Signs of the Times

with contributions from Paul Tillich, Walter Whitbread

Prof. Paul Tillich as reported in Letter from Cornell Cornell University Ithaca, New York

No man has ever done evil for the sake of evil, Prof. Paul Tillich, University Professor, [formerly of] Harvard Divinity School, told a Cornell audience during the Thorpe Lectures sponsored by the Cornell United Religious Work.

One of the world's leading Protestant theologians, Professor Tillich in a series of three lectures discussed "Man, Nature and Evil," "The Struggle Between Good and Evil," and "The Divine and the Demonic."

"The absolute negative has no being," the distinguished educator said. He noted that "Every life process is an ambiguous struggle between victory and defeat, good and evil, being and non-being." ...Evil, he said, has no presence of its own, merely living on the good it distorts—an "existential non-being."

A continuous struggle is taking place in every form of finite life between good and evil, according to Professor Tillich, and the negative drives the positive into self-manifestation —without which there would not be any life at all. At the same time, he said, the negative can never appear alone, but needs the positive, although distorting it to exist.

Rev. Walter Whitbread Gen. Supt., Methodist Home Missions in the Daily Telegraph Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

Life to be complete ... must have at least three ingredients.

It must have a reasonable basis for its beginning. The Bible says "in the beginning God." The agnostic says "in the beginning, chance." The feeling that we are at the mercy of chance happenings, however, leads to insecurity and despair. Christian faith alone has the answer.

Life to be complete must have some great purpose for its continuing .... The Christian is one who believes that there is "one increasing purpose"... to be found in seeking and obeying the will of God.

Life to be complete must have a desirable future for its finale. ... This earthly life is lint a school room in which we learn the lessons which will be completed for us when we graduate into a higher state of living, which the Bible terms eternal life.

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September 22, 1962

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