Protestant Reformers & Pastors Codexery

Paul Tillich

German-American theologian and existentialist philosopher.

Paul Johannes Tillich was a German and American Christian existentialist philosopher and Lutheran theologian who taught at German universities before migrating to the United States in 1933.[1] The Courage to Be* (1952) and Dynamics of Faith (1957) were two of Tillich's books that found a broad general audience.[2]

Quick Facts

Birth name
Paul Johannes Tillich
Born
20 August 1886
Birthplace
Starzeddel, Province of Brandenburg, Prussia, German Empire
Died
22 October 1965
Place of death
Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
Language
English, German
Notable works
Systematic Theology (1951–1963), The Courage to Be (1952)
Children
2

Facts from the source article.

Life and work

On 13 April 1933, Tillich was among the first batch of prominent German academic "enemies of the Reich" dismissed from his tenured position.[3] The 1951 publication of volume one of Systematic Theology and the 1952 publication of The Courage to Be were Tillich's most heralded achievements.[4] In 1964, Tillich became the first theologian honored in Kegley and Bretall's Library of Living Theology.[5] At age four, Tillich started primary school in Bad Schönfliess, a settlement of roughly three thousand residents where his father had been posted.[6]

For his gymnasium education, Tillich was sent in 1898 to Königsberg in der Neumark; there, living in a boarding house and feeling isolated, he turned to reading the Bible.[6] Humanist ideas were encountered by Tillich during his school years.[6] The University of Breslau awarded Tillich a Doctor of Philosophy in 1911, and Halle-Wittenberg granted him a Licentiate in Theology in 1912.[7] During 1924–1925, Tillich was an associate professor of theology at the University of Marburg, a period when he started formulating his systematic theology.[8]

At 47 years old, Tillich relocated to the United States with his family; there he learned English, the language in which he later produced works like the Systematic Theology.[9] An appointment at Harvard Divinity School as a university professor came in 1955, following the success of his earlier publications.[10] The Society for the Arts, Religion and Contemporary Culture counted Tillich among its founding members in 1961.[11]

What the cited sources add

The "Paul Tillich Resources" account notes that Schelling's philosophy of identity of subject and object had a huge influence on Tillich's ontology, doctrine of God, and method of correlation.[12] The same source states that Schelling's natural philosophy gave Tillich the conceptual frame to interpret Nature, history, religion, and art as expressions of God's creativity.[12] According to this account, Tillich saw the Jesus event as the central, final revelation by which all other revelatory events are judged.[12] The "Paul Tillich Resources" page also reports that Tillich himself designated Kierkegaard's dialectical psychology and Schelling's positive philosophy as two major influences on his existential theology.[12]

The ProQuest record for "The Subject of Emancipation" confirms that this graduate work has been published as open access.[13]

References

  1. Wikipedia, "Paul Tillich" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Tillich" . Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary.; Peters, "A map of twentieth-century theology: readings from Karl Barth to radical pluralism", Fortress Press, 1995 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  2. Wikipedia, "Paul Tillich" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Tillich, My Search for Absolutes, 245 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  3. Wikipedia, "Paul Tillich" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Die Frankfurter Schule: Geschichte. Theoretische Entwicklung. Politische Bedeutung"; "Mercer University Press: Prophetic Interruptions: Critical Theory, Emancipation, and Religion in Paul Tillich, Theodor Adorno"; "Paul Tillich Interview", YouTube, 20 February 2022; "The Dialectical Imagination, by Martin Jay", November 1973; Mathers, "PAUL TILLICH'S LIFE, THOUGHT AND GERMAN LEGACY", University of Pretoria (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  4. Wikipedia, "Paul Tillich" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Pauck Wilhelm Marion 1976 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  5. Wikipedia, "Paul Tillich" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Kegley Bretall 1964, p. ix–x; "Dr. Paul Tillich, Outstanding Protestant Theologian", The Times, 25 Oct 1965; Thomas, "Tillich", Continuum, 2002 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  6. Wikipedia, "Paul Tillich" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Encyclopædia Britannica", 2008 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  7. Wikipedia, "Paul Tillich" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Encyclopædia Britannica", 2008; "Paul Tillich Resources", people.bu.edu (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  8. Wikipedia, "Paul Tillich" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Woodson, "Heideggerian Theologies: The Pathmarks of John Macquarrie, Rudolf Bultmann, Paul Tillich, and Karl Rahner", Wipf and Stock, 2018, p. 94–107 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  9. Wikipedia, "Paul Tillich" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Encyclopædia Britannica", 2008; "The Subject of Emancipation: Critique, Reason and Religion in the Thought of Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer and Paul Tillich", ProQuest (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  10. Wikipedia, "Paul Tillich" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "University Professorships." About the Faculty . Harvard University (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  11. Wikipedia, "Paul Tillich" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Meyer, "The ARC story: a narrative account of the Society for the Arts, Religion, and Contemporary Culture", Association for Religion and Intellectual Life, 2003 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  12. "Paul Tillich Resources", people.bu.edu. facts only, no text reused. people.bu.edu
  13. "The Subject of Emancipation: Critique, Reason and Religion in the Thought of Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer and Paul Tillich", ProQuest. facts only, no text reused. proquest.com

Each numbered sentence above was checked against the source it cites before publication. Sentences citing Wikipedia adapt text from the English Wikipedia article Paul Tillich (contributors), used under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is available under the same licence. Other sources were used for facts only; no text or images are copied from them.

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