Philip Arthur Bence PhD Thesis - Research@StAndrews:FullText

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describes the core of twentieth century Western Christian
doctrine, particularly in relation to preaching.
1. 'God', either as Supreme Being, or as Being itself,
exists. With varying degrees of emphasis, all seven
theolo g ians stated that man cannot know God completely.
This proper humility notwithstanding, all seven affirmed
God's existence.' Of the seven. Paul Tillich most
strongly resisted viewing God as a being, preferrin g to see
God as Being Itself. (Although I* do not specifically
mention Tillich's p osition in relation to each of the
following premises. there a p pear several points where
Tillich {or others of the seven) would not have accepted
these statements as literal truth. but regarded them as
anthro pomorphisms. Yet he still would have accepted them as
symbolic representations of truth.)
2. God has revealed himself to humanit y . All seven
affirmed this premise, thou gh certainly they disagreed on
the extent and means of God's self-revelation. The value
(or even the validity) of natural revelation would have
stimulated great debate among the seven. But, all, to some
degree, saw Jesus of Nazareth as a bearer of revelation.2-
Likewise, all saw the Bible as, at minimum, a description of
man's historic interaction with the Divine.
(Again it might be Tillich who resisted anything
approachin g a traditional view of revelation, but even he
believed that man possessed an awareness of existence beyond
the finite world, awareness of an Ultimate toward which man
should experience ultimate concern. Tillich considered this