Paul Johannes Tillich (August 20, 1886 – October 22, 1965) was a German-

American theologian and Christian existentialist philosopher. Tillich was one

of the most influential Protestant theologians in the twentieth century.

Paul Tillich appeared on the scene at the beginning of the twentieth century,
a time when Europe was going through considerable upheaval, politically and
spiritually. The relevance of Christian teachings to modern life was being
challenged, and so was the optimism of science and liberalism inherited from
the nineteenth century. In post-World War I Germany, when Tillich made his
first significant contributions, the situation was particularly dramatic.

Among the great theologians of the twentieth century, Tillich was perhaps
the one with the widest horizon. His approach was interdisciplinary and
interreligious. It was also historical. He believed that the tragic situation of
contemporary civilization was a great opportunity for realizing the goal
of religion in concrete life. For this, he felt the religious dimension had to
permeate the secular sphere, neither of the two being able to survive
meaningfully without the other. He believed that such a time of fulfillment
had come when Jesus was on earth, and that a similar opportunity was
coming to Europe after World War I.

Tillich’s experience in the trenches as a chaplain in World War I led him to

the study of Nietzsche and his critical thought about Christianity, which
Tillich thought needed to be addressed with philosophical credibility. This
experience formed the basis of his philosophical life in a way analogous
to Luther's so-called "tower experience." Throughout his life, Tillich strived to
show how apparently godless authors and systems could approach the
Ultimate more genuinely than conventional Christianity.

The main thrust of Tillich’s thought was to recreate a meaningful link

between Christianity and contemporary society. Like Karl Barth, he intended
to do so by reintroducing the absoluteness of God and the Christian
message, as opposed to its attempted “enculturation” in the liberal
Protestantism of that time. That attempt, Tillich and Barth felt, was doomed
to fail, as it deprived Christianity of its very essence. Like Barth, Tillich also
linked the Christian message to social justice and thesocialist movement.
Unlike Barth, however, Tillich did not believe that a mere insistence on the
absoluteness of faith in God as the “wholly other” was a viable solution. He
strongly felt that ways had to be sought to show how religion was a
necessary dimension of any society and how the absolute God was at the
same time present in all relative cultural life.

On the Boundary
Though Tillich’s emphasis and his style would change over time, particularly
after his exile to the United States in 1933, he always maintained his passion
for connecting the two sides of any issue or situation. This is well expressed
in his 1936 autobiography, On the Boundary, where Tillich relates how his life
has been straddling the limits between theology and philosophy, the church
and society, Europe and America, Protestantism and Catholicism, liberalism
and neo-orthodoxy, and so on. For Tillich, this position on the border was not
painful or unpleasant. He perceived it as a destiny that was in accordance
with his personal disposition.
Life

Born in Starzeddel (in what is now Poland) as the son of a Lutheran pastor,
Tillich studied at the universities of Berlin, Tübingen, Halle, and [[Breslau].
He received his doctorate in philosophy in 1910 (Breslau) and his licentiate in
theology in 1912 (Halle). Shortly thereafter, in 1912, Tillich was ordained
minister in the Lutheran Church. He served as chaplain in the German army
during World War I, an experience that left a profound mark on him and
contributed to his future orientation. In 1919, he took up a teaching career
that would last until the advent of Nazism. Tillich taught theology at the
universities of Berlin, Marburg, Dresden, and Leipzig, and philosophy at
Frankfurt. However, his opposition to the Nazis, his social positions, and his
solidarity with Jews would cost him his job. He was one of the first German
professors to be fired for his positions in 1933. Tillich then accepted an
invitation from Reinhold Niebuhr to teach at the Union Theological Seminary
in the United States, where he emigrated later that year. Tillich became a
U.S. citizen in 1940.

It is at the Union Theological Seminary that Tillich earned his reputation,

publishing a series of books that outlined his particular synthesis of
Protestant Christian theology with existentialist philosophy (drawing on
research in psychology in the process). Between 1952 and 1954, Tillich gave
the Gifford lectures at the University of Aberdeen, which resulted in the
comprehensive three-volume Systematic Theology. A 1952 book outlining
many of his views on existentialism, The Courage to Be,proved popular even
outside philosophical and religious circles, earning him considerable acclaim
and influence. These works led to an appointment at Harvard Universityin
1954, where he wrote another popularly acclaimed book, Dynamics of
Faith (1957). He was also a very important contributor to modern just
war thought. In 1962, he moved to the University of Chicago, where he
continued until his death in Chicago in 1965. Tillich's ashes were interred in
1965 in the Paul Tillich Park in New Harmony,Indiana.
Work

Tillich’s work is clearly divided into his early German period and his later
American period. In spite of significance differences on the surface, there is,
however, great continuity in his positions.
The German period: philosophy of religion and socialism
The early German Tillich was primarily focused on issues relating to the
philosophy of religion, as well as social issues and the question of Christian
socialism. Later, he would remember the “German provincialism” of his early
years. However, in spite of the academic language filled with cumbersome
expressions, his early works perhaps represent his most original contribution.
Certainly, they contain the key themes that he would develop throughout his
life.
Kairos and Tillich’s Christian Socialism
For Tillich, human existence, that of a finite being, inevitably means an
alienation from Being. In stark contrast to traditional Christian doctrine,
Tillich actually understood the human fall from grace as being the very
coming into existence of humankind, its creation as a limited being.
However, there are moments in history, Tillich believed, where the divine
breaks through into human existence and realizes itself, albeit never
perfectly. Such a time he calls Kairos, a Greek word for “right time,” as
opposed to simple chronological time. This happened with the advent
of Christ two thousand years ago. But Tillich believed that such a time
of Kairos had returned in Germany at the end of World War I, the only other
time in history he ever identified as such. Then, he believed, the opportunity
had appeared for Christian socialism to be established. Though Tillich
showed sympathy for Marxian themes, he nevertheless remained critical of
Marxism. To him, socialism meant the establishment of a just society, where
the limitations of being’s concrete realization could be transcended and
capitalistic materialism overcome. In many ways, this vision corresponds to
that of the Kingdom of Heaven on earth. Tillich’s book, The Socialist
Decision, was burned by the Nazis. During the American period, Tillich’s
emphasis on the socialist utopia faded, but he never abandoned his criticism
of what he perceived to be capitalism’s materialistic idolatry.
God, the Unconditioned, and Ultimate Concern
Tillich’s most important contribution during his early years was in the
philosophy of religion. Initially, he had been influenced by Schelling’s
speculative mysticism and attempts to unify theology and philosophy. But,
based on Kant’s critical method, Tillich soon concluded that there was
something fundamentally wrong in considering that God could be grasped as
a limited object of thought. Rather, he felt, God had to be found in the
immediate apprehension of the human mind. Kant had understood that
reality is what it is in our experience, but he had not properly accounted for
the specific character of the religious experience. The religious element,
Tillich concluded, consisted in the immediate and “unconditioned” meeting
of our thinking mind with Being. This meeting with Being is the absolute limit
of thinking. Being can only be apprehended through a mystical experience,
in other words through intuition. Hence, what Tillich called his critical-
intuitive (later “metalogical”) method for apprehending the religious as a
category of its own. The being that is met in this process is “unconditioned,”
i.e., it is absolute, not conditioned by anything, simply there.
Following Rudolf Otto, Tillich saw Being as both terrifying (a challenge to the
autonomy of our thought) and attractive (giving fulfillment mere thought
cannot provide). In his philosophical apprehension of God, Tillich used the
word Unconditioned to avoid objectifying God. Later, he would
prefer ultimate concern, referring to a mere function of our mind, and thus
even more removed from the dangers of objectification. Karl Barth strongly
disliked the expression “unconditioned” and referred to it as a “frozen
monstrosity.” One must understand that through it, Tillich tried to isolate the
very element that makes the ultimate, God, what it is, regardless of external
identification with a belief. As a result, Tillich extended what he called
religious belief to any sense of the “Unconditioned,” be it religious in the
traditional sense or not. For him, religion thus was primarily not a particular
domain that might or might not find its place in our society. It was the
fundamental dimension of every life experience. Even a
materialist atomist finds in the atom the absolute ultimate of reality. In this
sense, he is a believer. And the atheist believes that there is “absolutely” no
God, hence he is religious in his own way. The strength of this approach is
that it is very inclusive; it frees religion from its ghetto and universalizes it.
Its weakness is that it becomes somewhat unclear how a “genuine” religious
experience can be distinguished from other forms and how God’s being can
be more than our human horizon. Tillich has attempted to clarify these points
in his theological writings, but there is widespread agreement that some
inconsistency remains.
The American period: theology and existential concerns
In the second part of his career, beginning with his coming to the United
States in 1933, Tillich moved away from his earlier emphasis on the
philosophy of religion and his focus became more properly theological, with
inputs from a variety of other fields. But Tillich’s approach and his discussion
of themes remained very philosophical for a theologian and his earlier
insights constantly reappear in the discussion. The relationship between the
two poles of his interest in ultimate truth is symbolized by his so-called
“method of correlation,” by which he intends to have theology answer
questions raised by philosophy and culture.
Correlation
Tillich sought to correlate culture and faith such that "faith need not be
unacceptable to contemporary culture and contemporary culture need not
be unacceptable to faith". As a consequence, Tillich's orientation is highly
apologetic, seeking to make concrete theological answers such that they
become applicable to an ordinary day's course of events. This contributed to
his popularity by the virtue of the fact that it made him accessible to lay
readers. In a broader perspective, revelation is understood as the
fountainhead of religion. Tillich sought to reconcile revelation and reason by
arguing that revelation never runs counter to reason. However, for him, the
two stand in a paradoxical relationship to each other, one that can never be
permanently stabilized.
Existentialism
Tillich’s approach can also be called existentialist. In his early years already,
his approach of God as the Unconditioned was related to an existential
analysis. Tillich immediately felt a profound affinity for Heidegger’s position
after he discovered it in Sein und Zeit (Being and Time, 1927), in spite of
Heidegger’s atheism. He argued that anxiety of non-being (existential
anguish) is inherent in the experience of being itself. Put simply, people are
afraid of their own non-existence, i.e., their death. Following a line that was
also related to Kierkegaard and Freud, Tillich says that in our most
introspective moments we face the terror of our own nothingness. That is,
we "realize our mortality" that we are finite beings. What can sustain finite
beings is being itself, or the "ground of being." This Tillich identifies as God.

Another name for the ground of being is essence. Essence is thought of as

the power of being, and is forever unassailable by the conscious mind. As
such it remains beyond the realm of thought, preserving the need for
revelation in the Christian tradition.
Systematic theology
Tillich’s mature view of theology is expressed in the three volumes of
his Systematic Theology. For him, Christ is the "New Being," who rectifies in
himself the alienationbetween essence and existence. Essence fully shows
itself within Christ, but Christ is also a finite man. This indicates, for Tillich, a
revolution in the very nature of being. The gap is healed and essence can
now be found within existence. Thus for Tillich, Christ is not God himself, but
Christ is the revelation of God. Whereas traditional Christianity regards Christ
as a wholly alien kind of being, Tillich believed that Christ was the emblem of
the highest goal of man, what God wants men to become. Thus to be a
Christian is to make oneself progressively "Christ-like," a very possible goal
in Tillich's eyes. In other words, Christ is not God in the traditional sense, but
reveals the essence inherent in all existence. Thus Christ is not different than
mankind except insofar as he fully reveals God within his own finitude,
something that can also be done in principle.
In the third and last volume, Tillich expresses his view of “Life in the Spirit”
and the “Kingdom of God,” which are closely related to his notion
of Kairos, or God’s time. For him, Spirit is a "depth dimension" of life (where
the absolute resides) that is accessed transparently on occasion through
theonomous experiences. The work of the Spirit does not break the existing
structures but heals them. According to Tillich himself, this achievement
remains by necessity fragmentary with a view towards an eschatological
fulfillment.
The demonic temptation
Since things in existence are corrupt and therefore ambiguous, no finite
thing can be (by itself) that which is infinite. All that is possible is for the
finite to be a vehicle for revealing the infinite, but the two can never be
confused. Tillich speaks of the demonic temptation that consists for the finite
to make a claim to unconditioned finality for itself. This applies to all forms of
church life as culture, and it leaves religion itself in a place where it cannot
be taken as too dogmatic because of its conceptual and therefore finite and
corrupt nature. True religion is that which correctly reveals the infinite, but
no religion can ever do so in any way other than through metaphor and
symbol. Its view of the ultimate can never be ultimate itself. Tillich called this
the “Protestant Principle,” according to which every “yes” (affirmation) had
to be counterbalanced by a “no.” Thus the whole of the Bible must be
understood symbolically and all spiritual and theological knowledge cannot
be other than symbol. This is often seized upon by theologians to utilize as
an effective counterpoint to religious fundamentalism. Among all symbols,
Tillich felt that the cross was the least susceptible to be used in an abusive
way, since it represents self-denial itself.
Theonomy, autonomy, and heteronomy
Tillich constantly refers to three forms of relationship between the Church
and culture or society: theonomy, autonomy, and heteronomy. Theonomy is
the state where religion consists of an authentic meeting of the mind with
God, something that pervades society from the inside and gives it its life and
even its structure. Hence the word theonomy (God’s rule). Theonomy
characterized the early middle-ages. In the late middle-ages, theonomy
gradually turned into heteronomy, the least desirable of the three: religion is
imposed from the outside (the meaning of heteros) and becomes oppressive.
Later still, with the advent of modernism, autonomy came to dominate
society, representing the independence of the human mind from any
external authority. Tillich believed that autonomy has its legitimate place in
society, but that it can do so only within a framework of theonomy,
something that has been missing for centuries.
The dialogue with other religions

Based on his premises, Tillich felt that God, the Unconditioned, could be met
in and through any religious (or not strictly religious) paradigm. Though his
approach was clearly that of a Christian, and not a neutral, undifferentiated
one, he made it unambiguously clear that a similar approach could be
developed based on other religious traditions. Later in life, he had the
opportunity to visit Japan and to meet Japanese representatives of Zen
Buddhism. Their dialogue did not prove particularly conclusive and Tillich
maintained a certain distance. Still, elective affinities appeared based on the
notion of the “non-existence” of God.
The non-existence of God
As a theologian (namely in his “Systematic Theology”), Tillich came to make
the paradoxical statement that God does not exist, for which he has been
accused ofatheism. "God does not exist. He is being itself beyond essence
and existence. Therefore to argue that God exists is to deny him."

That statement is a continuation of Tillich’s earlier conclusion that God

cannot be conceived as an object, no matter how lofty. We cannot think of
God as a being that exists in time and space, because that constrains Him,
and makes Him finite. Thus we must think of God as beyond being, above
finitude and limitation, the power or essence of being itself. There is a clear
logic in Tillich’s development here, and he makes it plain that denying God’s
“existence” is in fact needed in order to affirm him. Still, at times he makes it
hard to avoid the impression that there simply “is” no God, which is largely
due to his use of the notion of existence. Again, the apologetic nature of
Tillich’s discourse should be remembered. The purpose of such statements is
to forcibly remove incorrect notions from the minds of his audience by
creating a state of shock. For more on this topic, see Robert R.N. Ross’s The
Non-Existence of God: Linguistic Paradox in Tillich’s Thought (1978).
Works

• The Protestant Era, 1948

• Shaking of the Foundations, Sermons: 1948
• The Courage to Be, 1952
• The New Being, Sermons: 1955
• Love, Power, and Justice, 1954
• Biblical Religion and the Search for Ultimate
Reality, 1955
• Dynamics of Faith, 1957
• Systematic Theology, three volumes: 1951-1963
• Morality and Beyond, 1963