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For example, God is the answer to the question implied in human finitude; but if the question is posed in the context of the threat of non-being that is implied in human existence, God, says Tillich, "must be called the infinite power of being which resists the threat of nonbeing. If anxiety is defined as the awareness of being finite, God must be called the infinite ground of courage . . . If the notion of the Kingdom of God appears in correlation with the riddle of our historical existence, it must be called the meaning, fulfillment, and unity of history. In this way an interpretation of the traditional symbols of Christianity is achieved which preserves the power of these symbols and which opens them to the questions elaborated by our present analysis of human existence."
The Critics. Switzerland's Karl Earth, the only other system builder among the leading contemporary theologians, completely rejects Tillich's coupling of existential question and religious answer. God did not wait to be asked, maintains Barth; he spoke and acted, and the whole twelve long volumes (in progress) of the Barthian system are based solidly on the record of what he said and did—the Bible. To Barth the Biblical message is "thrown like a stone" at man, not accommodated to his existential agonies. Tillich's "Unconditional" term for God, Barth has called "a frigid monstrosity." And U.S. Theologian Nels F.S. Ferré feels that Tillich's vuse of traditional Christian dogma makes him "the most dangerous theological leader alive."
Tillich rejects his critics' "supranaturalistic" view that "takes the Christian message to be a sum of revealed truths which have fallen into the human situation like strange bodies from a strange world." Man, he holds, "cannot receive answers to questions he has never asked." Tillich also considers his system superior to the "humanistic" systems of liberal theology, which derive the Christian message from man's natural self-development and the unfolding of human history. He also attacks the combination of natural and supranatural theology found in Roman Catholicism, with its "socalled arguments for 'the existence of God'" (although in another context he is appreciative of the Catholic Church's preservation of the sacraments, which he feels have virtually disappeared in Protestantism).
Questions Wanted. Tillich's theological critics may be appalled by his unorthodoxy, but most of his students at Harvard find it stimulating. He takes his work with the undergraduates as a task of first importance: in the 3½ years he has been at Harvard, he has not missed any of his lectures. The students are notably impressed by the seriousness with which he takes their questions. Says one of his graduate students: "He doesn't click with those who have no questions. He thinks people who affirm or deny are missing the boat, because it's necessary to find new meaning."