nezinu, kam te ir vieta.
tachu man.. jau ljoti sen bija jautaajums, jo es nesapratu, itin nemaz, kas vareetu buut greeks. vakar es uzshkjiiru atbildi.
un kaut kur man tas bija jaaliek.


Estrangement and Sin
Paul Tillich

The state of existence is the state of estrangement. Man is estranged from the ground of his being, from other beings, and from himself. The transition from essence to existence results in personal guilt and universal tragedy…
“Estrangement” as a philosophical term was created and applied by Hegel, especially in his doctrine of nature as estranged mind [Geist]. But his discovery of estrangement happened long before he developed his philosophy of nature. In his early fragments he described life-processes as possessing an original unity which is disrupted by the split into subjectivity and objectivity and by the replacement of love by law… . The individual is estranged and not reconciled; society is estranged and not reconciled, existence is estrangement. In the strength of this insight, they become revolutionaries against the world as it existed and were existentialists long before the beginning of the twentieth century.
In the sense in which it was used by the anti-Hegelians, estrangement points to the basic characteristic of man’s predicament. Man as he exists is not what he essentially is and ought to be. He is estranged from his true being. The profundity of the term “estrangement” lies in the implication that one belongs essentially to that from which one is estranged. Man is not a stranger to his true being, for he belongs to it. He is judged by it but cannot be completely separated, even if he is hostile to it. Man’s hostility to God proves indisputably that he belongs to him. Where there is the possibility of hate, there and there alone is the possibility of love.
Estrangement is not a biblical term but is implied in most of the biblical descriptions of man’s predicament. It is implied in the symbols of the expulsion from paradise, in the hostility between man and nature, in the deadly hostility of brother against brother, in the estrangement of nation from nation through the confusion of language, and in the continuous complaints of the prophets against kings and people who turn to alien gods. Estrangement is implied in Paul’s statement that man perverted the image of God into that of idols, in his classical description of “man against himself,” in his vision of man’s hostility against man as combined with his distorted desires. In all these interpretations of man’s predicament, estrangement is implicitly asserted. Therefore, it is certainly not unbiblical to use the term “estrangement” in describing man’s existential situation.
Nevertheless, “estrangement” cannot replace “sin”. Yet the reasons for attempts to replace the word “sin” with another word are obvious. The term has been used in a way which has little to do with its original biblical meaning. Paul often spoke of “Sin” in the singular and without an article. He saw it as a quasi-personal power which ruled this world. But in the Christian churches, both Catholic and Protestant, sin has been used predominantly in the plural, and “sins” are deviations from moral laws. This has little to do with “sin” as the state of estrangement from that to which one belongs – God, one’s self, one’s world. Therefore, the characteristics of sin are here considered under the heading of “estrangement.” And the word “estrangement” itself implies a reinterpretation of sin form a religious point of view.
Nevertheless, the word “sin” cannot be overlooked. It expresses what is not implied in the term “estrangement”, namely, the personal act of turning away from that to which one belongs. Sin expresses most sharply the personal character of estrangement over against its tragic side. It expresses personal freedom and guilt in contrast to tragic guilt and the universal destiny of estrangement. The word “sin” can and must be saved, not only because classical literature and liturgy continuously employ it but more particularly because the word has a sharpness which accusingly points to the element of personal responsibility in one’s estrangement. Man’s predicament is estrangement, but his estrangement is sin. It is not a state of things, like the laws of nature, but a matter of both personal freedom and universal destiny. For this reason the term “sin” must be used after it has been reinterpreted religiously. An important tool for this reinterpretation is the term “estrangement”.
Reinterpretation is also needed for the terms “original” and “hereditary” with respect to sin. But in this case reinterpretation may demand the rejection of the terms. Both point to the universal character of estrangement, expressing the element of destiny in estrangement. But both words are so much burdened with literalistic absurdities that it is practically impossible to use them any longer.
If one speaks of “sins” and refers to special acts which are considered as sinful, one should always be conscious of the fact that “sins” are the expressions of “sin”. It is not disobedience to a law which makes an act sinful but the fact that it is an expression of mans estrangement from God, from men, from himself. Therefore, Paul calls everything sin which does not result from faith, from the unity with God. And in another context (following Jesus) all laws are summed up in the law of love by which estrangement is conquered. Love as the striving for the union of the separated is the opposite of estrangement. In faith and love, sin is conquered because estrangement is overcome by reunion.