From Paul Tillich, Systematic Theology, vol. 3: Life and the Spirit: History and the Kingdom of God (September 15, 1976) at page 118:
It is a reductionist profanization of self-transcendence to attempt to derive religion, especially in its ecstatic side, from psychological dynamics.” S.T., III, 118. He then invokes the multidimensional unity of life to “provide the basis of [his] defense;”
From Paul Tillich, Systematic Theology, vol. 3: Life and the Spirit: History and the Kingdom of God (September 15, 1976) at pages 369-372:
We spoke of the moment at which history, in terms of a concrete situation, had matured to the point of being able to receive the breakthrough of the central manifestation of the Kingdom of God. The New Testament has called this moment the fulfillment of time, in Greek, kairos.
This term has been frequently used since we introduced it into theological and philosophical discussion in connection with the religious socialist movement in Germany after the First World War. It was chosen to remind Christian theology of the fact that the biblical writers, not only of the Old but also of the New Testament, were aware of the self-transcending dynamics of history. And it was chosen to remind philosophy of the necessity of dealing with history, not only in terms of its logical and categorical structure only, but also in terms of its dynamics.
And, above all, kairos should express the feeling of many people in central Europe after the First World War that a moment of history had appeared which was pregnant with a new understanding of the meaning of history and life. Whether or not this feeling was empirically confirmed – in part it was, in part it was not – the concept itself retains its significance and belongs in the whole of systematic theology.
Its original meaning – the right time, the time in which something can be done – must be contrasted with chronos, measured time or clock time. The former is qualitative, the latter quantitative. In the English word, timing, something of the qualitative character of time is expressed, and if one would speak of God’s timing in his providential activity, this term would come near to the meaning of kairos.
In ordinary Greek language, the word is used for any practical purpose in which a good occasion for some action is given. In the New Testament it is the translation of a word used by Jesus when he speaks of his time which has not yet come – the time of his suffering and death. It is used by both John the Baptist and Jesus when they announce the fulfillment of time with respect to the Kingdom of God, which is at hand.
Paul uses kairos when he speaks in a world-historical view of the moment of time in which God could send his Son, the moment which was selected to become the center of history. In order to recognize this great kairos, one must be able to see the signs of the times, as Jesus says when he accuses his enemies of not seeing them.
Paul, in his description of the kairos, looks at the situation both of paganism and of Judaism, and in the Deutero-Pauline literature the world-historical and cosmic view of the appearance of the Christ plays an increasingly important role.
We have interpreted the fulfillment of time as the moment of maturity in a particular religious and cultural development – adding, however, the warning that maturity means not only the ability to receive the central manifestation of the Kingdom of God but also the greatest power to resist it. For maturity is the result of education by the law, and in some who take the law with radical seriousness, maturity becomes despair of the law, with the ensuing quest for that which breaks through the law as good news.
The experience of a kairos has occurred again and again in the history of the churches, although the term was not used. Whenever the Prophetic Spirit arose in the churches, the third stage was spoke of, the stage of the rule of Christ in the one thousand – year period. This stage was seen as immediately imminent and so became the basis for prophetic criticism of the churches in their distorted stage. When the churches rejected this criticism or accepted it in a partial, compromising way, the prophetic Spirit was forced into sectarian movements of an originally revolutionary character – until the sects became churches and the prophetic Spirit became latent.
The fact that kairos-experiences belong to the history of the churches and that the great kairos, the appearance of the center of history, is again and again re-experienced through relative kairoi, in which the Kingdom of God manifests itself in a particular breakthrough, is decisive for our consideration.
The relation of the one kairos to the kairoi is the relation of the criterion to that which stands under the criterion and the relation of the source of power to that which is nourished by the source of power. Kairoi have occurred and are occurring in all preparatory and receiving movements in the church latent and manifest, for although the prophetic Spirit is latent or even repressed over long stretches of history, it is never absent and breaks through the barriers of the law in a kairos.
Awareness is a matter of vision. It is not an object of analysis and calculation such as could be given in psychological or sociological terms. It is not a matter of detached observation but of involved experience. This, however, does not mean that observation and analysis are excluded; they serve to objectify the experience and to clarify and enrich the vision. But observation and analysis do not produce the experience of the kairos. The prophetic Spirit works creatively without any dependence on argumentation and good will. But every moment which claims to be Spiritual must be tested, and the criterion is the great kairos.
From Paul Tillich, Systematic Theology, Vol. 1 (September 15, 1973) at pages 3-6:
[3] 1. Message and Situation Theology, as a function of the Christian church, must serve the needs of the church. A theological system is supposed to satisfy two basic needs: the statement of the truth of the Christian message and the interpretation of this truth of every new generation. Theology moves back and forth between two poles, the eternal truth of its foundation and the temporal situation in which the eternal truth must be received.
Not many theological systems have been able to balance these two demands perfectly. Most of them either sacrifice elements of the truth or are not able to speak to the situation. Some of them combine both shortcomings. Afraid of missing the eternal truth, they identify it with some previous theological work, with traditional concepts and solutions, and try to impose these on a new, different situation. They confuse eternal truth with a temporal expression of this truth.
This is evident in European theological orthodoxy, which in America is known as fundamentalism. When fundamentalism is combined with an antitheological bias, as it is for instance, in its biblicistic – evangelical form, the theological truth of yesterday is defended as an unchangeable message against the theological truth of today and tomorrow. Fundamentalism fails to make contact with the present situation, not because it speaks from beyond every situation, but because it speaks from a situation of the past. It elevates something finite and transitory to infinite and eternal validity. In this respect fundamentalism has demonic traits. It destroys the humble honesty of the search for truth, it splits the conscience of its thoughtful adherents, and makes them fanatical because they are forced to suppress elements of the truth of which they are dimly aware. Fundamentalists in America and orthodox theologians in Europe can point to the fact that their theology is eagerly received and held by many people just because of the historical or biographical situation in which men find themselves today. The fact is obvious, but the interpretation is wrong. Situation,” as one pole of all theological work, does not refer to the psychological or sociological state in which individuals live. It refers to the scientific and artistic, the economic, political, and ethical [4] forms in which they express their interpretation of existence. The “situation” to which theology must speak relevantly is not the situation of the individual as individual and not the situation of the group as group. Theology is neither preaching nor counseling; therefore, the success of a theology when it is applied to preaching or to the care of souls is not necessarily a criterion of its truth. The fact that fundamentalist ideas are eagerly grasped in a period of personal or communal disintegration does not prove their theological validity, just as the success of a liberal theology in periods of personal or communal integration is no certification of its truth. The situation theology must consider is the creative interpretation of existence, an interpretation which is carried on in every period of history under all kinds of psychological and sociological conditions. The “situation” certainly is not independent of these factors. However, theology deals with the cultural expression they have found in practice as well as in theory and not with these conditioning factors as such. Thus theology is not concerned with the political split between East and West, but it is concerned with the political interpretation of this split. Theology is not concerned with the spread of mental diseases or with our increasing awareness of them, but it is concerned with the psychiatric interpretation of these trends. The “situation” to which theology must respond is the totality of man’s creative self-interpretation in a special period. Fundamentalism and orthodoxy reject this task, and, in doing so, they miss the meaning of theology.
Yet the “situation” cannot be excluded from theological work. Luther was unprejudiced enough to use his own nominalist learning and Melanchthon’s humanist education for the formulation of theological doctrines. But he was not conscious enough of the problem of the “situation” to avoid sliding into orthodox attitudes, thus preparing the way for the period of Protestant orthodoxy. Barth’s greatness is that he corrects himself again and again in light of the “situation” and that he strenuously tries not to become his own follower. Yet he does not realize that in doing so he ceases to be a merely kerygmatic theologian. In attempting to derive every statement directly from the ultimate truth – for instance, deriving the duty of making war against Hitler from the resurrection of the Christ – he falls into using a method which can be called “neo-orthodox,” a method which has strengthened all trends toward a theology of repristination in Europe. The pole ///called “situation” cannot be neglected in theology without dangerous consequences. Only a courageous participation in the “situation,” that is, in all the various cultural forms which express modern man’s interpretation of his ///existence, can overcome the present oscillation of kerygmatic theology between the freedom implied in the genuine kerygma and its orthodox fixation. In [6] other words, kerygmatic theology needs apologetic theology for its completion.
From Paul Tillich, Systematic Theology, vol. 1 (September 15, 1973) at pages 266-269:
The catastrophes of the twentieth century have shattered even this limited belief in rational providence [Hegel’s and Marx’s views of dialectic providence]. Fate overshadows the Christian world, as it overshadowed the ancient world two thousand years ago. The individual man passionately asks that he be allowed the possibility of believing in personal fulfillment in spite of the negativity of his historical existence. And the question of historical existence again has become a struggle with the darkness of fate; it is the same struggle in which the Christian victory was won.
(3) The meaning of Providence: Providence means a fore-seeing (pro-videre) which is a fore-ordering (seeing to it”). This ambiguity of meaning expresses an ambiguous feeling toward providence, and it corresponds to different interpretations of the concept. If the element of foreseeing is emphasized, God becomes the omniscient spectator who knows what will happen but who does not interfere with the freedom of his creatures. If the element of foreordering is emphasized, God becomes a planner who has ordered everything that will happen “before the foundations of the world”; all natural and historical processes are nothing more than the execution of this supra-temporal divine plan. In the first interpretation the creatures make their world, and God remains a spectator; in the second interpretation the creatures are cogs in a universal mechanism, and God is the only active agent. Both interpretations of providence must be rejected.
Providence is not interference; it is creation. It uses all factors, both those given by freedom and those given by destiny, in creatively directing everything toward its fulfilment. Providence is a quality of every constellation of conditions, a quality which drives or “lures” toward fulfilment. Providence is “the divine condition” which is present in every group of finite conditions and in the totality of finite conditions. It is not an additional factor, a miraculous physical or mental interference in terms of supranaturalism. It is the quality of inner directedness present in every situation. The man who believes in providence does not believe that a special divine activity will alter the conditions of finitude and estrangement. He believes and asserts with the courage of faith, that no situation whatsoever can frustrate the fulfilment of his ultimate destiny, that nothing can separate him from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus (Romans, chap.8)///What is valid for the individual is valid for history as a whole. Faith in historical providence means the certainty that history in each of its moments, in eras of progress and eras of catastrophe, contributes to the ultimate fulfilment of creaturely existence, although this fulfilment does not lie in an eventual time and space future.//////(4) Individual and Historical Providence: Providence refers to the individual as well as to history. Special providence (providentia specialis) gives the individual the certainty that under any circumstances, under any set of conditions, the divine “factor” is active and that therefore the road to his ultimate fulfilment is open. In the late ancient world special providence was the practical meaning of providence. In a period in which for the individual history was nothing more than fortune and fate (tyche and hairamene), a power above him which he could not change and to which he could contribute nothing, faith in special providence was a liberating faith cultivated in most of the philosophical schools. The only thing a man could do was to accept his situation and by this acceptance transcend it in Stoic courage, in skeptical resignation or in mystical elevation. In Christianity providence is an element in the person to person relationship between God and man; it carries the warmth of belief in loving protection and personal guidance. It gives the individual the feeling of transcendent security in the midst of the necessities of nature and history. It is confidence in “the divine condition” within every set of finite conditions. This is its greatness, but it is also its danger. Confidence in divine guidance can become a conviction that God must change the conditions of a situation in order to make his own condition effective. And if this does not occur, confidence and faith break down. But it is the paradox of the belief in providence that, just when the conditions of a situation are destroying the believer, the divine condition gives him a certainty which transcends the destruction.///Christianity has done more than change the meaning of special providence. Following Judaism, it has added to special providence faith in historical providence. This was impossible for the ancient world, but it was real for Jewish prophetism and is necessary for Christianity, for God establishes his kingdom through history. Experience of the great empires with their fateful power does not shake the Jewish and Christian confidence in God’s historical providence. The empires are stages in the world historical process, whose fulfilment is the reign of God through Israel or through the Christ. Of course, this faith is no less paradoxical than the individual person’s faith in God’s directing creativity within his life. And whenever the paradoxical character of historical providence is forgotten, whenever historical providence is tied to special events or special expectations, whether in religious or in secular terms, disappointment follows as inescapably as it does in the life of the individual. The misunderstanding of historical providence which looks for the fulfilment of history in history itself is utopian. But that which fulfills history transcends it, just as that which fulfills the life of the individual transcends him. Faith in providence is paradoxical. It is an in spite of. If this is not understood, faith in providence breaks down, taking with it faith in God and in the meaning of life and of history. Much cynicism is the result of an erroneous and therefore disappointed confidence in individual or historical providence. (266-269)
1948
From Paul Tillich, The Shaking of the Foundations, The Meaning of Providence" (1948) at pages 105-107:
“What answer shall we give [to the question regarding God’s Providence]? What answer can we give to such a crucial problem – a problem in which Christianity as a whole is at stake, a problem which has nothing to do with a theoretical criticism of the idea of God, but rather which represents the anguish of the human heart which can no longer stand the power borne by the daemonic forces on earth?
From Lewis Thomas, Notes of a Biology Watcher:
(Dean of the Schools of Medicine at Yale and New York University and Sloan Kettering author of Lives of a Cell)
Statistically, the probability of any one of us being here is so small that you’d think the mere fact of existing would keep us all in a contented dazzlement of surprise…People ought to be walking around all day, all through their waking hours, calling to each other in endless wonderment, talking of nothing except that cell (the first single cell organism that led to all life).”
From Theophan the Recluse, quoted in Timothy Ware, ed., The Art of Prayer: An Orthodox Anthology (London: Faber & Faber, 1966), at 110 :
To pray is to descend with the mind into the heart, and there to stand before the face of the Lord, ever-present, all seeing, within you. RefMgr field[22]: 3
From Alfred Lord Tennyson, In Memoriam A.H.H.", (1850) canto 5:
(1809-1892); English poet
“For words, like Nature, half reveal / and half conceal the Soul within. . . . .But for the unquiet heart and brain, / A use in measured language lies; / The sad mechanic exercise, / Like dull narcotics, numbing pain.”
From Alfred Lord Tennyson, The Ancient Sage" (1885) 1.66:
(1809-1892; English poet)
“For nothing worthy proving can be proven,/Nor yet disproven: wherefore thou be wise, / Cleave ever to the sunnier side of doubt.”
From Alfred Lord Tennyson, The Two Voices", quoted in James, The Varieties of Religious Experience at 302:
Moreover, something is or seems
That touches me with mystic gleams,
Like glimpses of forgotten dreams-
Of something felt, like something here;
Of something done, I know not where;
Such as no language may declare.