Paul Tillich and the Historical Jesus

Abstract

The problem of the relation of history to faith and the effect of historical criticism on Christian belief has proved to be a matter of continuing concern to a generation of theologians and Paul Tillich is no exception. He paid tribute to Ernst Troeltsch for first drawing his attention from the theology of mediation with which he was engaged at the time to the problems of historical research into the biblical writings, and he acknowledged his debt to Schweitzer’s The Quest of the Historical Jesus and Bultmann’s The Synoptic Tradition for providing him with historical insights into the New Testament.¹ In a set of propositions presented to a group of theological friends as early as 1911 he attempted to answer the question how it might be possible to interpret Christian doctrine if the non-existence of Jesus as a historical person were to become a probability.² In his Systematic Theology he could still raise the question of the historical Jesus in a most radical way and, without consciously evading difficulties, attempt to deal with the problems created by an uncompromising insistence on the historical basis of Christianity.³