David

Raven, It is a symbol of how bad it has gotten that you think that you may offend someone by using the word God. David

Paul, I fully support working with "hang ups" about the Christian faith. If someone can not understand God in any other way except as a super and separate being who magically lives in a three tiered universe then if possible let's help that person. If we find other words for God to help in this process let us do that. People like Borg are trying to revision God while using the word God and using other words also. In my mind it would be like saying a Jew can not see Yahweh except as that super and separate being who magically lives in a three tiered universe. Let's help that person understand that Yahweh can not be spoken as a thing and therefore can not be that magical being. Every progressive theologian is fighting this battle. I don't see any one of them who still claim the Christian name saying that the word God does not work. So take a look at how Borg approaches this battle and then compare it with the current eight points as defining the battle. What is gained and what is lost with each approach? David

Paul, You are a great neighbor. And you are right about Tillich. Spong was a mentor of Tillich and likes Tillich's "Ground of Being". Nothing is wrong with many words to help point towards what we are talking about. I find that many secular words used in song or in poetry are very effective and those words are very private and/or very symbolic. I would encourage you to read Tillich more in order to understand Spong. David

George, I will have to pull out my Von Rad's OT Theology books and Noth's History of Israel, but evidently you concede that there is the tradition that not speaking the name because it is sacred is correct. Given that then my point would be that you would not want to substitute the word Sacred for the word Yahweh as being better because the word Sacred describes Yahweh. You keep the word Sacred as a normal descriptive word. You keep the word Yahweh as that which can not be spoken. David

Joseph, I am not trying to "second guess" Borg, Spong, Armstrong, etc. They are very public people. Many people have heard them and read their books. Has anyone read anything they have written or heard them say anything that would indicate that the word God does not work for them? As I noted with Borg: just because Borg has allowed his name to be used does not mean that he is active within TCPC. As I noted he does not prefer the term "progressive Christianity" according to the one time I heard him talk about it. David

Joseph, I would love to see any evidence that Borg, Spong, Armstrong support the current eight points. I have heard Borg, Armstrong, and Spong on many occasions and have read many of their books. The only time that I can remember that any one of those persons actually mentioned TCPC was when Borg said that he did not like the term "progressive Christianity" and preferred to use other ways to describe a new reformation. David

Good question Paul. Does the TCPC site need to be tailored more for Jewish members? What would be gained? What would be lost?

Paul, I would love to have you as a neighbor. In our community we would not want to cause harm to anyone and would like everyone to be genuine. For those who want to be Jews it may mean more than just being a good neighbor. David

Joseph, I don't understand your response to my request for some evidence that any leading progressive theologian supports that the word God does not work for them. I have watched Ian for a while. I used to get his services via DVD and kept up with his group as much as possible including via email. David

Joseph, The word God may work for you anymore. I can understand that. However, most progressive theologians and scholars would disagree with you. Look at Borg, Spong, Funk, Song, any theology department on any seminary campus….everyone is looking at how the word God can be new and fresh. There are some who have given up. One good example is Ian Lawton who has taken on the “Spriritual but Not Religious” theme and has tried to be inclusive of all faiths. His story shows that to do this he took the cross down off of his church and rejected the name Christian for his group. He used to be a spokesperson for TCPC as a Progressive Christian. In his attempt to be inclusive he lost the church building and had to cut back on expenses. By trying to be all things to all people his group is much smaller. Please give me some examples of some people that we would agree are progressive theologians that support that the word God does not work for them any longer and that Christians should stop using the word God. Thanks, David

Paul, I would agree that words and meanings change. Again my point is not about words but is about having a word which represents what can not be spoken. I am looking for that which NORM suggests is basic to being Jewish. Would you suggest to NORM that the word Sacredness should replace Yahweh? Norm has suggested, and I agree, that within the Jewish tradition there was a need for a word for that which could not be spoken. I have argued that Christianity needs such a word also. Are you saying that the need to be inclusive is larger and more important than this? Who do you want to include? Seems to me that you want to include those who would reject that there is any reality that cannot be described by words. If you agree with NORM by doing so you exclude a lot of Jews in your attempt to be inclusive. Thanks, David

Since I brought the change in the eight points to the attention of this forum and since I made it a point of contention in the Tillich book discussion perhaps I can join this discussion and then again return to silence since I can no longer support the eight points in their current version. For those who have read Tillich remember that Tillich’s whole system is dependent upon the importance of the symbol. It has been my argument that the loss of the word God is not important because of some word, but because it indicates the loss of the importance of the symbol. I think Joseph argued that all words are symbols. That is true in an elementary sense but it completely misses the point. What is needed is a word that is a symbol for what words cannot deal with. In simple speech and writing we normally can depend upon words describing; that is the normal function of words. In that elementary sense words are symbols for what they describe. What is needed is a word for what cannot be described. Although I am not an Old Testament scholar nor an expert on Jewish theology I have always been under that understanding that NORM is correct here when he states that in Jewish tradition there was needed a word that was unlike any other word in that it was a symbol for what words could not describe. There was a need for a word that was unlike any other word because it could not be spoken. This is what for me has been lost with the “Godless Eight Points”. The word God has been used by most people as something that can be described/can be spoken. But for many Progressive Christians the word God has been associated with what can not be described/can not be spoken. The words now used in the Eight Points may mean that for some, but I would suggest that they are words normally used to try to describe what can not be described. They are words that many use to point towards that which can not be described/can not be spoken. But lost is a word that can still be used as an equivalent of the Jewish need for a word that loses its power when it is spoken. I complained that the supporters of this website have given in to the nominalists who state that there is no reality to anything that cannot be associated with a word. I continue that complaint.

Although there is much to the idea that “woundedness is the place that the Holy Spirit can pour healing” I hear Tillich saying in this sermon that the “Word from the Lord” is more generally “the eternal cutting into the temporal”. The “eternal can also cut into the temporal by affirming it, by elevating a piece of it out of the ordinary context of the temporal things and events, making it translucent for the Divine glory.” I do wonder if being “wounded” may make us more “open” to the “Word from the Lord” than our “success stories”, but I certainly have experienced those times when my “high points” were experienced as “Words from the Lord”. The eternal shines through and gives ultimate meaning to what we experience within history. Tillich notes that although being human means being able to “perceive something ultimate” we do not always hear the “Word from the Lord”. I liked the words from the wise old man "I need somebody whom I can thank when a great joy is given to me”. Perhaps the difference between those who hear the Word and those who do not is the response of thanks.

Joseph, As Moderator you have the absolute right to move, delete or whatever. I think my comments about symbols can only be understood in the context of understanding Tillich and only those that have read Tillich would understand (whether they agree or not). I think that is evident with my response to George and so if George has not read Tillich then he would not understand the context. Anyway, the new thread in the debate section may give people an opportunity to talk about taking the word God out of the eight points without doing that in the book discussion area so probably both George and I should not have discussed it here. I hope that people will tell you why they prefer the new words to the word God (or not) but I am not real interested in staying around for that. David

Joseph, Tillich’s “worst nightmare” is not about words whether those words are God or Christ. That nightmare is about our culture’s loss of symbols that point to the reality that words cannot contain. My point was that when you make a division between symbols and theological truth Tillich would choke. From one of my posts: “For Tillich there is no possible way to speak about the Divine other than through symbols and myths. Symbols and myths are the language of faith. That is why Tillich so strongly says that truth cannot be contained in propositional statements. My point here is that some words are better than others. If we can only speak about the Divine with symbols/myths then words that are obviously symbolic are better than words that are obviously based upon “nominalism”. Tillich flatly rejects “nominalism” which holds that words that attempt to point to the “universal” are just abstractions and do not reveal anything “real”. Post modernism is a child of nominalism which states there is no “universal” reality so words that are obviously symbolic in nature are misleading and not helpful…. Some argue that the word “Cross”, the word “Sin”, the word “Grace” and most of all the word “God” are now such “dead” words. But too often those arguments are associated with word replacement with words that are not obviously symbolic. So to me those arguments are not about which symbolic word to use, but are about the general use of symbolic words versus nominalistic words.” As far as the eight points are concerned perhaps the word God can be replaced but it can only be replaced with words that are obviously symbolic in nature….this has not been done from my point of view but I certainly would accept that others would find that the new words are better symbols for that reality that can not be contained by words. If so let us hear from them. Let us hear about new symbols. Do they have that quality that if taken literally become absurd? George, Your post seems to prove my point. You want words that are not ambiguous which is the essence of words that act as symbols. Tillich states that words as symbols if taken literally are absurd. It does not bother me that the word God is not understood by most people as Tillich would want. I don’t see Jesus as being insecure about the fact that many people misunderstood what he was talking about. Thank you both for the opportunity to attempt to clarify. David

I would like to choose one more sermon to “sponsor”. I appreciate chapter 18 “The Paradox of Prayer” because this sermon lifts up the importance of the symbol for Tillich. I think that this “language of faith” is under attack not only from those who we should expect to attack it (the fundamentalists) but also from those who think they have progressed so far that they do not need symbols. About prayer Tillich says: “…the question is decisive whether a prayer is possible at all. According to Paul, it is humanly impossible. This we should never forget when we pray: We do something humanly impossible. We talk to somebody who is not somebody else, but who is nearer to us than we ourselves are. We address somebody who can never become an object of our address because he is always subject, always acting, always creating….Something in us, which is not we ourselves, intercedes before God for us….so Paul gives us the surprising picture of God interceding for us before Himself. Such symbols---like all symbols concerning God---are absurd if taken literally. They are profound if taken as genuine symbols. The symbol of God interceding before Himself for us says that God knows more about us than that of which we are conscious….Words, created by and used in our conscious life, are not the essence of prayer. The essence of prayer is the act of God who is working in us and raises our whole being to Himself.” What is not humanly possible is to say what Tillich is trying to say and say it literally or to say it with empirical language or say it with nominalist words. Yet what Tillich is pointing towards is the nature of God. And this God is “above” or “below” God the word. It is the God that in fact disappears when you say the word God. Without symbols we should not even say the word God. “Symbols are absurd if taken literally”. But they are so important for Tillich because they are the language of faith. But symbols are under attack. They are under attack by ProgressiveChristianty.org. This is taken from the mission statement for ProgressiveChristianity.org: “Progressive Christianity is a very different Christianity than most people are familiar with. It is centered in the life and teachings of Jesus. The tenets of the progressive Christian theology evolve with the newest findings in biblical, historical and scientific scholarship. The doctrine and dogma of traditional Christianity that cannot withstand intellectual integrity and informed scholarship are generally recast in their symbolic meaning rather than as theological truth.” Note the allegation that intellectual integrity and informed scholarship provides a split between things that are “recast in their symbolic meaning” and separated from “theological truth”. Tillich would choke on this. For Tillich the very essence of “theological truth” can only be expressed in “symbolic meaning”. From what has been shown about Tillich that does not mean that Tillich accepts the “doctrine and dogma of traditional Christianity”. From what has been shown about Tillich is that without Tillich there would be no Spong. I am hopeful that the mission statement for Progressivechristianty.org is just poorly worded and there was no intent of making a split between symbols and theological truth. But even if that is the case it shows a rather elementary ability to deal with theological truth. But the worst case scenario is that this mission statement combined with the elimination of the word God from the eight points does in fact realize what would be Tillich’s worst nightmare. I sincerely appreciate the opportunity to attempt to bring my interpretation of Tillich to the readers of this thread. I think that Joseph has matured as a moderator in comparison to when he used to censor my posts in part and in total. I appreciate that fact. However, I will do what I said I would do and return to silence since I can not any more support the eight points as they have “progressed” and by definition according to this website I would not be able to post as a Progressive Christian. Should Tillich arise again here you may hear from me, but until then best wishes to all.

Rivanna, This is my favorite sermon in the whole book but I have nothing to add to what you have offered. I have so much enjoyed your contributions to this discussion. David

Actually it should be noted that the discussion under “Other Wisdom Traditions” entitled "the Tao Te Ching" had a lot more views than most any other thread in the history of this website. I am not at all sure what that means. Be careful what you attempt to prove by numbers.

This thread has been more popular with the readers than any other recent thread but it has not been popular with the current posters to this website. It is interesting to go back and see what the most popular threads have been. It does give some insight into what people who are interested in Progressive Christianity are interested in reading. Anyway, I am interested in wrapping this up and moving on. I have asked Rivanna to help wrap this up by picking her favorite chapters of the remaining chapters and I will do the same. Some sermons speak to us more than others and it may be best to focus on the ones that we get excited about. We will then post on those chapters and then wrap up this book discussion. Anyone is welcome to also choose a remaining chapter and make the first response to that chapter. Tillich takes on a huge challenge in Chapter 12. The challenge is to say on the one hand “he who believes in me, believes not in me but in him who sent me” and on the other hand say “he who sees Him sees the Father. There are not two faces”. It is this fundamental problem that causes me concern whenever someone claims that Jesus and God are “one”. When I hear this I want to say, “he who believes in me, believes not in me but in him who sent me”. “Jesus is neither an authority nor an object of faith”. “When we use the name of Jesus, do we not often try to force upon those to whom we are speaking and upon ourselves something great besides God?” Tillich wants to make the point that Jesus and God are not one and that it is important to not make Jesus “great besides God”. But then again….“he who sees Him sees the Father. There are not two faces”. Tillich suggests that the answer to this problem is that we can only say that Jesus and God are “one” if we mean “nothing is left in the face of Jesus the Christ which is only Jesus of Nazareth, which is only the face of one individual besides others”. This obviously seems not possible if we maintain any contact with the physical universe. Tillich is one that would say that Christianity is dependent upon the historical Jesus so the physical universe can not be taken out of the picture. But then again Tillich would say that it is the experience of Jesus as the Christ within that universe that provides the Christian message and that happens when “nothing is left in the face of Jesus of Nazareth”. I think Tillich would say that we can only say these things symbolically. With Tillich we can say that this is the language of faith. But too often when we hear about “oneness” this is not clear. And it is certainly not clear when we use the name of Jesus without reference to God. When that happens Tillich’s complaint is valid: “When we use the name of Jesus, do we not often try to force upon those to whom we are speaking and upon ourselves something great besides God?”

In this sermon I did not find the Christmas theme working. I see the "mystery of a child" but Tillich says more than salvation is a mystery. “Only he who can see power under weakness, the whole under the fragment, victory under defeat, glory under suffering, innocence under guilt, sanctity under sin, life under death can say: Mine eyes have seen thy salvation.” So has the Messiah come? Not the messiah that will bring glory and an end to suffering, not the messiah that will bring victory after defeat, and not the messiah that will bring power after weakness. Tillich is not talking about a future salvation that will come after some evolutionary process. Tillich is not talking about a journey to salvation that comes as one gets smarter or stronger. Salvation is that which is UNDER. There is power under weakness. There is sanctity under sin and life under death. Salvation is UNDER. The Jews demanded a Messiah that was visible. Others may demand a Messiah that is invisible. Tillich is saying Jesus as the Messiah was both visible and invisible. Tillich is saying that this is the “paradoxical way of all divine acting”.

Sometimes people can say in a few words what I attempt to say with a lot of words. Thank you Joseph. I like this sermon a lot (Chapter 10). Tillich does better here with the word authority although I think he is basically saying some of the same things that he said about truth and certainty. We can not give an answer to the question “by what authority?” except to “point to a reality”. God himself cannot give an answer because “God is Spirit”. “The place where God gives authority to a man cannot be circumscribed. It cannot be legally defined. It cannot be put into the fences of doctrines and rituals. It is here, and you do not know where it comes from. You cannot derive it. You must be grasped by it. You must participate in its power”. Basically this is what Tillich says about truth, certainty and authority. “It is here, and you do not know where it comes from. You cannot derive it. You must be grasped by it. You must participate in its power”. Tillich points to “the Crucified” as “the greatest symbol of which I know for the true authority of the Church and the Bible”. This authority “breaks again and again through the established forms of their authority and through the hardened forms of our personal experience”. It is the authority “of a man who emptied himself of all authority; it is the authority of the man on the Cross. It is one and the same thing, if you say that God is Spirit and that He is manifest on the Cross.” Jesus “establishes an authority which cannot be established!” The Cross is the “greatest symbol” because it points beyond itself to the Divine ground which “can not be established”. We know this Divine because it “breaks again and again…through our personal experience”. We know it because “it is here”. We are “grasped” by it and “participate in its power”. And the Cross is its greatest symbol because it continually reminds us that we “cannot derive it”. Its power in a sense will “empty us of all authority” and in so doing we find “God is Spirit”. This is symbolic talk. Tillich reminds us that we do not lose the “authorities in community and society” that help provide “external order”. Although Tillich suggests that the symbolic talk seems “opposed to established authority” such opposition is only saying they do not determine “the meaning in our lives”. We need authority and there are good and bad ways to establish that authority. But when we ask “by what authority” do we find or see God (is it from the Bible?, is it from arguments about how the world was created?, is it from some proof of “supernatural” events?, etc. etc.)…when we ask these questions in the form of “by what authority” we are asking the wrong question. “God himself cannot give an answer”. OK let’s say “God herself” and say it every time Tillich says “God himself”. The symbol of a feminine God may give us a better symbol for a God as ground who provides us with life before we can form any propositional statement about life.

I did not find this sermon to be a very good piece by Tillich. Rivanna notes the lack of the word trust. I noticed the lack of the word faith except in the title for the sermon. But “certainly” the “certainty” of faith is the subject here. I actually got a lot more from reading the thread on “faith and certainty” that Rivanna highlights. Thank you for that. I need to “read Tillich” into this piece from Tillich. I start with the prior sermon about truth and ask the question of certainty about truth. Tillich says that we do not find truth in propositional statements and so I would conclude that we do not find certainty in propositional statements (is this statement propositional?). What I have tried to point out is that Tillich would claim the importance of the symbol in matters of truth and therefore in matters of certainty. If we take the word God and remove the symbolic importance of the word then we can have a discussion as to whether god exists or does not exist. We need no symbol to discuss whether there is a super and separate being that exists or not. Tillich would not be interested in that discussion. Both sides of the argument share the lack of symbol. But Tillich would suggest that the word God is only meaningful as a symbol. Some would suggest that symbols are not “real” or have no empirical substance or in a post modern way are a mere abstraction. Tillich suggests that there is a “ground of life” or a “ground of being” that makes itself known to us before we make any propositional statement about it. And this kind of “knowing” can therefore only be expressed by a symbol that points towards that reality. Tillich would suggest that this is where real certainty lies. Any propositional statement made “after” has some amount of uncertainty. We “know” this certainty because we have experienced it. But when we start talking “about” it there is some element of uncertainty. There is just no other way of expressing this other than by symbol. So we use the word God to “point towards” that certainty. I think this is what Tillich means when he says “Looking at God, we see that we do not have Him as an object of our knowledge, but that He has us as the subject of our existence”. So how do we mistakenly make God the object of our knowledge? I would suggest that we do that by taking “God is love” and then making the claim that we know what “love” is and therefore there is no need for the word “God”. All we have to say is “love”. No one can argue with “love” so all are included. Problem solved. Well no. Problem created. Tillich reminds us that if we just focus on the word “love” without “God” then there is a tendency to become separated from God. “Love” can separate because there are so many ways to understand love that do not involve the importance of the symbol. We think that by eliminating the word God and the seeming ambiguity of that word and just say “love” then we have “progressed”, we are more “mature”, we have eliminated “the problem”. Silly us. We do the same thing with “the Cross”. We start by saying that following Jesus is costly, and entails selfless love, conscientious resistance to evil, and renunciation of privilege.
 Here we eliminate the symbol of the Cross but we still have some sense of that the Cross is all about. It is “costly” in combination with being “selfless” and it involves active “resistance to evil” and conscious “renunciation of privilege”. At least there is a sense here that what we are talking about is hard to put into words and so we raise a flag that says “look here…these are words that point towards a very important experience…pay attention!!!!” But then being the mature people who are “progressing” we decide that really all that need be said is that we have “selfless love”. Problem solved. Well no, problem created. When we just say “selfless love” then there are many discussions that can be had including the importance of “loving ones self” versus “selfless love”. Those many discussions do not imply the importance of symbol. Tillich would not be really interested in those discussions if the primary topic is faith. I think he would say “what happened to the Cross? What happened to certainty?" The experience that the Cross points towards is only “certain” if we experience that as a part of the “ground of life” or “ground of being” that is given to us before we start making propositional statements “about” it. This is the certainty of faith.

Thanks Rivanna, I had forgotten about this sermon so I went back and read it. I love the phrase "doing the truth".

I am glad that there is now a place for people to go if they want to discuss the new version of the eight points. We need not have a full discussion here. But I think that the comparison between the “old” version and the “new” version is something that would be important for Tillich and something that we can briefly discuss without getting into a whole separate subject of “Tillich and Progressive Christianity”. Such a discussion is appropriate at this time because we are talking about truth and how truth relates to statements about truth. For Tillich there is no possible way to speak about the Divine other than through symbols and myths. Symbols and myths are the language of faith. That is why Tillich so strongly says that truth cannot be contained in propositional statements. My point here is that some words are better than others. If we can only speak about the Divine with symbols/myths then words that are obviously symbolic are better than words that are obviously based upon “nominalism”. Tillich flatly rejects “nominalism” which holds that words that attempt to point to the “universal” are just abstractions and do not reveal anything “real”. Post modernism is a child of nominalism which states there is no “universal” reality so words that are obviously symbolic in nature are misleading and not helpful. So words really do matter. You either are going to go with Tillich or use words in another way such as nominalism. If you go with Tillich then you are going to appreciate and mourn the loss of symbolic words. Symbolic words I think can “die” because they have become so distorted that they lose any possibility of the “encounter”. Some argue that the word “Cross”, the word “Sin”, the word “Grace” and most of all the word “God” are now such “dead” words. But too often those arguments are associated with word replacement with words that are not obviously symbolic. So to me those arguments are not about which symbolic word to use, but are about the general use of symbolic words versus nominalistic words. So words really do matter. The sponsors of this website list Borg and Spong as supporters. Both Borg and Spong appreciate the power of symbolic words especially symbolic words with a history. I don’t see their influence in the current version of the eight points. I see more of Ian Lawton and others. Words really do matter. Tillich is looking for “encounters”. I wonder whether we will see any testimony of an “encounter” with the new version of the eight points.

Tillich wrote a voluminous three book Systematic Theology and several other books, but says in his sermon “What is truth” that all of his writings come down to this: “I say this to you as somebody who all his life has worked for a true expression of the truth which is the Christ. But the more one works, the more one realizes that our expressions, including everything we have learned from our teachers and from the teaching of the Church in all generations, is not the truth that makes us free”. “On the road you will meet liberating truth in many forms except in one form: you never will meet it in the form of propositions which you can learn or write down and take home”. For Tillich teachings can “point to the truth, but they are not the law of truth”. It would be a mistake to hear the first part of this (truth is not contained by propositions) and not hear the other part (there is a “law” of truth). Not all propositions are equal except in the fact that no proposition can contain the truth. But truth does have a structure; truth does have a “law”. Tillich says that truth is not a doctrine…it is neither the teaching of Jesus nor the teaching about Jesus. What you know is not separated from how you know. Truth appears in “encounters” where you slowly or suddenly become “open” to the “truth which liberates”. Truth is known by “doing it”. When that happens we can recognize truth wherever it appears. Tillich says that if the written or spoken word serves as an “encounter” then one may experience “brightness of lightening” or “when the fog becomes thinner”. But no special preference is given to the written or spoken word. “Encounters” can be with nature, “with a human being in friendship and estrangement”, with love and more. Tillich loved the arts and certainly art in any form would provide the possibility of the “encounter” with the truth. Tillich points to the “law of truth” as somehow related to love. “Distrust every claim for truth where you do not see truth united with love; and be certain that you are of the truth and that the truth has taken hold of you only when love has taken hold of you and has started to make you free from yourselves.” “If you seriously ask the question ‘Am I of the truth?’ you are of the truth”. Tillich would like us to understand these words as “pointing towards” the “law of truth”. The search for truth is then much more than the search for statements that “point towards the truth”. But obviously Tillich thought that the search for statements was a way to deal with the “permanent threat” of the “despair of truth”. I would repeat from the last chapter: words matter/words can not separate. But the Church would do well by not focusing so much upon the spoken and written word without lifting up the “encounters”. Let the three point sermon be replaced by music, by art, by drama, by real life testimonies of “encounters”. When the Church does deal with words make sure that the Church does not let people be “seduced into a truth which is not really (their) truth”. Make room for the question “Am I of the truth?” Let the Church take on the “burden of asking for the truth that matters”.