Paul Tillich (1886–1965)
Author of The Courage to Be
About the Author
Paul Johannes Tillich was born into a German Lutheran pastor's family in that part of Germany that is now Poland. He attended several universities, earning the doctorate in philosophy in 1910, then taught at several more from 1919 to 1933. Removed from his professorate at Frankfurt by the Nazi show more government, he emigrated to the United States, with the encouragement of Reinhold Niebuhr, and taught at Union Theological Seminary in New York (1933--55), Harvard University (1955--62), and the University of Chicago (1962--65). The fullest biography, including some fairly lurid material of a psychosexual nature, can be found in the appreciative work by Wilhelm and Marion Pauck. The student who wants to encounter Tillich at his most succinct might turn to The Courage To Be (1952) or The Theology of Paul Tillich (1982). He is sometimes classified as Neo-orthodox, but that label does not fit him as well as it does Karl Barth, who had small regard for Tillich's "theology of correlation," where responding to the world's questions is seen as the proper way of practicing theology. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Series
Works by Paul Tillich
Systematische Theologie, Bd.1/2, Vernunft und Offenbarung; Sein und Gott; Die Existenz und der Christus (1987) 5 copies
The Construction of the History of Religion in Schelling's Positive Philosophy: Its Presuppositions and Principles. (1975) 5 copies
La dimension religieuse de la culture : les écrits du premier enseignement (1919-1926) (1990) 4 copies
Die religiöse Lage der Gegenwart 4 copies
Gesammelte Werke. Ergänzungs- und Nachlaßbände: Band 15: Vorlesungen über Geschichtsphilosophie und… (2007) 3 copies
Existential philosophy 2 copies
Love, Power and Injustice 2 copies
De moed om te zijn 2 copies
The Courage to be 2 copies
Gesammelte Werke. Ergänzungs- und Nachlaßbände: Band 14: Dogmatik-Vorlesung (Dresden 1925-1927) (2005) 2 copies
Dimension oubliée (La) 2 copies
Visionary science : a translation of Tillich's "On the idea of a theology of culture," with an interpretive essay (1987) 2 copies
The Eternal Now - Sermons 2 copies
Die Neue Wirklichkeit 2 copies
Gesammelte Werke: Gesammelte Werke, 14 Bde., Bd.6, Der Widerstreit von Raum und Zeit: Bd. VI (1987) 2 copies
Vorlesungen über die Geschichte des christlichen Denkens ; Teil 1. Urchristentum bis Nachreformation (1971) 2 copies
An meine deutschen Freunde : die politischen Reden Paul Tillichs während des Zweiten Weltkriegs über die "Stim (1987) 2 copies
Théologie de la culture - Dieu est-il absent? La réponse d'un des grands théologiens modernes (1968) 1 copy
Sytematic theology 1 copy
Els fonaments trontollen 1 copy
Das neue Sein 1 copy
Vorlesungen über die Geschichte des christlichen Denkens ; Teil 2. Aspekte des Protestantismus im 19. und 20. Jahrh (1972) 1 copy
L'être nouveau 1 copy
L'éternel maintenant 1 copy
Systematische Theologie I 1 copy
Systematische Theologie II 1 copy
La dimension oubliée 1 copy
Gesammelte Werke (vol. 1) 1 copy
all 1 copy
Retrospect and Future 1 copy
Register, Bibliographie und Textgeschichte zu den gesammelten Werken von Paul Tillich (Gesammelte Werke Band XIV) (1975) 1 copy
Impressionen und Reflexionen : ein Lebensbild in Aufsätzen, Reden und Stellungnahmen (Gesammelte Werke Band XIII) (1972) 1 copy
Paul Tillich 1 copy
Filosofía de la Religión 1 copy
Fruhe Haupt Werke Band 1 1 copy
Kairos [The Protestant era] 1 copy
Matthieu 27: 45-46 et 50-54 1 copy
Moralidad y algo más 1 copy
Associated Works
The Glorious American Essay: One Hundred Essays from Colonial Times to the Present (2020) — Contributor — 83 copies
Voluntary associations, a study of groups in free societies; essays in honor of James Luther Adams (1966) — Foreword — 7 copies
Religion et culture — honoree — 1 copy
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Legal name
- Tillich, Paul Johannes
- Birthdate
- 1886-08-20
- Date of death
- 1965-10-22
- Burial location
- New Harmony, Indiana
- Gender
- male
- Nationality
- Germany
USA - Country (for map)
- USA
- Birthplace
- Starzeddel, Province of Brandenburg, Prussia, German Empire (now Starosiedle, Poland)
- Place of death
- Chicago, Illinois, USA
- Places of residence
- Berlin, Germany
Marburg, Germany
Frankfurt am Main, Germany
New York, USA
Starosiedle, Poland - Occupations
- professor (Theology, Union Seminary)
professor (Harvard University) - Relationships
- Taubes, Susan (student)
May, Rollo (student) - Awards and honors
- Friedenspreis des Deutschen Buchhandels (1962)
- Short biography
- Paul Tillich is generally considered one of the century's outstanding and influential thinkers. After teaching theology and philosophy at various German universities, he came to the United States in 1933. For many years he was Professor of Philosophical Theology at Union Theological Seminary in New York City, then University Professor at Harvard University. His books include Systematic Theology; The Courage to Be; Dynamics of Faith; Love, Power and Justice; Morality and Beyond; and Theology of Culture. (taken from http://www.religion-online.org/showbo...)
Members
Reviews
Christianity and the Encounter of World Religions by Paul Tillich
One of the world's most renowned theologians and philosophers of religion, Dr Paul Tillich discusses in this book certain points of view considered by him to be decisive as an approach to Christianity and its encounter with world religions: the emphasis on and the characterization of quasi-religions; the elaboration of the universalist element in Christianity; the suggestion of a dynamic typology; the dialogical character of the encounter of high religions; and the judgment of Christianity against itself and its openness for criticism from other religions and from quasi-religious.… (more)
The wound that Rudra’s arrow opened in Prajāpati’s groin [. . .] The idea that in some future time that tattered edge of bleeding flesh might close was enough to suggest the possibility of a higher level of fullness, something in respect to which the fullness of the Beginning seemed crude and stifled. It didn’t matter whether that further fullness turned out to be (as indeed it would) unattainable. — Ka, Roberto Calasso
On New-Age Motivational Gurus
A short time ago I had the privilege to attend a seminar on, "Mastering Creative Energy: Unlocking Da Vinci and your Super Qi". Afterward, I was happy to have unleashed my Super Qi, though in the moment I had wondered, "why is it always necessary to reach for the top shelf of historical (action) figures." Why is it that these seminars never have as their subject a certain minor Franciscan who, after having extruded his life's work into five unread illuminated volumes, has produced a short commentary on one of the esoteric Saints which is to be his first and only true opus (in the sense of an indeterminate "truth" which continues to elude us (around the corner)). Surely it had required a great mustering of Super-Qi for this scholar to vault himself over such Scholastic mediocrity. When had Da Vinci ever required such gaseous assistance. And surely we should be satisfied merely to have unlocked Normal Qi, which ought to be sufficient for all but the most severe of our personal troubles. (Such quibbles were expunged when the Holy Spirit (Super Qi) filled my body).
Though I continue to be exceptionally permissive of such new-age sloganeering. As long as such movements capture more than a cynical adherence, they continue to remind us that "Ontology is Generous," as long as we continue to recognize such movements to be empirically false (First Upbuilding Discourse). That Ontology is always permitting a popular belief in anodyne falsehoods suggests a surplus value which has not yet been exploited; something which continues to lie fallow for "the lily of the field and the bird of the air." This is a nutriment which depends upon an ontological tension (potential energy), which evaporates if we consider the mystical notion to be true in earnest, which would, in a horror-film moment, have the scales fall from our eyes in view of all the lonely hospital dead — starved-to-death of Super Qi.
Saved from our decay.
Admire that perfect skeleton,
those veins, that skin like cellophane.
Take them and press them in a book.
Dare we behave as if the meek
will mark the places of the wise?
On Tillich
Everything is within the sacrifice. With the sacrifice one heals the sacrifice. I say this so that you might not imagine it easy to escape from sacrifice. In every sacrifice there is the uncertainty [anxiety] of a journey toward an unknown destination." — Ka, Roberto Calasso
As much as the spontaneous appearance of Da Vinci should rouse our suspicion, the peep show sequence that is the so-called "History of Philosophy" has always been un-believable. The arrangement of "Great Philosophers" into easy continuity (dubious) so that we might demonstrate the "Progression of an Idea" is always an extraneous movement. If the final idea were enough, it would be sufficient to have it at once. Rather, we are always building connections "ligatures" between discrete points. The construction of the connection/ligature, rather than incidental to the Tillich text, is necessary form of response to the sub-text that the original wound (from Rudra) is not closed. The secret promise of the ligature (i.e. History of Philosophy) is something that can tie closed that wound at the origin. We are therefore pursuing "the fullness of the Beginning" by drawing the progression of ideas from Beginning (unknowable) to End (unknown), yet every such text becomes a demonstration of the work which is the wound itself.
The role of the Brahman is to take the wound into himself and neutralize it in the sacrifice. We have not yet "gone beyond" the sacrifice, since this sacrifice is precisely what is occurring in the Text. In ontic/spiritual/moral categories a sure victory cannot be had for nothing. Regarding the "[anxiety] of a journey toward an unknown destination," Tillich delineates, "[the anxiety] of fate and death, that of emptiness and loss of meaning, and [the anxiety] of guilt and condemnation." Like the Pharmakos (in the Derridean sense of a poison/cure with the person to be condemned under erasure), Tillich produces a solvent which dissolves the problematic of these categories, which is the (fraught) psychological turn towards "Courage."
In the Kierkegaardian sense, Courage is perhaps the hardest thing in the world ("No such person one was ever comforted by the phrase, 'One does what one can,'"'(what/how much is that?)), so how is it that Tillich can produce it so cheaply. We have a foreboding, such as when reading those awful works of Apologetics, which all begin meekly enough, yet somehow find a way to conclude with a raunchy Broadway number (and, not infrequently enough, the Sieg Heil. (I do not wish to Pharmakos-the-Well, so to speak.)) Tillich would like to help us to Courage (Faith). Rather than a Kierkegaardian "swimming in 20,000 fathoms of water," we can stand on the shore and practice our movements, or perhaps merely study them on television. Tillich's Courage, which is a negative category without ethical/eschatological content, and which at worst breaks even (this is also the quality of the "sure investment"), is taken back into the sacrifice, which it does not escape for having been bought too cheaply. As the body of the Brahman digests the sacrificial offering, so is Tillich's courage dissolves into a pure cellularity. The cellular structure of the body, which cannot help but continue to exist, is the only necessary actor, and the Ground:
"He who is in the grip of doubt and meaninglessness cannot liberate himself from this grip; but he asks for an answer. He asks for the ultimate foundation of what we have called the courage of despair. There is only one possible answer: namely that the acceptance of despair is in itself faith and on the boundary line of the courage to be. [...] The paradox of every radical negativity, is that it must affirm itself in order to be able to negate itself. Even in the despair about meaning being affirms itself through us. The act of accepting meaninglessness is in itself a meaningful act. It is an act of [courage]."
"Laugh at the stupidities of the world or weep over them, you will regret it either way." Doubt or do not doubt, the negative act is still a positive act (in the "can't do nothing" sense), and non-courage is still a kind of courage (Hegelian, this). We continue to be dependent, then, on Ontology's Generosity for allowing us to continue to walk on solid Ground, though, by rights, we should pass right through.
Nothing I fear
has ever harmed me, why should you?… (more)
3.5
Here Tillich is in part responding to critics of his use of philosophy within religion, and lays out an argument for how the Bible repeatedly points towards the ontological. He covers a lot of meaty ground in very few pages, and I can't help but feel it should have been longer. That being said, it's very readable, even if he loses me at points.
I recently read The Courage to Be, which perhaps made this feel all the more palatable, but this still seems like a good primer, despite coming after. Courage to Be is more rigidly philosophical and barely theological in its bulk, but this feels more balanced and accessible by comparison.
It's amazing how someone so confusing can remain so compelling.… (more)
Here Tillich is in part responding to critics of his use of philosophy within religion, and lays out an argument for how the Bible repeatedly points towards the ontological. He covers a lot of meaty ground in very few pages, and I can't help but feel it should have been longer. That being said, it's very readable, even if he loses me at points.
I recently read The Courage to Be, which perhaps made this feel all the more palatable, but this still seems like a good primer, despite coming after. Courage to Be is more rigidly philosophical and barely theological in its bulk, but this feels more balanced and accessible by comparison.
It's amazing how someone so confusing can remain so compelling.… (more)
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- Rating
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