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Theology 101

Excerpt from Paul Tillich’s

Systematic Theology

In all the miracles performed by Jesus, some of the evils of existential self-destruction are conquered. They are not finally conquered, for the people to whom miracles happened were again subject to sickness and death and to the vicissitudes of nature. But what happened to them was a representative anticipation of the victory of the New Being over existential self-destruction. This was evident in mental and bodily sickness, in catastrophe, and in want, in despair and in meaningless death.

The miracles of Jesus would not have had this function, had he done them for the sake of showing his messianic power. That approach was considered by him to be a demonic temptation coming both from his enemies and from Satan. Miracles are performed by him because he fully participates in the misery of the human situation and tries to overcome it wherever the occasion offers itself…

… The saving power of the New Being is, above all, power over the enslaving structures of evil. In later periods Christian teaching and preaching often neglected this basic meaning of the miracle stories and instead emphasized their miraculous character…

… God’s presence and power should not be sought in the supranatural interference in the ordinary course of events but in the power of the New Being to overcome the self-destructive consequences of existential estrangement in and through the created structures of reality. If taken in this sense, the miracles of Jesus as the Christ belong to the symbols of victory and corroborate the central symbol of Resurrection.