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Prof. Paul Tillich, Ph. D. (Details anzeigen)^a
Union Theological Seminary
New York City, New York (Details anzeigen)^b

Dear Prof. Tillich (Details anzeigen)^c:

The Seminarian, the official publication of Concordia Seminary here in St. Louis (Details anzeigen)^d, is planning an issue on philosophy and theology. We have been following the policy of selecting a general topic for each issue and then having writers present us with articles dealing with different aspects of the problem. Foreexample, coming issues will deal with such subjects as Luther (Details anzeigen)^e, ethics, man, art, history. The ethics issue e. g., will contain two articles giving the theological bases of ethics by Prof. Piper (Details anzeigen)^f of Princeton (Details anzeigen)^g and Prof. Rasmussen (Details anzeigen)^h of Gettysburg (Details anzeigen)ⁱ and a number more relating ethics to politics, economics, medicine, youth, etc.

In the philosophy issue we are particulary interested in the problem of the relationships between the Thomist and the Augustinian systems (omitting because of relative unimportance what might be called the Democritan or atomistic), examining their criticisms of each other and the validity of their criticisms, and in a systematic rather than a historical way treating of the possibility of each; in problems of interpretation, such as the historical fluctuations between grammatical, rhetorical, and dialectical hermeneutics, systematically in the possibility of a complete hermeneutics which would do justice to all three of the structures of language, of such problems as those of meaning, presuppositions, validation, and semantics. We would also like to have something on the religious symbol, but because the thinking on this problem in our church has been practically non-existent and because even among our younger scholars who have been studying at the major universities and theological schools in the country there is no one, as far as I know, who can even begin to deal with this problem. We would like to open up thinking on this problem. I have come to you for help. We would, of course, prefer to have you write for us and would be highly honored and flattered if you would do so, and I would like to extend the request to you. However, I should not like to presume on your time, since I know that you receive an enormous amount of requests and are burdened with teaching and with writing which you would probably feel is much more important. Therefore, I would like to request that, if you cannot write for us, you | to suggest someone or several persons who could in your opinion open up the field of the religious symbols to our seminarians, our pastors, and our theologians. This might be a professor at Union or at another school or perhaps a student who is specializing in this field.

Our articles run between 1100 and 3400 words. Perhaps 2300 would be a good length. April 1 would be the deadline. I hope that you will find it within your desires to help us in this matter.