Paul Johannes Tillich

Paul Johannes Tillich , 1886-1965, American philosopher and theologian, b. Germany, educated at the universities of Berlin, Tübingen, Halle, and Breslau. In 1912 he was ordained a minister of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. He taught theology at the universities of Berlin, Marburg, Dresden, and Leipzig and philosophy at the Univ. of Frankfurt until he was dismissed in 1933 because of his opposition to the Nazi regime. In the same year, at the invitation of Reinhold Niebuhr, he went to the United States and joined the faculty of Union Theological Seminary. In 1954 he became a professor at Harvard; in 1962 he became Nuveen professor of theology at the Univ. of Chicago. His theological system embraced the concept of "the Protestant Principle," according to which every Yes must have its corresponding No, and no human truth is ultimate. Faith, to Tillich, was "ultimate concern," and God was "the God above God," the "Ground of Being," or "Being-Itself." "New Being," rather than "salvation," should be the human goal. Tillich incorporated depth psychology and existentialist philosophy into his system and considered them essential elaborations of Christian doctrine. He aimed at a correlation of the questions arising out of the human condition and the divine answers drawn from the symbolism of Christian revelation. The great questions, in his classification, dealt with being, existence, and life. His writings include The Interpretation of History (tr. 1936), The Protestant Era (tr. 1948), The Shaking of the Foundations (1948), Systematic Theology, (3 vol., 1951-63), The Courage to Be (1952), Love, Power, and Justice (1954), Biblical Religion and the Search for Ultimate Reality (1955), The New Being (1955), Dynamics of Faith (1957), Christianity and the Encounter of the World Religions (1963), My Search for Absolutes (1967), My Travel Diary: 1936, ed. by J. C. Brauer (1970), and A History of Christian Thought, ed. by C. E. Braaten (1972).

Bibliography: See the reminiscences by his wife, Hanna (1973) and R. May (1973); C. J. Armbruster, The Vision of Paul Tillich (1967); J. R. Lyons, ed., The Intellectual Legacy of Paul Tillich (1969); L. F. Wheat, Paul Tillich's Dialectical Humanism (1970).

Tillich, Paul [Johannes Oskar] (1886–1965), German‐born theologian, a member of the United Church of Christ, came to the U.S. (1933), was naturalized (1940), and served as a professor at Union Theological Seminary (1933–55), Harvard (1955–62), and the University of Chicago (1962–65). He was a leader in dialectical theology, and his works, which relate philosophic and existential religious views, include The Religious Situation (1932), The Interpretation of History (1936), The Protestant Era (1948), Systematic Theology (3 vols., 1951, 1957, 1963), The Courage To Be (1952), Love, Power, and Justice (1954), Biblical Religion and the Search for Ultimate Reality (1955), Dynamics of Faith (1956), Theology of Culture (1959), and The Eternal Now (1963).

Tillich, Paul Johannes Oskar (1886–1965). Christian Protestant theologian. He was born in Prussia, and after education at Berlin and Tübingen, and ordination in 1912, he served as a chaplain in the First World War, receiving the Iron Cross. He became professor at Union Theological Seminary until he retired in 1955. He then became professor, first at Harvard, then at Chicago. He was a major and innovative theologian, taking his point of departure from Schelling: symbols, as human creations of meaning (participating in the reality to which they point) mediate between bare objects and conventional signs. But humans are always involved existentially in questions (arising from limitation and above all from awareness of the personal ending which is to come) and predicaments (situations which seem to lead to self-defeat). These questions and predicaments have no solution (and are thus empty symbols in quest of meaning) until they are brought into relation with religious symbols which offer the meaning sought. This is the basis for the principle of correlation which led him to explore the theology of culture. In so far as forms of cultural expression set forth something of unconditional importance, they are expressing that which is religious. Unconditional meaning (Gehalt) breaks into the form of a cultural work in such a way that the content of the work can be seen to be a matter of indifference in relation to it. Tillich was later to call the unconditional meaning ‘ultimate concern’. Religion then becomes the state of being unconditionally concerned about that which concerns one unconditionally. Thus ‘God’ is in no way a synonym for ‘ultimate concern’. Indeed, that which is truly God, the God above God, cannot be spoken of except as being-itself: ‘God does not exist. He is being itself beyond essence and existence. Therefore to argue that God exists is to deny him.’ But ‘God’ enters our vocabulary because the ground of being enters our lives as the answer to the question implied by human finitude. Time is thereby not simply transition but kairos, opportunity.

Not surprisingly, Tillich's ideas are communicated, not simply in technical works (e.g. Systematic Theology, 3 vols., 1953–63), but also in sermons (e.g. The Shaking of the Foundations, 1948; The Eternal Now, 1963) and lectures (e.g. The Courage to Be, 1952).