An Estranged Existence

"In Shutter Island we confront the idea that we are unable to stare into the face of our trauma. To avoid such a confrontation with our own darkness we create fictions that insulate us from the truth of our deepest scars" (Peter Rollins). The fictions we create are then taken as the truth of who we are. Paul Tillich refers to this quandary as the existential estrangement of humanity. Tillich summarizes the central conviction of his anthropology stating, “Man as he exists is not what he essentially is and ought to be. He is estranged from his true being” (Systematic Theology II, p.45). Tillich refers to this estrangement as the human predicament. Our very existence is estrangement.

Like DiCaprio’s character in Shutter Island, who in an effort to avoid his true essence embraces a fictitious reality, we live in estrangement to self to try and avoid our own darkness or those things about our character that we simply refuse to accept. In other words, we hide or suppress the reality of who we really are. We are convinced that our conscious self is a true reflection of our identity, but it is not. The truth of who we really are is in the totality of our existence. Tillich suggests that while we may think we are evading our true self it is really impossible to be completely separated from the reality of our true being. “Man,” Tillich claims, “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” (Ibid. p. 45).

For Tillich the duality in being, expressed through its distinction between essence and existence, is exemplified in Christian theology by the implications of the fall. This split of created goodness now “fallen away” has direct significance on the philosophical distinction between essence and existence. The fall did not mark the beginning of this duality, but simply revealed the predicament of humanities real nature. According to Tillich, human history as a whole did not pass, and individuals as such do not pass, at a specifiable moment into existential distortion. This split between essence and actual existence is already given; it is a byproduct of human freedom. For Tillich the fall is a symbol that expresses the real situation of humanity. The power to contradict self and essential nature is what makes possible the transition from essence to existence. Tillich claims, “Whenever the ideal is held against the real, truth against error, good against evil, a distortion of essential being is presupposed and is judged by essential being” (Systematic Theology I, p.202). What we must accept is the predicament we find our self in. Which translated means, we must be willing to embrace the whole of who we really are, not just those parts of our essence that we want to unveil. This is why in an AA meeting the first thing a person seeking help must do is identify with their problem and accept that this is the person they have become. When we deny the truth of our existence a false reality results.