Customer Reviews

Theology of Peace

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I was looking at Tillich's, A Theology of Peace on Amazon and I came across this synopsis of the book, apparently from "Library Journal" whatever that is. It made this statement.

"Taken as a whole, these essays represent Tillich's effort to think theologically about peace. Always a realist, Tillich warns against utopian dreams of peace on Earth. Striving for peace is a Christian duty, but true peace remains a religious hope only realizable in heaven."

It stuck me as a particularly un-Tillich way of speaking about the issue. It surprised me that a) someone would call Tillich a "realist" and b) say that Tillich's final analysis was that true peace is a hope only "realizable in heaven." For one thing, I think the person who writes this means that Tillich remains "realistic" not necessarily a realist per se. And, correct me if I'm way off base, but I don't think Tillich would describe ideas on hope or peace as something that are only realizable in a "heaven" of the apocalyptic finality type.

For one thing, in one of Tillich's sermons, he writes on hope saying that, "Genuine hope is such only when that hope already has some presence." But more than this, I'm pretty sure Tillich would consider the more traditional concept of heaven and hell with streets of gold and a God on a throne as some kind of symbol pointing to something significant, not a literal reality, at least not as traditionally described. From everything I can tell from Tillich, his idea of the "Kingdom of God" is very much a hope for life, a hope for the transformation of the world.

I guess what I'm saying is that this quote seemed to really misrepresent the thematic "center" of what Tillich might say. Actually, I think I just found Tillician support for the point I was trying to make. As a critique of the quote above about Tillich's views on peace, I offer this direct quote from Tillich:

"There will be victories as well as defeats in these struggles. There will be progress and regressions. But in every victory, every particular progress from injustice to more justice, from suffering to more happiness, from hostility to more peace, from separation to more unity anywhere in mankind, is a manifestation of the eternal in time and space. It is, in the language of men of the Old and New Testament, the coming of the Kingdom of God.

For the Kingdom of God does not come in one dramatic event sometime in the future. It is coming here and now in every act of love, in every manifestation of truth, in every moment of joy, in every experience of the holy. The hope of the Kingdom of God is not the expectation of a perfect stage at the end of history, in which only a few in comparison with the innumerable generations of men, would participate, and the unimaginable amount of misery of all past generations would not be compensated. And it might be that those who would live in it, as "blessed animals" would long for the struggles, the victories and the defeats of the past. No! The hope of mankind lies in the here and now, whenever the eternal appears in time and history. the hope is justified; for there is always a presence and a beginning of what is seriously hoped for."

This is basically saying the OPPOSITE of what the synopsis says. Just goes to show you can never stop thinking and just take for granted what others present as truth.