Pages

Monday, July 01, 2019

Paul Tillich's Ontology: Deep Structures

Photobucket


That being has depth is a clue to the meaning of “the ground of being,” or “being itself.” The depth of being is also related to the notion of the “power of being.” These are all saying the same thing or very closely related things. To really understand what Tillich is saying we have to understand what the depth of being is and relate that to the power of being. The context of the phrase “depth of being” and the quotation above about that comes form Tillich’s sermon, converted into a small book, The Shaking of the Foundations (op cit). In the chapter entitled “the depth of existence,” Tillich tells us that he is using the term “depth” as a metaphor to indicate an attitude taken form spiritual experience. Depth symbolizes both special relation and spiritual quality. Deep implies a profundity (the opposite being “shallow”) and there is also a sense in which “deep” is used for suffering (the depths of despair for example). [1] I said above that being having depth means things are not merely as they appear on the surface, there’s more to reality than just the way things appear. In the Shaking of the Foundations Tillich confirms that this is what he had in mind:
All visible things have a surface. Surface is that side of things which first appears to us. If we look at it, we know what things seem to be. Yet if we act according to what things and persons seem to be, we are disappointed. Our expectations are frustrated. And so we try to penetrate below the surfaces in order to learn what things really are. Why have men always asked for truth? Is it because they have been disappointed with the surfaces, and have known that the truth which does not disappoint dwells below the surfaces in the depth? And therefore, men have dug through one level after another. What seemed true one day was experienced as superficial the next. When we encounter a person, we receive an impression. But often if we act accordingly we are disappointed by his actual behavior. We pierce a deeper level of his character, and for some time experience less disappointment. But soon he may do something which is contrary to all our expectations; and we realize that what we know about him is still superficial. Again we dig more deeply into his true being.[2]

Immediately before the statement about the depth of our being that I quoted above (en1) he says that depth psychology can help us understand our own depths but it can’t help us to find the depth and ground of our being. Immediately after that statement he links the depth of our souls to the social world, we can know our own souls through the mirror of community and others.[3] This ties us to the heteronomy and the question of the role of spirit in the creation of culture that was important to Tillich. He then makes another statement that is remarkably like the one above but this time focusing upon the social world:

The     name of this infinite and inexhaustible ground of history is God. That is what the word means, and it is that to which the words Kingdom of God and Divine Providence point. And if these words do not have much meaning for you, translate them, and speak of the depth of history, of the ground and aim of our social life, and of what you take seriously without reservation in your moral and political activities. Perhaps you should call this depth hope, simply hope. for if you find hope in the ground of history, you are united with the great prophets who were able to look into the depth of their times, who tried to escape it, because they could not stand the horror of their visions, and who yet had the strength to look to an even deeper level and there to discover hope. Their hope did not make them feel ashamed. And no hope shall make us ashamed, if we do not find it on the surface where fools cultivate vain expectations, but rather if we find it in the depth where those with trembling and contrite hearts receive the strength of a hope which is truth.[4]

In this context he talks about Marxist analysis and social sciences and understanding of social situations with greater depth than one can gain from a mere surface perspective. He also grounds that perspective in first hand experience of social situations rather than just social sciences alone. Most modern thinkers would have a hard time seeing what has to do with God or how God could be the ground of history. But he connects God as the ground of history to the kingdom of God and providence (see quote above). It seems what he means by “being has depth” is a structure that permeates all that is. The depth of being is the unseen structure, the ontology of reality and its extension into social world through God’s providence. Thus he appears to actually be saying that God is the ground and end of the natural world and all that this entails. We can identify “depth” with ontology.

That being itself indicates the power of being is metaphorical, at the same time it is part of the concept of the depth of being. Being is not merely the fact of existence but it also contains the basis upon which all being is. That would correlate to God as creator. In MacQuarrie’s terms, “being let’s be.”[5] This may imply a more passive role than Tillich had in mind. He views God’s creative role from the standpoint of a check on nothingness, but what both are really talking about is an active force of creative power that brings more being out of being itself. Being let’s be is such a passive way to register the idea of “resisting” nothingness, but at the same time both are means of avoiding the direct statement, “God is the creator of all that is.” Nevertheless that’s obviously what they are saying, or trying not to say. Obviously, then Being is necessary and “the beings” (in McQuarrie speak) are contingencies. Being itself is necessary being, the beings are contingent being. This is another aspect of the depth of being. It’s not just so simple that all we need to do is to rattle off a list of concrete things we can observe in the world. There are two levels, necessity and contingency, or two modes of being. Within each role there are different roles. On the level of necessity being is eternal, on the level of contingency being is temporal. Tillich makes much of this distinction. The difference in the two and the sense of the numinous it evokes are very important for Tillich and will figure prominently in the arguments that can be made in terms of reasons to believe.

The reason Tillich takes such a backwards way of expressing God’s creative force is to emphasize the distinction between being and nothingness. This is the primary first and original distinction in reality, the bottom line so to speak between something and nothing. The first distinction in existence is that between being and nothingness. The power of being to resist nothingness (God’s creative force) is the first basis upon which anything is at all. That means we can look at this creative force as the nature of being the basic bottom line of what it means to be and what being is. Thus if we choose for some reason to call this force “God” if we want to use that term, which Tillich says in the quotation above is the meaning of that term, we can say that God is “being itself.” God is this basic force that is the first indentation in all of reality. It is both first temporally (it would be the basis of time) it would be “fist” ontologically. Tillch is thinking in a way that modern scientifically ensorcelled people are not really able to think, and have never thought. McQuarrie puts it into a passive sense “let’s be,” for a different reason. He warns of Heidegger’s tendency to “stretch language” or the awareness of Heidegger (and himself) that to speak of being at an ontological level is a stretch beyond the confines of fact based conceptualism. For him being’s role is the fomentation of more being, or “the beings” is expressed in a passive sense to remove the emphasis upon the activity of a creative agent.


Sources

[1] Tillich, Shaking…, chapter 7 quoted from online version, Website, Religion-online, URL: http://www.religion-online.org/showchapter.asp?title=378&C=72visted feb. 5, 2010.
[2] Ibid
[3] Ibid.
[4] Ibid
[5] find

6 comments:

  1. on face book

    George Villarreal This is “ silliness “ you are trying to imagine what god is like using your finite mind .
    God - is inscrutable.
    Hide or report this
    Like
    · Reply · 3h
    Joe Hinman
    Joe Hinman You are trying to imagine God with your finite mind, The prophets tried to imagine with their finite minds. Baht's all any of us has, When God tells us stuff we have only our finite minds to comprehend it; but some if our finite minds are better rea…See More

    ReplyDelete
  2. than other finite minds. I wont apologize for reading those books even if yo don't like then because God led me to read them,I;m doing what I feel God is leading me to do. Did God lead you belittle my ideas?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Joe, You did a very good job of laying out these ideas.

    Where do things like becoming and potentiality fit into all of this? Are they relegated to mere contingency and therefore less fully real than what is necessary and eternal? And what about norms, like moral norms, and other ideal objects like numbers? I know you're going to say that they're "ideas in the mind of God," but that requires a lot of unpacking, I think.

    I'm not sure I buy into the absolute nature of the being/nothingness distinction. It's a binary opposition we use to navigate but that's no guarantee that it's absolutely and always foundational. We should always hold out the possibility that our categories are provisional and that they could be complicated or transcended, especially by God who is infinite. And that our language and conceptual schemes are by their very nature limited.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Joe, You did a very good job of laying out these ideas.

    thanks

    Where do things like becoming and potentiality fit into all of this? Are they relegated to mere contingency and therefore less fully real than what is necessary and eternal? And what about norms, like moral norms, and other ideal objects like numbers? I know you're going to say that they're "ideas in the mind of God," but that requires a lot of unpacking, I think.

    I think that is answered in the next post (today's--Wednesday).

    I'm not sure I buy into the absolute nature of the being/nothingness distinction. It's a binary opposition we use to navigate but that's no guarantee that it's absolutely and always foundational. We should always hold out the possibility that our categories are provisional and that they could be complicated or transcended, especially by God who is infinite. And that our language and conceptual schemes are by their very nature limited.

    you don't believe in nothing? seems foundational to me because it;s just on or off, you can't get more basic

    4:30 PM

    ReplyDelete
  5. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I know you're going to say that they're "ideas in the mind of God," but that requires a lot of unpacking, I think.

    truth is I have not thought about it. those are potential and being is concrete. The potential is always dependent upon what is because without some basis in being there is no coming to be; can't make something from nothing. Sp then they are rooted in contingency.

    Becoming would have to be contingency since it must have a basis in being for something to come. Eternal being could change but must have a basis in eternity thus is already arrived it can't come to be,

    ReplyDelete