Dreisbach (1980) Essence, Existence, and The Fall - Paul Tillich's Analysis of Existence

Harvard Divinity School
Essence, Existence, and the Fall: Paul Tillich's Analysis of Existence

Author(s): Donald F. Dreisbach
Source: The Harvard Theological Review, Vol. 73, No. 3/4 (Jul. - Oct., 1980), pp. 521-538
Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Harvard Divinity School
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1509738
Accessed: 31-03-2018 09:24 UTC
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide
range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and
facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
http://about.jstor.org/terms
Cambridge University Press, Harvard Divinity School are collaborating with JSTOR to
digitize, preserve and extend access to The Harvard Theological Review
This content downloaded from 212.128.132.111 on Sat, 31 Mar 2018 09:24:08 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
ESSENCE, EXISTENCE, AND THE FALL: PAUL
TILLICH'S ANALYSIS OF EXISTENCE
Donald F. Dreisbach
Northern Michigan University

Marquette, MI 49855
Paul Tillich's theology is largely an attempt to interpret or at

least illuminate Christian concepts by using ontological or philo-
sophical concepts. An important part of Tillich's system is his
treatment of sin and the fall, a treatment that is in effect an
analysis of existence. But this analysis is beset with ambiguities and
difficulties. It is my purpose here to clarify and to defend Tillich's
existential analysis.
I
Although Tillich describes the fall in a variety of ways, he treats

it primarily as a fall from essence to existence. This he calls a
"half-way demythologization" of the biblical myth. "The element
of 'once upon a time' is removed. But the demythologization is
not complete, for the phrase 'transition from essence to existence'
still contains a temporal element" (ST 2. 29).1 The fall is not an
event that happened once in the past history of the race or of an
individual. Rather, it is an ongoing process, a tension between the
essential and the existential.
The distinction between essence and existence Tillich calls "the
backbone of the whole body of theological thought" (ST 1. 204).
However, because Tillich's definition of these terms is so broad,
the distinction is by no means clear. In his longest definition of
essence, he says:
Essence can mean the nature of a thing without any valuation of it, it can
mean the universals which characterize a thing, it can mean the ideas in
IPaul Tillich, Systematic Theology (3 vols.; Chicago: University of Chicago,

1951-63) cited in text as ST.
522 HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
which existing things participate, it can mean the norm by which a thin
must be judged, it can mean the original goodness of everything created
and it can mean the patterns of all things in the divine mind. The basic am-
biguity, however, lies in the oscillation of the meaning between an
empirical and valuating sense. Essence as the nature of a thing, or as the
quality in which a thing participates, has one character. Essence as th
from which being has "fallen," the true and undistorted nature of thing
has another character. In the second case essence is the basis of value
judgments, while in the first case essence is a logical ideal to be reached by
abstraction of intuition without the interference of valuations. (ST 1. 202-3)
As Adrian Thatcher has observed, "The [above] passage reads

very like an entry in a dictionary of philosophy than a helpfu
guide to the behaviour of the word essence in the system."2
Tillich's definition of Existence is almost as ambiguous:
Essence can mean the possibility of finding a thing within the whole of
being, it can mean the actuality of what is potential in the realm of
essences, it can mean a type of thinking which is aware of its existential
conditions or which rejects essence entirely. Again, an unavoidable ambigu-
ity justifies the use of this one word in these different senses. Whatever
exists, that is, "stands out" of mere potentiality, is more than it is in the
state of mere potentiality and less than it could be in the power of its
essential nature. (ST 1. 203)
What does emerge from this passage is Tillich's understanding of

essence as the realm of potentiality, and existence as the actualiza
tion of or standing out from this potentiality. "If we say that
something exists, we say that it has left the state of mere poten-
tiality and has become actual" (ST 2. 21).
The fall is from essence to existence, from potentiality to
actuality. But it is not a complete break from essence. "The
essential nature of man is present in all stages of his development,
although in existential distortion" (ST 2. 33). The essential state,
which Tillich calls "the dreaming innocence of undecided potenti-
alities," is distorted within existence. Referring to Plato's doctrine
of essences, Tillich says, "to exist, i.e., to stand out of potentiality,
is the loss of true essentiality. It is not a complete loss, for man
still stands in his potential or essential being. He remembers it,
and, through his remembrance, he participates in the true and the
good. He stands in and out of the essential realm" (ST 2. 22).
We have mentioned Plato, and Tillich borrows heavily from
Plato and from the Neoplatonic Christian tradition. The immediate
2Adrian Thatcher, The Ontology of Paul Tillich (Oxford: Oxford University, 1978
102.
DONALD F. DREISBACH 523
background of his philosophic education was German idealism

he was especially impressed by the later Schelling. And in
notion of essences being distorted in existence, Tillich see
similarity to Aristotle:
We envisage the Aristotelian distinction between dynamis and energei
between potentiality and actuality, from an existentialist viewpoint. Cer-
tainly this is not too different from Aristotle's own view, which emphasizes
the lasting ontological tension between matter and form in all existence.
(ST 3. 12)
Tillich has been sharply criticized for his eclecticism,3 and

mixture of seemingly incompatible elements drawn from the t
tion sometimes makes his thought appear a confused jumble ra
than a coherent system. But Tillich is neither an Idealist, a
Platonist, nor an Aristotelian, and he does not necessarily use
these borrowed elements in the same way their originators did.
Victor Nouvo makes an interesting comment about Tillich's rela-
tion to Schelling:
The aim of speculative thought is to explain the origin of the manifold
from the one absolute being. This was not Tillich's purpose, either in his
dissertations or in his later works. His philosophical orientation was consis-
tently critical rather than speculative. His concept of critical philosophy was
broad enough to include ontology, but Tillich's ontology is not a specu-
lative metaphysics.4
Nouvo also says of Schelling's potencies, out of which the ideas

grow, that they are "the abiding deep structure of Tillich's
thought," but "they have become more method than
metaphysics."5 And this is true of much of Tillich's metaphysical
construction; it is not metaphysics in the traditional sense, not
metaphysics for its own sake, but is produced to serve his wider
methodological aims. Although he clearly wants to maintain a
relation to the great metaphysicians of the past, his method is a
critical-phenomenological one, and he does not aim at a rational or
deductive metaphysical system. Indeed, he explicitly rejects such
system building. Rationality and system mean for him not a
deductive system but "a whole of propositions which are consis-
tent, interdependent, and developed according to a definite
method."6
31bid., 96.
4In his Introduction to his translation of Tillich's The Construction of the History of
Religion in Schelling's Positive Philosophy (Lewisburg: Bucknell University, 1974) 18.
SIbid., 23.
6Tillich, "The Problem of Theological Method," JR 27 (1947) 23.
Tillich's "definite method" is never very clearly explained, b

seems to consist of using ontological concepts to constru
phenomenological description. These ontological concepts are
deduced from higher premises but "are products of a c
analysis of experience." They are a priori, not in that the
known prior to experience, but rather that "they determine
nature of experience. They are present whenever someth
experienced" (ST 1. 166).
Although he makes passing references to Husserl, Tillich's
tion of phenomenological method has little to do with Hu
complex method of reductions or the intuition of pure stru
of consciousness. Tillich does say that the intuitive-descr
element of phenomenology must be united with an existe
critical element, although this seems mostly to have to do wi
intelligent picking of examples for phenomenological investig
(ST 1. 107).
The point of using phenomenological method in theology is
ensure "careful descriptions of its concepts and to use them
logical consistency" (ST 1. 106). And the ultimate aim is simp
convincing picture:
The test of a phenomenological description is that the picture given by it
convincing, that it can be seen by anyone who is willing to look in t
same direction, that the description illuminates other related ideas, and tha
it makes the reality which these ideas are supposed to reflect under
standable. Phenomenology is a way of pointing to phenomena as they "gi
themselves," without interference of negative or positive prejudices and e
planations. (ST 1. 106)
It is important to note that Tillich does not view thoug

confined to the phenomenal, with no application to extra-m
reality. Following the later Idealists, he argues that the
structure, the universal structure of reason, pervades bot
mind and reality. Therefore the a priori structures of exper
we discover by analysis can also be taken to represent the ra
structure of reality (ST 1. 75).
In summary, what Tillich is doing is taking ontological con
and using them to construct a phenomenological descript
picture of the existential state. Concepts like essence and
tence, whatness and thatness, are necessary parts of our exp
ence of anything, and are derived from an analysis of exper
(We never see this analysis, and it might be more honest to
that they are drawn from the philosophical tradition.) The t
correctness of Tillich's existential analysis ought to be not so
its logical rigor as whether the description or picture produ

clear, convincing, and enlightening.
II
Essence and existence are the two primary elements Tillich uses
to construct his picture of the existential state. The clarity of that
picture therefore depends on how well we can understand his use
of these terms. The definitions we saw earlier are so broad as to
mean almost anything. However, Tillich's use of these terms is
much more controlled than the definitions would lead us to expect.
Existence generally means the actualization of potentialities, a not
unusual view. And the ambiguities in the meaning of essence, the
use of essence in both an empirical and an evaluative sense, are
not the result of philosophical carelessness. Rather, they reflect
Tillich's view that our knowledge of what a thing is, of its essence,
is primarily knowledge of what a thing can be, its potentialities,
and how well something fulfills its potentialities is the basis of the
evaluation of that thing.
Tillich also, perhaps unfortunately, uses the notion of essence to
account for universal concepts. He claims that the problem of how
essences can be related to both universals and particulars is solved
when one understands that "there is no difference in the divine
mind between potentiality and actuality" (ST 1. 254). This solution
is unlikely to persuade many nominalists to defect to the realist
camp. But a solution to the vexing problem of universals is not
necessary for Tillich's purposes, and probably he should have
avoided the entire issue, although Tillich's most basic claim, that
language is somehow related to the way things really are, is at the
very least a plausible one.
Much more important is Tillich's use of essence in an empirical
sense, essence as "a logical ideal to be reached by abstraction or
intuition" (ST 1. 203). Tillich does not explain the mechanics of
abstraction or intuition, nor is it very clear just what "a logical
ideal" is. But Tillich's main point is simply that everything is
something, has some nature, and we can have at least some
knowledge of what that nature is. We do normally talk about and
so apparently know about not only various members of a species
but about the cow or the cuttlefish.
Directly related to this empirical sense is essence as potentiality
and essence as basis of evaluation. A farmer might form a negative
opinion of Bossy because she fails to produce milk. But this
opinion is based on empirical knowledge of cows and of their

ability to produce milk, i.e., empirical knowledge of potentia
which cows have but which Bossy fails to actualize. Tillich use
example of evaluating a tree. "We compare its actual state wi
image, an eidos or an idea that we have of its essential natur
call it a poor or sick or mutilated exemplar of what, for insta
pine tree could be."7
Adrian Thatcher objects that:
Judgments of value ... are not made in quite this way. A pine tree can b
judged a sick or a healthy specimen by a comparison with other member
of its class, without reference to an essential or ideal pine.8
If by "essential or ideal pine" Thatcher means some entity w

ontological status equal to or greater than individual, existin
trees, he is surely correct. But in spite of Tillich's use of term
"eidos" and "logical ideal," it may not and need not be his
position that only a Platonist can be a competent woodsman. An
"eidos" is, as Tillich says, an image or idea. This idea is gained
through experience of members of a class, and is an idea of what a
pine tree is and can be. If we did not know that a pine tree could
be full, healthy, and whole, how could we ever recognize one to
be poor, sick, or mutilated?
We have been talking about trees and cows. But we also
evaluate men. And certainly one, if not the only, way we do this is
based on empirical knowledge of what men might be. Because I
know men, directly and vicariously, I know that it is possible for
men to be intelligent, honest, compassionate, and brave. I there-
fore reproach others, or myself, for failing to actualize these
possibilities I know are present.9 Indeed, one of the most stinging
rebukes of a course of action is that it is "unmanly." What does
this mean but that the act fails to actualize potentialities present to
man just qua man? But failure is unintelligible unless we have
some sense of what success would be. Here Tillich's three main
senses of essence come together, essence as empirical, essence as
evaluating, and essence as potentiality. I only know what man
7Tillich, "Is a Science of Human Values Possible?" New Knowledge in Human

Values, ed. A. H. Maslow (New York: Harper & Bros., 1959) 193.
8Thatcher, Ontology of Paul Tillich, 109.
9This is hardly a new idea, being at least as old as Aristotle. The best
contemporary development and defense of the claim that values are based on
knowledge of what a man is is Henry B. Veatch, Rational Man (Bloomington:
Indiana University, 1966).
might be because I know something about the nature of man,

because I know what man might be, I have a standard to ju
what man is. That is why I do not reproach a man for not bei
able to fly like a bird. Flying is not a potentiality that belong
the nature of man; being honest is.
There is a further sense in which a sense of potentiality is tie
evaluation and reproach, a personal sense. Just as I do not
reproach a man for not being able to fly, I do not reproach myself
for failing to make more touchdowns or failing to get elected to
public office. Being an athlete or a politician are potentialities that
belong to someone, but they do not belong to me. I do reproach
myself for not being a more productive scholar or creative teacher
because these are possibilities that are mine.
Tillich generally uses the term "essence" to mean the nature and
the potentialities that belong to a species, but he sometimes uses it
to mean the nature and potentialities of an individual. This is
confusing, and Tillich's attempt to work out the relation of these
two essences is not very successful.10 But while it may be ambigu-
ous to use the same term to designate both realities, I do have a
human nature and human potentialities, as well as my own nature
and my own, unique potentialities, and I reproach myself for
failing to actualize both kinds. Furthermore, it is not always easy
to differentiate the two kinds of potentialities. I have, for example,
the potentiality to be a better friend. To what extent is this a
potentiality that I share with all men and to what extent is it an
aspect of my unique life and situation? Such a question might be
answerable, but it is by no means easy or obvious. The ambiguity
of the situation Tillich is describing offers some justification for the
ambiguity in the term he uses to describe it.
But what has all of this to do with sin? Why call the actualization
of potentialities a fall? The answer is that potentialities are never
completely actualized. As a living being I am continually grasping
and actualizing some of my possibilities. In doing so, I am at the
same time rejecting other possibilities that are equally mine. If I
commit myself to something, no matter how good that thing is in
itself, I reject other goods. If I choose to be a scholar, I cannot be
a fireman or a cowboy. If I put more energy and time into my
10Tillich, My Search for Absolutes (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1967) 73-75.
Tillich argues that the essence of the individual, which "shines through the
temporal manifestations of a human being," is the object of "the artists who create
essential images of individuals in paint or stone, in drama or novel, in poetry or
biography" (p. 75).
teaching and scholarship, I must put less into family, friends

for my health, and so forth. My choices are freely made, and
are not in themselves necessarily bad choices, but they a
entail rejection of other essential possibilities which mig
equally good. And those possibilities I do choose are never
actualized. It is always open to me to be a better scholar,
friend, better lover.
One can attempt to remain innocent by refusing to choose
this too is a choice, "a choice either to remain in a state of n
actualized potentialities or to trespass the state of innocence a
actualize them. In both cases something is lost; in the first, a
actualized humanity; in the second, the innocent resting in m
potentiality. The classical example is the sexual anxiety of
adolescent."1 To choose innocence, to reject the actualizati
all potentialities, is to decide to be as little as possible. It is a
withdrawal from actual life. But by choosing to be, by actualizing
my potentialities, I become a distortion of my essential nature. I
do not, of course, loose my essence. I remain myself and always
have potentialities, but as existing I manifest them in an incom-
plete and distorted way. Existence is not totally broken from
essence, but, as Tillich often says, is estranged from it. This
explains Tillich's apparently perplexing assertions that essence ap-
pears in an existing thing "in an imperfect and distorted way" (ST
1. 203) and that existence is more than essence, i.e., it is the
actualization of essential potentialities, but is also less than it
essentially could be. What becomes actual is always an incomplete
manifestation of essential possibilities.
It might seem plausible and even obvious to say of the bad man
that he has made bad choices, for which he is responsible, and the
result of those choices is to fail to actualize and so to distort what
he could be. But Tillich is extending this to the good man. Even
the man who generally makes proper choices fails to actualize all
the potentialities open to him and so distorts his essential nature.
Thus the feeling that most men have at some time in their lives
that life could be different, could be more, could be better, even
though we are responsible for life's not being better, is for Tillich
an accurate insight, even though the limitations of life are inevita-
ble and are indeed necessary consequences of actually being any-
thing at all.
1 Tillich, "Existential Analysis and Religious Symbols," Contemporary Problems in

Religion, ed. H. A. Basilius (Detroit: Wayne University, 1956) 46.
And this inevitable distortion, in an existing being, of essen

possibilities is the product of free choice, and so is properly c
sin. Sin is, for Tillich, more than just another word for estra
ment. It points to "the element of personal responsibility in o
estrangement" and "the personal act of turning away from tha
which one belongs" (ST 2. 46).
III
We have seen that Tillich need not be understood as a Platonic

dualist. However, a fall must be from something, and Tillich does
claim essences have an independent ontological standing, although
they cannot properly be said to exist. About his favorite example,
treehood, he says:
Within the whole of being as it is encountered, there are structures which
have no existence and things which have existence on the basis of
structures. Treehood does not exist, although it has being, namely, poten-
tial being. But the tree in my back yard does exist. It stands out of the
mere potentiality of treehood. But it stands out and exists only because it
participates in that power of being which is treehood, that power which
makes every tree a tree and nothing else. (ST 2. 21)
Here Tillich does not use the word "essence," although that
seems to be what he means by "structures." And he says some-
thing similar in one of his accounts of Schelling:
There could not be a tree if there were not the structure of treehood
eternally even before trees existed and even after trees go out of existence
altogether. The same is true of man. The essence of man is eternally given
before any man appeared on earth. It is potentially or essentially given, but
it is not actually or existentially given.12
Here essences are described as structures, powers of being, by

implication closely related to God (God is the power of being), and
they are necessary conditions for anything to be. But these struc-
tures are not existing entities. Tillich defines the ontological dif-
ference between essence and existence by reference to two types
of non-being: ouk on or absolute and me on or relative non-being
(ST 2. 20).
Ouk on is the "nothing" which has no relation at all to being; me on is the
"nothing" which has a dialectical relation to being. The Platonic school
12Tillich, Perspectives on 19th and 20th Century Protestant Theology (New York:
Harper & Row, 1967) 151. Although he is here discussing Schelling, it is clear that
Tillich approves of this position.
identified me on with that which does not yet have being but which ca
become being if it is united with essences or ideas. (ST 1. 188)13
To both kinds of non-being there is a correlative kind of be

Potential being stands out of ouk on. A potentiality is not no
and so must stand out of absolute non-being. But a potential
not actual, and so does not stand out of relative non-bein
being of essence is relative or potential being:
As potential being, it is in the state of relative non-being, it is not-yet
being. But it is not nothing. Potentiality is the state of real possibility, tha
is, it is more than a logical possibility. Potentiality is the power of bein
which, metaphorically speaking, has not yet realized its power. The pow
of being is still latent; it has not yet become manifest. (ST 2. 20)
To exist, to be the actualization of a potentiality, is to stand

of me on or relative non-being. But an existing thing is fini
can lose all its possibilities and cease (absolutely) to be. It can
change, and so cease (relatively) to be what it is and bec
something else:
An actual thing stands out of mere potentiality; but it also remains in it.
never pours its power of being completely into its state of existence.
never fully exhausts its potentialities. It remains not only in absolute no
being, as its finitude shows, but also in relative non-being, as the changin
character of its existence shows. (ST 2. 21)
An essence, a potentiality or, perhaps better, a cluster of po

tialities, is not nothing. It is real, but only in a very limited
But, and here Tillich sides with Aristotle against Plato, it is
existing particular that is the highest manifestation of being.
It may not be obviously true that the only way to account f
tree being a tree is by reference to an essence or structure.
does make sense to say that a tree can only exist if it is poss
for trees to exist. And since trees do exist, there must always
been and there always will be a possibility of trees, althou
course a wide variety of conditions must be met if this possibi
to be actualized. Hence Tillich's claim that essences as potenti
ties are not only real but eternal is not so odd.
It also makes sense to talk about an essence as having some
limited level of reality, quite independent of existence, and to
claim that such an essence is not estranged or fallen, although all
13Thatcher (Ontology of Paul Tillich, 49-51) argues that Tillich's use of me on is

not the same as Plato's. However, this neither weakens nor makes incomprehensi-
ble Tillich's position.
existing beings are. Let us consider an example, an essence in

sense of a cluster of possibilities belonging to a particular,
existing nature. I have no siblings, but if my parents had
another son, I would then have a brother. My brother is a
potential or essential being, not an existing one. I can think about
and imagine a brother and what it would be like to have one. I
even know something about my brother, for instance what his last
name would be and that his genetic structure would be similar to
mine. My potential brother then is the object of thought and
knowledge, and so must be in some sense. His ontological status
must be more than absolute zero, even though he does not and
never will exist.
And a potential or essential being such as my brother not only
has a level of reality independent of existence, it is also free of sin
and not fallen. To fall is to distort one's essential possibilities, and
so to become estranged from one's essence. But my nonexistent
brother has never rejected or distorted any of his potentialities; he
has never done or chosen anything. He is his potentialities, fully
and completely. Lacking existence, he is his essence and cannot be
estranged from it.
Tillich's picture of the human situation now comes into clearer
focus. My essence is a cluster of possibilities, possibilities that
belong to me because I am a man and because I am the particular
man that I am. These possibilities are real, and therefore have
some ontological status, which Tillich calls potential being, a
limited, unactualized level of being. The act of existing, of taking
on actual being, is the actualization of potentialities. But in this
process of actualization potentialities are rejected, and those that
are actualized are not perfectly realized. Hence existence, although
ontologically a higher state of being, is a distortion of and a falling
away from essential possibilities. So to be, and especially to be a
human being, is to be in a continual tension between essence and
existence, between what is and what could be.
IV
Many objections have been raised against Tillich's position, the

most common being that he makes existence purely negative,
giving everything positive, and a higher ontological status, to
essence.14 Such objections might be legitimate if aimed at Plotinus,
14Thatcher, Ontology of Paul Tillich, 116; also Kenan B. Osborne, New Being (The
Hague: Nijhoff, 1969) 110, 194.
and, because there is so much Neoplatonism in Tillich, it is e

see how they might be aimed at him. And Tillich does sa
existence is a distortion of essence and is estranged from es
nature and from God.
But Tillich's view of existence is ambiguous and tragic, rather
than simply negative. Although to exist is to fall, existence is also
the fulfillment of creation (ST 1. 256). And we have seen that the
ontological status of essence is, in Tillich's thought, more than
nothing but clearly less than that of existence. If Tillich thought of
existence as simply negative and bad, his conclusion would have to
be that it would be better if nothing existed at all, a strange
conclusion indeed and surely not Tillich's intention.
We have seen that an essence, a cluster of possibilities, has not
had any of its potentialities rejected or distorted. It is therefore a
full and undistorted manifestation of its being, but it has only
potential and not actual being. My nonexistent brother has never
made a bad choice, never rejected any of his essential possibilities,
never done anything to estrange himself from himself, from
others, or from God. I have. But it does not follow from this that
my brother is a better man than I am. I, for all my faults, am an
actual being and, although fallen and estranged from my essential
potentialities, what value I do have is actual. My brother's is only
potential. Just as Aristotle's form is not superior in all respects to a
matter-form substance, so is it wrong to think of Tillich's essence
as absolutely superior to an existing reality.
A rather similar question is how freedom and responsibility,
through which I fall into existence, can belong to essence, since
freedom and responsibility are mine, and I exist.15 But this ques-
tion only makes sense if we suppose that essence and existence are
somehow two different entities, as though there were two different
beings, an actual and a potential one, engaged in a struggle. But I
am only one being, although as an actual, existing being I am the
actualization of some essential potentialities. If freedom and re-
sponsibility belong to me because I am a human being, they are
part of my essential nature. But that nature is what I am; I am my
essence, although in a distorted way. Hence I am free and respon-
sible.
A similar line of attack, although coming more from the theolo-
gical than the philosophical side, centers on the apparent necessity
15Joachim Track, Der theologische Ansatz Paul Tillichs (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck &
Ruprecht, 1975) 399.
of sin and fall in Tillich's doctrine. If sin is universal, and cr

implies existence and freedom as well as essence, then God i
source of sin.16 This goes against the traditional Christian v
the goodness of God. Further, according to Reinhold Niebuh
sin and the fall are explained ontologically, "we end wit
difficult conclusion that temporal existence is really evil. It i
only when it is potential and not actual. Thus the line is bre
between what has always separated Christianity's attitude to
time and history from the ontological speculations of W
classical thought and Oriental mysticism."17
We have already seen that it is wrong to call existence une
cally evil or negative. But now the issue is the relation of th
into existence to God's creative activity. Tillich's first li
defense is to claim that the fall is the result of freedom and so is
not a necessary consequence of God's creativity. But this claim is
itself subject to difficulties. As one critic puts it:
But what does it mean to assert that something always occurs yet is not
necessary? It is not enough simply to assert the distinction. Tillich is
obliged to explicate it. Yet he allows it to remain a verbal distinction
without showing that it expresses any real difference.18
But Tillich does attempt to explicate the distinction between

necessity and universality. In response to Niebuhr, he says:
It is my assertion that the fulfillment of creation and the beginning of the
fall are, though logically different, ontologically the same. Perhaps I should
have said "actualization" instead of "fulfillment." "Fulfillment" seems to
connote that an unfinished creation has been finished in an evil way. This,
of course, is not my idea. The fall is the work of finite freedom, but it
happened universally in everything finite, and therefore unavoidably (a
word used by Mr. Niebuhr for the same purpose). The universality and
consequently the unavoidability of the fall is not derived from "ontological
speculation" but from a realistic observation of man, his heart, and his
history.19
16Gerhard Schepers, Schopfung und allgemeine Siindigkeit: Die Auffassung Paul

Tillichs im Kontext der heutigen Diskussion (Essen: Ludgerus, 1974) 117-18.
17Reinhold Niebuhr, "Biblical Thought and Ontological Speculation in Tillich's
Theology," The Theology of Paul Tillich, ed. Charles W. Kegley and Robert W.
Bretall (New York: Macmillan, 1961) 225.
18Joel R. Smith, "Creation, Fall and Theodicy in Paul Tillich's Systematic
Theology," Kairos and Logos, ed. John J. Carey (Cambridge: The North American
Paul Tillich Society, 1978) 163.
19Tillich, "Reply to Interpretation and Criticism," in Kegley and Bretall, Theology
of Paul Tillich, 342-43.
That Tillich says his view of the universality of the fall is b

on realistic observation rather than ontological speculation a
with the earlier claim that his method is a phenomenolo
rather than a deductive, one and that ontological terms are
used for the creation of a picture of existential reality. Tilli
claim that creation and fall are the same ontologically but diff
logically sounds perplexing, but all he means is that the
event, coming into existence, has two different meanings, de
ing on how one looks at it. To come into existence is to actu
potentialities and become an actual being, the fullest express
the power of being. In this sense it is a positive event an
fulfillment of creation. But this same coming into existence i
rejection of and incomplete fulfillment of those possibilities
is a distortion of and falling away from them. And from this
of view it is negative.
But this does not explain why the fall is universal if it is
necessary. Ultimately, Tillich admits that such an explanatio
impossible; the fall cannot be adequately explained. In spite o
universality, "no real explanation of the fall into existen
possible. The transition from essence to existence, from the p
tial to the actual, from dreaming innocence to existential gui
tragedy, is irrational" (ST 2. 91).
I think that theology should take seriously the fact that some of th
greatest philosophers (Plato, Origen, Kant, Schelling), in spite of the
belief in the power of reason, have been driven to the myth of t
transcendent fall. It is not "speculation" (today a disparaging word) b
their impression of the radical and universal nature of evil which dro
them to conceive of a myth in which both human freedom and the trag
nature of existence are asserted-though not explained-in terms of struc
tural necessity.20
The mystery of the fall is grounded "in the unity of freedom

destiny in the ground of being" (ST 1. 256).
This unity in the ground of being might not explain much
before Tillich's position is rejected out of hand for being myt
ical or irrational, we should make clear just what it is that h
being irrational about. He is claiming that there is no nec
connection between essence and existence, between potential
and the actualization of those potentialities. But this is hard
unusual position. If Tillich were to hold that there is a lo
connection between essence and existence and therefore a log
20Ibid., 343.
explanation of why potentialities get actualized, he would ha

abandon his claim that life is constructed through the inter
of freedom and destiny. There would thus be no place in Til
system for our sense of responsibility for our lives and guilt
our failures. His system would hardly be strengthened by e
ing such common human experience.
We have seen that Tillich's intended method is phenomeno
cal; he aims to describe what it is to exist. A description is n
explanation, and it is therefore not surprising that there are
of Tillich's system which are mysterious. This is not to deny
clear picture might increase our understanding of a phenom
By seeing that to exist is to choose some essential possibiliti
reject others, we get some understanding of why existen
estranged from, and a distortion of, essence, of why life is n
it could and should be. But this description does not explain w
is impossible for one to actualize all of his possibilities or to
those he does actualize and so be perfect lover, scholar, or f
But what explanation could be given, except the tautological
that life is by its nature imperfect and limited?
There is the further question of why I exist at all, wh
essential nature becomes actual. Although life is formed out o
interaction of freedom and destiny, I cannot exercise my fr
unless I exist. To this question Tillich gives only the weak, p
unintelligible, answer that freedom and destiny are active i
ground of being. But what are we really asking? Why do I,
than someone else, exist; why do I, rather than my pote
nonexistent brother, exist? A biological answer will account f
existence of someone; it will not account for the existence o
Who does give an intelligible answer to this kind of question
existence is something of a surprise, an event for which no
good reason can be given. But, Tillich argues, even this o
and surprising existence is something for which, through a
freedom throughout my life, I assume responsibility and gu
2. 44).
The picture Tillich gives us is not a very happy one. We choose
our lives freely, but it is a Hobson's choice, either an existence
that is fallen or an innocence that is almost totally lacking in
reality. One critic asks why the circumstances of our choices could
not be arranged in a less destructive way? "By structuring the
situation as he did, whoever arranged the context in which our
choice occurred must share partial, if not major, responsibility for
the Fall that resulted."21 Furthermore, if, as Tillich claims, G

a Providence directing everything toward its fulfillment, Go
only sets up the situation of choice in His creativity but
intimately involved in those acts and choices which result i
and estrangement. The traditional goodness of God is the
severely compromised.22
But such arguments, which resemble Hume's complaint th
God is the architect of the universe he is not a very com
one,23 cannot be so easily applied to Tillich. For him, all asser
about God, with very few exceptions, are symbolic, not
Tillich's assertion that God is a Providence does not mean that
some being called God literally designs, constructs, and directs the
world. Hence God is not literally responsible for the fallen state of
existence.
But the doctrine of symbols does not completely solve the
problem. If God is not literally responsible for and involved in
man's fall, is God symbolically so responsible and involved?
Rather than getting involved in the complex business of explica-
ting symbols, let us admit that in Tillich's system God is in some
sense responsible for and involved in the fall, and that this is
difficult to reconcile with God's goodness. But this is a difficulty
inherent in the Christian tradition, not in Tillich's systematic
presentation of it, as is evidenced by the similarity of the above
objections to Hume's, who surely was not criticizing Tillich.
If one claims that sin is original and therefore unavoidable, if not
by Adam at least by everyone since, it is difficult to reconcile this
claim with the power and goodness of God. St. Augustine, who
thought about the problem as much as anyone, could find no
rational reason why God did not orient men's wills toward the
good without violating either human nature or human freedom.24
And Tillich is hardly the first Christian to maintain that God acts
in the hand of the murderer. Tillich's orthodoxy is often ques-
tioned. Here he maintains the traditional position, inherits the
difficulties that go with it, and seems to become the target for
objections that ought to be aimed at the tradition itself, not at a
particular exposition of it.
21Smith, "Creation, Fall and Theodicy," 165.

22Ibid., 166.
23Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, Part XI.
24The problem is discussed at length by R. Jolivet, "Evil," NCE 5. 699.
We have seen a certain amount of mystery, disorder, and e

irrationality in Tillich's picture of the existential situation. Bu
does not necessarily count against him. Rather, it might mean
his picture is accurate, that it reflects the disorder, myster
irrationality in existence, especially in human existence. At
one commentator, well aware of the peculiarities and difficul
Tillich's system, is none the less impressed by its accuracy:
Many readers will be baffled by the idea that the actualization of fin
freedom is, from one point of view, the telos of creation, and from anothe
point of view the ruination of creation. Yet some such way of describin
the grandeur and the misery of man seems more faithful to our actu
situation than formulae which abide by logical niceties. In terms of t
story of creation, Tillich is saying, first, that unless man goes beyon
innocence (potentiality) he cannot mature as a responsible person; an
secondly, that there is no way of leaving innocence without entering th
sphere of conflicts and of moral distinctions where one becomes sinful a
guilty.25
We have seen that Tillich's method is phenomenological, that

his intention is to produce a description of what it is to exist.
Evaluating Tillich's efforts is subject to the same difficulties inher-
ent in the evaluation of any description. As it is description rather
than argument, logical issues play at most a secondary role. The
aim of this essay has, therefore, been less to defend or strengthen
Tillich's arguments than simply to bring the picture into focus.
And the picture must be evaluated primarily in terms of its ability
to convince and enlighten, its agreement with and clarification of
one's own experience, especially one's experience of human exis-
tence.
Not all critics agree that Tillich's picture is accurate. A Marxist,
for instance, claims that the description is of the estranged and
distorted life under Capitalism, not of life universally.26 But
Tillich's picture is not necessarily without any rational defense. We
can point out that all men have possibilities, and in choosing some
they reject others, thereby failing to actualize all the potentialities
belonging to them. Surely this aspect of Tillich's picture is true of
all men, no matter what their culture or social system.
25David E. Roberts, "Tillich's Doctrine of Man," Kegley and Bretall, Theology of

Paul Tillich, 126.
26Gerhard Winter, "Paul Tillichs Frage nach dem Sinn des Lebens und die Kreise
des burgerlichen Geschichtsbewusstseins," Deutsche Zeitschrift fdr Philosophie 16
(1968) 312ff.
Another way we might defend Tillich's work is to poin

various nuances or aspects of the picture he produces, just a
art critic might defend the value of a painting by pointin
various aspects of it. And one such aspect is the way in whic
deliniates the tension in life between what is and what could
and our awareness of this tension. We do often reproach our
and others for not making as much of life as could be made
we would probably also reproach for pomposity and ignoran
who claimed his life was as good as it could possibly be. A
Tillich's analysis, even more than those of Heidegger or S
highlights not only the inevitability of the tension in existenc
also the element of personal responsibility for it. In this Tillic
in spite of the many theological objections raised agains
position, done much to make the Christian doctrine of sin in
ble.
Tillich's picture takes seriously the awareness that existence is
not what it could be, avoiding a naturalism which, in his words,
"does not try to answer the question of why man is aware of
negativity as something that should not be and for which he is
responsible" (ST 2. 30). At the same time it avoids the Utopian-
ism of Idealism or Essentialism, for example Hegel's, where "the
fall is reduced to the difference between ideality and reality, and
reality is then seen as pointing toward the ideal" (ST 2.29). While
Tillich does not counsel a quietism, there is no misleading and
ultimately disappointing sense that in the next progressive move-
ment in history all the pain and negativity of existence will be
removed.
Finally, in evaluating Tillich's existential analysis, one must
remember that his picture is intended to point beyond itself, to
other aspects of Tillich's system. Indeed, the whole phenomenolo-
gical analysis is purely preparatory, a preparation for Tillich's
treatment of the Christ and of salvation. Ultimately, then, Tillich's
picture of human existence must be judged not only in terms of
how well it illuminates one's own experience of life, but also in
terms of how well this conceptual picture can be integrated into
the rest of Tillich's system. But that issue must be the subject of
another essay.

Dreisbach (1980) Essence, Existence, and The Fall - Paul Tillich's Analysis of Existence

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Dreisbach (1980) Essence, Existence, and The Fall - Paul Tillich's Analysis of Existence

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Harvard Divinity School

Essence, Existence, and the Fall: Paul Tillich's Analysis of Existence

Northern Michigan University

Paul Tillich's theology is largely an attempt to interpret or at

Although Tillich describes the fall in a variety of ways, he treats

IPaul Tillich, Systematic Theology (3 vols.; Chicago: University of Chicago,

As Adrian Thatcher has observed, "The [above] passage reads

What does emerge from this passage is Tillich's understanding of

background of his philosophic education was German idealism

Tillich has been sharply criticized for his eclecticism,3 and

Nouvo also says of Schelling's potencies, out of which the ideas

Tillich's "definite method" is never very clearly explained, b

It is important to note that Tillich does not view thoug

its logical rigor as whether the description or picture produ

opinion is based on empirical knowledge of cows and of their

If by "essential or ideal pine" Thatcher means some entity w

7Tillich, "Is a Science of Human Values Possible?" New Knowledge in Human

might be because I know something about the nature of man,

teaching and scholarship, I must put less into family, friends

1 Tillich, "Existential Analysis and Religious Symbols," Contemporary Problems in

And this inevitable distortion, in an existing being, of essen

We have seen that Tillich need not be understood as a Platonic

Here essences are described as structures, powers of being, by

To both kinds of non-being there is a correlative kind of be

To exist, to be the actualization of a potentiality, is to stand

An essence, a potentiality or, perhaps better, a cluster of po

13Thatcher (Ontology of Paul Tillich, 49-51) argues that Tillich's use of me on is

existing beings are. Let us consider an example, an essence in

Many objections have been raised against Tillich's position, the

and, because there is so much Neoplatonism in Tillich, it is e

of sin and fall in Tillich's doctrine. If sin is universal, and cr

But Tillich does attempt to explicate the distinction between

16Gerhard Schepers, Schopfung und allgemeine Siindigkeit: Die Auffassung Paul

That Tillich says his view of the universality of the fall is b

The mystery of the fall is grounded "in the unity of freedom

explanation of why potentialities get actualized, he would ha

the Fall that resulted."21 Furthermore, if, as Tillich claims, G

21Smith, "Creation, Fall and Theodicy," 165.

We have seen a certain amount of mystery, disorder, and e

We have seen that Tillich's method is phenomenological, that

25David E. Roberts, "Tillich's Doctrine of Man," Kegley and Bretall, Theology of

Another way we might defend Tillich's work is to poin

You might also like