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CHAPTER THREE

© 2002 J.S.& A. Pty Ltd.

A CONSIDERATION OF SOME RECENT AND NOT SO RECENT CRITIQUES OF TILLICH INCLUDING A MAJOR FEMINIST CRITIQUE

Tillich has first and foremost been criticised for his correlation of Philosophy and Theology.  He has been misinterpreted as implying that philosophy raised the questions to which theology gives the answers.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  Tillich sees philosophy bristling with answers as well as questions.  On the other hand theologians have criticised Tillich- Gilkey claims most theologians- asserting that his religious and theological analysis of culture is too concerned with culture and too dominated by philosophical procedures and categories to be legitimate.  Gilkey also claims that to almost all philosophers,

"while this analysis is comprehensible philosophically, still it is not quite acceptable: its premises are neither those of cultural common sense nor are they demonstrable; it is far too religious, too dependent on strange religious myths; and it is unquestionably too gloomy." ¹.

In defence of Tillich, Gilkey begins with the remark that the only things in its (Tillich's analysis) favour are the clear facts of our historical present.

he says,

"it seems to me that the current situation in Western culture at the end of the century, even more than did his own earlier situation (Germany during and after World War 1, in the 20's and 30's) warrants the need for this sort of theoretical mediation between the cultural and the religious, for this theological dialectic of affirmation, negation, and reaffirmation." ²

This thesis has concentrated on the modes of reasoning that are central to Tillich's analysis of culture, so any serious questioning of the validity of his cultural analysis needs to be taken soberly, for if his analysis cannot stand, then his insights into heteronomy, autonomy and theonomy have little or no credence, and as a consequence the major theological grounding of this thesis fails.

Cognisance of the previous paragraph does not however entail that Tillich's analysis must be infallible, or that there must be no evidence of minor shortcomings in his system.  The fact that his concept of absolute faith, or of "the God beyond God,"  being difficult to comprehend is not sufficient reason alone to abandon his system. Difficulty in explaining these latter two concepts in simple terms does however decrease the usefulness of what Tillich has to say, but this alone does not make what he says right or wrong.  In similar fashion, the occurrence of Tillich's death before he was able to delve deeply into the emerging effects of multiculturalism for instance, or other modern phenomena such as the present condition in Western cultures of a multi-faith system, or new insights arising from the growth of feminism; or again that his system still may reflect something of the nature of the patriarchal society, doesn't mean that Tillich hasn't anything to say of importance with regard to these trends.

The natural and social science disciplines were recognised by Tillich as having their own autonomy, an autonomy he rightfully defended.  That they might choose to judge Tillich from an empirical perspective (Tillich calls it nominalism) is their right, but that alone does not prove them to be correct.  Likewise, the English empirical tradition in philosophy might wish to challenge Tillich's idealism, or his ontological and metaphysical stance, but their stance can claim no more infallibility than his.  Indeed, if one takes Tillich's perspective, the empirical position and the social sciences by virtue of their autonomy are by essence transitional, and failing finding their autonomy's depth in theonomy are limited in their judgement.

It is interesting to note Alistair M. Macleod's objections to Tillich's use of ontology in his philosophical/theological system.

  Macleod notes that it is for the work that Tillich did on the boundary between philosophy and theology, and in particular, "for the system of philosophical theology to which he devoted a large part of his life, that Tillich will be remembered".

  However he goes on to say that:

"It is an ironical fact that Tillich should have been at work on his system at a time in the history of philosophy and theology when both were markedly hostile, though for very different reasons, to his project. A theological climate in which Karl Barth was for much of this period the brightest sun was unfavourable to the enterprise of cultivating philosophical plants in the hope that they would bear theological fruit. Against the Barthians, consequently, Tillich had to try to show that philosophy has an indispensable contribution to make to theology. But he had the misfortune to believe in the necessity to theology of a kind of philosophy which has been in disfavour: modern philosophers have on the whole been sceptical of the possibility of the sort of metaphysical (or ontological) enterprise on the success of which Tillich pinned his hopes."

Macleod recognises therefore that special importance attaches to whether Tillich succeeded in vindicating the ontological enterprise in the face of philosophical doubts about it.  He argues that Tillich represented the ontological exercise as consisting in the endeavour to answer a single quest, "the ontological question", however he claims that Tillich formulated the question in many-prima facie ways.  It is perhaps to be credited to the precision of Macleod's analytic philosophy that the many ways in which Tillich formulates his understanding of the ontological question is perceived as a problem.  I consider that the examples Macleod gives only emphasise how excellent a teacher Tillich was, and that in fact each instance only illumines Tillich's understanding of the ontological question.  However, Macleod argues that they articulate quite different conceptions of the philosopher's task, and that if he is right, an incoherence lies at the very heart of Tillich's thought.  He notes that Tillich is influenced by the major philosophers of the past, the notable exceptions being the eighteenth century British empiricists and their twentieth century counterparts in the analytic movement. 

Macleod also draws attention to other aspects of Tillich's work which he finds philosophically questionable.  He considers that Tillich does not consistently follow through his method of correlation.  He considers that the philosopher is robbed of the right to produce a doctrine of man, yet Tillich's method of correlation seems to imply that the theological element be a doctrine of God and the philosophical element a doctrine of man independent of revelation.  He agrees along with Bernard Martin,

   "that some parts of Tillich's doctrine of man, and in particular his doctrine of estrangement are patent reformulations of a specifically Christian view of man.  However the problem of universality needs to be addressed at a different level.  As Gilkey claims, a knowledge of universal truth is possible to us through science.  However what appears to be a universal language of science, "a language usable by members of any cultural or religious community," nonetheless requires a conversion to the general world view and epistemology presupposed by science.

  Macleod further researches Tillich's treatment of concepts that actually come under the heading of ontology, such as the conditions of experience, the verb "to be" etc. Important though they are, space does not allow a consideration of these more minor matters, however it should be noted that they constitute legitimate concern for Macleod.

Mention above is made of Barth and the Barthians.  Naturally, by allocating to philosophy a different function in theology than Tillich, it can be expected that those theologians of the Barthian school would wish to critique Tillich from their perspective.  As they represent a fundamentally different approach to theology than Tillich, it does not seem appropriate to include their criticism of Tillich in this chapter.  John Macken, SJ. will be mentioned in the following chapter.  It is of interest to note in passing that Karl Barth's approach to autonomy was quite distinct to that of Tillich.  Barth's treatment has a distinctly biblical character, and one wonders at times whether Barth's concept of autonomy does not have distinct similarities with Tillich's understanding of heteronomy as it appears to arise from a heteronomous approach to Scripture.  The reader is referred to Macken's work for more detail analysis of Barth's treatment of autonomy.   I mention it here because as a different approach there is an implicit criticism, although hardly a critique.

Examples of more recent critiques of Tillich can be gleaned from papers submitted to the Colloque du Centaire Paul Tillich, entitled Religion et Culture, held at the Universite Laval Quebec in 1986.  A. James Reimer of Conrad Grebel College, University of Waterloo, Ontario, writes that,

"Tillich's view of modern culture, and with it also the liberal theology which sought to accommodate that culture, is a highly ambiguous one."

In the context of the 1934-35 debate between Emanuel Hirsch and Tillich, Tillich had accused Hirsch of plagiarism of his categories without acknowledging his indebtedness to Tillich.  Reimer claims that in fact Hirsch was too independent a thinker to do that, on the formal categorical level both Hirsch and Tillich consciously or unconsciously bore some remarkable similarities to each other.  Reimer also claims that Tillich's way of relating religion and culture in the 1920's remained largely formal and transparent, and as a consequence lacked stringent criteria by which to guard against political misuse.  Although Tillich, along with other German theologians considered that the era of liberal theology had come to an end in 1914, nonetheless in Reimer's view, Tillich had carried over some of that liberal theology, and it was apparent in that, like the Liberal theologians, he had "failed to develop adequately stringent criteria .... by which the authenticity of religion and its rightful relation to culture could be tested."

   Hirsch's criticism of Tillich in the 1930's centred around his (Hirsch's) belief that Tillich's theology was not firmly rooted in Luther's teaching on the two kingdoms and the law-gospel distinction, nor did it manifest a commitment to a particular concrete national community.

What Reimer and Hirsch both fail to appreciate was Tillich's appreciation of the ambiguity of any institution that purported to represent the kingdom of God.  Tillich's answer to this predicament was to be found in the "Spiritual Community", a community that had no structure.  No doubt this at least left Hirsch feeling bound,  whereas he saw Tillich as a free-floating individual, "who, from a position overlooking the whole teeming life-coherence of the world, defines his place and task through an intuition which is innerly justified but not rigorously demonstrated."

Tillich insisted that the task of the philosophical theologian was to achieve a synthesis between the two realms of religion and culture.  Terence Thomas draws from one of Tillich's late lectures to show that Tillich saw a cultural difference between the British, German and American cultures with regard to this synthesis.

   In Germany every effort was directed to achieving a synthesis between these realms. In England, or at least among Tillich's English friends, and  to his great astonishment, there was a paradoxical acceptance of the two realms in a form of mutual existence, whereas in America there is a good fight going on all the time.  Tillich identified as an example of this fight the Bible belt with their fundamental primitivism and on the other hand a very radical liberal theology.  Tillich thought that perhaps because he came from Germany he tried to achieve an alternative.  He found he could not take one side or the other.

   Given Hirsch's comments above, it may be that Tillich was too ready to identify as a characteristic of the German people, that  in such issues they failed to take sides.

Langdon Gilkey apparently has no difficulty with taking sides.  However, although Gilkey's critique of Tillich is in a positive vein, he reminds us that the central theme of Tillich's theology of culture was the interpenetration of religion and culture, the presence of a religious dimension or substance in each aspect of cultural life.

"Whenever," Gilkey says,  "religious elements or substance are officially excluded from daily life in secular culture, ultimate concern, myth, and cult manifest themselves in new and "unreligious" forms. They reappear in exotic, "set apart" religious communities and even as the threat of a new theocracy."

and that:

"the appearance and dominance of powerful ideologies, of national, racial, religious, as well as political and economic ideologies, mark our epoch."

Gilkey alerts his readers to the fact that:

"the return of the unheeded and forgotten religious dimension has not ... been confined either to the so-called cults or to the "religious" character of "secular" politics. Perhaps just as culturally, politically, and spiritually significant has been the dramatic rise in American culture of ultra-conservative Protestantism to public as well as private prominence, religiously the fundamentalist wing of evangelicism and politically the powerful religious right....In the last two or three decades the charismatic and fundamentalist movements have, in and out of the major denominations, represented by far the fastest growing segment of American religion.... To anyone who has worked their way through Tillich's thought,....., this fundamentalist movement, uniting as it does ultraorthodox belief and theocratic political ambitions, represents a classic example of Tillich's category of heteronomy: dogmatic, exclusivist, intolerant, and oppressive of alternative views either in the religious or cultural spheres; nationalistic, militaristic (in fact bellicose!), latently racist... and externally intensely "pious" or "religious." 

For Gilkey the perceived enemy of this fundamentalist movement is the mature autonomy of modern culture.   He claims that they, the fundamentalists, as if they had read Tillich, see themselves as rescuing the original "theonomy" of American life with its purported union of Bible, democracy, free private enterprise, and technology from the secular relativism and pluralism of modern culture.  He notes that "as all heteronomies claim to do, "they claim that they are reintroducing the "original" bases of American life: the values of God, family and liberty."  In order to achieve their purposes they are quite willing to dispense with the cultural, political and religious autonomy that they feel to be alien both to American historic tradition and America's present needs.  Gilkey remarks on, "how helpful Tillich's analysis of the dialectic of theonomy, autonomy, and heteronomy is to the enterprise of interpreting this disturbing history."

In case one is still left in doubt with regard to how appalling is this heteronomy, Gilkey suggests that perhaps the major cultural and political task for the theologian today is to undertake in convincing form this Tillichian analysis:

"how the deep anxieties of our time combine with the relativism and scepticism of developed autonomy to render unbearable a situation without spiritual ground of discernible meaning (in certainty, in norms, in confidence): and how as a consequence a heteronomous "faith," expressed in renewed myth and cult, can  re-enter the modern scene with terrifying power and destructive results."

Clearly, here, Gilkey is taking sides.  In using the present cultural situation in America, Gilkey is arguing in favour of Tillich.  Tillich sought to explain the prevailing cultural situation by reference to his Cultural theology.  This may be evident in the United States, but is it so in Australia?  I believe it to be so.

In Australia, the fundamentalist and conservative right, have no difficulty in following in attitude their counterparts in America.  Politically, and religiously the conservative right in Australia appear to emulate American Culture with perhaps the exception being a preference for Monarchal Democracy over Republicanism.  The strength of the monarchy among the conservative right in Australia may be simply a preference for a hierarchical cultural system, and if so would be consistent with a heteronomous position.  It could be argued that the Socialist right in Australia also tend to be influenced by American culture.  This faction among the socialists has historically been influenced by Irish Catholicism, which has a tendency to consider anything British with suspicion.

  There nonetheless remains, especially among Protestants in Australia a respect for English culture, and this element makes for an interesting cultural mix in both extremes of politics as well as in the church.  The Anglican church has in the past been seen as the conservative parties at prayer. Historically the laity in the traditions that comprise the Uniting Church have lent toward the conservative parties, with a strong cultural preference for the countries comprising Great Britain, England, Wales and Scotland.  This British cultural influence may account for a tolerance of expressions of fundamentalism and particularly the charismatic movement in the Uniting Church and other mainstream churches.  Churches that embrace fundamentalism or the charismatic movement are not notable for their tolerance of the liberalism within the mainstream churches.

Australia prides itself on the success of multiculturalism. There are many variables that need to be considered as possible sources for this success in tolerance.  Among these could be the visible cultural egalitarianism of Australia in the past, its prosperity during the periods of major migration to Australia, its liberal heritage, its secularity etc.  It could also be that the strength of English acceptance of the paradox of conservative and liberal attitudes existing side by side is stronger in Australia than generally recognised.  However Australia is experiencing a widening gap between the rich and poor, encouraged by current political and economic ideologies that have found root in the prevailing economic climate.  Australia also has experienced, "the appearance and dominance of powerful ideologies, of national, racial, religious, as well as political and economic ideologies, (which) mark our epoch."

   The emergence of political and economic ideologies such as in the United States as well as religious cults and myths and pseudo religions may whittle away the radical secularity of Australian culture replacing its autonomy with heteronomous elements. Australia is in danger of losing its multicultural tolerance as the historical influences mentioned at the beginning of this paragraph wane and are replaced by influences that are predominantly heteronomous.

The appearing  and dominance of powerful political and economic ideologies is the result of the unravelling in history of an earlier epoch of theonomy (the high Middle Ages) into a period of autonomy.  This period of autonomy in turn ushers in a destructive heteronomy.  Gilkey likens this to the process of self-destruction that existence characteristically exhibits.  He notes that in both cases, "estrangement as unbelief, as hubris, and as a concupiscence represents the main "faces" of our distorted existence."

   Gilkey goes on to explain his understanding of Tillich's concept of concupiscence, and in doing so is more explicit in his understanding of the unravelling of culture.

"In any case, concupiscence if for Tillich the main face of estrangement for a consumerist goods-society, scrambling for money, for place, for possessions.  It is the estranged root of such culture's materialism, that is, its concentration on the possession and use of "things," of wealth, and of mindless sensuality.  It is also the deepest drive behind the infinite expansion of its industrial processes, an expansion that can despoil and ultimately destroy the earth.  Tillich has here provided a set of categories extremely relevant to the personal vices as well as the spiritual, moral, and economic problems of a commercial society, as the categories of pride and hubris have previously illumined the political sins of our epoch."

The categories of pride and hubris bring us to the feminist critique of Tillich by Judith Plaskow.   I shall be using the book which Plaskow informs us is essentially her 1975 Yale Dissertation.

   Plaskow's criticism of Tillich appears to centre around what she takes to be Tillich's understanding of Hubris and Concupiscence.  In fairness to Plaskow, it needs to be acknowledged from the outset she acknowledges that a number of feminist writers have turned to Tillich's system for vocabulary to describe their own experiences.   She also recognises that these same feminists have found aspects of his thought profoundly liberating.   Among those feminists are to be found Mary Daly whose thoughts will also be included as one of the critiques to be examined in  this chapter.

Plaskow is concerned throughout her thesis that concentration on the sin of pride is specifically a male concern and has little relation to women's experience.  Drawing on the published works of Valerie Saiving, she, along with Saiving, would claim that the, "temptations of woman as woman are not the same as the temptations of man as man.. (they are) in short, (in women) the underdevelopment or negation of the self."

  Whereas the sin of man is pride, the sin of woman is weakness.   Plaskow bases her claim largely on the experience of women in literature and extrapolates from that the universality of women's experience.  It is difficult for a man as man to challenge such a statement as it can correctly be observed that a man as a man cannot fully comprehend the experience of woman as woman.  I have expressed elsewhere, in referring to the more satisfactory  interpretation of "heteros" as "strange" rather than "different" that the fortunate common knowledge of the word "heterosexual" lends itself to explication as "strange".  The strangeness of the being of male to female having been affirmed, I must concur with feminist theology when reference is made to woman's experience, that the male, because his experience is not the same, cannot make definitive statements on woman's experience.

Having made the disclaimer in the previous paragraph, however, a man as man can refer to his experience of woman as woman with legitimacy.  It is my experience as a minister, and as a marriage counsellor, that negation of the self in women as well as in men is indicative of the parishioner or client as the case may be, of having experienced some traumatic experience that has hindered the affirmation of self as self.  Given that Plaskow bases her thesis on the experience of women, it would seem to me that I can draw from observations that are coterminous with my own ministry and practice to counter such arguments.  It could be argued that Plaskow is identifying a pathological condition as being normative for women.  It is my experience that people who habitually negate the self do have difficulty in relating to others.

Having doubts however, as to authenticity of Plaskow's stand, does not in itself address Plaskow's criticism of Tillich.   Plaskow's concern with pride or hubris is a moral concern, and as such she is able to take issue with Niebuhr more readily than Tillich.  She acknowledges that,

"Unlike Niebuhr, who dwells mainly on the moral implications of the religious dimension of sin, Tillich is concerned with sin almost entirely as a religious problem. He focuses not on sins as the violation of moral commandments but on Sin, which he reinterprets in terms of the concept of estrangement."

and that,

"Tillich is very concerned with self-constitution both as an ontological and an existential problem. His account therefore, unlike Niebuhr's doctrine of sin, contains many references to the self's conflicts about responsible self-creation and to the ambiguities of self-actualisation generally"

but nonetheless she proceeds to find fault with Tillich because since,

"he frequently equates self-actualisation and estrangement on an ontological level, he is unable to show how self-actualisation on a moral level can do anything but contribute further to the state of sin."

Plaskow apparently is so committed to the moral agenda that she is unable to give any real credence to Tillich's concept of sin being an attitude that involved the whole person.  She refers to individual sin as sin proper, and proceeds to criticise Tillich because he saw the necessity of referring to hubris, a word Plaskow contends carries centuries of reverberations, in an effort to reinterpret sin in a way that must surely be in the interest of her concern.

In so far as Tillich's theology suffers as a result of his need to reinterpret, or perhaps more accurately to expand the meaning of words in order make clear his concepts, Plaskow is correct in pointing out the problematical difficulties of such a course of action.  However to use this difficulty as a source of criticism seems hardly just.  She does acknowledge that some of the moral sting is taken out of sin by words such as estrangement, and Tillich's usage of traditional words, but although it would appear she understands Tillich's purposes, she cannot give to him credit for his intentions. The usage of words that have an unacceptable "baggage" to bear is seen as sufficient reason to condemn.  This probably explains why she does not take seriously the more significant criticism of Kenneth Hamilton that Tillich's usage of words distorts the Gospel.

  The reinterpretation of myths and even historical facts apparently does not unduly concern those of a feminist persuasion, some of whom appear to be offended that patriarchal evangelists did not see fit to include the presence of women at the Last Supper.  If perchance, Plaskow is at home among this group, one might then have expected a greater empathy with Tillich's aims.

Acknowledgment is given by Plaskow that, "the mythical human decision for self-actualisation represents a transhistorical, cosmic estrangement from the primordial unity of the divine ground."  This estrangement makes possible the autonomy of humankind from God, even although that autonomy is by that very fact an estrangement from self.  Tillich considers hubris not just a description of the actual human predicament but of the stage of "aroused freedom" before the choice for existence is made.

It may well be that if Plaskow was writing her thesis today, greater consideration may have been given to Gilkey's claim that the continual unravelling of Western Culture, which is more conspicuous today than prior to Tillich's death, and one might add more conspicuous than in 1976, when Plaskow's thesis was written, she  might well have had a greater appreciation of Tillich's reinterpretation of the other word she takes exception to, "concupiscence".   Admittedly, 

"Concupiscence" is readily associated with "Eros" and extreme sexual desire, but Tillich's extension of the word to mean as Plaskow recognises, the attempt to draw the whole world into the self... desiring without object and without limit is as she claims, it can refer, "to any aspect of the individual's relation to self and the world.  The quest for sex, food, knowledge, power, material wealth, spiritual values-all are concupiscence if sought without limit or goal."

   Re-interpreted, "concupiscence" appears to me a most useful word in describing the dire effect of the disintegration as unravelling of Western Culture.  Its history as a derogatory word gives its use greater effect.

Although as will be argued in the following chapter, except in The Courage to Be, the cultural concepts of Heteronomy, Autonomy and Theonomy are seldom explicitly described in terms of the individual person, so once more Plaskow, is hardly being just when she states that,

"all Tillich's protestations aside, reunion with the divine ground, achieved fragmentarily through grace and finally in the eschaton, seems to involve the surrender of self-actualisation altogether."

Such a statement seems to not appreciate the cultural significance of Tillich's thought, as it affirms and also negates autonomy, but rather finds its fulfilment and ground in autonomous theonomy.  In similar fashion the individual's autonomy is not lost when it finds its ground in God.  The self-actualisation that Plaskow is seeking is an autonomy still estranged from its ground and therefor only partial and open to the demonic.  One suspects that feminist theology in its infancy is seeking an illegitimate autonomy.