Lecture II (Nr. 0019)

Entities
Tillich Lectures
[16]

the encounter with another person. They become persons in this encounter. There is a phenomenon—which I like to call “resistance”—which makes the person possible. Imagine for a moment if you were alone in the world, you could swallow the whole world into yourself without resistance, except that resistance which can be overcome technically. But there is the other person, and in the moment in which you encounter him, you cannot go on, you cannot swallow it—of course you can do it, you can make the other person into a piece of nature. But then you destroy yourself, because in the other person is an unconditional demand to accept him as another person. Everything unconditional is first experienced in the ego-thou encounter, in the encounter of person with person. We call this the realm of morals, and its theory: ethics.

The eighth function: social exchange, law and ethical reality, are existing not in the air, but in a powerful reality, in a community which has the power to be. We can call this community “state,” but this is a very late word, of the 17th and 18th centuries. We can call it with the Greeks, πολιτεία,1 namely the community which has the power to be and to act. Whether we call it this way or that way, it is also an ever-present reality of every culture. In the most primitive patriarchal society (as we read about it in the stories of the Patriarchs of the Old Testament), we have a state-like function—we have law, the power of action, a centered reality. Therefore the highest concepts of philosophers and theologians are derived directly or symbolically from this all-embracing cultural reality. politeia2 is his philosophy of all culture, including education, science, music, and everything. De civitatis Dei et terrenae (“the society of God and of the earth”)3 are the symbols he uses for the fulfilment, and for the demonic opposition against the fulfilment. The kingdom of God in the Old and New Testament is a political symbol applied to the universe. This means: the last and most embracing of cultural functions is the political one—it embraces everything.

Now I am at the end of the organization of the lectures. The last four subjects will be discussed next semester, the first four in the first. And there is no religion in my enumeration, and I will tell you next Tuesday why.

1Cf. Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, ed. Gerhard Friedrich. Vol. VI. pp. 525ff.—Wm. B. Eerdmans Pub'g Co., Grand Rapids, 1968.—(Ed.)
2Plato's Politeia uses a conversation between Socrates and his friends and acquaintances to explore the question of the nature of justice. At the end of Book I, Socrates answers the question by saying that justice is the specific virtue of the soul, which alone guarantees a good life and happiness. The following books, which were probably written later, attempt to define the term more precisely in the strict sense of dialectics and then discuss the question of justice within the actual theme of the work, the state and education. Central to this is the thesis of parallelism between the polis and the individual soul. The concepts of virtue gained from the polis are applied to the individual. Book 5 contains reflections on the realisability of the ideal state and the philosopher-king, while Books 6-7 present the famous theoretical explanations of the doctrine of ideas through three parables: the sun parable, the line parable, and the cave parable. Books 8-9 discuss unjust forms of government, and Book 10 finally takes up once again the criticism of poets and the question of justice.
3Augustine's De ciuitate dei(412-ca. 426/7), On the City of God/the Community of God, is an influential work in which Augustine outlines a theology of history and discusses the relationship to ancient culture, especially philosophy, ethics, and political ethics in particular. The specific occasion for the writing was the fall of Rome on August 24, 410, which came as a shock to Christians and non-Christians alike. The pagan leaders of the Roman nobility blamed Christians and their neglect of traditional worship of the gods for the catastrophe. The work is divided into refutation and exposition (subdivided into the origin, history, and destiny of the two cities, i.e., the origin, progress, and end of history). Central motifs include the comparison of Jerusalem and Babylon, the civitas dei as peregrina (pilgrim), and the distinction between uti and frui.

Keywords

Persons

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