Doubt And Obedience

Doubt and Obedience: Tillich and Bonhoeffer on the Substance of Faith By Kevin Vail For T500 – Intro to Theology Dr. Helene Russell – instructor

“Faith is the substance of things to be hoped for, the evidence of things that appear not” writes the apostle (He 11:1, DRV) but what is the substance of faith in the modern age? This paper will examine the descriptions of faith of two of the most influential theologians of the 20th century. Paul Tillich (1886-1965) escaped from Nazi Germany to teach at Union Theological Seminary in New York. Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945), also a native son of Germany, refused to leave his homeland and was arrested and eventually executed by the Nazi government. Both of these men lived under the shadow of unimaginable horror and violence but yet lived lives of Christian faithfulness and through their writings exhorted others to do the same. They shared the same Lutheran confession of faith however; they were not always of the same mind. They both give the reader powerful teachings and reflections which enrich the mind and a powerful witness to enrich the heart. Paul Tillich is oft regarded as the modern dean of the Liberal school of Christian theology. Dietrich Bonhoeffer is typically placed in the school of Protestant neoOrthodoxy founded by Karl Barth in the early part of the 20th century. Tillich published dozens of works in his lifetime while we have comparatively few of Bonhoeffer’s writings. However what we do have is nectar for the sick soul of the modern person. Paul Tillich opens his book The Dynamics of Faith, with the statement “faith is the state of being ultimately concerned” (2001, p. 1). Ultimate concern, for Tillich, is the central organizing principle of the human person that “demands the total surrender of him who accepts this claim and it promises total fulfillment even if all other claims have to be

subjected to it or rejected in its name” (ibid, pp 1-2). Acts of faith include the totality of the person, “both the rational and the nonrational elements of being” (ibid, p. 7). Faith is equivalent to freedom for it transcends and unites all the polarities of the human psyche. Faith is a conscious act but must also include and transcend those elements of the human psyche which are unconscious. Tillich argues, following the conclusions of analytical (Jungian) psychology, the “content of faith” (ibid, p. 5) is largely determined by unconscious elements of the personality structure. Jung’s theory of the human psyche was built on the existence of a “collective unconscious” which contained a repository of “archetypes”. Jungians hold that the primary “drive” of the human person is for “completeness”. Through a process Jung called “individuation”, an individual confronts an invariant sequence of archetypes: the persona, the shadow, the animus / anima and finally the Self. The Self archetype is equated with what Jung called the “God-image” (1969). Tillich’s “ultimate concern” is, I believe, what Jung was describing as the drive to individuation and wholeness. While Jung never came to a conclusion in regards to the ultimate origin of the collective unconscious and its archetypes he definitely held it to be universal and inescapable. While many people will never complete the journey we are all fated to undertake it. Faith, for Tillich, includes but transcends the rational, doctrinal formulations of the conscious mind. Human ratiocination is notoriously fallible. The god-image of the Jungians and the ultimate concern of Tillich are properly fixed on the infinite, however they can be attached to that which is not infinite. Humanity has and continues to worship “almost everything in Heaven and Earth” (ibid, p.11). The finite, when it attempts to claim infinity and hence become the object of ultimate concern, fails to bridge the gap

between the subject and the object, which Tillich regards as the sine qua non of faith. The result of such an attachment is “a loss of the center and a disruption of the personality” (ibid, p. 14). Paul Tillich, like St. Paul, calls this idolatry. The letter of St. Paul to the Romans spells out the consequences of such a mistake: “all iniquity, malice, fornication, avarice, wickedness, full of envy, murder, contention, deceit, malignity, whisperers detractors, hateful to God, contumelious, proud, haughty, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, foolish, dissolute, without affection, without fidelity, without mercy.” (Rom 1:29-31, DRV). Such is the sorry lot of those that “worship and serve the creature rather than the Creator” (Rom 1:25, DRV). Tillich uses an example with which he and nearly all persons are all too familiar, the Nazi idolization of state and race. Today, we could see the same phenomenon at work in the worship of wealth, status, sex or drugs of abuse. Faith must be directed by but cannot be simply as he believed the rationalist scholastics of the Middle Ages saw it, namely, a cognitive proposition combined with the assent of the will. The object of ratio is infused with the energy of the whole being. Any object, which is infused with these energies, becomes “god” but only the True God can hold these energies indefinitely. The worship of that which is not God leads to what Tillich calls “existential disappointment” (ibid, p. 13). Since faith for Tillich is an “act of a finite being who is gasped by and turned towards the infinite” (ibid, p. 19), doubt is an inherent a part of it. Doubt cannot be removed but only overcome by courage. Human ratio cannot completely apprehend the infinite; it is therefore left always in uncertainty. The Scholastics recognized this uncertainty; they therefore asserted that the individual makes up for this uncertainty with an act of willing assent. Tillich argues that it is from this formulation of faith that we get

the natural conclusion that doubt is therefore a defect in faith. It is a failure of a will that does not fix itself wholly on God. For Tillich, this formulation may have been adequate for the Middle Ages when culture was imbued with the Christian religion but it is wholly inadequate for the modern world which is imbued rather with the philosophy of Descartes - De omnibus dubitandum est (one must doubt everything). Tillich therefore argues that doubt must be accepted as an integral part of faith, as is the compensatory virtue of courage. He calls courage the “daring self-affirmation of one’s own being in spite of the powers of ‘nonbeing’ which are the heritage of everything finite” (ibid, p. 19). Far from an empty proposition of doctrine, faith therefore becomes a healing power that overcomes the forces in each individual that lead him/her to dissolution and death, “For the wisdom of the flesh is death; but the wisdom of the spirit is life and peace” (Rom 8:6, DRV). It is with this lucid and compelling description of faith we pick up Dietrich Bonhoeffer to explore the consequences of such a faith for our lives. Bonhoeffer, in The Cost of Discipleship, argues that faith excludes doubt thru unconditional obedience to divine authority and therefore action precedes faith. Faith is only possible thru obedience (1960, pp. 63-66). Tillich frames the life of faith as the courage to be faithful and act despite doubt. Bonhoeffer would rather one put their doubts aside and make the choice to obey simply and directly, “Only the obedient believe” (ibid, p. 55). The obedient answer the call of Christ because he is the Christ, the only Son of God, and his authority is “absolute, direct and unaccountable” (ibid, p. 48). Bonhoeffer’s life and writings express a call to a life of discipleship that is free of doubt or hesitation. Bonhoeffer died, in a Nazi prison camp ministering to the other prisoners This is what he calls “costly grace”, that is

the simple, quiet decision to follow Christ all the way to Calvary, as compared to “cheap grace” which demands nothing and alters nothing. Bonhoeffer uses as his first teaching tool the story of the “rich young man” in Matthew 19. This pericope tells us of a young man who sought from Jesus an answer to the question all people ask in their hearts, “what shall I do that I may have life everlasting?” (Mt 19:16, DRV) Bonhoeffer takes the young man to task as Jesus did. The young man would like to talk about what he must do. The answer he receives was a demand for immediate and unequivocal action. We cannot avoid the choice, God or the world, true worship or idolatry. The separation between God and man has the character of disobedience. The created owes the creator nothing less than obedience but in sin “doubt and reflection take the place of spontaneous obedience” (ibid, p. 63). The serpent asked Eve, as the young man here asks the Christ, what is it that God has commanded? Bonhoeffer next uses the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10) to teach the reader that obeying God means serving mankind. The lawyer in this parable, also wants to engage in a debate with Jesus but this time with text tells us his motive is to trap Jesus. Jesus responds with the authority that is His and focuses the discussion not on the endless question of “who is my neighbor?” but rather on the question of obedience and service. How are you a neighbor to others? Have you done “to the least of these” (Mt. 25:40) what you must do in obedience to the will of the Father? Bonhoeffer tries to make it clear here that it is in action our faith takes root, prayer works better when done on your knees. Bonhoeffer knew well the cost of discipleship. His life and death is a testimony to it and for this reason he is recognized as a martyr by the Lutheran and Anglican communities. Jesus warns his disciples many times that they will be hated for His sake.

In Christian tradition it is accounted a great blessing to be chosen to suffer for Christ. Bonhoeffer reminds the reader that the “law of Christ is the law of the Cross” (ibid, p. 77) The Christian life is foremost a life self-sacrificing and self-forgetting. The uniqueness of the Christian religion does not lie in the philosophical and moral teachings of Jesus but rather in the incarnation, life, death and resurrection of the God-man. It was these claims that were and are “foolishness to the Gentiles and a stumbling block for the Jews” (1 Cor 1:23). Bonhoeffer also reminds us of the rewards promised by God through Jesus in the beatitudes. The reward is blessedness. (ibid) Each of the promises of the beatitudes grants “happiness” under a condition that, from the Earthly viewpoint, cannot possibly lead to happiness, not as we understand it. This is a sermon that sounds strange today but makes perfect sense sub specie aeternitatis. The concept of “happiness” from which Christ speaks is alien to the modern mind. The word translated as “happiness” in modern English is beati in the Latin. This word does not communicate subjective satisfaction and contentment but rather the state of blessedness. One is only blessed by being good and one is only good through obedience to the law that Christ came “not to abolish but to fulfill” (Mt 5:17). The requirements of this happiness may be seen by dissecting the Greek word from it is derived, ευδαιμονια. “ευ” denotes that one must be morally good, “δαιμον” specifies that this happiness is spiritual not material, and “iα” specifies that it is an enduring state not momentary (Kreeft, 1992). Nearly all ethics recognize this principle in one form or another but in Christ and His saints we can see the concrete fulfillment of this principle. These principles can only be seen when one is obedient. Only those that see the law that Jesus pronounces as the word of God can, in turn, be

obedient to it. Consequently faith is obedience and obedience is faith. The preceding discussion shows faith is inseparable from obedience. What Tillich and Bonhoeffer show us are the two sides of the equation. That doubt is part of the phenomenology of faith is a reality of our fallen nature. We are separated from God by a chasm of the understanding. The bridge to this chasm is built on the obedience of faith. What is missing from both is discussion of the role played by the Church and the sacraments She dispenses. Bonhoeffer’s understanding of faith as obedience is excellent but begs the question of obedience to what precisely? The modern Christian does not have the option of “leaving his nets” (Mt 4:22) and following the incarnate Son of God about the countryside. Jesus continues to call people to follow Him but in the din of modern life we cannot hear Him clearly as the apostles did. Only if Jesus left a teaching authority which continues to call loudly in His name can the modern Christian know precisely what he/she is called to be obedient to. Tillich misunderstands the traditional formulation of faith. He has improperly isolated it from the whole. The scholastic formulation held that faith was one of the infused virtues (along with hope and charity), which has God as its object. Infused means it could not be willed or won, only granted through grace. Grace is the very life of God within us according to a traditional understanding. The soul however must to be prepared to receive this grace. The soul is first prepared through baptism; the development of the natural moral virtue of prudence, justice, fortitude and temperance, and the natural intellectual virtues of knowledge, understanding and wisdom. No one can achieve anything like perfection in all of these, not even the saints, therefore the Church has been given the sacraments to strengthen and restore the soul to health when it inevitably turns

away from the Creator and back to the created. Tillich demonstrates that doctrinal formulations are important. The will follows the intellect and the person that does not know God cannot chose the True God over the many false gods we are presented with. The scholastics understood that faith perfects the intellect but St. Paul teaches an important lesson in his famous chapter on love (1 Cor. 13). The greatest of the virtues is not faith but charity, caritatis, the love that has God as its object and for which sake we love even our enemies. That love perfects the will. The Christian’s task is therefore not to engage in endless speculation about “what must I do to gain everlasting life” but to simply to “love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind: and thy neighbour as thyself” (Lk 10:27, DRV).

Bibliography Bonhoeffer, Dietrich. The Cost of Discipleship. Trans. from Nachfolge by R.H. Fuller 1st ed. Pub 1949. New York: The Macmillan Co, 1960. Jung, C. G. Collected Works of C.G. Jung Vol. 8: The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche. 2nd Ed. Trans. By R.F.C. Hull. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1969. Kreeft, Peter. Back to Virtue: Traditional Moral Wisdom for Modern Moral Confusion. Fort Collins, CO: Ignatius Press, 1992. Tillich, Paul. The Dynamics of Faith. Perennial Classics ed. With introduction by Marion Pauck. First ed. pub. 1957. New York: Harpercollins, 2001.