Journal: Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society
Volume: JETS 03:3 (Summer 1960)
Article: Some Recent Reactions To Paul Tillich’s Views Of Myth And History
Author: William W. Paul

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BETS 3:3 (Summer 1960) p. 53

Some Recent Reactions
To Paul Tillich’s Views Of Myth And History

William W. Paul

Central College, Iowa

I would like to begin this survey of a few sample opinions of Paul Tillich’s use of myth for getting a vision of history’s meaning by making some appeal to my own doctoral study of Paul Tillich’s Interpretation of History.1 This will enable us to present a quick summary of Tillich’s existential-theological approach to history and to give some evaluation which perhaps will be representative of a conservative Protestant reaction. For a sampling of a non-Protestant critique I plan to refer to several excellent chapters that appeared this year in Religion and Culture: Essays in Honor of Paul Tillich edited by Walter Leibrecht.2

The interpretation of history can be treated as a science, a philosophy and an art, and a “good” interpretation of such a complex subject matter has got to be something of all three. The student who has recently gone over Augustine’s City of God and has seen there the seriousness with which Biblical history is received certainly recognizes that he is in a different era when he takes up Tillich. The “science” side of historical interpretation has shifted and there is a resultant marked difference in the artistic vision of human history. Tillich accepts in general the late nineteenth century critical evaluation of the historical foundations of Christianity while strongly questioning the faith in human progress accepted by the older liberal theology. His interpretation is colored by his personal existential and theological perspective. As an existentialist he finds no ultimate meanings in the ambiguities of human life, but he does discern certain basic problems about the nature of man in historical existence. More important to Tillich than the special problems men actually face in life is the fact that all men are in some way plagued with finitude, anxiety, estrangement and guilt. With this question as to what is the real meaning of life that is allegedly uncovered by existential interpretation Tillich attempted to correlate his theological answer. He seeks to put meaning and significance into history by appealing to such key symbols as the Creation-fall, New Being or Christ as the Center of history, and the Kingdom of God as history’s Aim. Let us examine these “keys” to history.

Tillich looks upon man as a free and responsible rational-social being, who may use his finite freedom to contradict what he essentially ought to be. To interpret the split between man’s good essence and his disrupted existence, Tillich appeals to his Creation-fall myth. Unlike Niebuhr, he take...

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