Post Series

1–Introduction
2–On the Human Condition
3–On the Person and Work of Jesus Christ
4–On Salvation
5–Conclusion

Central to the answer to the problem in the Christian faith is the person who bore its solution: Jesus Christ. He is the one through whom God’s rescue and re-creative effort is accomplished. Therefore, any gospel must have Jesus at the center of it and any examination of that gospel must interpret Jesus, or more importantly interpret the way in which that gospel perceives and portrays him. Before attending to Tillich’s solution to the problem of existential estrangement, this examination must look at what Tillich does with Jesus, how he interprets his personhood and works.

In describing Jesus Christ, Tillich consistently refers to Him as “Jesus as the Christ.” While this statement will be fully explained as we interpret Tillich’s understanding of the nature of Jesus, it is clear that it means to stand as a symbol. As Tillich says in one of his earliest works, “Jesus Christ means Jesus Who is said to be the Christ.” ((Tillich, Shaking the Foundations, 145.)) Later, Tillich relates this title, Christ, to his understanding of the message of Christianity: “Christianity is the message of the New Creation, the New Being, the New Reality which has appeared with the appearance of Jesus who for this reason, and just this reason, is called the Christ. For the Christ, the Messiah, the selected and anointed one is He who brings the new state of things.” ((Paul Tillich, The New Being (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1955), 15. (emph. mine))) While Tillich’s concept of the New Being will be explored later, here it is important to note that Christ is a functional title, rather than one relating to Jesus’ form or nature. That Christ is a title of function, rather than form, is underscored when Tillich describes it as vocational and emphasizes the Messianic character of Jesus. ((((Tillich, Shaking the Foundations, 144.)) )) It is also underscored by Tillich’s description of the term “Christ” as a symbol. This symbol is to be understood in light of Jesus becoming the Christ through his reception by his followers.

As Tillich insists, Christianity began not when Jesus was born, but the moment one of his followers was driven to say to the man “Jesus,” “Thou, art the Christ.” ((Tillich, Systematic Theology, 2:97.)) He goes on to argue that as long as people maintain this assertion—that Jesus is the Christ—Christianity will continue as a religion. This is the case because Christianity has two sides: the fact “Jesus of Nazareth,” and this fact’s reception by those who received him as the Christ. ((Tillich, Systematic Theology, 2:97.)) Tillich reflects Bultmann’s demythologizing effort ((See Rudolph Bultmann, Jesus Christ and Mythology (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1958).)) by differentiating between the Jesus of Fact and the Jesus of Faith: “Jesus as the Christ is both a historical fact and a subject of believing reception. One cannot speak the truth about the event on which Christianity is based without asserting both sides.” ((Tillich, Systematic Theology, 2:98.))

Tillich goes on to suggest that “without this reception the Christ would not have been the Christ, namely, the manifestation of the New Being in time and space…The receptive side of the Christian event is as important as the factual side. And only their unity creates the event upon which Christianity is based.” ((Tillich, Systematic Theology, 2:99. Also see 2:135.)) The idea that Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah and anointed one is not inherent to who Jesus is, as the traditional Christian faith suggests. It is a function of Jesus’ reception as such. Aside from the symbolic nature of Jesus as the Christ, however, one must understand how Tillich views his nature, how he views Jesus’ divinity and humanity.

Tillich views the historical conceptions of the nature of Jesus (as the) Christ as inadequate: “The doctrine of the two natures in the Christ raises the right questions but uses wrong conceptual tools. The basic inadequacy lies in the term ‘nature.’ When applied to man, it is ambiguous; when applied to God, it is wrong. This explains the inescapable definitive failure of the councils, e.g. of Nicaea and Chalcedon.” ((Tillich, Systematic Theology, 2:142.)) Whereas the historic Christian faith frames Christology as two natures (i.e. divine and human) in the one person Jesus Christ, ((The Chalcedonian Creed summarizes this belief: “one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, Only-begotten, to be acknowledged in two natures, inconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably…”)) Tillich believes otherwise: “it is imperative to dismiss altogether the term ‘human nature’ in relation to the Christ and replace it by a description of the dynamics of his life;” “the term ‘divine nature’ is questionable and that it cannot be applied to the Christ in any meaningful way.” ((Tillich, Systematic Theology, 2:147-148. (emph. mine))) Tillich replaces these terms with the “Christ-character” and the “Jesus-character,” symbols for the divine and human aspects of Jesus as the Christ, respectively. ((Tillich, Systematic Theology, 2:142, 145.))

As Tillich argues, “The assertion that Jesus as the Christ is the personal unity of a divine and human nature must be replaced by the assertion that in Jesus as the Christ the eternal unity of God and man has become a historical reality.” ((Tillich, Systematic Theology, 2:148.)) Tillich is intent on eliminating the historic concept of the two natures and replacing them with terms that are “relational concepts which make understandable the dynamic picture of Jesus as the Christ.” ((Tillich, Systematic Theology, 2:148.)) In so doing, Tillich eliminates the deity of Jesus and divinizes his humanity.

The word “divinity” is used in contrast to the word “deity” because Tillich does not describe Jesus as God, but as divine. When Tillich uses the word “God,” we have already seen that he does not mean what the historic Christian faith has meant by the term. Rather than referring to an actual Being, God is the word used to describe that which gives existence meaning; it is a symbol for that which is ultimately meaningful in existence, which seems to translate as love. In The New Being, Tillich says God and love are not two realities, but one: “God’s Being is the being of love and God’s infinite power of Being is the infinite power of love…God is love.” ((Tillich, New Being, 26.)) It seems we should interpret the statement, “God is love” to mean God is equated with love, rather than characterized by it. While the historic Christian faith would say God is characterized by love, it would not say God and Love are ontologically one in the same. As Tillich later writes, “It is a rare gift to meet a human being in whom love—and this means God—is so overwhelmingly manifest…For God is love. And in every moment of genuine love we are dwelling in God and God in us.” ((Tillich, New Being, 29. (emph. mine))) For Tillich, God is an experience of that which is ultimately meaningful, that which is essential to good, proper existence, which is love—love is that which is of ultimate existential meaning, the aim of life. In other words, God is Love. Understanding that God is equated with love has great bearing on a conversation on Jesus’ divinity, because Tillich maintains that “the manifestation of God as love is His manifestation in Jesus the Christ.” ((Tillich, New Being, 26.))

In describing Jesus’ divinity, Tillich consistently uses language that emphasizes his life and character. Some typical examples include: “In the picture of Jesus…is the picture of a man in whom God was manifest in a unique way;” ((Tillich, Systematic Theology, 2:146.)) “They look at a life which never lost the communication with the divine ground of all life, and they look at a life which never lost the union of love with all beings;” ((Tillich, New Being, 74.)) Jesus is “one man in whom God was present without limit…;” ((Tillich, New Being, 178-179.)) “In the face of Jesus the Christ, God ‘makes his face shine upon us.” ((Tillich, New Being, 100.)) Tillich’s definition of Jesus’ divinity is most clear and concise in his Systematic Theology vol 1:

The Gospel reports about the unbreakable unity of [Jesus’] being with that of the ground of all being, in spite of his participation in the ambiguities of human life. The being of Jesus as the Christ is determined in every moment by God…According to the witnesses of the whole New Testament, it is the presence of God in him which makes him the Christ. His words, his deeds, and his sufferings are consequences of this presence; they are expressions of the New Being which is his being. ((Tillich, Systematic Theology, 1:135-136.))

What is clear from these quoted examples is that the words and deeds, the teachings and life of Jesus equate him with the divine. Jesus is divine because he maintained his unity with that which is the essence of ultimate meaning, which is love (i.e. God). Again, Jesus isn’t God—an actual ontological Being as the historic Christian faith would insist. In Jesus, ultimate existence is present, “God” is present and unveiled in the picture of Jesus because in Jesus’ existence was present the power of love and the essence of what it means to live humanly.

This unity and this presence is especially understood in the Christological symbol used in the New Testament, the Son of God. For Tillich, the symbol Son of God “designates an original unity between God and man…‘Son of God’ becomes the title of the one in whom the essential unity of God and man has appeared under the conditions of existence.” ((Tillich, Systematic Theology, 2:109-110.)) As the Son of God, Jesus as the Christ represents that which is ultimately meaningful and what ought to be under the conditions of life as it really is. This is what is meant by Tillich’s definition of the Son of God: “Being the Son of God means representing the essential unity between God and man under the conditions of existence and re-establishing this unity in all those who participate in his being.” ((Tillich, Systematic Theology, 2:110.))

For Tillich, essence is that which ought to be, while existence is that which is. Think of it as the difference between ideality and reality. Even God symbolizes how things ought to be, while man symbolizes how things are. Tillich replaces the “inadequate concept of ‘divine nature’ by the concepts ‘eternal God-man unity’ or ‘Eternal God-Manhood’” ((Tillich, Systematic Theology, 2:148.)) in order to argue that in the event of Jesus as the Christ there is an uninterrupted unity between essence and existence, ideality and reality, God and man. As his view on Adoptionism asserts, “God through his spirit adopted the man Jesus as His Messiah.” ((Tillich, Systematic Theology, 2:149.)) It is clear Jesus did not posses deity, in the traditional sense; Jesus was divine by nature of his meaningful words and deeds, he was the point at which essence and existence merged. Tillich’s Jesus, then, isn’t God, but merely a human who portrayed the divine. This portrayal is given in Tillich’s concept of the New Being, a central term to the humanly nature of Jesus’ salvific work.

In The New Being, Tillich defines the central message of Christianity as the message of a new creation: “Christianity is the message of the New Creation, the New Being, the New Reality which has appeared with the appearance of Jesus who for this reason and just for this reason, is called the Christ. For Christ, the Messiah, the selected and anointed one is He who brings the new state of things.” ((Tillich, New Being, 15.)) The New Being is contrasted with the old being, the old state of things under existential estrangement. It is a reality “in which the self-estrangement of our existence is overcome, a reality of reconciliation and reunion, of creativity, meaning, and hope.” ((Tillich, Systematic Theology, 1:49.)) While the salvific implications of the New Being will be further explained below, it is worth noting here that Tillich explains the one who is the Christ as the one who brings in this new eon, this new reality and New Being.

Tillich makes plain that Jesus the man, as the Christ, is the bearer of the New Being: “It is his being that makes him the Christ because his being has the quality of the New Being beyond the split of the essential and existential being.” ((Tillich, Systematic Theology, 2:121.)) Jesus the man’s existence and life on earth made him the Christ, the bearer of the New Being, because he possessed the characteristics and qualities of the one who has overcome estrangement and separation from that which is of ultimate meaning in life, mainly love. Tillich argues that three primary expressions of the New Being are found in the quality of the man Jesus’ existence: his words, deeds, and sufferings. Here, Tillich emphasizes not the nature of Jesus as the Messiah, as the historic Christian faith emphasizes, but rather his character and quality of living.

Jesus as the Christ is expressed as the New Being first in his words. Tillich maintains that the NT’s emphasis on Jesus as “the Word” is a metaphor that transcends his spoken words. While liberal theologians make Jesus into a teacher or prophet by separating his words from his existence, Tillich believes this is a mistake: “this last instance [of being called ‘the Word’] shows it is not his words which make him the Christ but his being.” ((Tillich, Systematic Theology, 2:121.)) He reacts against the popularized notion that exchanges Jesus as the Christ with the moral teacher called Jesus of Nazareth, arguing that “‘being precedes speaking.’ The words of Jesus have the power to create the New Being only because Jesus as the Christ is the Word, and only in the power of the New Being can his words be transformed into reality.” ((Tillich, Systematic Theology, 2:122.)) He makes the same point of his deeds, the second expression: though some have separated them from his being, making his example something to be imitated, “Not his actions but the being out of which his actions come makes him the Christ.” ((Tillich, Systematic Theology, 2:122-123.)) In fact, he calls on Protestants in particular to forego pietistic attempts to separate the actions of the Christ from his being, his total existence. Likewise, in the third expression—the Christ’s sufferings—Tillich maintains that “it is not justifiable to separate this sacrificial function—[suffering and death]—from his being, of which it is actually an expression…the suffering of Jesus as the Christ is an expression of the New Being in him.” ((Tillich, Systematic Theology, 2:123.)) In the end, Tillich insists that “we must evaluate the rationalistic separation of the words of Jesus from his being, the pietistic separation of his deeds from his being, and the orthodox separation of the suffering of his being. We must understand his being as the New Being and its expressions as manifestations of him as the Christ.” ((Tillich, Systematic Theology, 2:124.))

It is unclear why, however, Tillich is so emphatic that these expressions do not become unattached from Christ’s being. Considering Tillich argues beforehand that Jesus is the Christ because he qualitatively expresses the New Being in it’s entirety ((Tillich, Systematic Theology, 2:121.))—in word, deed, and suffering—it makes little sense not to differentiate between the two, between expression and existence. Tillich has already made it clear Jesus is the Christ not only because he was received as such by his followers, but also because he is characterized by that which is of ultimate meaning (i.e. God, Ground of Being, Love, etc…). While he may argue Jesus was the Christ because he portrayed all three expressions of the New being—word, deed, and suffering—in Tillich’s scheme it seems clear Jesus’ teachings, example, and suffering and death of love are what make him the Christ.

He goes on to say that “the term ‘New Being,’ when applied to Jesus as the Christ, points to the power in him which conquers existential estrangement…the powers of resisting the forces of estrangement.” In other words, through the combination of his teachings, life example, and suffering in death Jesus conquered that which separated him from ultimate meaning in life and living. Again, Tillich does not emphasize Jesus’ nature as actually being God who has the power over sin and death. Rather he emphasizes Jesus’ character as showing, modeling, imaging that which is of ultimate existential meaning, which is especially clear in his use of the word picture: “According to the biblical picture of Jesus as the Christ…he is not estranged from the ground of his being.” ((Tillich, Systematic Theology, 2:150.)) This “conquest of estrangement” in Jesus’ life work—through his teachings, deeds, and suffering—is why he is the bear of the solution to the human condition, which is the New Being. This last expression of the New Being—suffering and death—was a necessary part of Jesus becoming the Christ, though it isn’t clear how his work actually does something for humanity. What is clear is that Tillich believes the primary components of this work—the cross and the resurrection—are interdependent symbols.

The first symbol is the symbol of the “Cross of Christ,” where Jesus’ “subjection to existence is expressed.” ((Tillich, Systematic Theology, 2:153.)) Tillich is not so much concerned with a single event in history in which Jesus was nailed to and hung from a cross. For him, the story of the Cross of Jesus is what counts: “The story of the Cross of Jesus as the Christ does not report an isolated event in his life, but that event toward which the story of his life is directed and in which the others receive their meaning.” ((Tillich, Systematic Theology, 2:158.)) The Cross, then, is symbolic of the whole of Christ’s cruciform life, the meaning of which is that he subjected himself to the ultimate negativities of existence, which he did not allow to separate him from that which is of ultimate meaning in life. ((Tillich, Systematic Theology, 2:158.)) The stories of Christ’s birth in a cradle in Bethlehem, flight to Egypt from the sword of Herod, and early threats to his life from the religious powers point toward this cruciform life. ((Tillich, Systematic Theology, 2:158.)) Likewise, Tillich insists descriptions of Jesus’ “subjection to finitude” also corroborate the symbolic meaning of the Cross, “which include the tension between his messianic dignity and the low conditions of his existence,” as well as the scene of Gesthemane, and his death and burial. ((Tillich, Systematic Theology, 2:158.)) It is important to note that for Tillich, these images are not important in and of themselves: “They are important in their power to show the subjection of him who is the bearer of the New Being to the destructive structures of the old being.” ((Tillich, Systematic Theology, 2:159.)) Here, the Cross is viewed existentially, rather than as a literal event at which God objectively dealt with sin, as the historic Christian faith as argued. What matters is Christ’s cruciform life, culminating in suffering and death.

Tillich further argues that, “Only by taking suffering and death upon himself could Jesus be the Christ, because only in this way could he participate completely in existence and conquer every force of estrangement which tried to dissolve his unity with God.” ((Tillich, Systematic Theology, 2:123.)) Jesus’ experience of suffering and death was a necessary step to Jesus become the Christ; only as a suffering and dying man is Jesus the Christ. ((Tillich, Systematic Theology, 2:146.)) Interestingly, in describing this “work” (if it can be called that) the event of the Cross isn’t even described as a sacrifice. In no way is the cross viewed as the point at which Jesus was sacrificed in place (substitution) of sinful humanity, as the historic Christian faith insists. Though he never gets around to explaining how this is the case, Tillich weakly suggests that “something unique happened in His suffering and death. It was, and is, a divine mystery, humanly unintelligible, divinely necessary.” ((Tillich, Systematic Theology, 2:146.)) In fact, it isn’t clear why his suffering and death was necessary at all and what exactly happened during this event.

What happened, then, on the Cross at the point of suffering and death? According to Tillich, “in the picture of the Crucified, we look at the rejection of the Divine by humanity.” ((Tillich, Shaking of the Foundations, 147. This examination takes Divine and Divine Itself to be synonyms for God, or that which is of ultimate meaning in existence.)) This is what happened: the manifestation of the Divine Itself (i.e. Jesus as the Christ) as the new reality was rejected by the representatives of the old reality. Tillich means to say Jesus’ meaningful existence of love was rejected by the powers and structures of the old reality. That which was ultimately meaningful in Jesus’s existence was in his words and deeds—humanity rejected this ultimate picture of existence, which is love. This rejection was perpetrated by the political powers, religious authorities, and bearers of cultural tradition. ((Tillich, Shaking of the Foundations, 147.)) Here Jesus as the Christ suffers and dies as a convict and slave at the hands of the powers of the old existence, which somehow Tillich envisions him conquering. ((Tillich, Systematic Theology, 2:153-154.))

Somehow Jesus’ “surrender of himself who is called the Christ to the ultimate consequences of existence, namely, death under the conditions of estrangement” to the existential powers was universally significant for humanity. Tillich insists it was through this negation at the Cross by the old existence that the new reality was born, that the New Being was brought into existence and men could be “saved” from the old way of existing. This does not make sense nor is this proved by Tillich’s arguments: he argues that Jesus the man conquered the perpetrators of his suffering in his death without explain why this was the case. In fact, the assertion that Jesus 1) conquered the conditions of estrangement and existence and 2) brought a new reality into and in place of this old becomes more complicated when one considers the second symbol, Resurrection.

The second symbol is the symbol of the “Resurrection of the Christ,” in which “the conquest of existence is expressed.” ((Tillich, Systematic Theology, 2:153.)) While Tillich believes that the cross event probably was an event of history, the stories of the resurrection are not: “The [Cross] is a highly probable fact; the [Resurrection] a mysterious experience of a few.” ((Tillich, Systematic Theology, 2:153. (emph. mine))) While the Cross is a factual event that became a symbol, the Resurrection is a symbol that became an event. As Tillich argues, “A real experience made it possible for the disciples to apply the known symbol of resurrection to Jesus, thus acknowledging him definitely as the Christ. They called the experienced event the ‘Resurrection of the Christ,’ and it was a combination of event and symbol.” ((Tillich, Systematic Theology, 2:153.)) It is clear that for Tillich, the resurrection of Jesus Christ did not happen physically and literally. Instead, it happened existentially. While some believe in a spiritualistic resurrection of Jesus, Tillich maintains that such an explanation “cannot explain the factual side of the Resurrection of the Christ symbolized as the reappearance of the total personality, which includes the bodily expression of his being.” ((Tillich, Systematic Theology, 2:156.)) While the psychological one comes closer, explaining that “Resurrection is an inner event in the minds of Jesus’ adherents,” it misses the mark because it “misses the reality of the event which is presupposed in the symbol—the event of the Resurrection of the Christ.” ((Tillich, Systematic Theology, 2:156.)) Instead, “the power of his being had impressed itself indelibly upon the disciples as the power of the New Being. In an ecstatic experience the concrete picture of Jesus of Nazareth became indissolubly united with the reality of the New Being. He is present wherever the New Being is present.” ((Tillich, Systematic Theology, 2:157.)) Jesus as the Christ does not live on simply in memory, but in experience: Because the experience of Jesus’ existence was so overwhelming that it left its mark on the disciples, Jesus lived on—resurrected—in their existence.

In his sermon book, The New Being, Tillich best describes the symbol of the “Resurrection of the Christ,” especially its implications for today and the future:

resurrection means the victory of the New state of things, the New Being born out of the death of the Old. Resurrection is not an event that might happen in some remote future, but it is the power of the New Being to create life out of death, here and now, today and tomorrow. Where there is a New Being, there is resurrection…Resurrection happens now, or it does not happen at all. It happens in us and around us, in soul and history, in nature and universe. ((Tillich, New Being, 24.))

The “Resurrection of the Christ” like resurrection now is viewed as victory over the old eon, which is existential self-destruction and self-estrangement, as we have already seen. The resurrection of Jesus, then, is experienced every time the death of a relationship is brought back to life through forgiveness, every time an inner-city child climbs out of illiteracy through tutoring, or every time an act of compassion makes a person’s day. In other words, the point of resurrection isn’t that it happened, but that it happens. For Tillich the resurrection of Jesus as the Christ didn’t happen physically, spiritually or psychologically, but rather it happens existentially.

While Tillich argues that, “the Resurrection shows the New Being in Jesus as the Christ as victorious over the existential estrangement to which he had subjected himself,” ((Tillich, Systematic Theology, 2:159.)) he doesn’t explain why or how this is the case. What isn’t clear is how he can claim Jesus was victorious if he is still dead. If first century Jews recognized a dead messiah was a failed messiah, why wouldn’t twentieth-century Americans recognize the same? A dead Jesus wouldn’t at all prove victory or a new reality and eon was unveiled over against the old, no matter how loving he was in his words, deeds, or suffering. Furthermore, if all that happened on the cross was the typical Roman crucifixion of a treasonous Roman terrorist, it wouldn’t matter how well he represented ultimate meaning in his words and deeds or how heroic he was in the face of his suffering and death. The person and work of the Christ described by Tillich would have had as much impact on his disciples as any of the several other Jewish messiahs that came and went: none whatsoever. Because Tillich’s Jesus isn’t God—simply a man who taught, lived, suffered, and died well—he is as incapable of objectively dealing with the objective realities of sin, evil, and death. Furthermore, according to Tillich’s definition, nothing short of a typical Roman execution occurred at the event of the cross: Tillich’s Jesus does not stand as a human sacrificial substitute for humanity, but is instead a common criminal, albeit one who apparently was the essence of what it means to be rightly human. Lastly, Tillich’s executed Jesus is still dead, which does no good for anyone who needs salvation from the objective realities of sin and death in existence, now and in the future.