is a direct interference of God, i.e., a fundamental substance which is the point of unity in all this. When we today speak of atomizing individualism, we usually mean this type.

Then there is a third type of individualism – I called it the Renaissance type, but you can also call it the romantic type, but it has negative connotations, and “Renaissance” does not have too much – except for some theologians! This Renaissance type of individualism has a basis in the philosophy of Nicholas Cusanus*,^g namely the idea that in every individual being, especially in man, the whole universe is mirrored. For this reason, man is called the microcosm in contrast to the macrocosm, but representing the macrocosm and being at the same time a part of it. And since the macrocosm is the self-manifestation of the Divine, is the Divine going over into manifoldness, according to the Renaissance man, every individual becomes the mirror of the divine ground of being himself. As such, the individual represents something unique, but not unique as before God, in christian thinking, namely an object of the love of God, but unique in the cultural sense, the representative of unique creative possibilities. This is the difference from the rational concept also, because it is not the development of consciousness which is decisive here, but it is a qualitative character, qualitative elements, which are potentially in every man

------------------------

*Cf. Karl-Hermann Kandler, “Die Einheit von Endlichem und Unendlichem. Zum Verhältnis von Paul Tillich und Nikolaus von Kues.” KuD 25, 1979, 106-122. [Noted in his article, “Nikolaus von Kues als Theologe.” Theologische Literaturzeitung, 115, No. 7, July 1990, cols. 481-490, esp. 488, 490n.68. – PHJ