My daily reading is extremely wide ranging - from science, history and politics to theology, poetry and children’s literature. I frequently post quotations and selections from my daily readings, often without commentary, in the hope that others may be inspired to read the volume from which the selection was taken.
What follows may also be regarded as part of a prolegomenous outwork to a future commentary on Hugh MacDiarmid.
God is the answer to the question implied in man’s finitude; he is the name for that which concerns man ultimately. This does not mean that first there is a being called God and then the demand that man should be ultimately concerned about him. It means that whatever concerns a man ultimately becomes god for him and, conversely, it means that a man can be concerned ultimately only about that which is god for him. The phrase “being ultimately concerned” points to a tension in human experience.
On the one hand, it is impossible to be concerned about something which cannot be encountered concretely, be it in the realm of reality or in the realm of the imagination. Universals can become matters of ultimate concern only through their power of representing concrete experiences. The more concrete a thing is, the more possible concern about it. The completely concrete being, the individual person, is the object of the most radical concern - the concern of love.
On the other hand, ultimate concern must transcend every preliminary finite and concrete concern. It must transcend the whole realm of finitude in order to be the answer to the question implied in finitude. But in transcending the finite the religious concern loses the concreteness of a being-to-being relationship. It tends to become not only absolute but also abstract, provoking reactions from the concrete element.
This is the inescapable inner tension in the idea of God. The conflict between the concreteness and the ultimacy of the religious concern is actual wherever God is experienced and this experience is expressed from primitive prayer to the most elaborate theological system.
It is the key to understanding the dynamics of the history of religion.
from The Essential Tillich: an anthology of the writings of Paul Tillich.
Ed., F. Church. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999.
(Separated into paragraphs for ease of reading).
0 Responses to “ultimate concern”