On Theology as "Resource"

This recently occured to me and I haven't really worked out the implications of this notion yet. There are certain kinds of theology that I just do not like, even if I agree with lots of what is said. I can be certain kinds of political theology, ecotheology, some feminist theology and so on. Why? Because it tries to make use of theology for other non-theological purposes. It speaks a lot of the Christian tradition as a resource for tackling various issues.

There are some obvious problems with this approach. Most importantly, it seems to imply that theology itself is not involved in the actual engagement with these problems, that happens on some different arena, be it the political world, everyday life or some kind of activism. Theology is then seen as a reserve of ideas or structures of thinking that can be taken out of its context and "applied" (is there any use of that world that is not corrupt?). Obviously very few of these theologians would agree with this image of theology, because paradoxically, that would be a extremely "conservative" view of theology, and the theologies I am now talking about usually thinks of themselves as progressive or even radical. So what is going on here?

What seems to be the motivation for this move is a wish to be relevant in a larger sphere of society than academia or church. This in itself is commendable, but there are a number of possible preconceptions that seem to be at work here that are problematic.

First, there seems to be an idea of the church as either isolated or insignificant, or both. To be relevant one has to engage with the secular, and then on secular terms, that is to bring in isolated ideas without connection to the messy religious stuff. Like, "See you can view nature as creation, with all the nice possibilities that opens up, without really having to think about God", which is obvious nonsense. So, instead of being relevant, you end up being incoherent or just confused.

Further, is not this an essentially market-based view of the world? Theology is then the production of marketable "ideas" as semi-products, competing in a imaginary marketplace of ideas. This is especially ironic if the "ideas" created are supposed to be a criticism of capitalism.

Ultimately this is a view of theology that presupposes that theology in fact is not "relevant" and thus has to become something else to be that. I wonder if one can say anything with some kind of importance if one starts by believing that one in fact cannot. Yet this seems to be the logic behind this kind of reasoning.

This brings me to the kind of theology that I do like. This would be the kind that instead of "exporting" ideas from theology to the outside, incorporates the world into theology. (see that I tried to continue with the market metaphor and say "import" but it would not fit). Now this is exactly what Tillich did, but I have to say that the ones that understand themselves to stand in some tradition from Tillich today are very often doing theology of the other kind. However, theologians that do theology more or less consciously against that tradition (Hauerwas, Milbank) end up doing what he did.

The Real Method of Correlation

This recently occured to me, and I am a fool for just spilling it out on the net and not writing an article for some famous periodical on it.

I now why Tillich fell out of favour. It's David Tracy's fault.

See, every time I see a reference to correlation in theology these days, I always have the same feeling that there is something wrong. I always feel that what the writer is criticising has little resemblance to what Tillich intended with his correlation method.

Let me first describe what I feel is the usual notion of what the method of correlation does, then describe what Tillich really meant, and finally describe how this is the fault of poor Tracy.

It may all be down to a poor choice of term (English, as you know, was not one of Tillich's strengths). Usually people think that when using a correlation method in Theology you seek for similarities in the Christian tradition on the one hand, and for example (secular) philosophy on the other. In effect you would be saying something like "The Christian doctrine of sin is the same as Heidegger's notion of guilt". This method is correctly criticised for in effect using semi-religious language to re-tell the secular story.

However, this was not what Tillich meant with the method of correlation. For Tillich the point is to use philosophy, psychology, art and similar discourses to describe relevant questions in the present cultural situation. Theology then seeks to give answers to these questions, based on revelation (scripture, tradition and so on). Interestingly a few decades ago this idea was considered to be to give theology a to great role, believing that theology could actually provide answers to common human problems. Wouldn't it be better to just let Theology deal with religious problems?

I guess this is one of the reasons Tracy developed Tillichs method by adding the idea of the hermeneutic circle. No longer would Theology give answers to problems in the human situation but there would be a going back and forth where theology and the situation would interpret each other. This, however, seems to lead to a situation where theology looses its right to interpret itself by its own rules, which is what the method is usually criticised for.

Of course, Tracy is not completely wrong. What he describes does take place. But it is not a method for theology. What he describes is something that has to do with being a theologian, which is a slight but important difference.

Tillich's point was that Theology always has used the method of correlation and always will. And I still can't see how it could be otherwise if theology want to be relevant in any way. So, case in point. In the introduction of "Radical Orthodoxy - a New Theology" we read:

The present collection of essayes attempts to reclaim the world by situating its concerns and activities within a theological framework. Not simply returning in nostalgia to the premodern, it visits sites in which secularism has invested heavily - aesthetics, politics, sex, the body, personhood, visibility, space - and resituates them from a Christian standpoint; that is in terms of the Trinity, Christology, the Church and the Eucharist.

This is exactly what Tillich meant with correlation, to address concerns in the present world from a theological standpoint. Clearly, depending on what questions are asked, different aspects of the Christian tradition will be emphasized, but the fact that Tillich would put the focus on creation and salvation rather than Trinity and Christology is more down to him being Lutheran and not a (roman/anglo) catholic in an age where that mattered.

Tillich Review

In the recently published issue of the Princeton Theological Review there is a review I wrote on Theology at the End of Culture by Russell Re Manning. It is a book about Paul Tillich's theology of art, and gave me a reason to take a look at this aspect of Tillich's theology. It eventually resulted in my series on "Paul Tillich's theology of Indie Rock".

There are lots of other blogger invovled in the same issue, for a full list check out this post over at Disruptive Grace.

Hart on Tillich

I'm about half-way through David Bentley Hart's The Beauty of the Infinite, and I will reserve my judgement of the whole book for a later post. Since Hart's criticism of Tillich is, as far as I can see, fairly irrelevant for his intentions, I will treat it separately.

I'm really curious as to what provoked this attack (it comes so surprisingly that an attack is exactly what it is). It can't be Tillich's use of the concept of symbols, since Hart makes no attempt to understand it. Rather than discussing this concept, Hart quickly moves on to a quote about demythologization, which Hart misunderstands completely. Tillich was not really doing demythologization. Hart is reading Tillich through Bultmann, who actually did reduce some myths to existential philosophy - notably the resurrection. Tillich did not do that. When Tillich is defending demythologization, as Tillich understands it, it is because unlike the literalists (fundamentalists as we call them today) demythologization, resists the temptation to reduce myth to propositions. In more modern vocabulary (that did not exist in Tillich's time), Tillich is defending the narrative structure of the biblical texts against those that read the bible as a science-book.

This is really ironic, since this is part of Hart's program as well. And it is not the only area where similarities can be found. Harts ontology is really similar to Tillich's, though Hart does ground his better in the trinity (a real weakness of Tillich's). Both work out their theology in dialogue with the present-day philosophy.

It is often the case when theologians criticising the theologians of the preceding generation, that what is criticised is not so much what they say, but what they do not, i.e. that they do not answer the same questions. Tillich has little to say about theology in the post-modern discussion - as understood by Hart.

I guess this attack is just another example of how Tillich in America has become a symbol for liberal theology - which is odd since he of course was part of the first (real) post-liberal generation.

Of course there are real differences between Tillich and Hart. Tillich used philosophy as a means of communicating theology to the secular. Hart uses theology to do battle on philosophy as a proponent of the secular.

I, for one, prefer Tillich's attitude.

Paul Tillich's Theology of Indie Rock Series

This series is an attempt at applying some aspects of Tillich's theology of art to popular music. The music I have chosen is not particularly indie (what is?), but it sounded good as a title.

In spite of the numerous video-examples, posted lyrical examples and graphics, nothing I have written on this blog has gathered less interest, at least measured in comments... I wonder why this is - maybe the Tillich fans and Indie Rock fans are mutually exclusive groups. :)

Anyway, there are six parts in the series:

• Part I Gehalt, Inhalt and Form
• Part II Subjective and Objective attitude, Categorising music
• Part III Categorising music continued
• Part IV Some problems
• Part V "Christian" music
• Part VI Music and Christian Theology

Paul Tillich's Theology of Indie Rock VI

Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, Part V.

It is time to look a bit closer at the kind of experience we have been exploring in this series. I think most people would agree that we experience something extraordinary when listening to some kinds of music, and many would agree that this experience is spiritual in character. The question I want to ask now is, however, if it makes sense to call this experience Christian?

This is a difficult question, and we would have all kinds of methodological issues to deal with if this was done properly. More recent research on mystical experiences has emphasized the importance of the interpretation of the mystical experience as a central aspect of the experience itself. This means that it makes sense to speak of a Christian mysticism where the mystic interprets the experience using Christian language, especially language associated with central Christian doctrines.

Could Christian doctrinal language be used to describe what we experience listen to music?

I think so. First of all, this experience is a experience of creativity, of creation. It is far from rare that musicians, even those that otherwise shun identification with any religion, claim that they cannot explain the process of writing a song, that "the best tunes just appear". Music - as well as other forms of art - is in a way a celebration of this experience of creation. I think this notion is related to the religious idea of creation on several levels, as I have argued elsewhere.

Secondly, the experience we have when listening to this kind of music is relational. Music is about communication, and the magic, if you forgive my casual use of the word, happens in the contact between the performer and the listener. Music is never about listening to a thing, a product - it is about listening to a person who is giving something to you.

Thirdly, the experience is one of meaningfulness. When listening to something that grabs you deeply you experience that this is something that is of the highest importance, it concerns who you are on a very fundamental level

Creation, relation, meaning - there's some Trinitarian thought for you. Can we go further?

Music is an incarnational experience. I have a home-made theory about music being the source for the original concept of a bodyless existence, because music does seem to have an existence that is not tied to matter: a melody exists even if no one is at the moment singing it, even if no recording of it is made, even if it has not been written out. However, unless the music becomes flesh - in the performer and the listener - there is no experience. Does this not point towards the mystery of the Incarnation of Christ?

These ideas should not be taken as expositions of the Christian doctrine. I just want to show how Christian language can be applied to the experience we are dealing with here.

Why, then, is this important? Why have I bothered to work out this theology at all? Well, for two reasons primarily. First, as someone who loves music, and someone who understands myself as a Christian I want these to aspects of my life to be in unity. I want to be able to express why Radiohead means so much to me, without creating an inner conflict in me.

The second reason is that I see an tendency in modern theology to make religion this separate compartment in the world - a neat post-modern haven with its own rules and reality, without any connection to the lives of a wider public. I think Tillich's theology is needed to counter this.

Christian theology needs to interact with culture to be relevant.

Tillich on Symbols an Myth

Andrew has a good post on Tillich and demythologization. Here's a part of the text he is quoting.

The presupposition of such literalism is that God is a being, acting in time and space, dwelling in a special place, affecting the course of events and being affected by them like any other being in the universe. Literalism deprives God of his ultimacy and, religiously speaking, of his majesty. It draws him down to the level of that which is not ultimate, the finite and conditional.

I think what is interesting about Tillich's criticism of literalism is that it is profoundly religious. He is not criticising literalism primarily because it turns religion into something that has to be accepted against better knowledge, but because it is bad theology. It deprives God of his otherness.

Paul Tillich's Theology of Indie Rock V

Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV.

Paul Tillich developed his theology of art, that I have applied to rock, partly in order to address the notion that art had to have a clearly religious content to be considered religious (see this post.) This can the be applied to music as well.

I'm under the impression that the commercial success of "Contemporary Christian Music" peaked a few years ago. I could be wrong, I am completely disinterested in this kind of music. Still, much of this kind of "Christian music" for me seems to be completely irreligious in character. If we use Tillich's scheme, this kind of music, while having a religious Inhalt, it is not Gehalt-oriented, but oriented towards form. There seems to be a will to create a Christian alternative to whatever is playing on the radio. This means that the attitude that Tillich considers particularly religious is lacking: Form does not serve the Gehalt but is itself the focus.

Of course, it would be absurd to state that a religious Inhalt makes it impossible to consider a piece of music truly religious. And I am sure we can find plenty of examples of music where the lyrics religious in content, and where the deeper Gehalt dictates the form of the song. (One example, though definitely not CCR, is Brompton Oratory by Nick Cave - incidently also a proof that you can make music on those cheap Casio Keyboards, as this Youtube clip shows...) The point is, and this is what is important: if you limit yourself to only opening yourself up to art and music with a Christian Inhalt, you are likely to miss out on much of true spiritual value.

In the final part of this series I will offer some final thoughts on the nature of this experience, and suggest that this kind of theology can actually be very important in our time.

Paul Tillich's Theology of Indie Rock IV

Part I, Part II, Part III.

So what are the problems with this approach to the religious or spiritual dimension in music? Well, first and foremost, and this may also be considered a strength depending on you point of view: it presents an objective criterion to religious music, while most people spontaneously would feel that what constitutes a spiritual experience in music is something extremely subjective.

However, it seems to me that this criterion is not really objective, it is rather to be understood as a more specific way of saying 'to me this song is spiritual'. It says goes a bit further than merely stating a subjective feeling, it describes why I have this feeling. The interpretive element is not removed completely: what specific pieces of music that is considered Gehalt-oriented is not something 100% objective. So one could claim that Tillich's approach gives a way of avoiding both the 100% objective approach (a kind of ex opere operato notion of religious music) and a 100% subjective approach (Which of course turns religion into a part of the individual, and removes the ultimate aspect completely).

Another problem with this approach is that it does not seem to fit all kinds of music as well. I chose these example because even though they are very different they all share the same basic aesthetics: It is the kind of music where melody, sound and harmonies are important but there is also a notion that these cannot be made into a goal in themselves.

If I however took this same mode of analysis, and looked at for example an artist such as Bob Dylan, I would not really get any results. Now it is undeniable that many feel that Dylan is very spiritual (in parts), yet - it has to be said - melody, sound and chords rarely seem very important to him. For him, the Form of the music is almost irrelevant. However, it may be possible to treat these kinds of artists (see also Nick Cave, Johnny Cash, Leonard Cohen, Bruce Springsteen etc.) by focusing more on the lyrics themselves, and apply the Gehalt-form scale to just the lyrics, and maybe to the way the artist performs them.

Another similar comment is that there seems to be something very existential in the mere performance of music. Could this be another area where these tools could be used? How about instrumental music?

I will in another post (this series just keeps growing), address the question of so called Christian music, and then finally address why I actually feel this is important. Until then, go back to the previous parts and check out all those youTube clips once more!

Paul Tillich's Theology of Indie Rock III

Part I, Part II.

In the last part in this series I used the examples of Muse and The Smiths to illustrate how Paul Tillich's system of classifying art can be used to find the religious aspect in rock music. Now I will give to more examples, and finally get to the kind of music that, according to me and Tillich, is actually communicating something of that depth dimension in reality we commonly call God.

But first we have to look at some music that fits in the upper left corner of Tillich's diagram. This is music subjective in attitude and form oriented. Well, there is a lot of stuff that would fit in this sector. Take this clip of the Strokes for example. What is going on here? A couple of guys are standing around looking cool as f**k. The singer, looking cool, sings something about his life, but he is not really trying to say anything much, it's more about finding words that fit the kind of sound they are creating. Oh, and his foot must really hurt after kicking that mike-stand. To call this religious would be blasphemy. I won't say it's without merit, that guitar does sound nice, and its a good tune. But depth, no.

Most "Next big thing" type of artists tend to fit neatly into this category. It seems to me it is the most secular of all the categories in the diagram, and I have to confess, these types of bands rarely interest me much. Yes, good for parties and such, but not really for listening.

So then, what would be typical of a band with objective attitude that is gehalt-oriented? First of all lyrics would deal with the existential situation of man. It would be considered insufficient to describe the personal life of the lyricist or some fictional person in a way that connects with the listener. Attempts would be made to grasp something universal, something that is beyond the particular. There would be a tendency to break up the linear narrative of lyrics and create more fragmented pieces of images that together point to something beyond.

Further, the whole song would be created around this centre of the song that is created by the lyric, so that sounds, arrangements and instrumental parts would support and deepen the experience that is presented.

You have to forgive me for taking my favourite band as an example but it is really the best one I can think of. This has been the nature of most Radiohead songs from OK Computer onwards. Take Pyramid song off Amnesiac:

I jumped in the river and what did I see?
Black-eyed angels swam with me
A moon full of stars and astral cars
All the things I used to see
All my lovers were there with me
All my past and futures
And we all went to heaven in a little row boat
There was nothing to fear and nothing to doubt

This lyric is quite simple, just eight lines of text. The imagery is quite abstract: It suggests some kind of experience, maybe a dream or a vision, where the "I" of the song is experiencing something about our existence, the notion that in some way all the love we experience in life stays with us and that because of this there is 'nothing to fear and nothing to doubt'.

But the lyrics is just the starting point. The music adds so much to it. (If you haven't heard this song, I suggest that you do not watch the video yet, just listen to the music first) Those piano chords with that weird rhythm, those noises in the background that suggest a vast space around the subject of the song. It is all describing man's situation in the face of this faceless threat called death. Then the drums enter making the rhythm even more complex, adding to the feeling of existential commotion. In the middle of it all there arises this triumphant courage in the face of death, leading to this feeling calmness and trust at the end of the song.

To me this song says more about human existence, death and redemption than thousands of pages of top class theology. The experience of listening to this song is beyond the emotional, and the ego of the singer is completely irrelevant. By listening to this song something very fundamental in my being is moved, and this is an experience I wouldn't hesitate to call religious.

This is obviously not saying anything about the supposed religiosity of Thom Yorke and the other members of Radiohead (they have never said much positive about (organized) religion, with the exception of Buddhism). What I am saying is that this song (and there are many other songs that could be mentioned) can be interpreted as religious (or spiritual) in a very genuine way.

So here we have the diagram again, with my four examples placed in their respective sectors.

In the final part of this series I will address some of the problems of this system, and address why this may actually be a very significant and relevant line of theology.

Tillich and Berkouwer

Charles Cameron has written some critical posts on Tillich, with some comparison with G C Berkouwer. As you may guess, I'm not convinced... ;)

Here are the two first posts (there seems to be more coming):

• Berkouwer and Tillich: The Relationship between Theology and Philosophy
• Berkouwer, Tillich and our Understanding of God

Paul Tillich's Theology of Indie Rock II

In the last post in this series, I explained what Tillich means with Gehalt and how he relates it to Form in a piece of Art. Tillich also classifies art on another scale, which is less complicated. He distinguishes between art with a subjective attitude and art with an objective attitude. A subjective artwork is more about the artist that created it and his/her perspective, while in an artwork with an objective attitude the artist is of less importance than the reality the artwork is depicting. What this means will become clearer when I give some examples.

Combining the two scales we thus end up with the following field:



Tillich goes on to classify different style's of art on this chart. In the upper left corner we find Impressionism, which according to Tillich is Form-dominated with Subjective attitude. It is art that is interested in the artists own impression more than the reality it depicts. In the upper right corner we have realism. Here the artist is not in focus but that which is depicted. But it is the form that is important, not a deeper meaning in it. In the left lower corner we find romaticism. Here the artist attempts to go bellow the surface of that which is depicted, but not to find something that everyone is concerned with, but rather the emotion of the artist. Finally, in the lower right corner we have expressionism, the kind of art that Tillich finds to be the most religious, because here the gehalt is the depth dimension of the human situation and it is a depicted in a way so that Gehalt is more important in Form.

Now this classification has been criticized mainly because it is to schematic; the styles involved are not as clearly defined as Tillich believes they are. But I think it is rather clear what he wants to say nonetheless.

Taking this into rock music I can rather easily find examples of bands I like that I would place very differently on this map. For example, a band that I would consider is marked by an subjective attitude that is Gehalt-oriented is the Smiths. There is the striving to reach beyond the surface of things to a more true level of reality, and there is a kind of description of this depth dimension, but it is all very subjective, it is all about the lonely Self encountering a world that does not understand it. You may be moved by the songs emotionally, but that has more to do with a sense of recognition than a spiritual quality. There is nothing religious about a song like "Heaven knows I'm miserable now", even if it has been used to great effect in a religious context. (That clip is from the Manchester Passion, a genious presentation of the last days in the life of Christ using music from Manchester bands like Smiths, James, Oasis and Joy Division. A few minutes into that clip you can hear Judas sing Moz's song of self-pithy.) There is, however, a few Smiths songs that reach over into the objective side, like "There is a light that never goes out", and indeed, these are not without a certain religious quality.

An example of a band that is form oriented with an objective attitude is Muse. Here the focus is not on the artist, but on the world. There are a lot of Muse-songs with apocalyptic language like Apocalypse, please (this live recording isn't the greatest, the poor bass player has some real problems with the harmonies):

declare this an emergency
come on and spread a sense of urgency
and pull us through
and pull us through
and this is the end
this is the end of the world

it's time we saw a miracle
come on it's time for something biblical
to pull us through
and pull us through
and this is the end
this is the end of the world

In spite of the (mildly) religious language, there is nothing religious about the song at all, IMO. It is Form oriented and the contents of the lyrics serve the form. It is still a great tune though, but it does not move you on any deeper level. (Note also that this is a heavy rock tune without guitars...)

In the next part I will give some examples in the remaining categories. I give no points if you guess who I will present as a very good example of a band with a gehalt-orientation and an objective attitude, but you can give it a shot if you like! :)

Paul Tillich's Theology of Indie Rock I

I think this will have to become a mini-series (not the 36-part kind), because the more I think about it the more interesting it becomes.

As I wrote in this post, Tillich developed quite a Theology of Art, unique in many ways. Now, modern art is not my forte, but while reading about Tillich's theology of art (in Russel Re Manning's study Theology at the End of Culture, Peeters 2005.), I've been constantly relating what I read to some of my favourite bands (You can find the whole list of what I listen to here).

Tillich asked what makes some art religious. No actually, what he was really asking was "Where can we find religion today", but I'll leave that question to the side for the moment. I'm rephrasing this question: "Of the various bands I listen to a lot, why are there some that I would say have a religious quality to them (you might prefer the word spiritual), and others that I would never dream to claim they have that quality?

As I wrote in my post on religious art, Tillich distinguishes between Inhalt and Gehalt. No in rock music, Inhalt would be the actual narrative of the lyrics. Old music reviews often mention this. I remember an early review of "Lucy in the Sky wit Diamonds" that effectively said that "this is a song about a girl named Lucy"! Ok, maybe that example is too extreme... Take this Smiths song.

A dreaded sunny day
so I meet you at the cemetery gates
Keats and Yeats are on your side
while Wilde is on mine

So we go inside and we gravely read the stones
all those people all those lives
where are they now ?
with loves, and hates
and passions just like mine
they were born
and then they lived and then they died

which seems so unfair
and I want to cry

There is a (rather low-quality) recording of the song here.

Now, the Inhalt of this song is about walking in a graveyard looking at the gravestones (and about plagiarism). The Gehalt, however talks about something much deeper, about alienation, mortality, but also about friendship of those that do not feel accepted by society.

Any work of art has Gehalt to a lesser or higher degree. But what, according to Tillich, sets religious art apart from non-religious art is that in religious art the Gehalt is somehow in focus.

For Tillich the Inhalt is really of little concern, what is important is the relation between the Gehalt and the Form of the piece of art. For a work of art to be considered religious, form and Gehalt must be related and in harmony. If the Form becomes the focus, then the Gehalt is easily destroyed,

It is important to be aware that the religious is not the only quality a piece of art can have. Tillich doesn't say that the religious is a more true criteria for analysing art than for example beauty. It's just one aspect.

Tillich goes on to categorize various styles of art according to this criteria, and this is what I will do in my next post.

Religious Art

Which of these two paintings (Komm, Herr Jesus, sei unser Gast by Fritz von Uhde or Still Life with Fruit Basket by Paul Cézanne) is more religious? Well, according to Paul Tillich, who's example this is, it is the Cézanne Still life.

Tillich was not only one of the most creative theologians of the 20th century, he was also one of the very few (von Balthasar is another but very different example) major theologians that have dealt in depth with art.

So what does Tillich have against Uhde's painting of Jesus? Well, he says it lacks a "quality of sacredness". Tillich has this very interesting distinction between the content of a piece of culture (Inhalt) and it's true sense (Gehalt). The Uhde painting has a religious content, but, according to Tillich it is not religious because its form does not correspond with its Gehalt. In other words, it might be a religious image on the surface, but it is not religious in the proper sense because it is not painted in a way that communicates something about the Gound of Being.

The Cézanne painting on the other hand does not have a religious Inhalt, its only fruit, but, Tillich claims, there is something about the way the fruit is painted that opens up something in the observer, and this is a genuinely religious experience.

I know very little about art, but I still find this distinction very helpful, and I will at some point try to apply this and some other of Tillich's ideas about art to an art form more familiar to me: rock music.

Reading Tillich Series

Well, my reading Tillich series is finished. It has been a few years since I last read through the system, and my appreciation of Tillich's theology has not changed. The system is not perfect - the last part is not very interesting IMO - but there is a lot of stuff in here that is still very much relevant, and there is still need for Tillich's kind of theology, maybe now more than ever. Tillich tries to embrace life in its entirety and bring it to theology, not by placing it under theology, but by allowing it to inform it.

What I have realized when reading the system this time is that it is quite possible to read Tillich as a kind of spiritual guide. All this philosophy, weird new language, it all serves the purpose of making it possible to communicate spiritual experience in a post-Christian world.

My comments in this series have been very uneven, some almost pointless. Tillich's quotes are usually far better, something that should come as a surprise to few. Anyway. I'm happy with a few of them: 3, 4, 16, 18, 21, 22, 23, 30, 34.

Here's the whole list:

Reading Tillich 1
Reading Tillich 2: New Theonomy
Reading Tillich 3: Mystery
Reading Tillich 4: Sainthood
Reading Tillich 5: Symbolical Language
Reading Tillich 6:Religious nationalism
Reading Tillich 7: Destiny and Freedom
Reading Tillich 8: Destiny and Meaning
Reading Tillich 9: God and Existence
Reading Tillich 10: Being Created
Reading Tillich 11: Human Creativity
Reading Tillich 12: Prayer
Reading Tillich 13: Participating Theology
Reading Tillich 14: Angels and Demons
Reading Tillich 15: Sin
Reading Tillich 16: Collective Guilt
Reading Tillich 17: Christ
Reading Tillich 18: The Law
Reading Tillich 19: Christology
Reading Tillich 20: Deliteralisation
Reading Tillich 21: Acceptance
Reading Tillich 22: Morality
Reading Tillich 23: Art
Reading Tillich 24: The Unity of Morality, Culture and Religion
Reading Tillich 25: Ecstasy
Reading Tillich 26: The Latent Church
Reading Tillich 27: Belonging
Reading Tillich 28: Contemplation
Reading Tillich 29: Equality
Reading Tillich 30: Self-transcendence
Reading Tillich 31: Faith and Mysticism
Reading Tillich 32: Trinitarian Thought
Reading Tillich 33: The End of History
Reading Tillich 34: The End of History II
Reading Tillich 35: The Kingdom of God
Reading Tillich 36: Divine Life

What I think is extremely cool is that some people have said they have started to read Tillich, in part because of my writings! I think this means that I have made the world a little bit better with these posts! (Check out Andrew's thoughts on holiness!)

The Problem of Identity

Tillich said that the existential question of meaning was the most important one in “our” time. I think maybe our culture since then has shifted a bit, so today the question “who am I” is the most central one. This is a consequence of our fragmented society and the breaking down of all institutions of authority (see, I avoided the “p-word”).

The question of Identity is obviously primarily the problem of a young person, though it seems to be asked by older persons more and more. It can also be an aspect of the question of death, because we tend to ask what of me will remain; and it is part of the question of meaning, because meaning is about the relationship of the self and the world.

To be a complete person is to have, at the same time, a good sense of who one is, and to be part of a community with other people. If either of these two poles is lacking a person is not complete. There has to be a balance: to much “Me” is to be egoistic, to much “We” is to be without a will of one’s own. This is what the Christian tradition calls sin, and I have discussed it at length already. I will only add that Christian tradition has tended to emphasize the egoistic part, pride, and overlook the tendency not to be in charge of one’s own life. This is one of the many important point’s feminist theology has brought up: “Traditional” sin is very much something that the traditional male role tends to, while the kind of sin that consist of not being responsible for one’s own self in fact is the role society, with the help of the Church, has given women.

In what way does Christianity address this problem? Humans are created by God. This is the most fundamental part of the Christian doctrine. In this lies a sense that our “I” is given us. In other words, when we aspire to find out who we really are, we are exploring the will of the Creator. But this can easily be vulgarized into the idea that God has our life planned for us, and if we only find out what this plan is, we can live happily.

However, God has created us free, and this means that it essentially up to us to decide what we fill our “I” with. This is the great paradox: We are created by God as we are, and we decide ourselves what this is. In a way we create ourselves, but God is present in that creation.

Being created is to be free, but this freedom carries and imperative: We must accept this freedom. If we live life without accepting this freedom, we are living in sin. We are either letting other forces overpower us, or we believe that we are able to control things that are beyond our power.

To be able to find one’s identity it helps to be aware of what forces are exercising control over us. This is important in a theology of decline, because these forces are also responsible for the destruction of our world and culture. It is in the interest of these forces that we become consumers who live in an illusion of power, while the only real choices we make are which multi-national product we choose to distract us from our true selves. To overcome the question of the Identity is a strong blow to these forces indeed, because a person who is secure in his or her own identity cannot be manipulated easily.

Creation theology alone cannot overcome the problem of Identity. To be saved from sin we need Jesus Christ. How are we to understand that Christ is to save us from a false identity? We cannot answer this question properly without addressing the question of death, but we can manage pretty good by taking Jesus as a model for how to live. When Jesus says that he and the Father is one, he says he is under the influence of no other force than the Creator: i.e. he is living in complete harmony with his identity. This is what it means when we say that Jesus was without sin.

The Church addresses the question of identity especially in the sacrament of baptism, which I will return to in another post.

Identity, Death and Meaning

If the Church is an Icon of the future world, then all the Church does, including its theology, is saying something about our future hope. This means that what God offers us in this world could be described as a fore-taste of what will be reality in its fullness after death. When the Church or theology does not give a reflection of the eschatological Kingdom of God it is no longer (or at least at that moment) church, and the theology is bad.

In an earlier post I mentioned three existential questions or problems that I consider central: Identity, Death and Meaning. By existential I mean something that is a part of existence as such, they are not problems that are “contextual”, in the sense that they are related to a particular culture. But they will obviously take on different characteristics depending on the particular situation one is living in. In my up-coming posts I will explore these three existentials thoroughly and ask how they will function in a theology of decline. Today I will say something general about the three of them.

I initially planned to say that these are not related to the Holy Trinity in any particular way. Then it occurred to me that maybe they are. Identity is certainly something that is closely related to being created, Death is very much something that has to do with Christ, and I think meaning is a good perspective on the Spirit. But since I think it may be possible to argue for the inclusion of other existentials than the three I have chosen, this cannot be considered a part of the doctrine of the Trinity, but rather a kind of entry point to the mystery of the triune God.

I think it is possible to argue that Christinity, as Tillich would say, gives answers to these three questions contained in existence. But the dedicated Tillich reader will notice that these are not the same existentials that Tillich discuss: instead of guilt in his system I talk of identity. The reason for this is that I do not want to equate sin with guilt, as has happened especially in German theology. Sin is the central problem for the question of Identity, just as Meaninglessness is the problem for the question of Meaning and fear is the problem for the question of death. But guilt is not only experienced because of a deformed identity, but rather it is a fundamental feature of the human existence that lack in all these three categories is experienced as guilt.

Also, these three questions do not exist separately from each other (perichoresis!). They all form aspects of the other two problems. I will discuss this feature in my coming posts.

Sin, Identity and Destructive Culture

To write a book on sin is definitely on my list of things to do in life. This is not the appropriate moment for that, so here I will only share some ideas that I find important and relevant. I’m borrowing loads from Augustine and other fathers, as well as Tillich and Rahner here.

The doctrine of sin is one that is a bit different in the various Christian traditions. As with doctrinal differences in general this is a difference in language, (there, I said it!) and one can use whichever one want to, as long as one is aware of the differences. Protestants – if they know what they are talking about – tend to talk about sin as something in the human person, while Catholics and Orthodox tend to use the word for the an act or choice. They do not, however, teach that a sin is to brake moral code. This is not a Christian idea.

A proper doctrine of sin is a matter of balance. What one is trying to balance is the individuals freedom: On the one hand we are responsible for ourselves, on the other hand we are limited by our nature and history. Christian theology has gone to far in either direction many times. To over-emphasize responsibility is called Pelaginaism, and to over-emphasize dependence is somewhat misleadingly called Manichaeism.

In its essence sin is about turning away from God. But to understand sin one have to realize that to turn away from God is at the same time to turn away from oneself. This is, to me, the key to understanding sin – and at the same time, redemption. Sin causes us to be something else than we really are. And here we have another key point: sin is not our true nature: deepest down in our selves we are not sinners, but the Image of God. Sin is a layer above this image that distorts it, but does not destroy it. This means there can never be a conflict between what God wants me to be and what I want to be myself. Sin is what hinders me from being who I in “my heart of hearts” want to be.

So sin is about identity. But this could easily make us think that sin so defined has little to do with our day-to-day life. This is not the case. Sin in its essence is about who I am, but I am who I am only in my day-to-day life. Thus we are talking about choices and acts that are very ordinary, very practical. It can be anything, and everything. When we start to define certain acts as sins we are always missing the point, because there are no acts that are sins in themselves. They are only sins if they are betrayals of our true identities.

In an earlier post I said that God is against us as a culture that is on the way towards ruining the culture. If we understand ourselves as individuals as the Image of God in our innermost, than it should be clear that to take part in such a destructive culture is not to be in accordance with our true identities. When we, as we do, take part in a culture that lives on destroying the environment and creates human suffering in poorer countries, we are betraying ourselves and God in us.

According to Christian doctrine it is beyond the power of the individual to overcome sin. Only God can overcome sin and help us become ourselves.

As I said, I’m basing this to a degree on Tillich and Rahner. I would be intrigued to know what your favourite theologian has to say on the subject, as well as your own thoughts, of course!

God the Father and a Creation in Crisis

After warming up now in a few posts I think it is time to tackle what I consider a serious problem for Christian theology in a time of decline like ours. The most fundamental aspect of the Christian faith is the belief in God as creator of all there is. Some theologians like to separate between Gods creating work and his upholding work (i.e. Pannenberg) but I prefer to see the latter as a continuation of the first, and thus essentially two aspects of the same thing.

This doctrine is all the more important because it is a part of Christian doctrine that I think is quite accessible even to secularized humans, provided that you acknowledge the myth-status of the creation narratives in Genesis. Most human beings experience reverence faced with the grandness of nature, the miracle of new life and the joy of beauty, and many find it plausible to connect this reverence with something we can call God. Thus the doctrine of God as originator has long been considered a solid part of the Christian dogma on which one can build new interpretations of more tricky aspects of Christianity, such as the doctrine of sin and of salvation.

Because of this it can be considered deeply unsettling that this doctrine seems to prerequisite a belief that creation is stable, something that can be ended only by its Creator. Can we really believe that the world as something that flows out of Gods ongoing creation, if we recognize that there are considerable threats to the continuation of life in this creation, threats that originate within this creation itself? This would indicate that there is a power within creation – humanity – that has in fact become powerful enough to counter the will and power of God. If the destructive power of man outweighs the creative power of God, what kinds of consequences does this have for our concept of God? Is such a God really pantokrator?

We can easily see that this situation is caused by the sin of humanity. The question is: is this the ultimate form of hubris, of believing to be god, something that God ultimately will not tolerate? Or is this too something that must be accepted as a consequence of man’s freedom of will?

And if God will not tolerate the destruction of creation, will this result in a nemesis that is the destruction of humanity? This is not difficult to envision, but theologically impossible. It goes against all we believe about God as loving and graceful. But one still has to ask: even if there is grace for every possible transgression a person can do, is there a limit to God’s grace that consists of the destruction of the World?

There is of course hope for the world. It consists of the possibility that our civilization collapses before the environment does. I doubt there is a solution based of the good will of man. But I think a slow decline is more likely, and if it is not fast enough, it will not cause the changes in lifestyle that are necessary.

How do we believe in God in a scenario like this? I think we must start by recognizing that our way of life is not acceptable in the eyes of God. To be able to uphold a belief in a God who is Love, who is Creator and who wants to save the kosmos, there needs to be a repentance, a recognition that as long as we live the way we live now we stand against God who stands on the side of creation. There needs to be a full metanoia: a turning away from life based on consuming to a life based on other values.

Of course God’s almightiness is not to be understood as an ability to do anything. Rather I think Tillich’s interpretation is useful: That God is the one who is able to stand against the non-being. Faith in a world on the edge of destruction must be to trust that God can stand against the non-being we are letting loose, and to enter into a community with God that consists of joining God in the creating work to keep upholding the creation.