Doubt and Obedience:

Tillich and Bonhoeffer on the Substance of Faith

By

Kevin Vail

For

T500 – Intro to Theology

Dr. Helene Russell – instructor

appear not” writes the apostle (He 11:1, DRV) but what is the substance of faith in the

modern age? This paper will examine the descriptions of faith of two of the most

influential theologians of the 20th century.

Paul Tillich (1886-1965) escaped from Nazi Germany to teach at Union

Theological Seminary in New York. Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945), also a native son

of Germany, refused to leave his homeland and was arrested and eventually executed by

the Nazi government. Both of these men lived under the shadow of unimaginable horror

and violence but yet lived lives of Christian faithfulness and through their writings

exhorted others to do the same. They shared the same Lutheran confession of faith

however; they were not always of the same mind. They both give the reader powerful

teachings and reflections which enrich the mind and a powerful witness to enrich the

heart.

Paul Tillich is oft regarded as the modern dean of the Liberal school of Christian

theology. Dietrich Bonhoeffer is typically placed in the school of Protestant neo-

Orthodoxy founded by Karl Barth in the early part of the 20th century. Tillich published

dozens of works in his lifetime while we have comparatively few of Bonhoeffer’s

writings. However what we do have is nectar for the sick soul of the modern person.

Paul Tillich opens his book The Dynamics of Faith, with the statement “faith is

the state of being ultimately concerned” (2001, p. 1). Ultimate concern, for Tillich, is the

central organizing principle of the human person that “demands the total surrender of him

who accepts this claim and it promises total fulfillment even if all other claims have to be
subjected to it or rejected in its name” (ibid, pp 1-2). Acts of faith include the totality of

the person, “both the rational and the nonrational elements of being” (ibid, p. 7). Faith is

equivalent to freedom for it transcends and unites all the polarities of the human psyche.

Faith is a conscious act but must also include and transcend those elements of the human

psyche which are unconscious.

Tillich argues, following the conclusions of analytical (Jungian) psychology, the

“content of faith” (ibid, p. 5) is largely determined by unconscious elements of the

personality structure. Jung’s theory of the human psyche was built on the existence of a

“collective unconscious” which contained a repository of “archetypes”. Jungians hold

that the primary “drive” of the human person is for “completeness”. Through a process

Jung called “individuation”, an individual confronts an invariant sequence of archetypes:

the persona, the shadow, the animus / anima and finally the Self. The Self archetype is

equated with what Jung called the “God-image” (1969). Tillich’s “ultimate concern” is, I

believe, what Jung was describing as the drive to individuation and wholeness. While

Jung never came to a conclusion in regards to the ultimate origin of the collective

unconscious and its archetypes he definitely held it to be universal and inescapable.

While many people will never complete the journey we are all fated to undertake it.

Faith, for Tillich, includes but transcends the rational, doctrinal formulations of

the conscious mind. Human ratiocination is notoriously fallible. The god-image of the

Jungians and the ultimate concern of Tillich are properly fixed on the infinite, however

they can be attached to that which is not infinite. Humanity has and continues to worship

“almost everything in Heaven and Earth” (ibid, p.11). The finite, when it attempts to

claim infinity and hence become the object of ultimate concern, fails to bridge the gap
between the subject and the object, which Tillich regards as the sine qua non of faith. The

result of such an attachment is “a loss of the center and a disruption of the personality”

(ibid, p. 14). Paul Tillich, like St. Paul, calls this idolatry. The letter of St. Paul to the

Romans spells out the consequences of such a mistake: “all iniquity, malice, fornication,

avarice, wickedness, full of envy, murder, contention, deceit, malignity, whisperers

detractors, hateful to God, contumelious, proud, haughty, inventors of evil things,

disobedient to parents, foolish, dissolute, without affection, without fidelity, without

mercy.” (Rom 1:29-31, DRV). Such is the sorry lot of those that “worship and serve the

creature rather than the Creator” (Rom 1:25, DRV). Tillich uses an example with which

he and nearly all persons are all too familiar, the Nazi idolization of state and race. Today,

we could see the same phenomenon at work in the worship of wealth, status, sex or drugs

of abuse. Faith must be directed by but cannot be simply as he believed the rationalist

scholastics of the Middle Ages saw it, namely, a cognitive proposition combined with the

assent of the will. The object of ratio is infused with the energy of the whole being. Any

object, which is infused with these energies, becomes “god” but only the True God can

hold these energies indefinitely. The worship of that which is not God leads to what

Tillich calls “existential disappointment” (ibid, p. 13).

Since faith for Tillich is an “act of a finite being who is gasped by and turned

towards the infinite” (ibid, p. 19), doubt is an inherent a part of it. Doubt cannot be

removed but only overcome by courage. Human ratio cannot completely apprehend the

infinite; it is therefore left always in uncertainty. The Scholastics recognized this

uncertainty; they therefore asserted that the individual makes up for this uncertainty with

an act of willing assent. Tillich argues that it is from this formulation of faith that we get
the natural conclusion that doubt is therefore a defect in faith. It is a failure of a will that

does not fix itself wholly on God. For Tillich, this formulation may have been adequate

for the Middle Ages when culture was imbued with the Christian religion but it is wholly

inadequate for the modern world which is imbued rather with the philosophy of Descartes

- De omnibus dubitandum est (one must doubt everything). Tillich therefore argues that

doubt must be accepted as an integral part of faith, as is the compensatory virtue of

courage. He calls courage the “daring self-affirmation of one’s own being in spite of the

powers of ‘nonbeing’ which are the heritage of everything finite” (ibid, p. 19). Far from

an empty proposition of doctrine, faith therefore becomes a healing power that

overcomes the forces in each individual that lead him/her to dissolution and death, “For

the wisdom of the flesh is death; but the wisdom of the spirit is life and peace” (Rom 8:6,

DRV).

It is with this lucid and compelling description of faith we pick up Dietrich

Bonhoeffer to explore the consequences of such a faith for our lives. Bonhoeffer, in The

Cost of Discipleship, argues that faith excludes doubt thru unconditional obedience to

divine authority and therefore action precedes faith. Faith is only possible thru obedience

(1960, pp. 63-66). Tillich frames the life of faith as the courage to be faithful and act

despite doubt. Bonhoeffer would rather one put their doubts aside and make the choice to

obey simply and directly, “Only the obedient believe” (ibid, p. 55). The obedient answer

the call of Christ because he is the Christ, the only Son of God, and his authority is

“absolute, direct and unaccountable” (ibid, p. 48). Bonhoeffer’s life and writings express

a call to a life of discipleship that is free of doubt or hesitation. Bonhoeffer died, in a Nazi

prison camp ministering to the other prisoners This is what he calls “costly grace”, that is
the simple, quiet decision to follow Christ all the way to Calvary, as compared to “cheap

grace” which demands nothing and alters nothing. Bonhoeffer uses as his first teaching

tool the story of the “rich young man” in Matthew 19. This pericope tells us of a young

man who sought from Jesus an answer to the question all people ask in their hearts, “what

shall I do that I may have life everlasting?” (Mt 19:16, DRV) Bonhoeffer takes the young

man to task as Jesus did. The young man would like to talk about what he must do. The

answer he receives was a demand for immediate and unequivocal action. We cannot

avoid the choice, God or the world, true worship or idolatry. The separation between God

and man has the character of disobedience. The created owes the creator nothing less than

obedience but in sin “doubt and reflection take the place of spontaneous obedience” (ibid,

p. 63). The serpent asked Eve, as the young man here asks the Christ, what is it that God

has commanded?

Bonhoeffer next uses the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10) to teach the

reader that obeying God means serving mankind. The lawyer in this parable, also wants

to engage in a debate with Jesus but this time with text tells us his motive is to trap Jesus.

Jesus responds with the authority that is His and focuses the discussion not on the endless

question of “who is my neighbor?” but rather on the question of obedience and service.

How are you a neighbor to others? Have you done “to the least of these” (Mt. 25:40)

what you must do in obedience to the will of the Father? Bonhoeffer tries to make it clear

here that it is in action our faith takes root, prayer works better when done on your knees.

Bonhoeffer knew well the cost of discipleship. His life and death is a testimony to

it and for this reason he is recognized as a martyr by the Lutheran and Anglican

communities. Jesus warns his disciples many times that they will be hated for His sake.
In Christian tradition it is accounted a great blessing to be chosen to suffer for Christ.

Bonhoeffer reminds the reader that the “law of Christ is the law of the Cross” (ibid, p. 77)

The Christian life is foremost a life self-sacrificing and self-forgetting. The uniqueness of

the Christian religion does not lie in the philosophical and moral teachings of Jesus but

rather in the incarnation, life, death and resurrection of the God-man. It was these claims

that were and are “foolishness to the Gentiles and a stumbling block for the Jews” (1 Cor

1:23).

Bonhoeffer also reminds us of the rewards promised by God through Jesus in the

beatitudes. The reward is blessedness. (ibid) Each of the promises of the beatitudes grants

“happiness” under a condition that, from the Earthly viewpoint, cannot possibly lead to

happiness, not as we understand it. This is a sermon that sounds strange today but makes

perfect sense sub specie aeternitatis. The concept of “happiness” from which Christ

speaks is alien to the modern mind. The word translated as “happiness” in modern

English is beati in the Latin. This word does not communicate subjective satisfaction and

contentment but rather the state of blessedness. One is only blessed by being good and

one is only good through obedience to the law that Christ came “not to abolish but to

fulfill” (Mt 5:17). The requirements of this happiness may be seen by dissecting the

Greek word from it is derived, ευδαιμονια. “ευ” denotes that one must be morally good,

“δαιμον” specifies that this happiness is spiritual not material, and “iα” specifies that it is

an enduring state not momentary (Kreeft, 1992). Nearly all ethics recognize this

principle in one form or another but in Christ and His saints we can see the concrete

fulfillment of this principle. These principles can only be seen when one is obedient.

Only those that see the law that Jesus pronounces as the word of God can, in turn, be
obedient to it. Consequently faith is obedience and obedience is faith.

The preceding discussion shows faith is inseparable from obedience. What Tillich

and Bonhoeffer show us are the two sides of the equation. That doubt is part of the

phenomenology of faith is a reality of our fallen nature. We are separated from God by a

chasm of the understanding. The bridge to this chasm is built on the obedience of faith.

What is missing from both is discussion of the role played by the Church and the

sacraments She dispenses. Bonhoeffer’s understanding of faith as obedience is excellent

but begs the question of obedience to what precisely? The modern Christian does not

have the option of “leaving his nets” (Mt 4:22) and following the incarnate Son of God

about the countryside. Jesus continues to call people to follow Him but in the din of

modern life we cannot hear Him clearly as the apostles did. Only if Jesus left a teaching

authority which continues to call loudly in His name can the modern Christian know

precisely what he/she is called to be obedient to.

Tillich misunderstands the traditional formulation of faith. He has improperly

isolated it from the whole. The scholastic formulation held that faith was one of the

infused virtues (along with hope and charity), which has God as its object. Infused means

it could not be willed or won, only granted through grace. Grace is the very life of God

within us according to a traditional understanding. The soul however must to be prepared

to receive this grace. The soul is first prepared through baptism; the development of the

natural moral virtue of prudence, justice, fortitude and temperance, and the natural

intellectual virtues of knowledge, understanding and wisdom. No one can achieve

anything like perfection in all of these, not even the saints, therefore the Church has been

given the sacraments to strengthen and restore the soul to health when it inevitably turns
away from the Creator and back to the created. Tillich demonstrates that doctrinal

formulations are important. The will follows the intellect and the person that does not

know God cannot chose the True God over the many false gods we are presented with.

The scholastics understood that faith perfects the intellect but St. Paul teaches an

important lesson in his famous chapter on love (1 Cor. 13). The greatest of the virtues is

not faith but charity, caritatis, the love that has God as its object and for which sake we

love even our enemies. That love perfects the will. The Christian’s task is therefore not to

engage in endless speculation about “what must I do to gain everlasting life” but to

simply to “love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with

all thy strength, and with all thy mind: and thy neighbour as thyself” (Lk 10:27, DRV).
 Bibliography

Bonhoeffer, Dietrich. The Cost of Discipleship. Trans. from Nachfolge by R.H. Fuller 1st

ed. Pub 1949. New York: The Macmillan Co, 1960.

Jung, C. G. Collected Works of C.G. Jung Vol. 8: The Structure and Dynamics of the

Psyche. 2nd Ed. Trans. By R.F.C. Hull. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1969.

Kreeft, Peter. Back to Virtue: Traditional Moral Wisdom for Modern Moral Confusion.

Fort Collins, CO: Ignatius Press, 1992.

Tillich, Paul. The Dynamics of Faith. Perennial Classics ed. With introduction by Marion

Pauck. First ed. pub. 1957. New York: Harpercollins, 2001.