Symbol

==Paul Tillich==
[[Paul Tillich]] argued that, while signs are invented and forgotten, symbols are born and die.<ref>{{Cite book|title = Theology of Culture|url = https://archive.org/details/theologyofcultur0000paul|url-access = registration|last = Tillich|first = Paul|publisher = Oxford University Press|year = 1964|isbn = 0195007115|pages = [https://archive.org/details/theologyofcultur0000paul/page/58 58]}}</ref> There are, therefore, dead and living symbols. A living symbol can reveal to an individual hidden levels of meaning and transcendent or religious realities.  For Tillich a symbol always "points beyond itself" to something that is unquantifiable and mysterious; symbols open up the "depth dimension of reality itself".<ref>{{Cite book|title = Theology of Culture|url = https://archive.org/details/theologyofcultur0000paul|url-access = registration|last = Tillich|first = Paul|publisher = Oxford University Press|year = 1964|isbn = 0195007115|pages = [https://archive.org/details/theologyofcultur0000paul/page/59 59]}}</ref>  Symbols are complex, and their meanings can evolve as the individual or culture evolves. When a symbol loses its meaning and power for an individual or culture, it becomes a dead symbol.
When a symbol becomes identified with the deeper reality to which it refers, it becomes idolatrous as the "symbol is taken for reality." The symbol itself is substituted for the deeper meaning it intends to convey. The unique nature of a symbol is that it gives access to deeper layers of reality which are otherwise inaccessible.<ref>{{Cite book|title = Theology of Culture|url = https://archive.org/details/theologyofcultur0000paul|url-access = registration|last = Tillich|first = Paul|publisher = Oxford University Press|year = 1964|isbn = 0195007115|pages = [https://archive.org/details/theologyofcultur0000paul/page/54 54]}}</ref>