This point of view is, of course, suggested in the title of the book, The Protestant Age. Protestantism can and should have social ethics determined by the experience of kairos in the light of the Protestant principle.
The Protestant Era by Paul Tillich I. Religion and History
Philosophy and Fate
- The Concept of Fate
- Philosophy and Fate in Greek Thought
- Philosophy and Fate in Occidental Thought
- Truth and Fate
It denies the freedom of the philosopher as philosopher; it denies the freedom of philosophy. Let us now turn to the discussion of the relationship between philosophy and destiny as found in
Historical and Nonhistorical Interpretations of History
- THE NONHISTORICAL TYPE OF INTERPRETING HISTORY
- THE HISTORICAL TYPE OF INTERPRETING HISTORY
This is happening largely under the direct influence of the Persian interpretation of history. The expectation of individual death has replaced the expectation of the end of history.
APPENDIX
The movement of time is directed, has a definite beginning and end, and is moving towards a final fulfillment. The temporal world is a battleground between the forces of good and evil (expressed in mythological or rational terms).
SOME NEW TESTAMENT CATEGORIES OF INTERPRETING HISTORY
THEIR GREEK AND THEIR CHRISTIAN MEANING
Kairos
Thus, the ambiguity of the progressive interpretation of history is both its danger and its strength. A double demand can therefore be made for a philosophy of history that is aware of kairos.
The Protestant Era by Paul Tillich II. Religion and Culture
Religion and Secular Culture
Realism and Faith
- Three Types of Realism
- Historical Realism and Knowledge
- Historical Realism and Faith
- Self-Transcendent Realism and Theology
It is only the absence of contemporaneity that subjects us to the captivity of the passing moment. It is the joining of the still-current past and the now-current future in the present moment that creates the power of a historical situation. He expresses them in the light of the present and in response to questions implicit in a historical situation.
But it is the nature of the unconditioned that it cannot be grasped; its power includes its. It cannot be said that all this is the opposite of the attitude of faith as expressed in the Bible.
Philosophy and Theology
This is the philosophical shock, the tremendous impetus of the questions: What is the meaning of being. We searched for the object or question of theology, and we discovered that a philosophical element is implied in theology - the question of the meaning and structure of being and its manifestation in the various realms of being. For the philosophers of the modern Enlightenment in all European countries, this is only the third and last period of history, in which the educated and well-balanced man matured for reason.
With all these men, especially with Marx, the question of the place where the logos of being appears is taken seriously. It is a permanent work that goes from century to century as philosophy goes on and the life of the church goes on.
Nature and Sacrament
- The Sacrament of Baptism
- The Sacrament of the Lords Supper
- The Word and the Sacrament
- Ways of Interpreting Nature
- Examples of the Realistic Interpretation of Nature
- Sacramental Objects
- Protestantism and Sacrament
This realistic view seems to me to fit the true nature of the sacrament. Even in the structure of the atom there is something primordial, a Gestalt, an intrinsic force. The Protestant criticism of any direct magical or mythological use of nature as a carrier of the sacred is heeded.
A remnant of earlier awareness of the forces of nature lies in the idea of the "precious" stone. Where nature is not related to the events of salvation history, its status remains ambiguous.
The Protestant Era by Paul Tillich III. Religion and Ethics
The Idea and the Ideal of Personality
- Personality and Thing
- Personality and Community
- Personality and Soul
Therefore, it is not left to the arbitrary decision of the individual self whether it wants to become a personality. The practical and theoretical recognition of personality is an intrinsic part of the Christian message. This leads to the question of the content of the spiritual life of the autonomous personality.
But even worse is the result of the humanistic "ideal of personality" for the great masses of people. A "religious personality" in the modern sense of the word is a personality in whom religion a.
The Transmoral Conscience
- The Rise of Conscience
- Conscience in the Biblical Literature
- The Interpretation of Conscience in Medieval and Sectarian Theology
- Modern Philosophical Doctrines of the Conscience
- The Idea of a Transmoral Conscience
In principle, Christianity has always maintained the unconditional moral responsibility of the individual person in the Pauline doctrine of conscience. In this way, the conscience became more and more dependent on the authority of the church. An important result arising from this transformation of the concept of conscience is the idea of tolerance and its triumph in the liberal era.
Consciousness is the consciousness of the "categorical (unconditional) imperative", but it is not the consciousness of a particular content of this. It is an expression of the activist element of the bourgeoisie and is identical with bourgeois adaptation to.
Ethics in a Changing World
Third, the rationalist-progressive solution, represented by Anglo-Saxon common sense and expressed in the ethics of the philosophers of reason. Such was the situation at the height of bourgeois development, for example in the Victorian era. And it is precisely this ambiguous nature of love that enables it to be the solution to the question of ethics in a changing world.
Nor did it appear when Stoicism extended equality to all people in the period of the universal Roman Empire. A new creative realization of the element of equality as implied in the principle of love can be brought about in our period.
The Protestant Principle and the Proletarian Situation
- The Vindication of the Protestant Principle in the Proletarian Situation
- The Failure of Historical Protestantism in the Face of the Proletarian Situation
In this sense, the Protestant principle is not alien to the situation of the proletariat in modern society. In the previous analysis the definition of the concept 'the proletarian situation' has been assumed. The proletarian situation should not be understood as the situation in which all members of the proletariat live.
For this reason, the proletarian situation provides a fundamental justification of the Protestant principle and the most serious judgment on historical Protestantism. Protestantism under the stress of the proletarian situation must decide on the Protestant principle in relation to historical Protestantism.
The Protestant Era by Paul Tillich IV. Protestantism
The Word of Religion
If the people of our day are no longer able to say "in spite of", they will not withstand the terrible impact of the historical catastrophe on their minds. But are the churches and religious groups prepared to speak this word of the vertical line, the. Or is the tremendous trend toward activism in America's attitude today a sufficient guarantee for the fulfillment of the religious obligation.
Hope never dies, but is the application of daring “despite” to the tragedy of historical action. The word of religion for the people of our time is not the word of political or economic experts, but, if it is a religious word, it is the word of those who know something about man and history; who know the tragedy and hope that attend the temporal, because they know the eternal; who know the character of the boundaries of the religious.
The Protestant Message and the Man of Today
- The Catholic Church and the Man of Today
- The Protestant Church and the Human Boundary-Situation
- The Protestant Message
It is the awareness of a person's "borderline situation" or the ultimate danger of a person. In this power - in fact, in this helplessness and poverty - the Protestant Church will exist as long as it is aware of the meaning of its own existence. This experience of the liminal situation was expressed through rabbinic, Roman, and scholastic concepts.
Today's man is aware of the human ambiguity we have been talking about. In this way, the Protestant principle denies the church a sacred sphere as its special possession, and denies culture a secular sphere that can escape the judgment of the border situation.
The Formative Power of Protestantism
It is not surprising that the momentum of the protest prevented those who uttered it from raising the question of the gestalt from which the protest emerged. The same applies to the youth's longing for new symbols in the face of utilitarianism. In fact, it sometimes seems as if the absolute, religious critique of crisis theology has stifled the relative, scientific critique found in liberal theology.
It is a real danger for the future of Protestantism that the prophetic spirit of the original crisis theology will be misused in favor of the re-establishment of an orthodoxy that feels secure against the Protestant protest. These are consequences of crisis theology's inability to raise the question of.
II The Reality of Grace
- Protestant Secularism
- Protestant Form-Creation and Religious Knowledge
- Protestant Form-Creation and Religious Action
- The Spirit of Protestantism and Autonomous Culture
- The End of the Protestant Era?
A term like the "gestalt of grace" seems to indicate the end of the Protestant protest and the victory of Rome. Here we see the deepest difference between the Protestant and the Catholic idea of the reality of grace. How do we interpret time in the light of the eternal that breaks into it.
The idea of the Gestalt of grace gives new meaning and vitality to the cult in Protestantism. When we talk about the fact of mass disintegration, we refer mainly to the European situation.
The Protestant Era by Paul Tillich V. The Present Crisis
Storms of Our Times
- The Economic Development
- The International Organization
- The Political System
- The Cultural Movement
- The Religious Situation
It will lead to a new – the fourth – phase of economic development in all countries. The character of the fourth phase is the replacement of state interference by state command. There were colonies, dominions and spheres of influence in the other parts of the world.
In Europe, Britain – the market center of Europe – balanced relations among the continental powers. These are the implications of the status quo solution, however cautiously it may be formulated.
Marxism and Christian Socialism
- The Theological Appreciation of Marxism
- The Theological Criticism of Marxism
Both prophecy and Marxism believe that certain minority groups within a chosen nation or class are the true bearers of historical destiny, that through their actions the meaning of history is realized. Both deny the mechanical necessity as well as the random contingency of the historical process. The structural analogy between prophetism and Marxism is not limited to their interpretations of history.
This applies not only to the prophetic, but also to the Christian teaching of man in general. And they agree that the nature of man cannot be determined by the characteristics of the individual man.