Theological Phenomenology

 Paul Tillich

We know of the Theological Circle, the Logical Tautology Circle, and now the Phenomenological Circle. All deductive non-contradictory axiomatic ideological systems are tautological. The essentialist/non-essentialist debate concerning the ultimate foundation of logical necessary is a debate about of the limits of the categories of finitude. Wittgenstein’s famous advice here is, “7. Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.” This famous aphorism is Wittgenstein's summary of Kantian epistemology in total.

The Kantian block has always stood as the limit of Reason long before phenomenology, or Wittgenstein appeared in history. For Kant, the understanding supplies categorical forms (Space and Time) that structure our experience of the sensible world, the thing-as-it-appears, to which human knowledge is limited, while the intelligible thing-in-itself (or noumenal) world is strictly unknowable (epistemologically blocked) to us. Remember Heidegger’s other word for appearance, “Erscheinung,” which means the way in which the thing appears, but is also a mark, or sign of what a thing is. These problems of logical circularity are a mark, or symptom of our finitude running up against the infinite.

Theological Phenomenology:

• “The denial of reason in the classical sense is antihuman because it is antidivine.” --Paul Tillich*
• · “...every epistemology contains an implicit ontology.”- Paul Tillich
• ·“Every creative philosopher is a hidden theologian (sometimes even a declared theologian).” – Paul Tillich
• “A system is a totality made up of consistent, but not of deduced, assertions.” – Paul Tillich

*(Quotes found in Paul Tillich, Systematic Theology Vol. I, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1951, 1957 & 1963.).

Theologian Paul Tillich idealistically explains that, “Phenomenology is a way of pointing to phenomena as they “give themselves,” without the interference of negative or positive prejudices and explanations.” (Paul Tillich, Systematic Theology Vol. I, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1951, 1957 & 1963, p. 106. Here after referred to as “ST1.” ).

However, unlike the positivistic empiricist that creates distance between the object and himself, the theological phenomenologist must have religious intuition that close the distance between himself and the object in focus—this is because the “object” really is not an object at all, but other conscious human beings:

“A theological history of culture, which is the attempt to analyze the theology behind all cultural expressions, to discover the ultimate concern in the ground of a philosophy, a political system, an artistic style, a set of ethical or social principles. This task is analytic rather than synthetic, historical rather than systematic...It is an art as much as a science to “read styles,” and it requires religious intuition, on the basis of an ultimate concern, to look into the depth of a style, to penetrate to the level where an ultimate concern exercises its driving power” (ST1, p. 39-20).

Tillich perceptively noted that, “Cognitive distance is the presupposition of cognitive union.” (ST1, p. 94.). Yet, he also warned, “The detachment required in honest theological work can destroy the necessary involvement of faith. (ST1, p. 26.). Tillich sees other problems with the phenomenological method. How is it to deal with conflicting interpretations of phenomena? How is the criterion for ‘choosing criterion’ even possible without being circular?

[My bold text for emphasis]

"However, the phenomenological method leaves one question unanswered, which is decisive for its validity. Where, and to whom, is an idea revealed? The phenomenologist answers: Take as an example a typical revelatory event and see within it and through it the universal meaning of revelation. This answer proves insufficient as soon as different and perhaps contradictory examples of revelation are encountered by phenomenological intuition. What criterion is to govern the choice of an example? Phenomenology cannot answer this question. This points to the fact that while phenomenology is competent in the realm of logical meanings, which was the object of the original inquiries made by Husserl, the inventor of the phenomenological method, it is only partially competent in the realm of spiritual realities like religion” (ST1, p. 106-107).

The only way for Tillich to answer this question about the choice of a phenomenological example is, “...only if a critical element is introduced into “pure” phenomenology...This is 'critical phenomenology,' uniting an intuitive-descriptive element with an existential-critical element"(ST1, p.107). The biblical theologian’s exegesis is primarily “pneumatic” (Spiritual) or, what we would today call, “existential.”(ST1, p.35.).

There is also the problem of epistemological certainty. Certainty is easier in the technical sciences, but theological phenomenology is interested in the existential, or spiritual realm. In this realm our knowledge is incomplete,“...the infinite horizons of thinking cannot supply the basis for any concrete decision with certainty. Except in the technical realm where an existential decision is not involved, one must make decisions on the basis of limited or distorted or incomplete insights” ST1, p.35). Tillich believes all empirical theology will fail because 1.) The object of theology (our ultimate concern as human beings) is not an object of empirical-positivistic science. 2. Empirical theology cannot be tested by scientific standards of verification, but only by embracing a lifetime of participation in a concrete religious reality.

Tillich is speaking of a different kind of knowledge other than technical knowledge, means-ends knowledge, or controlling knowledge. He is instead speaking of, “knowledge [which] is more than a fulfilling: it also transforms and heals: this would be impossible if the knowing subject were only a mirror of the object, remaining in unconquered distance from it” (ST1, p. 95).  The problem with controlling knowledge is that it,“ ‘objectifies’ not only logically (which is unavoidable) but also ontologically and ethically.” (ST1, p. 97.). 

Since the 1800s there have been extremist efforts to reduce all of philosophy to scientific logic. Ludwig Wittgenstein’s first philosophical work, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1921) (free pdf)was written on the assumption that natural language contained within it a hidden calculus. Romanticism, philosophies of life, and existentialism were antithetical schools of thought that attempted to resist this militant movement for total domination by technical reason, or controlling knowledge.

Modern science and philosophy use “true” and “false” as “qualities of judgments” and if judgments fail or are successful in describing reality they are assigned values of truth or falsity. “But reality in itself is what it is, and it can neither be true nor false”(ST1, p. 101). 

That reality can be neither true, nor false (this is a function of reason and language), is exactly what Philosopher-Logician, Ludwig Wittgenstein said of the world and ethical values. Wittgenstein was the very first Logical Positivist in whose name the Vienna School of Logical Positivism was founded by the leading scientists of his era.

“6.41 The sense of the world must lie outside the world. In the world everything is as it is and happens as it does happen. In it there is no value—and if there were, it would be of no value.” -Wittgenstein, Tractatus

“6.37 A necessity for one thing to happen because another has happened does not exist. There is only logical necessity.” - Wittgenstein, Tractatus

Tillich often uses the term “paradoxical” which means “against the opinion,” (During 1530–40 A.D., formed from the Greek word, paradoxon, from paradoxos, meaning conflicting with expectation; para-, beyond; see para + doxa, opinion) namely, the opinion of finite reason according to Tillich. However, there is refuge from the tyrannical rule of instrumental reason:

”Those elements of reality which cannot be reached by controlling knowledge, like qualities, Gestalten, meanings, ideas, values, and called “mysterious.” But the fact that they involve a different cognitive approach does not make them mysterious. The quality of color, or the meaning of an idea, or the nature of a living being is a mystery only if the method of quantitative analysis is the pattern of all knowledge” (ST1, p. 109). 

The Methodology of Theological Phenomenology:

• “Life processes have the character of totality, spontaneity, and individuality. Experiments presuppose isolation, regularity, and generality.”(ST1, p. 103.).

• “Reason as the structure of mind and reality is actual in the processes of being, existence, and life. Being is finite, existence is self-contradictory, and life is ambiguous.” (ST1, p. 103.).

The problem of instrumental reason is even more profound in justifying methodology. In the modern age epistemology has divided itself into two types of knowledge: controlling knowledge that is sure, but insignificant and receiving knowledge that is significant but not certain. Receiving knowledge is, “...’non-systematic’[which] does not mean inconsistent; it only means non-deductive. And life is non-deductive in all its creativity and eventfulness.” (Paul Tillich, Systematic Theology Vol. II, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1951, 1957 & 1963, p. 5. Here after referred to as “ST2.”).

Ideologically, Reason has been reduced to the capacity for “reasoning,” especially, to calculation. Contradictorily, even means-ends “reasoning” has presuppositions of the nature of things that are not themselves established by technical reason. Tillich ironically noted that, “Karl Marx called every theory which is not based on the will to transform reality an “ideology,” that is, an attempt to preserve existing evils by a theoretical construction which justifies them”(ST1, p. 76).

This dethronement of Reason has an intellectual history that can be traced back to Kant at least. After Hegel’s enormous philosophical legacy and his all encompassing System faded into history, Reason become only to be known as scientific calculation:

“In post-Kantian metaphysics reason forgot its bondage to the categories of finitude. But this self-elevation to divine dignity brought on dethronement and contempt of reason and made the victory of one of its functions over all the others possible. The fall of a deified reason after Hegel contributed decisively to the enthronement of technical reason in our time and to the loss of the universality and the depth of ontological reason” (ST1, p. 82).

“Ontological reason,” Tillich tells us, “can be defined as the structure of the mind which enables it to grasp and to shape reality” (ST1, p. 75).

“Methodology” is an ancient Greek word: méthodos systematic course, equivalent to met- meta- + hodós way, road:

“A method is a tool, literally a way around, which must be adequate to its subject matter...Therefore, no method can claim to be adequate for every subject. Methodological imperialism is a dangerous as political imperialism; like the later, it breaks down when the independent elements of reality revolt against it”(ST1, p. 60).

With the dominance of logical positivism, operant conditioning behaviorist psychology, along with developments in technology, even some philosophers will not acknowledge anything that does not meet the standards of technical reason so questions of existential concerns (Spirituality) are ruled out from contemplation a priori. They are victims of the Materialist tautology: “Everything is material; therefore, everything is material.”

The theological phenomenologist is emerged in the Life-process and she brings her knowledge to the field of research in the form of intuition just as other researchers in other disciplines do:

”The truth of their knowledge is verified partly by experimental test, partly by a participation in the individual life with which they deal. If this “knowledge by participation” is called “intuition,” the cognitive approach to every individual life-process is intuitive. Intuition in this sense is not irrational, and neither does it by-pass a full consciousness of experimentally verified knowledge”(ST1, p.103).

How are we going to formulate any useful, or successful criterion of any experimentation without begging the question of what is useful, or successful?  This is not an unusual dilemma faced by hierarchical axiomatic epistemological systems and exact methodologies.

“Every concrete principle, every category and norm, which expresses more than pure rationality is subject to experimental or experiential verification. It is not self-evident, even if it contains a self-evident element (which, however, cannot be abstracted from it). Pragmatism is in no better position. It lacks a criterion. If the successful working of the principles is called the “criterion,” the question arises, “What is the criterion of success?” This question cannot be answered again in terms of success, that is, pragmatically. Neither can it be answered rationally except in a completely formalistic way”(ST1, p.104).