Confronting Demonic Autonomy in Digital Capitalism: Reconstructing Tillich’s Religious Socialism as a Post-Secular Public Theology

Abstract

In an age in which the post-secular condition and digital capitalism are increasingly interwoven, the question of what role religion ought to play in the public sphere—and how it might regain critical and constructive force amid deepening crises of meaning—has become urgent. Contemporary digital capitalism, characterized by the pseudo-sacralization of algorithmic logic, generates a persistent absorptive power marked by ecstatic effects. This elevates technological rationality and market logic to a level of pseudo-sacral authority, exercising a form of symbolic and spiritual domination. Returning to Paul Tillich’s thought, this article reconstructs his vision of religious socialism not as a historical artifact, but as a critical public theology capable of resisting this form of demonic domination. Tillich’s central insight is that the crisis of capitalism is not merely economic but ontological: its culture of “autonomy” severs itself from its religious ground, allowing finite forms—now amplified by digital technology—to elevate themselves into ultimate meaning and thereby consolidate into self-absolutizing, demonic structures. Against this background, the article argues that Tillich’s religious socialism is not a proposal for institutional replacement, but a public theological practice rooted in “ultimate concern.” Its task is to expose the structures of usurpation operative within digital capitalism and to reconfigure the order of meaning through the symbolic vision of theonomy. Through this symbolic practice, religion is recovered as a deep dimension of culture capable of critically piercing the regimes of meaning-occlusion. Moreover, it is precisely the unfinished and open-ended characteristic of religious socialism that enables it to regain theoretical and symbolic vitality in the post-secular present.

1. Introduction

In the early twentieth century, Paul Tillich confronted the deep spiritual–social crisis precipitated by the retreat of religious sacredness and the expansion of capitalist industrial civilization. He diagnosed this crisis as the demonic distortion of the structure of “autonomy”: a process wherein the capitalist system elevates its finite, secular cultural forms to the status of “ultimate concern,” thereby severing the fundamental link between being and meaning. This self-absolutizing cultural morphology not only engenders human alienation and the fragmentation of community but also endows institutionalized economic–technical structures with a quasi-religious spiritual dominion (Tillich 1990b, pp. 118–55). Tillich keenly perceived that the crisis of capitalism is not merely an imbalance of social ethics or a distortion of political structures, but essentially a deeper ontological crisis—namely, the collapse of the ground of meaning and the occlusion of the depth of being. Against this background, he proposed Religious Socialism, not as a program for social reform or an ideological substitute, but as a form of theological praxis rooted in “ultimate concern.” Its mission lies in unveiling the ontological distortion behind capitalism’s mechanism of pseudo-sacralization1, and activating faith as a spiritual force for revealing injustice and engaging in symbolic resistance (Tillich 1971a, pp. 62–69).

However, the critical potential inherent in religious socialism remains insufficiently explored within contemporary discourse, particularly in the historical context of digital capitalism. Capital’s logic of domination no longer relies primarily on the explicit coercion of production relations; rather, it has become deeply embedded within algorithmic architecture, data logic, and affective engineering. By molding desire, encoding visibility, and manipulating attentional and emotional rhythms, digital capitalism constructs a pseudo-sacred mechanism characterized by “ecstatic effects” and sustained binding power. Consequently, phenomena typically analyzed within “post-secular” debates reemerge, reshaped by techno-capitalist logic: sacredness has not retreated—as predicted by traditional secularization narratives—but has instead been captured, simulated, and transmuted into a spiritual mechanism that sustains the prevailing order. This transformation engenders new structural forms of spiritual alienation and the impoverishment of meaning. Under these conditions, while mainstream critical theories (e.g., ideology critique2, media theory3, and post-structuralism4) effectively expose mechanisms of domination, they struggle to explain how digital capitalism masquerades as a source of ultimate meaning, thereby eliciting existential attachment and identification at an ontological level.

In response to this theoretical deficit, this paper undertakes a theological reconstruction of Paul Tillich’s religious socialism, transforming it into a public-theological framework capable of addressing the contemporary crisis of meaning in the digital age. Methodologically, this study combines conceptual reconstruction with interpretive application. Rather than treating religious socialism as a fixed historical doctrine, this study approaches it as an open hermeneutical framework, the critical resources of which can be reactivated under new historical conditions. The primary textual basis of the analysis consists of Tillich’s early writings on religious socialism—most notably The Socialist Decision—together with the key texts through which his theology of culture is systematically developed, ranging from his early Philosophy of Religion to his later Systematic Theology. From these sources, this paper reconstructs a set of core conceptual categories—the Demonic, Kairos, and Theonomy—and rearticulates them as normative analytical lenses for diagnosing the deep structures of contemporary digital alienation.

It is important to clarify the scope of this study. The analysis is deliberately confined to the theological–cultural structure of religious socialism and its efficacy as a resource for contemporary public theology, rather than offering an empirical examination of its historical political strategies or organizational practices. In this sense, the paper does not seek to reconstruct Tillich’s concrete political program of the 1930s. Instead, it extracts the theoretical core of his project to address a critical blind spot in contemporary post-secular theory—particularly in Habermasian approaches—namely, the unresolved tension between the semantic translation of religion and the question of ontological depth.

The argument of this paper unfolds as follows: First, proceeding from the theology of culture, this paper examines Tillich’s understanding of religion as a fundamental dimension of being. It delineates the internal tension structure between Autonomy, Heteronomy, and Theonomy, thereby exposing the religious ground of the principle of autonomy, alongside its creative potential and its inherent risk of distortion. Building on this theoretical premise, the second section introduces the concept of the Demonic to analyze how capitalism achieves the self-absolutization of the autonomous principle in modern society. This section further illuminates how this mechanism manifests in a more concealed yet intensified pseudo-sacral form under the conditions of digital capitalism. Based on this diagnosis, the third section reinterprets religious socialism as a form of symbolic theological praxis. It elucidates how the vision of Theonomy serves to resist the closure of meaning, thereby endowing faith with a revelatory and critical spiritual force. Finally, reflecting on the historical dilemmas and failures of religious socialism, the fourth section draws on a complementary reference to Liberation Theology. It argues for the contemporary potential of Tillich’s framework as a model of public theology centered on de-idolization and symbolic resistance.

Ultimately, through this reconstruction, this paper seeks to demonstrate that returning to Tillich is not a mere exercise in the history of ideas. Rather, it aims to secure an ontological perspective capable of penetrating the obfuscations of digital alienation, thereby reconstructing the critical edge and public force of faith within the post-secular context.

2. Tillich’s Theology of Culture and the Dual Structure of Autonomy

For Tillich, the theology of culture constitutes not merely a discrete theme within his system of thought, but the methodological point of departure and the principled core of his entire theological enterprise. This formulation is rooted in his diagnostic insight into the dual crisis of modernity. On the one hand, a rationalized and technologized culture, enclosed within the self-sufficient logic of autonomy, severs its connection to the depth of being, thereby sliding into formal self-referentiality and the impoverishment of meaning. On the other hand, religion, increasingly moralized, psychologized, and institutionalized, forfeits its symbolic power to disclose ultimate meaning, degenerating into mere private belief or a socially functional tool (Foster 1996). For Tillich, the root of this crisis lies not in the decline of religion as such, but in the structural rupture between religious depth and cultural form: culture loses its transcendent ground through formal self-sufficiency, while religion, suffering from symbolic impoverishment, loses its capacity to engage with historical reality.

It is precisely within this structural rupture that Tillich articulates his distinctive theological posture of standing “on the boundary” between religion and culture. This stance seeks not a compromise between the two spheres but rather discloses their intrinsic correlation and latent conflict. In this regard, while Tillich shares Karl Barth’s diagnosis that the rupture between religion and culture constitutes the root of the epochal crisis, their approaches diverge. Whereas Barth, positing divine revelation as the sole absolute ground, emphasizes the radical transcendence of religion over culture, Tillich insists on a systematic analysis of contemporary culture (Danz 2011, p. 224). His theology of culture asserts that the theoretical examination of concrete cultural formations cannot be summarily dismissed; yet, it simultaneously maintains that the religious ground within this analysis must be taken seriously, resisting any reduction to mere empirical or functional factors (Lauster 2011, pp. 421–22). Consequently, this tension-laden stance ensures that Tillich’s theological vision—particularly within a post-secular context marked by an intensified crisis of meaning—inevitably points toward the development of a public theology.

What is commonly referred to as “public theology” finds one of its most concise and illuminating formulations in Wolfgang Vögele’s definition: “Public theology is the reflection on Christianity’s action and its effects as they enter the various public spheres of society” (Vögele 1994, pp. 421–22). This definition itself suggests that public theology is not a monolithic discipline with a single authoritative definition, but rather a diverse intellectual constellation marked by significant internal differentiation and plural theoretical orientations. In this sense, reconstructing Tillich’s theology of culture—and his theoretical–practical approach to existential crises—as a resource for public theology does not imply classifying it as a conservative stance that seeks to dominate public affairs with traditional dogma. Nor does it signify a liberal program that simply embraces secular culture. Mirroring Tillich’s own existential and intellectual posture of “standing on the boundary,” his theology of culture can only unfold within the tension between these two poles. Admittedly, Tillich never explicitly assumed the mantle of a “public theologian” in the conventional sense, unlike his colleague at Union Theological Seminary, Reinhold Niebuhr, who was renowned for his direct engagement with political realism. Furthermore, his approach diverges from David Tracy’s focus on establishing theological intelligibility through public conversation within a pluralistic context (Tracy 1981), as well as from Max Stackhouse’s constructive path dedicated to providing normative ethical foundations for modern society (Stackhouse 2014). Nevertheless, in his manner of addressing “questions, dilemmas, and challenges of public significance,” there remains a distinctively “Tillichian” character (Polke 2022, p. 244). This character lies not in direct intervention in specific public policy debates, but rather in an ontological disclosure of the depth dimension underlying cultural systems. Consequently, Tillich’s method does not begin with public issues as such; instead, by ontologically reinterpreting ‘religion,’ it restores religion’s status as the depth dimension of culture, thereby establishing it as the fundamental entry point for the critique of modern cultural formations.

For Tillich, religion is neither an appendage of culture nor a sacral legitimation of a given cultural order. Rather, it is a mode of existence directed toward the Unconditional—that is, humanity’s “Ultimate Concern” (Tillich 1965, pp. 1–18). Expressed in ontological terms, the Unconditional denotes being-itself as the ground of being; in revelatory terms, it manifests as a divine paradoxical structure of simultaneous revelation and concealment. As Benedict XVI emphasizes in Introduction to Christianity, in the self-declaration “I am who I am” (Exod. 3:14), YHWH reveals—through the very name itself—this simultaneity of self-disclosure and self-concealment (Ratzinger 2004, pp. 116–22). Within Tillich’s symbolic theology, Jesus Christ does not supersede this primal revelatory structure but rather represents its condensed manifestation on the historical-existential level. The symbol of Christ does not objectify the Unconditional into a possessable entity; rather, it allows ultimate meaning to become manifest within finite history while preserving its inexhaustible hiddenness. In this sense, Christ stands as the highest symbolic realization of divine self-revelation without dissolving the transcendence of God as being-itself. Consequently, for Tillich, the task of the philosophy of religion lies not in an empirical or functional analysis of religious phenomena, but in grasping the foundational status of the Unconditional within all conditional forms. Methodologically, this task inherits German Classical Philosophy’s metaphysical inquiry into the rational structure of religion, while also incorporating existentialist insights into anxiety, meaninglessness, and human finitude. This dual approach endows the philosophy of religion with a “constructive” ontological mission, compelling it to respond to the deepest demands of human existence.

Accordingly, Tillich formulates the core thesis of his theology of culture: “Religion is the substance of culture and culture the form of religion” (Tillich 1948b, p. 57). In clarifying the relation between the two, he further explains: “If consciousness is directed toward the particular forms of meaning and their unity, we have to do with culture; if it is directed toward the unconditioned meaning, toward the import of meaning, we have religion” (Tillich 1973, p. 59). In other words, religion designates the unconditional depth of meaning, whereas culture bears its historical and formal articulation. Consequently, the two must maintain an intrinsic unity within any creative cultural activity. As James Luther Adams observes, for Tillich, “the authentic religion is by no means detached from ‘pulsating life’”, but rather expresses “the pulse beat of all meaningful existence” (Adams 1973, p. 12).

This intersection of substance and form is articulated in Tillich’s early thought as a dynamic structure mediated through spirit and meaning. As he states in Philosophy of Religion, “Every spiritual act is an act of meaning” (Tillich 1973, p. 56). Cultural activity, accordingly, consists of the organization and formation of meaning-structures by the human spirit in both theoretical and practical modes. Religion, by contrast, functions as the fundamental orientation toward unconditioned meaning, or the import of meaning, and thus constitutes the deep source from which all acts of meaning ultimately arise. In this sense, religion both grounds the possibility of meaningful forms and, by virtue of its transcendence, continually resists exhaustion by any finite form, thereby sustaining the openness of meaning within cultural activity. As Tillich’s thought deepens toward an explicitly ontological level, this early analysis of “meaning-acts” is further transformed in Systematic Theology into an account of the existential principles of life itself, most notably in the tension between dynamics and form. For Tillich, dynamics is not a neutral mechanism of change, but the primordial principle of life as such, whereas form is perpetually threatened by solidification and abstraction (Slater 1999, p. 100). It is precisely in this sense that religion is understood as the grounding dimension through which cultural forms retain their generativity and openness, enabling culture to acquire concrete vitality within historical existence. It is on the basis of this understanding of the intrinsic relation between religion and culture that Tillich decisively departs from the typological mode of analysis characteristic of traditional theological ethics, unlike the static models outlined in H. Richard Niebuhr’s Christ and Culture—which tends to reduce this relation to external patterns such as “opposition,” “accommodation,” or “parallelism” (Niebuhr 2001)—Tillich is not primarily concerned with how religious subjects adapt to a given cultural order. Rather, his focus lies on how religious depth operates within the generation, disruption, and reconstruction of cultural life itself, exercising a decisive formative role from within.

Grounded in this vision of “dynamic interpenetration” that transcends external juxtaposition, Tillich proposes a more fundamental historical-ontological typology to analyze the structural configurations of religious depth and cultural forms within the historical process—namely, autonomy, heteronomy, and theonomy. These three do not represent static cultural types, but rather structural states of meaning that continuously unfold in history. Each articulates, in a distinct way, how depth enters—or fails to enter—form, and how form either bears, usurps, or obscures religious depth. Tillich frames this typology as three fundamental responses to the question of the “source of the law (nomos).” Autonomy declares the human being as the bearer of universal reason and the legislator of self-given law—a view inheriting the Kantian ideal of self-legislation, which regards the human subject as free insofar as it gives the law to itself. Heteronomy, by contrast, demands obedience to a law imposed by an alien authority. Theonomy transcends this binary opposition by asserting that “the superior law is, at the same time, the innermost law of man himself, rooted in the divine ground which is man’s own ground: the law of life transcends man, although it is, at the same time, his own” (Tillich 1948b, pp. 56–57). Accordingly, theonomy constitutes neither an external divine rule nor human self-legislation, but an adherence to an inner law that is simultaneously transcendent and foundational.

Within this framework, these three modes are not statically juxtaposed categories, but a dynamic tension-structure of the generation, estrangement, and renewal of meaning in history. The essence of heteronomous culture is the estrangement of meaning; it ossifies the Unconditional into external laws, institutions, or ideologies, subjecting human beings to conditioned realities disguised as the ultimate. The autonomous culture that arose in modernity emerged as a historical revolt against such estrangement, asserting the human spirit’s capacity to create meaning based on innate reason and existential depth. Tillich understands this ideal autonomy as “self-transcending autonomy” (Tillich 1948a, p. xvi), which, while originating from the Enlightenment tradition’s elevation of human subjectivity, infuses it with a theological dimension: its true direction is not self-referential but directed toward theonomy. Thus, theonomy represents the dialectical unity of autonomy and heteronomy at their very source. It does not abolish the freedom of autonomy but deepens it; it does not restore the coercion of heteronomy but transforms external authority into an inner ground. As Tillich writes, “A theonomous culture expresses in its creations an ultimate concern and a transcending meaning not as something strange but as its own spiritual ground” (Tillich 1948b, p. 57). For Tillich: “Autonomy which is aware of its divine ground is theonomy; but autonomy without the theonomous dimension degenerates into mere humanism” (Tillich 1968, p. 323).

This reveals the duality of the intrinsic structural tendency of autonomy: when it remains open to the depths of existence, it serves as a creative pathway toward theonomy; however, once autonomy severs its connection to depth, becoming empty and exhausted (Tillich 1948a, p. xvi), it slides into formal self-enclosure and ossification. In this vacuous autonomy, when finite forms usurp the status of the absolute, it descends into a pseudo-sacralized “quasi-heteronomy.” Its creative power is not annihilated but is employed to construct a self-absolutizing closed system. The secret of the spiritual dominion of modern capitalism is rooted precisely in this: it is not a simple negation of religion, but a demonic pseudo-religious structure that has lost its ultimate depth yet seized upon religious forms.

By typologically defining the states of “autonomy, heteronomy, and theonomy” throughout historical evolution, this model of religion–culture interaction not only constitutes the core methodology of Tillich’s theology of culture but also grants it deep legitimacy as a resource for public theology to scrutinize and intervene in historical reality. It is through this threefold structure that Tillich himself conducted a prophetic phenomenological analysis of the “demonic transformation” within the autonomous order of modern capitalism. Consequently, this analytical path leads us into the most challenging public issue of contemporary society—the estrangement of meaning in capitalism and its radicalized manifestation in the digital age.

3. The Demonic Transformation of Autonomy: A Theological Diagnosis of the Demonic Nature of Capitalism and Its Manifestations in the Digital Age

3.1. The Principle of Autonomy in Capitalist Society: Its Formation and Ontological Ground

In modern capitalist society, autonomy has become the primary principle permeating institutional structures, economic dynamics, and the deep logic of spirit and culture. As a historical achievement of liberation from external authority, it originally symbolized the openness of human creative freedom to the depth of existence. However, with the development of capitalism, this principle has gradually severed its vital connection to this ground, and through the processes of rationalization, secularization, and de-sacralization, has been divested of its sacred dimension. Autonomy no longer serves as a pathway to the transcendent but is reduced to a dimension of pure finitude. As Tillich acutely observes, “the will to religious transformation of the world has become autonomous politics, economics, and technology” (Tillich 1971b, p. 4). Accordingly, in The Religious Situation, he characterizes the spiritual essence of capitalism as “self-sufficient finitude” (Tillich 1932, p. 78)—a fundamental orientation that seeks ultimate meaning within the finite world itself. This diagnosis closely parallels Max Weber’s account of the “spirit of capitalism,” understood not as the ethos of a particular class or party, but as a basic and ultimate attitude toward the world. Underpinning this spiritual structure is the tripartite system upon which capitalism operates. As Tillich notes: “These three belong together, for science is a servant of technique in which it also celebrates its greatest triumphs, while technique is a servant of the economy and makes possible the development of a world-embracing economic system. The carrier of this three-fold activity, which is in turn supported and established by it, is capitalist society” (Tillich 1932, pp. 13–14). Through this interlocking triad—science, technology, and economy—modern capitalist society consolidates a basic conviction concerning the “infinite manipulability of finite things.” At both the institutional and cultural levels, this conviction reinforces the legitimacy of the principle of autonomy, making it the core paradigm for understanding the world, organizing society, and constructing meaning.

In The Socialist Decision, Tillich further traces the deep sources of this capitalist autonomous attitude, pointing out that its establishment relies on the double dissolution of two major tensions at the root of political thought: first, the “myth of origin” (Tillich 1977, p. 4) concerning the question of “Whence” we come; and second, the “unconditional demand” (Tillich 1977, p. 5) concerning the question of “Whither” we go. The former symbolizes the positioning of the human being within the ground of existence, endowing history with sacred legitimacy; the latter embodies the transcendent summons found in the prophetic tradition and Christian eschatological consciousness, calling upon humanity to seek the unconditionally new that has not yet come into being but ought to be fulfilled in history (Tillich 1977, p. 4). In the development of capitalism, however, both tensions are simultaneously eroded. Although the myth of origin is broken by the critique of the bourgeois principle, this critique does not lead to the “true origin” of being; rather, it merely negates the structure of the “real origins” which had been traditionally sanctified (Tillich 1977, p. 5). At the same time, the bourgeois principle dissolves the formative power of origin—the very foundation of meaning itself—reducing it to rationally manageable finite forms oriented toward efficiency, control, and utility (Tillich 1977, p. 48). This reduction severs the ontological bond between the human being and the true origin, while the unconditional demand is enclosed within the logic of endless progress in the finite world, degenerating into a “harmonistic belief” that functions to uphold the existing order. This double reduction implies that the openness of history is structurally erased, trapping humanity in a self-circulation of finite forms. It is in this sense that capitalism establishes its ultimate attitude of autonomy: the super-individual, the free market, and technical rationality are enshrined as the only legitimate sources of meaning, while the connection between the human being and the Ultimate, the depth, and the ground of existence is systematically severed. Tillich acutely points out that under capitalist rule, “man hovers lonely over himself, attempting to secure the fulfillment of his own meaning by his own power” (Tillich 1998b, pp. 176–77). Yet, this endeavor is doomed to failure and inevitably leads to the total estrangement of existence and culture.

Consequently, capitalism represents more than a social predicament of instrumental rationality; it signifies an ontological usurpation that occurs when the principle of autonomy is severed from the depths of existence. No longer serving as a creative form leading toward self-transcendence, autonomy instead recoils to enclose the depth, allowing finite forms to exceed their inherent limits and move toward self-absolutization. It is in this precise sense that Tillich asserts: “The fundamental demonic phenomenon of the present day is the autonomy of the capitalistic economic system, with all its contradictions, and the mass disintegration and destruction of meaning in all spheres of historical existence which it produces” (Tillich 1990a, p. 47).

3.2. The Demonic Structure of Capitalist Autonomous Society

The social critique constructed by Tillich, based on his dynamic model of religion and culture, is not a mere accumulation of multidisciplinary social theories. Rather, with theological ontology at its core and guided by the “Protestant principle,”5 it integrates rational critique and Christian prophetic critique into an internally unified analytical framework. Within this framework, rational critique is responsible for revealing the logic of estrangement in cultural forms within specific historical situations, thereby preventing the analysis from sliding into abstract moral condemnation. Prophetic critique, meanwhile, introduces the unconditional demand, providing ultimate seriousness and a transcendent criterion for rational analysis. It is precisely upon this methodological configuration that Tillich’s diagnosis of the “demonic” structure of capitalism becomes tenable.

In Tillich’s view, the demonic does not refer to an external or moralized force of “evil,” nor to a supernatural entity in the traditional theological sense. Rather, it designates an ontological and structural dynamic: when finite forms sever themselves from the depth of being and transgress their inherent limits, creative power undergoes a self-reversal. This understanding of the demonic is firmly situated within a distinct trajectory of theological and philosophical reflection. While Tillich inherits Augustine’s non-substantialist conception of evil as privatio boni, he simultaneously draws on Jakob Böhme’s and Schelling’s distinction between Grund and Abgrund to interpret evil as the alienated historical manifestation of an inner tension within divine life itself.6

Tillich first systematically proposes the ontological definition of the demonic, characterizing it as a “unity of form-creating and form-destroying strength” (Tillich 1936b, p. 81). The core of this concept lies in a dual understanding of the ground of being: it is simultaneously the ground (Grund) that supports all things and the abyss (Abgrund) that potentially devours all forms. When the ground and the abyss remain unified in their depth, life opens toward the Unconditional, manifesting its sacred creativity. However, when the abyss severs itself from the ground and erupts within existence against the form, creative power is distorted into an anti-divine impulse—this is the genesis of the demonic (Tillich 1936b, p. 84). The demonic, therefore, manifests as a pseudo-sacrality: it continues to employ symbols, rituals, collective emotions, and sacrificial structures, capable of inspiring ecstasy, commitment, and communal identity. Yet, its object is no longer directed toward the Unconditional; instead, it elevates a finite thing into the center of ultimate power (Tillich 1971a, p. 66). For this reason, Tillich distinguishes the “demonic” from the purely destructive “satanic”: the demonic does not simply negate form but parasitically inhabits it, producing pseudo-sacral structures from within (Tillich 1936b, p. 80). This definition establishes the ontological foundation for understanding the alienation of cultural and institutional phenomena in history.

In his later Systematic Theology, Tillich further summarizes this pseudo-sacral character of the demonic, defining it as the claim to divinity on a finite basis—that is, the elevating of a finite element to the power and significance of the infinite (Tillich 1967, p. 103). Tillich subsequently warns that such elevation inevitably precipitates an interminable fragmentation of forms, conflict, and domination; it constitutes the deep structural logic underlying modern cultural and social estrangement.

On the basis of this definition, the capitalist order constitutes a paradigmatic embodiment of the demonic structure in modern society. In the developmental trajectory of capitalism, the creative impulses that originally belong to the power of being—desire, agency, and the capacity for technological and institutional innovation—are severed from the depth of being and reabsorbed into the logic of the endless expansion of finite forms. Autonomy thus ceases to orient itself toward self-transcendence and instead degenerates into a form of technical rationality, one that transforms personhood and social relations into manageable, predictable, and exchangeable “objects.” While the Frankfurt School incisively exposed the tendency of Enlightenment reason to devolve into a mechanism of domination, Tillich presses the analysis further by probing the ontological root of this degradation. Once the sacred content of culture is evacuated, the repressed forces of the abyss reemerge, causing creative potential to slide into finite forms that absolutize themselves. As he writes, “as the divine import of theonomy is dissipated, the demonic import that was previously subjected breaks forth from the life ground and uses autonomous form for the destruction of form” (Tillich 1971a, p. 67). It is precisely within this profound rupture between autonomous culture and its religious substance that finite forms—such as capital, technology, efficiency, and institutional order—strive for a pseudo-religious sacramental meaning and are elevated to ultimate value, thereby constituting what Tillich describes as the structure of “infinite finitude” (Tillich 1932, p. 73). In this sense, capitalism accomplishes a decisive symbolic transformation:

• It retains the symbolic function of religion while divesting it of its depth-oriented reference to the Unconditional;
• It offers meaning, ritual, and forms of communal identification, yet binds them to the logic of capital accumulation;
• It evokes devotion, sacrifice, and ecstasy while directing them toward the infinite expansion of finitude itself.

Therefore, the core of capitalism’s demonic character does not lie in any conventional moral conception of corruption, but in a profound cultural–ontological distortion: finite forms, deprived of depth, divinize themselves and manifest “the sacred antidivine” (Tillich 1973, p. 85), reshaping the cultural-symbolic structures—mythos, value systems, legal mechanisms, collective emotions—that once pointed toward the Unconditional. Through the combined force of technical rationality and institutional power, capitalism thus constructs a unity of form-creation and form-destruction. It is for this reason that Tillich insists that the autonomous capitalist order is no longer merely a symbol of secularity, but a symbol of the demonic and the anti-divine (Tillich 1932, p. 22). This distortion is not exclusive to capitalism as such, but it attains a uniquely institutionalized and systematized form within capitalist society.7

Tillich further points out that this “sacred anti-divine” inevitably engenders infinite conflict: as every finite power attempts to absolutize itself and negate the other, the demonic logic of division is fully unleashed. The class struggle within capitalist society constitutes precisely the historical manifestation of this logic (Tillich 1948c, p. 168). It institutionalizes the “struggle for existence” into a coercive structure of conflict, elevating the expansion of interests to an unconditional end in which “no one can avoid having a part in it” (Tillich 1948c, p. 168). Within this structure, the worker endures not merely material exploitation but an ontological alienation—characterized by objectification and domination—while confronting the abyss of total meaninglessness (Tillich 1998b, pp. 177–79). For Tillich, the situation of the proletariat is therefore not merely an economic phenomenon but a symbol of the human situation as a whole and its threatened character (Tillich 1998b, p. 177). Ultimately, this generalized conflict and sense of meaninglessness reveal that the entire autonomous order has become “demonically possessed”—representing the deepest, most hidden, and most intractable pathology of capitalism.

Taken together, Tillich’s diagnosis of the demonic structure of capitalism not only incorporates Marx’s insight into alienation and Weber’s analysis of the “iron cage” of rationalization, but reconstructs them as an ontological symptom—namely, a structural rupture between autonomous culture and its religious ground. This critical trajectory remains consistently rooted in threatened existence as it is concretely experienced, above all in the alienated condition of the proletariat, and it interprets economic domination as a symbolic expression of a collapse in the meaning of being. Precisely for this reason, this diagnostic model—grounded in ontological depth—not only discloses the deep structure of capitalism’s demonic character but also provides an indispensable theoretical point of entry for understanding the contemporary absolutization of finite forms in digital capitalism, particularly in the algorithmic and platform-based configurations of power.

3.3. Contemporary Manifestations of Capitalist Demonic Structures: Pseudo-Sacralized Formations in the Digital Age

Within the historical constellation dominated by digital capitalism, the demonic structure of capitalism has not receded with technological advancement; on the contrary, it has acquired unprecedented forms of internalization and automation through algorithmic architectures and platform logics. In accordance with Tillich’s ontological framework, the demonic does not denote an independently acting entity within history—nor does it entail anthropomorphizing platforms or algorithms as autonomous agents—but rather refers to “a pattern of forces in history, both human and suprahuman” (Slater 1999, p. 103). As such, it encompasses both intentional human action and those structural, supra-individual powers that have slipped beyond human control and, in turn, come to dominate human life. Judged by this criterion, the demonic by no means names a simple moral indictment of technology or algorithms. Instead, it designates the structural efficacy of finite forms that absolutize themselves. Accordingly, the pathology of digital capitalism is not rooted in digital technology as such, but in the way finite forms mobilize and govern digital technologies and their operational mechanisms, subordinating them to the self-accelerating imperatives of capital, efficiency, and control. As Shoshana Zuboff puts it, “we hunt the puppet master, not the puppet” (Zuboff 2019, p. 14). To bring Tillich’s diagnosis into the present, therefore, is to disclose the deeper logic that manipulates these “digital puppets”: namely, the manner in which finite forms, through technologically generated illusions of ultimacy, systematically foreclose existence’s openness to the Unconditional.

This provokes a more fundamental ontological inquiry: How does this automated architecture reconstruct the guise of the “sacred” at a deeper level? Here lies an ontological complicity: capital provides the demonic “dynamics”—the infinite desire for expansion—while algorithms and data provide the demonic “form,” rationalizing this greed into an irresistible historical inevitability through a seemingly objective and automated logic. Therefore, what we witness in algorithmic hegemony and platform logic is neither simple technocracy nor naked capitalist violence, but rather a technical reason “possessed” by the will of capital—representing the ultimate contemporary manifestation of the “demonic” structure defined by Tillich. First, digital capitalism solidifies ideological narratives of harmony, progress, and historical inevitability through the construction and dissemination of technological myths, thereby further advancing the autonomous principle’s dissolution of the dimension of origin. Within this mythic structure, technological progress is presented as a self-sufficient historical driver; by integrating social experiences, values, and beliefs, ideological narratives construct a “picture of reality” that predetermines collective modes of world-understanding (Anamofa et al. 2025, p. 21). Technology corporations such as Amazon repeatedly frame themselves as pioneers of a better future, embedding visions of “technological salvation” into everyday experience (Haiven et al. 2024, pp. 329–31). As a result, technological myth no longer remains an external discursive claim but gradually crystallizes into a digitized reality that is perceived, internalized, and largely shielded from critique. Second, algorithmic recommendation systems, platform logics, and AI-generated mechanisms—through the continuous monitoring of behavior (Zuboff 2019, pp. 52–55), the systematic capture of attention (Williams 2018), the reconfiguration of affective attachment (Stiegler 2014, pp. 10–13), and the cultivation of ritualized practices (Couldry 2003)—enable pseudo-sacral forms that serve capital expansion, such as consumerism, the cult of visibility and metrics, and instrumental utilitarianism, to achieve stable reproduction within highly secularized societies in a covert and automated manner. In this process, pseudo-sacrality no longer depends on explicit declarations of belief; instead, under the banners of “technological neutrality” and “user convenience,” it quietly occupies the core of meaning-construction and value-prioritization. Technical rationality thus undergoes a decisive transformation—from an instrumental principle into a de facto ultimate arbiter—thereby establishing a highly penetrative “digital Leviathan”–like sacred contract.

Under the dominance of the pseudo-sacral structures outlined above, the crisis generated by digital capitalism manifests itself first and foremost as a systemic erosion of autonomous decision-making. In the very process by which the principle of autonomy becomes hollowed out, it not only fails to realize genuine self-determination, but instead intensifies autonomy’s transformation into alienation, ultimately sliding into a quasi-heteronomy justified in the name of “efficiency” and “personalization.” In the age of digital capitalism, what one chooses is no longer a matter of pure volitional agency but is structurally shaped by multiple external forces. Individuals are reconfigured through invisible mechanisms of consumption and algorithmic persuasion, resulting in the erosion of financial autonomy; in the sphere of labor, workers are compelled to perform under conditions of pervasive surveillance, whereby the freedom of labor is converted into a passive adaptation to systemic demands (Henaway 2023). In the political domain, the circulation of disinformation and manipulated news further “undermines deliberative democracy” (Habermas 2021). As Zuboff observes, a new species of power called “instrumentarianism” operates by continuously shaping behavior so that human action is directed toward ends defined by others, thereby constituting a fundamental erosion of popular sovereignty (Zuboff 2019, p. 8).

This erosion extends further into the deep structure of attention itself. The traffic-driven logic of digital platforms persistently captures and exploits human desire and action, progressively compressing the space for reflection and self-orientation—so much so that the attention economy may be understood as seeking “the capture and exploitation of human desires, actions, decisions, and ultimately lives,” a dynamic that can aptly be viewed as a form of human trafficking. The danger generated by the extreme abundance of information lies precisely in the gradual loss of human control over the processes of consciousness. In this sense, James Williams argues that the attention economy not only “directly militates against the foundations of democracy and justice,” but also “undermines the fundamental capacities that function as the preconditions of self-determination at both the individual and collective levels” (Williams 2018, p. 80). It thereby stands in the way of the light of our attention, making it increasingly difficult—to borrow the formulation of Harry Frankfurt—to “want what we want to want” (Williams 2018, p. xii).

Furthermore, the pseudo-sacral structure within digital capitalism is manifested in the universalization and ontological deepening of the condition of the “digital proletariat.” In Tillich’s view, the proletariat designates not merely an economically impoverished class, but more significantly, those groups that have lost their existential center. Within this specific configuration of capitalism, value and profit are highly concentrated in the hands of a “digital aristocracy” (Schreyer 2024, pp. 265–66). Platform logics further exacerbate structural inequality (Srnicek 2017), causing this existential situation to be institutionalized and universally diffused, with the result that the proletariat no longer refers to a determinate social stratum but evolves into a generalized and diffuse social condition. The core of this condition lies in the fact that human beings are thoroughly stripped of their ground of life and reduced to functional components within circuits of data circulation. As Zuboff warns, “an information civilization shaped by surveillance capitalism and its new instrumentarian power will thrive at the expense of human nature and will threaten to cost us our humanity” (Zuboff 2019, pp. 11–12). In this sense, the crisis of meaning is transformed into a more profound historical crisis—one in which humanity, captivated by the illusion of total autonomy, advances toward a condition of total alienation.

In a landscape where the search box functions as a new “confessional,” recommendation systems operate as invisible “oracles,” smart devices serve as “micro-altars,” and the acts of refreshing and liking are transformed into automated practices of worship, the near-fanatical “ecstasy” induced by this pseudo-sacral structure must by no means be misconstrued as the religious revival anticipated by the post-secular era. The post-secular condition itself possesses no inherent normativity; it merely signals the shattering of the myth regarding the self-sufficiency of secular reason, without resolving the question of which structure of meaning ought to fill the resulting vacuum. Consequently, to effectively address this crisis, the mainstream Habermasian post-secular proposal—which conceptualizes religion as “semantic resources” capable of being assimilated by public reason and introduced into public discourse through a process of “translation”—betrays structural theoretical limitations.8 For the current crisis is not one of semantic deficit, but a form of demonic possession at the ontological level. As previously demonstrated, the manipulation of “digital puppets” does not stem from linguistic barriers or communicative breakdown; rather, it is rooted in a structural alienation of deeper motivational forces. Therefore, the introduction of Tillich’s concept of the demonic is not motivated by moral condemnation or cultural pessimism but aims to uncover a more fundamental mechanism of alienation: the structural technologization and absolutization of meaning production itself. It is precisely within the context of this diagnosis that the “symbolic resistance” emphasized by Tillich’s Religious Socialism reveals its contemporary significance. It points not to a simplistic translation of religious language, but to an ontological opening of the obscured depth of being through the theological practice of de-idolization. Thereby, religion is no longer subsumed into the existing order as a supplementary “semantic resource,” but emerges as a fundamental critical force against the pseudo-sacral structure of digital capitalism—a premise that constitutes the theoretical starting point for Part IV of this article.

4. The Symbolic Response of Theonomy: Religious Socialism and the Overcoming of Capitalism’s Demonic Structure

Within the contemporary crisis formed by the intersection of digital capitalism and the post-secular condition, the central question is no longer merely whether religious resources should be invoked, but rather how—among the plurality of possible theological responses—one might identify a path capable of effectively addressing the structural distortions of contemporary capitalism. Given the systematic occlusion of the depth of being produced by the “digital Leviathan,” Paul Tillich’s cultural theology—aimed at unveiling the demonic and reconstructing theonomy—displays a distinctive diagnostic acuity and capacity for intervention. Accordingly, the task of transforming religious socialism into a critically oriented resource for public theology emerges as a paradigmatic constructive response to the overcoming of the demonic distortions of autonomy.

Building upon the ontological definition of the relationship between form and substance established above, we observe further that, within the framework of Tillich’s theology of culture, no cultural form—whether political institutions, artistic expressions, literary narratives, or educational systems—can remain neutral with regard to religious meaning. Culture is constituted as such precisely because its symbolic structure is invariably the bearer of ultimate concern, either revealing the depth of being or, conversely, obscuring and usurping it. Correspondingly, the critical and creative power of religion can attain historical efficacy only through the mediation of concrete cultural forms. Consequently, when the autonomous structure of capitalism degenerates into the demonic morphology of pseudo-sacrality, the judgment and grace of religion—understood as the dual forces of negation and affirmation—must achieve concrete expression within a specific historical structure.

In this context, Tillich asserts that “Demonic structures in the personal and communal life cannot be broken by acts of freedom and goodwill. They are strengthened by such acts—except when the changing power is a divine structure, that is, a structure of grace” (Tillich 1967, p. 103). He emphasizes with equal force that grace is not confined to the ecclesiastical sphere; indeed, certain secular movements may reveal the possibility of divine activity even more clearly than in the sphere of explicit religion (Tillich 1971c, p. 44). It is precisely within this theological horizon that religious socialism secures its distinctive legitimacy. It functions neither as a political party nor as an endeavor seeking a mere external alliance between Christianity and socialism. Rather, it acts to clarify and ground the intrinsic correlation between the two at the depth of religious metaphysics and the philosophy of history, thereby actualizing the path of a “synthesis of religion and culture” through a process of mutual interpenetration and deepening. As Tillich formulates it: “Religious Socialism is the attempt to understand socialism from the standpoint of religion, to shape it from this understanding, and to give concrete form to religious principles in social reality” (Tillich 1998b, p. 169).

For Tillich, socialism manifests as a “religious movement” precisely because it structurally embodies the inherent duality of religion itself: it functions both as the negative demand of the Unconditional upon existence and as its affirmative support (Tillich 1998b, p. 171). On the one hand, the radical alienation of personality within the autonomous capitalist society finds its most extreme expression in the condition of the proletariat; socialist struggle thus becomes a judgmental disclosure of the depth of being against meaninglessness. On the other hand, it points toward a social order in which freedom, justice, and meaning may be realized, thereby serving as a historical expression of the affirmative support of the Unconditional. Accordingly, Religious Socialism seeks to unite the radical and transcendent character of the religious idea with a will to shape the world in history (Tillich 1971c, p. 55). In this way, it affects a functional transformation of religious meaning into historical dynamics, enabling ultimate concern to attain concrete and efficacious practical expression within social movements themselves.

Thereby, in responding to the call of the Unconditional, Tillich undertakes a religious reformulation of socialist principles, enabling them to transcend the inherent limitations of bourgeois principles and to offer a redemptive correction to self-absolutized autonomy. In The Socialist Decision (1933), he distills the symbolic expression of this principle into the notion of “expectation” (Tillich 1977, p. 101). Expectation functions neither as a mere strategy nor as an abstract ideal, but as an orientation of action driven by faith—one that unifies the response to the Unconditional and intervention in the concrete situation into a holistic theological structure. This embodies the “belief-ful realism” (Tillich 1932, p. 82) articulated in The Religious Situation (1926): genuine religious faith does not flee from reality but discloses ultimate meaning within it, intervening in history with a transcendent power that both judges and shapes historical existence (Stone 1980, p. 56).

Furthermore, the reason the notion of expectation constitutes the core dynamic of religious socialism lies precisely in its effectuation of a threefold transcendent breakthrough against bourgeois principles: (1) It reactivates the power of origin (Ursprung) that has been systematically dissolved within the autonomous structure of capitalism. It recalls the subject from the closed cycle of formal self-sufficiency back to an ontological correlation with the depth of being, thereby restoring its transcendent dimension directed toward the Unconditional. (2) It shatters the bourgeois myth of pseudo-unity characterized by “harmony,” “order,” and the “neutralization of conflict.” It exposes that the integration beneath this seemingly contradiction-free surface is a false peace that conceals exploitation, represses historical struggle, and masks alienated reality; expectation thus becomes a critical structure that tears away the veil of ideology and restores historical tension. (3) It takes the response to the call of unconditional justice as its inner core, ensuring that the reconstruction of social relations is no longer subject to the logic of profit maximization and efficiency, but rather grounds judgment and practice in a transcendent ethical imperative. In this sense, expectation is not merely a symbolic stance but a historical power capable of overcoming the logic of bourgeois autonomy, opening up a space of new possibilities amidst the rupture of crisis. Therefore, the goal of religious socialism is neither a regression to the heteronomous structure of external divine rule nor submission to the self-enclosure of capitalist autonomy. Rather, it seeks to maintain openness to the presence of theonomy within the fissures, conflicts, and critical points of history, enabling practice to retain its capacity to point toward redemption and renewal within reality.

The aim of theonomy within religious socialism is not a technical substitution for the capitalist system, nor a utopian projection of a historical end-state, but the reconstruction of a new order of meaning: the re-saturation of hollowed-out cultural forms with ultimate meaning, and the reunification of religious depth with cultural forms so as to generate a form of “self-transcending autonomy.” This symbolic horizon finds its concentrated expression in the vision of a classless society—a society in which “the vital power of every person and every group can be realized” (Tillich 1998c, p. 198). What is thereby reconstituted is not merely an economic arrangement but an entire order of meaning, a fundamental overcoming of the meaninglessness produced by capitalist autonomy.

Tillich rejects the modernist narrative of linear progress. For him, “transcendence” is always marked by paradox: theonomy manifests within history and yet forever transcends it; it makes use of historical forms as its medium yet is never exhausted by them. Theonomy is thus neither located outside history nor capable of full realization within it; every historical manifestation can only disclose symbolic fragments of it. In this sense, Tillich avoids allowing religious socialism to collapse into ideological closure while simultaneously resisting the historical determinism of scientific socialism. As Stone observes, with regard to the question of historical redemption, Tillich is in a sense more “realistic” than Marx (Stone 1980, p. 62): he insists upon the openness of the transcendent while refusing to collapse it into a final state of history.

Taken together, religious socialism emerges not merely as a mode of social critique but as a symbolic reconstruction of religious meaning itself: it reactivates cultural forms so that the critical, judicial, and creative dimensions of religion may regain historical efficacy in an age dominated by the demonic autonomy of capitalism. Its mission is not to bring history to completion, but to sustain an open tension toward theonomy amid history’s incompleteness and fractures.

5. From Religious Socialism to Ontological Resistance in the Digital Age

As a steadfast advocate of religious socialism, Tillich consistently struggled for the theonomic vision expressed in the confession that “God is all in all.” For him, theonomy is not a final model capable of institutional realization within history, but a creation experienced in kairos as both given and demanded—as something “near at hand” (Tillich 1971a, p. 61). Kairos9 thus bore the religious socialist expectation of historical turning points and eschatological revolution. In the aftermath of the First World War, Tillich initially perceived the proximity of a new theonomic possibility: the destabilization of the old order seemed to signal the impending end of the autonomous structures of capitalism. Yet with the rise of National Socialism and the outbreak of the Second World War, this expectation was shattered. His friend Emanuel Hirsch went so far as to sacralize the Nazi regime as the realization of the “will of God,” thereby radically perverting the paradoxical meaning of kairos that religious socialism had sought to preserve. In the midst of this historical disillusionment, Tillich did not abandon the transcendent orientation of religious socialism, nor did he relinquish its expectation of kairos. Rather, he transformed what had originally been a politically directed expectation into a theological symbol, thereby redirecting the aim of religious socialism away from concrete historical programs toward a posture of watchfulness and discernment of the presence of the Transcendent within what he would describe as the “sacred void” (Tillich 1998a, p. 527),—a stance that today emerges as the first line of defense against a digital world fully saturated by technical immanence. Accordingly, its unfinishedness no longer signified the failure of a political project; it became the very core of its theological openness—an enduring sensitivity and expectancy for the nearness of the Transcendent, sustained in the tension of “the courage to be” and “realism of faith.”

Yet this reorientation also exposes the structural dilemmas inherent within religious socialism itself. First, although it perceptively discerned the “rupture of the order of meaning” borne by the proletariat, it did not sufficiently penetrate the institutional roots of capitalist alienation, thereby limiting its capacity to articulate a materially grounded economic critique. Second, insofar as it regards the manifestation of theonomy as the ultimate ground for overcoming the demonic, religious socialism—at the level of historical–political realization—remains caught in a persistent oscillation between “history” and “eternity,” thus giving rise to a paradox of an ever-approaching yet never fully attainable presence. Third, despite Tillich’s self-description as one who “stands at the boundary between theory and practice” (Tillich 1936a, pp. 17–22), the practical dimension of his religious socialism lacked organizational grounding and mass mobilizing power, making it difficult to generate sustained forces of social transformation. Finally, when the response to the “unconditional demand” becomes detached from concrete historical situations and redirected toward an abstract return to essence, religious socialism also risks being absorbed into the symbolic economy of modern ideology, functioning as a resource for the stabilization rather than the disruption of the existing order. As Bonhoeffer sharply remarked, Tillich “attempted to shape the world religiously”, yet “was thrown from the saddle by reality” (Schüßler 2011, p. 39); and Barth was even more severe, arguing that religious socialism “diluted the purity of the Gospel,” allowing the divine will to be subtly transformed into an ideological logic (Stumme 1978, p. 29).

These structural dilemmas have frequently placed religious socialism in comparative dialogue with Liberation Theology, which places a stronger emphasis on praxis-oriented engagement and concrete historical strategies. Although Liberation Theology emerged later than religious socialism, the two share a striking resonance in their concern for social justice and political emancipation—above all in their common insistence that the situation of the oppressed constitutes a decisive entry point for understanding the crises of modern society. Yet a significant divergence remains. Whereas Liberation Theology takes the historical experience of the oppressed as the immediate starting point of theological reflection, Tillich’s religious socialism tends to interpret the proletarian condition as a concentrated manifestation of an ontological rupture of meaning, through which the comprehensive alienation of modern capitalist meaning-structures is disclosed. Precisely at this point of difference, the more explicit sociological analytical frameworks and capacities for class-based mobilization developed within Liberation Theology objectively compensate—at the level of institutional critique and political practice—for a certain “suspensive” quality in Tillich’s analysis of the economic roots of alienation. As Gustavo Gutiérrez famously argues in A Theology of Liberation, theology ought to be understood as a form of critical reflection on historical praxis (Gutiérrez 1988, pp. 5–11). By incorporating structural social analysis, Liberation Theology is thus able to address more directly the institutional foundations of capitalist oppression and to confer upon theology a clear primacy of praxis. Within this paradigm, theology no longer primarily undertakes an ontological clarification of meaning, but is transformed into a motivating force for concrete historical transformation. In this respect, Liberation Theology undeniably compensates—at the level of political organization and practical efficacy—for the symbolic reserve and transcendent restraint that Tillich’s religious socialism deliberately maintains. Nevertheless, this apparent superiority at the level of institutional analysis and strategic praxis does not fully respond to the deepening forms of spiritual alienation characteristic of digital capitalism. When domination no longer manifests itself primarily as explicit material exploitation—the paradigmatic concern of Liberation Theology—but rather as a systematic occlusion of the subject’s depth of being through algorithmic governance and technological modulation, a purely “praxis-first” approach risks being neutralized or absorbed by the very logic of technical rationality it seeks to resist. It is precisely at this juncture that Tillich’s seemingly “suspended” cultural theology—aimed at unveiling the demonic and reconstructing theonomy—reveals an irreplaceable “value of the void”: a critical resource that resists subsumption by digital-capitalist pseudo-sacrality at the level of meaning itself.

Accordingly, the significance of religious socialism did not vanish with its political setbacks. On the contrary, its very unfinishedness constitutes its deepest theoretical legacy. This unfinishedness secures the demands of freedom and justice within the dimension of the Unconditional; it restores religion’s symbolic capacity to enter the public sphere through a dialectical synthesis of religion and culture; and it sustains a productive tension between historical action and transcendent meaning through an open structure articulated as kairos–expectation–symbolic manifestation. It is precisely this threefold constellation of theological resources that enables religious socialism, in its unfinished character, to retain an enduring potential for critique and reconstruction. From this perspective, rereading religious socialism in the contemporary post-secular context is not an attempt to replicate its specific historical–political blueprint. Rather, it aims to activate its contemporary theoretical potential by transforming it into a framework of public theology capable of piercing the veils of meaning produced by digital alienation, while sustaining a critical tension between negation and construction:

(1)

It provides a set of de-idolizing critical principles. Tillich insists that all cultural forms symbolically bear ultimate concern; consequently, any form of self-enclosure is liable to slide into mechanisms of pseudo-sacralization. In contrast to public-reason approaches that focus primarily on linguistic translation, religious socialism employs the criterion of the unconditional demand—human dignity and absolute justice—and proceeds from concrete human situations. In doing so, it can systematically disclose and dismantle structures of usurpation operative within digital capitalism, thereby furnishing post-secular critique with a normatively grounded depth.

(2)

It reconstructs the public role and symbolic efficacy of religion. Religion is no longer confined to private belief, affective capital driven by algorithmic traffic, or identity markers, but is understood as the “depth dimension” of culture. Religious socialism maintains that the critical and creative powers of religion not only may, but must, intervene in social reality through symbolic practices. By affirming the creative potential of autonomy while simultaneously pointing toward the historical formation of grace, it offers a substantive response to a persistent dilemma in post-secular theory: how religion can participate in the public sphere without reverting to hegemony or clerical domination.

(3)

It articulates a hope-structure of fragmentary theonomy. For Tillich, theonomy is not a historical end-state, but becomes present in history through fragmentary appearances and symbolic modes of presence. Religious socialism, therefore, does not advance a closed utopian program—standing in sharp contrast to the digital utopianism of total optimization—but rather a practical theology that remains open, seeking the reconstruction of meaning amid crises. In this way, it enables the discernment of the nearness of transcendence even within conditions of rupture and fragmentation.

In sum, religious socialism should be reconstructed not merely as a historical experiment, but as a form of critical practical theology oriented toward the post-secular condition. By addressing the urgent task of re-anchoring the “depth of being” amid systemic meaning depletion, its very “unfinishedness” emerges as a vital theoretical contribution: an open framework that sustains the productive tension between transcendence and history, generating symbolic power between critique and creation.

6. Conclusions

This article has demonstrated—through a systematic reconstruction of Paul Tillich’s diagnosis of the demonic structures of the autonomous capitalist society—that the core of the modern crisis of meaning lies not in the decline of religion as such, but in the excessive self-sufficiency of cultural forms under the amplification of digital technologies, and in the resulting structural rupture between the depth of being and cultural expression. It is precisely within this fissure that religious socialism discloses its irreplaceable theological insight. It reveals digital capitalism to be not merely a system of economic exploitation, but a pseudo-sacral form of spiritual domination directed at the depths of being itself. At the same time, it offers a framework of symbolic resistance grounded in ultimate concern, through which religion can re-enter the public sphere as the depth dimension of culture, without retreating into supernaturalism.

The contribution of this study lies in showing that the “unfinishedness” of religious socialism should not be understood as a historical deficiency, but as an open structure of critical practical theology. Through a complementary engagement with Liberation Theology and a critical examination of Habermas’s post-secular paradigm, this research demonstrates that the theological resources Tillich bequeathed—centered on the constellation of kairos, expectation, and symbolic manifestation—derive their contemporary relevance precisely from their refusal to crystallize into a determinate political blueprint. It is this openness that allows religious socialism to be transformed, in the present context, into a public-theological paradigm capable of piercing regimes of meaning-occlusion, enabling the subject neither to be enclosed within technical rationality nor to retreat into cultural quietism, but instead to sustain the discernment of the nearness of the Transcendent at the points of historical rupture.

For this reason, rereading religious socialism under the combined pressures of digital capitalism and the post-secular condition acquires an unprecedented urgency. It is no longer merely an archival artifact of the Weimar period, but a living apparatus of spiritual resistance and meaning-reconstruction. Future research may build upon this ontological–critical framework by applying it to more concrete domains—such as algorithmic ethics, the governance of artificial intelligence, and cross-cultural conflicts of symbolic order—thereby further articulating its efficacy as a public-theological resource for confronting the erosive dynamics of techno-capitalist structures.