Porozumieć się z Bogiem „stukając w ścianę”…? O symbolu w filozofii religii Paula Tillicha

Abstract

In the article, it was underlined by the means of a metaphor that a religious experience is never direct knowledge of God or the Absolute. It was pointed out that the symbol is what both builds a relationship with God or the sacred (Latin: sacrum) and separates a man from Him or the sacred. This paper discusses the chosen aspects of the question of the symbol in the works of Paul Tillich. Paul Tillich – a German pastor, a theologian, a philosopher, an expert in culture and a historian of religion – attempted to translate the language of the religious tradition of the Western culture into the language which would be adequate and comprehensible for the present day. He recognised the symbol as the only language of religion through which religion may express itself directly. Tillich did not give one simple definition of the symbol. He noticed that symbols belong to the field of signs and therefore there is a tendency to confuse them. He developed his ideas by presenting essential features of these notions and differences between them. The analysis of the German thinker’s theory of the symbol indicates how one can notice through the symbol, what is ideal or transcendent by its nature. The symbol opens before us inaccessible levels of the reality and the soul. Tillich’s considerations lead us from the general theory of the symbol to the religious one. The German philosopher claimed that the religious symbol has its own specific features. It has a transcendent basis for existence. The religious symbol refers to holiness (Latin: sacrum). The Protestant thinker tried to find a transition from the phenomenological level of experience of the sacred to the level of ontological claims about the objective reality. The last part of the article provides some conclusions. The language of symbols cannot be understood without the community of the faithful, and the symbol means nothing without faith. The symbol helps us to understand the rich and complex reality.