BOSTON UNIVERSITY SCHOOL of THEOLOGY Dissertation THE
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BOSTON UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF THEOLOGY Dissertation THE HEIDEGGERIAN LEGACY IN PAUL TILLICH’S ONTOLOGY AND THEOLOGICAL ANTHROPOLOGY By Sang Woo Chi (B.A., California State University, Fullerton, 2002; M.Div., Yale University Divinity School, 2005) Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Theology 2013 Copyright © 2013 by Sang Woo Chi All rights reserved CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS……………………………………………………………………..vi ABSTRACT……………………………………………………………………………………..vii SOURCES………………………………………………………………………………………..ix LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS………………………………………………………………...…xii CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………………………………1 II. THE AGE OF MODERN EXISTENTIALISM………………………………………………20 The Definition of Existentialism Overcoming Nihilism Overcoming Metaphysics Overcoming Religious Nihilism III. TILLICH’S ENCOUNTER WITH HEIDEGGER………………………………………..…50 Preparation Heidegger’s Protestantizing Turn Heidegger as a Lutheran at Marburg IV. THE QUESTION OF THE ULTIMATE MEANING OF EXISTENCE..……………...…116 The Question of the Meaning of Life Heidegger’s Concept of Life Heidegger’s Critique of Dilthey and Bergson The Primacy of Life in Tillich’s Post-War Religious Socialism Tillich’s Critique of Life Philosophy V. TOWARDS AN ALTERNATIVE PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE………………………………151 The Essence of Life Transformation of the Subjectivistic Philosophy of Life A Postulation of the Unconditioned Being and Meaning The Metaphysics of Meaning God and the Unconditioned iv Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics VI. EXISTENTIAL THEOLOGY…………………….………………………………………..191 Positive Science and Theology Philosophy and Theology The Correlation of Theology and Philosophy Transcendental Subjectivity Phenomenological Theology Logicism and Critique of Technical Reason VII. ONTOLOGY OF ANXIETY……………………………………………………………...249 Authentic Existence as the Lost Dreaming Innocence Authentic Guilt and Transmoral Consciousness Anxiety of Existential Death Psychoanalytic Description of Anxiety God in the Age of Anxiety VIII. CONCLUSION: NEW THEOLOGY………………………………………………….…298 BIBLIOGRAPHY………………………………………………………………………………312 v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The preparation and completion of this dissertation would not have been possible without the inspiration, guidance and support of the following individuals and organization, to whom I wish to express my sincere gratitude: my teachers in theology, philosophy and church history, including Dr. Robert Cummings Neville, Dr. Daniel O. Dahlstrom, Dr. Kirk Wegter-McNelly, Dr. Christopher Boyd Brown, for the enlightenment they provided in my study of theology and philosophy of religion in general and Paul Tillich and Martin Heidegger in particular; Dr. Marvin Lee and New Being Christian Foundation for a grant which enabled me to complete the research and writing of this dissertation; Claire Seo for her conscientious assistance in preparing bibliography; the English writers on Tillich and Heidegger for their scholarly language that I borrowed to express my thoughts and ideas; and lastly, but not least, my parents, Bong Oun Chi and Moon Ja Shin, for their constant love and encouragement, and for everything I have in me, from God. vi THE HEIDEGGERIAN LEGACY IN PAUL TILLICH’S ONTOLOGY AND THEOLOGICAL ANTHROPOLOGY (Order No. ) Sang Woo Chi Doctor of Theology Boston University School of Theology, 2013 Major Professor: Dr. Robert Cummings Neville, Professor of Philosophy, Religion, and Theology ABSTRACT This dissertation demonstrates that Martin Heidegger’s fundamental ontology was a significant influence on Paul Tillich’s understanding of divine and human realities, by showing that Tillich adopted Heidegger’s concern for being and his approach to the question of being. Heidegger’s philosophical influence on Tillich’s thought has been well known. But the specific nature of this influence and its implications has not hitherto been documented. Neither has the issue received much attention in the secondary literature on Heidegger. The study consists of two vii parts. The first (Chapters 2-3) provides an intensive historical and philosophical survey of the background of the Tillich-Heidegger encounters. The second part (Chapters 4-7) is an analysis of the origins and development of Tillich’s theological and philosophical thought particularly in terms of his anthropology and ontology under the influence of Heidegger. The second part highlights the Heideggerian claims of human existentiality inherent in Tillich’s theological system, as distinguished from Tillich’s own theological creativity and philosophical originality. Chapter 2 identifies Tillich’s concern with existentialism as Heideggerian. Chapter 3 investigates the decisive and historically unique period of encounter between Tillich and Heidegger, the years 1924-1925, when they both taught at the University of Marburg. Chapter 4 underscores the important elements of Heideggerian existentialism in Tillich’s early theological program. Chapter 5 illustrates the challenge of modern existentialism that Tillich confronted in the person of Heidegger and discusses Tillich’s subordination of his metaphysics of meaning to the Heideggerian metaphysics of being. Chapter 6 suggests that Tillich’s choice of existentialism is indebted to Heidegger’s critical analysis of the relationship between philosophy and theology. Chapter 7 explores a central aspect of Tillich’s theological anthropology, the concept of finitude, in relation to Heidegger’s project of existential analysis of Dasein. The study shows that the Tillich-Heidegger connection is not a mere coincidental structural similarity and that Tillich’s call for transcending theism reflects Tillich’s interpretation of Heidegger’s philosophy as theologically oriented. The study thereby establishes a point of departure from which to explore on a deeper level the philosophical foundation of Tillich’s theological endeavor and vision. viii SOURCES This study refers extensively to the relevant German works of Heidegger and Tillich in 1 comparison with their renderings into English. Whenever possible, I will rely on the volumes of 2 the critical edition of Heidegger’s collected works – the Heidegger Gesamtausgabe – as sources for the texts. The critical edition of Tillich’s writings – the Gesammelte Werke – were published 3 in fourteen volumes between 1957 to 1974, in which Systematic Theology was reprinted in German translation. The value of this collection is clear, for the first edition of his Systematic 4 Theology was that which he attempted to express in English what he meant in German. As John Dillenberger notes, “For Tillich, spoken English took precedence over English texts, and his knowledge of English became primarily that of a spoken idiom….Tillich’s English writings have 1 Although there are many different approaches to phenomenological and hermeneutic research on Tillich in dialogue with Heidegger, some of these have become blurred due to multiple interpretations of Heidegger’s language in the translated materials. For example, Miles Groth says that the main cause of misunderstanding Heidegger is that translators have not achieved clarity about Heidegger’s fundamental words, an understanding of which is crucial to gaining access to his thought. See Miles Groth, Translating Heidegger (Amherst: Humanity Books, 2004). 2 With the publication of Heidegger’s works in the Gesamtausgabe, a standard system of reference has become possible. The first volume of the Gesamtausgabe appeared in 1975, one year before Heidegger’s death. 3 This German edition does not include everything Tillich ever published, for Tillich rejected a good number of works as “occasional pieces.” Volume 14 only provides a textual-history of all the documents and an index. But the volume is particularly helpful because it has a special section describing where related materials on or by Tillich can be found. 4 Marion Pauck is correct to say that at some points “English had clarified his abstract ideas and made them more understandable.” Marion Pauck, preface to Dynamics of Faith, by Paul Tillich (New York: HarperCollins, 2001), xiii. ix 5 a grammatical anchorage in German.” But it should be noted that, in accordance with Tillich’s wishes, articles originally written in German and translated into English, often with considerable changes, should take the English translation as the authoritative version for the Gesammelte 6 7 Werke. Tillich himself was part of the translation team. Of course, there were also problems in translating his English into German because of Tillich’s conceptual development within the English language. Translating his German writings into English also gave rise to new sources of 8 error. Hence, the question of which edition is “truer” to Tillich’s original thought has no simple answer. Whenever necessary, therefore, I will carefully compare the German translation with the English source text. Secondary sources that I have consulted for this study include commentary, discussion, and scholarly journal articles. They will give this study a certain amount of historiographical relevance as well. And yet, my preliminary searching for secondary sources revealed limited publications specific to the subject matter of this study. Despite the consistent acknowledgement of the importance of Heidegger’s ontologico-phenomenological hermeneutics as a paradigm for Tillich’s philosophical theology, scholarly inquiries into the actual discussions 5 John Dillenberger, “The Union years: Always in transition,” in Spurensuche: Lebens- und Denkwege Paul Tillichs, ed. Nord Ilona, René Tillich and Yorick