Theologian Says Religious Faith of Renaissance Lost

HAMILTON, N.Y.., Dec. 8--Paul J. Tillich, University Professor, said last night that the religious substance which led to the death of the principles of Renaissance culture has "evaporated" from our society.

In a lecture at Colgate University, the theologian asserted that "God has become a tool" in the modern mind. The Renaissance hope of the perfectability of man and his society has become corrupted into a technological society's notion that man's fulfillment depends on complete control of the world, he claimed.

The "objectification" principle of the Renaissance, Tillich said, has been changed into the belief that God and man are "things," while the traditional principle of "coincidence" has been transformed into the notion of "endless finitude."

The resurgence of religion represents contemporary man's response to this loss of religious meaning, but this resurgence, he added, has negative characteristics in that it relies upon the very distortions which it attempts to overcome.