[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
retained a meaning for their lives. The temptation was to just lie down and die. But there were
some who resisted even this temptation. Some, of course, were indirectly killed by the Nazis.
But this indirect killing was not always successful; there were strong people who survived and
who are now very important people in the society in which they live. And we can apply this
principle to the inmates of prisons, and to others all over the world who are in a similar
situation. For them, the "have fun" syndrome does not work.
Then the final question remains: Does it work at all? Or are there moments in which even
those who have the external opportunity for this have-a-good-time philosophy feel how empty
it all is, how meaningless it becomes afterwards? It seems very enticing as long as we do not
have the opportunity. But after a certain time, when we do have it, it loses its power. The
problem of ultimacy arises out of this.
NOTES:
1. Werner Keller, The Bible as History (New York: William Morrow, 1956).
Eighth Dialogue
Professor: I have talked with the members of the seminar and we have agreed that in this last
meeting, which is our final opportunity to pursue questions with Dr. Tillich, we need to keep
the discussion as relevant as possible. They have asked me if I would present the major
questions that remain important to them after all our previous meetings.
The first and rather startling question is: "Dr. Tillich, are you not a dangerous man?"
Is Paul Tillich a Dangerous Man?
Dr. Tillich: Yes.
Professor: You are not supposed to comment yet! This is only the first sentence. It is a sincere
question from one student. Are you not a dangerous man? You make paradoxical statements
which weaken people s confidence in symbols and liturgies and churches. And you tend to
destroy their belief, without giving them anything to replace it. Now you are the most
influential theologian of the twentieth century, but are you not primarily an apostle to the
intellectuals, speaking in their language? When you broadcast your concepts, do you not harm
those people who are unable to comprehend, and will only misapply your ideas?
I cannot resist the temptation here to anticipate Dr. Tillich s reply. I believe that he would
agree that he is dangerous, in the sense that honest or courageous statements may involve
danger to some. Theologians and thinkers, back to biblical times, have had this same problem.
Can you think of one who had any significant influence, who was not misunderstood, or who
did not inadvertently cause some suffering and dismay?
The real danger to individuals, he might say, is not so much loss of belief, but the danger that
beliefs will lose the power which alone gives them symbolic meaning. So that when you
criticize a person for "destroying faith," it may be beside the point, since the real danger is
that the beliefs involved are losing their power anyway and becoming empty. Then it s
important for someone to show a way in which valid faith can be restored. It is to prevent the
emptiness, to preserve religion in the broad sense from secularization, that Dr. Tillich takes
the calculated risk of criticizing. Now let us permit him to speak in his own defense.
Dr. Tillich: By far the most influential theologian up to now, up to 1963 in this century, is
Karl Barth. He really made church history in his fight against Nazism and his construction of
a special type of liberal theology. Karl Barth spoke in a very particular situation to a very
particular group of people. He spoke to those who, in themselves, were attached to the church
and who stood, as theologians or laymen, on the boundary line of a liberalism which might
finally have led to so-called Germanic Christianity. And he saved Christianity from this
pitfall. This is his achievement in church history and his greatness. I refer not only to German
theology but to the European churches who had to fight against similar attempts during the
Nazi period, and Barth saved them. But then the people who fought under his leadership in
the struggle against Nazism, and often became martyrs in the fight, were victorious at the end
of the war and became the leading persons in German and other Protestant churches in
Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Holland, and elsewhere.
And something happened. The so-called intelligentsia the people who cannot escape the
sad destiny of having to think was left alone. These people were left in a desert, and they
were conscious of this all the time. The result was a continuing secularization which, after the
heat of the fight with Nazism, occurred again in Germany and in Europe. So we have now a
large group of people whom I would prefer to call the "thinking and doubting people" in
respect to the Christian tradition. There are thinking people who do not doubt, although I
cannot imagine how this is possible; but there are also many thinking people who do doubt
and even more of them who have doubted but do so no longer. They have simply rejected
Christianity and every other religion. This is the actual situation.
Now who speaks for them? This was the concern of Bultmann when he wrote his famous
article on the demythologization of the New Testament.1 He wanted to protect persons who
accept the Christ from having also to accept the world view of the people who lived when
Jesus was born the three-level pre-Copernican world, with divine beings on one level and
man on another, and demonic beings on still another. This concept belongs partly to the Greek
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]