Paul Tillich

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Paul Johannes Tillich (August 20, 1886 – October 22, 1965) was a
German-American theologian and Christian existentialist
philosopher. Tillich was, along with his contemporaries Rudolf
Bultmann (Germany), Karl Barth (Switzerland), and Reinhold
Niebuhr (United States), one of the four most influential Protestant
theologians of the twentieth century. Among the general populace,
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. Theologically, 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.[1][2]

Contents
[hide]

 1 Biography
 2 Theology
o 2.1 Method of Correlation
 3 Bibliography
 4 References
 5 Further reading
 6 See also
 7 External links

[edit] Biography

Bust of Paul Johannes Tillich by James Rosati in New Harmony, Indiana, U.S.A.

Paul Tillich’s life has been chronicled in a biography,[3] a partially biographical book
(Hopper, 1968), an autobiographical sketch (in On the Boundary), and two
autobiographical essays (in Kegley[4] and My Search for Absolutes[5]).
Tillich was born on August 20, 1886, in the small village of Starzeddel in the province of
Brandenburg in eastern Germany. He was the oldest of three children, with two sisters:
Johanna (b. 1888, d. 1920) and Elisabeth (b. 1893). Tillich’s Prussian father was a
conservative Lutheran pastor; his mother was from the Rhineland and was more liberal.
When Tillich was four, his father became superintendent of a diocese in Schönfliess, a town
of three thousand, where Tillich began elementary school. In 1898 Tillich was sent to
Königsberg to begin gymnasium (basically equivalent to American high schools). At
Königsberg he lived in a boarding house and experienced loneliness that he sought to
overcome by reading the Bible. Simultaneously, however, he was exposed to humanistic
ideas at school.[2]

In 1900, Tillich’s father was transferred to Berlin, 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 of 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 in 1905-07. He received his Doctor of Philosophy degree at the
University of Breslau in 1911 and his Licentiate of Theology degree at the University of
Halle in 1912.[2] During his time at university, he became a member of the Wingolf.

That same year, 1912, Tillich was ordained as a Lutheran minister in the province of
Brandenburg. In September 1914 he married Margarethe ("Grethi") Wever, and in October
he joined the German army as a chaplain. Grethi deserted Tillich in 1919 after an affair that
produced a child not fathered by Tillich; the two then divorced.[3] Tillich’s academic career
began after the war: he became a Privadozent 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
Gottswchow, then married and pregnant.[6] In March 1924 they married; it was the second
marriage for both.

During 1924-25 he was 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 University of
Dresden and the University of Leipzig. He held the same post at the University of Frankfurt
during 1929-33.

While at Frankfurt, Tillich gave public lectures and speeches throughout Germany that
brought him into conflict with the Nazi movement. When 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 Tillich’s dismissal. Niebuhr urged Tillich to join the faculty at New
York City’s Union Theological Seminary; Tillich accepted [3] [7]

At the age of 47, Tillich moved with his family to America. 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, 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. Tillich acquired tenure at Union in 1937, and in 1940 he was
promoted to Professor of Philosophical Theology and became an American citizen..[2]
At the Union Theological Seminary, 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 prestigous Gifford lectures during 1953–54 at the
University of Aberdeen. The latter book, called "his masterpiece" in the Pauks’s biography
of Tillich (p. 225), was based on his 1950 Dwight H. Terry Lectureship and reached a wide
general readership.[2]

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. Tillich’s Harvard career lasted until 1962. During this period he
published volume 2 of Systematic Theology [8] and also published the popular book,
Dynamics of Faith (1957).

In 1962, Tillich moved to the University of Chicago, where he was a Professor of Theology
until his death in Chicago 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. They wrote: "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" (Kegley and Bretall, 1964, pp. ix-x). A widely
quoted critical assessment of his importance was Georgia Harkness' comment, "What
Whitehead was to American philosophy, Tillich has been to American theology".[9][10]

Tillich died on October 22, 1965, ten days after experiencing a heart attack. In 1966 his
ashes were interred in the Paul Tillich Park in New Harmony, Indiana.
Paul Tillich’s gravestone in the Paul Tillich Park, New Harmony, Indiana, United States

[edit] Theology
[edit] Method of Correlation

Key to an understanding of Tillich’s theology is his "method of correlation": an approach of

correlating insights from Christian revelation with the issues raised by existential
philosophical analysis.[1]

Though the method is at work throughout the Systematic Theology, it finds its most explicit
formulation in the introduction to that work:

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. [11]

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 the questions, that is, from an analysis of human existence.
They are ‘spoken’ to human existence from beyond it. Otherwise they would not be
answers, for the question is human existence itself.
 – Paul [12].

For Tillich, the existential questions of human existence are associated with the field of
philosophy and, more specifically, ontology (the study of 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.[13][14] 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. It is important to remember that, 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. [15]

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. [16] It is important that, 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.[17]

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.”[18] 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.[19] Thus, we have the following as elements of the method and structure of
systematic theology:

 Sources of theology
o Bible
o Church history
 o History of religion and culture
 Experience (medium of sources)
 Norm of theology (determines use of sources)

As 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.[20]
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.[21] 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.[22] For Tillich, the present day norm is the “New Being in Jesus as the
Christ as our Ultimate Concern.”[23] 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.[24]

[edit] Bibliography
 The Religious Situation (1925, Die religiose Lage der Gegenwart), Holt 1932,
Meridian Press 1956, online edition
 The Interpretation of History (1936), online edition
 The Protestant Era (1948), The University of Chicago Press, online edition
 The Shaking of the Foundations (1948), Charles Scribner's Sons, a sermon
collection, online edition
 Systematic Theology, 1951–63 (3 volumes), University of Chicago Press
o Volume 1 (1951). ISBN 0-226-80337-6
o Volume 2: Existence and the Christ (1957). ISBN 0-226-80338-4
o Volume 3: Life and the Spirit: History and the Kingdom of God (1963).
ISBN 0-226-80339-2
 The Courage to Be (1952), Yale University Press, ISBN 0-300-08471-4 (2nd ed)
 Love, Power, and Justice: Ontological Analysis and Ethical Applications (1954),
Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-500222-9
 Biblical Religion and the Search for Ultimate Reality (1955), University Of
Chicago Press, ISBN 0-226-80341-4
 The New Being (1955), Charles Scribner's Sons, ISBN 0-68471908-8, a sermon
collection, online edition, 2006 Bison Press edition with introduction by Mary Ann
Stenger: ISBN 0-80329458-1
 Dynamics of Faith (1957), Harper and Row, ISBN 0-06-093713-0
  Theology of Culture (1959), Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-500711-5
 Christianity and the Encounter of the World Religions (1963), Columbia University
Press, online edition
 Morality and Beyond (1963), Harper and Row, 1995 edition: Westminster John
Knox Press, ISBN 0-66425564-7
 The Eternal Now (1963), Charles Scribner’s Sons, 2003 SCM Press: ISBN 0-
33402875-2, university sermons 1955–63, online edition
 Ultimate Concern: Tillich in Dialogue (1965), editor D. Mackenzie Brown, Harper
& Row, online edition
 On the Boundary, 1966 New York: Charles Scribner’s
 My Search for Absolutes (1967, posthumous), ed. Ruth Nanda Anshen, Simon &
Schuster, 1984 reprint: ISBN 0-671-50585-8 (includes autobiographical chapter)
online edition
 "The Philosophy of Religion", in What Is Religion? (1969), ed. James Luther
Adams. New York: Harper & Row
o "The Conquest of the Concept of Religion in the Philosophy of Religion" in
What is Religion?
o "On the Idea of a Theology of Culture" in What is Religion?
 My Travel Diary 1936: Between Two Worlds (1970), Harper & Row, (edited and
published posthumously by J.C. Brauer) online edition
 A History of Christian Thought: From its Judaic and Hellenistic Origins to
Existentialism (1972), Simon and Schuster, (edited from his lectures and published
posthumously by C. E. Braaten), ISBN 0-671-21426-8;
o A History of Christian Thought (1968), Harper & Row, online edition
contains the first part of the two part 1972 edition (comprising the 38 New
York lectures)
 The System of the Sciences (1981), Translated by Paul Wiebe. London: Bucknell
University Press. (originally published in German in 1923)
 The Essential Tillich (1987), (anthology) F. Forrester Church, editor; (Macmillan):
ISBN 0-02-018920-6; 1999 (U. of Chicago Press): ISBN 0-226-80343-0

[edit] References
1. ^ a b "Tillich, Paul Johannes Oskar", The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions.
Ed. John Bowker. Oxford University Press, 2000. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford
University Press.
2. ^ a b c d e "Tillich, Paul." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2008. Encyclopædia Britannica Online.
retrieved 17 Feb. 2008 [1].
3. ^ a b c Paul Tillich: His Life & Thought–Volume 1: Life, Pauk, Wilhelm & Marion. New
York: Harper & Row, 1976
4. ^ Kegley, Charles W., and Bretall, Robert W., eds. 1964. The Theology of Paul Tillich.
New York: Macmillan, pp. 3-21
5. ^ pp. 23-54
6. ^ Paul Tillich, Lover, Time, October 8, 1973
7. ^ (Tillich, 1964, p. 16).
8. ^ (1957)
 9. ^ Dr. Paul Tillich Outstanding Protestant Theologian, The Times, Oct 25, 1965
10. ^ Tillich, John Heywood Thomas, Continuum International Publishing Group, 2002, ISBN
0826450822
11. ^ |Paul Tillich|Systematic Theology, vol. 1, p 61
12. ^ Tillich|Systematic Theology, vol. 1, p. 64
13. ^ Tillich, Systematic Theology, vol. 1, pp 23ff.
14. ^ Tillich, Biblical Religion and the Search for Ultimate Reality, pp 58ff.
15. ^ Tillich, Systematic Theology, vol. 1, p 28.
16. ^ Tillich, Systematic Theology, vol. 1, p 64.
17. ^ McKelway, The Systematic Theology of Paul Tillich, p 47.
18. ^ Tillich, Systematic Theology, vol. 1, p 64.
19. ^ Tillich, Systematic Theology, vol. 1, p 47.
20. ^ McKelway, The Systematic Theology of Paul Tillich, pp 55-56.
21. ^ Tillich, Systematic Theology, vol. 1, p 52.
22. ^ McKelway, The Systematic Theology of Paul Tillich, p 80.
23. ^ Tillich, Systematic Theology, vol. 1, p 50.
24. ^ Tillich, Systematic Theology, vol. 1, p 60.

[edit] 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
 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., and 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
 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–Volume 1: Life.
New York: Harper & Row
 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 Theology 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
 Thomas, George F. 1965. Religious Philosophies of the West. New York: Scribner's,
1965.
 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