Journal: Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society
Volume: JETS 12:3 (Summer 1969)
Article: Book Reviews
Author: Anonymous

JETS 12:3 (Summer 1969) p. 188

Book Reviews

Paul Tillich: Retrospect and Future. By Nels F. Ferre. Abindon Press, 1966. Reviewed by R. Allan Killen of Covenant Theological Seminary.

The book is composed of essays by five different writers. The first, by Nels F. S. Ferre is definitely the best and most important. It makes the book a must for anyone who wants to really understand Tillicb. The fourth, by James C. Livingstone, takes up Tillich’s view of history and is very worthwhile. Both writers unearth dualisms in Tillich’s system.

Nels Ferre discusses Tillich’s view of the transcendence of God. He sets forth three presuppositions upon which Tillich builds his system. 1. There is no “unconditioned being” in history. This means Tillich has no personal God, no resurrection, and no place for personal prayer to a personal God. 2. All of man’s assertions are finite and fallible. This Tillich called “the Protestant principle.” 3. Christ is only a symbol for the synthesis of essence and existence which occurs in man’s salvation as he attains to the “new being.”

Ferre now shows that Tillich has a real dualism in his system and that it stems from two presuppositions. According to presupposition one, and this includes Tillich’s philosophy of being, the incarnation is “nonsense and blasphemy”. Nonsense because there is not an absolute being, blasphemy because to make, the finite infinite is blasphemy. And yet, according to Tillich’s theology, there must be the incarnation if man is to attain to what he ought to be as essential being. This dualism Tillich cannot resolve.

Ferre attempts to wed Tillich’s view to a historical incarnation and resurrection. This fails, as it must, because be has not seen that Tillich’s whole system rests upon the problem of the Greek Sceptics that if anything exists beside the infinite or even delimits it, it immediately becomes finite. It cannot, therefore, be wedded to historical Christianity.

In the second article Charles Hartshorne discusses quite effectively the logic of such terms as absolute and relative, dependent and independent, etc. Hartshorne writes from the perspective of process philosophy and brings to light new twists in Tillich’s thought.

In the third article John Dillinger takes up Tillich’s view that revelation springs up from the depth of reason in man and appears in his art, painting, philosophy and religion. He fails to point out that what wells up comes from man’s fallen nature and cannot therefore be given the status of revelation.

He does not explain the ontology of the six moments in Being-itself, or Tillich’s God. Tillich sees these

JETS 12:3 (Summer 1969) p. 189

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