Paul Tillich's Doctrine of Religious Symbols

By Donald F. Dreisbach IN HIS TREATMENT of religious symbols, Paul Tillich claims that Cod or being itself can be known through beings, through those beings which are religious symbols.1 Tillich supports this claim by arguing that there is an ontological relationship between all beings and being itself, and that beings, i.e., objects of perception, thought, or imagination, can become transparent to being, so that it can be known through them. This doctrine is theologically interesting in that Tillich is attempting to provide an ontological foundation for the claim that Cod is manifested in the world and that man can know and relate himself to Cod through these manifestations. It is also philosophically interesting in that Tillich's claim that we can attain some grasp of being by means of a relationship to things, myths, ideas, and so forth is not unlike the claims of Heidegger in his later work and of Karl Jaspers with his ciphers of transcendence.
1. Tillich says at several places that God is being itself. See for instance Paul Tillich, Systematic Theology, Vol. 1 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1951), p. 238. Hereafter cited as ST I.

Unfortunately, Tillich's exposition and defense of this theory of symbols is diffused throughout his work and is never neatly gathered together or summarized in any one place. Hence it is easy to misunderstand or to fail to grasp the strength and coherence of Tillich's position. Indeed one critic, Lewis S. Ford, has written:
Though Tillich recognizes the necessity for a theory of symbols and has sought diligently to formulate one, it takes a subordinate position within the total systematic framework of his thought. From the systematic standpoint, the exact nature of the religious symbol is less important than the various functions it must perform. Thus Tillich has permitted himself considerable liberty in developing alternative and competing theories concerning the nature of the symbol. We discern at least three: a dialectic of affirmation and negation, an extended use of the metaphor of the transparency of the symbolic medium, and a theory of participation relevant to symbolic predication. These theories appear singly and in various combinations with one another. Tillich's sole requirement for these * Donald F. Dreisbach (Ph. D., Northwestern University) is Associate Professor in the Philosophy Department of Northern Michigan University. (326)

Paul Tillich's Doctrine of Religious Symbols theories is that they adequately describe symbols capable of fulfilling the necessary metaphysical and religious functions required of them.2

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Ford is quite correct in discerning the three major movements or steps in the development of the doctrine of symbols; what he fails to perceive is that these are three elements of one doctrine and that they do come together to form a coherent whole. This unity emerges when the various parts of Tillich's treatment of symbols are gathered together and, when necessary, clarified and restated. For one difficult problem in the theory of symbols, the explanation of what constitutes the difference between an ordinary object and a symbol, Tillich does offer more than one answer. In the second part of this paper I will argue that one of these explanations is far better than the others and does produce a plausible account of how being itself can be known through finite beings. / The easiest way to enter Tillich's discussion of symbols is through the list of six characteristics of symbols, or really three pairs of characteristics, which he provides in Dynamics of Faith. 1. Symbols are similar to signs in that both "point beyond themselves to something else." However, "signs can be replaced for reasons of expediency or convention, while symbols cannot." 2.. The reason why symbols cannot be replaced in the same way in which signs can is that the symbol "participates in that to which it points"; the sign does not. 3. A symbol "opens up levels of reality which otherwise are closed for us." 4. A symbol also "unlocks dimensions and elements of our soul which correspond to the [above mentioned] dimensions and elements of reality." 5. "Symbols cannot be produced intentionally . . . . They grow out of the individual or collective unconscious and cannot function without being accepted by the unconscious dimensions of our being." 6. Symbols grow and die.3 The first important characteristic of a symbol is that it is different from a sign. Signs and symbols both point beyond themselves, but signs can be replaced by convention while symbols cannot. The reason for this is that symbols participate in that which they symbolize. Participation, then, appears to be the key to this important difference between sign and symbol.
2. Lewis S. Ford, "The Three Strands of Tillich's Theory of Religious Symbols," The Journal of Religion, XLVI, No. 1, Part II (Jan. 1966), p. 106. 3. Paul Tillich, Dynamics of Faith (New York: Harper and Row, 1957), p. 41-43. Hereafter cited as DF.

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However, as William Rowe points out, what Tillich means by 'participation* is not at all clear. 'Participation' is a fine old Platonic word, never very clearly defined in Plato's work, and it is even more obscure in Tillich's. This is most unfortunate, since, as Rowe says, until the meaning of participation is clarified, "Tillich's fundamental distinction between sign and symbol is quite uninformative."4 And Tillich's use of the word 'participation' is so varied and general that it seems to have for him only the vaguest of meaning. Consider, for example, the following: A symbol participates in the reality it symbolizes; the knower participates in the known; the lover participates in the beloved; the existent participates in the essences which make it what it is, under the condition of existence; the individual participates in the destiny of separation and guilt; the Christian participates in the New Being as it is manifested in Jesus the Christ. In polarity with individualization, participation underlies the category of relation as a basic ontological element . . . . Without participation the category of relation would have no basis in reality. Every relation includes a kind of participation.6 From this it appears that 'participation,' although it is the basis of relation, really has no meaning beyond 'relation.' But this cannot be correct if participation is to mark the difference between sign and symbol, since even the sign is related to that for which it stands, if only in the sense of "being a sign for." But Tillich's position can be restated so that the meaning of the participation of the religious symbol in the symbolizandum, being itself, becomes clearer. First, let us forget about all other kinds of participation, since we are not here interested in the relationship of lover and beloved or Christian and the Christ, and it is by no means obvious that these kinds of partcipation are the same as or even similar to the participation of the symbol in the symbolizandum. We should also forget about kinds of symbols other than the religious. Tillich does give a few examples of non-religious symbols, such as symbols within the arts or a flag which participates in the power of king or country, but none of these examples helps to clarify the nature and meaning of the participation of the religious symbol in being itself.8 The relation of symbols to being itself is a metaphysical one, and so we might expect to find an answer to the question of participation within the context of Tillich's metaphysics. But although he does construct an ontology
4. William L. Rowe, Religious Symbols and God: A Philosophical Study of Tillich's Theory (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968), p. 119. 5. ST I, p. 177. 6. DF, p. 42. Rowe discusses some of the difficulties associated with the flag as a symbol: Rowe, p. 121.

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of sorts, as is evidenced by his discussion of ontological elements, polarities of being, and so forth, a detailed and coherent original metaphysical system is not the major focus of Tillich's efforts, and at no point in his discussion of metaphysics does a clear definition of 'participation' emerge. Also, although Tillich's ontology is the basis for his soteriology and for his method of interpreting religious symbols, it has no direct bearing on his explanation of what a symbol is or how it functions. But in a more general way Tillich does make use of, and even presuppose, a Platonic, or perhaps more accurately a neo-Platonic, view of the relation of entities to being itself.
Ever since the time of Plato it has been known . . . that the concept of being as being, or being itself, points to the power inherent in everything, the power of resisting non-being.7

Tillich thinks of being as the power to resist non-being, a power present in all that is. Participation is simply a word which points to the relation of all beings to and their dependence on being itself. Participation of the religious symbol in its symbolizandum simply means that there is some sort of ontological relationship between a being and being itself, a relation of dependency. A being is or is real; it therefore shares in, manifests, is grounded by, or participates in being or reality itself. Without this relationship there would be no ground or reason for the being to be. In that it exists, that it is not non-being, an entity manifests its relation to being itself or shows that the power of being itself is present in it. The precise description of this relationship Tillich does not give, but for the purposes of formulating the doctrine of symbols it really need not be given. Indeed, we might say that Tillich's metaphysical need here can be met by any ontology, be it Platonic, Thomistic, Scotistic, Spinozistic, or what have you, in which being itself is treated as real, i.e., as not just a bare abstraction or intellectual concept, and in which a real relationship is seen as existing between all entities or beings and being itself. The word 'participation' is, then, not so much a definition or account of this ontological relationship between beings and being itself as it is a metaphor which points to it, a metaphor which is occasionally replaced or clarified by another. At one point it is replaced by "belonging to."
Certainly we belong to beingits power is in usotherwise we would not be.8

At another point, participation is compared to representation.

7. ST I, p. 236. 8. Paul Tillich, Biblical Religion and the Search for Ultimate Reality (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1955), p. 11.

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The meaning of participation is indeed vague and will remain so, since it is more of a metaphor than an explanation. But it is now clear enough to begin to make sense of the difference between sign and symbol. A sign merely stands for or indicates something else. There has to be some reason or ground for this signification, some sort of connection between sign and signified. With a sign, this connection is only a relation of cause and effect, as with the clouds indicating rain; resemblance, as with the curved arrow on the roadsign indicating a curve in the road; or convention, as red indicating danger. These examples I borrow from Rowe. As he points out, "natural signs" such as nimbus clouds indicating rain or smoke indicating fire are not the product of convention and cannot be changed at will. Hence Tillich is wrong when he says that all signs are the product of convention, and hence being changeable at will and determined by convention cannot be a mark which differentiates signs from symbols.10 But this is no large problem. Tillich's discussion of signs only needs to be expanded to include "natural signs" as well as conventionally determined ones. After all, Tillich's main interest is in symbols and he mentions signs only in passing. The connection between sign and signified is either one of convention, in which case it can be changed at will, or one of resemblance or causation or temporal order, as with the rain coming shortly after the arrival of the clouds. But the relation of sign to signified usually is not difficult to undtrstand. There must also be some sort of connection between the religious symbol and the symbolizandum, being itself. But this connection must be of a different kind from that between sign and signified. It cannot be a relation of resemblance, since no finite entity resembles being itself. Nor can it be one of natural causation, at least not in the same sense of 'cause' as when fire is the cause of smoke or clouds of rain. Nor, finally, can the relation be one of convention. Although we have an immediate awareness of the power of being itself, at least insofar as we are aware of the existence, i.e., the not being nothing, of entities and especially of ourselves, this is, so to speak, a nonconceptual awareness.11 Although it discloses the reality of be9. Paul Tillich, "The Meaning and Justification of Religious Symbols," Religious Experience and Truth, ed. Sidney Hook (New York: N.Y.U. Press, 1961), p. 4. 10. Rowe, pp. 10809. 11. For a further discussion of Tillich's view of 's awareness of being itself, see my artic'e "Paul Tillich's Hermeneutic," forthcoming in the Journal of the American Academy of Religion.

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ing, it does not disclose the nature or essence of being.12 Hence there is no ground for choosing or defining one entity as that which stands for or represents being itself. Even more importantly, the function of the religious symbol within the context of Tillich's theology is not merely to indicate but also to make present or make manifest the symbolizandum, being itself, so that it not only can be known but also can become the center of one's life, the object of one's ultimate concern. This is the real work that Tillich's notion of participation performs; it establishes the presence of the genuine ultimate, infinite and transcendent, in the finite object which is the symbol. The reason for my use of the term "participation" is the desire to make the difference of symbol from sign as sharp as possible and, at the same time, to express what was rightly intended in the medieval doctrine of analogia entis, namely, to show a positive point of identity.13 Without this "point of identity," there would be no sense to the claim that the symbol makes the ultimate concretely present. However, Tillich's use of the concept of participation is not sufficient to explain just what a symbol is or how it differs from a sign. Everything, every entity, be it sign, symbol, or just a rock in the road, participates in being itself, because nothing can be unless it so participates. Thus there is an identity of every thing with being itself. No person and no thing is worthy in itself to represent our ultimate concern. On the other hand, every person and every thing participates in being itself, that is, in the ground and meaning of being. Without such participation it would not have the power of being. This is the reason why almost every type of reality has become a medium of revelation somewhere.14 We are left with too large a class of symbols. Anything at all might be a symbol or, more accurately, everything is a potential symbol of being itself. The concept of participation does point to a relation between beings and being itself, between potential symbol and symbolizandum, but some further account is needed to explain how a potential symbol becomes an actual one. Referring to the third and fourth propositions on Tillich's list, we learn that symbols open up levels of reality otherwise closed to us and open up corresponding elements of the self, i.e., symbols awaken sensitivities and elicit responses from the self that otherwise would remain latent. If, fol12. This is not to say that Tillich claims that being itself has an essence. Being simply is, it is not something. 13. Paul Tillich, "Rejoinder," The Journal of Religion, XLVI, No. 1, Part II (Jan. 1966), p. 188. 14. ST I, p. 118.

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lowing Tillich, we consider art to be a form of symbolic expression, these claims about symbols seem, on the level of common sense and general experience, to be correct. Art does elicit responses to and make us aware of things that we would never discover through mundane and prosaic modes of expression. By analogy, a religious symbol should open up up the deepest or ultimate level of reality, the level of being itself, and should produce in the self some sort of change, an awareness of and relation to ultimate reality. These characteristics, although Tillich does not mention them as such, can be counted as marks distinguishing symbols from signs, and indeed perform this function far better than the concept of participation. A sign merely stands for or represents something else, something that could itself be known. It is not in itself a disclosure or means of discovering anything new, either about reality or the self. The symbol does disclose something that could not be known except through symbols. While the above is a useful definition of what a symbol does, the problem is to give some plausible account of how this works, of how the symbol becomes transparent or, as Tillich prefers, translucent, to being itself.15 In this becoming translucent the symbol itself must somehow be negated or put aside; it must be experienced as not only the entity it is but also as a manifestation of the ground of being. A religious symbol uses the material of ordinary experience in speaking of God, but in such a way that the ordinary meaning of the material used is both affirmed and denied. Every religious symbol negates itself in its literal meaning, but it affirms itself in its self-transcending meaning. It is not a sign pointing to something with which it has no inner relationship. It represents the power and meaning of what is symbolized through participation.10 The quality of that which concerns one ultimately Tillich calls "the holy."17 If the element of negation is absent the symbol loses its translucency and becames itself holy. The symbol breaks down; it no longer represents but rather replaces the divine. It becomes an idol. Holiness cannot become actual except through holy "objects." But holy objects are not holy in and of themselves. They are holy only by negating themselves in pointing to the divine of which they are the mediums. If they establish themselves as holy, they become demonic . . . . Innumerable things, all things in a way, have the power of becoming holy in a mediate sense. They can point to something beyond themselves. But, if
15. Tillich prefers 'translucency' because each symbol contributes to and conditions that which one sees or grasps of the symbolizandum. See Tillich, "Rejoinder," p. 188. 16. Paul Tillich, Systematic Theology, Vol. II (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1957), p. 9. 17. ST I, p. 215.

Paul Tillich's Doctrine of Religious Symbols their holiness comes to be considered inherent, it becomes demonic . . . . The representations of man's ultimate concernholy objectstend to become his ultimate concern. They are transformed into idols.18

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For any finite entity to become a symbol, it must be affirmed and negated at the same time, but exactly how this peculiar operation works is not immediately obvious. Tillich says more about it in his treatment of the last two propositions on his list, that symbols cannot be produced intentionally, and that they grow and die. By "growth" and "death" Tillich means that symbols have a sort of life of their own; their becoming symbols or their ceasing to be symbols cannot be controlled by man, because symbols are a product of the unconscious. Tillich refers especially to the "group unconscious." Out of what womb are symbols born? Out of the womb which is usually called today the "group unconscious" or "collective unconscious," or whatever you want to call itout of a group which acknowledges, in this thing, this word, this flag, or whatever it may be, its own being. It is not invented intentionally; and even if somebody would try to invent a symbol, as sometimes happens, then it becomes a symbol only if the unconscious of a group says "yes."19 In other words, an object becomes a symbol when a group unconsciously decides that it is a symbol. To this one might well ask exactly why the symbol must function for a group? The size of the group from which it elicits response and acceptance has no apparent connection with an object's ability to become a symbol. If small groups can have symbols, why cannot just one single individual find something to be a symbol of God or being itself? Tillich does give reasons why faith, the state of being ultimately concerned, demands membership in a community. One such reason is that faith demands language in which it can be expressed, and language implies a community, at least a linguistic community, to which the language belongs.20 Also, faith, if genuine, aims at that which transcends and overcomes the dividedness of existence and so implies love and action, which presupposes a community in which one acts.21 But these all seem to be consequences of faith, consequences of the encounter with being itself through the symbol, and not necessary conditions for it. Also, even if one grants that symbols never function just for an individual but always for a group of people, surely the symbol functions for the group because it functions for each member of the group, and not the other way around. In other words, the primary prob18. 19. 20. 21. ST I, p. 216. Paul Tillich, Theology of Culture (New York: Oxford University Press, 1959), p. 58. DF, pp. 2324. DF, p. 117.

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lem in explaining the function of symbols is the individual's relation to them, and not the group's. If the function of a symbol depends on acceptance "by the unconscious dimension of our being,"22 it would follow that symbols cannot be consciously invented or produced. A church, some individual or organization, or a theologian, might suggest some object or entity as a symbol, but whether this entity would actually function as a symbol for any individual or group is beyond the control of whoever suggests it. Hence symbols have a life of their own independent of the conscious will of men; they grow and die. But this is not much of an explanation. If the primary defining mark of a symbol, that which explains how a potential symbol differs from an actual one, is completely hidden in the unconscious, we really do not know very much at all about symbols. If knowledge of and relation to being itself through symbols is not a completely rational process, one cannot expect or demand a completely rational account of the working of symbols. Still, to bury the entire question under the term "unconscious" does not do much for the plausibility of the theory. Another important question is that of the truth of symbols. In what sense can a symbol be called true? The truth of religious symbols can have nothing to do with a comparison of the symbol to the symbolizandum, since the symbolizandum is only known through the symbol. The criterion of the truth of a symbol naturally cannot be the comparison of it with the reality to which it refers, just because this reality is absolutely beyond human comprehension. The truth of a symbol depends on its inner necessity for the symbol-creating consciousness. Doubts concerning its truth show a change of mentality, a new attitude toward the unconditioned transcendent. The only criterion that is at all relevant is this, that the unconditioned is clearly grasped in its unconditionedness.23 Hence there must be some other criterion for the truth of symbols. Tillich claims that all truth requires some sort of verification.24 Since objects do not become symbols just in themselves but only through their relation to individuals or groups of people, their truth can only be verified in the human life-process, and their truth must be related to the situation in which individual people find themselves. The truth of symbols, then, "is their adequacy to the religious situation in which they are created, and their inadequacy to another situation is their untruth."25 But what does this "adequacy" mean? At least in part, this adequacy seems to indicate the ability
22. 23. 24. 25. DF, p. 43. Paul Tillich, "The Religious Symbol," Religious Experience and Truth, p. 316. ST I, p. 102. Tillich, Theology of Culture, pp. 66-67.

Paul Tillich's Doctrine of Religious Symbols to move people, to demand religious attention, to "create reply." Faith has truth insofar as it adequately expresses an ultimate concern. "Adequacy" of expression means the power of expressing an ultimate concern in such a way that it creates reply, action, communication. Symbols which are able to do this are alive. But the life of symbols is limited. The relation of man to the ultimate undergoes changes. Contents of ultimate concern vanish or are replaced by others . . . The criterion of the truth of faith is whether or not it is alive . . . . The other criterion of the truth of a symbol of faith is that it expresses the ultimate which is really ultimate. In other words, that it is not idolatrous.26

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Because it participates in being itself an object can be a religious symbol, a concrete manifestation of God or being itself for one's ultimate concern. But this is not sufficient to define a symbol, since all objects participate in being itself. The defining marks of a true symbol are that it is alive, that it communicates and brings about a reply, thus making one sensitive to depths of reality otherwise unnoticed, and that the symbol is somehow necessary for the symbol creating consciousness. In addition, a genuine symbol is not idolatrous; it is not itself the object of ultimate concern but is that which allows the ultimate or unconditioned to shine through or show itself without interfering with its unconditionedness. There are, then, two crucial terms, idolatry and the life of symbols, upon which the entire doctrine of religious symbols appears ultimately to rest. But these two concepts are not really sufficient to explain how an object of thought or experience becomes a valid symbol. The difference between an idol and a genuine symbol is that the symbol is translucent to and thereby draws attention to something beyond itself, whereas the idol is itself the object of attention. Since being itself cannot be grasped or thought concretely, it can only become an object of thought and of ultimate concern as it is manifested through the symbol. But then the symbol must be the object of ultimate concern, and in this sense must be precisely the same as the idol. If the symbol is to be different from an idol, it must somehow recede; it must give up its own claim to ultimacy in order to let being itself show through.27 But obviously the symbol cannot completely recede. If it did, there would be no object of consciousness at all. So the symbol must both be and not be present to consciousness, and this Tillich describes in terms of the dialectic of affirmation and negation. That is, the
26. DF, pp. 96-97. 27. For Tillich the paradigm of this is the Crucifixion, in that a finite being surrendered all claims to ultimacy for himself and so became a manifestation of the genuine ultimate. See ST I, p. 136.

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symbol must affirm itself as present to consciousness, but must negate itself as of no interest in itself but only as the medium of the divine. If a symbol is to be a medium for the concrete manifestation of being itself, it must be at once both present (as that entity which is the symbol) and absent (of no importance in itself). Within the overall context of Tillich's project this explanation of how symbols work, of how they differ from idols, is not very satisfactory. On a purely intellectual level it has a certain appeal, especially to anyone who has a fondness for Hegel. One learns to think and un-think something at the same time. But this does sound like an arcane skill or knack, something like learning to perform HusserPs epoche. This would not in itself be much of a problem if Tillich's overall aim were to give instructions in how to be religious, if he were in effect inventing religion, as though there had been no genuine religion prior to Tillich. But his project is not to invent something new but to explain how symbols do in fact function, not only for the trained and practiced dialectician but for the average man in the pew. And for this purpose the dialectic of affirmation and negation must be dismissed as just too complicated and elevated to be plausible. The problem is just the opposite with the notion of the life of symbols, a concept perhaps adequate to describe a symbol but too simple to explain how or why a symbol comes into being. If a symbol does disclose the nature of being, one would expect it to have some sort of life or vivacity, to, in Tillich's words, create "reply, action, communication." But what is it that turns some object of consciousness into a manifestation of being itself? The only answer Tillich has offered thus far has to do with the unconscious, which is not really an answer at all. But without a clearer account of how a symbol comes into being, the entire doctrine of symbols has little force or plausibility.
//

In the opening pages of this paper I quoted Lewis S. Ford's comments to the effect that Tillich really has three different and unreconciled theories of symbols: the dialectic of affirmation and negation, the metaphor of transparency, and the concept of participation. By now it should be clear that these are not three different theories at all, but aspects of the same one. An object cannot become transparent to being itself unless there is some sort of relation or connection of that object to being itself, and it is this relation that Tillich points to with his concept of participation. In brief, there can be no transparency unless there is participation. But not all beings, even though they do participate in being itself, are symbols. Hence some ac-

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count must be given of what transforms an object into a symbol, what makes the object transparent, and this Tillich attempts with his dialectic of affirma* tion and negation. This account, I have argued, ise to do the job. Indeed, Tillich seems aware of this inadequacy, and treats this problem in several different ways. It is here, in his explanation of just how an object is transformed into a symbol, that Tillich has produced competing and unreconciled accounts. We have already seen two, the claim that symbols originate in the group unconscious and the dialectic of affirmation and negation. A still different, and indeed a much better, treatment of this problem arises out of Tillich's discussion of revelation. This discussion is not oriented to the subject of symbols per se, but does have a direct bearing on it, since a religious symbol is the carrier of revelation, "the manifestation of the ground of being for human knowledge"28 or "the manifestation of what concerns us ultimately."39 If the religious symbol does "reveal," there must be something in the revelatory experience which brings together the person and being itself. Revelation is a form of knowledge, and so we can begin to describe it by comparing the cognition of religious symbols to the cognition of an ordinary object. Tillich does not produce a real epistemology, any more than he does a real metaphysics, but for his purposes he does not require one. His position on objective knowledge, the usual activity which we call knowing, is little more than common sense. Knowing is a form of union. In every act of knowledge the knower and that which is known are united; the gap between subject and object is overcome. The subject "grasps" the object, adapts it to itself, and, at the same time, adapts itself to the object. But the union of knowledge is a peculiar one; it is a union through separation. Detachment is the condition of cognitive union.30 Knowing requires both knower and known, subject and object. The object of knowledge, even if it is "in me" as an object of memory, thought, or imagination, is not the subject. The act of knowing is a bridging of this separation, but not an abolition of it. The separation of knower from known remains. The cognition of a religious symbol is different; the separation of knower from known is overcome. This means that the person for whom the object is a symbol must be in a state different from that of the objective ob28. ST I, p. 98. 29. ST I, p. 110. 30. ST I, p. 94.

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server, a state of faith. Tillich generally defines faith as the slate of being ultimately concerned31 But this state of faith must be more than just ultimate concern. In this "faithful cognition" directed at an object the object is taken not in terms of understanding, use, or even pleasure, but either as being or as representing that around which one's life revolves. But there must be some difference between this faithful cognition directed at an idol and that directed at a symbol, since both elicit one's ultimate concern, a difference between what we might call genuine and idolatrous faith. Tillich describes this state of genuine faithful cognition by comparing it to other forms of cognition, even that of the theologian. There is a kind of cognition implied in faith which is qualitatively different from the cognition involved in the technical, scholarly work of the theologian. It has a completely existential, self-determining, and selfsurrendering character and belongs to the faith of even the intellectually most primitive believer . . . We shall call the organ with which we receive the contents of faith "self-transcending," or ecstatic, reason, and we shall call the organ of the theological scholar "technical," or formal, reason.32 In the state of genuine faith the status of the self is changed; it is surrendered rather than defended. It reaches out beyond itself to complete union with the object; the self is ecstatic. "Ecstasy" ("standing outside one's self") points to a state of mind which is extraordinary in the sense that the mind transcends its ordinary situation. Ecstasy is not a negation of reason; it is the state of mind in which reason is beyond itself, that is, beyond its subject-object structure . . . Ecstasy occurs only if the mind is grasped by the mystery, namely, by the ground of being and meaning. And, conversely, there is no revelation without ecstasy.83 In the ecstatic union, the cleavage between subject and object is, at least temporarily and fragmentarily, overcome. This does not mean that the object qua object disappears, that knowledge of the object is abolished, but rather that it is included within a different sort of cognitive relationship, which Tillich, unfortunately, refers to by that overused word, 'participation.' Within the structure of subject-object separation, observation and conclusion are the way in which the subject tries to grasp the object, remaining always strange to it and never certain of success. To the degree in which the subject-object structure is overcome, observation is replaced by participation (which includes observation) and conclusion is replaced by insight (which includes conclusions). Such insight on the basis of partici31. As at DF, p. 1. 32. ST I, p. 53. 33. ST I, pp. 11112.

Paul Tlich's Doctrine of Religious Symbols pation is not a method which can be used at will but a state of being elevated to what we have called the transcendent unity.34

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Using this description of the relation of person to symbol, we can go on to define the difference between a genuine religious symbol and an idol. An idol, like a symbol, participates in being itself; it is, like every object, a potential symbol. And an idol may be the object of one's ultimate concern; an idol may be holy. But an idol remains the thing it is, an object in the world present to a subject. An idol does not bring about or enter into or complete that relation of genuine faith in which the separation of subject and object is overcome.
Hie finite which claims infinity without having it (as, e.g., a nation or success) is not able to transcend the subject-object scheme. It remains an object which the believer looks at as a subject. He can approach it with ordinary knowledge and subject it to ordinary handling . . The more idolatrous a faith the less it is able to overcome the cleavage between subject and object.85

We can now also give a more complete account of how an object of thought, experience, or imagination becomes a symbol. In the revelatory event, that is, in any case where a symbol successfully manifests the ultimate and unconditioned to a person, the ecstatic union occurs in which the subjectobject cleavage is overcome. A religious symbol, then, can never be a symbol in itself, but only for a person or a group of people. An essential element in the transformation of an object into a symbol is the subject's relation to it. Clearly, there are two sides to this event: the objective, the object present to the consciousness of the person; and the subjective, the response of the self to this object.
Revelation always is a subjective and an objective event in strict interdependence. Someone is grasped by the manifestation of the mystery; this is the subjective side of the event. Something occurs through which the mystery of revelation grasps someone; this is the objective side. These two sides cannot be separated. If nothing happens objectively, nothing is revealed. If no one receives what happens subjectively, the event fails to reveal anything. The objective occurrence and the subjective reception belong to the whole event of revelation.86

If an object actually functions as a symbol, if it relates a person to the ground of being, there is a mutual grasping. The symbol grasps the person,
34. Paul Tillich, Systematic Theology, Vol. Ill (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1963), p. 256. 35. DF, pp. 11-12. 36. ST I, p. 111.

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it appeals to him in some way, moves him in a way in which ordinary objects do not; the person responds to the appeal, he grasps or sees or uses the symbol in a way different from his response to ordinary objects. The event whereby an object becomes a symbol for someone is a peculiar kind of event, an ecstatic relating of person to symbol. How and why this ecstatic event takes place is and must remain a mystery. Why do some objects rather than others elicit this response? Why do not all men make this response to the same object? But we are here talking about an intensely personal relationship of the entire self, not a rational or intellectual one. Psychological investigation may reveal some of the grounds for this appeal and response, grounds involving the person's cultural and educational traditions, his family and upbringing, and perhaps ultimately the unconscious elements of his being. But one cannot expect such investigations to explain finally and completely why an object is a symbol for one person and not for another. Tillich is unfair to his own doctrine when he claims that this is due to a symbol growing out of the unconscious, whether of individual or group. If faith is "an act of the total personality," the movement of faith involves more than just the unconscious. It involves the totality of one's being; it involves the person to the utmost. Hence the relation of faith, the relation of the person to the symbol, is personal to the utmost. But then it should be of no surprise that this relation cannot be clearly and completely described. We all have personal likes and dislikes and make personal responses which we cannot understand and which probably cannot be completely understood. One likes lamb but not pork, responds to Beethoven but not Bach. On a deeper level, we become friends with some people and not with others. Perhaps the best example is falling in love. Of all the people in the world, a person falls in love with one. Two people come together, they appeal to each other, and enter into a relationship in some ways similar to their relationship with other people but in important ways quite different. Psychological investigation may reveal many grounds for two people falling in love, but not all of the reasons, not the reason. Needless to say, the relation of person to genuine symbol is not exactly the same as love. One does not fall in love with the Biblical picture of Jesus or with the consecrated bread and wine or with anything else that serves as a religious symbol in the same way in which a man falls in love with a woman. We are dealing here in metaphor and analogy, not in straightforward description of matters of fact. No way of discussing this mysterious relation will be totally adequate. But it is this relationship which constitutes Tillich's best account of how a potential symbol is turned into an actual one.

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I have criticized Tillich's attempt to explain this transformation by means of the dialectic of affirmation and negation, but the dialectic is in a sense included or taken up in this broader notion of the special relation of a person to that which functions for him as symbol. In this relationship the object as symbol is present to consciousness as one pole of the relationship, just as any other object is, and in this sense the symbol asserts itself. There is also a negation, not of the object itself but of what we might call the "ob jectness" of the object. Its separation from the subject is overcome or negated in the ecstatic union of person with symbol. This human response, rather than the intricacies of an intellectual dialectic or the vagueness of an explanation based on the group unconscious, provides a far more believable account of how an object is transformed into a symbol. But if the doctrine of symbols rests on this peculiar subjective relationship, we might ask how revelation, how knowledge of God or of being itself through symbols, could be considered true. We have already seen that the truth of a religious symbol cannot be based upon its resemblance to the symbolizandum. Its truth does depend upon its participation in being itself and upon the response and concern it elicits from a person or community, its ability to appeal to a person in such a way that he both aims his ultimate concern at it and relates himself ecstatically to it. The symbol's "verification in the life-process" is its ability to continue to be a satisfying aim of one's ultimate concern. Clearly, such truth is subjective; it depends upon a personal response and commitment rather than an objective understanding of what is the case or of what is valid. But because its truth is subjective, its truth is, at least in one respect, certain. A symbol is that toward which one directs one's ultimate concern, and concerns, like desires and feelings, are immediately given. But with this certainty is the danger of falsehood, the danger that the object of ultimate concern will remain or will fall back to being just an object, that one will fail to maintain the relation which keeps the symbol open as a manifestation of the genuine ultimate. Revelation can fall into idolatry.
The certitude of faith is "existential," meaning that the whole existence of man is involved. It has . . . two elements: the one, which is not a risk but a certainty about one's own being, namely, on being related to something ultimate or unconditional; the other, which is a risk and involves doubt and courage, namely, the surrender to a concern which is not really ultimate and may be destructive if taken as ultimate.37

But if this is the case, if it is impossible to adequately describe the relation of a person to a symbol, and if the truth of symbols is at the same time
37. DF, pp. 33-34.

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both certain and uncertain, is it possible to evaluate this theory or even to understand clearly just what this theory is? This is a problem, although it is by no means unique to Tillich's position. Any attempt to describe Kierkegaard's "Leap of Faith," Buber's "I-Thou" relationship, Jasper's reading of ciphers of transcendence, or Heidegger's notion of releasement (Gelassenheit) toward things leads to similar problems. Any such description leads eventually to a via negativa: it is not a knowing or relating that is based on logic, proof, or demonstration; it is not a knowing or relating aimed at use, calculation, or manipulation; the subject in this relationship is a real self, not a Cartesian scientific knower. And neither Tillich's position nor any of these others can be adequately evaluated in terms of rational demonstration' or hard evidence, since it is just this form of objective and rational thinking to which they are proposing an alternative. It is easy to dismiss Tillich's position out of hand. A nominalist or positivist will reject or find meaningless the first two steps in the argument, the claim that being itself is real rather than merely a concept and that beings participate in being itself. To anyone who has no experience of and no desire for any relation to other people or the world other than a purely cognitive or rational one, and who denies the possibility of any other kind of relation, Tillich's claim that the ecstatic encounter of the self with a symbol must appear not so much false as utterly incomprehensible. A position such as Tillich's does, then, if it is to make any sense at all, require some measure of good will on the part of the reader, a willingness to put aside demands for logical rigor and to look for analogies in one's own experience. And the measure of Tillich's success should not be his ability to convince one who vigorously resists him, an enterprise in which he will almost certainly be unsuccessful. Rather, it should be something like plausibility. If rational proof, by the very nature of that for which Tillich is trying to build a case, is excluded, plausibility and completeness are the only basis on which a judgment can be made. One can, of course, point out the strengths of Tillich's position, especially the fact that he attacks the problem on both the ontological and the personal level. Although his ontology is neither original nor complete, he does lay an ontological foundation for the claim that the revelation of being itself by beings is possible. He then, in a psychological or existential discussion, explains how this possibility is turned into an actuality. But perhaps the ultimate test of Tillich's success is how plausible and complete his account appears as a way of making sense of our own religious experience, not the grand experiences of mystical unity with the Godhead or the One, nor of the tremendous conversion experiences that completely alter

Paul Tillich's Doctrine of Religious Symbols one's life (kinds of experience which may be important but are relatively rare), but of the more mundane experiences of what we take to be encounters with or disclosures of ultimate reality, whether this encounter takes place through the symbol structure of an organized religion or through objects of nature, art, human relations, or what have you. If Tillich's doctrine of symbols can shed any light on these experiences, it should be judged a success.

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