The Conditionalist Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 2

VII. Harvard’s Tillich-“Natural” Immortality Not “Christian Doctrine”

Note should also be taken of the clear statement on the mortality of man from the dynamic voice of Dr. PAUL TILLICH, ⁴⁹ long-time professor of philosophic theology at Union Theological Seminary, and now professor of theology at Harvard. He is recognized as a profound and independent thinker. Professor Tillich maintains that man is “naturally mortal.” The notion of Innate Immortality is, he holds, “not a Christian doctrine, though it is possibly a Platonic doctrine.” The true Biblical symbols are, he contends, far removed from the “popular image of immortality.” Man must receive eternal life from outside of himself. Tillich goes to the heart of the issue in these words in his famed Systematic Theology: CFF2 924.1

“Estranged from the ultimate power of being, man is determined by his finitude. He is given over to his natural fate. He came from nothing, and he returns to nothing. He is under the domination of death and is driven by the anxiety of having to die. This, in fact, is the first answer to the question about the relation of sin and death. In conformity with biblical religion, it asserts that man is naturally mortal. Immortality as a natural quality of man is not a Christian doctrine, though it is possibly a Platonic doctrine.... CFF2 924.2

“In the biblical story of paradise a quite different interpretation of the relation of the Fall and death is given. The biblical symbols are even farther removed from the popular image of immortality. According to the Genesis account, man comes from dust and returns to dust. He has immortality only as long as he is allowed to eat from the tree of life, the tree which carries the divine food or the food of eternal life. The symbolism is obvious. Participation in the eternal makes man eternal; separation from the eternal leaves man in his natural finitude.” ⁵⁰ CFF2 924.3

Clearly then, according to Dr. Tillich, sinful man is not of himself immortal. CFF2 924.4