AT THE center of the conflict between historical Christian and modern existentialist philosophy is the truth about God. The God of Harvey Cox offers no sure future for man. Paul Van Buren and T. J. J. Altizer each contributed in his own way to the concept that God has withdrawn from or ceased to exist in modern society. Rudolph Bultmann denies the "God-ness" of Jesus. What may be said of the relationship of Paul Tillich's "ground of being" concept to the teachings of our historic faith?
However attractive Tillich's theology might be to many modern minds, we must be quite frank in exposing its basic error its teaching about God. The God whom Christians know through the Bible and through the revelation of Himself in His Son, is not the god Tillich teaches. Tillich teaches that by our taking the Biblical statements about God literally, we conceive of God as a personal, omnipotent, and eternal Being. He suggests that the only way to obviate supernatural ism in our understanding of God is to speak of him as "being itself" or "the ground of being." But this theory of Tillich is contrary to the Bible, which clearly teaches a definite personal relationship between God and man.
In Tillich's system, his god reveals itself to us when the mind is grasped by the mystery of this "ground of being." Tillich further teaches that this "revelation" of the "ground of being" can come to us through various media, as by nature, through historical events, through prayer, et cetera. But "prayer" in Tillich's system simply means the disclosure of the mystery of being, and he further says, but "if it is brought down to the level of a conversation between two beings, it is blasphemous and ridiculous." 1 It is obvious, therefore, that Tillich's conception of God is a complete caricature of the theistic view always held by the Christian church on the basis of Bible teaching.
Now let us look at Tillich's view of Christ. Although he admits that Jesus Christ is the central fact of the Christian faith, we must care fully note how he interprets this fact. He says, "If theology ignores the fact to which the name of Jesus of Nazareth points, it ignores the basic Christian assertion that Essential God-Manhood has appeared within existence, and subjected itself to the conditions of existence without being conquered by them." 2 These concepts, however, have an entirely different meaning in Tillich's system. This becomes clear when one learns that Tillich denies that Jesus Christ was the pre-existent Son of God who came down from heaven and became man. He treats all this as mythology. Speaking of supernaturalism and literalism, Tillich says that literalism when applied to the title Son of man, imagines "a transcendent being who, once upon a time, was sent down from his heavenly place and transmuted into a man. In this way a true and powerful symbol becomes an absurd story, and the Christ becomes a half-god, a particular being between God and man." 3
According to Tillich, the only thing we know with certainty is that in the historical person whom the New Testament calls Jesus, the "New Being" was present. It means (in Tillich's system) that this man Jesus conquers the state of estrangement in which men exist. Tillich states that "man is estranged from the ground of his being, from other beings, and from himself," 4 but Jesus as the "New Being" is said to overcome this existential estrangement. In all this picture of Christ, even His sinlessness is denied. Tillich states, "the term 'sinlessness' is a rationalization of the biblical picture of him who has conquered the forces of existential estrangement within existence." 5
What of the cross, the atonement, and the resurrection in Tillich's system? These also have an important role for Tillich; but again, they do not have the usual meaning known in orthodox Christianity. Tillich says that they are symbols and that they must be understood as such, for they lose their meaning if taken literally. He admits that these symbols have a relation to factual reality, for he states, "Without the factual element, the Christ would not have participated in existence and consequently not have been the Christ." 6
Tillich goes on to explain his view that in the New Testament "the Cross of Jesus is seen as an event that happened in time and space. But, as the Cross of the Jesus who is the Christ, it is a symbol and a part of a myth. It is the myth of the bearer of the new eon who suffers the death of a convict and slave under the powers of that old eon which he is to conquer. . . . The only factual element in it (i.e., in the cross) having the immediate certainty of faith is the surrender of him who is called the Christ to the ultimate consequence of existence, namely, death under the conditions of estrangement. Everything else is a matter of historical probability, elaborated out of legendary interpretation." 7
The Resurrection in Tillich's System
Concerning the resurrection, Tillich says, "Theologically speaking, it is a rationalization of the event, interpreting it with physical categories that identify resurrection with the presence or absence of a physical body." 8 What happened, Tillich explains, was that the disciples became aware of the fact that the "New Being" in Jesus was spiritually present with them. Note how Tillich puts this. "The power of his being had impressed itself indelibly upon the disciples as the power of the New Being. In this tension something unique happened. In an ecstatic experience the concrete picture of Jesus of Nazareth became indissolubly united with the reality of the New Being, . . . But this presence does not have the character of a revived (and transmuted) body. ... It has the character of a spiritual presence. . . . This is the event. It has been interpreted through the symbol 'Resurrection' which was readily available in the thought forms of that day." 9 The ascension and the Second Advent receive a similar interpretation.
A Serious Distortion
What we have from Paul Tillich is nothing less than a serious distortion of the gospel an error robbing it of all its saving power. Tillich explicitly rejects the idea of substantial suffering, stating, "God participates in the suffering of existential estrangement, but his suffering is not a substitute for the suffering of the creature. Neither is the suffering of the Christ a substitute for the suffering of man." 10
Some of the teachings of Tillich were popularized by Dr. J. A. T. Robinson in his book Honest to God. Robinson also rejects the Biblical teaching of atonement. He says, "The whole schema of a supernatural Being coming down from heaven to 'save' mankind from sin, in the way that a man might put his finger into a glass of water to rescue a struggling insect, is frankly incredible to man 'come of age,' who no longer believes in such a deus ex machina." 11 What really happens, according to Dr. Robinson, is that Jesus Christ in His life as "the man for others," overcomes the estrangement and alienation of existence, and, he adds, "there, in however 'secular' a form, is the atonement and the resurrection." 12
Fact and Mythology
In the nineteenth-century naturalistic or liberal religion, the Christian faith was not any more a historical faith, but a purely moralizing message brought by a certain teacher. What we might call the New Liberalism, as seen in Tillich's system, is, however, different and more subtle because the so-called New Being is linked with a definite historical personality Jesus of Nazareth, and we can be saved only when we participate in this New Being. But all features of this person and his life, as portrayed in the New Testament, are considered by Tillich to be but symbols of the real event. Therefore, his conclusion is that long ago some disciples discovered that the New Being was present in a certain individual (Jesus) and that their existential estrangement was conquered in him. That certain individual, how ever, is not accepted to be the pre-existent Son of God who be came man, atoned for our sins by his suffering and death, and who was raised by the Father on the third day. All that is considered to be mythological; the only reality is said to be that of the New Being.
This, then, is the message that Tillich offers. It is not the gospel, and it can bring no real comfort or healing for the sin-burdened soul. The whole basis of the Christian faith is distorted and changed into a vacuous religion expressed in philosophical terms of essence and existence, estrangement and alienation. Nothing is left of the plain gospel in its factuality as proclaimed in the New Testament. What Tillich calls mythology is of the utmost importance to the writers of the New Testament. For Paul the bodily resurrection of Christ is not a myth, but an incontestible fact. For the apostle John the preexistence of Christ is not a symbol and myth but is, again, firm fact. Furthermore, the "becoming flesh" is not a symbol, referring to some existential circumstance, but the real birth of the Son of God in human form. That the eternal Word became flesh is plain fact, and to call this fact mythology is to change the meaning of the words and to turn the gospel into a vain philosophy.
Loyalty to Our Message
I think that we cannot rightly understand the significance of the various religious theories and movements today unless we set them all in the context of the great controversy between Christ and Satan. Satan knows that he has but a short time, and he is marshaling his forces for the final conflict. All the evidence indicates that the controversy is nearing its final desperate phase. False doctrine will doubtless have an important place in Satan's scheme to discredit and destroy Christianity as a redemptive religion.
Note what Ellen G. White says of the intellectual leaders of Christ's own day.
In the specious deceptive reasoning of the priests and rulers He [Jesus] discerned the working of satanic agencies. 13
Again she writes, referring to the desire for self-exaltation among the Jewish leaders:
They would receive the false teacher because he flattered their pride by sanctioning their cherished opinions and traditions. ... Is not the same thing repeated in our day? 14
As we approach the end, more and more people, both in the popular churches and outside, will be seduced by false doctrine. It might well be that they will try to justify their position by the authoritative standing of the teacher and also by a possible accompanying spiritual ecstasy. It surely is no coincidence, therefore, that we see a resurgence of charismatic phenomena. Satan is well able to put an apparent stamp of credibility upon a teaching or movement that might otherwise have little popular appeal.
It is in these days that our mes sage is particularly relevant. It is a corrective message at a time when people are again heaping "to themselves teachers, having itching ears" (2 Tim. 4:3). It is, indeed, God's last message of mercy to a dying world. When we Seventh-day Adventists stand firmly by prophecy and New Testament teaching, we might be called literalists and biblicists, even obscurantists. Our enemies might sneer and say that we are not keeping up with the progress of religious knowledge. What matters, however, is not that we should keep in line with modern theologians; we should rather be concerned to be absolutely loyal to the faith that was "once delivered unto the saints" (Jude 3).
Whatever else changes in this world of change, the gospel does not change, and men are in desperate need of its saving power. Let's face it! Men everywhere are perplexed. Philosophers, economists, scientists, and statesmen have no answer to the world's problems. In place of the current meaninglessness of life, felt by so many, the gospel offers a new hope. Only when we as a people are fully dedicated can we break out with power into the contemporary scene, and this complete dedication is beginning; here and there the genuine power of the Holy Spirit is manifest.
Finally, brethren, make no mistake! Historic Christianity has shown itself both the necessary and sufficient condition for salvation. There is no escape from the absolute validity of this message. As Mrs. White states it: "It is as certain that we have the truth as that God lives." 15 May God help us to be faithful and loyal to our message and share in the final triumph.
FOOTNOTES
1. Systematic Theology, vol. 1, p. 127.
2. Systematic Theology, vol. 2, p. 98.
3. Ibid., p. 109.
4. Ibid., p. 44.
5. Ibid., p. 127.
6. Ibid., p. 154.
7. Ibid., pp. 153-155.
8. Ibid., p. 155.
9. Ibid., p. 157.
10. Ibid., p. 176.
11. Honest to God, p. 78.
12. Ibid., p. 82.
13. The Desire of Ages, p. 619.
14. Ibid., p. 213.
15. Testimonies, vol. 4, p. 595.
