Paul Johannes Tillich (August 20, 1886 – October
22, 1965) was a German-American Christian
existentialist philosopher and Lutheran Protestant
theologian who is widely regarded as one of
the most influential theologians of the twentieth
century.Among the general public, he is best
known for his works The Courage to Be (1952)
and Dynamics of Faith (1957), which introduced
issues of theology and modern culture to a
general readership. In academic theology,
he is best known for his major three-volume
work Systematic Theology (1951–63) in which
he developed his "method of correlation",
an approach of exploring the symbols of Christian
revelation as answers to the problems of human
existence raised by contemporary existential
philosophical analysis.
== Biography ==
Tillich was born on August 20, 1886, in the
small village of Starzeddel (Starosiedle),
Province of Brandenburg, which was then part
of Germany. He was the oldest of three children,
with two sisters: Johanna (born 1888, died
1920) and Elisabeth (born 1893). Tillich's
Prussian father Johannes Tillich was a conservative
Lutheran pastor of the Evangelical State Church
of Prussia's older Provinces; his mother Mathilde
Dürselen was from the Rhineland and more
liberal.
When Tillich was four, his father became superintendent
of a diocese in Bad Schönfliess (now Trzcińsko-Zdrój,
Poland), a town of three thousand, where Tillich
began secondary school (Elementarschule).
In 1898, Tillich was sent to Königsberg in
der Neumark (now Chojna, Poland) to begin
his gymnasium schooling. He was billeted in
a boarding house and experienced a loneliness
that he sought to overcome by reading the
Bible while encountering humanistic ideas
at school.In 1900, Tillich's father was transferred
to Berlin, resulting in Tillich switching
in 1901 to a Berlin school, from which he
graduated in 1904. Before his graduation,
however, his mother died of cancer in September
1903, when Tillich was 17. Tillich attended
several universities — the University of
Berlin beginning in 1904, the University of
Tübingen in 1905, and the University of Halle-Wittenberg
from 1905 to 1907. He received his Doctor
of Philosophy degree at the University of
Breslau in 1911 and his Licentiate of Theology
degree at Halle-Wittenberg in 1912. During
his time at university, he became a member
of the Wingolf in Berlin, Tübingen and Halle.That
same year, 1912, Tillich was ordained as a
Lutheran minister in the Province of Brandenburg.
On 28 September 1914 he married Margarethe
("Grethi") Wever (1888–1968), and in October
he joined the Imperial German Army as a chaplain
during World War I. Grethi deserted Tillich
in 1919 after an affair that produced a child
not fathered by Tillich; the two then divorced.
Tillich's academic career began after the
war; he became a Privatdozent of Theology
at the University of Berlin, a post he held
from 1919 to 1924. On his return from the
war he had met Hannah Werner-Gottschow, then
married and pregnant. In March 1924 they married;
it was the second marriage for both. She later
wrote a book entitled From Time to Time about
their life together, which included their
commitment to open marriage, upsetting to
some; despite this, they remained together
into old age.From 1924 to 1925, Tillich served
as a Professor of Theology at the University
of Marburg, where he began to develop his
systematic theology, teaching a course on
it during the last of his three terms. From
1925 until 1929, Tillich was a Professor of
Theology at the Dresden University of Technology
and the University of Leipzig. He held the
same post at the University of Frankfurt from
1929 to 1933. Paul Tillich was in conversation
with Erich Przywara.While at the University
of Frankfurt, Tillich gave public lectures
and speeches throughout Germany that brought
him into conflict with the Nazi movement.
When Adolf Hitler became German Chancellor
in 1933, Tillich was dismissed from his position.
Reinhold Niebuhr visited Germany in the summer
of 1933 and, already impressed with Tillich's
writings, contacted Tillich upon learning
of his dismissal. Niebuhr urged Tillich to
join the faculty at New York City's Union
Theological Seminary; Tillich accepted.At
the age of 47, Tillich moved with his family
to the United States. This meant learning
English, the language in which Tillich would
eventually publish works such as the Systematic
Theology. From 1933 until 1955 he taught at
Union Theological Seminary, where he began
as a Visiting Professor of Philosophy of Religion.
During 1933–34 he was also a Visiting Lecturer
in Philosophy at Columbia University.The Fellowship
of Socialist Christians was organized in the
early 1930s by Reinhold Niebuhr and others
with similar views.
Later it changed its name to Frontier Fellowship
and then to Christian Action.
The main supporters of the Fellowship in the
early days included Tillich, Eduard Heimann,
Sherwood Eddy and Rose Terlin.
In its early days the group thought capitalist
individualism was incompatible with Christian
ethics.
Although not Communist, the group acknowledged
Karl Marx's social philosophy.
Tillich acquired tenure at the Union Theological
Seminary in 1937, and in 1940 he was promoted
to Professor of Philosophical Theology and
became an American citizen.
At Union, Tillich earned his reputation, publishing
a series of books that outlined his particular
synthesis of Protestant Christian theology
and existential philosophy. He published On
the Boundary in 1936; The Protestant Era,
a collection of his essays, in 1948; and The
Shaking of the Foundations, the first of three
volumes of his sermons, also in 1948. His
collections of sermons would give Tillich
a broader audience than he had yet experienced.
His most heralded achievements though, were
the 1951 publication of volume one of Systematic
Theology which brought Tillich academic acclaim,
and the 1952 publication of The Courage to
Be. The first volume of the systematic theology
series prompted an invitation to give the
prestigious Gifford lectures during 1953–54
at the University of Aberdeen. The latter
book, called "his masterpiece", was based
on his 1950 Dwight H. Terry Lectureship and
reached a wide general readership.These works
led to an appointment at the Harvard Divinity
School in 1955, where he became one of the
University's five University Professors – the
five highest ranking professors at Harvard.
He was primarily a professor of undergraduates
because Harvard did not have a department
of religion for them, but thereby he was more
exposed to the wider University and "most
fully embodied the ideal of a University Professor."In
1961 Tillich became one of the founding members
of the Society for the Arts, Religion and
Contemporary Culture, an organization with
which he maintained ties for the remainder
of his life. During this period, he published
volume 2 of Systematic Theology and also the
popular book Dynamics of Faith (both 1957).
His career at Harvard lasted until 1962 when
he moved to the University of Chicago, remaining
a professor of theology there until his death
in 1965.
Volume 3 of Systematic Theology was published
in 1963. In 1964, Tillich became the first
theologian to be honored in Kegley and Bretall's
Library of Living Theology: "The adjective
'great,' in our opinion, can be applied to
very few thinkers of our time, but Tillich,
we are far from alone in believing, stands
unquestionably amongst these few". A widely
quoted critical assessment of his importance
was Georgia Harkness' comment: "What Whitehead
was to American philosophy, Tillich has been
to American theology".Tillich died on October
22, 1965, ten days after having a heart attack.
In 1966, his ashes were interred in the Paul
Tillich Park in New Harmony, Indiana. Gravestone
inscription : "And he shall be like a tree
planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth
forth his fruit for his season, his leaf also
shall not wither. And whatsoever he doeth
shall prosper."
== 
Theology ==
=== Method of correlation ===
The key to understanding Tillich's theology
is what he calls the "method of correlation."
It is an approach that correlates insights
from Christian revelation with the issues
raised by existential, psychological, and
philosophical analysis.Tillich states in the
introduction to the Systematic Theology:
Theology formulates the questions implied
in human existence, and theology formulates
the answers implied in divine self-manifestation
under the guidance of the questions implied
in human existence. This is a circle which
drives man to a point where question and answer
are not separated. This point, however, is
not a moment in time.
The Christian message provides the answers
to the questions implied in human existence.
These answers are contained in the revelatory
events on which Christianity is based and
are taken by systematic theology from the
sources, through the medium, under the norm.
Their content cannot be derived from questions
that would come from an analysis of human
existence. They are 'spoken' to human existence
from beyond it, in a sense. Otherwise, they
would not be answers, for the question is
human existence itself.
For Tillich, the existential questions of
human existence are associated with the field
of philosophy and, more specifically, ontology
(the study of being). This is because, according
to Tillich, a lifelong pursuit of philosophy
reveals that the central question of every
philosophical inquiry always comes back to
the question of being, or what it means to
be, to exist, to be a finite human being.
To be correlated with these questions are
the theological answers, themselves derived
from Christian revelation. The task of the
philosopher primarily involves developing
the questions, whereas the task of the theologian
primarily involves developing the answers
to these questions. However, it should be
remembered that the two tasks overlap and
include one another: the theologian must be
somewhat of a philosopher and vice versa,
for Tillich's notion of faith as "ultimate
concern" necessitates that the theological
answer be correlated with, compatible with,
and in response to the general ontological
question which must be developed independently
from the answers. Thus, on one side of the
correlation lies an ontological analysis of
the human situation, whereas on the other
is a presentation of the Christian message
as a response to this existential dilemma.
For Tillich, no formulation of the question
can contradict the theological answer. This
is because the Christian message claims, a
priori, that the logos "who became flesh"
is also the universal logos of the Greeks.In
addition to the intimate relationship between
philosophy and theology, another important
aspect of the method of correlation is Tillich's
distinction between form and content in the
theological answers. While the nature of revelation
determines the actual content of the theological
answers, the character of the questions determines
the form of these answers. This is because,
for Tillich, theology must be an answering
theology, or apologetic theology. God is called
the "ground of being" because God is the answer
to the ontological threat of non-being, and
this characterization of the theological answer
in philosophical terms means that the answer
has been conditioned (insofar as its form
is considered) by the question. Throughout
the Systematic Theology, Tillich is careful
to maintain this distinction between form
and content without allowing one to be inadvertently
conditioned by the other. Many criticisms
of Tillich's methodology revolve around this
issue of whether the integrity of the Christian
message is really maintained when its form
is conditioned by philosophy.The theological
answer is also determined by the sources of
theology, our experience, and the norm of
theology. Though the form of the theological
answers are determined by the character of
the question, these answers (which "are contained
in the revelatory events on which Christianity
is based") are also "taken by systematic theology
from the sources, through the medium, under
the norm." There are three main sources of
systematic theology: the Bible, Church history,
and the history of religion and culture. Experience
is not a source but a medium through which
the sources speak. And the norm of theology
is that by which both sources and experience
are judged with regard to the content of the
Christian faith. Thus, we have the following
as elements of the method and structure of
systematic theology:
Sources of theologyBible
Church history
History of religion and culture
Medium of the sources
Collective Experience of the Church
Norm of theology (determines use of sources)
Content of which is the biblical message itself,
for example:
Justification through faith
New Being in Jesus as the Christ
The Protestant Principle
The criterion of the crossAs McKelway explains,
the sources of theology contribute to the
formation of the norm, which then becomes
the criterion through which the sources and
experience are judged. The relationship is
circular, as it is the present situation which
conditions the norm in the interaction between
church and biblical message. The norm is then
subject to change, but Tillich insists that
its basic content remains the same: that of
the biblical message. It is tempting to conflate
revelation with the norm, but we must keep
in mind that revelation (whether original
or dependent) is not an element of the structure
of systematic theology per se, but an event.
For Tillich, the present-day norm is the "New
Being in Jesus as the Christ as our Ultimate
Concern". This is because the present question
is one of estrangement, and the overcoming
of this estrangement is what Tillich calls
the "New Being". But since Christianity answers
the question of estrangement with "Jesus as
the Christ", the norm tells us that we find
the New Being in Jesus as the Christ.
There is also the question of the validity
of the method of correlation. Certainly one
could reject the method on the grounds that
there is no a priori reason for its adoption.
But Tillich claims that the method of any
theology and its system are interdependent.
That is, an absolute methodological approach
cannot be adopted because the method is continually
being determined by the system and the objects
of theology.
=== Use of "being" in systematic theology
===
Tillich used the concept of "being" (Sein)
in systematic theology. There are three roles:
…[The concept of Being] appears in the present
system in three places: in the doctrine of
God, where God is called the being as being
or the ground and the power of being;
in the doctrine of man, where the distinction
is carried through between man's essential
and his existential being;
and finally, in the doctrine of the Christ,
where he is called the manifestation of the
New Being, the actualization of which is the
work of the divine Spirit.
…It is the expression of the experience
of being over against non-being. Therefore,
it can be described as the power of being
which resists non-being. For this reason,
the medieval philosophers called being the
basic transcendentale, beyond the universal
and the particular…
The same word, the emptiest of all concepts
when taken as an abstraction, becomes the
most meaningful of all concepts when it is
understood as the power of being in everything
that has being.
=== Life and the Spirit ===
This is part four of Tillich's Systematic
Theology. In this part, Tillich talks about
life and the divine Spirit.
Life remains ambiguous as long as there is
life. The question implied in the ambiguities
of life derives to a new question, namely,
that of the direction in which life moves.
This is the question of history. Systematically
speaking, history, characterized as it is
by its direction toward the future, is the
dynamic quality of life. Therefore, the "riddle
of history" is a part of the problem of life.
=== Absolute faith ===
Tillich stated the courage to take meaninglessness
into oneself presupposes a relation to the
ground of being: absolute faith. Absolute
faith can transcend the theistic idea of God,
and has three elements.
… The first element is the experience of
the power of being which is present even in
the face of the most radical manifestation
of non being. If one says that in this experience
vitality resists despair, one must add that
vitality in man is proportional to intentionality.
The vitality that can stand the abyss of meaninglessness
is aware of a hidden meaning within the destruction
of meaning.
The second element in absolute faith is the
dependence of the experience of nonbeing on
the experience of being and the dependence
of the experience of meaninglessness on the
experience of meaning. Even in the state of
despair one has enough being to make despair
possible.
There is a third element in absolute faith,
the acceptance of being accepted. Of course,
in the state of despair there is nobody and
nothing that accepts. But there is the power
of acceptance itself which is experienced.
Meaninglessness, as long as it is experienced,
includes an experience of the "power of acceptance".
To accept this power of acceptance consciously
is the religious answer of absolute faith,
of a faith which has been deprived by doubt
of any concrete content, which nevertheless
is faith and the source of the most paradoxical
manifestation of the courage to be.
=== Faith as ultimate concern ===
According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of
Philosophy, Tillich believes the essence of
religious attitudes is what he calls "ultimate
concern". Separate from all profane and ordinary
realities, the object of the concern is understood
as sacred, numinous or holy. The perception
of its reality is felt as so overwhelming
and valuable that all else seems insignificant,
and for this reason requires total surrender.
In 1957, Tillich defined his conception of
faith more explicitly in his work, Dynamics
of Faith.
Man, like every living being, is concerned
about many things, above all about those which
condition his very existence ... If [a situation
or concern] claims ultimacy it demands the
total surrender of him who accepts this claim
... it demands that all other concerns ... be
sacrificed.
Tillich further refined his conception of
faith by stating that, "Faith as ultimate
concern is an act of the total personality.
It is the most centered act of the human mind
... it participates in the dynamics of personal
life."An arguably central component of Tillich's
concept of faith is his notion that faith
is "ecstatic". That is to say:
It transcends both the drives of the nonrational
unconsciousness and the structures of the
rational conscious...the ecstatic character
of faith does not exclude its rational character
although it is not identical with it, and
it includes nonrational strivings without
being identical with them. 'Ecstasy' means
'standing outside of oneself' - without ceasing
to be oneself - with all the elements which
are united in the personal center.
In short, for Tillich, faith does not stand
opposed to rational or nonrational elements
(reason and emotion respectively), as some
philosophers would maintain. Rather, it transcends
them in an ecstatic passion for the ultimate.It
should also be noted that Tillich does not
exclude atheists in his exposition of faith.
Everyone has an ultimate concern, and this
concern can be in an act of faith, "even if
the act of faith includes the denial of God.
Where there is ultimate concern, God can be
denied only in the name of God"
=== God above God ===
Throughout most of his works Paul Tillich
provides an apologetic and alternative ontological
view of God. Traditional medieval philosophical
theology in the work of figures such as St.
Anselm, Duns Scotus, and William of Ockham
tended to understand God as the highest existing
Being, to which predicates such as omnipotence,
omniscience, omnipresence, goodness, righteousness,
holiness, etc. may be ascribed. Arguments
for and against the existence of God presuppose
such an understanding of God. Tillich is critical
of this mode of discourse which he refers
to as "theological theism," and argues that
if God is Being [das Seiende], even if the
highest Being, God cannot be properly called
the source of all being, and the question
can of course then be posed as to why God
exists, who created God, when God's beginning
is, and so on. To put the issue in traditional
language: if God is 'being' [das Seiende],
then God is a creature, even if the highest
one, and thus cannot be the Creator. Rather,
God must be understood as the "ground of Being-Itself".The
problem persists in the same way when attempting
to determine whether God is an eternal essence,
or an existing being, neither of which are
adequate, as traditional theology was well
aware. When God is understood in this way,
it becomes clear that not only is it impossible
to argue for the "existence" of God, since
God is beyond the distinction between essence
and existence, but it is also foolish: one
cannot deny that there is being, and thus
there is a Power of Being. The question then
becomes whether and in what way personal language
about God and humanity's relationship to God
is appropriate. In distinction to "theological
theism", Tillich refers to another kind of
theism as that of the "divine-human encounter".
Such is the theism of the encounter with the
"Wholly Other" ("Das ganz Andere"), as in
the work of Karl Barth and Rudolf Otto, and
implies a personalism with regard to God's
self-revelation. Tillich is quite clear that
this is both appropriate and necessary, as
it is the basis of the personalism of Biblical
Religion altogether and the concept of the
"Word of God", but can become falsified if
the theologian tries to turn such encounters
with God as the Wholly Other into an understanding
of God as a being. In other words, God is
both personal and transpersonal.Tillich's
ontological view of God has precedent in Christian
theology. Many theologians, especially those
in the Hellenistic or Patristic period of
Christianity's history that corresponds with
the Church Fathers, understood God as the
"unoriginate source" (agennetos) of all being.
This view was espoused in particular by Origen,
one of a number of early theologians whose
thought influenced that of Tillich. Their
views in turn had pre-Christian precedents
in middle Platonism.
Tillich further argues that theological theism
is not only logically problematic, but is
unable to speak into the situation of radical
doubt and despair about meaning in life. This
issue, he said, was of primary concern in
the modern age, as opposed to anxiety about
fate, guilt, death and condemnation. This
is because the state of finitude entails by
necessity anxiety, and that it is our finitude
as human beings, our being a mixture of being
and nonbeing, that is at the ultimate basis
of anxiety. If God is not the ground of being
itself, then God cannot provide an answer
to the question of finitude; God would also
be finite in some sense. The term "God Above
God," then, means to indicate the God who
appears, who is the ground of being itself,
when the "God" of theological theism has disappeared
in the anxiety of doubt. While on the one
hand this God goes beyond the God of theism
as usually defined, it finds expression in
many religious symbols of the Christian faith,
particularly that of the crucified Christ.
The possibility thus exists, says Tillich,
that religious symbols may be recovered which
would otherwise have been rendered ineffective
by contemporary society.
Tillich argues that the God of theological
theism is at the root of much revolt against
theism and religious faith in the modern period.
Tillich states, sympathetically, that the
God of theological theism deprives me of my
subjectivity because he is all-powerful and
all-knowing. I revolt and make him into an
object, but the revolt fails and becomes desperate.
God appears as the invincible tyrant, the
being in contrast with whom all other beings
are without freedom and subjectivity. He is
equated with the recent tyrants who with the
help of terror try to transform everything
into a mere object, a thing among things,
a cog in a machine they control. He becomes
the model of everything against which Existentialism
revolted. This is the God Nietzsche said had
to be killed because nobody can tolerate being
made into a mere object of absolute knowledge
and absolute control. This is the deepest
root of atheism. It is an atheism which is
justified as the reaction against theological
theism and its disturbing implications.
Another reason Tillich criticized theological
theism was because it placed God into the
subject-object dichotomy. This is the basic
distinction made in Epistemology, that branch
of Philosophy which deals with human knowledge,
how it is possible, what it is, and its limits.
Epistemologically, God cannot be made into
an object, that is, an object of the knowing
subject. Tillich deals with this question
under the rubric of the relationality of God.
The question is "whether there are external
relations between God and the creature". Traditionally
Christian theology has always understood the
doctrine of creation to mean precisely this
external relationality between God, the Creator,
and the creature as separate and not identical
realities. Tillich reminds us of the point,
which can be found in Luther, that "there
is no place to which man can withdraw from
the divine thou, because it includes the ego
and is nearer to the ego than the ego to itself".Tillich
goes further to say that the desire to draw
God into the subject–object dichotomy is
an "insult" to the divine holiness. Similarly,
if God were made into the subject rather than
the object of knowledge (The Ultimate Subject),
then the rest of existing entities then become
subjected to the absolute knowledge and scrutiny
of God, and the human being is "reified,"
or made into a mere object. It would deprive
the person of his or her own subjectivity
and creativity. According to Tillich, theological
theism has provoked the rebellions found in
atheism and Existentialism, although other
social factors such as the industrial revolution
have also contributed to the "reification"
of the human being. The modern man could no
longer tolerate the idea of being an "object"
completely subjected to the absolute knowledge
of God. Tillich argued, as mentioned, that
theological theism is "bad theology".
The God of the theological theism is a being
besides others and as such a part of the whole
reality. He is certainly considered its most
important part, but as a part and therefore
as subjected to the structure of the whole.
He is supposed to be beyond the ontological
elements and categories which constitute reality.
But every statement subjects him to them.
He is seen as a self which has a world, as
an ego which relates to a thought, as a cause
which is separated from its effect, as having
a definite space and endless time. He is a
being, not being-itself
Alternatively, Tillich presents the above-mentioned
ontological view of God as Being-Itself, Ground
of Being, Power of Being, and occasionally
as Abyss or God's "Abysmal Being". What makes
Tillich's ontological view of God different
from theological theism is that it transcends
it by being the foundation or ultimate reality
that "precedes" all beings. Just as Being
for Heidegger is ontologically prior to conception,
Tillich views God to be beyond Being-Itself,
manifested in the structure of beings. God
is not a supernatural entity among other entities.
Instead, God is the ground upon which all
beings exist. We cannot perceive God as an
object which is related to a subject because
God precedes the subject–object dichotomy.Thus
Tillich dismisses a literalistic Biblicism.
Instead of rejecting the notion of personal
God, however, Tillich sees it as a symbol
that points directly to the Ground of Being.
Since the Ground of Being ontologically precedes
reason, it cannot be comprehended since comprehension
presupposes the subject–object dichotomy.
Tillich disagreed with any literal philosophical
and religious statements that can be made
about God. Such literal statements attempt
to define God and lead not only to anthropomorphism
but also to a philosophical mistake that Immanuel
Kant warned against, that setting limits against
the transcendent inevitably leads to contradictions.
Any statements about God are simply symbolic,
but these symbols are sacred in the sense
that they function to participate or point
to the Ground of Being. Tillich insists that
anyone who participates in these symbols is
empowered by the Power of Being, which overcomes
and conquers nonbeing and meaninglessness.
Tillich also further elaborated the thesis
of the God above the God of theism in his
Systematic Theology.
… (the God above the God of theism) This
has been misunderstood as a dogmatic statement
of a pantheistic or mystical character. First
of all, it is not a dogmatic, but an apologetic,
statement. It takes seriously the radical
doubt experienced by many people. It gives
one the courage of self-affirmation even in
the extreme state of radical doubt.
… In such a state the God of both religious
and theological language disappears. But something
remains, namely, the seriousness of that doubt
in which meaning within meaninglessness is
affirmed. The source of this affirmation of
meaning within meaninglessness, of certitude
within doubt, is not the God of traditional
theism but the "God above God," the power
of being, which works through those who have
no name for it, not even the name God.
…This is the answer to those who ask for
a message in the nothingness of their situation
and at the end of their courage to be. But
such an extreme point is not a space with
which one can live. The dialectics of an extreme
situation are a criterion of truth but not
the basis on which a whole structure of truth
can be built.
=== Tillich's ontology of courage ===
In Paul Tillich's work The Courage to Be he
defines courage as the self-affirmation of
one's being in spite of a threat of nonbeing.
He relates courage to anxiety, anxiety being
the threat of non-being and the courage to
be what we use to combat that threat. For
Tillich, he outlines three types of anxiety
and thus three ways to display the courage
to be.
1) The Anxiety of Fate and Death
a. The Anxiety of Fate and Death is the most
basic and universal form of anxiety for Tillich.
It relates quite simply to the recognition
of our mortality. This troubles us humans.
We become anxious when we are unsure whether
our actions create a causal damnation which
leads to a very real and quite unavoidable
death (42-44). "Nonbeing threatens man's ontic
self-affirmation, relatively in terms of fate,
absolutely in terms of death" (41).
b. We display courage when we cease to rely
on others to tell us what will come of us,
(what will happen when we die etc.) and begin
seeking those answers out for ourselves. Called
the "courage of confidence" (162-63).
2) The Anxiety of Guilt and Condemnation
a. This anxiety afflicts our moral self-affirmation.
We as humans are responsible for our moral
being, and when asked by our judge (whomever
that may be) what we have made of ourselves
we must answer. The anxiety is produced when
we realize our being is unsatisfactory. "It
[Nonbeing] threatens man's moral self-affirmation,
relatively in terms of guilt, absolutely in
terms of condemnation" (41).
b. We display courage when we first identify
our sin; despair or whatever is causing us
guilt or afflicting condemnation. We then
rely on the idea that we are accepted regardless.
"The courage to be is the courage to accept
oneself as accepted in spite of being unacceptable"
(164).
3) The Anxiety of Meaningless and Emptiness
a. The Anxiety of Meaninglessness and Emptiness
attacks our being as a whole. We worry about
the loss of an ultimate concern or goal. This
anxiety is also brought on by a loss of spirituality.
We as beings feel the threat of non-being
when we feel we have no place or purpose in
the world. "It [Nonbeing] threatens man's
spiritual self-affirmation, relatively in
terms of emptiness, absolutely in terms of
meaninglessness" (41).
b. We display the courage to be when facing
this anxiety by displaying true faith, and
by again, self-affirming oneself. We draw
from the "power of being" which is God for
Tillich and use that faith to in turn affirm
ourselves and negate the non-being. We can
find our meaning and purpose through the "power
of being" (172-73).
Tillich writes that the ultimate source of
the courage to be is the "God above God,"
which transcends the theistic idea of God
and is the content of absolute faith (defined
as "the accepting of the acceptance without
somebody or something that accepts") (185).
== Popular works ==
Two of Tillich's works, The Courage to Be
(1952) and Dynamics of Faith (1957), were
read widely, including by people who would
not normally read religious books. In The
Courage to Be, he lists three basic anxieties:
anxiety about our biological finitude, i.e.
that arising from the knowledge that we will
eventually die; anxiety about our moral finitude,
linked to guilt; and anxiety about our existential
finitude, a sense of aimlessness in life.
Tillich related these to three different historical
eras: the early centuries of the Christian
era; the Reformation; and the 20th century.
Tillich's popular works have influenced psychology
as well as theology, having had an influence
on Rollo May, whose "The Courage to Create"
was inspired by "The Courage to Be".
== Reception ==
Today, Tillich's most observable legacy may
well be that of a spiritually-oriented public
intellectual and teacher with a broad and
continuing range of influence. Tillich's chapel
sermons (especially at Union) were enthusiastically
received (Tillich was known as the only faculty
member of his day at Union willing to attend
the revivals of Billy Graham) Tillich's students
have commented on Tillich's approachability
as a lecturer and his need for interaction
with his audience. When Tillich was University
Professor at Harvard, he was chosen as keynote
speaker from among an auspicious gathering
of many who had appeared on the cover of Time
Magazine during its first four decades. Tillich
along with his student, psychologist Rollo
May, was an early leader at the Esalen Institute.
Contemporary New Age catchphrases describing
God (spatially) as the "Ground of Being" and
(temporally) as the "Eternal Now," in tandem
with the view that God is not an entity among
entities but rather is "Being-Itself"—notions
which Eckhart Tolle, for example, has invoked
repeatedly throughout his career—were paradigmatically
renovated by Tillich, although of course these
ideas derive from Christian mystical sources
as well as from ancient and medieval theologians
such as St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas.The
introductory philosophy course taught by the
person Tillich considered to be his best student,
John Edwin Smith, "probably turned more undergraduates
to the study of philosophy at Yale than all
the other philosophy courses put together.
His courses in philosophy of religion and
American philosophy defined those fields for
many years. Perhaps most important of all,
he has educated a younger generation in the
importance of the public life in philosophy
and in how to practice philosophy publicly."
In the 1980s and 1990s the Boston University
Institute for Philosophy and Religion, a leading
forum dedicated to the revival of the American
public tradition of philosophy and religion,
flourished under the leadership of Tillich's
student and expositor Leroy S. Rouner.
=== Criticism ===
Martin Buber criticized Tillich's "transtheistic
position" as a reduction of God to the impersonal
"necessary being" of Thomas Aquinas.Tillich
has been criticized from the Barthian wing
of Protestantism for what is alleged to be
correlation theory's tendency to reduce God
and his relationship to man to anthropocentric
terms. Tillich counters that Barth's approach
to theology denies the "possibility of understanding
God's relation to man in any other way than
heteronomously or extrinsically". Defenders
of Tillich claim that critics misunderstand
the distinction Tillich makes between God's
essence as the unconditional ("das unbedingte")
"Ground of Being" which is unknowable, and
how God reveals himself to mankind in existence.
Tillich establishes the distinction in the
first chapter of his Systematic Theology Volume
One: "But though God in his abysmal nature
[footnote: 'Calvin: in his essence' ] is in
no way dependent on man, God in his self manifestation
to man is dependent on the way man receives
his manifestation."Some conservative strains
of Evangelical Christianity believe Tillich's
thought is too unorthodox to qualify as Christianity
at all, but rather as a form of pantheism
or atheism. The Evangelical Dictionary of
Theology states, "At best Tillich was a pantheist,
but his thought borders on atheism."
== Bibliography ==
Tillich, Paul (1912), Mysticism and Guilt-Consciousness
in Schelling's Philosophical Development,
Bucknell University Press (published 1974),
ISBN 978-0-83871493-5
——— (1956) [1925, Die religiose Lage
der Gegenwart; Holt 1932], The Religious Situation,
Meridian Press, archived from the original
on 2005-11-26.
——— (c. 1977) [1933], The Socialist
Decision, New York: Harper & Row.
——— (1936), The Interpretation of History,
archived from the original on 2005-11-26.
——— (1948), The Protestant Era, The
University of Chicago Press, archived from
the original on 2005-11-26.
——— (1948), The Shaking of the Foundations
(sermon collection), Charles Scribner's Sons,
archived from the original on 2005-11-26.
——— (1951–1963), Systematic Theology
(3 volumes), University of Chicago Press.
——— (1951), Systematic Theology, 1,
ISBN 978-0-22680337-1.
——— (1957), Systematic Theology, 2:
Existence and the Christ, ISBN 978-0-22680338-8.
——— (1963), Systematic Theology, 3:
Life and the Spirit: History and the Kingdom
of God, ISBN 978-0-22680339-5
——— (1952), The Courage to Be, Yale
University Press, ISBN 978-0-30017002-3.
——— (1954), Love, Power, and Justice:
Ontological Analysis and Ethical Applications,
Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0-19500222-5
——— (1955), Biblical Religion and the
Search for Ultimate Reality, University Of
Chicago Press, ISBN 978-0-22680341-8
——— (2006) [1955, Charles Scribner's
Sons], The New Being (sermon collection),
introd. by Mary Ann Stenger, Bison Press,
ISBN 978-0-80329458-5, Religion online.
——— (1957), Dynamics of Faith, Harper
& Row, ISBN 978-0-06203146-4
——— (1959), Theology of Culture, Oxford
University Press, ISBN 978-0-19976353-5
——— (1963), Christianity and the Encounter
of 
the World Religions, Columbia University Press,
archived from the original on 2005-11-26.
——— (1995) [1963, Harper & Row], Morality
and Beyond, Westminster John Knox Press, ISBN
978-0-664-25564-0.
——— (2003) [1963, Charles Scribner's
Sons], The Eternal Now (university sermons
1955–63), SCM Press, ISBN 0-334-02875-2,
archived from the original on 2005-11-26.
——— (1965), Brown, D. Mackenzie, ed.,
Ultimate Concern: Tillich in Dialogue, Harper
& Row, archived from the original on 2005-11-26.
On the Boundary, 1966 New York: Charles Scribner's
——— (1984) [1967], Anshen, Ruth Nanda,
ed., My Search for Absolutes (posthumous;
includes autobiographical chapter), Simon
& Schuster, ISBN 0-671-50585-8, archived from
the original on 2005-11-26.
"The Philosophy of Religion", in What Is Religion?
(1969), ed. James Luther Adams. New York:
Harper & Row
———, "The Conquest of the Concept of
Religion in the Philosophy of Religion", What
is Religion?
"On the Idea of a Theology of Culture" in
What is Religion?
——— (1970), Brauer, J.C, ed., My Travel
Diary 1936: Between Two Worlds, Harper & Row,
archived from the original on 2006-06-22.
——— (1972), Braaten, Carl Edward, ed.,
A History of Christian Thought: From its Judaic
and Hellenistic Origins to Existentialism,
Simon & Schuster, ISBN 978-0-67121426-5 (edited
from his lectures and published posthumously).
A History of Christian Thought (1968), Harper
& Row, contains the first part of the two
part 1972 edition (comprising the 38 New York
lectures).
——— (1981) [German, 1923], The System
of the Sciences According to Objects and Methods,
Paul Wiebe transl., London: Bucknell University
Press, ISBN 978-0-83875013-1.
——— (1999), Church, F. Forrester, ed.,
The Essential Tillich (anthology), U. of Chicago
Press, ISBN 978-0-22680343-2
== See also ==
List of American philosophers
Neo-orthodoxy
Panentheism
Postmodern Christianity
== References ==
== Further reading ==
Adams, James Luther. 1965. Paul Tillich's
Philosophy of Culture, Science, and Religion.
New York: New York University Press
Armbruster, Carl J. 1967. The Vision of Paul
Tillich. New York: Sheed and Ward
Breisach, Ernst. 1962. Introduction to Modern
Existentialism. New York: Grove Press
Bruns, Katja (2011), "Anthropologie zwischen
Theologie und Naturwissenschaft bei Paul Tillich
und Kurt Goldstein. Historische Grundlagen
und systematische Perspektiven", Kontexte.
Neue Beiträge zur historischen und systematischen
Theologie (in German), Goettingen: Ruprecht,
41, ISBN 978-3-7675-7143-3.
Carey, Patrick W., and Lienhard, Joseph. 2002.
"Biographical Dictionary of Christian Theologians".
Mass: Hendrickson
Ford, Lewis S. 1966. "Tillich and Thomas:
The Analogy of Being." Journal of Religion
46:2 (April)
Freeman, David H. 1962. Tillich. Philadelphia:
Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co.
Grenz, Stanley, and Olson, Roger E. 1997.
20th Century Theology God & the World in a
Transitional Age
Hamilton, Kenneth. 1963. The System and the
Gospel: A Critique of Paul Tillich. New York:
Macmillan
Hammond, Guyton B. 1965. Estrangement: A Comparison
of the Thought of Paul Tillich and Erich Fromm.
Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press.
Hegel, G. W. F. 1967. The Phenomenology of
Mind, trans. With intro. J. B. Baillie, Torchbook
intro. by George Lichtheim. New York: Harper
Torchbooks
Hook, Sidney, ed. 1961 Religious Experience
and Truth: A Symposium (New York: New York
University Press)
Hopper, David. 1968. Tillich: A Theological
Portrait. Philadelphia: Lippincott
Howlett, Duncan. 1964. The Fourth American
Faith. New York: Harper & Row
Kaufman, Walter (1961a), The Faith of a Heretic,
New York: Doubleday.
——— (1961b), Critique of Religion and
Philosophy, Garden City, NY: Anchor Books,
Doubleday.
Kegley, Charles W; Bretall, Robert W, eds.
(1964), The Theology of Paul Tillich, New
York: Macmillan.
Kelsey, David H. 1967 The Fabric of Paul Tillich's
Theology. New Haven: Yale University Press
Łata, Jan Adrian (1995), Odpowiadająca teologia
Paula Tillicha (in Polish), Signum, Oleśnica:
Oficyna Wydaw, ISBN 83-85631-38-0.
MacIntyre, Alasdair. 1963. "God and the Theologians,"
Encounter 21:3 (September)
Martin, Bernard. 1963. The Existentialist
Theology of Paul Tillich. New Haven: College
and University Press
Marx, Karl. n.d. Capital. Ed. Frederick Engels.
trans. from 3rd German ed. by Samuel Moore
and Edward Aveling. New York: The Modern Library
May, Rollo. 1973. Paulus: Reminiscences of
a Friendship. New York: Harper & Row
McKelway, Alexander J (1964), The Systematic
Theology of Paul Tillich: A Review and Analysis,
Richmond: John Knox Press.
Modras, Ronald. 1976. Paul Tillich 's Theology
of the Church: A Catholic Appraisal. Detroit:
Wayne State University Press, 1976.
Palmer, Michael. 1984. Paul Tillich's Philosophy
of Art. New York: Walter de Gruyter
Pauck; Wilhelm; Marion (1976), Paul Tillich:
His Life & Thought, 1: Life, New York: Harper
& Row.
Re Manning, Russell, ed. 2009. The Cambridge
Companion to Paul Tillich. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press
Re Manning, Russell, ed. 2015. Retrieving
the Radical Tillich. His Legacy and Contemporary
Importance. New York: Palgrave Macmillan
Rowe, William L. 1968. Religious Symbols and
God: A Philosophical Study of Tillich's Theology.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press
Scharlemann, Robert P. 1969. Reflection and
Doubt in the Thought of Paul Tillich. New
Haven: Yale University Press
Schweitzer, Albert. 1961. The Quest of the
Historical Jesus, trans. W. Montgomery. New
York: Macmillan
Soper, David Wesley. 1952. Major Voices in
American Theology: Six Contemporary Leaders
Philadelphia: Westminster
Tavard, George H. 1962. Paul Tillich and the
Christian Message. New York: Charles Scribner's
Sons
Taylor, Mark Kline, ed. (1991), Paul Tillich:
Theologian of the Boundaries, Minneapolis:
Fortress Press, ISBN 978-1-45141386-1
Thomas, George F (1965), Religious Philosophies
of the West, New York: Scribner's.
Thomas, J. Heywood (1963), Paul Tillich: An
Appraisal, Philadelphia: Westminster.
Tillich, Hannah. 1973. From Time to Time.
New York: Stein and Day
Tucker, Robert. 1961. Philosophy and Myth
in Karl Marx. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press
Wheat, Leonard F. 1970. Paul Tillich's Dialectical
Humanism: Unmasking the God above God. Baltimore:
The Johns Hopkins Press
Yunt, Jeremy D. 2017. Faithful to Nature:
Paul Tillich and the Spiritual Roots of Environmental
Ethics. Barred Owl Books.
Yunt, Jeremy D. 2015. Love, Gravity, and God:
Religion for Those Who Reason. Barred Owl
Books.TRANSLATIONS OF HIS WORKS
IN ROMANIAN LANGUAGE:
Paul Tillich: (Dynamics of faith)Dinamica
credinţei. Translation from English language
into Romanian language with introductory note
by Sorin-Avram Vîrtop. Editura Herald, Bucureşti,
2007. ISBN 978-973-7970-89-3(172 pag.),(1000
ex., Citations: https://scholar.google.ro/scholar?cites=15690573237942622546&as_sdt=2005&sciodt=0,5&hl=ro
Paul Tillich: (The courage to be)Curajul de
a fi. Translation from English language into
Romanian language by Sorin-Avram Vîrtop.
Editura Herald, Bucureşti, 2007. ISBN 978-973-7970-85-5
(219 pag.).(1000 ex.); Citations:https://scholar.google.ro/scholar?cites=10592604652560383718&as_sdt=2005&sciodt=0,5&hl=ro
== External links ==
The Andover-Harvard Theological Library at
Harvard Divinity School holds the papers of
Paul Tillich and Hannah Tillich.
"A Conversation With Dr. Paul Tillich and
Werner Rode, Graduate Student in Theology."
Film reel, 1956.
Tillich, Paul, 1886—1965. Audiocassettes,
1955–1965
Tillich, Paul, 1886—1965. Papers, 1894–1974
Tillich, Paul, 1886—1965, collector. Literature
about Paul Tillich, 1911–1994
Tillich, Hannah. Papers, 1896–1976
Works by or about Paul Tillich at Internet
Archive
James Rosati's sculpture of Tillich's head
in the Paul Tillich Park in New Harmony, Indiana.
North American Paul Tillich Society.
James Wu. "Paul Tillich (1886–1965)". Boston
Collaborative Encyclopedia of Western Theology.
Tillich Park Finger Labyrinth (PDF). Walk
Tillich Park while discerning Tillich's theology.
Created by Rev. Bill Ressl after an inspirational
walk in Tillich Park in New Harmony, Indiana.
Tillich profile, and synopsis of Gifford Lectures
