The dialogue between Paul Tillich and Carl Rogers took place on March 7, 1965. at San Diego State College in California. This was Tillich’s last public performance. He died October 22, 1965.
Carl Rogers: The importance of human self-affirmation, I think, is one of the areas where our views converge. I must say that I was very impressed by your reflections on the courage to be, as I see it in psychotherapy: the courage to be something, the risk that lies in knowing … I also liked your phrase about immoral action as something that is contrary to self-realization individual; and I think we are both trying to overcome some tendencies that are very characteristic of the modern world: the logical-positivist, ultrascientist approach, the emphasis on the mechanistic and deterministic point of view, which, as I understand it, turns a person into a mere object, and we are trying to find some then an alternative attitude towards life. I’m wondering if you feel a certain convergence of our views on these things?
Paul Tillich: Oh sure. On all these points I will gladly agree with you, and I am very glad that you have listed them to me.
Rogers: Okay, maybe now we could go deeper into some areas where I’m not so sure. I’m interested in your ideas about human nature. I think some existentialists hold the view that man does not really have a nature, but it seems to me that he does, — when I was asked about this, I answered that a person belongs to a certain species and has specific characteristics. One of them, I believe, is that he is incurably social; he has a deep need for relationship. Just because a person is an organism, his life has a certain direction. A person moves in the direction of actualization of himself. As for me, I really believe that man has a nature that can be described. For example, I was interested in the fact that you are discussing the demonic aspects of man. I don’t know if you see them as part of his nature. — in any case, I would be interested in your views on human nature.
Tillih: Your question is very broad and requires a fairly long answer from me. The first thing I want to point out — it is that man certainly has a nature, and I think that the best way to prove this is by contradiction, showing the flimsiness of the arguments of those who deny the existence of this nature. I mean the famous French existentialist Sartre, who denies that man has a nature and emphasizes that man is what he makes of himself, and this is his freedom. But if he says that man has the freedom to create himself, then this, of course, means that he is free by nature, unlike other biological species. In a word, such statements somewhat contradict themselves. Even if someone ascribes to man what medieval theology attributed to God, that is, being in itself, not conditioned by anything else, then even then he cannot avoid the assertion that man has a nature. This is my answer to the first part of your question, but there are two more that I want to move on to.
The second is that I distinguish, so to speak, two natures of man: that which man rightly calls his nature, and the other, which is a mixture of accepting and distorting his true nature. The former might be called his true nature, but for the sake of accuracy I usually call it the essential nature of man. In the language of theology, I designate it as the created nature of man. And, as you remember, one of the main questions around which the early Church fought was exactly this: is human essential or created nature good? In the words of the Bible: «And God saw all that he had made, and, behold, it was very good.» There is even a philosophical statement of this directly formulated by Augustine, namely: «Esse qua esse bonum est», which means: «Being as such is good.» This is what I would like to call the essential nature of man, and then we must distinguish from it the existential nature, which can be said to be characterized by alienation from his true nature. Man, as he exists in space and time, in biography and history, this man is not simply opposed to the essential nature of man, for then he would no longer be a man. But his temporal, historical nature is a distortion of his essential nature, and in trying to realize it, he may come into conflict with his true nature. It is a terrible mixture, and in order to understand the real difficulties of man, we must distinguish between these two elements. I believe that neither Freud himself, nor most Freudians, nor psychotherapy in general, makes a clear distinction between these two natures. This was the second part of your question. Now I need to answer also the third part…
Rogers: First…let me make one comment on what has been said. In my work as a psychotherapist, I have found that if I can create a climate of ultimate freedom for another individual, then I can really trust the direction in which he will move. That is, people sometimes tell me: “Here you are creating an atmosphere of freedom. But a person can use this freedom to become absolutely evil and anti-social. I do not think this is true, and this circumstance convinces me that in a relationship characterized by complete freedom, the individual — I don’t know if it’s essential or existential — strives to move not only towards a deeper self-understanding, but also towards more social behavior.
Tillih: I would like to question this and ask first of all: who is free enough to create this situation of freedom for others? And since I call this mixture of the essential nature of man and his alienated nature the manifestation of the duality of life, I would like to say that in the conditions of this duality, no one is able to create a sphere of freedom. But now let’s assume that it exists in some other way. I can come back to this later when we talk about the demonic. Then I would still say that the life of the individual in such a social group, where he is given freedom, remains a dual mixture of essential and existential being. He is, as the English language beautifully expresses it, unappreciated (in a predicament), and this position is a universal, tragic alienation from his true being. Therefore, I do not believe that the individual is able to use his freedom exactly as he should. — in particular, by realizing one’s own essential potentialities or one’s essence (these words here mean the same thing). So I am more skeptical both about the possibility of creating such a situation, and about the individuals who are in such a situation.
Rogers: I would like to agree with you on the difficulty of creating total freedom. I am sure that none of us is able to really fully create it for another person …. Although it strikes me that even imperfect attempts to create an atmosphere of freedom, acceptance and understanding, it turns out, free a person to move towards truly social goals. I’m wondering if your idea of a demonic aspect is what makes you question it?
Tillih: So let me first answer what you just said; And here I would like to agree with you in many respects. I would say that there are partial actualizations in history, and I fully agree with the deep understanding that we have achieved in large part due to psychotherapy regarding the great importance of love in the early stages of children’s development. And here we come to the question: “Where do the forces come from that create a situation in which the child receives love, which gives him in the future the freedom to face life boldly and not run away from life into a neurosis or psychosis?” I leave this question open.
But you are still interested in the demonic, and you are not alone. I was also interested in it, and everyone is to some extent, so let me tell you how I came to this concept. In 1926, when I was still a professor at the University of Dresden, I wrote a little article, a little pamphlet, «Demonic»; and the reason for not talking about «fallen» or «sinful» man was that I saw structures on both sides that are stronger than the good will of the individual, and one of these structures — neurotic-psychotic. After the First World War, from about 1920, I came into contact with the psychoanalytic movement, which began with Freud and changed the atmosphere of the whole century, — and by then at least Europe. The second point was the analysis of social conflicts carried out by the socialist movement and especially the early work of Karl Marx; and in both cases I found a phenomenon to which these traditional terms, such as «fallen man», «sinful man», etc., do not apply. The only relevant term I found was the New Testament term «demonic,» which in the Jesus stories is close in meaning to «possession.» It signifies a force that is stronger than individual goodwill. And so I used this concept. Of course, I have repeatedly emphasized that I do not mean the mythological meaning of this word. — little devils or personified Satan, who scurries around the world, — but I mean by it structures that are dual, being at the same time somewhat creative and ultimately destructive. That’s the reason why I proposed this concept. Thus, instead of just talking about human alienation, and also not to use outdated terminology, I was forced to find a concept that encompasses a transpersonal force that has power over people and society; say, over drunkards who are no longer able to cope with their drunkenness. This same force produces a society that is either engulfed in class conflicts or, as in the modern world, conflicts of great ideologies, great forms of political faith, which fight each other, and every step taken to reconcile them draws people even deeper into the conflict. That’s what I mean by demonic. So I hope I’ve made one thing clear: that I don’t mean it in the old mythological sense. Here, of course, demythologization is necessary.
Rogers: …Well, of course, when I look at some things happening in the world in terms of power and so on, I can understand why you chose to think in terms of demonic structures.
I would like to talk a little about how I understand this problem of alienation. In my opinion, the infant is not alienated from himself. He is an integrated and holistic organism, gradually individualizing, and the ongoing alienation — this is what he learns; for the sake of preserving the love of other people, usually parents, he takes into himself their judgments as something experienced by himself. For example, a little boy, having been reprimanded for pulling his sister’s hair, walks around saying, «Bad boy, bad boy.» However, he pulls her hair again. In other words, he has introjected the notion that he is bad, when in reality he is enjoying the experience. And it seems to me that it is the alienation between what he experiences and the concepts that he associates with these experiences that constitutes the basic alienation. I don’t know if you want to comment on this…
Tillih: Yes, because baby — this is a very important issue. Philosophically, or better, psychologically, I call this the mythological state of Adam and Eve before the fall. — sleeping innocence. Reality has not yet been reached, it is still a dream. Of course, this is also a symbol, but it is a symbol closer to our psychological language than the original sin of Adam and Eve. But it means the same — that Adam, i.e. people (Hebrew «Adam» means «people») — all human beings are in the process of moving from sleeping innocence to conscious self-actualization. And in this process, alienation takes place as well as realization, — hence my notion of duality. I agree with you — it is present in what parents commonly refer to as a «bad boy» or «bad girl». It is a necessary act of self-fulfillment, but there is also something asocial about it, because it hurts the sister, and therefore this act must be stopped. And whether we say «bad boy» or ban it in some other way, it’s equally necessary. Such experiences signify, in my opinion, a slow process of transition from sleeping innocence to self-actualization, on the one hand, and to self-alienation, on the other, and these two actions are dually mixed with each other. So this is my interpretation of the infant’s situation.
Rogers: Well, there’s a lot in that that I would agree with. I would like to say a little about such relationships, where I believe human alienation can find healing. I see this from my own experience. For example, when we talk — when any of us talk about the courage to be or the need to become ourselves, I feel that this can only be fully achieved through the process of relationship. Possibly the best example of what I’m talking about — it is my belief that a person can accept the unacceptable in himself only when he is in a close relationship and feels that he is accepted. I think the most important part of psychotherapy is that the individual discovers the following: feelings that he was ashamed of or that he was not able to realize can be accepted by another person; and then he becomes able to accept them as part of himself. I don’t know your views on interpersonal relationships very well, but I’m interested in how that sounds to you.
Tillih: I believe that you are absolutely right in saying that the interpersonal experience of forgiveness, or better, acceptance of the unacceptable, is an absolutely necessary prerequisite for self-affirmation. And you yourself can not forgive yourself and accept. If you look into the spiritual mirror, then you are much more likely to hate yourself and feel disgusted with yourself. Therefore, I believe that all forms of confession in the church, confessions between friends and spouses, and now also sacral-analytical confessions regarding one’s deepest experiences, which are revealed to the analyst, — that without these things there is no possibility of experiencing something that belongs to an entirely different dimension: the dimension of the absolute (let me preliminarily label it for now). But I would like to say, following you, that only true «acceptance» is the necessary bridge between people, which they must cross before the dimension of the absolute opens before them. I may here add that I now seldom use the word «forgiveness,» as it sometimes causes a bad superiority in the one who forgives, and humiliation in the one who is forgiven. That’s why I prefer the term «acceptance». If you accept such «acceptance», then I can confess that I learned it from psychoanalysis. I have learned to translate ideological understanding into another language, and I have changed it to the kind of understanding that a psychoanalyst uses in relation to his patient, who does not condemn him, does not immediately tell him that he must be good, otherwise I will not be able to accept him, but he accepts him simply because although he is not good in himself, there is something inside him that wants to be good.
Rogers: Certainly, in my own experience, the power of accepting another person opens again and again when an individual feels that he is fully accepted in everything that he was able to express, and at the same time appreciated as a person. This has a very strong influence on his life and behavior.
Tillih: Yes, I now believe that this is indeed the focus of what we call «the good news» in Christian Scripture.
(Break)
Tillih: The priest who embodies the absolute meaning of life may unconsciously possess great psychological prowess, although he is not qualified, but even then he should not assert himself as a second-rate psychotherapist. Now this seems to me a very important rule. Otherwise, such a combination will soon end in failure and cease forever.
Rogers: Yes; this prompts me to think about a somewhat deeper problem. I am well aware that, like many other therapists, I am interested in a number of issues that affect the religious minister and the theologian, and yet for myself I prefer to clothe my reflections on these issues in humanistic concepts, or to consider them using scientific methods. I like some modern views, partly expressed by the phrase that «God is dead», i.e. that religion no longer speaks to man in the modern world. And I would be interested to know why you seek to formulate your reflections — which are undoubtedly very close to the reflections of a number of psychologists of our day — in religious terms and theological categories.
Tillih: Well, I think this is a very big question…
Rogers: Yes…
Tillih: …and it could take all of our time, so I want to limit myself to a few items. First and foremost, I believe, metaphorically speaking, that man lives not only in the horizontal dimension, in particular, of his relations as a finite being to other finite beings, observing them and interacting with them, but that there is also something in him , which I metaphorically call a vertical line. It does not lead to a heaven inhabited by God and other beings. By a vertical line, I mean a direction towards something that is not transitory and finite; to something that is infinite, unconditional, absolute; I usually answer like this. Man has an inner experience that he is something more than finite objects that come and go. He experiences something beyond time and space. I don’t speak here — I have to emphasize this in my speeches over and over — about concepts of life after death or other symbols that should not be taken literally, but I am talking about the direct experience of the eternal in the temporal, or the temporal, permeated with the eternal at some points in our life, and life with other people, and the life of a group. That’s why I try to continue to interpret the great traditional religious symbols as relevant to our situation: because I know — and that was another point that you mentioned — that they have largely lost their meaning for our contemporaries, and that we cannot use them in the way they are still very often used in sermons, religious teaching and liturgy by those people who can live in them, who are not alienated from them by critical analysis. But for that huge number of people whom you called humanists, we must translate and interpret this symbolism, but not replace it, as you, in my opinion, said. I do not believe that scientific language is capable of adequately expressing the vertical dimension, because it is tied to the relationships of finite things, even in psychology, and of course in all natural sciences. That’s the reason I think we need another language, and that language — the language of symbols and myths; it is a religious language. And we poor theologians, unlike you happy psychologists, are in a terrible situation..
Rogers: Yes, while you were talking, I realized that I have some own image of this vertical dimension, not as going up, but as going down. What I mean is: at times I feel when I am really helpful to my client, when there is something approaching an I-Thou relationship between us, and when it seems to me that something important is happening, then I feel that I as if attuned to some forces in the universe, or that the forces are working through me in the direction of this beneficial relationship … Well, I think I feel something like a scientist when he is able to cause the splitting of an atom. He did not create it with his own small hands, but nevertheless he came into contact with the forces of the universe, and thus became a link in this momentous event. And I think I feel something similar when I deal with clients and when I am really helpful to them.
Tillih: I am very grateful to you for what you said. So, I was especially interested in your words that a vertical line always has an up and down. And you will be interested to hear that I have often been accused by fellow theologians of talking too much about the bottom, instead of talking about the top, — and it is true. When I want to give a name to what I am most fascinated by, I call it the «ground of being» and the ground is, of course, below, not above, — so I’m going down with you. Now the question is where are we going? Here again I have the feeling that I could go further with you when you use the concepts of «universe», «universe forces». But when I speak of the «grounds of being,» I understand this depth of the universe not as the totality of all the elements of the universe, of all separate things, but, like many philosophers and theologians, as the creative foundation of the universe, as that from which all these forms and elements originate. , — and I call it creative grounding. It was the second moment that made me happy. The creative foundation can be experienced in everything that is rooted in it. For example, in a meeting of a person with a person — and I experienced, not being an analyst, in communication with various people, experiences very similar to yours — there is something that transcends the limited reality of you and me, the other person and myself, and I sometimes call this the presence of the sacred in non-religious communication. I can have such an experience, it is familiar to me, and I agree with you.
And, finally, your third remark was taught, and often told to his scientist friends, that they strictly follow the principle, formulated in the classical form by the great medieval theologian Thomas Aquinas: «If you know something, you know something about God.» I would like to agree with this statement — that is why scientists also have experience of what I prefer to call a vertical line leading down, and perhaps also up: although what they do by splitting the atom — it is the discovery and management of the ultimate relationship of one with the other.
Rogers: I would like to move on to another topic that has interested me, and I suspect you may also be interested. This is the question of what constitutes the perfect man. In other words, how do we define what we are working towards, whether it be in psychotherapy or in the field of religion? I think I found a fairly simple definition, but one that seems to me to have a significant number of implications. I feel completely satisfied with my work as a therapist if I find that both my client and myself — we are both moving towards what I would call greater openness to experience. If an individual becomes more able to listen to what is happening inside him, more sensitive to his reactions to a given situation, if he is more accurate in perceiving the world around him — both the world of reality and the world of relationships — then I think I will be very satisfied. This is the direction in which I would like to hope that we will move, because then something will happen to him. — it is most important — it will be «in progress» all the time. For the individual, this is not an end goal, but a process of getting closer and closer to oneself. He will become realistic in a good way, both in terms of what is happening inside him and in relation to the world, and I think he will also become more social, simply because one of the elements that he cannot but actualize in yourself — it is a need and desire for closer relationships. So for me, this notion of openness to experience describes most of what I would hope to see in a more perfect person. — whether we are talking about a person emerging in the process of psychotherapy, or the development of a good citizen, or something else. I would be interested in your comment or your opinion on this.
Tillih: Yes, there are two questions here. One — it is a way, in particular, openness; another — this is the goal. This, of course, is not a static or dynamic goal, but it is a goal nonetheless. Let me talk about these two points. openness — this is a word that is very close to me, because there are many questions asked of the theologian that can only be answered with the concept of openness or disclosure. I will give you two examples. One example — it is a function of classical symbols and symbols in general. Usually I always answer: «Symbols reveal: they reveal reality and something in us.» If this word wasn’t banned in the university today, I would call it something in our soul, but as a psychologist, as anyone who deals with the soul, you know that the word «soul» is forbidden in an academic context. But this is precisely the function that symbols perform, and they perform it not only for individuals, but also for groups, and usually only through groups for the individual. This is the first area where I use the word «open». And another use of the word «open» — this is when they ask me; “So what do I do to experience God or acquire the Holy Spirit? My answer is: «The only thing you can do — is to be open. You cannot force God, you cannot create the Holy Spirit in yourself, but what you can do — it is to open yourself and keep yourself open to Him.” Of course, this is, according to your terminology, a certain experience, but we must keep ourselves open to any experience. So I largely agree with the path you have described. I would even like to believe that in any experience the possibility of absolute (ultimate) experience remains.
Next, the goal: so, the goal — this is the set of elements that we have discussed. Perhaps we could agree on the realization of our true Self, the actualization of what is essentially given to us, or, speaking in religious terms, I could say: «Become what God sees us, in all our potentialities.» What does this mean in practice — this is another and very important question. You have already pointed out some of this, in particular — become social. I think it’s part of a broader concept. I would call it love, in the Greek sense agape, which is a special word in the New Testament and means love, described by St. Paul (1 Cor. 13) — she accepts the other person and then tries to reunite with him and overcome the separation — existential division that exists between people. So, I would agree with this goal, but I would like to add, of course, since I am speaking also in terms of the vertical dimension, that it is to adhere to this dimension in order to maintain faith in the ultimate meaning of life and absolute and unconditional seriousness. this longing for the ultimate meaning of life. So, speaking in popular terms, which is always very dangerous, I would say: faith and love — these are two concepts that are necessary, but faith is not in the sense of beliefs, but in the sense of connection with the ultimate, and love is not in the sense of sentimentality, but in the sense of the affirmation of a person and even oneself, because I believe, together with Augustine, Erich Fromm and others that self-affirmation and self-acceptance is justified. I would not like to use the concept of «self love», it is too complicated, but self-affirmation and self-acceptance — these are some of the hardest things to achieve.
Rogers: Good. I find consonance with my feelings when you talk about a specific, i.e. when you wrap it in terms of love and faith. They can be very abstract and take on whatever meanings you like, but if you make them concrete — yes, I feel that a person really should strive to truly appreciate himself or like himself if he is striving for a healthy and useful self-affirmation. There is another implication of this notion of openness to experience that we could also discuss a bit. In my opinion, the individual who is intelligently open to his experience is involved in a constant evaluation process. And although I seem to have discarded the idea of values in the usual sense, i.e. that there are certain values that we could enumerate, etc., but it seems to me that an individual who is open to experience constantly evaluates every moment and his behavior at every moment as having or not having to do with his own self-fulfillment, his own actualization, and that it is this kind of evaluation process that, in my opinion, creates meaning in a mature person. It also creates meaning in a world in which the whole situation is changing so rapidly that, in my opinion, the usual list of values is no longer as meaningful and appropriate as before.
Tillih: Yes. Now I am an outspoken critic of the philosophy of values, so I certainly agree with you. I replaced it with my concept agapeor love, — in particular, love that listens. I call it listening love, which does not follow abstract assessments, but which is connected with a specific situation, and, listening at the very moment, makes decisions to act or feel satisfaction, and, perhaps, joy or dissatisfaction and pangs of conscience.
Rogers: I like this phrase, because, as I think, internal listening, listening to oneself, is possible, to the same extent as listening to love for another person …
Tillih: Yes, when I say “listening to the situation”, I mean that the situation is formed from everything around me and from myself, so that listening love is always listening in both directions.
Rogers: I feel that we do not differ much in our opinions about values. I thought that we would have more differences than it actually turned out. Here’s another point: in my mind, a small child — a good example of an evaluation process that happens all the time. He does not care about the concepts and standards that are built for adults, and he constantly evaluates his experience as either developmental or contrary to its actualization.
Tillih: And this evaluation, of course, is not an intellectual evaluation, but an evaluation in which his whole being takes part …
Rogers: I believe that this is an organismic evaluation process.
Tillih: This signifies the reaction of his whole being, and I definitely agree that this is an adequate description.