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Durham E-Theses Durham E-Theses A critical examination of Paul Tillich's doctrine of the Holy Spirit Bullock, Vernon T. How to cite: Bullock, Vernon T. (1971) A critical examination of Paul Tillich's doctrine of the Holy Spirit, Durham theses, Durham University. Available at Durham E-Theses Online: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/9624/ Use policy The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that: • a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in Durham E-Theses • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. Please consult the full Durham E-Theses policy for further details. Academic Support Oce, Durham University, University Oce, Old Elvet, Durham DH1 3HP e-mail: [email protected] Tel: +44 0191 334 6107 http://etheses.dur.ac.uk VERNON T. BULLOCK A CRITICAL EXAMINATION OP PAUL TILLICH'S DOCTRINE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT submitted for the Degree of X. Idtt. University of Durham, 1971 -5.JUH.1971 ABSTRACT This thesis expounds and analyses Paul Tillich's doctrine of the Spirit as set out in the third volume of his Systematic Theology and other relevant passages from his writings. After a brief introduction to his theological method , his understanding of God and the symbolic nature of our knowledge of the divine is examined, specific reference being made to the meaning of 'Spirit1 and the Trinitarian symbols. A chapter on the nature of life and its ambiguities in the spheres of morality, culture and religion, with which the doctrine of the Spirit is correlated in Tillich's thought, prepares the way for a more detailed analysis of this doctrine. This analysis deals first with Tillich's understanding of the divine Spirit in relation to the spirit of man, the Spirit's manifestation in the world, and the marks of the Spiritual Presence in historical mankind, culminating in the Christ and the creation of the Spiritual Community. The importance of the Spirit's work in resolving life's ambiguities by means of an unambiguous life of transcendent unity is indicated. The succeeding chapters expand this discussion and deal with the Spirit's impact in the realm of religion, the life of the church and the individual within the church; in the realms of culture and morality, the wider life of society; and finally, in the total context of man's life in the work of healing. A concluding chapter points out the implications of the concept of the transcendent unity of unambiguous life, suggesting that Tillich's understanding of the Spirit significantly deviates from orthodox Christian pneumatology, but also emphasising that in the final analysis Tillich has made a significant contribution to contemporary theological study of the Spirit* CONTENTS Introduction! Basic Concerns Philosophy and Theology in Tillich's System 1 Reason and Revelation 11 Existence and the Christ 15 Chapter One* The Doctrine of God I. Being and God 33 II. The Concept of Symbol and the Doctrine of God 40 III. God as the 'Living' God and the Meaning of the 'Spirit* 51 IV. The Trinitarian Symbols 58 Chapter Two. The Meaning of Life and its Ambiguities I. The Concept of Life 73 II. The Self-Actualisation of Life and its Ambiguities 82 A. The Self-Integration of Life 83 B. The Self-Creativity of Life 93 C. The Self ^Transcendence of Life 114 Chapter Three. The Spiritual Presence I. The Character of the Manifestation of the Spirit 139 II. The Media of the Manifestation of the Spirit 153 III. The Content of the Manifestation of the Spirit 172 IV. The Manifestation of the Spirit in the History of Man 190 V. The Spiritual Community 209 Chapter Four. The Spirit and the Ambiguities of Religion! the Pootrine of the Church I. The Marks of the Spiritual Community in the Life of the Church 244 II. The Spiritual Community and the Function of the Church 267 IH. The Spiritual Community and the Individual Christian 310 IV. The Spiritual Community and the Conquest of Religion 344 Chapter Five. The Spirit and the Ambiguities of Culture I. The Relation between Religion and Culture 362 II. Towards a Theonomous Culture 369 Chapter Six. ' The Spirit and the Ambiguities of Morality 400 Chapter Seven. The Healing Power of the Divine Spirit 414 Conclusion 427 Appendix! Philosophical Background to Tillich's Theology 444 Bibliography 459 INTRODUCTION BASIC CONCERNS PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY IN TILLICH'S SYSTEM Before beginning our examination of Paul Tillich's doctrine of the Spirit^ we must first look at some of the presuppositions which lie behind his theological system, and at the main directions in which his thinking moves* At the very heart of his thinking there is a correlation of theology and philosophy that is crucial to his system as a whole* Tillich is well aware that many contemporary theologians consider that to attempt such a correlation is virtually 'high treason against theology1,* but he believes it must be made* This is not to deny the importance of kerygmatic theology, whose purpose is to 'reproduce the content of the Christian message in an 2 ordered and systematic way', yet such a theology is incomplete in itself* If one of the functions of theology is to interpret the gospel, it must of neoessity use philosophical terms and categories, and 'even kerygmatio theology must use the conceptual tools of its period* It cannot simply repeat biblical passages'.^ Kerygmatic and philosophical, or apologetic, theology must therefore go hand in hands they are complementary to each other* Tillich says that both philosophy and theology ask the question of being, though each in its own way* Though contemporary philosophy does not seem to occupy itself to any great extent with this question, all true philosophy must in the long run ask ontblogical questions, and even epistemology must have some ontological basis* So, maintains Tillich, philosophy is essentially ontology* It 'asks the question of reality as a whole; it asks the question of the structure of being*• This is not a return to old-fashioned metaphysics, for the word 2 'metaphysics' suggests something that is beyond our present exper• ience, and therefore in the realm of speculation, whereas when we concern ourselves with the question of being, we are concerned with that which is nearer to us than anything else; 'it is we ourselves as far as we are and at the same time as human beings are able to ask what it means that we are'. Theology also asks the question of being, but not the question of being in itself, but rather of being for us, of being as our ultimate concern* It deals with 'what concerns us inescapably, ultimately, unconditionally1,^ and in so doing it is asking not for one being among others, but for the very ground and power of being itself which determines our existenceo It asks for the way in which this ground and power of being expresses itself in and through the realms of being, so that man can be encountered by it, and know and aot towards it} and how its appearance in the world of nature, or the events of history, or the experience of self, can express for us in concrete^, existential terms that which concerns us ultimately* The fact that theology and philosophy are both concerned with the question of being, despite their divergence of emphasis, implies a convergence which makes their correlation possible and necessary* Such a convergence is already apparent both in the fact that the philosopher himself cannot help but be conditioned by his existential situation and will therefore tend to see his ideas as ultimately 7 relevant for human existence, and in the faot that the theologian in asking the question of being for us inevitably implies the question of being in itself in its meaning and structure as well as its particular manifestations* Because of this inevitable overlap, 'both philosophy and theology become poor and distorted when they are separated from 3 each other'*: Just as there is divergence and convergence in the question asked by philosophy and theology, the question of being, so there is divergence and convergence in the way each discipline seeks to answer that question* In order to discover the meaning of being, the philosopher uses the power of his own reason, assuming 'that there is an identity, or at least an analogy, between objective and subjective reason, between the logos of reality as a whole and the logos working o within him* . Because the logos is universal, the ontologioal pursuit is the permanently valid endeavour through which the logos in every man openB up the objective logos of all being* In other words, there is what we may call a universal revelation of the meaning of reality available to man through the capacity of reason within him, and it is with this that the philosopher is primarily concerned* The theologian, however, is concerned not with the universality of the logos, but with its particular manifestation 'at a special place in a special time',^ and the source of his knowledge therefore is the Logos 'who became flesh', a revelation which is testified to by the traditions and life of the church* Put in a nutshell, the divergence may be stated thusi the theologian is concerned with the concrete logos, received through believing commitment, whereas the philosopher is concerned with the universal logos, received through rational detachment* But alongside this second divergence, there is also an important convergence* For philosophy, though it is concerned with and must emphasize the universality of the logos, cannot escape the fact that not everyone discovers the revealing word, but that it is, as it were, 'granted' only to a few earnest seekers after truth in various times and places.
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