Dynamics of Faith (Perennial Classic.)

Author - Paul Tillich ... [Goo?] [Posters]

This Paperback Book item from HarperOne was reviewed on 12-Dec-2008.

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1) Paperback Book Dynamics of Faith (Perennial Classic.) by HarperOne. I have read this book from cover to cover. As I have said with all of Tillich´s stuff it can be very heavy. But don´t take heavy for unreadable. Stuff today has a tendency to be light and fluffy with no substance. Tillich is all about substance. This book will strengthen the faith of any reader.¤

2) Paperback Book Dynamics of Faith (Perennial Classic.) by HarperOne. Tillich starts off trying to entice you into his REDEFINITION of faith as "the state of having an ultimate concern". He then proceeds to fabricate thereon his muddled semantic garden of pontifications (he doesn´t present arguments, he just proclaims) in which there can be no real conflicts - how nice. Instead of simply calling his concept "ultimate concern" or something else, he would rather usurp the much sexier word "faith". Blithely junking the usual and traditional notion of faith having to do with a conviction that a thing or statement unproven by evidence is true and substituting his own, he can easily get by with claiming that there is no conflict between faith (i.e., ultimate concern) and reason, or between faith and science, or between faith and anything really. Thus he, as Sam Harris points out in his cogent book "The End Of Faith", merely hides all the nasty problems and religious conflicts under his new but confusing jungle of semantic nonsense.

Somehow his constructs make him write verbage like "God is the symbol for God", or "If `existence´ refers to something which can be found within the whole of reality, no divine being exists" - heavy man! - or that something can be "beyond finite and infinity". Actually he employs the word "beyond" a lot.

Tillich semantic tricks only make him irrelevant in the real world of real moral problems and conflicts. It´s bubble gum theology for the must-feel-good. It´s sweet to chew on and makes nice bubbles, and who among his flower children is going to exhale enough to bust any.
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3) Paperback Book Dynamics of Faith (Perennial Classic.) by HarperOne. Since I only read two books by Tillich, this one plus "The Courage to Be", it may be somewhat risky to comment upon his ideas. This review should therefore be seen as preliminary. It´s really a review of both books, although most of the contents covered are found in "The Dynamics of Faith". For those entirely new to the subject, Tillich was a Christian theologian, usually regarded as very liberal and existentialist. He was German, but fled Germany after the Nazi take-over in 1933, becoming a US citizen in 1940.

Tillich does ask interesting questions and make intruiging observations. The key sentence in "The Dynamics of Faith" is: "Faith is the state of being ultimately concerned". Since every human is ultimately concerned about something, this means that all humans have faith. The existence of faith cannot be disproven, since all attempts to do so are circular. To "disprove" faith, one must assume that there isn´t anything to be ultimately concerned about. But this is in itself an ultimate statement. Besides, the philosopher who frantically attempts to prove that everything is meaningless is also ultimately concerned about something, namely the truth of his nihilism. Thus, faith is as self-evident as the Cartesian "Cogito, ergo sum".

Tillich´s point, of course, is that all humans assume that there is something higher than themselves, transcending our everyday existence, something of cosmic importance. And this is not simply an abstract idea. All humans actively seek self-transcendence. All humans have faith, even the atheists. Tillich also makes an observation familiar to readers of C.S. Lewis: All humans operate on the assumption that there are universal moral laws, transcending the individual. Even more curiously, humans seemingly create moral laws that are impossible to live up to, and then feel guilty and condemned when they fail. How is this possible?

Naturally, to Tillich this all points to the existence of God. But it is here that his reasoning becomes problematic. There are myriad different conceptions of God. There are also many different opinions on morality. What religion is the true one? And what morality should we live by? Tillich cannot really answer these questions. His conception of God is strikingly similar to that found in certain forms of Hinduism. Tillich´s God is really Brahman, the nameless and formless Being beyond all Being (and Non-Being). All religions are reflections of this God, but all religions are purely symbolic. Even Jesus Christ is simply a symbol. But how can we know which symbols are true, "true" in the sense of expressing the truth about God? Tillich never really answers this question. At one point, he seems to be suggesting that we don´t know which faith is the true one. All faith therefore entails a risk, the risk of being wrong. At other times, Tillich says that the liberal form of Protestant Christianity is the highest religion, and that the Cross is a more authentic symbol than the symbols of other religions. However, he never explains why this is the case.

Sometimes, I get the impression that Tillich is somewhat disingenous. He defines "God" in such an abstract and nebulous manner, that any "ultimate concern" becomes "God". He also defines God as "being-itself" (perhaps Being-in-itself would be a better term). Thus, everything that exists, is God, simply by definition. By defining God in this manner, Tillich makes it impossible to falsify the idea of God. And by making Christianity symbolic, Tillich makes it impossible to falsify Christianity as well! This sounds like an attempt to save Christianity from being exposed by atheism, by making the Christian concepts completely evasive - a constantly moving target. Paul Tillich´s God is all things to all people. But isn´t such a God really a nullity?

But perhaps this is a rash criticism of "The Dynamics of Faith" and "The Courage to Be". Still, one wonders what solutions Tillich has to the existential problems he has raised. He doesn´t believe in the traditional scenario, where a resurrected Jesus will return one day and set up a Millenium. Nor does he believe in the immortality of the soul. Indeed, he seems to regard the immortal soul as a bad idea, even symbolically speaking! In the end, he can only tell us to be courageously self-assertive in the face of Non-Being, go on living despite our feelings of meaninglessness and guilt, and risk being wrong.

This, of course, could have been said by any atheist of an existentialist bent. Which makes you wonder why "God" is needed as part of the equation at all. Even apart from it not being a very comforting answer...

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4) Paperback Book Dynamics of Faith (Perennial Classic.) by HarperOne. Many years ago, about 35, I was talking on the phone to a friend who told me "God is love." This shocked and surprised me so much that I had to get off the phone. The idea was new to me, a child of atheist parents. Now I find that Paul Tillich in his book, "Dynamics of Faith," writes of the ultimate concern (God) in terms of love. Imagine that I was so unknowing and ignorant, in a way lost, and presently continue in my discoveries of God. And of love.

Paul Tillich is someone who will help a reader on the way to know and learn about what God is and who he is to mankind. This includes who he is to the individual man or woman. I have started at the end of the book to work my way to introduce the reader of this review to Paul Tillich´s wonderful book.

First, who was Paul Tillich. This from the Encyclopedia Brittanica 2006 Ultimate Reference Suite (the Brittanica designed for the computer):

German-born U.S. theologian and philosopher whose discussions of God and faith illuminated and bound together the realms of traditional Christianity and modern culture. Some of his books, notably The Courage to Be (1952) and Dynamics of Faith (1957), reached a large public audience not usually concerned with religious matters. The three-volume Systematic Theology (1951-63) was the culmination of his rigorous examination of faith.

The writer is a man with a powerful way with words, imaginative gift of communicating theological ideas, and a teacher with a strong mind. His writing will strengthen the reader´s mind and provide means to approach ideas. He says there is "...the healing power of the state of the ultimate concern." In the last chapter, "The Life of Faith," he goes on, "The concern of faith is identical with the desire of love: reunion with that to which one belongs and from which one is estranged. In the great commandment of the Old Testament, confirmed by Jesus, the object of ultimate concern, and the object of unconditional love, is God." This is a book for people who like ideas. We are, each of us, being reconciled to our ultimate concern throughout our lives. This is the dynamic.

Published in 1957 by Harper & Brothers Publishers of New York, this one of a series of books planned and edited by Ruth Nanda Anshen, is a first edition. I do not know what it is worth as such, perhaps a few dollars more than a new copy. I found mine in my Church library, an Episcopal Church. The book is a statement in favor of the Protestant way of faith. He is unabashed in his favor for this way of religion. It is even an argument for Protestantism. Catholics will find this an informative and useful book, even one required as reading in many seminaries. A woman friend who attended Nashota House told me she had to read it when she was a seminary student, though the seminary is Protestant it is part of the Episcopal Church catholic tradition.

The other books in this series by the publisher are part of what was called World Perspectives. I cannot speak to the other works, but this work remains contemporaneous, as you could guess by what I have written so far. Editors in that series: Niels Bohr, Richard Courant, Hu Shih, Ernest Jackh, Robert M. MacIver, J. Robert Oppenheimer, I.I. Rabi, Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, Alexander Sachs. Many of these names I know, but then these are more of my parent´s generation in some ways than mine (I was born after the Second World War). But though unchurched in their lifetime, my parents were educated people, if just by their own devices: intellectuals and artists.

You´ll find the book takes off right at the beginning. The first chapter is titled, "What Faith Is," and the first sentence goes: "Faith is the state of being ultimately concerned: the dynamics of faith are the dynamics of man´s ultimate concern. Man, like every living being, is concerned about many things, above all about those which condition his very existence, such as food and shelter." Not the first to say it, nor the most important, I will add my voice to others and declare the writer writes so very well. It is a pleasure to read for the writing is so good.

This remarkable and brilliant book, I cannot go without praising it again, talks about courage. Paul Tillich finds courage an important ingredient to faith, the kind he explains and extols. He says it is in doubt that we find faith, for faith without doubt is static. We are all with some doubts, and from doubt we grow faith and renew our faith in the ultimate concern.

Not so long a book, but 127 pages, I think a reader will find it edifying. Edifying is a good word for this work. We are destined to have faith, for the writer says we are a species with a spiritual nature and desire. ""Faith sees in a concrete piece of reality the ultimate ground and meaning of all reality. No piece of reality is excluded from the possibility of becoming a bearer of the holy; and almost every kind of reality has actually been considered as holy by acts of faith in groups and individuals"-- a graceful book.

--Peter Menkin, Easter 2007


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5) Paperback Book Dynamics of Faith (Perennial Classic.) by HarperOne. This is a work of new-age pseudo-philosophy, not an actual philosophical examination of religious faith. Those interested in a good book on the genuine subject should not be fooled by the title. In this book Tillich seeks to redefine the concept of faith in an effort to liberate those beleaguered in their Christianity by the weighty intellectual challenges put to it by the facts of the modern era. In doing so he cuts faith´s ties with practically every concrete element of the Christian religion and inflates the remainder with his own speculations; belief in the more important New Testament miracles, the anthropomorphic characteristics of the Christian God, the intervention of God in human affairs, etc, are all trimmed off in favor of a quasi-mystical "concern" for "the infinite." According to Tillich, everyone who is ultimately concerned with the meaning of life has "faith." Rejecting the Christian God is itself an affirmation of the "divinity" symbolized by the word "God," namely, the "ultimate ground of reality." Faith isn´t subject to epistemological criticism because it´s not knowledge - it´s "concern." But don´t expect any Spinozistic coherance, while the cardinal issues of theodicy strike Tillich as things that can be circumvented via the abandonment of the traditional notions of faith, he has no objections to outright logical circularity or terminological horsefeathers when it comes to presenting his own ideas. The "infinite content of man´s ultimate concern" is unknowable in its infinity, yet we can talk about it, and relate to it via symbolism. The book is jam-packed with sophisms like that. While once or twice Tillich makes a point that would be cogent if it were extracted from its surroundings, most of the time the discerning reader will have to fight the urge to snap the book closed in disgust and wonder at how this man ever garnered the intellectual renown he did writing books as poor and muddled as this.¤

6) Paperback Book Dynamics of Faith (Perennial Classic.) by HarperOne. One of the greatest books ever written on the subject, Dynamics of Faithis a primer in the philosophy of religion. Paul Tillich, a leading theologian of the twentieth century, explores the idea of faith in all its dimensions, while defining the concept in the process.

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