Paul Tillich - THEOLOGY OF CULTURE, pp. 35-39
TIME AND THE PROPHETIC MESSAGE
The turning point in the struggle between space and time in history is the prophetic message. To the birth of man out of nature and against nature corresponds the birth of prophetism out of paganism and against paganism.
This birth is symbolized in the story of the vocation of Abraham. The command to Abraham to leave his homeland and his father's house means the command to leave the gods of soil and blood, of family, tribe and nation; that is, the gods of space, the gods of paganism and polytheism, the gods who stand beside each other - even if one of them is the most powerful. The true God who spoke to Abraham cannot be identified with a family or city-god. In the moment in which the danger of such an identification arises, God must separate Himself from those who adore Him. The representative of this separation is the prophet. He does not deny the God of the fathers, but he protests against the abuse of this God by the priests of soil and blood, of tribe and nation. He pronounces the separation of God from His nation. This becomes obvious in the great prophets who announce the complete rejection of the nation by God if it continues as a pagan cult with pagan ethics and politics.
The threat which we hear first in the words of Amos is the turning point in the history of religion. It is unheard of in all other religions that the God of a nation is able to destroy this nation without being destroyed Himself. In all other religions the god dies with the people who adore him. In prophetism the glory of God is not diminished, but augmented by the split between God and nation. This, and this alone, is the end of polytheism. A struggle against the gods of space was made by those prophets who destroyed the places of adoration all over the country, thereby cutting off the roots of pagan revivalism and concentrating the cult in Jerusalem. And when Jerusalem fell, the power of the God of time was strong enough to survive this greatest of all catastrophies, and to become the God of the world before whom the nations are like the sand of the sea. This was a triumph unimaginable in all paganism, and was due to the principle of separation implied in the command to Abraham.
And in the period of the New Testament, the message that God must be adored neither in a temple nor on a mountain, but in Spirit and in Truth fulfills the prophetic message. But when this message became distorted by timeless gnosticism and mysticism, the Christian Church in one of its most vital struggles, overcame, in the name of the Old Testament, the temptation to become a group of timeless individuals bound not to a physical or psychological space, but to the spiritual timeless space of mysticism. And when Christianity became identified with the psychological space of a visible Church, and even more became subject to a physical space the Roman priest - the Protestant protest renewed the prophetic negation of the gods of space. And when today a secularized Protestantism has produced the vacuum into which old pagan gods of soil and blood, race and nation are penetrating in all countries, there are still voices raised which indicate that the command to Abraham is not forgotten.
The God of time is the God of history. This means, first of all, that He is the God who acts in history towards a final goal. History has a direction, something new is to be created in it and through it. This goal is described in many different terms: universal blessedness, the victory over the demonic powers represented as imperialistic nations, the coming of the Kingdom of God in history and beyond history, the transformation of the form of this world, and so on. There are many symbols, some more immanent as in old prophetism and modern Protestantism, some more transcendent as in later apocalyptics and traditional Christianity, but in all these cases time is directing, creating, something new, a "new creature" as Paul calls it. The tragic circle of space is overcome. There is a definite beginning and a definite end in history.
（時間之神就是歷史之神。
首先，這意味著他是在歷史中朝著最終目標行事的天主。 歷史有一個方向，新的事物將在其中並透過它被創造。 這個目標用許多不同的術語來描述：普遍的幸福、對以帝國主義國家為代表的惡魔勢力的勝利、歷史上和歷史之外的天主之國的到來、這個世界形態的轉變等等。 有許多像徵，有些是內在的，如舊預言和現代新教，有些是超越的，如後來的啟示錄和傳統基督信仰，但在所有這些情況下，時間都在引導、創造新的事物，保祿稱之為為「新造物」 。 空間的悲慘的循環被克服了。 歷史有明確的開始和明確的結束。）
History is universal history in prophetism. The limitations of space, the boundaries between nations are negated. In Abraham all nations shall be blessed, all nations shall adore on Mount Zion, the suffering of the elected nation has saving power for all nations. The miracle of Pentecost overcomes the cleavage between the languages. In Christ, the cosmos, the universe is saved and united. Missions have a universal claim trying to create an undivided human consciousness. Time is fulfilled in history, and history is fulfilled in the universal Kingdom of God, the Kingdom of justice and peace.
This leads to the ultimate point in the struggle between time and space. Prophetic monotheism is the monotheism of justice. The gods of space necessarily destroy justice. The unlimited claim of every spatial god unavoidably clashes with the unlimited claim of any other spatial god. The will to power of the one group cannot give justice to another group. This holds true of the powerful groups within a nation and of the nations themselves. Polytheism, the religion of space, is necessarily unjust. The unlimited claim of any god of space destroys the universalism implied in the idea of justice. This and this alone is the meaning of prophetic monotheism. God is one God because justice is one. The prophetic threat against the elected nation, that it will be rejected by God because of injustice, is the real victory over the gods of space. The interpretation of history in Deutero-Isaiah, according to which God calls the foreign nations in order to punish His own nation because of its injustice, elevates God to the universal God. Tragedy and injustice belong to the gods of space; historical fulfillment and justice belong to the God who acts in time and through time, uniting the separated space of his universe in love.
TIME AND JUDAISM
The Jewish nation is the nation of time in a sense which cannot be said of any other nation. It represents the permanent struggle between time and space going through all times. It can exist in spite of the loss of its space again and again, from the time of the great prophets, up to our days. It has a tragic fate when considered as a nation of space like every other nation, but as the nation of time, it is beyond tragedy. It is beyond tragedy because it is beyond the circle of life and death. The people of time in Synagogue and Church cannot avoid being persecuted because by their very existence, they break the claims of the gods of space who express themselves in will to power, imperialism, injustice, demonic enthusiasm, and tragic self-destruction. The gods of space who are strong in every human soul, in every race and nation, are afraid of the Lord of time, history, and justice, are afraid of His prophets and followers, and try to make them powerless and homeless. But just thereby these gods help to fulfill against their will the purpose of history and the meaning of time.
Christianity has separated from Judaism because in the fulfillment of time Judaism has made a decision for space, namely for its national law, which never could become the law of all nations. The assembly of God, namely the Church which gathers from all nations, is the end of all religious nationalism and tribalism, even if expressed in terms of prophetic traditions. On the other hand, the Church is always in danger of identifying herself with a national Church, or of leaving injustice, the will-to-power, national and racial arrogance unchallenged. The Church is always in danger of losing its prophetic spirit. Therefore, the prophetic spirit included in the traditions of the Synagogue is needed as long as the gods of time are in power, and this means up to the end of history, as Paul, the first Christian interpreter of the historical fate of Judaism, seems to assume in Romans 9-II.
Synagogue and Church should be united in our age, in the struggle for the God of time against the gods of space. This is a period in which more than ever since Christianity has overcome paganism the gods of space show their power over souls and nations. If this would happen, if all those who struggle for the Lord of history, for his justice and truth, are united even under persecution and martyrdom, the eternal victory in the struggle between time and space will become visible once more as the victory of time and the one God who is the Lord of history.