utonomous form. Conversely, religion in its highest expression must include the autonomous form, the Logos, as the ancient church called it, within itself.
«IP0,0»Thus, while aspects of God can be reasoned out, God as a concept eludes complete reasoned explication because of "the inescapable inner tension in the idea of God. The conflict between the concreteness and the ultimacy of the religious concern is actual wherever God is experienced . . . and it is the basic problem of every doctrine of God" (Tillich, ST I, p. 211). The best one can do is approximate explanation by reference to symbolic language, as for example in describing God variously as almighty, Father, king, or "the creative and abysmal ground of being" (Tillich, ST I, p. 238). Even this can be problematic, according to Tillich: "Religious symbols are double-edged. . . . directed toward the infinite which they symbolize and toward the finite through which they symbolize it. They force the infinite down to finitude and the finite up to infinity" (ST I, p. 240). Tillich concludes that the role of theology is to interpret the symbols "according to theological principles and methods" (p. 240), so that what is symbolized does not get transformed into an idol, a demon, or a basis for religious orthodoxy.
«IP5,0»Concerns about the existence of God, and their attachment to rational processes are the limitations of (for example) scholasticism, which, chiefly in the work of Aquinas, seeks to reconcile reason and faith. But making a case as it were for God's existence is a misdirection of theological effort (in the service of Roman heteronymy), according to Tillich. Scholasticism employs syllogistic reasoning but also an appeal to faith when reason reaches what it cannot comprehend, toward a rational conclusion (1) that God is the perfection of the limits of human reason and of attributes the existence of which can be conceived only if attributes can be perfected, (2) that...