Tillich Paul (1886–1965), German-born American philosopher and theologian. Born in Starzeddel, eastern Germany, he was educated in philosophy and theology and ordained in the Prussian Evangelical Church in 1912. He served as an army chaplain during World War I and later taught at Berlin, Marburg, Dresden, Leipzig, and Frankfurt. In November 1933, following suspension from his teaching post by the Nazis, he emigrated to the United States, where he taught at Columbia and Union Theological Seminary until 1955, and then at Harvard and Chicago until his death. A popular preacher and speaker, he developed a wide audience in the United States through such writings as The Protestant Era (1948), Systematic Theology (three volumes: 1951, 1957, 1963), The Courage to Be (1952), and Dynamics of Faith (1957). His sometimes unconventional lifestyle, as well as his syncretic yet original thought, moved ‘on the boundary’ between theology and other elements of culture – especially art, literature, political thought, and depth psychology – in the belief that religion should relate to the whole extent, and the very depths, of human existence. Tillich’s thought, despite its distinctive ‘ontological’ vocabulary, was greatly influenced by the voluntaristic tradition from Augustine through Schelling, Schopenhauer, Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud. It was a systematic theology that sought to state fresh Christian answers to deep existential questions raised by individuals and cultures – his method of correlation. Every age has its distinctive kairos, ‘crisis’ or ‘fullness of time,’ the right time for creative thought and action. In Weimar Germany, Tillich found the times ripe for religious socialism. In post–World War II America, he focused more on psychological themes: in the midst of anxiety over death, meaninglessness, and guilt, everyone seeks the courage to be, which comes only by avoiding the abyss of non-being (welling up in the demonic) and by placing one’s unconditional faith – ultimate concern – not in any particular being (e.g. God) but in Being-Itself (‘the God above God,’ the ground of being). This is essentially the Protestant principle, which prohibits lodging ultimate concern in any finite and limited reality (including state, race, and religious institutions and symbols).
Tillich was especially influential after World War II. He represented for many a welcome critical openness to the spiritual depths of modern culture, opposing both demonic idolatry of this world (as in National Socialism) and sectarian denial of cultural resources for faith (as in Barthian neo-orthodoxy).
See also AUGUSTINE , EXISTENTIALISM , FREUD , NIETZSCH. W.L.S.
