Religion, in itself, is an effort of humans to grasp God. Religion is man's attempt to reach God, and God's revelation is an attempt for God to reach man. Linguistic confusion and interpretation of the Bible's revelatory content may bring conflicting opinions among philosophers. Tillich believes revelation is more meaningful when humans can relate to in their current society, mindframe, or culture. Tillich feels the Bible in itself is extraordinarily dialectical.
Words are symbols that can be of different meanings at different times.
The nature of being, in the metaphysical or ontological sense to Tillich is that God is the only perfect One, man is not. The true substance, the essence of God is divine. Paradoxical, the seemingly false, but possibly true concept of Christianity compared to the dialectal, rational idea of reality is where the confusion lies in man. To accept Jesus Christ one earns salvation, without salvation one is subject to possible eternal damnation. Aporia, logos, ontology, and metaphysics are all key words in philosophy, all pointing to the nature of being.