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The Non-Existence of God: Tillich, Aquinas, and the Pseudo-Dionysius

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 June 2011

Robert R. N. Ross
Robert R. N. Ross
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, New York
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Extract

Because the notions of finitude and temporality often get associated with the concept of “existence,” theologians have sometimes found cause to worry about what we are doing when we assert the existence of God. Perhaps the most radical expression of this worry occurs in Paul Tillich's Systematic Theology where he claims, paradoxically, that “God does not exist.” Despite the fact that the remark appears in a book written both within the tradition of, and about, Christian theology, Tillich spends considerable effort trying to convince us why the affirmation that God does exist must be stricken from Christian discourse. Tillich tells us, for example, that “however it is defined, the ‘existence of God’ contradicts the idea of a creative ground of essence and existence.” Therefore, “to argue that God exists is to deny him.” Not only would it be “a great victory for Christian apologetics if the words ‘God’ and ‘existence’ were very definitely separated”; indeed, theology “must eliminate the combination of the words ‘existence’ and ‘God.’” In short, “it is as atheistic to affirm the existence of God as it is to deny it.”

Type
Research Article
Information
Harvard Theological Review , Volume 68 , Issue 2 , April 1975 , pp. 141 - 166
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1975

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References

1 Tillich, Paul, Systematic Theology (3 vols.; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1951–1963) 1. 205.Google Scholar (Hereinafter referred to as, e.g., ST 1. 205).

1 Tillich, Paul, Systematic Theology (3 vols.; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1951–1963) 1. 205.Google Scholar (Hereinafter referred to as, e.g., ST 1. 205).

2 ST 1. 204–05.

3 ST 1. 205.

4 ST 1. 205.

5 ST 1. 206.

6 ST 1. 237.

7 Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae Ia. A. 12, art. 1, obj. 3 [Blackfriars], referring to Dionysius the Areopagite Divine Names IV, 2. See also Divine Names V, 1; V, 4.

8 Ibid.

9 Ibid.

10 Dionysius the Areopagite, Mystical Theology I, 3; II, 1, III, 1. When entering into the gloom which is above the mind, the contemplative finds not just little speaking but a complete absence of speech, and absence of conception.

11 Aquinas, Summa Theologiae Ia. A. 3, art. 4, reply 2; Ia. Q. 12, art. 11.

12 Ibid., Ia. Q. 3, art. 4, reply 2.

13 Ibid., Ia. Q. 12, art. 1, reply to obj. 3.

14 Cf. Ibid., Ia. Q. 12, art. 7, reply to objs. 2 and 3.

15 Ibid., Ia. Q. 2, art. 2, reply to obj. 3.

16 It is this claim about God which has traditionally made the acceptance of some version of the ontological argument look inviting.

17 Aquinas, Summa Theologiae Ia. Q. 12, art. 1, reply to obj. 3.

18 See also, e.g., Geach, P. T., “Commentary on Aquinas,” The Cosmological Arguments, (ed. Burrill, Donald R.; Anchor Book; Garden City: Doubleday, 1967) 78–79.Google Scholar

19 Aquinas, Summa Theologiae Ia. Q. 12, art. 1, reply to obj. 3.

20 Cf. Dionysius the Areopagite, Mystical Theology V.

21 Tillich, Paul, “Über die Idee einer Theologie der Kultur,” Religionsphilosophie der Kultur; Zwei Entwürfe von Gustav Radbruch und Paul Tillich (Berlin: Reuther und Reichard, 1919) 35Google Scholar, quoted in Adams, James Luther, Paul Tillich's Philosophy of Culture. Science, and Religion (New York: Schocken, 1970) 43–44.Google Scholar

22 Aquinas, Summa Theologiae Ia. Q. 3, art. 4, reply to obj. 2, for example.

23 ST 1. 205.

24 ST 1. 235.

25 ST 1. 173.

26 ST 2. 23.

27 ST 2. 22.

28 ST 2. 23.

29 Cf. ST 1. 207.

30 Cf. Tillich, Paul, Dynamics of Faith (Harper Torchbooks; New York: Harper & Row, 1957) 67.Google Scholar

31 ST 1. 207.

32 ST 1. 74.

33 ST 1. 205.

34 Tillich, Paul, “The Two Types of Philosophy of Religion,” Theology of Culture (ed. Kimball, Robert C.; A Galaxy Book; New York: Oxford University Press, 1964) 18.Google Scholar

35 ST 1. 211.

36 ST 1. 242.

37 Tillich, Paul, “The Idea of God as Affected by Modern Knowledge,” Crane Review (1959) 87.Google Scholar

38 ST 2. 7.

39 Tillich, “The Idea of God,” 87.

40 Tillich, “The Two Types of Philosophy of Religion,” 18.

41 ST 1. 172.

42 Cf. ST 1. 12.

43 Kierkegaard, Søren, Concluding Unscientific Postscript (trans. Swenson, David F. and Lowrie, Walter; Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1941) 219.Google Scholar

44 Cf. ST 1. 245.

45 For example, ST2 23; The Theology of Paul Tillich (eds. Kegley, Charles W. and Bretall, Robert W., The Library of Living Theology; New York: Macmillan, 1956) 339.Google Scholar

46 Kegley and Bretall, Theology of Tillich, 339, my emphasis.

47 Ibid.

48 Cf. Tillich, “The Idea of God,” 85: “… if God is not a being … he is not within the context of finite things which are open to scientific research … “

49 Kegley and Bretall, Theology of Tillich, 339, my emphasis.

50 See, e.g., Aquinas, Summa Theologiae Ia. Q. 3, art. 5, reply to obj. 1: “God does not belong to the category of substance.” See also ST 1. 209 where Tillich affirms this.

51 ST 1. 204.

52 ST 1. 192–93.

53 Cf. Quine, Willard Van Oman, “On What There Is,” From a Logical Point of View (Harper Torchbooks; 2d ed.; New York: Harper & Row, 1963) 3.Google Scholar

54 This is not the same, however, as saying one can infer God's existence from his nature. That is a different matter, and, at least for Aquinas, requires a proof from God's effects. But when Tillich adds to this doctrine the claim that one cannot sensibly even raise the question of God's existence, his position seems suspiciously close to some form of ontological argument. Tillich, that is, sometimes appears to regard it as a feature of the concept of “God” itself that it is senseless to think of God as not existing. Aquinas, however, specifically rejects the ontological argument, and his “proofs” of God's existence are themselves evidence that he regards the question “Is there a being whose nature is to exist?” as meaningful — one whose answer must take the form of a demonstration.

55 See, e.g., Malcolm, Norman, “Anselm's Ontological Arguments,” The Philosophical Review 69 (1960) 41–62CrossRefGoogle Scholar, reprinted in The Many-Faced Argument (eds. Hick, John H. and McGill, Arthur C.; New York: Macmillan, 1967) 301–21Google Scholar, especially 316–17.

56 Aquinas, Summa Theologiae Ia. Q. 3, art. 5, reply to obj. 1.

57 Ibid., Ia. Q. 3, art. 6, reply, referring to Boethius.

58 Ibid.

59 Ibid., Ia. Q. 3, art. 5, reply.

60 Ibid., Ia. Q. 3, art. 5, reply to obj. 1; cf. also ST 1. 209.

61 Aquinas, Summa Theologiae Ia. Q. 3, art. 6, reply to obj. 2.

62 Cf. Ultimate Concern (ed. Brown, D. Mackenzie; Harper Colophon Books; New York: Harper & Row, 1965) 45.Google Scholar

63 See, e.g., ST 1. 202ff.

64 It is religious in this sense: what Tillich claims follows from the meaning of “exists” is primarily relevant only to one who accepts, in some sense, the Christian doctrine of creation and fall.

65 Cf. ST 2. 22–23.

66 Cf. ST 1. 204–05.

67 ST 2. 44. In Tillich's theology existential “estrangement” is also regarded, in some sense, as a consequence of creation: “creation and the fall coincide … Actualized creation and estranged existence are identical” (Ibid.). Tillich's point, apparently, is to emphasize the universality of the fall. (Cf. Kegley and Bretall, Theology of Tillich, 343.) The ethical difficulties of this view — that sin is made into an ontological necessity instead of our personal responsibility — are discussed in an essay by Reinhold Niebuhr: “Biblical Thought and Ontological Speculation” (Ibid., 216–27).

68 Tillich sometimes allows that there is a sense in which God does participate in the results of the fall. (Cf. ST 1. 245, 270.) But even so, it is not as a created being.

69 Cf. ST 1. 277.

70 Cf. ST 1. 205.

71 Cf. Aquinas, Summa Theologiae Ia. Q. 3, art. 3 and 4.

72 Kegley and Bretall, Theology of Tillich, 347, Tillich's emphasis.

73 Brown, Ultimate Concern, 45, my emphasis.

74 Ibid., 45.

75 ST 1.236.

76 Tillich, “The Two Types of Philosophy of Religion,” 13, 16. With this remark Tillich is not simply saying, as one commentator suggests, that “questions about God, if they are meaningful, must have their place in the language of a community in which the word ‘God’ has a meaningful use” (Cell, Edward, Language, Existence, and God [Nashville: Abingdon, 1971] 48).Google Scholar That is, Tillich is not simply saying that (knowing the meaning of) the word “God” is the presupposition of the question of God. Rather, Tillich is asserting a much stronger thesis: namely, that the reality of God is a presupposition of that question. This is perhaps brought out more clearly elsewhere when Tillich says “an awareness of God is present in the question of God. This awareness precedes the question” (ST 1. 206, my emphasis).

77 Tillich, Paul, “The Philosophy of Religion,” What Is Religion (ed. Adams, James Luther; New York: Harper & Row, 1969) 71.Google Scholar

78 Tillich, Paul, “Escape from God,” The Shaking of the Foundations (New York: Scribner's, 1948) 47.Google Scholar

79 Ibid., 44. Tillich is referring to Martin Luther here. See also Tillich, Paul, “God's Pursuit of Man,” The Eternal Now (London: SCM Press, 1963) 85–93Google Scholar where Tillich speaks of “being arrested” by God.

80 ST 1. 205.

81 ST 1. 237.

82 Tillich, Dynamics of Faith, 46.

83 Aquinas, Summa Theologiae Ia. Q. 2, art. 2, reply to obj. 2; also Ia. Q. 13, art. 8, reply, where Aquinas says that everyone who uses the word “God” has in mind a certain understanding of what the word means.

84 ST 1. 205, my emphasis.

85 ST 1. 205.

86 ST 1. 205–06.

87 Heidegger, Martin, Being and Time (trans. Macquarrie, John and Robinson, Edward; New York: Harper & Row, 1962) 24.Google Scholar

88 Ibid., 32.

89 Tillich, Paul, Biblical Religion and the Search for Ultimate Reality (Phoenix Books; Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1955) 11.Google Scholar Indeed, “… man … cannot avoid asking, because he belongs to the power of being …” (Ibid., 12, my emphasis).

90 Ibid., 11.

91 Ibid., 11–12.

92 Note, e.g., that Tillich employs the same term “power of being” to refer both to God and to the power of being in us.

93 Cf. ST 1. 163.

94 ST 1. 206.

95 ST 1. 206.

96 Tillich, “The Philosophy of Religion,” 71.

97 See, e.g., Anscombe, G. E. M., An Introduction to Wittgenstein's Tractatus (Harper Torchbooks; 2d ed., revised; New York: Harper & Row, 1959) 15.Google Scholar

98 ST 1. 272.

99 ST 1. 271–72.

100 Tillich, Paul, “The Conquest of the Concept of Religion in the Philosophy of Religion,” What Is Religion? (ed. Adams, James Luther; New York: Harper & Row, 1969) 139–40.Google Scholar See also 126–27.

101 “It is the religious function of atheism ever to remind us that the religious act has to do with the unconditioned transcendent, and that the representations of the Unconditioned are not objects concerning whose ‘existence’ or ‘nonexistence’ a discussion would be possible.” Tillich, Paul, Religiöse Verwirklichung (Berlin: Furche, 1929) 102Google Scholar, quoted in James Luther Adams, Paul Tillich's Philosophy of Culture, Science, and Religion, 247.