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Tillich and the Perennial Philosophy
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 June 2011
Extract
In an earlier essay I proposed the paradoxical theses that the main religio-philosophical alternative in the West to Judaism and Christianity has always been the perennial philosophy in its various forms, and that Christianity (and less so Judaism) has always been an amalgam or synthesis of the ideal types, biblical religion and the perennial philosophy. An example of the former is the concept delineated by the biblical theology movement of the 1940s and 1950s. By the latter I mean the religio-philosophical world view exemplified by Neoplatonism and Vedanta, and by the philosophical foundation of Gnosticism, Rosicrucianism, and Theosophy, and propounded by such authors as René Guénon, Frithjof Schuon, S. H. Nasr, and Huston Smith.
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References
1 Thomas, Owen C., “Charistianity and the Perennial Philosophy,” TToday 43 (1986) 259–66Google Scholar. I am grateful to my friend Huston Smith for his comments on a draft of the current essay. Needless to say, he is not responsible for any of my interpretations.
2 James Barr and Brevard Childs have criticized the work of this movement. See James Barr, “Biblical Theology,” IDBSup 104–11; and Childs, Brevard, Biblical Theology in Crisis (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1970)Google Scholar. Lemke, Werner E. (“Theology [OT],” ABD 6 [1992] 453–54, 468–69Google Scholar) has defended the movement against this criticism.
3 Weber, Max, The Sociology of Religion, trans. Fischoff, E. (Boston: Beacon, 1963) 46–50Google Scholar.
4 Berger, Peter, ed., The Other Side of God: A Polarity in World Religions (Garden City, NY: Anchor, 1981) vii-viii, 3–6Google Scholar.
5 Tillich, Paul, Biblical Religion and the Search for Ultimate Reality (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1955)Google Scholar.
6 Tillich, Paul, Systematic Theology (3 vols.; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1951–63) 1. 174–78, 243–45; 2. 29–44: 3. 406–22Google Scholar.
7 Ibid., 1. 244.
8 Ibid., 1. 245.
9 Ibid., 1. 244–45.
10 Tillich, Paul, The Courage To Be (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1952) 156–57, 160Google Scholar.
11 Ibid., 156–57.
12 While on this point Tillich interprets the relationship between the biblical religion and perennial philosophy types as a polarity, perennialists interpret this relation as a hierarchy. They see the interpretation of the divine in biblical religion as an incomplete understanding which is valid on a lower level, but which is transcended in the perennial philosophy. See, for example, Smith, Huston, Forgotten Truth: The Primordial Tradition (New York: Harper & Row, 1976) 48–53Google Scholar.
13 Huxley, Aldous, The Perennial Philosophy (New York: Harper & Row, 1944) viiGoogle Scholar.
14 See Ricoeur, Paul, “The Myth of the Exiled Soul and Salvation Through Knowledge,” in The Symbolism of Evil (reprint, 1967; Boston: Beacon, 1969) 279–305Google Scholar.
15 Tillich, Systematic Theology, 1. 158.
16 Ibid., 1. 188.
17 Ibid., 1. 202.
18 Ibid., 1. 204.
19 Ibid., 1. 255.
20 Ibid.
21 Ibid., 2. 31. This passage is absent in the German translation; see Paul Tillich, Systematische Theologie (3 vols.; Stuttgart: Evangelische Verlag, 1956–66) 2. 38. Since this translation was largely approved by Tillich, it constitutes a revised edition.
22 Tillich, Systematic Theology, 2. 40; this passage is also absent from Tillich, Systematische Theologie, 2. 47.
23 Tillich, Systematic Theology, 2. 32. The last sentence is absent from Tillich, Systematische Theologie, 2. 39.
24 Tillich, Systematic Theology, 2. 43.
25 Ibid.
26 See Tillich, Paul, “Nature, also, Mourns for a Lost Good,” in The Shaking of the Foundations (New York: Harper & Row, 1948) 81–82Google Scholar.
27 Tillich, Systematic Theology, 2. 38.
28 Ibid., 2. 39.
29 See, for example, Smith, John E., “Comments,” in Kegley, Jacquelyn Ann K., ed., Paul Tillich on Creativity (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1989) 25–27Google Scholar.
30 Tillich, Systematic Theology, 1. 255.
31 Ibid., 2. 256.
32 Ibid., 2. 44.
33 See, for example, Tillich, Paul, A History of Christian Thought (ed. Braaten, Carl E.; York: Harper & Row, 1968) 6, 13, 50–55, 109Google Scholar. Tillich's theological dissertation also treats same issue: Mysticism and Guilt Consciousness in Schelling's Philosophical Development Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell University Press, 1974Google Scholar).
34 Tillich, Systematic Theology, 3. 350.
35 Ibid., 3. 351.
36 Ibid., 3. 357.
37 Ibid., 3. 398–99.
38 Ibid., 3. 400.
39 Ibid., 3. 397.
40 Ibid., 3. 398.
41 Ibid., 3. 400.
42 Ibid., 3. 414.
43 Ibid., 3. 411.
44 Ibid., 3. 420.
45 Ibid.
46 Ricoeur, Paul, The Symbolism of Evil (New York: Harper & Row, 1967)Google Scholar.
47 See n. 1.
48 Ricoeur. The Symbolism of Evil, 174.
49 Ibid.
50 Ibid.
51 Ibid., 280.
52 Ibid., 300.
53 Ibid., 330.
54 Ibid., 281.
55 Ibid., 330.
56 Ibid., 336–45.
57 Ibid., 335.