A Word about Kierkegaard, Buber, and Tillich

For the St. Mark's Teacher Training Class
June 2003

The thinking of Søren Kierkegaard, Martin Buber, and Paul Tillich greatly influenced Charles Penniman, the author of functional education. The perspectives of these philosophers and theologians are deeply woven into the fabric of the functional education discipline. One can catch glimpses of Kierkegaard, Buber, and Tillich in Penniman's Categories and General Notes. Below, by way of background information, I offer a "thumbnail" (well, perhaps a bit longer than a "thumbnail" [Sorry, I got carried away!]) sketch of each. Following these sketches, I offer some observations about the stages of human spiritual development vis-à-vis the functional education discipline.

It was truly wonderful to be with you, if but briefly, during your June 3rd class session. I thank you for your presence and participation. -- Paul R. Abernathy

Søren Kierkegaard (1813 - 1855):

Danish. A "father-figure" of existentialism.^[1] Kierkegaard stressed the role of our individual decisions in the concrete context of our human experience. A Kierkegaardian axiom might be, "For truth to be true, it must be true for me." Kierkegaard focused on the understanding and sharing of what it means to be a Christian, in concrete experiential terms, in contrast to being merely a member of the institutional church. Some standard works… Fear and Trembling (1843), in which Kierkegaard reflects on a deeply personal experience of sacrifice, for him, akin to that of the testing of Abraham in the call to sacrifice his son, Isaac. The Sickness Unto Death (1849), where he examines the manner and mystery of despair. Training In Christianity (1850), in which he espouses the idea that being a Christian fundamentally does not involve believing certain things about Christ or Christianity (although he held that such beliefs were important). Christianity, for Kierkegaard, entails becoming contemporary with Christ, i.e., as the apostles, sharing in (not shunning) life's suffering.

Martin Buber (1878 - 1965):

Jewish scholar and theologian. Buber was a follower of Hasidism, an ultra-orthodox and mystical movement in Judaism. Buber long recognized the formative influences of Judaism on Islam and Christianity. He was a Zionist who, although upholding a belief in Israel's unique calling as the bearer of salvation to all nations, acknowledged a deep sense of the relationship and fellowship of peace with the Arab world. Regarding Buber's impact on Christianity, he perhaps is best known for his book, I and Thou, which was inspired largely due to the influence of the existentialist movement. Buber, believing in the inherent good in all things, espoused a view of the superiority of an I-Thou relationship of mutual love and understanding, as opposed to I-It encounters or confrontations, in which one demeans or dismisses the other as an object, hence, a subject against whom or which to exert power and control.

Paul Tillich (1886 - 1965):

German philosophical theologian, that is, one who sought to mediate between secular thought and Christian theology or, in other words, between culture and religion. Tillich immigrated to the United States in 1933 when Hitler came to power. Tillich's major work was a three-volume Systematic Theology (1951, 1957, 1963). Here, he employed the principle of what he called correlation by means of which he pointed to the relation between our human situation from which existential questions arise (e.g., the meaning of life) and the Christian symbols that speak to our questions. According to Tillich, there are five principle correlations: reason and revelation; being and God; concrete human existence and Christ; life in its ambiguity and the Spirit of God; and the meaning of history and God's kingdom. In The Courage To Be (1953), Tillich addresses the issue of human anxiety, which arises from a loss of the meaning of life and how one courageously can embrace, hence, conquer, anxiety.

Spiritual Development & the Units

Penniman's units (descriptive stages of deepening human encounter and experience) are drawn from a study of the disciples growing relationship with Jesus as portrayed in the gospel accounts. As such, the units serve well, I think, as one lens through which the flow of our human spiritual development can be viewed. As in the case of any sort of development or growth, the units do not describe a linear movement, but, rather, provide a framework or context within which a very dynamic, indeed, ever repeatable process takes shape. So, looking at spiritual development through the filter of the units…

Curiosity is descriptive of one's initial stage of an awareness of and a wonderment about something larger or greater than one's self, e.g., the natural order or the cosmos or God. A stage, the sense of which is well expressed by the French philosopher, Blaise Pascal (1623 -1662), who, in his Pensées (or Thoughts), wrote: "In the morning, as you arise, look up so that you may be aware that you are not the highest point" (paraphrase). This is the awe that can draw one deeper into an experience with that which is cosmic or divine. Recall the disciples' initial, spontaneously affirmative reaction to Jesus' call, "Follow me," and their enthrallment with the authority and the depth of insight in his teaching.

Anxiety characterizes that growing awareness that all ain't what one perceived it to be. This is that awareness that one's cherished beliefs (inherited from a prior generation and drawn from the surrounding culture) about life or the institutions established to provide stability or even God, when tested in the crucible of the human experience of suffering, prove insufficient to help one continue to make meaning or sense out of human existence. Recall the disciples growing dis-ease with the rising opposition to Jesus by the religious and secular rulers and their own confusion about Jesus' intentions.

Hope captures one's sense of having come through a moment of suffering or a time of trial intact. Feelings of relief or gratitude can pervade one's being. Hope also may manifest itself in one's renewed conviction about one's life and its purpose and a deepened relationship with God. Recall the disciples stupefied response to the Transfiguration. (Despite the language and intent of our current presidential administration, the Transfiguration truly was an experience of, "shock and awe!") On a mountaintop, Jesus appeared in his heavenly splendor thereby offering proof that he was the messiah, from which they derived a renewed spirit of resolve and commitment.

Despair, in some sense, is a deeper degree of anxiety, pointing to one's awareness that mountaintop moments don't last forever. The return to the valley ever waits. In that inexorable trudge downhill, one may recognize anew that one's trials and tribulations, to some undeniable, if only partial degree, are the products of one's own hand. That cosmic conspiracy of circumstance and chance always has a third ingredient, that is, our choice. If the relationship with God is meant to be co-creative, in other words, that one joins with God in the work of creation, then, it is imperative that one recognize and acknowledge one's own role in and responsibility for life itself. Recall the various disciples inability and unwillingness to stand firm in their hope, hence, their responses to Jesus' suffering and death -- betrayal, denial, abandonment and, subsequently, grief and repentance.

Anticipation, in some measure, is a deeper degree of hope, highlighting one's heightened consciousness of all that one is (to the extent that that can be grasped and known), by which one can step out on faith into the unknown of new experience or deeper relationship with others, with God, and with one's self. A verse that I heard over this past weekend beautifully expresses, for me, this moment of movement in one's spiritual development:

It's OK to believe in a golden calf until one realizes that it's only a golden calf.

It's OK to believe in the idea behind the golden calf until one realizes that it's only an idea.

It's OK to believe in the reality to which the idea points until one realizes that the reality, in some true sense, is one's self. At that moment, the spiritual journey begins. (Author unknown)

[1] Existentialism, which seeks to embrace and inform the whole of human life and personality, focuses fundamentally on the following themes: (1) anxiety and the inevitability of death, the latter often provoking the former, (2) existence and non-existence, which includes the experience of the wonder of life and the contemplation of its loss, (3) the intentionality of the human inner experience of will, emotion, imagination, and belief, (4) the absurdity (i.e., random pointlessness) of life, hence, to be human is to choose or to act with purpose in light of life's absurdity, and (5) the reality of choice or the power to choose, being at the heart of what it is to be human (i.e., we are what we choose or we make ourselves, in great measure, by our choices).