Lewis and Tillich

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Lewis and Tillich

• HMXP 102
• Dr. Fike

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Lewis, Mere Christianity

• We are going to discuss quotations from Lewiss
  text.
• In small groups, take 5 minutes to identify
  passages/quotations that you consider most worthy
  of discussion. Select several passages that you
  find interesting, important, or controversial.

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Par. 5, right Types of Conversion Experiences

• As well, the thing I am talking of now may not
  happen to every one in a sudden flashas it did
  to St. Paul or Bunyan it may be so gradual that
  no one could ever point to a particular hour or
  even a particular year. And what matters is the
  nature of the change in itself, not how we feel
  while it is happening. It is the change from
  being confident about our own efforts to the
  state in which we despair of doing anything for
  ourselves and leave it to God.

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How To Improve Your Life?

• Lewis, end of par. 3 A person cannot get into
  the right relation until he has discovered the
  fact of our bankruptcy (my emphasis).
• Lewis, middle of par. 13 I have not come to
  torment your natural self, but to kill it. No
  half-measures are any good. Hand over the whole
  natural self. I will give you a new self
  instead.
• Do we have within us all that we need?
• a first faint gleam of Heaven is already inside
  you (end of par. 6)
• God is inside you as well as outside (middle of
  par. 8)

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Ephesians 422-24

• Put off your old nature which belongs to your
  former manner of life and is corrupt through
  deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of
  your minds, and put on the new nature, created
  after the likeness of God in true righteousness
  and holiness.
• Cf. Romans 66 Ephesians 215 and Colossians
  39-11.
• For commentary see http//www.bible.org/page.php
  ?page_id434

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Metanoia from dictionary.com

• Webster's New Millennium Dictionary of English
• Main Entry  metanoia
• Part of Speech  n
• Definition  spiritual conversion or awakening
  fundamental change of character
• Etymology  Greek 'change one's mind, repent'

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Par. 16 The Total Self? Connection to Tillich?

• For what we are trying to do is to remain what
  we call ourselves, to keep personal happiness
  as our great aim in life, and yet at the same
  time be good. We are all trying to let our
  mind and heart go their own waycentred on money
  or pleasure or ambitionand hoping, in spite of
  this, to behave honestly and chastely and humbly.
  And that is exactly what Christ warned us you
  could not do. As He said, a thistle cannot
  produce figs.

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Improvement

• Par. 17 listening to that other voice, taking
  that other point of view, letting that other
  larger, stronger, quieter life come flowing in.
• Par. 21 And there are strange, exciting hints
  in the Bible that when we are drawn in, a great
  many other things in Nature will begin to come
  right.

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Par. 22 Other Religions

• If you are a Christian, you are free to think
  that all those religions, even the queerest ones,
  contain at least some hint of the truth. But,
  of course, being a Christian does mean thinking
  that where Christianity differs from other
  religions, Christianity is right and they are
  wrong. As in arithmeticthere is only one right
  answer to a sum, and all other answers are wrong
  but some of the wrong answers are much nearer
  being right than others.

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The Point of This Class

• Knowledge is a construct. Understanding this
  point is one of our course goals.
• So is the notion that only Christianity is
  completely true something that culture has
  constructed? If you believe that, are you
  listening to mother culture? OR is Lewis
  identifying a fundamental truth about who we are?
• According to Lewis, is it okay to cherry pick
  Christianity, taking what appeals to you and
  leaving the rest? (Lewis seems to think that it
  is okay to do that with other religions.)
• Is it enough just to be a moral person?
• What is YOUR position on any of this? END

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Paul Tillich

• Pronunciation TILL-ik
• http//people.bu.edu/wwildman/WeirdWildWeb/courses
  /mwt/dictionary/mwt_themes_755_tillich.htm

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Group Activity

• Directions Summarize the main ideas in your
  assigned section. Be prepared to answer the
  questions that follow in this slide show.
• Group 1 Section 1, all pars.
• Group 2 Section 2, pars. 6-9
• Group 3 Section 2, pars. 10-12
• Group 4 Section 3, pars. 13-15
• Group 5 Section 3, pars. 16-18

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Section 1 Definition

• Pars. 1 5 What is Tillichs definition of
  faith?
• Par. 2 What does faith promise?
• Par. 3 What does faith require?
• Pars. 3-4 What threat is implicit?

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Pars. 1 5 What is Tillichs definition of
faith?

• Par. 1 Faith is the state of being ultimately
  concerned the dynamics of faith are the
  dynamics of mans ultimate concern.
• Par. 5 Faith is the state of being ultimately
  concerned. The content matters infinitely for
  the life of the believer, but it does not matter
  for the formal definition of faith.

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Pars. 2-3

• Par. 2 What does faith promise?
• ultimate fulfillment
• Par. 3 What does faith require?
• total surrender to the subject of ultimate
  concern
• Par. 3 What threat is implicit?
• the threat is the exclusion from such
  fulfillment through national extinction and
  individual catastrophe

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More on Section 1

• Do we have ultimate concern with something
  other than God?
• What does Tillich say about this in Section 1,
  par. 4?
• What does Tillichs example promise and threaten?

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Answers

• Do we have ultimate concern with something
  other than God?
• Yes, successsocial standingeconomic power
• What does Tillich say about this in Section 1,
  par. 4?
• it demands unconditional surrender to its laws
• What does Tillichs example promise and threaten?
• Its threat is social and economic defeatand its
  promisethe fulfillment of ones being.
• And yet When fulfilled, the promise of this
  faith proves to be empty.

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Section 2

• What does it mean to say that faith is a
  centered act?

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Answer

• Faith is a centered act if it takes place in
  the center of the personal life and includes all
  its elements (par. 6). It is an act of the
  personality as a whole. It is the unity of
  every element of the centered self (par. 6).
• Par. 9 A persons self is the center of
  self-relatedness, in which all elements of a
  persons being are united.
• Faith is a centered act if it includes all of
  these binary oppositions
• Conscious and unconscious (see next slide)
• Superego, ego, and id (two slides ahead)
• Reason, will, and emotion (three slides ahead)
• Cognition, will, and emotion
• Par. 7 if unconscious forces determine the
  mental status without a centered act, faith does
  not occur, and compulsions take its place.
• Par. 10 Faith is ecstatic if it transcends
  these oppositions.

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Key Quotation about the Unconscious

• faith is a conscious act and the unconscious
  elements participate in the creation of faith
  only if they are taken into the personal center
  which transcends each of them (par. 7).

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Ego and Superego

• Par. 8 How does faith relate to the superego?
  What does Tillich say in Section 2, par. 8 about
  the superego?
• What are the good and bad ways in which the
  superego can become integrated into faith?

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Answer

• Par. 8 How does faith relate to the superego?
  What does Tillich say in Section 2, par. 8 about
  the superego?
• the symbols of faith are considered to be
  expressions of the superego
• What are the good and bad ways in which the
  superego can become integrated into faith?
• tyrant vs. father image
• truth and justice

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Reason and Nonrational Elements

• Par. 9 Faith is not an act of any of his
  rational functions, as it is not an act of the
  unconscious, but it is an act in which both the
  rational and the nonrational elements of his
  being are transcended.

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Par. 10 Ecstasy

• Faith that transcends both the drives of the
  nonrational unconscious and the structures of the
  rational conscious is said to be ecstatic.
• Ecstasy standing outside of oneself.
• John Donne has a poem called The Extasy. See
  http//www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/donne/ecstacy.h
  tm.

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Par. 11 Cognition vs. Emotion and Will

• What is the relationship between faith and
  thinking? Are they mutually exclusive? Or can
  faith be a rational act?
• What does Tillich say about cognition, will, and
  feeling here?
• Do they PRODUCE faith?

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Tillichs Point

• Cognition, emotion, and will are all in faith but
  do not cause it.
• It faith is the unity of every element of the
  centered self.
• IOW, cognition, emotion, and will, along with
  consciousness/the unconscious and ego/superego,
  are all present in the act of faith.

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Section 2, Par. 12

• Faith precedes all attempts to derive it from
  something else, because these attempts are
  themselves based on faith.
• What does this mean, esp. regarding fear?
  Answer Fear is not a valid origin of faith.

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Section 3, Par. 13 Tillichs Definition of
Faith at This Point

• Summary of Sections 1 and 2 Faith is a total
  and centered act of the personal self, the act of
  unconditional, infinite and ultimate concern.
• Now he asks about the source of faith in Section
  3, par. 14. What does he say?

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Section 3, Par. 14

• What does Tillich mean in the following
  quotation?
• Man is driven toward faith by his awareness of
  the infinite to which he belongs, but which he
  does not own like a possession. This is in
  abstract terms what concretely appears as the
  restlessness of the heart within the flux of
  life.

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In Other Words

• The source of faith is twofold
• awareness of the infinite
• passion for the infinite

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Par. 15 An Important Distinction

• What is the difference between subjective faith
  and objective faith?

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Answers

• Subjective faith the act of believing.
• Objective faith the object of belief (content).
• The object of faith divinity, ultimacy.
• But the distinction between subjective and
  objective faith disappears in the experience of
  the ultimate The term ultimate concern
  unites the subjective and the objective side of
  the act of faith (par. 16).

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Idolatry

• What is your definition of idolatry?
• What is Tillichs?

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Tillichs Answer

• Idolatry having ultimate faith in something
  that is not ultimate.
• Par. 18 In true faith, the ultimate concern
  is a concern about the truly ultimate while in
  idolatrous faith, preliminary, finite realities
  are elevated to the rank of ultimacy.

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What is the result of idolatry?

• Par. 18 existential disappointment
• the act of faith leads to a loss of the center
  and to a disruption of the personality.

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Final Question Related to Tillich

• What is YOUR ultimate concern?
• Has it disappointed you?
• What do you put your faith in?
• Are you in the world but not of it? END