VII. Harvard’s Tillich-“Natural” Immortality Not “Christian Doctrine”

Note should also be taken of the clear statement on the mortality of man from the dynamic voice of Dr. PAUL TILLICH, ^{4949) PAUL TILLICH trained in Berlin, Tübingen, and Halle, became professor of theolo at Marburg, Dresden, Leipzig, Frankfort-am-Main. Coming to he Unite d States in 1933, became professor of philosophical theology at Union Theological Seminary (1933-1954), and in 1954 became professor of theology at Harvard. He is regarded as one of the leading exponents of modern Protestantism: and has been much influenced by Barth. A prolific writer: he has a dozen books to his credit in German (between 1921 and 1926) and half a dozen in English 1936 onward) His most important work is his two-volume Systematic Theology (1951-1957). illich is an Existentialist, with concern for the individual rather than abstract reasoning or the philosophical doctrine of Platonism.} long-time professor of philosophic theology at Union Theological Seminary, and now professor of theology at Harvard. He is recognized as a profound and independent thinker. Professor Tillich maintains that man is “naturally mortal.” The notion of Innate Immortality is, he holds, “not a Christian doctrine, though it is possibly a Platonic doctrine.” The true Biblical symbols are, he contends, far removed from the “popular image of immortality.” Man must receive eternal life from outside of himself. Tillich goes to the heart of the issue in these words in his famed Systematic Theology:CFF2 924.1

“Estranged from the ultimate power of being, man is determined by his finitude. He is given over to his natural fate. He came from nothing, and he returns to nothing. He is under the domination of death and is driven by the anxiety of having to die. This, in fact, is the first answer to the question about the relation of sin and death. In conformity with biblical religion, it asserts that man is naturally mortal. Immortality as a natural quality of man is not a Christian doctrine, though it is possibly a Platonic doctrine....CFF2 924.2

“In the biblical story of paradise a quite different interpretation of the relation of the Fall and death is given. The biblical symbols are even farther removed from the popular image of immortality. According to the Genesis account, man comes from dust and returns to dust. He has immortality only as long as he is allowed to eat from the tree of life, the tree which carries the divine food or the food of eternal life. The symbolism is obvious. Participation in the eternal makes man eternal; separation from the eternal leaves man in his natural finitude.” ^{5050) Paul Tillich, Systematic Theology, vol. 2, pp. 66, 67. (Italics supplied.)}CFF2 924.3

Clearly then, according to Dr. Tillich, sinful man is not of himself immortal.CFF2 924.4