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The power of being, Tillich relates, is not that of the ego or separate self, but absolute faith to the relation with the Ground of Being, the power of being and self-affirmation needed to have the courage to be in spite of the threat of nonbeing and subsequent fear and anxiety. This courage to be with absolute faith transcends both mysticism and the divine human encounter with the element of skepticism of its specific contents: "Absolute faith transcends both the mystical experience and the divine-human encounter. The mystical experience seems to be nearer to absolute faith but it is not. Absolute faith includes an element of skepticism which one cannot find in the mystical ." p. 177. Aldous Huxley explains: "Fear cannot be got rid of by personal effort, but only by the ego's absorption in a cause greater than its own interests. Absorption in any cause will rid the mind of some it its fears; but only absorption in the loving and knowing of the divine Ground can rid it of all fear" (1) Or as Tillich would explain: The power of Being displaces and transcends fear but does not remove it. Only absorption in the loving and knowing of the divine Ground can bring the self-affirmation that affirms oneself "in spite of" fear, not removing fear, but transcending, displacing it in it's place with the courage to be. Retired Bishop, John Shelby Spong describes fear and religion. As opposed to false religion that brings security and certainty, true religion is the opposite, not acting as the security in place of fear, with the certainty of theism and religious hierarchy, but as the enabler of the courage to be in spite of in acceptance of anxiety and fear. "Security is so seductive, and insecurity is so frightening. But security is always false, and insecurity is always real. No religion can make anyone secure, though it, like the drugs on which our society is so dependent, can give the illusion of security. True religion enables one to grasp life with the radical insecurity and to live it with courage. It does not aid us in the pretense that our insecurities have been taken away."(2) The courage to be is that of using the power of our being, not ego, but the ground
of our being itself, to prevail over our threat of nonbeing, in spite of, doing so with both acceptance and self-affirmation.
We prevail over our nonbeing with acceptance thereof, doing so in spite of our inability to remove it. This acceptance
and power only comes from our being itself. Anothewards, we must use our being to accept the threat of nonbeing
and the anxiety of empty ambiguity and meaninglessness. We must self affirm ourselves to negate ourselves. No theistic
God, organization, collective society, nor any objectivity, can do this for us, it is only our being itself that
gives us this power. This is the God above God, the ground of our being. |
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| "The courage to be is the ethical act in which man affirms his own being in spite
of those elements of his existence which conflict with his essential self-affirmation . . it is the affirmation
of one's essential nature, one's inner aim or entelechy (vital force, realization), but it is an affirmation which
has in itself the character of "in spite of." p. 3, 4 "Courage is the self-affirmation of being in spite of the fact of nonbeing. It is the act of the individual self in taking the anxiety of nonbeing upon itself by affirming itself either as part of an embracing whole or in its individual selfhood." p. 155 "The courage to be in all its forms has, by itself, revelatory character. it shows the nature of being, it shows that the self-affirmation of being is an affirmation that overcomes negation." p. 178 |
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Paul Tillich, a theologian who influenced so many others, most importantly those theologians today who perceive God apart from theism, beyond an external being, to that of the Ground of our Being. This is apart from the male patriarchal figure, the father cop in the sky mentality that requires humans to feel inadequate as sinners, lacking the courage of self-affirmation and the courage to be. This teaching, in line with the law of Leibniz, the perennial philosophy, is a very important teaching in the fabric and development of evolving humanity with the ability to live in the fullest sense, to love beyond our capacities, those above tribal and social prejudices, and to have the courage to be all that we can be, transcending self with the whole. The teaching of our source being, that is the ground of being and nonduality, can be found both in modern teachers and in ancient mystics, in universalists and those who speak of absolute faith, from Egyptian Plotinus to Jewish mystic Spinoza, from Catholic mystic Meister Eckhart to Sufi Muslim Kahlil Gibran, from Episcopalian Bishop John Shelby Spong to Buddhist Chogyam Trungpa, from Hindu Sri Ramana Maharshi to Baptist Minister Peter J. Gomes. Tillich writes philosophically, psychoanalytically and theologically his perception of anxiety, courage and God. Tillich was an man who delved in politics, philosophy, theology and even experimental drug use for intellectual purposes, as Aldous Huxley, another well known intellectual, had done. Tillich, originally from Germany, in the years prior to World War II , had laid theoretical foundations for what he called "belief-ful realism," seeing both capitalism and communism moving in a similar direction and making the same mistake. Here the Nazis burned Tillich's writing, "The Socialist Decision" and other books. It was in 1952, while living in the United States, teaching at Harvard University, where Tillich wrote "The Courage to Be." In this, Tillich takes on psychoanalytical thinking, theology and philosophy. This book, in particular, has been one of such great influence on people, such as the well known controversial Bishop John Shelby Spong and other influential best selling writers of modern (and ancient) thought, a book that should not be ignored. Peter J. Gomes has written a new introduction on the reissue of "The Courage To Be." Please bear with me, as I write this simplistic, user friendly outline of Tillich's book for a introduction to what it contains. From Plato to Aquinas Tillich first goes into the different meanings of courage, from Plato's spirit courageous element and that of the guardian strength segment of society, the aristocratic, with the conflict of the reasonable and the sensual to that of Aristotle's noble intent, asceticism and martyrdom. He further develops his thought of courage to that of the dying Socrates version of rational - democratic verses the Aristotle and Plato's recognition of courage in the view of military, heroic - aristocratic. The tension between these two existed between the early middle ages and that of the Christian humanistic ethics that came at the end of the middle ages. The Thomas Aquinas version of courage decides ambiguously to the intellect. subordinating courage to wisdom as the strength of mind. Relying on intellect brought the danger between the knowledge of uncreative stagnation of Catholicism and rationalistic thought to that of the undirected free thought found in Protestantism. "Perfect courage is, according to Thomas Aquinas, a gift of the Divine Spirit. Through the Spirit natural strength of mind is elevated to its super natural perfection. This however means that is united with the specifically Christian virtues, faith, hope, and love. Thus a development is visible in which the ontological side of courage is taken into faith (including hope), while the ethical side of courage is taken into love or the principle of ethics." p.8
Stoics Tillich next goes into the meaning of courage relating to the Stoics, who put their definition into courage of that of intellect and wisdom. Influenced by Socrates, the Stoics put the rational mind as the center of courage. Stoicism had the courage to be in spite of fate and death, and unlike classic Christianity, did not support humanity to be in a sinful state in need of salvation. Instead Stoicism supported a state of confusion that needed to be overcome with the universal reason that lives in the center of our being, thus the courage to be was in spite of fate and death but not the courage to be in spite of the anxiety of guilt and sin. Stoicism said Yes to being, to the self affirmation of being, but unlike mysticism, also made universal reason a concrete reality to conquer the nonbeing in fate and death. They called the center essence of being, the Divine Logos, the universal reason that affirm one's own nature over against what is accidental in us. It is the "God above God," the God that transcends theism. This can be compared with our eternal ground or source of being, the essential being of reason, where the Stoics believed our reason, wisdom and true nature resides. To gain access to our universal reason and wisdom was not to rely on theism, an external God, for salvation, but to renounce our self, which later came to be that of what others call our ego, renouncing this to our divine center or ground of being, where our universal power of reason resides. This can either be related to humanism, as our divine center of wisdom, the human center is a above or superior to our selves or egos. Or it can be compared to that of our ground of being as that of nonduality in God that would relate this teaching as a God beyond theism. Both humanism and mystical awareness of God have roots in Stoicism which can be called neostoicism. Interestingly, it was Stoicism, not Platoism, nor Gnosticism, that threatened Christianity, as Christianity had the ability to assimilate with these without loosing it's historical formation, unlike Stoicism that while being a collective teaching, had a social and personal courage as an alternative, yet could never accept the idea of despair and personal guilt, nor that of a guilty conscious. As Christianity regarded salvation for fate and death, Stoicism relied on the human power of universal wisdom as the center and essential ground of being. Stoicism taught that all humans participate in the universal Logos, yet could never answer why only the elite appeared to possess it, and even then many wise men failed, while the masses failed to relate to their inner wisdom of strength and courage. Seneca stated that it was in the state of utter desperation that wisdom is born from. But had the Stoics ever reached that stage of utter desperation? Or was something absent in his despair and courage? The Stoics rejection of grace also contributed to the failure to relate to the universal logos within, but rather to that of the ego with pride and idolatrous worship of self and its own object, with loss of humility, against the enlightening and liberating knowledge of the ground of being. Spinoza Where as the Stoics rested their courage on the inner human wisdom, the Jewish mystic, Spinoza relies on self-affirmation itself, humanism, as the central element in thought. "For Spinoza, as for the Stoics, the courage to be is not one thing beside others. it is an expression of the essential act of everything that participates in being, namely self-affirmation. The doctrine of self-affirmation is a central element in Spinoza's thought." p. 19 "Striving toward self preservation or toward self-affirmation makes a thing be what it is. Spinoza calls this striving which is the essence of a thing also its power, and he says of the mind that it affirms or posits its own power of action. " p. 20 Spinoza related courage with the desire to join other people in friendship and support, the relation of self-affirmation and love toward others. Since virtue and the power of self-affirmation are identical, and since generosity is the act of going out toward other, there is no conflict between self-affirmation and love, the opposite of selfishness. This is what Eric Fromm expressed in the idea that the right self-love and the right love of others are interdependent, and that selfishness and the abuse of others are interdependent. Spinoza's doctrine of self-affirmation included both the right self-love and the right love of others. Self-affirmation, according to Spinoza, is participation in the divine self-affirmation. Nietzsche Friedrich Nietzsche goes beyond the ontological nature of wisdom and self-affirmation, to that of life itself, that is, both self preservation and self-affirmation, that he calls the "will to power." "It designates the self-affirmation of life as life, including self preservation and growth. Therefore the will does not strive for something it does not have, for some object outside itself, but wills itself in the double sense of preserving and transcending itself. This is its power, and also its power over itself. Will to power is the self-affirmation of the will as ultimate reality." p. 26 "Nietzsche is the most impressive and effective representative of what could be called a "philosophy of life." Life in this term is the process in which the power of being actualizes itself. But in actualizing itself it overcomes that in life which, although belonging to life, negates life. One could call it the will which contradicts the will to power . . . life is tempted to accept its own negation." p. 27 Courage is the power of life to affirm itself in spite of the ambiguity power of being that actualizes itself and contradicts the will to power. Life must be willing to surpass itself with the ability to obey and command and to command while obeying. The self becomes its own commander, judge and victim. It commands itself to the law of life, the law of self transcendence. This is the opposite of submissiveness, including that to a God. For submissiveness is the cowardly, the opposite of self-affirmation. Submissiveness is the attempt to escape the pain from hurting and being hurt, the anxiety of (Freud's) trauma, the shock of nonbeing, the failure to unite the self with life and see existence as is. To be courageous is the ability to look into the ambiguity and realness of non-being and complete loneliness, accepting the fact that God (Theism) is dead. The will which commands itself is the creative will that makes a whole out of fragments and riddles of life. It does not look back. It stands beyond a bad conscious, rejecting self-accusation and guilt. It transcends reconciliation, for it is the "will to power," the courage of self-affirmation, that is self virtue. This is also the opposite from the submissiveness imposed by totalitarian control, such as the Nazis enforced, even though Nietzsche is sometimes blamed for the Nazi neocollectivism. Nietzsche's radical individualism, his "will to power," was against all that limited the doubt and meaninglessness of the individual, but he directed his attack to the semi collective control of the church. He was an unparalleled master at dissecting what was wrong with European Christianity, as in its objectification and limited view in Nominalism, denying the ambiguous essence of humanity. In turn, ignorant followers of Nietzsche, simply mouthed his slogans without believing in them ("God is dead"). His ideas then landed like bombs among the comfortable bourgeoisie of the liberal democracies. And in attacking so powerfully what was wrong with the "slave morality" of Christianity, Nietzsche opened the way for disaster by glorifying so powerfully a radical individualism and self-assertiveness. Yet the neocollective society of totalitarianism, such as the Nazis, under the name of Nietzsche re-accepted the "slave morality" under political control as opposed to religious. Nietzsche himself was opposed to all that dehumanized and objectified. His direction was that of existential individualism. His followers, on the other hand, were unable to face the real meaning of Nietzsche's existentialism with its radical doubt and meaninglessness and in ignorant support of him, turned to their neurotic anxiety into a neocollective society, that of totalitarianism, as opposed to the semicollectivism in religious control. Both of these departed significantly from the radical doubt of meaninglessness and individualism of Nietzsche's Existentialism. Meaning of Nonbeing Being can be interpreted in terms of life or process of becoming, nonbeing is ontologically as basic as being. Courage comes from the self-affirmation to overcome fear and anxiety. Anxiety comes from the awareness of nonbeing. The meaning of nonbeing is the basic cause of anxiety. Being embraces itself and nonbeing. "Certainly nonbeing is not a concept like others. It is the negation of every concept: but as such it is an inescapable content of thought and, as the history of thought has shown, the most important one after being-itself. Being "embraces" itself and nonbeing. Being has nonbeing "within" itself, as that which is eternally present and eternally overcome in the process of the divine life . . . Anxiety is the state in which a being is aware of his possible nonbeing . . anxiety is the existential awareness of nonbeing . . . the awareness that nonbeing is a part of one's own being . . . a finitude, experienced as one's own finitude." "Anxiety in the existential awareness of nonbeing is not the abstract knowledge of nonbeing, which produces anxiety, but the awareness that nonbeing as a part of one's own being. It is not the realization of universal transitoriness, not even the experience of the death of others, but he impression of these events on the always latent awareness of our own having to die that produces anxiety. Anxiety is the finitude, experienced as one's own finitude." pp. 34-35 Fear and Anxiety While anxiety is that of helplessness and meaninglessness and has no object to fight and overcome, fear always has an object that can be acted upon. Anxiety has only the helplessness of the threat itself, as the source of the threat is "nothingness," while fear has a definite object that a method of action can be applied to. Courage and self-affirmation is acted out upon those fears. For this reason, the only way to combat anxiety is to first convert it to fear. Once conversion takes place, the anxiety - now having an object, becomes fear than can be acted upon, not to eradicate, but to control with courage. "Fear, as opposed to anxiety has a definite object, which can be faced analyzed, attacked, endured. One can act upon it, and in acting upon it participate in it - even if in the form of struggle." p. 36 "Anxiety is more destructive than protective. While fear can lead to measures that deal with the objects of fear, anxiety cannot do so because it has not objects. . . anxiety is biologically useless and cannot be explained in terms of life protection. It produces self defying forms of behavior. Anxiety therefore by its very nature transcends the biological argument." p. 80
Tillich brings out there are three main types of anxiety: fate and death, guilt and condemnation, and emptiness and meaninglessness, that take on two forms: existential and pathological. Existential anxiety consists of these three main types, while pathological is basically the same but with individual or special conditions regarding both the individual man and the collective society in their level of courage and self-affirmation, resulting in either the strength of the average person or the weakness leading to neurosis, that is, neurotic anxiety. Neurosis is the way of avoiding nonbeing by avoiding being, which is a lack of self-affirmation with imaginary protective walls of security that will overlook doubt on issues that are in need of it, submitting to authorities and structures that eliminate freedom, and at the same time, create doubt on areas that do not need it, that have been proven beyond the doubts entered upon it. The three main types of existential anxiety are that of fate and death, guilt and condemnation and emptiness and meaninglessness. Each of these anxieties existed at the same time, yet one appears to always be the dominating force in each individual's life and has dominated periods in history. 1. The anxiety of fate and death, the most universal, is inescapable and appears to have dominated the society since the end of the ancient period in connection with Stoic and philosophical courage based on the wisdom of man. This is also called the period of ontic anxiety. Ontic, from the Greek On, "being, means here the basic self-affirmation of a being in its simple existence. Ontological designates the philosophical analysis of the nature of being. Both anxieties of guilt and condemnation and emptiness and meaningless played their parts during this period where the anxiety of fate and death dominated. 2. The anxiety of guilt and condemnation is that from our conscious, as we are ultimately our own judges to our moral and ethical behavior. This anxiety exists, in that there is a profound ambiguity between good and evil. The awareness of this ambiguity is the feeling of guilt. With the domination of the mystery cults, outside the Jewish culture, reliance on rites and purification procedures enabled the anxiety of personal guilt and condemnation to remain dominant. However it was with the Judea-Christian society where the anxiety of guilt and condemnation became beyond doubt, conclusive in society. The teachings of hellfire, purgatory, the "wrath of God," and the devil dominated this anxiety until the end of the middle ages. Only with two brief periods, the renaissance and the rebellion of Martin Luther, did the anxiety of emptiness and meaninglessness appear to be dominant during this period. 3. The anxiety of emptiness and meaninglessness became dominate with the breakdown of absolutism, the development of liberalism and democracy and the rise of technical civilization, this anxiety of emptiness and meaninglessness became dominate at the end of the middle ages. All forms of institutions and structures that remain, acting as methods of controlling this anxiety. This type of anxiety comes from doubt which can enter either by personal doubt, the loss of the original power of the object of devotion, or the limited power of the object of devotion due to the antiquated time era or values that the object was created in. This anxiety of meaninglessness takes on the spiritual self-affirmation needed for creativity. All creativity must have meaning and purpose to survive. Without meaning, spiritual life is threatened by nonbeing which attacks both self-affirmation and the center of creativity, as well as the love of participation. Without an object of devotion, the passion of creativity dies, emptiness and doubt take over, leading to despair. Despair itself having no hope, no future, the fulfillment of all three existential anxieties, as nonbeing is felt as absolutely victorious. "The pain of despair is that a being is aware of itself as unable to affirm itself because of the power of nonbeing. consequently it wants to surrender this awareness and its presupposition, the being which is aware." p. 55 This is the shock of nonbeing, as both the ontic nature and spiritual affirmation must have meaning to survive and can not be separated. The spiritual life tries to maintain itself as long as possible by clinging to affirmations in two ways. The first way is by traditions, autonomous convictions and emotional preferences. Even with the impossibility of removing doubt, one courageously accepts it without surrendering convictions. The other way is to break out of the isolation caused by doubt, by fleeing from freedom, subjecting oneself to authority, restricting the ability to ask further questions and grow autonomously. This in turn, promotes intense fundamentalism and fanaticism with spiritual self surrender, attacking any who disagree what he or she must suppress within oneself. Pathological Anxiety While these three existential anxieties remain as the basic ontic nature of humans, they exist with each individual and collectively for that matter, under different conditions and levels of both self-affirmation and courage, thus becoming unique to each person and/or society and can therefore be called pathological anxiety. Anxiety tends to become fear in order to have an object with which courage can deal. Courage does not remove anxiety, but can take the anxiety of nonbeing into itself with self-affirmation, "in spite of" nonbeing. "Anxiety turns us toward courage, because the other alternative is despair. Courage resists despair by taking anxiety into itself . . . He who does not succeed in taking his anxiety courageously upon himself can succeed in avoiding the extreme situation of despair by escaping into neurosis . . . Neurosis the way of avoiding nonbeing by avoiding being. In the neurotic state self-affirmation is no lacking; it can indeed be very strong and emphasized. But the self which is affirmed is a reduced one. . . He affirms something which is less than his essential or potential being. He surrenders a part of his potentialities in order to save what is left. p.66 "Neurotic anxiety is the inability to take one's existential anxiety upon oneself." p. 74 The pathological anxiety that develops into the neurotic state brings a person to more sensitivity and creativity then the average person to the threat of nonbeing. The limited extensiveness of self-affirmation can be counter balanced by greater intensity in creativity. History and culture have shown many neurotic persons to be of higher levels of creativity, opening up levels of reality which are normally hidden. Yet the neurotic is limited in his self-affirmation and is sick in need of healing with his conflict with reality. His limited and fixed self-affirmation becoming fanatical and defender of an established order, defending in a compulsiveness within the imaginary walls of his inner castle world, out of touch with reality. In times when existential anxiety is mixed with neurotic anxiety becomes part of the collective society the boundary lines become indistinguishable. The major problem the remains within both the spiritual and theological, existential anxieties and that of the medical, psychiatric, pathological anxieties, is the distinction between the two. The lack of clear distinction between the two has been the problem of both the minister and the physician. While the minister should work on dealing with the existential anxieties, he must be aware of the pathological. And while the physician must deal with the pathological anxieties, he must be aware of the existential. "The lack of an ontological analysis of anxiety and of a sharp distinction between existential and pathological anxiety has prevented as many ministers and theologians as physicians and psychotherapists from entering this alliance. Since they do not see the difference they are unwilling to look at neurotic anxiety as they look at bodily disease, namely as an object of medical help. But if one preaches ultimate courage to somebody who is pathologically fixed to a limited self-affirmation, the content of the preaching is either resisted compulsively, or even worse, is taken into the castle of self defense as another implement for avoiding the encounter with reality. Much enthusiastic reaction to religious appeal must be considered with suspicion form the point of view of a realistic self-affirmation. Much courage to be, created by religion, is nothing else than the desire to limit one's own being and to strengthen this limitation through the power of religion. And even if religion does not lead to or does not directly support pathological self reduction it can reduce the openness of man to reality, above all to the reality which is himself. In this way religion can protect and feed a potentially neurotic state." p. 73 "Man realizes that no absolute and no final security is possible; he also realizes that life demands again and again the courage to surrender some or even all security for the sake of full self-affirmation. Nevertheless he tries to reduce the power of fate and the threat of death as much as possible. Pathological anxiety about fate and death impels toward a security which is comparable to the security of a prison. He who lives in this prison is unable to leave the security given to him by his self imposed limitations. But these limitations are not based on a full awareness of reality. Therefore the security of the neurotic is unrealistic. He fears what is not to be feared and he feels to be safe what is not safe. The anxiety which he is not able to take upon himself produces images having no basis in reality, but it recedes in the face of things which should be feared. That is, on avoids particular dangers, although they are hardly real, and suppresses the awareness of having to die although this is an ever present reality. Misplaced fear is a consequence of the pathological form of the anxiety of fate and death. The same structure can be observed in the pathological forms of the anxiety of guilt and condemnation. The normal, existential anxiety of guilt drives the person toward attempts to avoid this anxiety by avoiding guilt. Moral self discipline and habits will produce moral perfection although one remains aware that they cannot remove the imperfection which is implied in man's existential situation, his estrangement from his true being. Neurotic anxiety does the same thing bit in a limited, fixed, and unrealistic way. the anxiety of becoming guilty, the horror of feeling condemned, are so strong that they make responsible decisions and any kind of moral action almost impossible. But since decisions and actions cannot be avoided they are reduced to a minimum which, however , is considered absolutely perfect, and the sphere where they take place is defended against any provocation to transcend it. here also the separation from reality has the consequence that the consciousness of guilt is misplaced. The moralistic self defense of the neurotic makes him see guilt where there is no guilt or where one is guilty only in a very indirect way. Yet the awareness of real guilt and the self condemnation which is identical with man's existential self estrangement are repressed, because the courage which could take them into itself is lacking." p. 75..... |
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Analysis of Pathological and Existential Anxiety |
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Vitality and Courage |
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Courage To Be a Part - Courage and Participation |
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Self verses "We-Self" |
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| "He who has the courage to be as a part has the courage to affirm himself as
part of the community in which he participates. His self-affirmation is a part of the self-affirmation of the social
group which constitute the society to which he belongs. " p.91 This seems to imply a "we-self,," that is a collective extension of the self, with the threat of nonbeing in the collective form in addition to an individual self-affirmation, implying that the collective self-affirmation is threatened by nonbeing, producing a collective anxiety, that is met by a collective courage. However, this is not the case. As there is no center in the sense of a person, but rather a central power, that in reality pertains to one or more individuals who use their individual self-affirmation of courage being a quality of individual selves. |
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Primitive Collective Society |
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| In the primitive collectivist societies the person affirms himself through the group on which he participates. self-affirmation within a group includes corporate responsibility in accepting guilt, punishment and actions of another inside the group. All actions of an individual becomes a problem for the group. The only individual guilt and consciousness that exists is that of an individual deviating from the group itself. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Medieval Semi Collective Society |
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| Two things, the discovery of personal guilt and the autonomous question and asking in Greek philosophy brought on the medieval semi collective society. This brought on the rising of nominalism, that is the splitting of the universals into individual things. However the church was able to take the anxiety of doubt and incorporate this in courage to be as a part of the community. In this way the church delayed the nominal attributes, communalizing the individual guilt, bringing the church institution embodied in personal anxieties, thus a semi collective society. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Neocollective Totalitarian Society |
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| Western history movements of a neocollective character consist of, Fascism, Nazism and Communism. The three reasons for neocollectivism, are: | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Neocollectivism was essentially a relapse to primitive, tribal collectivism. Interestingly,
Marxism was a ideology that had prophetic meaning in regard to the valuation of reason, that sadly was combined
and integrated with nationalism as a whole, producing neocollectivism and the contribution to a totalitarian system.
Such was not the case with Carl Marx, who taught Existentialism against the dehumanization and objectivation of
man. Yet in Anti-Existentialist reaction, a neocollectivism, in a new courage to be a part took place, in the authoritative
and totalitarian roles. Nietzsche is sometimes blamed for the Nazi neocollectivism. Nietzsche's radical individualism, his "will to power," was against all that limited the doubt and meaninglessness of the individual, but he directed his attack to the semi collective control of the church. He was an unparalleled master at dissecting what was wrong with European Christianity, as in its objectification and limited view in Nominalism, denying the ambiguous essence of humanity. In turn, ignorant followers of Nietzsche, simply mouthed his slogans without believing in them ("God is dead"). His ideas then landed like bombs among the comfortable bourgeoisie of the liberal democracies. And in attacking so powerfully what was wrong with the "slave morality" of Christianity, Nietzsche opened the way for disaster by glorifying so powerfully a radical individualism and self-assertiveness. Yet the neocollective society of totalitarianism, such as the Nazis, under the name of Nietzsche re-accepted the "slave morality" under political control as opposed to religious. Nietzsche himself was opposed to all that dehumanized and objectified. His direction was that of existential individualism. His followers, on the other hand, were unable to face the real meaning of Nietzsche's existentialism with its radical doubt and meaninglessness and in ignorant support of him, turned to their neurotic anxiety into a neocollective society, that of totalitarianism, as opposed to the semicollectivism in religious control. Both of these departed significantly from the radical doubt of meaninglessness and individualism of Nietzsche's Existentialism. "In surrendering himself to the cause of the collective he surrenders that in him which is not included in the self-affirmation of the collective; and this he does not deem to be worthy of affirmation. In this way the anxiety of individual nonbeing is transformed into anxiety about the collective, and anxiety about the collective is conquered by the courage to affirm oneself through participation in the collective." p. 99 The anxiety of fate and death is combated with the idea of the neocollective as an eternal entity. It is something above immortality and annihilation; it is the participation in something which transcends death, namely the collective and through it, the being itself. The anxiety of doubt and meaninglessness is almost completely removed, as the very meaning of life is to serve and help maintain the collective. The strength of the communist self-affirmation prevents the actualization of doubt and the outbreak of the anxiety of meaninglessness. In this respect, it can be understood why the communist would perceive the west in contemptuous terms as the creative arts exhibit the doubts and meaninglessness that results from individualization apart from the neocollective society. The anxiety of guilt and condemnation is also absorbed in the neocollective society in the individual's courage to be a part. The collective, in this respect, replaces for him the God of judgment, repentance, punishment and forgiveness. |
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Democratic Conformism |
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| With Neo-Stoicism thinking, that of humanism in the recognition of individual creativity
and the existential ontological nature of man, there is the recognition the doctrine of the individual as the microcosmic
participant, reflecting the whole, in the creative process of the macrocosm. This power of creativity, to shape
and transform oneself according to the productive powers given to him, brings on his self-affirmation and courage
to be. The anxiety of nonbeing remains, however, while the power of creativity brings forth a strength and society
that can endure hardships with the power to continue on in a society where fate and death and the threat of nonbeing
are related to economic loss with the loss of power to co-create in the productive process. The tension between liberal individualism and democratic conformity remain in a unique balance. As the imbalance of individualism would created a break down of the democratic structure, a imbalance of conformism would bring forth totalitarianism and semi-collectivism. Tillich predicted that conformity would tighten over individual liberalism as time would prove this true, as modern American democratic conformism has increased security control where individuals have lost many free areas of creativity that formerly existed. How far this will continue to develop will determine either a breakdown of conformism or the loss of individual liberty. It is the realization that individual liberalism, enabling creativity in the productive process can exist without debilitating the democratic conformism, that allows the productive process to remain. It appears that both the belief in the productive process and the action of participation bring the ability to withstand hardship and conquer the anxiety and threat of nonbeing with the courage to be and to be a part. In democracy, it is not through neocollectivism but through the power of the social group that adjusts the shortcomings and achievements pertaining to the anxiety of guilt and doubt. It is the participation in the creative process that brings acceptance and individual self-affirmation that withstands the threat of nonbeing and anxiety of fate and death, supplying meaning, providing a means to alleviate guilt, participating in the productive process. "Participation in the productive process demands conformity and adjustment to the ways of social production. . . Conformism might approximate collectivism, not so much in economic respects, and not too much in political respects but very much in the pattern of daily life and thought." p. 112 Here the anxiety of fate and death is met in two ways. |
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Modern Individualism |
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| Tillich's description of the history of individualism: "Individualism is the self-affirmation of the individual self as individual self without regard to its participation in its world. As such it is the opposite of collectivism, the self-affirmation of the self as part of a larger whole without regard to its character as an individual self. Individualism has developed out of the bondage of primitive collectivism and medieval semicollectivism. It could grow under the protective cover of democratic conformity, and it has come into the open in moderate or radical forms within the Existentialist movement. Primitive collectivism was undermined by the experience of personal guilt and individual question asking. Both were effective e at the end of the ancient world and led to the radical nonconformist of the Stoics and to the attempt to reach a transcendent foundation for the courage to be in Stoicism, mysticism, and Christianity. All these motives were present in medieval semicollectivism., which came to an end like early collectivism with the experience of personal guilt and the analysis power of radical question asking. But it did not immediately lead to individualism. Protestantism, in spite of its emphasis on the individual conscience, was established as a strictly authoritarian and conformist system, similar to that of it adversary, the Roman Church of the Counter reformation. There was no individualism in either of the great confessional groups. And there was only hidden individualism outside them, since they had drawn the individualistic trends of the Renaissance into themselves and adapted them to their ecclesiastical conformity. This situation lasted for 150 years but no more. After this period, that of confessional orthodoxy, the personal element came again to the fore. Pietism and Methodism re-emphasized personal guilt, personal experience, and individual perfection. They were not intended to deviate from ecclesiastical conformity, but unavoidably they did deviate, subjective piety became the bridge of the victorious reappearance of autonomous reason. Pietism was the bridge to Enlightenment. But even Enlightenment did not consider itself individualistic. One believes not in a conformity which is based on biblical revelation but in one which should be based on the power of reason in every individual. The principles of practical and theoretical reason were supposed to be universal amount men and able to create, with the help of research and education, a new conformity. pp. 113-114 The whole period believed in the principle of the "law of the universe" according to which the activities of the individual were in harmony with the whole, to a good that more and more people outside of the common boundaries could participate in. The individual can be free without destroying the group. Many liberating factors developed, such as economic liberalism, liberal democracy, Scientific progress and Education. It here that Leibniz. formulated the law of pre established harmony, the perennial philosophy, by teaching that the monads (indivisible, impenetrable units of substance viewed as the basic constituent element of physical reality), of which all things consist, although having no direct connections with one another, participate in the same world, which is present in all of them, whether it be dimly or clearly perceived. The courage to be as oneself is the courage to follow reason and to defy irrational authority, daring to face the unexpected changes of fate and death and affirm oneself in the power of reason. To conquer the threat of guilt, by accepting errors, shortcomings and misdeeds in the individual and social life. |
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Romanticism, Naturalism, Bohemianism and Pragmatism |
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The courage of individualism and non conformity in uniqueness was contributed pertaining to each ones creative possibilities. Yet the elevation of romanticism put the individual beyond all content and made him empty. In turn, the courage to be as oneself broke down and emphasis was again put on the collective and semi collective, as seen in the late 19th century. Radical courage developed both in the courage to be and the courage to be a part. Both Romanticism and Bohemianism - a continuation of the romantic, individual courage in artistic expression, along with Existentialism - the teaching of the ambiguous meaning of life free from objectivity, brought forth another movement called naturalism. Naturalism takes on many meanings, taking on both the absolutely concrete self of man, or the absolutely abstract character of man based on mathematical equations. It is where naturalism pertains to the courage of the individual that it can be combined with Bohemianism and Existentialism. In this definition of naturalism, nature is seen as the object behind the conscious that brings the will to power of the individual, subjecting each to the ultimate cosmic destiny that each individual decides for themselves in freedom. In individuals self-affirmation life affirms itself or negates itself. This view of self-affirmation, taken from Romanticism and Naturalism, both movements of individualism, is the view of freedom that preceded the teaching of Pragmatism, which teaching relies on individual findings that are based on measurable and practical meanings. Yet, despite Pragmatism being a movement of an individual nature, the American Pragmatist combines his Pragmatism with conformism, despite pragmatic type of Naturalism being a form of the romantic individualism and predecessor of the Existentialist independent philosophy. "The courage to be as oneself in all these groups has the character of the self-affirmation of the individual self as individual self in spite of the elements of nonbeing threatening it. The anxiety of fate is conquered by the self-affirmation of the individual as an infinitely significant microcosmic representation of the universe. . . Even loneliness is not absolute loneliness because the contents of the universe are in him." p. 120 The second period of Romanticism brought in the additional recognition of the evil within self, the demonic depth and anxiety of demonic upon oneself, the destructive trends in the human soul were discovered. This contradicted radically the moral conformism of the average Protestant and humanist. Here the person responsibility of evil had been replaced by a cosmic evil. The demonic an ambiguous bound of the creative. All forms of individualism forerunners of the future radical Existentialism of the 20th century. ""Ideas like the microcosm, mirroring the universe, or the monad representing the world, or the individual will to power expressing the character of will to power in life itself - all these point to a solution which transcends the two types of the courage to be." p. 123 Existential Forms |
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Existential Attitude |
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Existential Point of View |
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| To determine the understanding of the human ambiguous situation. From Plato and classic
Christianity, that of two transitory worlds, to the depth psychology with the courage to be. Such depth was not
unknown to the church of the middle ages and to the reformers as Luther, artists such as Dante, Bosch, Breughel,
Grunewald. It was an Existentialist point of view and not yet Existentialism. In this point of view, came nominalism, the splitting of universals in individual things and the understanding of individualism, yet failing to break from the collective authority. In time came the loss of the Existential point of view with such anti-existential views of humanism, as Descartes, "I think, therefore I am," as well as the Protestant dogma, suspicious of analysis of human existence, not interested in the relativity's and ambiguities of the human condition. The rational subject, moral and scientific, replaced the existential subject in both anti-Existential philosophy and anti-Existential theology, merging together. While Kant reserved two places for existential thought, attacked by many, such as Hegel and Goethe, Hegel himself contained existential elements in his philosophy. In time the pro-Existential revolt against the objectivity of self, in favor of the ambiguous subjectivity came about. Those included were Hegel's former friend, Schelling, with his "Positive Philosophie," Soren Keirkegaard, Feurebach and Max Stirner. "Carl Marx belonged to the Existentialist movement, in so far as he contrasted the actual existence of man under the system of early capitalism with Hegel;'s Essentialist description of man's reconciliation with himself in the present world. Most important of all the Existentialists was Nietzsche, who in his description of European nihilism (A doctrine holding that all values are baseless and that nothing can be known or communicated), presented the picture of a world in which human existence has fallen into utter meaninglessness. . . . . Max Weber described the tragic self-destruction of life once technical reason has come into control p. 136 |
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The Courage of Despair In Art and Literature |
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| The decisive event in which underlies the search of meaning and the despair of the 20th
century is the loss of God in the 19th century. The death of theism has produced the anxiety of death, guilt and
most dominant meaninglessness and emptiness of nonbeing. Those with the existentialist courage of the ambiguous nature of man's existence are those with the courage to express despair, meaninglessness and emptiness in art, theater, music, philosophy, political structures and individualism and other creativity. Tillich brings examples of creative existential expressions of despair of men such as Heidegger, Sartre, T.S. Elliot, Kafa, Auden, Camus, Kierkegaard, Feuerbach, Marx and Nietzsche. The combination of the experience of meaninglessness and of the courage to be as oneself is the key to the development of the visual arts since the turn of the century. This is something that those secure in both democratic conformism and collectivism, those with the courage to be a part apart from the courage to be, can not handle. They find it disturbing and distasteful to see art and creativity that express the despair, meaningless and ambiguity of Existential thought. They can not fact those who fail to interpret the man created world of objects into subjective form. They are unable to distinguish the genuine from the neurotic anxiety in Existentialism. "They attack as a morbid longing for negativity what in reality is courageous acceptance of the negative. They all decay what is actually the creative expression of decay. They reject as meaningless the meaningful attempt to reveal the meaninglessness of our situation. it is not the ordinary difficulty of understanding those who break new ways in thinking and artistic expression which produces the widespread resistance to recent Existentialism but the desire to protect a self-limiting courage to be as a part. Somehow one feels that this is not a true safety; one has to suppress inclinations to accept the Existentialist visions. one even enjoys them if they appear in theater or in vowels, but one refuses to take them seriously, that is as revelations of one's own existential meaninglessness and hidden despair. . . |
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The Courage of Despair In Philosophy |
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| Existentialism in philosophy is expressed more by Heidegger and Sartre than all others.
Heidegger, after expressing on the concepts of nonbeing, finitude anxiety, death, guilt, conscience, self, and
so on, brings out a phenomenon which he calls "resolve." Once unlocked, once can act on self alone. None
can decide for oneself but self. not group, eternal principles, social norms, nor God. To be resolved the courage
to be outside of the courage to be a part, it is to be resolutely able to take on the anxiety of the finitude and
guilt upon oneself, to follow no norm, no criterion for what is considered right and wrong, but to be resolved
within. This Heidegger puts forth with the ontological mystical nature of self. Sartre, on the other hand, carries through the consequences of Heideggers analyses without the mystical restrictions. A radical form of Existentialism that is the symbol of Existential thought today, that is a form of humanism. Sartre empresses it as, "the essence of man is his existence." What this is saying is, all that is, is the product of human creation. The essence of being is what man makes it to be a form of humanism. This is in line with Nietzsche's Existential meaninglessness in that "God is dead." Exceptions of a less radical view are those of Jasper and Marcel. While not mentioned by Tillich, Erich Fromm's assessment of both Heidegger and Sartre are that of much more than radical existentialists and individualists, but philosophers that contributed to anomie and selfishness in society, as can be noted in Heideggers sympathizing to the neocollective society of the Nazis. This can also be said of Sartre, who claimed to represent Marxism, yet became an exponent that promoted egotism and solipsism that manifested in the bourgeois element, the spirit of society that he criticized and wanted to change. "However, in their claim that there are no objective values valid for all men, and in the concept of freedom which amounts to egotistic arbitrariness, Sartre and his followers lose the most important achievement of theistic and nontheistic religion, as well as of the humanist tradition." (3) |
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The Courage of Despair In Non-Creative Existentialist Attitude |
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| The courage of despair in non-creative Existential attitude is that of Cynicism. "Having no belief, no criterion of truth, no set of values, no answer to the question of meaning. They try to undermine every norm put before them, Their courage is expressed not creatively but in their form of life. They courageously reject any solution which would deprive them of their freedom of rejecting whatever they want to reject. The cynics are lonely although they need company in order to show their loneliness. They are empty of both preliminary meanings and an ultimate meaning and therefore easy victims of neurotic anxiety. Much compulsive self-affirmation and much fanatical self-surrender are expressions of the non creative courage to be as oneself." p. 151 |
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Limits of the Courage To Be As Oneself |
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| Here Tillich brings out that while radical Essentialism is the absolute freedom of the
self, apart from participation in the world, as an empty shell and mere possibility. Yet it needs to act upon itself,
thus restricting and limiting his freedom to make of himself what he wants. Classic Christianity also limits the courage to be as oneself with allowing only God to be that which can be the only one with absolute freedom and man, as an finite creature, is only that which is given to him by God The radical forms of Essentialism against dehumanization and objectivation, together with the courage to be as oneself of the 19th century had backfired in the Anti-Existentialist, totalitarian reaction of the 20th century. While Marx expressed a system against dehumanization to that of a liberation of everyone, the Anti Existentialist reaction of those who could not handle the anxiety and meaninglessness ambiguity of life and it's despair, brought forth a system of communist enslavement, where everyone, even of those who enslave others, were enslaved. In their inability to have the courage to be as oneself, they turned to either neocollectivism in a fanatical neurotic reaction or to that of cynicism, a neurotic form of thinking against all creativity, both revolting against the Existentialism of meaningless and the courage to be as oneself. This same element of inability to have the courage in spite of the meaninglessness and despair of Existentialism, that of Nietzsche thought, brought forth the neurotic and fanatical reaction and totalitarian, Fascist-Nazi forms of neocollectivism. |
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The Courage To Accept Acceptance |
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| "Courage is the self-affirmation of being in spite of the fact of nonbeing. It is the act of the individual self in taking the anxiety of nonbeing upon itself by affirming itself either as part of an embracing whole or in its individual selfhood. Courage always includes a risk, it is always threatened by nonbeing, whether the risk of losing oneself and becoming a thing within the whole of things or of losing one's world in an empty self-relatedness. Courage needs the power of being, a power transcending the nonbeing which is experience in the anxiety of fate and dearth which is present in the anxiety of emptiness and meaninglessness, which is effective in the anxiety of guilt and condemnation. The courage which takes this threefold anxiety into itself must be rooted in a power of being that is greater than the power of oneself and the power of one's world. Neither self-affirmation as a part nor self-affirmation as oneself is beyond the manifold threat of nonbeing." p. 155 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The Mystical Experience And The Courage To Be |
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| Regarding the relation of man to the ground of his being, the participation and individualization
determine the special character of the courage to be. If participation is dominant, then the being-itself has a
mystical character, if individualization prevails the it becomes a personal character, both together being that
of the character of faith. "The mystical courage to be lasts as long as the mystical situation. Its limit is the state of emptiness of being and meaning, with its horror and despair, which the mystics have described. In these moments the courage to be is reduced to the acceptance of even this state as a way to prepare through darkness for light, through emptiness for abundance. As lone as the absence of the power of being is felt as despair, it is the power of being which makes itself felt through despair. To experience this and to endure it is the courage to be of the mystic in the state of emptiness. although mysticism in its extreme positive and extreme negative aspects is a comparatively rare event, the basic attitude, the striving for union with ultimate reality, and the corresponding courage to take the nonbeing which is implied in finitude upon oneself are a way of life which is accepted by and has shaped large sections of mankind." "But mysticism is more than a special form of the relation to the ground of being. It is an element of every form of this relation. Since everything that participates in the power of being, the element of identity on which mysticism is based cannot be absent in any religious experience. There is no self-affirmation of a finite being, and there is no courage to be in which the ground of being and its power of conquering nonbeing is no effective. And eh experience of the presence of this power is the mystical element even in the person-to-person encounter with God." p.160 |
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The Divine-Human Encounter And The Courage To Be |
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| This is in regards to the personal encounter and experience with God, derived from the
courage of confidence. In respect to the differences of the mystic union, the personal encounter is more of confidence
and yet are both interdependent. Together they comprise what is known as faith. Luther was a prime example of this personal and unshakable confidence in his personal encounter with God. His courage to be was apart from the church, the collective. The church, excluding mysticism, offered only collective ways to resist anxiety, while Luther the way of the individual. Here Luther brought forth a new nonmystical courage, not the heroism of martyrdom or resisting authorities, but as the individual with the courage of confidence to be oneself in a personal encounter with God. In contrast with Mysticism, this was a courage based on with an individual encounter with God as a person, radically differentiating itself from later forms of Existentialism. Yet the courage of the reformers is neither the courage to be oneself, nor the courage to be a part, as it transcended both of them. For this courage taught only a confidence based on God that could be obtained in the cessation of one's own individual confidence in his or herself. It was based solely on God in a unique personal encounter. |
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Guilt And The Courage To Accept Acceptance |
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| Here is the courage to accept acceptance in spite of consciousness of guilt. This was
the basis of Luther's doctrine, "Sola Fide," or
"Faith Alone." This was the
courage to affirm oneself in spite of the anxiety of guilt and condemnation. It is paradoxical, to accept and affirm
oneself as acceptable, despite being unacceptable, that is to affirm oneself as an unacceptable sinner through
faith, thus being declared as acceptable. This is the courage to accept oneself in spite of being unworthy or unacceptable. This is not he Existential courage to be oneself, as this courage must accept the forgiveness of sins from the fundamental experience in the encounter with a personal God. Here, self-affirmation is in spite of the anxiety of guilt and condemnation which presupposes participation in something which transcends the self. This does not remove guilt, but rather help to transform, displaced, neurotic guilt feelings into genuine feelings which are balanced in the courage to be. In reality, only the power of the being-itself is that which brings self-affirmation. Everything less, including others finite power of being, cannot overcome the radical, infinite threat of nonbeing which is experienced in the despair of self-condemnation. This power of individual being itself was to rely on God alone, thus bringing forth a new individual courage in the reformation. |
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Fate And The Courage To Accept Acceptance |
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| Luther faced the anxiety of fate and death on another level. He experienced the connection
between the anxiety of guilt and the anxiety of fate and realized the conquest of both takes both into themselves
"in spite of." This is the genuine meaning of the doctrine of providence. Socrates believed that there were two selves. He does not say too much about the relation of the two, but speaks of them as one self in two aspects and that the courage to die is the test of the courage to be. Here both Socrates and Plato based their courage, not on the immortality of the soul but on the affirmation of oneself in their essential, indestructible being, knowing that each one belongs to two orders of reality and that the one order is transtemporal. Unlike the courage to accept fate and death, the doctrine of the immortality of the soul, taught in the West is a mixture of courage and escape, trying to maintaining one's own finitude and having to die. This is an illusion and poor symbol of the courage to be in the face of death. The courage to take death upon oneself, that of Socrates, is not accepted by Christianity, as Christianity teaches man is estranged from his essential being and can only be accepted through the encounter and participation with God. Both Luther and his adversary, Thomas Munzer both experienced periods of that of modern day Existentialism - complete meaninglessness and ambiguity in utter despair, the type of despair experienced by the Mystics, that of the "dark night of the soul." For Luther it was God who had the last word and this awareness is what saved him. Both Luther, who represented ecclesiastical Protestantism and Munzer, who represented evangelical radicalism have transcended their anxiety of fate and death with the courage of confidence based on a personal encounter with God. |
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Absolute Faith And The Courage To Be |
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| Faith, according to Tillich, is the combination of both the mystical union with the ground
of being and that of the courage derived from the personal encounter with God. Tillich describes faith as, "the state of being grasped by the power of being-itself. It is the courage to be,
which is an expression of faith and what faith means." Anotherwards,
faith is the state of self or being that comes from the power of self-affirmation that is required for courage,
a power of self that is given in spite of the threat of nonbeing. Faith is the experience of this power, the power
that is needed to transcend and accept anxiety, affirming oneself in spite of. the threat of nonbeing. Yet faith is paradoxical. It needs to self affirm its being, yet it must accept the fact that the threat of nonbeing is just as real and still accept oneself in spite of. Faith accepts itself in spite of the anxiety of fate, guilt and doubt. Faith is not a theoretical affirmation of something uncertain, but it the existential and ambiguous acceptance of something transcending ordinary experience. According to Tillich, at this point, the mystical experience and the personal encounter are identical. While the Stoic teaching of interior wisdom had the ability to control the anxiety of fate and death and the Christian teachings, primarily of the Protestants, had the ability to control the anxiety of guilt and condemnation, today's existential anxiety of doubt and meaninglessness requires another type of courage. This this is the question Tillich presents, what type of courage is needed to transcend this? Can faith resist meaninglessness? The answer to this question must accept, as its precondition, the state of meaninglessness and rise above it, "in spite of" its threat. Some Existentialist thinkers have applied quick answers in the desire for safety, while others used the Christian message to overcome the anxiety of despair. Yet neither of these answers have been able to transcend the anxiety of radical doubt. To accept meaninglessness as a precondition to the courage to be is to accept the negativity of despair in a positive self affirmation. If one allows despair to be negative, one cannot accept this, as the trauma is too great, where one must find a way out to escape it. However, the courage of despair is that of acceptance and transcendence. Tillich calls this positive acceptance of the negativity of despair as an "active negativity." "The paradox of every radical negativity, as long as it is an active negativity, is that it must affirm itself in order to be able to negate itself." It is the power of being that accepts the despair of meaninglessness and threat of nonbeing. The act of accepting meaninglessness is in itself a meaningful act. It is an act of faith. Absolute faith reveals three elements: |
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| Interestingly, Tillich brings out that this type of faith transcends both the mystical
experience and the divine-person encounter. For absolute faith includes an element of skepticism which cannot be
found in mystical experience. The difference here is that absolute faith, unlike mysticism, finds meaninglessness.
Mysticism transcends all contents, yet uses concrete contents and theism as steps of growth, while the experience
of meaninglessness, denies all contents without having used them. Anotherwards, with meaninglessness, there are
less answers and more emptiness, less to hold on to, more ambiguity, both having the courage to be with the power
of being, that is faith. In meaningless, it is not a concrete God of theism as an object that exists but the power
of being that take on nonbeing within itself. Yet mysticism also implies the de-objectification of God as a being,
transcending theism and can therefore be in agreement with absolute faith. "Absolute faith transcends both the mystical experience and the divine-human encounter. The mystical experience seems to be nearer to absolute faith but it is not. Absolute faith includes an element of skepticism which one cannot find in the mystical experience." p. 177 Absolute faith also transcends that of the divine-human encounter in the sense that the divine-human encounter consists of a subject-object relationship. But in absolute faith, the attack of doubt undercuts the subject-object structure and is therefore not as the majority of theologians so teach, but rather the courage to be in a more radical form which transcends this concept. |
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Nonbeing Opens Up Being |
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| The point here, is that the courage to be reveals the power of being and the self-affirmation
over the nonbeing or negation of self. Being embraces itself and that which is opposed to it; nonbeing. If we speak
of the power of being, it is only with our self-affirmation of being in the recognition of our nonbeing. Since
nonbeing belongs to being, it is necessary to accept nonbeing. With this in mind, comes the idea of God. God is
both the self-affirmation of being with the acceptance of nonbeing. My interpretative explanation is that God is
the very (and only) element of existence that also accepts its nonexistence. This is the ground of all being, the
ground of our being. This power to affirm our self, in spite of nonbeing, is the power of courage and the ground
of our being, God. This courage is the affirmation of the power of our being, God. It is the self affirmation transcending
nonbeing, with the power of being - the ground of our being. This is the ground of all being, of all existence,
that of God. Every act of our courage is the manifestation of the ground of our being, of God, whether we are aware
of it or not. Tillich describes it this way: "God loves and knows himself through the love and knowledge of finite beings. Nonbeing is that in which God makes his self-affirmation dynamic and opens up the divine self seclusion and reveals him as power and love. Nonbeing makes God a living God. Without the No he has to overcome in himself and in his creature, the divine Yes to himself would be lifeless. There would be no revelation of the ground of being, there would be no life. But where there is nonbeing there is finitude and anxiety. If we say that nonbeing belongs to being itself., we say that finitude and anxiety belong to being itself. Wherever philosophers or theologians have spoken of the divine blessedness they have implicitly (and sometimes explicitly) spoken of the anxiety of finitude which is eternally taken into the blessedness of the divine infinity. The infinite embraces itself and the finite, the Yes includes itself and the No which it takes into itself, blessedness comprises itself and the anxiety of which it is the conquest. All this is implied if one ways that being includes nonbeing and that through nonbeing it reveals itself. The divine self-affirmation is this power that makes the self-affirmation of the finite being, the courage to be, possible. Only because being itself has the character of self-affirmation in spite of nonbeing is courage possible. Courage participates in the self-affirmation of being-itself, it participates in the power of being which prevails against nonbeing. He who receives this power in an act of mystical or personal or absolute faith is aware of the source of his courage to be. Man is not necessarily aware of this source. In situations of cynicism and indifference he is not aware of it. But it works in him as long as he maintains the courage to take his anxiety upon himself. In the act of courage to be the power of being is effective in us, whether were recognize it or not. Every act of courage is a manifestation of the ground of being, however questionable the content of the act may be. By affirming our being we participate in the self-affirmation of being itself. There are no valid arguments for the existence of God, but there are acts of courage in which we affirm the power of being, whether we know it or not." pp. 180-181 |
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Theism Transcended |
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| The courage to take meaninglessness into itself presupposes a relation to the ground
of being which Tillich calls absolute faith. Its content is not concrete but affirms itself while accepting the
meaninglessness of radical doubt. It is the power of being that takes into itself the meaninglessness of nonbeing.
It is the God above the God of theism, the ground of our being. Theism (the idea of an external concrete being and person) can be meant in three main ways: |
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The God Above God And The Courage To Be |
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| The ultimate source of the courage to be is the power of being, the God above the God
of theism. Only this ground of being, that which is above the God of theism, has the ability to transcend the anxiety
of doubt and meaninglessness, taken into the courage to be. While Mysticism takes in the center of self and power
of being, it fails to enter and accept the radical doubt concerning the concrete, plunging directly into the ground
of being, yet leaving the world of finite values and meanings as concrete. Therefore it does to solve the problem
of meaninglessness. This God above the God of theism, the power of being, does not devalue all concrete with meaninglessness,
but accepts the doubt that allows their potential restitution. Absolute faith is found in mysticism that transcends
the theistic objectivation of a God who is a being. "For mysticism such a God is not more real than any finite being, for the courage to be such a God has disappeared in the abyss of meaninglessness with every other value and meaning." "The God above the God of theism is present although hidden, in every divine-human encounter." Even amongst the Protestants, there is the awareness behind theism of the human power of being that is needed for a presence of the divine, for forgiveness, grace and acceptance. It is also seen in that prayers made in the air to speak to God - somebody, have a paradoxical nature as there is no somebody there. The power of being, unites and transcends the courage to be and the courage to be a part by both participating and self affirmation as an individual. It avoids but the loss of oneself by participation and the loss of one's world by individualization. "If the self participates in the power of being itself, it receives itself back. For the power of being acts though the power of the individual selves." "Absolute faith, or the state of being grasped by the God beyond God, (the power of being), is not a state which appears beside other states of the mind. It never is something separated and definite, an even which could be isolated and described. it is always a movement in, which, and under other states of the mind. It is the situation on the boundary of man's possibilities. It is this boundary. Therefore it is both the courage of despair and the courage in and above every courage. it is not a place where one can live, it is without the safety of words and concepts, it is without a name, a church, a cult, a theology. But it is moving in the depth of all of them. It is the power of being, in which they participate and of which they are fragmentary expressions." p. 189 Becoming aware of this state, the power of being or ground of our being, is to change the traditional symbols of theism to that of the God above theism. Symbols that promote theism, such as immortality, providence, judgment, inherited sin, remove the awareness of the power of being, the self-affirmation in spite of the threat of nonbeing. When the traditional symbols are changed to they can enable men to become aware of the power of being to withstand and take in itself the anxiety of fate and death and that of guilt and condemnation. "The Stoic courage returns but not as the faith in universal reason. It returns as the absolute faith which says Yes to being without seeing anything concrete which could conquer the nonbeing in fate and death." "The Lutheran courage returns not supported by the faith in a judging and forgiving God. It returns in terms of the absolute faith which says Yes (to being) although there is no special power that conquers guilt. The courage to take the anxiety of meaninglessness upon oneself is the boundary line up to which the courage to be can go. Beyond it is mere nonbeing. Within it all forms of courage are re-established in the power of the God above the God of theism. The courage to be is rooted in the God who appears when God has disappeared in the anxiety of doubt. p.190 |
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GLOSSARY |
| Neurosis - the way of avoiding nonbeing by avoiding being, which is a lack of self-affirmation with imaginary protective walls of security that will overlook doubt on issues that are in need of it, submitting to authorities and structures that eliminate freedom, and at the same time, create doubt on areas that do not need it, that have been proven beyond the doubts entered upon it. Neurotic anxiety is the inability to take one's existential anxiety upon oneself. |
| Ontological - Ontology is any particular theory that pertains to the nature of being or the kinds of existents. Ontic, from the Greek On, "being, means here the basic self-affirmation of a being in its simple existence. Ontological designates the philosophical analysis of the nature of being. |
| Despair - is "that a being is aware of itself as unable to affirm itself because of the power of nonbeing. consequently it wants to surrender this awareness and its presupposition, the being which is aware." p. 55 |
| Existential - The expression of the anxiety of meaninglessness and of the attempt to take this anxiety into the courage to be as oneself. A philosophy that emphasizes the uniqueness and isolation of the individual experience in a hostile or indifferent universe, regards human existence as unexplainable, and stresses freedom of choice and individual responsibility for the consequences of one's acts. It is the ambiguous structure and meaninglessness which drives to despair as the center to being. Anxiety in the existential awareness of nonbeing is not the abstract knowledge of nonbeing, which produces anxiety, but the awareness that nonbeing as a part of one's own being. "Twentieth-century man has lost a meaningful world and a self which lives in meanings out of a spiritual center. The man-created world of objects has drawn into itself him who created it and who now loses his subjectivity in it." p. 139 |
| Nominalism - 1:
theory that there are no universal essences in reality and that the mind can frame no single concept or image corresponding
to any universal or general term. 2 :
theory that only individuals and no abstract entities (as essences, classes, or propositions) exist. Nominalism can be described as splitting the universals into individual things, as the individualization of the whole, yet never fully leaving the collective thought of conformism and ceasing to fully enter into the individual and ambiguous nature of existentialism. Opposed to Realism. |
| Essentialism - A chiefly 20th century philosophical movement embracing diverse doctrines but centering on analysis of individual existence in an unfathomable universe and the plight of the individual who must assume ultimate responsibility for his acts of free will without any certain knowledge of what is right or wrong or good or bad. The philosophical theory ascribing ultimate reality to essence embodied in a thing perceptible to the senses. |
| Humanism - A philosophy that usually rejects supernaturalism and a supernatural God and stresses the individual's dignity, creativity, self-worth and capacity for self-realization, the creation through reason. Humanism can be both Existential and Non Existential. As humanistic Existential thinking, (The despair of Heidegger, and Sartre), contributes existence to the essence of man, yet remain ambiguous in meaninglessness and despair, while the Non Existential (Descartes - "I think, therefore I am"), removes all subjectivity, thus objectifying all meanings in that of human creation (dehumanization) and meaning. |
| Romanticism - An artistic and intellectual movement originating in Europe in the late 18th century and characterized by a heightened interest in nature, emphasis on the individual's expression of emotion and imagination, departure from the attitudes and forms of classicism, and rebellion against established social rules and conventions. |
| Classicism - Aesthetic attitudes and principles manifested in the art, architecture, and literature of ancient Greece and Rome and characterized by emphasis on form, simplicity, proportion, and restraint. |
| Bohematism - A person with artistic or literary interests who disregards conventional standards of behavior. |
| Naturalism - Philosophy:. The system of thought holding that all phenomena can be explained in terms of natural causes and laws. Theology: The doctrine that all religious truths are derived from nature and natural causes and not from revelation. Naturalism can be defined as a dogmatic secularism and opposition to a belief in the transcendent. Yet Naturalism is also a form of individualism, and when combined with Romanticism, can transcend natural causes that are immutably contained within objectivity, to that of natural causes in existential and ambiguous meaning. |
| Pragmatism - Philosophy. A movement consisting of varying but associated theories, by the doctrine that the meaning of an idea or a proposition lies in its observable practical and measurable consequences, that the meaning of conceptions is to be sought in their practical bearings, that the function of thought is to guide action, and that truth is preeminently to be tested by the practical consequences of belief. Originally developed by Charles S. Peirce and William James. |
| Collectivism - The principles or system of ownership and control of the means of production and distribution by the people collectively, usually under the supervision of a government. |
| Nihilism - Philosophy:
a) An extreme form of skepticism that denies all existence. b) A doctrine holding that all values are baseless and that nothing can be known or communicated. |
| Macrocosm - The entire world; the universe. |
| Microcosmic - A small, representative system having analogies to a larger system in constitution, configuration, or development |
| Cynicism - Modern cynics are not ready to follow anybody. They have no belief in reason, no criterion of truth, no set of values, no answer to the question of meaning. They courageously reject any solution which would deprive them of their freedom of rejecting whatever they want to reject. In turn, they are lonely and empty of both preliminary meanings and an ultimate meaning and therefore easy victims of neurotic anxiety, susceptible to compulsive self-affirmation and fanatical self-surrender. |
| Idealism - The doctrine that ideas are the only reality. theory that the object of external perception, in itself or as perceived, consists of ideas. The system or theory that denies the existence of material bodies, and teaches that we have no rational grounds to believe in the reality of anything but ideas and their relations. |
| Solipsism - theory that the self is the only thing that can be known and verified, the theory or view that the self is the only reality. The philosophical theory that the self is all that you know to exist. A theory holding that the self can know nothing but its own modifications and that the self is the only existent thing. |
| Monads - An indivisible, impenetrable unit of substance viewed as the basic constituent element of physical reality in the metaphysics of Leibnitz. |
| Pantheism /Cosmotheism - Belief in and worship of all gods. A doctrine that equates God with the forces and laws of the universe. The doctrine that the universe, taken or conceived of as a whole, is God; the doctrine that there is no God but the combined force and laws which are manifested in the existing universe. |
| Realism - 1 :
concern for fact or reality and rejection of the impractical and visionary 2 a : a doctrine that universals exist
outside the mind; specifically : the conception that an abstract term names an independent and unitary reality b : the conception
that objects of sense perception or cognition exist independently of the mind 3 : fidelity in art and literature
to nature or to real life and to accurate representation without idealization An inclination toward literal truth and pragmatism, opposed to nominalism which is that of universals exist independently of their being thought. Also opposed to idealism, which is that physical objects exist independently of their being perceived. |
| Anxiety - A state of apprehension, uncertainty, and helplessness resulting from the anticipation of a realistic or fantasized threatening event or situation, often impairing physical and psychological functioning. Since there is no object but uncertainty, there is nothing conquer, only ambiguity. |
| Fear - A state or condition marked by the feeling of agitation and anxiety caused by the presence or imminence of danger or uncertainty. Unlike anxiety, fear has an object that can be conquered with self-affirmation and courage. Therefore anxiety must be converted into an object of fear. |
| Entelechy - In the philosophy of Aristotle, the condition of a thing whose essence is fully realized; actuality. In some philosophical systems, a vital force that directs an organism toward self-fulfillment. |
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