God does not exist: the atheism of Paul Tillich

[stumpjumper]

No, I'm not claiming Paul Tillich was an atheist but I am flipping through his Systematic Theology and find some of his statements really intriguing.

When I read The Courage To Be, he alluded to this idea of God not existing as a being:

"God does not exist. He is being itself beyond essence and existence. Therefore to argue that God exists is to deny him."

He expands upon that here in Volume One of his Systematic Theology:

"Thus the question of the existence of God can neither be asked nor answered. If asked, it is a question about that which by it's very nature is above existence, and therefore the answer - whether negative or affirmative - implicitly denies the nature of God. It is as atheistic to affirm the existence of God as it is to deny it. God is being itself, not a being." Page 237 Systematic Theology - Volume One

Now, obviously, he goes on and expands upon this idea in greater detail and ties up his own loose ends but I think it speaks of a relationship with God that is far removed from much of modern Christianity or other religions.

If we stop looking at God a being or entity, what does that do for our relationship with the concept of God?

 

[Ramona]

Honestly I wouldn't know, because I've never looked at God as an entity. I've always seen God as existing within all and transcending all. God is not only the Creator, but the Creation. An entity - a personal being - is just too mundane and too small. If I can imagine the Almighty, then my perception is too small. That is one thing of which I am certain.

I'll try to explain more when I have a little more inspiration (and am less hungry).

 

[FLANDIDLYANDERS]

I agree with Tilichs premise, essentially he is reflecting the idea that to describe a thing is to diminish a thing, especially when it comes to God. Thus we turn God into a god, no matter our intentions, because by expressing the inexpressable we label and box, often without meaning to.However, some things do need to be externalised in order to be expressed, which is why I am still drawn to Christ as an ideal embodiment of God that can only be lived to be known, rather than read about or theorised over.Implicit ambiguity all the way baby yeah!

 

[Criada]

God must be bigger than any of our concepts of Him, since anything I can conceptualise must of necessity be less than the mind with which I am describing it. And if God is less than the human mind, He is no longer God!

So whilst our ideas of God and His attributes are useful tools for us, they are certainly as far from the reality of the creator of the universe as the concepts of a microbe about the organism in which it exists....

 

[Izdaari Eristikon]

My feeling is that Tillich is talking nonsense there. God IS and playing word games like Tillich is doing is mere intellectual twiddling. I have no patience for people like him, and I doubt I will ever have any interest in reading his books. Note: I am not saying theology or an intellectual approach to it is useless. I am saying Tillich is useless, at least to me, at least from what I've seen so far.

 

[kiwimac]

I think Tillich has hit the nail squarely on the head. God is ineffable, any attempt to describe God (even the one I have just written) is as hopelessly wrong as declaring there is no God. James Robinson in his book, The human face of God asks

"... How do we speak about theos in a way which does not make it remote or unreal -- and therefore no longer, by definition, God...?

[pg 12]

IMO it is in the person of Christ that the ineffable becomes immanent. When we see Christ, we see God.
As Bonhoeffer puts it in his Christology

One does not first look at a human nature and then beyond to a divine nature. One looks at the whole historical man Jesus and says of him, 'He is God.'

 

[stumpjumper]

Note: I am not saying theology or an intellectual approach to it is useless. I am saying Tillich is useless, at least to me, at least from what I've seen so far.

Well it is clear that we all bring our philosophical presuppositions with us even when taking an intellectual approach to theology.

Tillich was an existentialist and brought that philosophy with him wherever he went and so these concepts of being, non-being, and ground of being are only going to make sense in that context...

You may not like Tillich anyway but if you won'r understand him outside of existentialist language anyway.

My argument against looking at God in this way is how we affirm revelation, how we look at God as directly active in the world, and how we look at God as a place to direct our prayers, etc...

 

[Tinker Grey]

stumpjumper,

I have some familiarity with existentialism. However, I don't know enough to know what you mean about understanding being, etc., in this context.

Could you elaborate?

Thanks.

 

[Izdaari Eristikon]

Well it is clear that we all bring our philosophical presuppositions with us even when taking an intellectual approach to theology.

Tillich was an existentialist and brought that philosophy with him wherever he went and so these concepts of being, non-being, and ground of being are only going to make sense in that context...

You may not like Tillich anyway but if you won'r understand him outside of existentialist language anyway.

My argument against looking at God in this way is how we affirm revelation, how we look at God as directly active in the world, and how we look at God as a place to direct our prayers, etc...

I understand. I am SO totally not an existentialist, so maybe that's why Tillich isn't making much sense to me.

 

[stumpjumper]

I understand. I am SO totally not an existentialist, so maybe that's why Tillich isn't making much sense to me.

Probably true but we all bring philosophical presuppositions to the table.

Interestingly, I found a book in a used bookstore of letters between Rudolf Bultmann and Karl Barth (1922-1966) and philosophical beliefs seems the be one of the biggest sources of disagreements within.

Barth and Bultmann had much to agree upon in regards to the human nature of the Biblical text but Barth couldn't accept Bultmann's Heideggerism (for lack of a better word) and there seemed to be a fundamental disconnect on that issue.

I find myself agreeing with Bultmann a lot in the correspondances which is fascinating. I've never read Bultmann before...

But I digress...

 

[stumpjumper]

I have some familiarity with existentialism. However, I don't know enough to know what you mean about understanding being, etc., in this context.

I'm not sure if I understand it either, I guess.

Before both of these quotes by Tillich (first in The Courage To Be and then in his Systematics) he spent many long passages contrasting Being with Non-Being in a Heidegger and Sartre sense.

If you look at being as essentially, and inherently, related to non-being then looking at God as the ground and source of being is an option.

God is neither a being as you or I who exist, and only exist, as beings set apart from other beings. God is also not non-being.

God could be said, then, to be being itself or the source and ground of all being necessarily transcending all finite and grounded things...

Where my brain freezes up is how to turn this around and look at this word God as something that speaks to us in our being and existence.

 

[Izdaari Eristikon]

Yeah, it figures. I have little use for Heidegger and none at all for that obscure and abstruse Marxist, Sartre. No wonder I can't relate to Tillich.

However, this much makes sense to me:

God is neither a being as you or I who exist, and only exist, as beings set apart from other beings. God is also not non-being.

God could be said, then, to be being itself or the source and ground of all being necessarily transcending all finite and grounded things...

But it's a lot simpler just to say God IS, and not have to use so many words that don't really add anything.

 

[stumpjumper]

But where's the fun in that?

 

[Tinker Grey]

Well, thanks for the attempt. (It was good one, I deem.) I guess I need to actually read some of these guys rather than hope someone can explain it in a few sentences.

Sometimes, I feel this ground-of-being thing is a bit like the semantical gibberish of the ontological proof of God.

I do have Tillich's Courage To Be on my shelf, but I haven't been able to bring myself to read it yet.

 

[Apollo Celestio]

Wouldn't you say the first coming disproves such an argument? God is real, and he exists in heaven, and within us by the work of his spirit, there is transcendence, but it doesn't nullify his "existence". It's rather foolish actually.

 

[Izdaari Eristikon]

But where's the fun in that?

Well, for those who like that sort of thing, that's exactly the sort of thing they would like.

Sometimes, I feel this ground-of-being thing is a bit like the semantical gibberish of the ontological proof of God.

That's exactly how it strikes me. It sounds profound, but it seems like really just semantical gibberish: games philosophers and theologians play for their own amusement.

Wouldn't you say the first coming disproves such an argument? God is real, and he exists in heaven, and within us by the work of his spirit, there is transcendence, but it doesn't nullify his "existence". It's rather foolish actually.

But Tillich isn't arguing that God doesn't exist; he seems to arguing that God is more basic than mere existence, that without God even the concept of existence is meaningless. That is, if I understand him correctly, I who really don't relate to existentialism. And if that's what he's saying I guess I have to agree. I just think he's saying it in the most difficult and annoying way possible. "God IS" is much simpler and more to the point.

 

[Im_A]

Where my brain freezes up is how to turn this around and look at this word God as something that speaks to us in our being and existence.

with what Paul Tillich talks about, do you think it could be very possible that since God is the ground of all being, thus the initial cause and effect would be that the word "God" is something speaks to us in our being and existence?

meaning like since God is the foundation of being, thus it would have to also mean that the word "God" still speaks to us since we are in existence/in a way "in God".

i really don't see what we lose by not defining "God" like human beings. we cannot relate to "God" the Father even when we define "God" as a theistic being, or make our perception of God as something mortal/finite. we are still left with the concept of following the "unknown god".

just some .02 bro.

 

[stumpjumper]

with what Paul Tillich talks about, do you think it could be very possible that since God is the ground of all being, thus the initial cause and effect would be that the word "God" is something speaks to us in our being and existence?

meaning like since God is the foundation of being, thus it would have to also mean that the word "God" still speaks to us since we are in existence/in a way "in God".

Yes.

In fact, you just provided a good summary of Tillich's view as he builds upon his ground of being theology.

First, he says that God as the ground of being or God "as being itself is a non-symbolic statement" in that it does not point beyond itself. He says that God is being itself of "the absolute" (the cogitant in Constantine Brunner's philosophy) but that beyond this one non-symbolic statement all other statements about God are symbolic.

I'm wandering here but what you say about experiencing God through our being and existence is really close to what Tillich says here:

"Since God is the ground of being, he is the ground of the structure of being. He is not subject to this structure; the structure is grounded in him. He is this structure;and it is impossible to speak about him except in terms of the structure. God must be approached cognitively through the structural elements of being-itself. These elements make him a living God, a God who can be man's concrete concern. They enable us to use symbols which we are certain point to the ground of reality." P. 238
​

I guess my problem is why we should or how we can personify this ground of being? How can we speak of this ground as having a will that we pray should be done?

 

[Im_A]

Yes.

In fact, you just provided a good summary of Tillich's view as he builds upon his ground of being theology.

First, he says that God as the ground of being or God "as being itself is a non-symbolic statement" in that it does not point beyond itself. He says that God is being itself of "the absolute" (the cogitant in Constantine Brunner's philosophy) but that beyond this one non-symbolic statement all other statements about God are symbolic.

I'm wandering here but what you say about experiencing God through our being and existence is really close to what Tillich says here:

"Since God is the ground of being, he is the ground of the structure of being. He is not subject to this structure; the structure is grounded in him. He is this structure;and it is impossible to speak about him except in terms of the structure. God must be approached cognitively through the structural elements of being-itself. These elements make him a living God, a God who can be man's concrete concern. They enable us to use symbols which we are certain point to the ground of reality." P. 238​

I guess my problem is why we should or how we can personify this ground of being? How can we speak of this ground as having a will that we pray should be done?

do you think its possible that Tillich answered your question in the last quote you quoted? i put in bold what i was referring to.

"Since God is the ground of being, he is the ground of the structure of being. He is not subject to this structure; the structure is grounded in him. He is this structure;and it is impossible to speak about him except in terms of the structure. God must be approached cognitively through the structural elements of being-itself. These elements make him a living God, a God who can be man's concrete concern. They enable us to use symbols which we are certain point to the ground of reality." P. 238

 

[stumpjumper]

It's possible.

It's also possible that what we call God is just projection of existence and reality, personified, in it's totality experienced by each of us as a singularity in different ways...

Sorry to be so cynical but that's the way I'm looking at things lately