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Advantages
- J.H. Randall- "They make us receptive to the qualities of the world encountered; and they open our hearts to the new qualities with which that world, in cooperation with the spirit of man, can cloth itself. They enable us to see and feel the religious dimension of our world better, the 'order of splendor', and of man's experience in and with it. They teach us how to find the Divine; they show us visions of God"
- Carl Jung proves how symbols are in fact completely opposite to temporary. They appear time and time again throughout history and are an ingrained in our psyche. Symbols in fact are the natural way in which the archetypes of human experience reveals themselves. Symbols come from the deepest unconscious mind and thus 'symbols express collective unconscious individuation' they express what words can't express as they come from the depths of our phychology. They're an innate part of our language and thus are far from temporary
- Not only does symbolic language communicate information with us, as Randall pointed out, but it also participates to that which it points. If I say 'God is Love' I am not merely pointing out what God is like a sign but I am participating in the reality of God. I am connecting emotionally with God, doing what words and signs alone cannot do. This means that Symbol is entirely adequate because symbolic language because through this participation we can expresses thoughts about God meaningfully as we can emotionally connect with God through this language.
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Disadvantages
- Paul Edwards claimed that Tillich's though it cognitively meaningless. That is, althought Tillich appears to be saying something, actually the world and symbols convey no knowledge at all. For symbols to be meaningful they must be reducible to something other than a symbol. In other words, we have to be told what the symbol points to. Yet Tillich's work is full of irreducible symbols that point to nothing. His argument is 'circular' and takes us nowhere.
- Symbols change over time, even Tillich himself pointed this out. Symbols can adopt different meanings or even lose their meanings as cultures move on. The Swastika was a Hindu sign for purity but now is associated with the atrocities against humanity under the Nazis. Because of this the symbol is no longer able to direct us to what 'concerns us ultimately' as they did in the past. They are only temporary and thus are weak.
- John Hick has accused Tillich's notion that a symbol 'participates in that to which it points' as Tillich doesn't explain precisely what he means by 'participation'. What precisely is the participating symbol in the sentence 'God is Love'? Is it the entire proposition or is it the underlying concept of the loving nature of God? How can we participate in this way is we do not know what we're participating with? This makes Symbol wholly inadequate.
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