Transcript of a Lecture by
Questions from students:
have to religion or faith?
indirect insofar as the whole cultural climate is determined by our understanding of our past, and if,
for instance, we know something about the way in which
who have given us insight into the history of the Christian doctrine, then this does not have
influence on
problem of the past, the influences of politics, of economics, of religious personalities and their
special psychological types on the development of a
writings. Now all this is of great importance from the point of view of our general picture of the
history of the world, as for instance the scientific result are indirectly important for the understanding
of our picture of the natural reality. But neither the one nor the other can become an immediate
foundation of faith, nor is even
work, has, like all
can say it is the foundation of faith, so that if science or history made these statements, faith is
either threatened or concerned—this is the thesis I want to state here.
If so, does not this make
Christianity if it could be proven there was no Jesus?
I have to go into theological problems which belong to the system of theology, in order to answer
these questions in a lecture on religion and culture generally, but I will try to do my best because
I have been asked these questions for twenty-two years without interruption [laughter], and never
was able to answer them—but nobody else was able [to] either! [laughter], so we are all in the same
boat.
There are only two answers which are unambiguous. The one is that you accept what the
what the Bible really says [laughter], but these problems I will not take too seriously at this moment—
there is certainly an assurance about innumerable facts about the life of Jesus. The other unambiguous
answer is that
existence of Jesus, or any other statement of religion, is a matter of very questionable belief, then
faith also is questionable. Now these are two unambiguous answers; both, in my opinion, are either
meaningless (the latter one, for instance) because then we would not have faith at all; we would have
only belief. The other is dependent on the relationship of research to faith, and if you define faith
as
unambiguous answers are very simple answers and very wrong answers, as simple answers very often are.
We cannot accept the one or the other, and the reasons for this, I gave in this whole [course of
lectures] and in all my books, and I am not the only one who gives these answers: the whole
history of
it, we are irresponsible to what historical destiny has given us. That is my general answer.
Then we come to the real difficulty of the situation, and this difficulty is certainly great.
It is not so easy to answer, and it needs all our good will, first of all—and I have very often experienced
in these discussions the good will on the one side is very much lacking. The criticism is very easy
because it is a very profound problem and a very implicit and very intricate one which needs good will
in order to be answered by anybody. But if there is the good will, then I think we can come to an answer,
and this answer must be that
in which he who has faith himself, is transformed. This cannot be denied, because it is an immediate
experience, but the historical way in which this event came to pass, what the name of the person
was, is not a matter of the foundation of faith itself. That is a matter of historical probability.
And in these two questions—“If there was no
because if it says there was
which has its reflection in the picture of
just this man who
that comes and this tradition is very probable and very powerfully symbolic, but it is not the foundation
of my
the ambiguity of such questions, then we are able to answer them. If we are not willing, we can
never come to an answer, and then you are forced to go into the alternatives: you must say,
either let us dismiss all
all the legends and
be conscious that in this moment he drops the two or three hundred years of
problems, the historical destiny of historical honesty in which we are standing.
The other alternative: He says “I drop
that is enough.” But that is not the Christian faith either. So my answer is an attempt to avoid
these two impossibilities, and I personally have not even the slightest doubt that there the problem lies.
I certainly have doubt about the adequacy of my formulations—
no doubt about the necessity to go in this direction and to avoid the two other alternatives. That is
my answer to these questions.—And [he] who knows better, please let us know! [spoken slowly
and somberly—some laughter].
We must now go to something else today, to a subject which is perhaps even more involved
than the problem of science, and the problem of
of
The
wait for a whole week before we can go on, after I give the initial statements today, but this also is
historical destiny! [smiling, referring to the Thanksgiving recess—slight laughter]. Now we have
seen that neither s
it wouldn't be truth of faith, but would be probability of scientific research. And the truth of
faith can neither affirm nor negate
any scientific statement or can guarantee any historical statement—about that, I just spoke. Now
perhaps here I should make one more remark.
If someone says, “Now is it not a historical statement if you say something has happened
which changed me?,” then you can also say, “Is it not a historical statement to say that I do exist?”
That is not a historical statement, but that is a statement of immediacy. My being
my being influenced
problem of immediate self-awareness, and the implications of immediate self-awareness, even if they
fall into the bodily reality (“I have a
tradition”), even then they are not a matter of biological research or historical research. No
research can take away my awareness of my body from myself. No historical research can take
away my awareness of being
of his
Now from this follows (and I repeat this): no
or negate the
historical truth. This is the presupposition of the existence of
one of these statements is wrong, then we have to give up faith, or we have to give up the
scientific or historical truth. I am not inclined to give up the one or the other; I believe—and this is
of knowledge, and that he has to
which I just described.
But now the question arises whether
of faith
Even something else follows from this greater complexity of the relation of philosophical and religious
truth, namely if
also makes the relation to
truth in both of them; philosophy is the all-embracing element in all cognitive endeavor, and therefore
if the problem
better say) is greater.
Now this great complexity of the question of the relation between philosophy and religion
is the reason for the innumerable discussions about the relation of faith and philosophy which are going
on since the days of
going on certainly in the same way in the Indian culture and in the Arabian and Islamic cultures.
Now this means that here is another existentially human problem, the problem nobody can
escape, and therefore a problem everybody wants to escape, because the problems which we
escape are at the same time those problems which are so hard that we would
One of the ways to escape them is that one shares in the opinion which is very popular, that
and
popular escape—which we don’t mind because the popular mind is not predisposed to find a solution
to such problems: they have to find the solution to
(in stating such a thing) philosophical concepts, then a kind of passionate anger can arise, not because
they don’t see the problem, but because they don’t see their self-contradiction. And they
see their self-contradiction. They
not because of another opinion but because of an irresponsible self-contradiction in continuously
using concepts which are produced by philosophy in order to reject philosophy in the theological endeavor.
That is something which I would call irresponsible.
Now if someone comes to me and says, “I don’t see that I use
only
Bible—and ignorance always can be excused—but if he reads the Bible with
will find that even the
that even in the
always present, and that if they use—even
But they never
the concept of history, they use the concept of becoming and of being, but if someone asked, “What
do you mean with becoming and being and history and man and animal?,” they say, “I cannot answer this
because that is philosophy.” Now that is the thing which raises a real wrath in me! [some laughter] —
not because of ignorance—I don’t mind ignorance; we are here in order to overcome it in ourselves and
others—but I mind irresponsible self-contradiction out of emotional motives.
The difficulty of every discussion concerning
no definition of philosophy
in nuce
,
a condensed philosophical system—that's the difficulty. If you read all the nice (or I would say
abominable) textbooks on philosophy, and in the first paragraph you read a
philosophy, then read this paragraph again after you have studied the whole book—and perhaps
even a real philosopher—and then go back to the definition and you will immediately know what
kind of philosophy this man has who wrote this textbook. Here again we should be honest and say
that there is no possible definition of philosophy which is not the immediate expression already
of a philosophical system. You cannot escape, by textbook knowledge, from a
philosophy—that's what I wanted to say.
Now this is the situation, and it cannot be changed. This situation includes that we cannot
have a definite concept of
meaningful definition. Instead of that, we can have a kind of pre-philosophical description about which
we can agree—and the popular mind can help us here—namely the idea that philosophy has to deal
with more universal problems than everything else. Now this is certainly not a definition. This is a
very poor superficial, popular description and nothing else. But we cannot do more in the present
moment and can find out perhaps whether this will lead us to a little more
is the attempt to answer the general questions about the nature of reality and the nature of human
existence. Perhaps this non-definition, but description, is a way out, and we
otherwise we could not even [have] specialized departments of philosophy. What is that?—a “department
of philosophy.” Every university has a “department of philosophy,” and if somebody is asked
“What do they do in these departments?,” no one could answer it [laughter], because if you want to
answer it in a clear definition (as in “department of mathematics”), namely exactly
done there, then you have to ask each of the philosophers and then you will ask not [for] a departmental
answer, but the answer of individual philosophers. And
Nevertheless we have “departments of philosophy” and everyone knows what that means, namely
it means here some rather general questions are asked, and each of these philosophers answers them
in his way and, on the basis of his answer, calls philosophy something different from the other one.
In any case, the most general questions are answered.
Now perhaps this can help us to go one little step farther, but if you don't want [to], don’t
do it. But I want to do it because it is a little bit more helpful than this departmental
which is not a definition.
Which are the most general questions somebody can ask? Now of course the negative side
is easy to answer. There are questions which do not deal with the nature of a special
reality, for instance the special sphere of mathematical structure, of space and time, or of the
physical structure of matter, or the historical structure of becoming. But they ask something more
general, and then they may go back to all this, but first they both go to something more universal.
And perhaps it is meaningful to say they ask about the nature of reality, which is present in
these realms. Now that is also very simple and is not a clear definition, but it is a more adequate
description than our very first was. This more adequate description says that
the
this seems to be the only possible way of dealing with philosophy, which is a reality, and of describing
it in such a way that almost every philosopher, at least in the past, can be shown as participating
in this endeavor to say something about the nature of being universally. If such a notion of philosophy
is presupposed, then the relation of
Then
of knowing, which is a special part of being; or the structure of history, the structure of all categories,
of existence, the essential, and what not. All this is included. But in any case we can sum it all up
when we say “The structure of being.”
The truth of being is truth about our
answers:
ultimate concern.
Up to this point, the relation seems to be very similar to that between the
faith
truth of faith and
two ultimates here. The
ultimately. Only
concern us ultimately.
So we are here in the problem of two
In
about ultimate reality, because it is a matter of ultimate concern; in philosophy we want
truth
in the universe. The
to the ultimate.
Now here we are in the center of the problem. The relation between these two is the
problem with which we have to deal; the relation between these two is the problem which has
use
answer is, “The
the relation is
the universe; in the case of faith, it is the
meaning of ultimate reality
Some of you have read or know
always the phrase “for you,” and he says the “for you” demands faithful hearts. Now this
can lead us to the difference. In the moment in which the relationship has a “
it becomes existential. And then we are in the realm of
of risk, of doubt, but not of
description. He speaks of essential and existential being, he speaks of being and becoming, dynamics
and form, world and self. He speaks, with entelechaia, etc.;
The theologian, if he speaks of
or of the divine grace giving power-of-being to those who are in despair, etc. Now this is the
fundamental difference, but both speak ofultimate,
the ground of being and meaning, can be the ground of everything that is, and can be our ultimate
concern.
Now up to this point, everything is neat and, I hope, comparatively clear. But now the
difficulty arises which is very simple to state, but very difficult to describe. The difficulty is that
the philosopher is a human being and the theologian is a man who has the possibility of thinking.
That makes all the difference.
they both have
no human being can completely escape these two realities which belong to human nature.
As I said in another place, every human being philosophizes and theologizes, [just] as every human
being moralizes and politicizes. These categories are functions of the human mind in which everybody
potentially participates, whether he does it actually or not.
Now this means: the question is not whether he
the peasant boy doesn’t usually develop philosophy, and not even theology; nevertheless he asks
questions which put to shame great philosophers, especially if he has not been distorted by the
adults in his immediate encounter with reality. And the philosopher has to die and has to anticipate
his having-to-die, and has to ask the question about his being, in face of his having-to-die. No one
can completely escape philosophizing, or asking the question of human existence and its meaning.
Now since this is so, we can say: although it is comparatively simple to say “The philosopher
asks the question of the ultimate in terms of the
question in terms of our
distinction and to say the first is a
this difference never occurs in the
As human beings, staying in existence, both ask both questions, and the influence of the one
question on the other, and the one answer on the other, is always visible. An analysis of every
philosophical system, or essay, or fragment shows that in the direction in which the philosopher asks
his questions, and in the
elaborated, but also ultimate concern is directing. Give me
how his religious tradition, how his personal anxiety, how the situation of his period, with the
decisive questions and problems of existential character, determines both the directions of his
questions and the color of his answers. It is
cases. The philosopher is driven by a passion which is both passion for knowledge, but also passion
to get an answer to the question of
passions makes the great philosopher.
philosophical passion. The
both about structure and reality, and about the meaning of existence. Therefore the philosophers
Greek philosophers, at the Indian philosophers, at the philosophers of the modern period (not to
speak of the Medieval ones from
one exception, namely the positivistic line of philosophers, from
them very superficially.
be asked in their time: the epistemological problem, in the time of
the logical problem in
This is certainly necessary, is an important endeavor, and justified. But partly it doesn’t cover the
whole of it what has been called philosophy. And beyond this, if it is
moment in which it makes criticisms of other philosophers, of theologians, it becomes philosophy
itself and shows an
reality, semantics to that to which the seimata, the signs, point. And in the moment in which they
do this, in which the logical positivists or epistemologists speak about reality at all—and they do it
more and more today—in the same moment they become sons of classical philosophy, and their
rejection of all philosophy is self-contradictory. You cannot escape, even if you are a logical
positivist, the fundamental structure of humanity, namely to ask the question of the meaning
of your existence implicitly and explicitly.
Questions from students:
(
[After the lecture, in conversation with student, Edwin Knopf:]
—concerning the question about the existence, etc., of Christ—
The transformation of personal reality can only happen in personal reality.
accepted. What would be the difference for personal life if somebody was murdered? That is nothing.
The very fact of being murdered is nothing
This personal transformation is possible only in a personal acceptance of the sacrifice of