Reason and Knowledge in the Epistemology of Paul Tillich

REASON AND KNOWLEDGE IN THE EPISTEMOLOGY OF PAUL TILLICH PAUL TILLICH'S name or a discussion of his opinions in a philosophical paper hardly needs justification. Although professedly a theologian, the late Dr. Tillich has equal right to be called a philosopher. He received the degree of Doctor of Philosophy from the University of Breslau in 1911; in 1933, when he was dismissed by the Nazis, he was Professor of Philosophy at the University of Frankfurt; and, when he came to Union Theological Seminary, he became Professor of Philosophical Theology. But, more importantly , his very theological method-the method of correlation -demands that he be a philosopher, since the theologian must answer the problems presented by the philosopher and must investigate the philosopher's analyses. It is precisely by this procedure that Dr. Tillich established his epistemology. The theologian's "answer" of revelation is correlated to the philosophical problems and analyses of reason .1 He must establish in what sense theology is a rational endeavor and how religious knowledge is true knowledge. The present paper, however, does not undertake to pursue Dr. Tillich 's theological correlation; it does not even attempt to discuss his entire epistemology, but only seeks to clarify two notions basic to every epistemology: reason and knowledge. Reason as the Structure of the Human I£ we say man is rational, or theology is a rational enterprise , we imply a connection with reason. But what is reason? This must be our first consideration, as it is for Tillich. Reason , he finds, is too often understood in our day in the re1 This is done primarily in " Reason and Revelation," Part I of his Systematic Theology. This will be our principal source for the discussion in this paper; other works by Dr. Tillich will be used to confirm and clarify the ideas therein presented. 66 REASON AND KNOWLEDGE IN PAUL TILLICH 67 duced sense of the mere capacity for "reasoning"; it is understood " in the sense of scientific method, logical strictness and technical calculation." 2 Thus limited, it can be called "technical reason." This notion, "though always present in prephilosophical and philosophical thought, has become predominent since the breakdown of German classical idealism and in the wake of English empiricism." 3 " Only the cognitive side of the classical concept of reason remains, and within the cognitive realm only those cognitive acts which deal with the discovery of means for ends." 4 This "reason" is functioning when a physicist works out laws to determine the path necessary to send a multi-ton rocket toward the moon; it functions when a lawyer searches for arguments and arranges them; it functions when a teacher adopts a new procedure for presenting the Bellum Gallicum. Technical reason works from the known to the unknown, in order to achieve some end; but it accepts these ends from " somewhere else," and this is dangerous if technical reason is our only notion of reason. Ends are then determined by non-rational forces-traditions or arbitrary decisions-and man is dehumanized. " Technical reason always has an important function. . . . But technical reason is adequate and meaningful only as an expression of ontological reason and as its companion." 5 What, then, is "ontological reason? " First: it is not a division of reason parallel to technical reason; rather it is the whole, of which technical reason is a part or an aspect. Ontological reason is " the structure of the mind which enables the mind to grasp and to transform reality." 6 It is "the source of meaning, of structure, of norms and principles." 7 So, Tillich concludes that "reason is identical with the humanity of man in contrast 2 Paul Tillich, Dynamics of Faith (New York, 1957), p. 75. 3 Paul Tillich, Systematic Theology (Chicago, 1951, 1957, 1963), I, 72. This work will be cited simply as S. T. • Ibid., 73. 5 Ibid. 6 Ibid., 72; cf. also p. 75, where the mind is said to "grasp and shape reality." 7 Tillich, Dynamics of Faith, p. 75. 68 THOMAS SCHICK to all other beings." 8 Reason is not a power by which man knows, but a structure through which he knows. We might try to give a diagram or picture of...