Systematic Theology II. Existence and the Christ by Paul Tillich

Abstract

420 BOOK REVIEWS minate possibilities emerge within the Ideal owing to the " pressure " of the other modes (he would of course wish to interpret each distinct possibility as having a portion of the substance of pure quiddity}. It is also implied when he seeks to account for the possession by many Actualities of a t:.niversal nature. How is the given universal nature, numerically one and having its own distinct existence in the ideal order, to enter into the many? How, unless there be many individual natures, is the nature of this or that Actuality to be truly its own? To overcome this problem, Prof. Weiss calls upon God. It is he who "alone allows universals to be sharable and individuals to be private, and provides the power making it possible for these two dimensions to be together without loss to the integrity of either." (p. ~90; also pp. 838-9, 534} But, needless to say, it is not numerically the same nature that is in the many, nor are the many individual natures the product of a material division of the universal. Thus the divine power of which he speaks can only be the power to communicate to the many an act that is formally one, which is the only kind of unity found here. Accordingly, he must acknowledge a derivation of reality that is not reducible to a species of material causality. (He must· also acknowledge that the mode of Ideality is utterly superfluous.) A like argument will apply to existence. Since the existence of an Actuality is neither one with nor a part of subsistent existence, it can only be a communicated act. This may run counter to the author's notion of what it is truly to exist, but the fact must be accepted. And should he examine the reasons for identifying pure essence and subsistent existence, whatever objections he might now have to a creative God would surely vanish. De Paul University, Chicago, IUinois JoHN D. BEACH Systematic Theology II. Existence and the Christ. By PAUL TILLICH. Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 1957. Pp. 187, with index. $4.50. When Catholic and Protestant thinkers gather for serious talk, their conversation, someone recently observed, is seldom theological. If this comment is true, one reason for the anomaly may be the difficulty of finding a common language, even a common type of thought-linking in areas beyond those where practical necessity forces some clear thought and plain expression. The Protestant theologian, Paul Tillich, revealing himself in the first two volumes of his Systematic Theology, finds value in thinking about beiv.g as being; he finds value in technical terminology for precision of BOOK REVIEWS 421 thought and communication; he holds, and shows, that such philosophy can really be linked somehow with Revelation. Yet more, he de~onstrates that such systematic thought must begin with careful, detailed observation of real things; he lays out remarkable fruits of such observation-his own and that of thinkers from Parmenides to Heidegger. He finds that people are not what they should be; that this " estrangement " from their true selves is not entirely the fault of each but rather is, to some degree, simply in each when he is born; that mere legal codes and commands offer precious little help in overcoming this estrangement ; that men cannot by their own efforts overcome it; in fact, that men cannot even know the remedy without revelation; that this estrangement is removed only by some ontological change which must be caused by someone other than the helpless men; that this change can be called a "New Being"; that in this New Being the center of man's person is restored and healed and rightly related to his " ultimate concern," and this chiefly by means of love; and that the bearer of this New Being is Jesus as the Christ. Does Dr. Tillich mean by all this what Thomists mean? No, not all; very little, in fact, beyond the face value of the listings. Yet some may see that list as remarkable for its shrewdness of induction and coherence of structure. Yet after a first reading, especially of volume two of Systematic Theology, the Catholic thinker...