Mut und Partizipation

With his analysis of courage as a foundational theme of modern existential philosophy, Tillich answers, in “The Courage to Be“: dread, which is a key motif in the thought of Kierkegaard, Heidegger, and Sartre, and which also gains importance in ‘existential America’ at the same time. This essay documents the innovative existential philosophical character of the work under the guidance of the concept of ‘participation.’ The book is much more than a theological bestseller. It is also evidence of the wealth of perspectives of existential thought that reveals insightful ethical and political perspectives beyond the religious and philosophical aspects typical of Tillich.

„Anxiety is finitude, experienced as one’s own finitude.“

This essay discusses Paul Tillich’s concept of anxiety. In his book The Courage to Be, Tillich speaks of a correlation between an ontology of anxiety and an ontology of courage. The essay explains this relation against the background of the development of Tillich’s works. The roots of the correlation between anxiety and courage can be found in Tillich’s concept of religion on the basis of the doctrine of justification, which he continually worked out back to his early writings. He uses this understanding of religion for his description of modern culture. Anxiety and courage are the two aspects in which God is disclosed in human consciousness.

Letzte Sorge, letzte Zuversicht

The bestseller The Courage to Be presents Tillich’s “concrete existential” notion of religion that is based on the key terms ‘anxiety’ and ‘courage’. This essay traces this idea’s long history in Tillichian thinking that reaches back to the mid-twenties lectures on dogmatics in Marburg and Dresden, and outlines its core elements, pointing out its contrast to Tillich’s earlier notion of religion as the mind’s intention on absolute meaning. Subsequently, the discussion moves to Tillich’s theorem of the double principle of ‘individualization and participation’, providing instructive insights into basic social presuppositions and types of religion, instructive especially in the present-day situation of religious pluralism.

Paul Tillichs Schrift „The Courage to Be“ – ein missverstandener Bestseller

The Courage to Be is Tillich’s best-known work. That this work has retained such popularity perplexes one as a Tillich scholar since this text is anything but easy to understand. This essay offers an analysis of the concepts ‘theism,’ ‘absolute faith,’ and ‘God above God,’ and comes to the conclusion that both proponents of this work as well as its theological critics have misunderstood, and indeed that only because of these misunderstandings could the work have become a bestseller at all.

Le Courage d’être et les contextes spirituels contemporains

Can the exploration of new spiritual contexts in postmodernity lead us to come to terms with anxiety in new ways and, as a consequence, with courage? Three contexts (climate change, human migrations and organizational violence) bombard our fundamental vulnerability as individuals as well as our communities. Can these contextual and paradoxical anxieties send us once again to the source of the Courage to Be? Can Tillich’s proposals from the 1950s again become both fresh and relevant? It takes fundamental courage to confront these anxieties and challenges, a courage which further defines our humanity.

Rethinking The Courage to Be for American Culture Today

This essay compares the cultural context for The Courage to Be with the present American context and then assesses the extent to which Tillich’s analysis is helpful in understanding and/or addressing current challenges to faith and life. Two aspects of culture that need to be addressed today are 1) the importance of our human bodies in how we live and in how we relate to others and 2) issues of justice and power. People still experience the anxieties of fate and death, doubt and meaninglessness, and guilt and condemnation, but today there is less emphasis on guilt. For some groups, a fourth anxiety of injustice and oppression dominates. American culture today is polarized politically and religiously over basic values, with people gaining courage through belonging to particular groups much more than through the courage to be as oneself. Transcendent courage participates in the power of being-itself and grounds all forms of courage, providing a religious meaning to courage and to life.