1951–1963

Tillich: God as "Being-Itself" and the "God above God"

Tillich's doctrine of God, according to Grenz and Olson, proved the most controversial. God as the answer to the question of finitude is not a being but the "power of being," "being-itself": "God does not exist. He is being-itself beyond essence and existence." Therefore both the proof of God's existence and the proof of his nonexistence are atheistic devices (Lane). One can speak of God only symbolically, except for the statement of his identity with being; God can be described in personal terms, but he is not a person. In the sermon "The Depth of Existence" Tillich calls God the infinite depth and ground of all being. Critics suspected him of atheism and of dissolving transcendence into immanence.