Paul Tillich’s work continues to resonate in several theological discourses, particularly in the theology of culture, which has received important contributions from scholars such as Russell Re Manning and Christian Danz. Related disciplines, such as religious studies and theologies of religion, have also drawn on Tillich’s work. His reception of German Idealism and his contributions to aesthetics remain valuable for the growing fields of theological aesthetics and theology and the arts. Against this backdrop, Samuel Shearn’s Pastor Tillich: The Justification of the Doubter emerges as an exciting addition to Tillichean studies.
The book promises three significant contributions to the literature and critical discussion concerning Tillich. First, it uses archival material that is either untranslated into English or untouched by Tillichean scholarship. This material is primarily personal letters, sermons, and essays from Tillich’s writings. Second, the volume employs a “biographical approach” that emphasizes that Tillich’s thought is not constructed in the abstract but through his wrestling with his life experiences. Following this, Shearn thirdly contends that many of the main tenets of Tillich’s thought were developed in his often-overlooked pastoral writings from 1909-1919.
The second and third of these contributions form the thesis of the book, which claims that Tillich’s early writings offer many key insights to unlock his theology as a whole. While remaining in consonance with the consensus of scholarship that Tillich’s theology is an expression of a personal existential crisis, Shearn also pushes against this scholarship by arguing Tillich’s crisis began long before his time as a chaplain in World War I. Tillich’s theology is rooted in a lingering personal doubt in the reality of God rather than being traced to any particular moment of trauma. This leads Shearn to emphasize Tillich’s sermons as a source for theological development and to make the rather controversial claim that Tillich’s pastoral concerns perhaps outweigh his political ones in the 1910s-20s.
Pastor Tillich is structured around one of Tillich’s key essays that appeared in 1919. Chapter 2 is Shearn’s analysis of this essay, which—according to Shearn—is a culmination of Tillich’s thought in the preceding decade and the beginning of a different sort of phase of his constructive theology. At the heart of this essay lies an examination of the relationship between doubt and faith, which Shearn contends is unified in the doctrine of justification. He sees justification as a “theological principle” that “takes up doubt into itself in believing affirmation of the absolute paradox, i.e. to affirm that doubt does not preclude standing in the truth” (12). Much of the book traces this principle from Tillich’s earliest writings as a student to his return from the war.
The third chapter examines 1904 to 1909, arguing that the relationship between Tillich and his father shaped the trajectory of Tillich’s later theology. Tillich’s relationship with his father is shaped by his reaction against his father’s “conservative” orthodoxy and pietism, and his search for his own “authentic” faith amidst doubt about various theologies. Chapter 4 focuses on a 1909 sermon that Shearn sees as the “breakthrough” of a “crisis” of Tillich’s doubt and faith. The sermon speaks of God’s assurance of faith in moments of doubt through the work of Christ. The fifth chapter engages with Schelling’s influence from 1909-11, which Shearn claims primarily provides Tillich a conceptual framework to expand the position developed in the 1909 sermon. Chapters 6-7 pick up where chapter 4 left off, probing Tillich’s 1911-13 sermons for moments of constructive novelty. The eighth chapter echoes chapter 5, delving into the more common territory of Tillich’s 1913 systematic theology. The assertion is also that the content of the 1909 sermon appears again but in a new form. The ninth chapter puts the preceding chapters in context with Tillich’s years as a chaplain in World War I, which meets up with the 1919 essay.
Shearn succeeds in establishing Tillich’s earlier works as an important stage in the development of his overall thought. Doubt and justification are reoccurring themes from at least 1909, and certainly do exert a continued influence on Tillich’s thought. For this point alone, there’s value in this work. However, several factors detract from this value.
Shearn breaks his project into small sections. This provides clarity on the individual points being made but does not leave much room for a more nuanced discussion of the key concepts and debated positions in Tillichean scholarship. Many sections are only a few paragraphs long—one is a single paragraph (e.g., “Apologetics in trend” (135)). These barely offer enough detail to explain the point and offer no detailed discussion. Even with key topics being debated, there is not enough content to support the argument. For example, in the chapter on Friedrich Schelling’s influence (chapter 5), a section titled “God the ironist” that discusses what Tillich takes from Schelling’s aesthetics is only two paragraphs in length; the next section, “Schelling’s religious anthropology,” is only three paragraphs (including a block quote) (84-85); and, a few pages later, a passage identifying the difference of moral theory in Tillich, Schelling, and Immanuel Kant is also three short paragraphs (91-92).
Perhaps this is sufficient for a general audience, but these sections are not sufficient enough to bear the weight of critical engagement. At times, Shearn provides judgments on key issues (such as which of the drafts of the 1919 essay were original), but he offers no explanation or justification. His only remark on this issue is: “Analysis of these two versions of the sermon has led me to conclude that the first version can only have been abandoned and never preached” (64). Shearn does not offer any evidence for such a claim.
These criticisms should not detract from the valuable information contained in the book, but they do challenge the way Shearn presents this information. In its current form, the work stands somewhere between a book, a dissertation, and a developed outline, and its tone is somewhere between academic and popular. Its audience is equally lay persons, theologically interested pastors, and scholars of Tillich (3). In trying to do too much, it accomplishes too little. The way Shearn structures this book with brief sections and limited analysis fails to make his thesis—which is the main star of the work—shine.
CM Howell is a research assistant for the Widening Horizons in Philosophical Theology project at St Mary's College, University of St Andrews.
Charles M. Howell
Date Of Review:
January 20, 2025