Symbolic language

• Paul Tillich

  • 1886-1965
  • German Christian existentialist theologian
  • Escaped the nazis to the US
  • Wrote 'Systematic Theology'
• Existentialism- looks at the issues of human existence
• God as ineffable, infinite and indescribable
• Ineffable- too great to be expressed in words
• Infinite- Limitless
• Indescribable- too unusual, extreme or indefinite to be adequately described
• Main features of symbols

  1. Point to a reality beyond themselves
  2. Participate in the power beyond themselves
  3. Open up levels of reality which would otherwise be closed to us
  4. Open up levels of the soul that correspond to those realities
• 2 more points about symbols to consider

  1. Symbols cannot be produced intentionally; they grow out of human unconscious
  2. Symbols are produces and die within a culture
• • Signs warn us of something, they have a practical purpose
  • Symbols are representative of something
• Tillich is influenced by the work of Rudolf Otto

  • The Numinous and the Holy Other
• Two essential features of God

  • Being itself
  • Ultimate concern
• Tillich looked for the meaning and purpose of life, in his Christian faith, this led him to God
• Tillich's ultimate end is God
• 'Being itself' is literal language

  • God is everything, not a being among others
• God is not symbolic, he just is
• In Religious Experiences, the language is symbolic
• Tillich’s symbolic approach to religious language claims that religious language doesn’t try to refer to God but instead connects our minds to God.
• The function of religious symbols is to spiritually connect people to the religious dimension of reality.
• Tillich claimed that God is also a symbol for the ‘ground of being’ or for ‘being-itself’. It’s difficult to make full sense of this idea.
• We come to know God through symbols
• Religious language functions as a kind of religious experience which connects human souls to God without their needing to understand God.