An Examination of the Method of Correlation in Tillich’s Systematic Theology

Smith, Abbey-Anne

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-40856-9_8

Abbey-Anne Smith²

Part of the book series: The Palgrave Macmillan Animal Ethics Series ((PMAES))

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Abstract

In the introduction of Tillich’s book The Irrelevance and Relevance of the Christian Message, its editor, Durwood Foster, asserts that Tillich ‘relentlessly insisted that authentic theology … must speak to the burning issues of human life’. Unlike Barth, who was an exponent primarily of kerygmatic theology, Tillich employed apologetic and answering or mediating theology, that is, a theology which allows for a contextual interpretation of the message or meaning of Christianity in our ever-changing day-to-day lives. In order to achieve this aim, he utilises what he describes as the ‘method of correlation’ which brings together the foundational truths of the faith with the situation in which people were to receive this message.

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Notes

1.
Tillich, Paul, The Irrelevance and Relevance of the Christian Message, edited and introduced by Durwood Foster (Cleveland, Ohio: The Pilgrim Press, 1996) Introduction, p. x.
2.
Tillich, STI, p. 9.
3.
Also see Chap. 5 ‘The Creator and Creation in Tillich’s Systematic Theology’ pp. 114–125 and Chap. 6 ‘The Implications of Tillich’s Christology for Animals and Creation’ pp. 126–143.
4.
Tillich, STI, p. 3.
5.
Tillich, Paul, ‘The Problem of Theological Method’, Journal of Religion XXVI (1 Jan. 1947) pp. 16–26. p. 16.
6.
Tillich, ‘The Problem of Theological Method’, Journal of Religion XXVI, p. 16.
7.
Pauck, Wilhelm and Marion, Paul Tillich: His Life and Thought (New York: Harper & Row, 1976) p. 234. This timeline is disputed however by John P. Clayton.
8.
Or whether, as others have suggested, his experience as an Army Chaplain on the Western Front from 1914 to 1918 initially pushed him in the direction of theological existentialism.
9.
Tillich, STI, final paragraph, preface.
10.
Foster (ed.) discussing Tillich’s understanding of his method of correlation in Introduction, Tillich – the Irrelevance and Relevance, p. xi.
11.
Tillich, Paul, Paul Tillich: Theologian of the Boundaries edited by Mark Taylor Kline (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1991) p. 22.
12.
Tillich, STI, p. 8.
13.
Tillich, STII, p. 16.
14.
Tillich, STI, preface, p. vii.
15.
Tillich, ‘The Problem of Theological Method’, Journal of Religion XXVI , p. 25.
16.
Tillich, ‘The Problem of Theological Method’, Journal of Religion XXVI, p. 24.
17.
Tillich, ‘The Problem of Theological Method’, Journal of Religion XXVI, p. 24.
18.
Tillich, STI, p. 34.
19.
Tillich, ‘The Problem of Theological Method’, Journal of Religion XXVI, p. 16.
20.
Tillich, STI, p. 31.
21.
Tillich, STI, p. 3.
22.
Tillich, STI, p. 32.
23.
Tillich, ‘The Problem of Theological Method’, Journal of Religion XXVI, p. 21.
24.
Bischoff, Paul, ‘Participation: Ecclesial Praxis with a Crucified God for the World’, Journal for Christian Theological Research, 8 (2003) 19–36 p. 27.
25.
Tillich, ‘The Problem of Theological Method’, Journal of Religion XXVI, p. 18.
26.
Tillich, STII, p. 15.
27.
Tillich, ‘The Problem of Theological Method’, Journal of Religion XXVI, p. 21.
28.
Tillich, ‘The Problem of Theological Method’, Journal of Religion XXVI, p. 21.
29.
Dowey Jr, Edward A. ‘Tillich, Barth and the Criteria of Theology’, Theology Today , Vol. 15 No. 1 (1 April 1958) 43–58 p. 48.
30.
Which Tillich defines as the state of being grasped by the object of one’s ultimate concern.
31.
Tillich, ‘The Problem of Theological Method’, Journal of Religion XXVI, p. 22.
32.
Tillich, ‘The Problem of Theological Method’, Journal of Religion XXVI, p. 22.
33.
Tillich, STI, p. viii.
34.
Many of Tillich’s biographers argue that as early as the 1920s, he was devising this particular methodology.
35.
As previously stated, this scheme had been in the forefront of Tillich’s mind, since at least 1933 when he first started teaching systematic theology at Union Seminary in New York; however, ‘The Problem of Theological Method’ is certainly an early publication to explicitly express the methodology for which he is now most famous.
36.
Tillich, ‘The Problem of Theological Method’, Journal of Religion, p. 26.
37.
Posey, Lawton, ‘Paul Tillich’s Gift of Understanding’, Christian Century (30 Sept. 1987) 967–9, p. 967.
38.
Tillich, STI, p. 31.
39.
Tillich, STI, p. 31.
40.
Tillich, STI, p. 31.
41.
Posey, ‘Paul Tillich’s Gift of Understanding’, Christian Century, p. 968.
42.
Tillich, STI, p. 7.
43.
Tillich, STI, p. 31.
44.
Posey, ‘Paul Tillich’s Gift of Understanding’, Christian Century, p. 968.
45.
Pauck, Paul Tillich: His life and Thought, p. 232.
46.
Griffin, cited Carolyn A. Ristau (Ed) Cognitive Ethology: The Minds of other Animals (New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc., 1991) p. 293.
47.
Donald R. Griffin, Animal Minds (London and Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992) p. 10.
48.
Colin G. Beer, ‘From Folk Psychology to Cognitive Ethology’ in Ristau (ed.) Cognitive Ethology, p. 21.
49.
Ryle, cited Beer in Cognitive Ethology, p. 23.
50.
Wade Savage, cited Griffin, Animal Minds, p. 240.
51.
MacNamara, cited Griffin, Animal Minds, p. 244.
52.
Jerry Fodor, The Language of Thought (New York: Crowell, 1975) p. 33.
53.
Fodor, The Language of Thought, p. 33.
54.
Donald R. Griffin, The Question of Animal Awareness (London: Rockefeller Press, 1976) p. 6.
55.
Griffin, Animal Minds, p. 3.
56.
S. Walker, Animal Thought (London: Routledge, Kegan Paul, 1983) p. 81.
57.
Galambos & Hillyard, cited Donald R. Griffin, Animal Thinking (USA: Harvard University Press, 1984) p. 150.
58.
Griffin, Animal Minds, p. 27.
59.
Griffin, Animal Minds, p. 5.
60.
Thorpe, cited Manning & Stamp Dawkins, Animal Behaviour, p. 256.
61.
David A.O. Williams, The Intelligence of Animals and Other Papers: A Theory of Learning (London: D.A.O. Williams, 1992) Foreword, p. vii.
62.
Thorpe cited Manning & Stamp Dawkins, Animal Behaviour, p. 281.
63.
Griffin, Animal Minds, p. 106.
64.
Ritchie & Fragaszy, cited Griffin, Animal Minds, p. 107.
65.
John M. Pearce, An Introduction to Animal Cognition (East Sussex: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Ltd. 1987) p. 291.
66.
Manning & Stamp Dawkins, Animal Behaviour, p. 271/2.
67.
T. Poole, Social Behaviour in Mammals (Glasgow: Blackie & Son Ltd. 1985) p. 1.
68.
Proposed by Hamilton in 1964, cited, Poole, Social Behaviour, p. 6.
69.
Poole, Social Behaviour, p. 7.
70.
Poole, Social Behaviour, p. 7.
71.
W. John Smith, ‘Animal Communication and the Study of Cognition’ (p. 209–230) in Ristau (Ed.), Animal Cognition, p. 209.
72.
Smith, ‘Animal Communication’ in Animal Cognition, p. 216.
73.
Smith, ‘Animal Communication’ in Animal Cognition, p. 228.
74.
Including many species of monkeys and apes, arctic foxes, dogs and elephants, Griffin, Animal Minds, p. 209.
75.
Dawkins and Krebs, cited Griffin, Animal Minds, p. 195.
76.
Griffin responding to Dawkins and Krebs, Animal Minds, p. 196.
77.
Cheney and Seyfarth, ‘Truth and Deception in Animal Communication’ pp. 127–148 in Ristau (Ed.) Cognitive Ethology, p. 147.
78.
Cheney and Seyfarth, ‘Truth and Deception’ in Cognitive Ethology, p. 149.
79.
For a fuller discussion of Tillich’s concept of the interrelatedness of the whole of creation, see Chap. 7: The Multidimensional Unity of Life, pp. 144–159.
80.
Chapter 7: The Multidimensional Unity of Life and in the graphical representation of Tillich’s ‘valuation of grades of being’ Fig. 7.3. p. 153.
81.
See Fig. 7.3, The Valuation of Grades of Being, p. 229.
82.
See Linzey, Animal Theology, especially Chapter 3 ‘Humans as the Servant Species’ pp. 45–61.
83.
See Chap. 6 ‘The Implications of Tillich’s Christology for Animals and Creation’ pp. 126–143.
84.
Tillich, ST II, p. 95.
85.
Tillich, ST II, p. 96.
86.
See Chap. 5 ‘The Creator and Creation in Tillich’s Systematic Theology’, pp. 114–125 and Chap. 6 ‘The Implications of Tillich’s Christology for Animals and Creation’, pp. 126–143.
87.
Foster (Ed), Tillich, The Irrelevance, Introduction p. xii.
88.
Bischoff, ‘Participation’, Journal for Christian Theological Research 8, p. 25.
89.
There is certainly a biblical basis for the notion of stewardship, and in his method of correlation, this foundational truth of Christianity could well be made applicable to the issues of the human utilisation of animals, in addition to providing the basis for an eco-ethic.
90.
See Linzey, Animal Theology, especially Chapter 3, pp. 45–61.
91.
Posey, ‘Paul Tillich’s Gift of Understanding’, Christian Century, p. 968.

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University of Winchester, Burton on Trent, UK
Abbey-Anne Smith

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Smith, AA. (2017). An Examination of the Method of Correlation in Tillich’s Systematic Theology . In: Animals in Tillich's Philosophical Theology. The Palgrave Macmillan Animal Ethics Series. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-40856-9_8

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-40856-9_8
Published: 04 October 2017
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