The Ground of Being

May 15, 2025 | 1,967 words | 10min read

Paper Title: The Ground of Being
Link to Paper: https://www.jstor.org/stable/23953940
Date: October 1964
Paper Type: Philosophy, Theology
Short Abstract:
This text evaluates Paul Tillich’s concept of God as the “Ground of Being,” highlighting its metaphysical ambition but questioning its conceptual clarity and coherence. While Tillich rejects classical theism in favor of a more immanent, dynamic view of divinity, the author argues that his language often obscures rather than illuminates, and suggests that the notion may be more intelligible as a psychological or mystical metaphor than as a rigorous ontological claim.

Introduction

The phrase “the Ground of Being” from Paul Tillich gained traction after being quoted by the Bishop of Woolwich, as a possible way of speaking of God—not as someone “up there” or “out there,” distant or removed—but as something more foundational and underlying. The term ground suggests a support or basis for existence itself, allowing one to speak of God as the source that sustains being, rather than as a separate, independent entity.

Paul Tillich was influenced by several intellectual traditions:

• German mystical and Romantic philosophy, particularly thinkers like Schelling and Jakob Böhme
• The Scholastic language of being and essence, especially as mediated through Heidegger’s concern with the question of being
• Depth psychology, particularly the work of Erich Fromm

Tillich suggests that Protestant theology should move away from Aristotle’s static concept of God as a perfect, unchanging being—and from the later Scholastic developments of that idea—and instead draw from Böhme’s more dynamic, mystical, and existential vision of God. In other words, Tillich calls for a move away from the heavily Greek philosophical model of God, toward a more inner, mysterious connection that involves struggle and depth, rather than a static perfection. This aligns with the broader Protestant principle of sola scriptura—“by Scripture alone”—which seeks to reduce external philosophical influences on faith.

Tillich’s Influences

Jakob Böhme was a self-taught 17th-century German mystic and Lutheran thinker. One of his central beliefs was that “Yes” and “No”—affirmation and negation—are present in all things, and that creation itself is born from this tension. Böhme did not believe that evil was merely the absence of God; rather, he saw it as a necessary element in the dynamic nature of being.

Böhme proposed that behind all reality lies something even more fundamental than being itself: the Ungrund—a bottomless source of chaotic potential and freedom.

Tillich, influenced by Böhme, adopted this idea and referred to it as the abyss.

This notion goes back to Meister Eckhart in the 14th century, who also spoke of the Grund and Abgrund, using this language within the framework of negative theology—approaching God by way of negation. Other thinkers who used similar language include Johannes Tauler and Pseudo-Dionysius. Böhme borrowed from these traditions, but for him, bottomless nothingness is not simply void—it contains a will, a craving toward being. From this tension emerges the Grund, a more defined and stable “ground of being.”

Central to Böhme’s thought is the idea that the creation of the world arises from the union between the dark, chaotic will of the Ungrund (the abyss) and the more ordered structure of the Grund. Reality emerges from the tension between these two poles.

Schelling, an idealist philosopher who came later, systematized Böhme’s ideas. For Schelling, the Ungrund and Grund are co-eternal aspects of God—neither precedes the other. Unlike Spinoza’s deterministic pantheism, Schelling believed this primal dynamic includes freedom, choice, and the possibility of evil.

Tillich’s Philosophical Reframing

Tillich draws on mystical-cosmological ideas from Böhme and Schelling, but translates them into the language of philosophy—particularly existential ontology (influenced by Heidegger), phenomenology, and depth psychology.

At the center of his thought is the question:

“Why is there something rather than nothing?” Or, more precisely: “What gives Being the power to resist non-being?”

Here, non-being is not simply the absence of being, but refers to chaos, disintegration, and the threat of annihilation—much like Böhme’s Ungrund.

Tillich’s use of the term being is deliberately ambiguous and layered. He employs it in at least three senses:

1. Logical sense — As in the statement “X is Y” (e.g., The apple is red)
2. Existential sense — Whether something exists or not (X exists vs. X does not exist)
3. Metaphysical force — Being as a power or principle that gives form, identity, and structure to what exists

He also makes an important distinction:

For Tillich, God does not “exist” in the usual sense of the word. To say that God exists would be to categorize God as a being among other beings (like chairs, planets, or even angels)—just vastly superior. But Tillich insists that God is not a being but Being-Itself (Sein selbst).

This leads to a key philosophical tension: If God does not “exist” in the ordinary sense, how can God’s reality be affirmed or verified?

Tillich sidesteps this by reframing the issue. The real question, he argues, is not whether God exists, but:

What is the Ground that makes any existence possible at all?

For Tillich, the only literal statement we can make about God is:

“God is Being-Itself.”

All other theological language—about God’s attributes, actions, or nature—is symbolic and metaphorical. It points toward the divine, but never captures it completely.

Classical and Tillich’s Argument for God

The classical argument for God’s existence is the cosmological argument:

Something exists → it didn’t have to exist → therefore, there must be a necessary being (God) that explains why anything exists at all.

However, this is not the approach Tillich takes. He rejects the idea of God as a being apart from the world, because that would make God just another entity among others. Instead, God is Being-Itself—not a being that grounds the world, but the very grounding power of being itself.

In Tillich’s view, all things participate in both being and non-being. This is somewhat analogous to Plato’s idea where particular things participate in universal forms (for example, a white object participates in whiteness). Tillich is both a nominalist and a realist, meaning he believes universals exist—not just as names or labels, but as real entities.

By participation, Tillich means an internal relation—a relation that only makes sense in connection with the other. For example, a husband does not exist without a wife; their existence is relational. Participation is like an ontological glue that connects beings to being itself.

However, this leaves a key problem unaddressed: how exactly does this “gluing” or participation happen? This is a central problem for nominalists. Plato himself admitted he did not fully understand how particulars participate in forms, and Tillich does not explicitly solve this problem either.

It should also be noted that Tillich rejects Platonic dualism—the idea of two separate worlds (the world of forms and the world of particulars)—and also rejects absolute idealism, such as Schopenhauer’s, where everything is internally related. Instead, he states:

“Universals are the realities in which things participate.”

Yet, it remains unclear exactly what he means by this.

A Possible Solution? (Leśniewski’s Distinction)

There might be a way to clarify this confusion by using the work of Stanisław Leśniewski, a Polish logician, who distinguished two levels of meaning for the word “is”:

1. First-order “is” (about individuals): Example: “Tom, Dick, and Harry are men.” Here, are means they fall under the category “men.” The subject terms refer to individuals. This is the domain of ordinary predicate logic.

2. Second-order “is” (about predicates or concepts): Example: “To be a man is to be a rational animal.” Here, is does not link individuals to categories but links concepts. It is more like saying: “The concept man = the concept rational animal.”

The key insight is to treat the subject of this second-order sentence (“to be a man”) as verb-like rather than noun-like.

Thus, when we say:

“To be a man is to be a rational animal”

but recast it as:

“Man is a rational animal,”

we force a second-order statement into a first-order grammatical mold, creating a category error.

Leśniewski’s Distinction Applied to “To Be”

Tillich asserts:

• God is not a being
• but rather Being-Itself
• which he links to the power to be, the force that overcomes non-being

But what kind of “thing” is Being-Itself? Is it:

1. A universal?
2. A process?
3. A metaphor?
4. A category mistake?

Most likely, Being-Itself is a universal, but not a usual one. Universals typically define kinds or categories—for example, “rationality” defines the kind “man.” However, “being” does not define a kind. Aristotle noted this when he said:

“There is no such kind of thing as ‘things that there are.’”

Why? Because everything that is differs in kind—there is no unifying essence to all existents beyond their mere being.

We can now apply the distinction learned from Leśniewski to Tillich’s terms.

Recall:

• First-order statements define kinds, e.g., “Tom is a man.”
• Second-order statements link concepts, e.g., “To be a man is to be rational.”

First-order uses of “to be” refer to all the individual things that instantiate it, e.g., “chair is to be,” “banana is to be,” or “Tom is to be.”

But what about the second-order use? What do we say about “to be” itself?

“To be is … what?”

The problem is that “to be” without qualification asserts almost nothing—except tautologies like:

“To be is to be.”

This is empty and tells us nothing beyond the mere fact of existence, which Tillich does not want to reduce God to.

What alternative predicates have been proposed?

• Berkeley: To be is to perceive
  • But this is too subjective for most philosophers.
• Quine: To be is to be the value of a bound variable
  • A formalist reduction, not a metaphysical account.
• Plato (Sophist): To be is to act or to be acted upon
  • A rich metaphysical view linked to causal efficacy.

Being as Structure and Power

Tillich describes being as inseparable from the structure that makes it what it is. For him, being has a teleological structure and a metaphysical ordering.

If we say, “To be is to have this kind of structure,” then Tillich’s “Ground of Being” can be interpreted not as a special universal entity, but as:

• The principle by which being occurs
• The power that makes being possible

Thus, being becomes a process or a dynamic pattern inherent in all beings. God, then, is not a separate being but a power within all beings. This view aligns closely with Spinoza’s philosophy.

Critics argue that if God is not a being, not a person, or not a personal agent, then Tillich’s view amounts to functional atheism. However, this depends on the definition of theism. Tillich’s perspective can be seen as a form of immanentist theism (God is present within existence) but not pantheism—because God is not identical with the sum of all things, and things can be alienated from the Ground.

Challenges in Tillich’s Metaphysics

A fundamental question for Tillich is: although he often uses powerful religious language and develops a framework of natural theology, does he sufficiently have enough substance to justify calling it theism?

In general, it is difficult to pin down Tillich’s metaphysics because it is often obscure. When criticized, he sometimes dismisses objections as coming from logical positivists.

Other ways to interpret Tillich’s ideas include:

• Apophatic Theology (via negation): Perhaps Grund and Ungrund are sophisticated ways of saying that God is beyond all human concepts—including Being itself.
  • However, Tillich rejects strict apophaticism because he insists we can speak meaningfully about God.
• Depth Psychology as Theology: Another reading sees Tillich as developing a psychological theology, turning religious symbols into psychological truths.
  • Ground of Being = creativity
  • Non-being = anxiety, fear

The phrase “Ground of Being” sounds solid and foundational—like a rock to stand upon—but it requires more elaboration to clarify its precise meaning and significance.

reply via email