed to the sweaty disconnects and seat-of- to Tillich’s overloaded agenda. He likewise does one’s-pants guesswork that Polanyi knew all too not appear to have learned anything new about well. Of course, even more than Tillich, Polanyi his interlocutor by coming up from Stanford that also reveres science, but he can and does loudly day, or later—settling instead for the rhetorical sound the note as well that in monotone was pro- concord of his tackling scientific false conscious- jected by the book Science is a Sacred Cow (by An- ness and Tillich religious fundamentalism. This is thony Standen, 1950). That was a kind of book all the further borne out if Richard Gelwick is Paulus tended to deprecate. correct that Polanyi never did get around to look- ing up the Horkheimer festschrift essay. But for me 15. the principal earnest of it is the fact that, in Mean- Unaware of the weight of Polanyi’s scholar- ing crucially, the theophilosophical work in which ship, Tillich could have gotten the impression his Polanyi has latterly become interested is that of interlocutor was too exercised, not to say ob- emergent evolution and Whitehead. There are sessed, by his pivotal insight, however correct and sanguine reasons why he would have, as we shall important it doubtless was. We have no objec- see below. But, as he obviously did not realize, tively intended utterance to the point from Pau- there was much more in Tillich too that might lus; the courteous blandishments can hardly have creatively boosted the project to which he count. Certainly he would have deemed it too was called. simple to ascribe our universal human malaise only to the false ideal of objectivity, since for him the 16. human predicament was compounded transcen- In the resume, after Polanyi presents his posi- dentally of unfaith, hubris, and concupiscence— tion, Tillich inquires, “Is this view based on Ge- this being our fallenness or sinfulness— stalt psychology?” Far from just making apt con- continuously issuing in more concrete configura- versation, as it might appear, the specificity of the tions and specific actions of estrangement. Not question is loaded with residual Tillichiana. In Sys- that Polanyi really was so tunnel visioned! The tem der Wissenschaften, Paulus had proposed Gestalt grounding and range we know from Personal psychology as the pivot to overcoming the stulti- Knowledge—as well as (post-Tillich) Meaning with fying conflict of methods especially within the its incisive addressal of the whole scope of cul- “sciences of being” vis-à-vis the “sciences of ture—would have doubtless evoked even in a thought.” It seems worth our while to adduce preoccupied Paulus much more hermeneutic alac- here further the flavor and stringency packed into rity. It is a shame to have to say the Claremont this 1923 volume which I continue so much to Hotel dialogue of our dynamic duo was largely a wish our same-year Hungarian immigrant to Ber- reciprocal fizzle, and yet for Polanyi, too, it seems lin had somehow managed to ingest—or, indeed, to have pretty well finished turning him off to even more, emulate with a comparable “Systematik” Tillich, with whom once he had been coming on of the sciences. Tillich was not out simply to ar- so strongly. I can find no subsequent expression range concepts but was intent on solving live of interest in Paulus other than the Philosophy To- problems: day article that is mainly predicated on Polanyi’s Nachdem im Vorhergehenden die seinswissen- Bulletin of the North American Paul Tillich Society, vol. 43, no. 2 22 schaftliche Systematik positiv begründet ist, möge ein His architectonic grounding, particularly in psy- Blick auf den Stand der Debatte zeigen, daß unsere chology, was ever a large resource in Tillich’s on- Auffassung im Stande ist, die aktuellen Probleme zu going career, re-anchored in enduring friendships lösen. Es ringen gegenwärtig miteinander eine meth- with the Gestalt neurophysiologist Kurt Goldstein odische und eine gegenständliche Richtung. Die meth- and such psychotherapists as Harry Bone, Karen odische Richtung, die mit erkenntnistheoretischem Ide- Horney, and Rollo May. Fructifying insights de- alismus verbunden ist, teilt die Wissenschaft ein in volved not only for depth psychology but also Natur-und Kulturwissenschaften. Die gegenständliche, Paulus’s fresh thinking in Systematic Theology, Vol. erkenntnistheoretische realistisch, teilt ein in Natur- 3, regarding the wholeness and centeredness of und Geisteswissenschaften. Für die erste Richtung personal life—thus fortifying him to stand up to gehört die Psychologie zu den Naturwissenschaften, da B. F. Skinner during the Harvard professorship. sie methodisch wie diese, nämlich generalisierend ver- An inestimable catalyst to the co-thinking he did fährt. Für die zweite Richtung ist die Psychologie in those very late years with Goldstein and others Grundlage der Geisteswissenschaften, da sie mit ihnen might have but sadly did not come from Michael, den gleichen Gegenstand, das geistige Leben bearbeitet. for whom similarly we may desiderate more help- Die Stellung der Psychologie ist also das Kriterium ful “think tank” context than he appears to have beider Richtungen. Dadurch gewinnt dieser an- garnered from fellow scientists or philosophers scheinend so formalistischer Streit eine höchst reale (with the beneficent exception of Marjorie Grene, Bedeutung. In ihm entscheidet sich das Schicksal der Bill Scott, and a few others). Geisteswissenschaften, die Auffassung des Geistes und der Kultur. Ist die Psychologie grundlegende Geist- 17. eswissenschaft, so verliert der Geist seinen individuell At the Claremont Hotel, Tillich’s rich back- einmaligen Charakiter, er wird aus einer ground goes untapped. Polanyi has started the schöpferischen Folge zu einem Strukturgesetz; das bidding and remains completely in charge. When Denken zerstört das Sein, die rationale Form siegt asked about Gestalt psychology, he acknowledges über den Widerspruch des irrationalen Gehaltes. Dem its initial significance for his “way of discovery” entgeht die methodische Richtung, aber sie selbst lei- (to use Richard’s fine phrase) but immediately det an zahlreichen Mängeln. Sie unterscheidet nicht conveys his severe disappointment with the tack die seinswissenschaftliche Historic von den reinen sys- taken by Wolfgang Koehler, the name most of us tematischen Geisteswissenschaften und treibt diese readily associate with the Gestalt movement. This gleichsalls zu einer rationalistischen Auffassung, in could have opened the door for a truly basic welcher der schöpferischer Charakter des Geistigen ver- Auseinandersetzung between our dialoguers, one loren geht. Sie wird aber auch dem Einwand nicht with immense import for the Polanyi project and gerecht, den die gegenständliche Methode erhebt, daß also for Tillich’s theology. The crux of the issue is Psychologie etwas anderes ist als physikalische the causal role of purposive freedom in the cogni- Naturwissenschaft; sie kann es nicht, denn sie über- tive process. In other words, we are propelled sieht das zentrale Gebiet der Gestalt-Wissenschaften, headlong here into the solar plexus of Aristotle’s in deren Mitte die Psychologie steht. Sie ist endlich un- grammar of causality—the fourth or final (teleo- fähig, den historischen Elementen in der physikalishen logical) cause. Koehler’s experiments with apes’ und organishen Gruppe gerecht zu werden, da sie die learning to join sticks to reach food had promis- historische Methode auf die Kulturwissenschaften ein- ingly cued Polanyi toward his climactic insight schränkt und den Unterschied von autogenen und het- into tacit knowing (cf. Personal Knowledge, Torch- erogenen Methoden nicht kennt. Die Wirklichkeit ist book ed., pp. 340-1, passim). In Tacit Dimension, the reicher, als daß sich zwei Methoden in sie teilen kön- most succinct statement of his flagship theory, nen und gerade die Methode der Gestalten, die im Michael favorably refers to Hans Driesch, noting Streit um der Methoden vergessen wurde, ist die eigen- that, “Biologists who recognize the basic distinc- tlich zentrale und konkrete Methode: Die Methode, tion between mechanistic and organismic proc- die der denkgeformten Wirklichkeit gemäss ist und esses consider living functions to be determined die darum im Stande ist, das Problem der Methode at all stages by a combination of a mechanism zu lösen” (Haupt Werke 1, p. 140). with organismic regulation.” Note how close we Bulletin of the North American Paul Tillich Society, vol. 43, no. 2 23 are to the terrain of Tillich’s ruminations in the of strictly detached scientific knowledge. This was long passage just cited (Par. 16) from System der precisely the kind of point at which Paulus would Wissenschaften. “Gestalt psychologists,” Polanyi always emit a sigh too deep for words and simply continues, “have often suggested that the proc- shut up. The only thing left to do was keep smil- esses of regulation are akin to the shaping of per- ing and get some relevant reading into Michael’s ception, but their insistence that both perceptual hands, as the follow-up letters attempt. O.K.! But shaping and biological regulation are but the re- there is still more that could explain the muteness sult of physical equilibration brought this sugges- of Tillich if the foregoing were insufficient, and tion to a dead end” (Anchor Books, 1967, pp. 43- these not yet mentioned factors considerably 4). Koehler, and in Polanyi’s generalization the thicken the plot left over for us, the Societies to whole school, had capitulated to impersonal untangle. physical determinism. This is neither how Tillich saw the situation in 1923 when he firmly held 19. “Jede Gestaltwirklichkeit ist eine Einheit von The first of these more subterranean items is äquivalenter und produktiver Kausalität” (ibid., the great disparity between the meaning of faith 145), nor does it cohere with the viewpoint of for Polanyi and its meaning for Tillich. At first such neuroscientists as Goldstein, by whom Til- blush, Polanyi’s meaning is the more common- lich felt aided and abetted in depicting human be- place. It is more or less what Aristotle meant by ings as finite freedom. Maybe the general situation pistis 2300 years ago; namely, a conviction that had by 1963 considerably worsened, with Crick lacks certainty. A synonym for this meaning of and Watson, for instance, simply taken for faith is belief. (In German, there is in effect only granted that, “religion was a mistake,” or Stephen one word—Glaube—for the English pair.) As Po- Weinberg announcing “the more we understand lanyi says in the next to last paragraph of his re- the universe the more meaningless it becomes.” sume, “it is of the essence of knowledge to be But whatever may have been happening in Gestalt held to be true by a man’s mental effort.” But this theory—or later in Prigogine; Eccles. Wilber et meaning of “faith” (which as here put could also alii—it is noteworthy that Polanyi and Tillich sol- be expressed as “effortful”—Fürwahrhalten in idly agree the meaningful creativity of human per- German) is exactly what Tillich tried strenuously sonal and cultural life is urgently challenged by to insist religious (and Christian) faith is not. Dy- current science’s reductionist causal determinism. namics of Faith—on another but not unrelated as- They agree de facto, that is. Polanyi has no inkling pect of which Polanyi had gotten hung up—from of how much the preceding, or how surprisingly stem to stern tries to drive home an absolutely some of the very late, thinking of Tillich may pivotal difference between belief, a conviction agree with him. lacking certainty about a matter of fact, and faith, being grasped by “God” or ultimate concern. 18. Ironically, the smudging and even widespread There at the hotel, why doesn’t Paulus just modern obliteration of this difference sometimes tell him? We already spoke to this, but more seemed comparable in Tillichian diagnostics to needs saying. Increasingly, as I go on reimagining the false ideal of detachment in Polanyian. For the dialogue I poignantly regretted having to miss, Paulus, as he says in his magnum opus, authentic I am very glad I was not there. Paulus was faith is always and only “the state of being winded, done in from a grueling day of orating grasped by that toward which self-transcendence and interacting. He was set back on his heels by aspires, the ultimate in being and meaning” (Sys- Michael’s pent up steam. He was 75, with a heart tematic Theology, Vol. 3, p. 131). Above (especially condition. As someone who always spoke from Par. 8), I compared to Polanyi’s insight into faith notes, his mind was juggling possible tacks to take being presupposed by science Tillich’s long- on the morrow to round out the final Earl Lec- standing recognition of a “mystical a priori” in all ture. Then, as Polanyi approaches the end of his systems of thought. But even though it creates a concentrated allocution, he reasserts the fixed idea hermeneutical circle analogous to that of Christian that Tillich completely acquiesces in the false ideal theology, Tillich never calls this a priori faith. We Bulletin of the North American Paul Tillich Society, vol. 43, no. 2 24 also have seen throughout this discussion that From Socrates to Scotus, Augustine to Arminius, subjective “participation” was ascribed in some Calvin to Kant, Jansenism to the Jesuits: it is all degree by Paulus to all cognitive domains. But over the map and then some! Let me say for my- again he never calls this participation faith. Now self that Polanyi’s handling of this enigma (epito- there were around Union Seminary when I was mized, e.g., in The Tacit Dimension, Anchor Book there (1946-1953) various versions of the idea, ed., pp. 42-5) has been groundbreaking. I deem “that every worldview rests ultimately on a faith.” his envisagement of the emergent causality of Augustine’s nisi credederitis non intelligeris or the me- purposive commitment to be the most significant dieval motto credo ut intelligam were cited in sup- element in what he calls the “from-to” sequence port, and it was taken to be an apologetic corol- from a “fiduciary matrix” of subsidiary clues to lary of this truth that one might not need worry the focality of accomplished knowing. It picks up about critical attacks coming from alien faith sys- in a fresh, empirically convincing way from tems—which meant in effect coming from any- Peirce, James and so many others a full parsing where, since there was really no neutral science (which is impossible here) would require. As for ungrounded in a faith. I was reminded of this atti- Tillich, trying to discern how cognition, freedom tude some time ago in the Polanyi Newsletter by and faith converge in the hemispheres of his the slant of Evangelical Biblical Professor Esther cerebrum is indeed a formidable task. There is Meek, who wanted to claim support from Michael first the fact that Paulus is always amphibious, Polanyi in not having to worry about radical criti- always “on the boundary” or going back and forth cism. There is a problem here to which we shall across it—the boundaries here being saliently have to speak before concluding, but for the mo- those between science, philosophy and theology. ment, I want simply to bring out that Tillich was But in addition to territorial adaptations there oc- not among those who espoused this kind of cur in Tillich major changes over time, and— apologetics. Several times in my hearing, he made mirabile dictu—one was just then underway as our clear his unhappiness with it. I hasten to add I duo sat together in the Claremont. To say the personally feel he never cogently established mu- great systematizer was constantly evolving is her- tual exclusion between faith and belief, even esy to some interpreters, though I salute it as a though it was axiomatic for some of his utmost corroboration of his remarkable openness—one theological concerns. It is no wonder so many, thing about him that never changed. From early including his would-be friend Polanyi, have been on there is plenty in Tillich’s utterances re science incredulous or uneasy about Paulus’ edict of total and philosophy wherewith to support a robust yet separation of faith from the “preliminary” find- sensible doctrine of human freedom. Up to a ings of science. In any case, coming back to the point this is likewise true of his theology. As bear- Berkeley dialogue, the profound problematic that ing on the human factor, in any dimension but the looms in and under their disparate notions of vertical, we have the deciding self-center. Then, in faith—though Michael is quite unaware of it— the dipolar structural ontology, dynamics, indi- would have been all too palpable to Paulus, and viduation and freedom are equally enfranchised very understandably would have clinched his mo- with form, participation and destiny. Paulus tivation at 10 p.m. or so to call it an evening. would never have wanted to retract System der Wis- senschaften’s definition of freedom as “das individuell 20. Schöpferische” (Main Works, p. 144) or that work’s Our interest, of course, is not chiefly in why Til- culminating mandate that “Nur in der vollkommenen lich (normally powerful in dialogue, as Richard Einheit von Theonomie und Autonomie kommt die Wis- says) clammed up that evening, but in the sub- senschaft, wie jeder sinnerfüllende Akt, zu ihrer Wahr- stantive issues inhering then and now in his face- heit” (p. 262). One can only conclude that a hefty off with Polanyi. Therefore we are impelled on part of his conceptual viscera could and did buy from divergence of faith and belief to a therewith Michael’s insight that willing commitment is inte- entangled aporia that is if anything even more gral to knowing the truth (with unavoidable risk challenging through the whole history of theology of falling into error.) But Michael construed this and philosophy. This is the role of free will in cognition. as what faith was about, and here Paulus had a Bulletin of the North American Paul Tillich Society, vol. 43, no. 2 25 massive block. In spite of his scientific, philoso- decade after Paulus’s death.) God “is not a sepa- phical and humanological espousal of freedom, a rated, self-sufficient entity who, driven by a whim, prime taproot of his spiritual being von Haus aus creates what he wants and saves whom he wants. (very literally when we think of “Vaterchen,” his Rather, the eternal act of creation is driven by a authoritarian dad) was the venerable Christian and love which finds fulfillment only through the especially Lutheran principle that “faith is not a other one who has the freedom to reject and to human act” (Systematic Theology, Vol. 2, p. 178) but accept love” (Systematic Theology, Vol. 3, p. 422). It rather entirely a work in us of divine grace. Tillich is this amplifying of his thinking—after prolonged saw this as indispensable to St. Paul’s “justifica- jousting with process thought—that justifies Til- tion by faith alone,” which Luther had made the lich finally dubbing it “eschatological panenthe- “article by which the church stands or falls.” In ism” (op. cit., p. 421). Charles Hartshorne noted the Marburg Dogmatik (1925) Paulus went so far the change (in Charles Kegley, The Theology of Paul as to deny that even the humanity of Jesus con- Tillich, rev., 1982, pp. 230-1), but the only Tillich tributes anything to our salvation. “Das in Jesus scholar, of whom I am aware, to anticipate my Christua erchienene Heil ist allein durch sich selbst own perception of a “radical reversal” in Paulus bedingt. Seine Wirkung ist unabhängig von jeder durch was Alex McKelway (in his 1964 overview The den Menschen geschaffenen, Voraussetzung, sowohl vor wie Systematic Theology of Paul Tillich, p. 244.) My point nach seinem Durchbruch” (p. 375). This was his de- about the whole matter at this particular juncture termined orientation over against any qualification is in the first instance merely that internal seismic by liberals like Brightman or Hartshorne. His rumblings around the issue of human “vertical celebrated message “You are Accepted” gained its freedom” (freedom toward God) may well help force precisely through the “in spite of” of our explain Tillich’s somewhat unusual taciturnity at total lack of a reciprocating condition. It was the Claremont Hotel dialogue—or should we al- predicated indispensably—so one would have most say monologue? Be that as it may, the sub- thought—on “the basic theological truth that in stantive importance of the issue in itself puts it on relation to God everything is by God” (Systematic the overarching agenda of sorting out where the Theology, Vol. 3, p. 135). contacts and disconnects of our dynamic duo leave us today. 21. Something strange, however, was going to 22. happen shortly, and it must have been fermenting It is exceedingly interesting that Polanyi, con- that night in Berkeley. When Systematic Theology, tinuing his aggressive reading in all cultural direc- Vol. 3, appeared in the late summer of 1963, there tions, had delved hungrily—by the time Meaning surfaced about 20 pages from its end the Tillichi- appeared—into Peirce, James, and Whitehead, anly unprecedented motif of essentialization, which endorsing their “looser view of teleology” as a thereafter arguably dominates the denouement of desirable alternative to what he had come to see Paulus’s whole magnum opus (Cf. my article “Til- as “the Good forcing itself” on everything else lich’s Notion of Essentialization,” in Tillich-Studien (Meaning, pp. 162-3). This was a decade after Til- 3, ed. G. Hummel and D. Lax, 2000, pp. 365-83.) lich’s death, and it seems a shame Michael could I am still trying to pin down exactly when, how not have known about “essentialization bursting and why this novel epiphany in Tillich’s text oc- on stage at the very end of Paulus’s concluding curred. As of now, it cannot be ruled out that the and, to his own mind, most authoritative testa- encounter with Polanyi was causally involved. The ment, which the three volumes of the Systematic word was borrowed from Schelling, but “essen- Theology indisputably were. I have the impression tialization” (German Essentifikation) was used by that following their time together, except for the Tillich to express ontological fructifications sig- courtesy of two letters, Polanyi never read another nificant for God that is achieved by a finitely free line of Paulus. I greatly wish I had more access to creature. “The world process means something Michael’s candid reaction to the theological op- for God,” he can now intone (almost proleptically portunities and occasions that had reached out to privy to Polanyi’s Meaning, pp. 162-3, written a him through the 1930s and 1940s as well as there- Bulletin of the North American Paul Tillich Society, vol. 43, no. 2 26 after. He seems (in the Scott/Moleski chronicle) 23. to have keenly appreciated initially and then been I like to think this poignant paragraph speaks rather frustrated by the British group convened by for Polanyi himself, and yet it is not his very last J. H. Oldham. Was he disappointed by its word. He goes on to represent also the wider cul- Barthian ethos, which far less than Tillich was tural oikumene, those who stand outside the Chris- prepared to accord any theological significance to tian or any religious stance, affirming our world’s human enterprise? One thing is unmistakable: Po- need—which has meanwhile become all the more lanyi was unswervingly inspired by the sacredness of human dire—for tolerance and mutual understanding freedom, whereas Christian theology has no such “within the free society,” as in our common yet so consistent score sheet. By 1966, in The Tacit Di- differentiated humanity we seek universal truth mension, Michael is convinced modernity’s di- (ibid., pp. 215-6). Michael seems in fact to es- lemma cannot be resolved “by the enfeebled pouse this Christianly uncommitted stance, as authority of revealed religion”; the reciprocating though he is “on the boundary” and/or crossing split between critical cynicism and moral fanati- over. We have here of course the unfathomable cism, which has hounded humanity since the En- problem of how Harry Prosch’s editing may have lightenment, must first be healed on secular shaped the text. Even so, I cannot believe it grounds (Anchor Book ed., p. 62). Is this in part stretches things to see a parallel between Mi- fallout from his Tillichian disillusion? I continue chael’s farewell witness and that of Paulus, in his to ponder such imponderables. It is upbeat in any October 1965 Chicago address on “The Signifi- case that Michael, in a theological coda to his own cance of the History of Religions for the System- swan song (Meaning, p. 215), manages to hit a sur- atic Theologian” (The Future of Religions, ed. passingly high note, or actually a chord, that is Brauer, 1966, p. 94). Tillich, too, remains “rooted quite reminiscent of Reinhold Niebuhr and Tillich in his own experiential foundation,” which is where they harmonized. Even before his Gifford Pauline Christianity, while urging upon all the en- Lectures, a cantus firmus for Polanyi had been the deavor to formulate our roots in “universally valid Pauline rendition of the Christian moral vision. statements” with “openness to spiritual freedom His valedictory summation of this is as good the- both from one’s own foundation and for one’s own ology is Reinie or Paulus ever wrote. foundation.” Just a few months earlier, in his Perhaps it has been the clear moral call of eulogy for Martin Buber (Gesammelte Werke, XII, Christianity that has left behind in us a distil- pp. 320-3), precisely that commitment to open- lation which causes us to burn with…hunger ness had been identified as what Paulus would and thirst after righteousness. If so, it should most hope to emulate in his own life. I argued last be possible for us to find in this same Christi- year, in a paper for the Tillich group in Washing- anity the antidote for [the] poison of moral ton, that in that eulogy it comes to light that Pau- perfectionism; for what this religion has also lus’s concept of sainthood is best of all fulfilled in told us is that we are inescapably imperfect Buber. I believe, however, that had Paulus known and that it is only by faith and trust in the all- Polanyi better he might well have canonized him encompassing grace of God that we can pro- too. For all their missed connections, there winds ject ourselves into that supreme work of the up being an amazing compatibility between them. imagination—the Kingdom of God—where we can dwell in peace and hope of the perfec- 24. tion which is God’s alone and thus where we Note, for instance, how Polanyi and Tillich can, in a wholly inexplicable and transnatural both posit a double registry—a bipolarity—of the way, find our hunger and thirst after right- ultimate fulfillment of meaning. Despite their un- eousness satisfied at last—in the midst of all coordination, they both finally embrace fully the our imperfections. As Saint Paul tells us his indicative of unconditional divine grace and the God told him: ‘I will not remove your infir- imperative of free human creativity summoned to mity. For my strength is made perfect in serve beauty, truth, and good, in what Rilke calls weakness…’ “die wunderbare Stadt der Zeit.” This corresponds to what Christianity names, perhaps nowadays too Bulletin of the North American Paul Tillich Society, vol. 43, no. 2 27 obsolescently, “justification,” and, perhaps nowa- about the twin demons of scientism and fundamentalism? days too moralistically, “sanctification.” The gen- Surveying, this adequately extrudes way beyond eral history of religion mirrors variously the same my present contract and is an ongoing challenge problematic, and so, one can hardly not infer, to both our societies. Still, we cannot ignore what does the human plight to which religion speaks. to begin with makes our duo dynamic, and I first There is on the one hand a need for undiscrimi- note yet another irony in the whole tableau— nating and absolute Divine help, and on the other specifically in their recipe of divided tasks. For a finite but still radical need for creative human though they put it the other way around, fundamen- effort to be needed and appreciated. In no theology talism was arguably more Polanyi’s problem than Tillich’s, has the integration of “grace and works” ever and scientism or the false ideal of detached objectivity was been completely or unparadoxically achieved, at least as much Tillich’s problem as Polanyi’s. Thus the even while disputes about their relationship have divisional formula of concord they floated after instigated terrible religious hostility. I frankly the Berkeley meeting was intrinsically nonsensical. think Polanyi could have helped Tillich as much Happily they both did go on counteracting both or more than Kurt Goldstein on the dynamics in the more cultural abscess of scientism and the faith too of cognitive commitment, after Paulus at more formally religious one of fundamentalism. the last moment was ready for such help. Our duo also share a profound instinct with Karl Barth to 26. “Let God be God”—to honor the unforethink- Tillich’s teaching pulls the rug from under able Divine mystery, even in their mutual devo- fundamentalism in his categorical premise that tion to intense ratiocination They affirm categori- religious knowledge is altogether symbolic. Then cally the symbolic character of religious language. he also removes from faith anything to be funda- Surely Polanyi would agree with Tillich’s mature mentalist about by insisting its cognitive aspect, insistence that the only non-symbolic statement being a matter of ultimate concern, can in princi- we can make about God is that “everything we ple neither rest upon nor be threatened by the say about God is symbolic” (Systematic Theology, preliminary concern operative in empirical science Vol. 2, p. 9), even though, like Buber, Michael has —including especially historiography, the princi- no taste for ontological language and the partially pal test case in Tillich’s arguments with peers, but de-symbolizing constructs, such as “being-itself’ also cosmology, and psychology where formidable or “the infinite,” to which Paulus has recourse in challenges loomed. But Tillich never spent any- relating Christian witness to the wider world. time contending with fundamentalists, who avoided him and Union like the plague. Also, the 25. idea, which he himself wafted to Polanyi, that he An outcome of the “Berkeley Dialogue” might be ever told students what to put in next Sunday’s seen as Polanyi’s proposal he and Tillich should sermon, is completely fatuous. His insistence that thenceforth focus respectively on combating ob- “the biggest barrier to religious understanding is jectivism in science and fundamentalism in relig- literalism” (often reiterated orally and frustratingly ion. Though Tillich gave his nod to the formula, it eluding me for documentation) fell equally on the seems in fact merely to signify the mutual resigna- ears of orthodox, liberals, neo-orthodox, and sci- tion of our duo that each would go his own way entistically brainwashed seekers—and was as per- inattentive to the other. That was as it had been tinent to their respective confusions as it was to previously—entirely for Tillich and really, so far as fundamentalism. A striking example here is Albert concerns objectivism in science, entirely for Polanyi too, Einstein, who was notably, albeit gently, critiqued since Michael was indebted to Paulus at key theo- by Paulus for literalistically rejecting the Personal logical points but never looked into his sweeping God (“The Idea of the Personal God,” Union study of science. Then, after the Berkeley encoun- Theological Seminary Quarterly Review, II, 1, 1940, pp. ter, as we already noted, other than parting cour- 8-10). Though it was hardly appropriate for Po- tesies they paid one another no heed. But quite lanyi to assign our duo to the separate operational apart from their not tuning in to each other, we theatres he did, Polanyi himself does seem to have need to ask what did Polanyi and Tillich actually do received direct help from Tillich in steering his Bulletin of the North American Paul Tillich Society, vol. 43, no. 2 28 own religious way around the shoals of funda- openness to expert testing and consensus to be mentalism. His reiterated envisagement “of an the most plausible antidote we actually have to indeterminate meaning which floats beyond all fundamentalism at ground level. I believe Ian materially structured experiences ultimately point- Barbour’s appealing redefinition of objectivity, ing at unsubstantial existence” (Document X, p. which I personally adopted decades ago, is largely 4) was his ontologically unsophisticated way of inspired by Polanyi, viz., that post-critical objec- expressing the Tillichian symbolism culminating tivity has to mean “intersubjective testability and in being-itself. However, Michael consistently de- commitment to universality” (Barbour, Issues in plores fundamentalism also because it violates his Science and Religion, p. 177). This is our motive, is it norm of scientific integrity in defying the consen- not, in coming to the AAR, aside from fun with sus of expertise he would rely upon to establish friends? empirical probability. (The best statement I have found of this is in Meaning, Chapter 12, “Mutual 27. Authority”). Now in spite of partial dependence The other battlefront, scientific objectivism, on the notion of symbol shared with Tillich, Po- is an arena where prima facie Polanyi might seem lanyi—as was noted above in Paragraph 3— almost a shoo-in to head the fighting, especially to became aware in reading Dynamics of Faith that he hear him tell it, and if the only alternative is Til- seriously differed with Paulus regarding faith’s lich. But, as we saw, Polanyi is unaware of the relation to science. Michael did not believe the case for Tillich in regard to science. On alterna- two could be totally separated. Already in Personal tives, we are, of course, talking here of our duo, Knowledge, apparently unaware his thought is here henceforth dividing their efforts, prescinding from contrary to Tillich’s, Polanyi writes, “an event a much larger field that could not exclude con- which has in fact never taken place can have no temporaries like Buber, Marcel, Berdyaev, supernatural significance; and whether it has taken Shestov, and numerous others, not to mention place or not must be established by factual evi- the capital figures like Whitehead, Wittgenstein, dence” (p. 284). After all, it is not enough simply and Heidegger. Tillich used to mention especially to reveal the overreaching of scientism. Increas- Bergson and Simmel. And James seems more and ingly Michael seems concerned with the intrinsic more important. All these fecund minds do bear plausibility of faith. (Cf., toward the end of Mean- relevantly on the “sclerosis of objectivity,” to use ing, how he desiderates empirical and philosophi- Jaspers’ incisive phrase. With due allowance for cal support from emergent evolution and cosmic the fact that Paulus and Michael were addressing teleology.) Thinking along these lines inevitably just their own division of labor, there is some- brings one onto Tillichianly avoided terrain thing a little unreal in their rhetoric (“You have where, unless one becomes a fundamentalist, col- done for science what I have done for religion,” lision with fundamentalism must occur. Michael, etc.)—one more, perhaps, of the oddities that of course, was not about to become one or acqui- stud this intermezzo. For one does not sense hu- esce in anybody doing so. But it is this would be bris, I think, in either of our duo. They are too militant presence, so to speak, in the theatre of consecrated to their calling. While Polanyi is natu- operations where faith can conflict with or receive rally more surefooted in the forward trenches of support from science, that leads me to say—if we experimental work and its logical calculus of up- had to choose one of our duo to battle fundamen- take, and while no one can rival his pioneering talism—the more plausible choice is arguably Po- expose of scientific pretense, Tillich offers a mag- lanyi. I say this partly because, along with many isterially comprehensive and deeply anchored ma- others who have carefully studied Tillich’s posi- trix in which to unpack, diagnose, and treat the tion on faith and science, I am not convinced pathology of egregious and culturally tyrannical these can be so cleanly disjoined as Paulus assev- cognitive detachment. The suasive whoIism of his erates—either in historiography or cosmology or vision transcends necessary critique in transpar- psychology. And I also would put Michael in top ency to the gracious Unconditioned manifest as command here because, presupposing what he universal cruciform Love. As the current world shares with Tillich, I find his mandate of universal crisis widens under simultaneous onslaught of Bulletin of the North American Paul Tillich Society, vol. 43, no. 2 29 cynical reductionism and all too credulous fanati- in 1981, to which I do not have access as I pre- cism, can we even think of dispensing with the pare for our session in San Diego. On the Idea of a services of either of our doughty duo? As I can- Theology of Culture is widely available in English, not imagine trying to do philosophy without both but the Dogmatik, I believe, is as yet not in Eng- Plato and Aristotle, I adamantly refuse to furlough lish. In our scholarly societies, I strongly favor either Paulus or Michael to some more circum- using the original text bequeathed by Tillich, scribed task. As for Tillich, it is just now becom- whether in German or English.—D. Foster ing clear how very much unfinished business In Par. 9, beginning with “Erkannt ist,” there is in the full outworking of energies, hori- “Known is what is fitted as a necessary part into a zons, and strategic shifts so richly packed into his context…The living force of a system is its im- intellectual estate. The early and the late phases of port…” (Gehalt is a term needing interpretation it—not to speak of the thick 1923 study of sci- according to the user. I suggest for Tillich “the ence—have not been at all adequately assessed. distinctive thrust of meaning anything holds”’— There is a specific crying need to pick up the DF), “…its creative standpoint, its primordial in- sharp pang Paulus felt when he was tempted, as tuition. Every system lives from the principle on Peter John reports from that 1951 open house which it is grounded and with which it is con- (above, Par. 7), to shelve the Systematic Theology and structed. Every ultimate principle however is the undertake a major work in epistemology, of which expression of an ultimate outlook on reality, a the Personal Knowledge essay is a suggestive nucleus. ground-laying attitude toward life. In this way I have just been zestfully reawakened to Polanyi, there pervades the formal system of the sciences and if I could only have back my worthy col- in every moment an import which is metaphysical, league, Charles McCoy, I would never tease him that is, which lies beyond every individual form again for ranking Michael the greatest mind since and therefore can never become, in the manner of Plato. That may be slightly exaggerated, but who a false metaphysic, one form among others. The cares? We need to have our consciousness raised. metaphysical is the living force, the meaning and Polanyi has been shamefully ignored by the phi- blood of the system.” Six lines later: “In the sci- losophical and theological gatekeepers. He is an ences of experience the standpoint is something extremely potent catalyst and resource, not only that must be overcome, in the systematic sciences for going on further with Tillich but in mar- of culture the standpoint belongs to the matter shalling the best aid we can get to deal with the itself.” At the end of the paragraph: “In a closer Richard Dawkins, Sam Harrises, and all the varied look it becomes apparent...that these three groups legion who reductively deny or uncritically bloat are indeed not so radically separated, that each the possibility of meaningful faith to light our element is more or less represented in each.” human future. In his last Berkeley lecture follow- In paragraph 16, beginning with “Nachdem”: ing the Claremont encounter, Paulus pleads with “After in the preceding the science-of-being sys- us all “to fight an uphill battle” (Irrelevance, p. 63) tematic has been positively grounded, a glance at and at the end of Meaning thirteen years later Mi- how the debate stands may show our conception chael says “We do not see the end in sight” (p. is able to solve the current problems. There are 214).” It is challenging, and it may be daunting, presently contending with each other a methodo- but with our dynamic duo we do not despair. logical and an objective trend. The methodologi- cal trend, which is linked to epistemological ideal- German Translation of Passages in Durwood ism, divides science into natural sciences and sci- Foster’s “Michael and Paulus: A Dynamic Unco- ences of culture. The objective, epistemologically ordinated Duo” realistic trend divides it into natural sciences and These passages are my off-the-cuff translation sciences of the spirit (Geisteswissenschaften). For the from the text of Das System der Wissenschaften in first trend psychology belongs to the natural sci- Main Works 1, from Über die Idee einer Theologie der ences, since it like these proceeds methodically, Kulltur in Main Werke 2, and from Dogmatik, ed. by that is, by generalizing. For the second trend psy- W. Schüssler. There is an English translation of chology is the groundwork of the Geisteswissen- Das System der Wissenschaften by Paul Wiebe, done schaften, since it deals with the same object as they, Bulletin of the North American Paul Tillich Society, vol. 43, no. 2 30 the spiritual (or mental) life. The position of psy- ments in the physical and organic group, since it chology is thus the criterion of both trends. confines the historical method to the sciences of Thereby this apparently so formalistic dispute culture and does not know the distinction of gains an extremely real significance. In it is de- autogenous and heterogenous methods. The real- cided the fate of the Geisteswissenschaften, of the ity is richer than can be divided by two methods, conception of spirit and of culture. If psychology and precisely the method of the Gestalten, which is the groundlaying Geisteswissenschaft, spirit loses has been forgotten in the dispute of methods , is its individually unique character; instead of a crea- the authentically central and concrete method, the tive resultant it becomes a structured law; thinking method which is appropriate to thought-formed destroys being; rational form triumphs over the reality and which therefore is able to solve the contradiction of irrational import. The methodical problem of method.” trend escapes this, but it also suffers from several In paragraph 19, there is the single word deficiencies. It does not differentiate the history “Fuerwahrhalten”—“holding for true.” of (i.e., done by) the sciences of being from the In paragraph 20, there is “das individuell purely systematic Geisteswissenschaften and Schöpferische”—“the individually creative,” and drives these likewise to a rationalistic conception then the sentence “Only in the perfect unity of in which the creative character of the spiritual (or theonomy and autonomy does science, as every mental) is lost. But this trend also does not do meaning-fulfilling act, reach its truth.” Near the justice to the objection which the objective end of the same paragraph there is the passage method raises that psychology is something other “The salvation manifested in Jesus Christ is con- than a physical natural science. It cannot meet the ditioned only by itself. Its efficacy is independent objection, for it overlooks the central sphere of of any humanly created presupposition either be- the Gestalt-Wissenschaften, in the middle of which fore or after its breakthrough.” psychology has its place. The methodical trend is finally unable to do justice to the historical ele-

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Frederick Parrella Secretary Treasurer, NAPTS

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Bulletin of the North American Paul Tillich Society, vol. 43, no. 2 31

Officers of The North American Paul Tillich Society

President Adam Pryor, Bethany College, Lindsborg, Kansas

President Elect Devan Stahl, College of Human Medicine, Michigan State University

Vice President Verna Ehret, Mercyhurst University

Secretary Treasurer Frederick J. Parrella, Santa Clara University

Past President Bryan Wagoner, Davis and Elkins College

Board of Directors

Term Expiring 2017 Rachel Sophia Baard, Villanova University Verna Ehret, Mercyhurst University Lawrence Whitney, Boston University

Term Expiring 2018 Jawanza Clark, Manhattan College Joanna Kristensen, University of Copenhagen Jari Ristiniemi, University of Gävle

Term Expiring 2019 Ted Farris, New York City Charles Fox, SUNY Empire State College Ronald Stone, Pittsburgh Theological Seminary