View source for Paul Tillich

{{Short description|German and American theologian and philosopher (1886–1965)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}
{{Infobox theologian <!--For more information see [[:Template:Infobox theologian/doc]]-->
| name = Paul Tillich
| image = Paul Tillich.jpg
| birth_name = Paul Johannes Tillich
| birth_date = {{birth date |1886|8|20}}
| birth_place = [[Starzeddel]], [[Province of Brandenburg]], Prussia, German Empire
| death_date = {{nowrap|{{death date and age |1965|10|22|1886|8|20}}}}
| death_place = Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
| language = {{hlist| English | German}}
| notable_works = {{ubl| ''Systematic Theology'' (1951–1963) | ''The Courage to Be'' (1952)}}
| tradition_movement = [[Christian existentialism]]
| main_interests = {{ubl|class=nowrap| [[Ontology]] | [[Philosophical theology]] | [[Existentialism|Existential analysis]]}}
| notable_ideas = {{collapsible list|title={{nobold|''See list''}}|{{ubl|item_style={{longitem}}| Method of correlation | Protestant principle<br />and Catholic substance<ref>Paul Tillich, ''Systematic Theology, Vol. 3'', University of Chicago Press, 1963, p. 245</ref> | Ground of being<ref>Paul Tillich, ''Systematic Theology, Vol. 1'', University of Chicago Press, 1951, p. 235</ref> | New Being<ref>Paul Tillich, ''Systematic Theology, Vol. 2'', University of Chicago Press, 1957, p. 92, 120</ref> | [[Theology of culture]] | ''[[Kairos]]'' | Theonomy<ref>"Autonomy and heteronomy are rooted in theonomy, and each goes astray when their theonomous unity is broken. Theonomy does not mean the acceptance of a divine law imposed on reason by a highest authority; it means autonomous reason united with its own depth. In a theonomous situation reason actualizes itself in obedience to its structural laws and in the power of its own inexhaustible ground." Tillich, ''Systematic Theology, Vol. 1'', p. 85</ref>}}}}
| spouse = {{ubl| {{marriage|Grethi Wever|28 September 1914||end=divorced}} | {{marriage|Hannah Werner-Gottschow|March 1924}}}}
| children = 2
|education=[[University of Berlin]]<br>[[University of Tübingen]]<br>[[University of Halle-Wittenberg]]<br>[[University of Breslau]]}}
{{Neo-orthodoxy}}
{{Lutheranism|theologians}}

'''Paul Johannes Tillich''' ({{IPAc-en|ˈ|t|ɪ|l|ɪ|k}};<ref>[http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/tillich "Tillich"]. ''[[Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary]]''.</ref> {{IPA|de|ˈtɪlɪç|lang}}; August 20, 1886&nbsp;– October 22, 1965) was a German and American [[Christian existentialism|Christian existentialist]] philosopher, [[Christian socialism|religious socialist]], and [[Lutheran theologian]] who was one of the most influential theologians of the twentieth century.<ref>{{citation | editor-first = Carl E | editor-last = Braaten | first =Ted | last = Peters |publisher=Fortress Press |year = 1995 | url= https://books.google.com/books?id=Xax15MpLyjYC&pg=PA392 | at = backjacket | type = review | quote = The current generation of students has heard only the names of Barth, Brunner, Bultmann, Bonhoeffer, Tillich, and the Niebuhrs. | access-date = 2011-01-01 |title=A map of twentieth-century theology: readings from Karl Barth to radical pluralism| isbn = 9781451404814 }}</ref> Tillich taught at German universities before immigrating to the United States in 1933, where he taught at [[Union Theological Seminary (New York City)|Union Theological Seminary]], [[Harvard University]], and the [[University of Chicago]].

For the general public, Tillich wrote the well-received ''The Courage to Be'' (1952) and ''Dynamics of Faith'' (1957). His major three-volume ''Systematic Theology'' (1951–1963) was for theologians; in many points it was an answer to existentialist critique of Christianity.<ref>Tillich, ''My Search for Absolutes'', 245</ref>

Tillich's work attracted scholarship from other influential thinkers like [[Karl Barth]], [[Reinhold Niebuhr]], [[H. Richard Niebuhr]], [[George Lindbeck]], [[Erich Przywara]], [[James Luther Adams]], Cardinal [[Avery Dulles]], [[Dietrich Bonhoeffer]], [[Sallie McFague]], [[Richard John Neuhaus]], [[David Novak]], [[Thomas Merton]], [[Michael Novak]], and [[Martin Luther King Jr.]] According to H. Richard Niebuhr, {{nowrap|"[t]he}} reading of ''Systematic Theology'' can be a great voyage of discovery into a rich and deep, and inclusive and yet elaborated, vision and understanding of human life in the presence of the mystery of God."<ref>H. Richard Niebuhr, ''Union Seminary Quarterly Review'', review on back cover of ''Systematic Theology, Vol. 3''</ref> [[John Herman Randall Jr.]] lauded the ''Systematic Theology'' as "beyond doubt the richest, most suggestive, and most challenging philosophical theology our day has produced."<ref>John H. Randall Jr., ''Union Seminary Quarterly Review'', review included on back cover of ''Systematic Theology, Vol. 1''</ref>

Tillich also authored many works in ethics, the [[philosophy of history]], and [[comparative religion]]. His ideas continue to be studied and discussed at international conferences and seminars.

== Biography ==
Tillich was born on August 20, 1886, in the small village of [[Starzeddel]], [[Province of Brandenburg]], [[Former eastern territories of Germany|then part of Germany]] (modern-day Starosiedle, Poland). He had two younger sisters. Tillich's [[Prussia]]n father, Johannes Tillich, was a conservative [[Lutheran]] pastor of the [[Evangelical State Church of Prussia's older Provinces]]; his mother, Mathilde Dürselen, was from the [[Rhineland]] and more liberal.{{cn|date=March 2024}}

When Tillich was four, his father was assigned to [[Bad Schönfliess]] (now [[Trzcińsko-Zdrój]], Poland), a town of three thousand, where Tillich began primary school. In 1898, Tillich was sent to [[Königsberg in der Neumark]] (now [[Chojna]], Poland) to begin his ''[[Gymnasium (school)|gymnasium]]'' schooling. He was billeted in a boarding house and lonely, so he read the Bible. At school, he discovered [[Humanism|humanist]] ideas.<ref name="britannica">{{Citation |title=Encyclopædia Britannica |url=http://search.eb.com/eb/article-7265 |year=2008 |access-date=17 February 2008 |contribution=Tillich, Paul |edition=online}}.</ref>

In 1900, Tillich's father was transferred to [[Berlin]]. Tillich switched to a Berlin school in 1901 and graduated in 1904. In September of the preceding year, his mother died of [[cancer]]; Tillich was 17. He attended several universities: the [[University of Berlin]] beginning in 1904; the [[University of Tübingen]] in 1905; and the [[University of Halle-Wittenberg]] from 1905 to 1907.  He received his Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degree at the [[University of Breslau]] in 1911 and his [[Licentiate of Theology]] at Halle-Wittenberg in 1912.<ref name=britannica /> His PhD dissertation at Breslau was on [[Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling|Schelling]] and the history of religion''.''<ref>{{Cite web|title=Paul Tillich Resources|url=http://people.bu.edu/wwildman/tillich/resources/influence_schelling.htm|access-date=2020-07-21|website=people.bu.edu}}</ref>

During his time at university, he became a member of the [[Wingolf]] Christian fraternities in Berlin, Tübingen, and Halle.<ref>{{Citation | title = Gesamtverzeichnis des Wingolf | place = Lichtenberg | year = 1991}}.</ref>

In 1912, Tillich was ordained as a Lutheran minister in the Province of Brandenburg. On 28 September 1914, he married Margarethe ("Grethi") Wever (1888–1968), and in October he joined the [[Imperial German Army]] as a [[chaplain]] during [[World War I]]. Grethi deserted Tillich in 1919 after an [[affair]] that produced a child not fathered by Tillich; the two then divorced.{{Sfn | Pauck | Wilhelm | Marion | 1989 | pages 86-87}} During the war, Tillich served as a chaplain in the trenches; he buried his closest friend and numerous soldiers in the mud of France. He was hospitalized three times for combat trauma, and was awarded the [[Iron Cross]] for bravery under fire. He came home from the war shattered.<ref>Pauck</ref> Tillich's academic career began after the war; he became a [[Privatdozent]] of Theology at the [[University of Berlin]], a post he held from 1919 to 1924. On his return from the war, he met Hannah Werner-Gottschow (then married and pregnant).<ref name = ptlover>{{Citation | url = http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,908007-1,00.html | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20080330090124/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,908007-1,00.html | url-status = dead | archive-date = March 30, 2008 | title = Paul Tillich, Lover | newspaper = Time | date = October 8, 1973}}.</ref> In March 1924, they married; it was the second marriage for both. She later wrote a book entitled ''From Time to Time'' about their life together (including their [[open marriage]]). Although their lifestyle was upsetting to some, they remained together into old age.<ref>{{Citation |author=Wolfgang Saxon | title = Hannah Tillich, 92, Christian Theologian's Widow |work=New York Times |date=October 30, 1988 }}</ref>

From 1924 to 1925, Tillich served as an associate professor of theology at the [[University of Marburg]], where he began to develop his systematic theology, teaching a course on it during the last of his three terms. While at Marburg, Tillich developed a professional relationship with both [[Rudolf Bultmann]] and [[Martin Heidegger]].<ref>{{Citation | first = Hue | last = Woodson | title = Heideggerian Theologies: The Pathmarks of John Macquarrie, Rudolf Bultmann, Paul Tillich, and Karl Rahner | year=2018 | publisher = Wipf and Stock | location = Eugene | isbn = 978-1-53264775-8 | pages = 94–107}}</ref> From 1925 until 1929, Tillich was a professor of theology at the [[Dresden University of Technology]] and the [[University of Leipzig]]. Then, succeeding [[Max Scheler]] (who had died suddenly in 1928), Tillich held the post of professor of philosophy and sociology<ref name="repository.up.ac.za">{{cite web |last1=Mathers |first1=Norman Wayne |title=PAUL TILLICH'S LIFE, THOUGHT AND GERMAN LEGACY |url=https://repository.up.ac.za/bitstream/handle/2263/26815/complete.pdf?sequence=9 |website=University of Pretoria |access-date=13 October 2022}}</ref> at the [[Goethe University Frankfurt|University of Frankfurt]] from 1929 to 1933. While at Frankfurt Tillich's two assistants (both completing their doctorates under him) were [[Harald Poelchau]] and [[Theodor Adorno]] (in 1931 [[Leo Strauss]] had applied for the same position but was rejected).<ref>{{cite web | url=https://contemporarythinkers.org/leo-strauss/biography/ | title=Biography }}</ref>  During that period Tillich also "was instrumental in hiring [[Max Horkheimer]] as the Director of the Institut für Sozialforschung and to a professorship in sociology at the [[Goethe University Frankfurt|University of Frankfurt]]."<ref name="proquest.com">{{cite web | url=https://www.proquest.com/docview/923626905 | title=The Subject of Emancipation: Critique, Reason and Religion in the Thought of Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer and Paul Tillich | website=[[ProQuest]] | id={{ProQuest|923626905}} }}</ref> In Winter Term 1930-31 Tillich and Horkheimer together team-taught a course on [[John Locke]]; and during the several terms to immediately follow Tillich and Adorno together led seminars on [[Georg Simmel]], [[Gotthold Ephraim Lessing]], and [[Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel]].<ref name="amazon.de">{{cite book|title=Die Frankfurter Schule: Geschichte. Theoretische Entwicklung. Politische Bedeutung|trans-title=The Frankfurt School: History. Theoretical development. Political significance|language=de|id={{ASIN|3423301740|country=de}} }}</ref> Along the way Tillich also remained in conversation with [[Erich Przywara]].<ref>{{Citation | first = Thomas | last = O'Meara | title = Paul Tillich and Erich Przywara at Davos | journal = Gregorianum | volume = 87 | year = 2006 | pages = 227–38}}.</ref>

While at the University of Frankfurt, Tillich traveled throughout Germany giving public lectures and speeches that brought him into conflict with the [[Nazi]] movement. Ten weeks after [[Adolf Hitler]] became German Chancellor, on 13 April 1933 Tillich, along with [[Karl Mannheim]] and Max Horkheimer, were among the "first batch"<ref name="amazon.de"/> of prominent German academic "enemies of the Reich"<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.mupress.org/Prophetic-Interruptions-Critical-Theory-Emancipation-and-Religion-in-Paul-Tillich-Theodor-Adorno-and-Max-Horkheimer-1929-1944-P953.aspx | title=Mercer University Press: Prophetic Interruptions: Critical Theory, Emancipation, and Religion in Paul Tillich, Theodor Adorno }}</ref> to be summarily dismissed from their tenured positions for solely ideological and/or racial reasons.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNFWh16_YYY | title=Paul Tillich Interview | website=[[YouTube]] | date=20 February 2022 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.commentary.org/articles/stanley-rothman/the-dialectical-imagination-by-martin-jay/ | title=The Dialectical Imagination, by Martin Jay | date=November 1973 }}</ref> [[Reinhold Niebuhr]] visited Germany in the summer of 1933 and, already impressed with Tillich's writings (they had known one another since 1919),<ref name="repository.up.ac.za"/> contacted Tillich upon learning of his dismissal. Niebuhr urged Tillich to join the faculty at New York City's Union Theological Seminary; Tillich accepted.{{Sfn | Pauck | Wilhelm | Marion | 1976}}{{Sfn | Tillich | 1964 | p = 16}}

At the age of 47, Tillich moved with his family to the United States. This meant learning English, the language in which he would eventually publish works such as the ''Systematic Theology''.  From 1933 until 1955 he taught at Union Theological Seminary in New York, where he began as a visiting professor of [[philosophy of religion]].  During 1933–34 he was also a visiting lecturer in philosophy at [[Columbia University]].<ref name = "britannica" /> Remarkably, "the faculty of Union [had] agreed to a 5% pay cut, at the height of the Great Depression, to bring the 47-year old Tillich and his family to the U.S."<ref name="proquest.com"/>

[[File:Grave of Paul Johannes Tillich (1886-1965).jpg|thumb|350px|right|Tillich's gravestone in Paul Tillich Park, [[New Harmony, Indiana]]. The quotation is from Psalms 1:3.]]
Tillich acquired [[Tenure (academic)|tenure]] at the Union Theological Seminary in 1937, and in 1940 he was promoted to professor of philosophical theology and became an American citizen.<ref name = "britannica" />
At Union, Tillich earned his reputation, publishing a series of books that outlined his idiosyncratic synthesis of Protestant Christian theology and existential philosophy. He published ''On the Boundary'' in 1936; ''The Protestant Era'', a collection of his essays, in 1948; and ''The Shaking of the Foundations'', the first of three volumes of his sermons, also in 1948. His collections of sermons gave him a broader audience than he had yet experienced.

Tillich's most heralded achievements, though, were the 1951 publication of volume one of the ''Systematic Theology'' (University of Chicago Press), and the 1952 publication of ''The Courage to Be'' (Yale University Press).{{Sfn | Pauck | Wilhelm | Marion | 1976 | p = 225}} The first volume of the systematic theology examines the inner tensions in the structure of reason and being, primarily through a study in ontology. These tensions, Tillich contends, show that the quest for revelation is implied in finite reason, and that the quest for the ground of being is implied in finite being. The publication of ''Systematic Theology, Vol. 1'' brought Tillich international academic acclaim, prompting an invitation to give the prestigious [[Gifford Lectures]] in 1953–54 at the [[University of Aberdeen]]. ''The Courage to Be'', which examines ontic, moral, and spiritual anxieties across history and in modernity, was based on Tillich's 1950 [[Dwight H. Terry Lectureship]] and reached a wide general readership.<ref name = britannica />

These works led to an appointment at [[Harvard Divinity School]] in 1955, where he was university professor,<ref>[https://www.harvard.edu/about-harvard/harvard-glance/about-faculty/university-professorships "University Professorships." ''About the Faculty'']. Harvard University</ref> among the (at the time) five highest ranking professors at Harvard. He was primarily a professor of undergraduates, because Harvard did not have a department of religion for them, but was thereby more exposed to the wider university and "most fully embodied the ideal of a University Professor."<ref name=Divinings>{{Citation |author-last=Williams |author-first=George Hunston | title =Divinings: Religion At Harvard |volume=2 |pages=424 f}}</ref> In 1959, Tillich was featured on the cover of [[Time (magazine)|''Time'']] magazine.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://content.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,19590316,00.html|title=TIME Magazine Cover: Paul Tillich - Mar. 16, 1959}}</ref>

In 1961, Tillich became one of the founding members of the [[Society for the Arts, Religion and Contemporary Culture]], an organization with which he maintained ties for the remainder of his life.<ref>{{cite book |last=Meyer |first = Betty H. |title=The ARC story: a narrative account of the Society for the Arts, Religion, and Contemporary Culture |year=2003 | publisher = Association for Religion and Intellectual Life | location = New York | isbn = 978-0-97470130-1}}</ref>  During this period, he published volume two of the ''Systematic Theology'', as well as the popular book ''Dynamics of Faith'', both in 1957. Tillich's career at Harvard lasted until 1962, when he was appointed John Nuveen Professor of Theology at the [[University of Chicago]]. He remained at Chicago until his death in 1965.

Volume three of Tillich's ''Systematic Theology'' was published in 1963. In 1964, Tillich became the first theologian to be honored in Kegley and Bretall's ''Library of Living Theology'': "The adjective 'great,' in our opinion, can be applied to very few thinkers of our time, but Tillich, we are far from alone in believing, stands unquestionably amongst these few."{{Sfn | Kegley | Bretall | 1964 | pp = ix–x}} A widely quoted critical assessment of his importance was [[Georgia Harkness]]' comment: "What [[Alfred North Whitehead|Whitehead]] was to [[American philosophy]], Tillich has been to American theology."<ref name= timesobit>{{Citation | title =Dr. Paul Tillich, Outstanding Protestant Theologian |work=The Times |date=25 Oct 1965}}</ref><ref name = thomas>{{Citation | title = Tillich | first = John Heywood | last = Thomas | publisher = Continuum | year = 2002 | isbn = 0-8264-5082-2 | url-access = registration | url = https://archive.org/details/tillichoutstandi00john }}.</ref>

Tillich died on October 22, 1965, ten days after having a heart attack. In 1966, his ashes were interred in the [[New Harmony, Indiana#Paul Tillich Park|Paul Tillich Park]] in [[New Harmony, Indiana|New Harmony]], [[Indiana]]. His gravestone inscription reads: "And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit for his season, his leaf also shall not wither. And whatsoever he doeth shall prosper." (Psalms 1:3)

== Philosophy and theology ==
{{more citations needed section|Philosophy and theology|date=December 2022}}
{{essay-like|Philosophy and theology section|date=December 2022}}

===Being===
Tillich used the concept of being (''Sein'') throughout his philosophical and theological work. Some of his work engaged with the fundamental ontology of Martin Heidegger.

{{Blockquote |text=For "being" remains the content, the mystery, and the eternal ''[[aporia]]'' of thinking. No theology can suppress the notion of being as the power of being. One cannot separate them. In the moment in which one says that God ''is'' or that he has being, the question arises as to how his relation to being is understood. The only possible answer seems to be that God is being-itself, in the sense of the power of being or the power to conquer nonbeing.{{Sfn | Tillich | 1957 | p = 11}} |author=Tillich}}

Tillich's preliminary analysis of being ascends from the human [[Subject (philosophy)|subject]]'s asking of the ontological question ("What is being itself?"), upwards to the highest categories of [[metaphysics]].<ref>Tillich, ''Systematic Theology, Vol. 1'', p. 163</ref> He distinguishes among four levels of ontological analysis: self-world;<ref>Tillich, ''Systematic Theology, Vol. 1'', p. 164</ref>  dynamics and form, freedom and destiny, and [[Individuation|individualization]] and participation;<ref>Tillich, ''Systematic Theology, Vol. 1'', p. 164-186</ref>  essential being and existential being;<ref>''Systematic Theology, Vol. 1'', p. 165</ref> and [[time]], [[space]], [[causality]], and substance.<ref>Tillich, ''Systematic Theology, Vol. 1'', p. 165</ref>

Being plays a key role throughout Tillich's ''Systematic Theology''. In the opening to the second volume, Tillich writes: 
{{Blockquote |text=When a doctrine of God is initiated by defining God as being-itself, the philosophical concept of being is introduced into systematic theology ... 
It appears in the present system in three places: in the doctrine of God, where God is called the being as being or the ground and the power of being; in the doctrine of man, where the distinction is carried through between man's essential and his existential being; and finally, in the doctrine of the Christ, where he is called the manifestation of the New Being, the actualization of which is the work of the divine Spirit.{{Sfn | Tillich | 1957 | p = 10}} |author=Tillich}}

===God as the ground of being===
[[File:Tillich Park Bust.jpg|thumb|Bust of Tillich by [[James Rosati]] in [[New Harmony, Indiana]]]]
Throughout most of his work Tillich provides an ontological view of God as being-itself, the ground of being, and the power of being, one in which God is beyond essence and existence.<ref>{{citation |last=Tillich |title=Systematic Theology, Vol. 1 |pages=235–6}}</ref> He was critical of conceptions of God as a being (e.g., the highest being), as well as of pantheistic conceptions of God as universal essence. Traditional medieval philosophical theology in the work of figures such as [[St.&nbsp;Anselm]], [[Duns Scotus]], and [[William of Ockham]] tended to understand God as the highest existing being,<ref>{{Cite book |last=Marenbon |first=John |title=Later Medieval Philosophy |publisher=Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd |year=1991 |isbn=978-0415068079 |location=London |language=English}}</ref> to which predicates such as omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence, goodness, righteousness, holiness, etc. may be ascribed. Arguments for and against the existence of God presuppose such an understanding of God. Tillich is critical of this mode of discourse, which he refers to as "theological theism," and argues that if God is a being, even if the highest being, God cannot be properly called the source of all being. With respect to both God's existence and essence, moreover, Tillich shows how difficulties beset [[Thomas Aquinas]]' attempt to "maintain the truth that God is beyond essence and existence while simultaneously arguing for the existence of God."<ref>{{citation |last=Tillich |title=Systematic Theology, Vol. 1 |page=236}}</ref>

Though Tillich is critical of propositional arguments for the existence of God as found in natural theology, as he considers them objectifying of God, he nonetheless affirms the reality of God as the ground of being. A similar line of thought is found in the work of [[Eric Voegelin]].<ref>{{citation |last=Voegelin |first=Eric | title=Conversations with Eric Voegelin |page=51}}</ref> Tillich's concept of God can be drawn out from his analysis of being. In Tillich's analysis of being, all of being experiences the threat of nonbeing. Yet, following Heidegger, Tillich claims that it is human beings alone who can raise the question of being and therefore of being-itself.<ref>{{citation |last=Tillich |title=Systematic Theology, Vol. 1 |pages=168, 189}}</ref> This is because, he contends, human beings' "infinite self-transcendence is an expression of [their] belonging to that which is beyond nonbeing, namely, to being-itself ... Being-itself manifests itself to finite being in the infinite drive of the finite beyond itself."<ref>{{citation |last=Tillich |title=Systematic Theology, Vol. 1 |page=191}}</ref>

Tillich addresses questions both ontological and [[personalist]] concerning God. One issue deals with whether and in what way personal language about the nature of God and humanity's relationship to God is appropriate. In distinction to "theological theism", Tillich refers to another kind of theism as that of the "divine-human encounter". Such is the theism of the encounter with the "Wholly Other" ("Das ganz Andere"), as in the work of [[Karl Barth]] and [[Rudolf Otto]]. It implies a personalism with regard to God's self-revelation. Tillich is quite clear that this is both appropriate and necessary, as it is the basis of the personalism of biblical religion altogether and of the concept of the "Word of God",<ref>Biblical Religion and the Search for Ultimate Reality, University of Chicago Press: Chicago, 1955, 21-62.</ref> but can become falsified if the theologian tries to turn such encounters with God as the Wholly Other into an understanding of God as a being.<ref>The Courage to Be, Yale: New Haven, 2000, 184.</ref> In other words, God is both personal and transpersonal.<ref>The Courage to Be, Yale: New Haven, 2000, 187.</ref>

Tillich's ontological view of God has precedent in Christian theology. In addition to affinities with the concept of God as being-itself in [[classical theism]], it shares similarities with Hellenistic and Patristic conceptions of God as the "unoriginate source" (''agennetos'') of all being.<ref>J.&nbsp;N.&nbsp;D. Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines, HarperCollins: New York, 1978, 128.</ref> This view was espoused in particular by [[Origen]], one of a number of early theologians whose thought influenced Tillich's. Their views in turn had pre-Christian precedents in [[middle Platonism]]. Aside from classical and Christian influences in Tillich's concept of God, there is a dynamism in Tillich's notion of "the living God," reflecting some influence from Spinoza.<ref>{{citation |last=Lamm | first=Julia| chapter='Catholic Substance' Revisited: Reversals of Expectation in Tillich's Doctrine of God | title=Paul Tillich: A New Catholic Assessment |editor1=Raymond F. Bulman |editor2=Frederick J. Parrella |page=54}}</ref>

Tillich combines his ontological conception of God with a largely existential and phenomenological understanding of faith in God, remarking that God is "the answer to the question implied in man's finitude ... the name for that which concerns man ultimately."<ref>{{citation |last=Tillich |title=Systematic Theology, Vol. 1 |page=211}}</ref> This is notably manifest in his understanding of faith as ultimate concern. Following his existential analysis, Tillich further argues that theological theism is not only logically problematic, but is unable to speak into the situation of radical doubt and despair about meaning in life. This issue, he said, was of primary concern in the modern age, as opposed to [[anxiety]] about fate, guilt, death and condemnation.<ref name="Tillich, Courage To Be, p 184"/> This is because the state of finitude entails by necessity anxiety, and that it is our finitude as human beings, our being a mixture of being and nonbeing, that is at the ultimate basis of anxiety. If God is not the ground of being, then God cannot provide an answer to the question of finitude; God would also be finite in some sense. The term "God Above God," then, means to indicate the God who appears, who is the ground of being, when the "God" of theological theism has disappeared in the anxiety of doubt.<ref>The Courage to Be, Yale: New Haven, 2000, 190.</ref> While on the one hand this God goes beyond the God of [[theism]] as usually defined, it finds expression in many religious symbols of the Christian faith, particularly that of the crucified Christ. The possibility thus exists, says Tillich, that religious symbols may be recovered which would otherwise have been rendered ineffective by contemporary society.

Tillich argues that the God of theological theism is at the root of much revolt against theism and religious faith in the modern period. Tillich states, sympathetically, that the God of theological theism {{blockquote |text=deprives me of my subjectivity because he is all-powerful and all-knowing. I revolt and make ''him'' into an object, but the revolt fails and becomes desperate. God appears as the invincible tyrant, the being in contrast with whom all other beings are without freedom and subjectivity. He is equated with the recent tyrants who with the help of terror try to transform everything into a mere object, a thing among things, a cog in a machine they control. He becomes the model of everything against which Existentialism revolted. This is the God [[Nietzsche]] said had to be killed because nobody can tolerate being made into a mere object of absolute knowledge and absolute control. This is the deepest root of atheism. It is an atheism which is justified as the reaction against theological theism and its disturbing implications.<ref>Tillich, ''Courage To Be'', p 185.</ref>}}

Another reason Tillich criticized theological theism was because it placed God into the subject-object [[dichotomy]]. The subject-object dichotomy is the basic distinction made in [[epistemology]]. Epistemologically, God cannot be made into an object, that is, an object of the knowing subject. Tillich deals with this question under the rubric of the relationality of God. The question is "whether there are external relations between God and the creature".<ref name=SysTheoV1P271>{{citation |last=Tillich |title=Systematic Theology vol. 1 |page=271}}</ref> Traditionally Christian theology has always understood the doctrine of creation to mean precisely this external relationality between God, the Creator, and the creature as separate and not identical realities. Tillich reminds us of the point, which can be found in Luther, that "there is no place to which man can withdraw from the divine thou, because it includes the ego and is nearer to the ego than the ego to itself".<ref name=SysTheoV1P271/>

Tillich goes further to say that the desire to draw God into the subject–object dichotomy is an "insult" to the divine holiness.<ref>{{citation |last=Tillich |title=Systematic Theology vol. 1 |page=272}}</ref> Similarly, if God were made into the subject rather than the object of knowledge (The Ultimate Subject), then the rest of existing entities then become subjected to the absolute knowledge and scrutiny of God, and the human being is "reified," or made into a mere object. It would deprive the person of his or her own subjectivity and creativity. According to Tillich, theological theism has provoked the rebellions found in atheism and Existentialism, although other social factors such as the [[industrial revolution]] have also contributed to the "reification" of the human being. The modern man could no longer tolerate the idea of being an "object" completely subjected to the absolute knowledge of God. Tillich argued, as mentioned, that theological theism is "bad theology".
{{blockquote |text=The God of the theological theism is a being besides others and as such a part of the whole reality. He is certainly considered its most important part, but as a part and therefore as subjected to the structure of the whole. He is supposed to be beyond the ontological elements and categories which constitute reality. But every statement subjects him to them. He is seen as a self which has a world, as an ego which relates to a thought, as a cause which is separated from its effect, as having a definite space and endless time. He is a being, not being-itself<ref name="Tillich, Courage To Be, p 184">Tillich, ''Courage To Be'', p 184.</ref>}}

Alternatively, Tillich presents the above-mentioned ontological view of God as Being-Itself, Ground of Being, Power of Being, and occasionally as [[Abyss (religion)|Abyss]] or God's "Abysmal Being". What makes Tillich's ontological view of God different from theological theism is that it transcends it by being the foundation or ultimate reality that "precedes" all beings. Just as [[Being]] for [[Heidegger]] is ontologically ''prior'' to conception, Tillich views God to be beyond being.<ref name="Tillich, p 15">Tillich, ''Theology of Culture'', p 15.</ref> God is not a supernatural entity among other entities. Instead, God is the inexhaustible ground which empowers the existence of beings. We cannot perceive God as an object which is related to a subject because God ''precedes'' the subject–object dichotomy.<ref name="Tillich, p 15"/>

Thus Tillich dismisses a literalistic [[Biblicism]]. Instead of rejecting the notion of personal God, however, Tillich sees it as a symbol that points directly to the Ground of Being.<ref>Tillich, ''Theology of Culture'', p 127-132.</ref> Since the Ground of Being ontologically precedes reason, it cannot be comprehended since comprehension presupposes the subject–object dichotomy. Tillich disagreed with any literal philosophical and religious statements that can be made about God. Such literal statements attempt to define God and lead not only to [[anthropomorphism]] but also to a philosophical mistake that [[Immanuel Kant]] warned against, that setting limits against the transcendent inevitably leads to contradictions. Any statements about God are simply symbolic, but these symbols are sacred in the sense that they function to participate or point to the Ground of Being.

Tillich also further elaborated the thesis of the God above the God of theism in his Systematic Theology.

{{blockquote |text={{omission}} (the God above the God of theism) This has been misunderstood as a dogmatic statement of a pantheistic or mystical character. First of all, it is not a dogmatic, but an apologetic, statement. It takes seriously the radical doubt experienced by many people. It gives one the courage of self-affirmation even in the extreme state of radical doubt. |author=Tillich |source=''Systematic Theology Vol. 2'', p. 12}}

{{blockquote |text={{omission}} In such a state the God of both religious and theological language disappears. But something remains, namely, the seriousness of that doubt in which meaning within meaninglessness is affirmed. The source of this affirmation of meaning within meaninglessness, of certitude within doubt, is not the God of traditional theism but the "God above God," the power of being, which works through those who have no name for it, not even the name God. |author=Tillich |source=''Systematic Theology Vol. 2'', p. 12}}

{{blockquote |text={{omission}} This is the answer to those who ask for a message in the nothingness of their situation and at the end of their courage to be. But such an extreme point is not a space with which one can live. The dialectics of an extreme situation are a criterion of truth but not the basis on which a whole structure of truth can be built. |author=Tillich |source=''Systematic Theology Vol. 2'', p.12}}

===Method of correlation===
The key to understanding Tillich's theology is what he calls the "method of correlation." It is an approach that correlates insights from Christian [[revelation]] with the issues raised by [[existentialism|existential]], psychological, and philosophical analyses.<ref name="CODWR">{{Citation |title=The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions |year=2000 |editor-last=Bowker |editor-first=John |series=Oxford Reference Online |contribution=Tillich, Paul Johannes Oskar |publisher=Oxford University Press}}.</ref>

Tillich states in the introduction to the ''Systematic Theology'':
{{Blockquote |text=Theology formulates the questions implied in human existence, and theology formulates the answers implied in divine self-manifestation under the guidance of the questions implied in human existence. This is a circle which drives man to a point where question and answer are not separated.  This point, however, is not a moment in time.{{Sfn | Tillich | 1951 | p = 61}}}}

{{Blockquote |text=The Christian message provides the answers to the questions implied in human existence.  These answers are contained in the revelatory events on which Christianity is based and are taken by systematic theology from the sources, through the medium, under the norm.  Their content cannot be derived from questions that would come from an analysis of human existence.  They are 'spoken' to human existence from beyond it, in a sense.  Otherwise, they would not be answers, for the question is human existence itself.{{Sfn | Tillich | 1951 | p = 64}}}}

For Tillich, the existential questions of human existence are associated with the field of philosophy and, more specifically, [[ontology]] (the study of being). This is because, according to Tillich, a lifelong pursuit of philosophy reveals that the central question of every philosophical inquiry always comes back to the question of being, or what it means to be, and, consequently, what it means to be a finite human being within being.{{Sfn | Tillich | 1955 | pp = 11–20}}  To be correlated with existential questions are theological answers, themselves derived from Christian revelation.  The task of the philosopher primarily involves developing the questions, whereas the task of the theologian primarily involves developing the answers to these questions.  However, it should be remembered that the two tasks overlap and include one another: the theologian must be somewhat of a philosopher and vice versa, for Tillich's notion of faith as "ultimate concern" necessitates that the theological answer be correlated with, compatible with, and in response to the general ontological question which must be developed independently from the answers.{{Sfn | Tillich | 1957 | p = 23}}{{Sfn | Tillich | 1952 | pp = 58ff}}  Thus, on one side of the correlation lies an ontological analysis of the human situation, whereas on the other is a presentation of the Christian message as a response to this existential dilemma. For Tillich, no formulation of the question can contradict the theological answer.  This is because the Christian message claims, ''a priori'', that the ''logos'' "who became flesh" is also the universal ''logos'' of the Greeks.{{Sfn |  Tillich | 1951 | p = 28}}

In addition to the intimate relationship between philosophy and theology, another important aspect of the method of correlation is Tillich's distinction between form and content in the theological answers.  While the nature of revelation determines the actual content of the theological answers, the character of the questions determines the form of these answers.  This is because, for Tillich, theology must be an answering theology, or [[Christian apologetics|apologetic theology]]. God is called the "ground of being" in part because God is the answer to the ontological threat of non-being, and this characterization of the theological answer in philosophical terms means that the answer has been conditioned (insofar as its form is considered) by the question.{{Sfn | Tillich | 1951 | p = 64}}  Throughout the ''Systematic Theology'', Tillich is careful to maintain this distinction between form and content without allowing one to be inadvertently conditioned by the other.  Many criticisms of Tillich's methodology revolve around this issue of whether the integrity of the Christian message is really maintained when its form is conditioned by philosophy.{{Sfn | McKelway | 1964 | p = 47}}

The theological answer is also determined by the sources of theology, our experience, and the norm of theology.  Though the form of the theological answers are determined by the character of the question, these answers (which "are contained in the revelatory events on which Christianity is based") are also "taken by systematic theology from the sources, through the medium, under the norm."{{Sfn | Tillich | 1951 | p = 64}}  There are three main sources of systematic theology: the Bible, Church history, and the history of religion and culture.  Experience is not a source but a medium through which the sources speak.  And the norm of theology is that by which both sources and experience are judged with regard to the content of the Christian faith.{{Sfn | Tillich | 1951 | p = 47}}  Thus, we have the following as elements of the method and structure of systematic theology:

* Sources of theology{{Sfn | Tillich | 1951 | p = 40}}
** Bible{{Sfn | Tillich | 1951 | p = 35}}
** Church history
** History of religion and culture
* Medium of the sources
** Collective experience of the Church
* Norm of theology (determines use of sources)
** Content of which is the biblical message itself, for example:
*** Justification through faith
*** New Being in Jesus as the Christ
*** The Protestant principle
*** The criterion of the cross

As McKelway explains, the sources of theology contribute to the formation of the norm, which then becomes the criterion through which the sources and experience are judged.{{Sfn | McKelway | 1964 | pp = 55–56}}  The relationship is circular, as it is the present situation which conditions the norm in the interaction between church and biblical message.  The norm is then subject to change, but Tillich insists that its basic content remains the same: that of the biblical message.{{Sfn | Tillich | 1951 | p = 52}}  It is tempting to conflate revelation with the norm, but we must keep in mind that revelation (whether original or dependent) is not an element of the structure of systematic theology per se, but an event.{{Sfn | McKelway | 1964 | p = 80}}  For Tillich, the present-day norm is the "New Being in Jesus as the Christ as our Ultimate Concern".{{Sfn | Tillich | 1951 | p = 50}}  This is because the present question is one of estrangement, and the overcoming of this estrangement is what Tillich calls the "New Being". But since Christianity answers the question of estrangement with "Jesus as the Christ", the norm tells us that we find the New Being in Jesus as the Christ.

There is also the question of the validity of the method of correlation.  Certainly one could reject the method on the grounds that there is no ''a priori'' reason for its adoption. But Tillich claims that the method of any theology and its system are interdependent. That is, an absolute methodological approach cannot be adopted because the method is continually being determined by the system and the objects of theology.{{Sfn | Tillich | 1951 | p = 60}}

===Life and the Spirit===
This is part four of Tillich's ''Systematic Theology''. In this part, Tillich talks about life and the divine Spirit.

{{blockquote|text=Life remains ambiguous as long as there is life. The question implied in the ambiguities of life derives to a new question, namely, that of the direction in which life moves. This is the question of history. Systematically speaking, history, characterized as it is by its direction toward the future, is the dynamic quality of life. Therefore, the "riddle of history" is a part of the problem of life.<ref>Tillich, ''Systematic Theology, Vol. 2'', p. 4</ref>}}

===Absolute faith===
Tillich stated the courage to take meaninglessness into oneself presupposes a relation to the ground of being: absolute faith.<ref>The Courage to Be, page 182</ref> Absolute faith can transcend the theistic idea of God, and has three elements.

{{blockquote |text={{omission}} The first element is the experience of the power of being which is present even in the face of the most radical manifestation of non being. If one says that in this experience vitality resists despair, one must add that vitality in man is proportional to intentionality.

The vitality that can stand the abyss of meaninglessness is aware of a hidden meaning within the destruction of meaning.
 |author=Tillich |source=''The Courage to Be'', p.177 }}

{{blockquote |text=The second element in absolute faith is the dependence of the experience of nonbeing on the experience of being and the dependence of the experience of meaninglessness on the experience of meaning. Even in the state of despair one has enough being to make despair possible. |author=Tillich |source=''The Courage to Be'', p.177 }}

{{blockquote |text=There is a third element in absolute faith, the acceptance of being accepted. Of course, in the state of despair there is nobody and nothing that accepts. But there is the power of acceptance itself which is experienced. Meaninglessness, as long as it is experienced, includes an experience of the "power of acceptance". To accept this power of acceptance consciously is the religious answer of absolute faith, of a faith which has been deprived by doubt of any concrete content, which nevertheless is faith and the source of the most paradoxical manifestation of the courage to be.
 |author=Tillich |source=''The Courage to Be'', p.177 }}

===Faith as ultimate concern===
According to the ''Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy'', Tillich believes the essence of religious attitudes is what he calls "ultimate concern".  Separate from all profane and ordinary realities, the object of the concern is understood as sacred, [[numinous]] or holy. The perception of its reality is felt as so overwhelming and valuable that all else seems insignificant, and for this reason requires total surrender.<ref>{{citation |chapter-url=http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/concepts-god/ |title=Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy|chapter=Concepts of God |publisher=[[Stanford University]] |date=2010-09-29|last=Wainwright|first=William |access-date=2011-01-01}}</ref>  In 1957, Tillich defined his conception of faith more explicitly in his work, ''Dynamics of Faith''.

{{blockquote|text=Man, like every living being, is concerned about many things, above all about those which condition his very existence {{omission}} If [a situation or concern] claims ultimacy it demands the total surrender of him who accepts this claim {{omission}} it demands that all other concerns {{omission}} be sacrificed.<ref>Tillich, ''Dynamics of Faith'', pp. 1–2</ref>}}

Tillich further refined his conception of faith by stating that, "Faith as ultimate concern is an act of the total personality. It is the most centered act of the human mind ... it participates in the dynamics of personal life."<ref>Tillich, ''Dynamics of Faith'', p. 5</ref>

An arguably central component of Tillich's concept of faith is his notion that faith is "ecstatic". That is to say:

{{blockquote|text=It transcends both the drives of the nonrational unconsciousness and the structures of the rational conscious {{omission}} the ecstatic character of faith does not exclude its rational character although it is not identical with it, and it includes nonrational strivings without being identical with them. 'Ecstasy' means 'standing outside of oneself' – without ceasing to be oneself – with all the elements which are united in the personal center.<ref>Tillich, ''Dynamics of Faith'', pp. 8–9</ref>}}

In short, for Tillich, faith does not stand opposed to rational or nonrational elements (reason and emotion respectively), as some philosophers would maintain. Rather, it ''transcends'' them in an ecstatic passion for the ultimate.<ref>{{YouTube|KR7QAjm3yxU|Tillich Interview part 12}}</ref>

It should also be noted that Tillich does not exclude [[atheism|atheists]] in his exposition of faith. Everyone has an ultimate concern, and this concern can be in an act of faith, "even if the act of faith includes the denial of God. Where there is ultimate concern, God can be denied only in the name of God"<ref>Tillich, ''Dynamics of Faith'', p. 52</ref>

=== Tillich's ontology of courage ===

In Paul Tillich's work ''The Courage to Be'' he defines courage as the self-affirmation of one's being in spite of a threat of nonbeing. He relates courage to anxiety, anxiety being the threat of non-being and the courage to be what we use to combat that threat. For Tillich, he outlines three types of anxiety and thus three ways to display the courage to be.

1)	The Anxiety of Fate and Death
a.	The Anxiety of Fate and Death is the most basic and universal form of anxiety for Tillich. It relates quite simply to the recognition of our mortality. This troubles us humans. We become anxious when we are unsure whether our actions create a causal damnation which leads to a very real and quite unavoidable death (42-44). "Nonbeing threatens man's ontic self-affirmation, relatively in terms of fate, absolutely in terms of death" (41).
b.	We display courage when we cease to rely on others to tell us what will come of us, (what will happen when we die etc.) and begin seeking those answers out for ourselves. Called the "courage of confidence" (162-63).

2)	The Anxiety of Guilt and Condemnation
a.	This anxiety afflicts our moral self-affirmation. We as humans are responsible for our moral being, and when asked by our judge (whoever that may be) what we have made of ourselves we must answer. The anxiety is produced when we realize our being is unsatisfactory. "It [Nonbeing] threatens man's moral self-affirmation, relatively in terms of guilt, absolutely in terms of condemnation" (41).
b.	We display courage when we first identify our sin; despair or whatever is causing us guilt or afflicting condemnation. We then rely on the idea that we are accepted regardless. "The courage to be is the courage to accept oneself as accepted in spite of being unacceptable" (164).

3)	The Anxiety of Meaninglessness and Emptiness 
a.	The Anxiety of Meaninglessness and Emptiness attacks our being as a whole. We worry about the loss of an ultimate concern or goal. This anxiety is also brought on by a loss of spirituality. We as beings feel the threat of non-being when we feel we have no place or purpose in the world. "It [Nonbeing] threatens man's spiritual self-affirmation, relatively in terms of emptiness, absolutely in terms of meaninglessness" (41).
b.	We display the courage to be when facing this anxiety by displaying true faith, and by again, self-affirming oneself. We draw from the "power of being" which is God for Tillich and use that faith to in turn affirm ourselves and negate the non-being. We can find our meaning and purpose through the "power of being" (172-73).

Tillich writes that the ultimate source of the courage to be is the "God above God," which transcends the theistic idea of God and is the content of absolute faith (defined as "the accepting of the acceptance without somebody or something that accepts") (185).

== Political views ==
Tillich espoused [[socialist]] politics, and became involved in [[Religious socialism|religious socialist]] circles after World War I. He co-wrote a pamphlet in 1919 which advocated that Christian leaders with socialist leanings should "enter into the socialist movement in order to pave the way for a future union of Christianity and the socialist social order".<ref name=jacobin>{{cite web |url=https://jacobinmag.com/2022/01/socialist-decision-conservatism-nazis-christianity |title=The Socialist Politics and Theology of Paul Tillich |last=McManus |first=Matt |date=16 January 2022 |website=[[Jacobin (magazine)|Jacobin]] |access-date=17 January 2022}}</ref> The Fellowship of Socialist Christians was organized in the early 1930s by [[Reinhold Niebuhr]] and others with similar views.
Later it changed its name to Frontier Fellowship and then to Christian Action.
The main supporters of the Fellowship in the early days included Tillich, [[Eduard Heimann]], [[Sherwood Eddy]] and [[Rose Terlin]]. 
In its early days the group thought capitalist individualism was incompatible with Christian ethics.
Although not Communist, the group acknowledged [[Karl Marx]]'s social philosophy.<ref name=Stone115>{{citation|page=115 |last=Stone|first=Ronald H.|title=Professor Reinhold Niebuhr: A Mentor to the Twentieth Century |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ypy5Uz4qm5YC&pg=PA115|access-date=2016-03-14 |date=1992-01-01|publisher=Westminster John Knox Press|isbn=978-0-664-25390-5}}</ref> Tillich was sympathetic towards the [[young Marx]]'s [[Marx's theory of alienation|theory of alienation]] as well as his idea of [[historical materialism]], but was opposed to rigid understandings of [[historical determinism]] that claimed the victory of socialism was inevitable, as espoused by many [[Vulgar Marxism|vulgar Marxists]].<ref name=jacobin />

Tillich's book ''The Socialist Decision'' was published in the early 1930s, during the [[rise of Nazism]], and it was immediately censored by the Nazi regime. In the book, Tillich characterised Nazism as a form of political [[romanticism]], which he defined as an attachment to a "myth of origin (that) envisions the beginnings of humankind in elemental, superhuman figures of various kinds" that he contended formed the basis for right-wing politics more generally. Tillich identified three basic [[origin myth]]s in romantic politics: [[Blood and soil|blood, soil]] and social group. He argued that these origin myths served to legitimate established social hierarchies by idealising the past and promoting a [[Social cycle theory|cyclical view of history]] that denied the possibility of [[progress]] and [[Age of Enlightenment|enlightened]] [[reform]]: "the origin (myth) embodies the law of cyclical motion: whatever proceeds from it must return to it. Wherever the origin is in control, nothing new can happen". He also contended that whilst political romanticism could be critical of [[capitalism]] and industrial society, it could still be used by the capitalist class to advance their interests. Tillich more precisely described Nazism as form of revolutionary romanticism, which he counterposed to conservative romanticism. He stated that whilst the latter "defend(s) the spiritual and social residues of the bond of origin... and whenever possible (seeks) to restore past forms", the former "tries to gain a basis for new ties to the origin by a devastating attack on the rational system".<ref name=jacobin />

Tillich viewed [[liberalism]] as intertwined with capitalism, arguing that it granted freedom to the capitalist class without liberating the masses, and believing it had a key role in dismantling traditional social bonds, including religious ones, as well as advancing [[colonialism]] and slavery. However, he was positive about liberalism's individualism, [[rationalism]] and [[egalitarianism]], and believed that it was inseparable from democracy, despite tensions between the two. He considered that the connection between liberalism and capitalism needed to be severed in order for liberalism's aspirations for freedom to be realised, advocating for an embrace of democratic socialism as an alternative.<ref name=jacobin />

== Popular works ==

Two of Tillich's works, ''The Courage to Be'' (1952) and ''Dynamics of Faith'' (1957), were read widely, including by people who would not normally read religious books. In ''The Courage to Be'', he lists three basic anxieties: anxiety about our biological finitude, i.e. that arising from the knowledge that we will eventually die; anxiety about our moral finitude, linked to guilt; and anxiety about our existential finitude, a sense of aimlessness in life. Tillich related these to three different historical eras: the early centuries of the [[Christian era]]; the [[Reformation]]; and the 20th century. Tillich's popular works have influenced psychology as well as theology, having had an influence on [[Rollo May]], whose "The Courage to Create" was inspired by "The Courage to Be".

== Reception ==

Tillich's most enduring legacy may be his spiritually-oriented public instruction. Tillich's chapel sermons (especially at Union) were enthusiastically received.<ref>{{cite book |last=Grenz |first=Stanley J. and Roger E. Olson |title=20th-Century Theology: God & the World in a Transitional Age |year=1993 |publisher=InterVarsity Press |location=Downers Grove IL |isbn=978-0830815258 |pages=116 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bj9cJHj3vUwC}}</ref> He was the only faculty member at Union willing to attend the revivals of [[Billy Graham]].<ref>According to Leroy Rouner, in conversation, 1981.</ref> Tillich's students commented on his approachability and interaction with them.<ref>{{cite web |last=Bunge |first=Nancy |title=From Hume to Tillich: Teaching Faith & Benevolence |url=http://philosophynow.org/issues/38/From_Hume_to_Tillich_Teaching_Faith_and_Benevolence |work=Philosophy Now |access-date=30 December 2012 |quote=As a former student, I can attest that he invited students to leave questions on the podium and he would invariably open the lecture by responding to them, often in a way that startled the student by revealing what a profound question he or she had asked.}}</ref> Tillich along with his student, psychologist [[Rollo May]], was an early leader at the [[Esalen Institute]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Anderson |first=Walter Truett |title=The Upstart Spring: Esalen and the Human Potential Movement: The First Twenty Years |year=2004 |publisher=iUniverse |location=Lincoln NE |isbn=978-0595307357 |pages=104 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_pOl3_rrr18C}}</ref> [[New Age]] catchphrases describing God spatially as the "Ground of Being" and temporally as the "[[Eternal Now (New Age)|Eternal Now]],"<ref>"There is no present in the mere stream of time; but the present is real, as our experience witnesses. And it is real because eternity breaks into time and gives it a real present. We could not even say now, if eternity did not elevate that moment above the ever-passing time. Eternity is always present; and its presence is the cause of our having the present at all. When the psalmist looks at God, for Whom a thousand years are like one day, he is looking at that eternity which alone gives him a place on which he can stand, a now which has infinite reality and infinite significance. In every moment that we say now, something temporal and something eternal are united. Whenever a human being says, 'Now I am living; now I am really present,' resisting the stream which drives the future into the past, eternity is. In each such Now eternity is made manifest; in every real now, eternity is present." (Tillich, "The Mystery of Time," in ''The Shaking of the Foundations'').</ref> in tandem with the view that God is not an entity among entities but rather is "Being-Itself"—ideas which [[Eckhart Tolle]] invoked repeatedly throughout his career<ref>In his September 2010 Live Meditation (https://www.eckharttolletv.com/ {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150910014022/https://www.eckharttolletv.com/ |date=10 September 2015 }}), e.g., Tolle expounds at length on "the dimension of depth".</ref>—were renovated by Tillich, although these ideas derive from Christian mystics and early theologians such as [[St. Augustine]] and [[St. Thomas Aquinas]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Cary |first=Phillip |title="Augustinian Compatibilism and the Doctrine of Election", in Augustine and Philosophy, ed. by Phillip Cary, John Doody and Kim Paffenroth |year=2012 |publisher=Lexington Books |location=Lanham MD |isbn=978-0739145388 |pages=91 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vAw_jBr38m8C}}</ref><ref>Both Augustine and later [[Boethius]] used the concept of the "eternal now" to investigate the relationship between divine omnipotence and omniscience and the temporality of human free will; and Thomas Aquinas' synthesis of Platonic and Aristotelian ontologies with Christian theology included the concepts of God as the "ground of being" and "being-itself" (''ipsum esse'').</ref>

A consideration of Tillich's traumatic experiences as an active duty chaplain during World War I has led some to view his theology as "Post-traumatic." The book ''Post-Traumatic God: How the Church Cares for People Who Have Been to Hell and Back'' explores Tillich's experiences and theology to offer people afflicted with post-traumatic stress an understanding of God aimed at helping them heal.<ref>Peters, David Post-Traumatic God: How the Church Cares for People Who Have Been to Hell and Back, Church Publishing. https://www.churchpublishing.org/posttraumaticgod</ref>

===Criticism===
[[Martin Buber]]'s disciple [[Malcolm Diamond]] claims Tillich's approach indicates a "[[Transtheism|transtheistic]] position that Buber seeks to avoid", reducing God to the impersonal "necessary being" of [[Thomas Aquinas]].<ref>{{citation | first =David |last=Novak |author-link= David Novak |title=Buber and Tillich |journal = Journal of Ecumenical Studies |volume=29 | number =2 |date=Spring 1992 |pages=159–74 |isbn=9780802828422 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=xnXMiBAXVZkC&pg=PA89}}, as reprinted in {{citation |title=Talking With Christians: Musings of A Jewish Theologian |year=2005 | publisher =Wm. B. Eerdmans |first=David |last = Novak |page= 101}}.</ref>

Tillich has been criticized from the [[Barthian]] wing of [[Protestantism]] for what is alleged to be correlation theory's tendency to reduce God and his relationship to man to [[anthropocentric]] terms. Tillich countered that Barth's approach to theology denies the "possibility of understanding God's relation to man in any other way than heteronomously or extrinsically".<ref>{{citation |title= Paul Tillich and Bonaventure: An Evaluation of Tillich's Claim to Stand in the Augustinian-Franciscan Tradition |first=John P. | last = Dourley |page=12 |publisher=Brill Archive | year =1975 |isbn= 978-900404266-7 |url = https://books.google.com/books?id=38YUAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA12}}</ref>  Defenders of Tillich claim that the critics misunderstood the distinction Tillich made between God's unknowable essence as the unconditional "Ground of Being", and how God reveals himself to mankind in existence.<ref>{{citation |last = Boozer |first = Jack Stewart |title = The place of reason in Paul Tillich's concept of God |type = dissertation | year = 1952 | page = 269 |publisher= [[Boston University]] | url = http://open.bu.edu/xmlui/handle/2144/5096}}</ref>  Tillich established the distinction in the first chapter of ''Systematic Theology Volume One:'' "But though God in his abysmal nature <nowiki>[</nowiki>''footnote: 'Calvin: in his essence' '' <nowiki>]</nowiki> is in no way dependent on man, God in his self manifestation to man is dependent on the way man receives his manifestation."{{Sfn | Tillich | 1951 | p = 61}}

Some conservative forms of [[evangelical Christianity]] believe Tillich's thought is too unorthodox to qualify as Christianity at all, but rather is a form of [[pantheism]] or [[atheism]].<ref>Tillich held an equally low opinion of biblical literalism.  See {{Harv | Tillich | 1951 | p = 3}}: 'When fundamentalism is combined with an antitheological bias, as it is, for instance, in its biblicistic-evangelical form, the theological truth of yesterday is defended as an unchangeable message against the theological truth of today and tomorrow. Fundamentalism fails to make contact with the present situation, not because it speaks from beyond every situation, but because it speaks from a situation from the past. It elevates something finite and transitory to infinite and eternal validity. In this respect fundamentalism has demonic traits.'</ref> The ''[[Evangelical Dictionary of Theology]]'' states, "At best Tillich was a pantheist, but his thought borders on atheism."<ref>{{citation | isbn = 978-0-8010-2075-9 |editor-first =Walter A | editor-last = Elwell |title=[[Evangelical Dictionary of Theology]] | first =SN | last = Gundry |chapter = Death of God Theology |date =May 2001 |publisher =Baker Academic | chapter-url = http://mb-soft.com/believe/txn/deathgod.htm | access-date = 2011-01-01}}</ref> Defenders of Tillich counter such claims by pointing to clear monotheistic expressions from a classical Christian viewpoint, of the relationship between God and man, such as his description of the experience of grace in his sermon "You Are Accepted".<ref>{{cite web | url=http://static1.1.sqspcdn.com/static/f/383693/9154847/1288214160857/You+Are+Accepted.pdf?token=mmJyuzBDmlbCfQtBymnnJTAQ1EI%3D | title=You Are Accepted | author=Paul Tillich | access-date=23 January 2020 | archive-date=14 July 2019 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190714063041/http://static1.1.sqspcdn.com/static/f/383693/9154847/1288214160857/You+Are+Accepted.pdf?token=mmJyuzBDmlbCfQtBymnnJTAQ1EI%3D | url-status=dead }}</ref>

==Works==
[[File:Tillich Main Works.JPG|thumb|right|250px|A set of Paul Tillich's ''Main Works – Hauptwerke'']]
* {{citation | last = Tillich | first = Paul | author-link = Paul Tillich | title= Mysticism and Guilt-Consciousness in Schelling's Philosophical Development |year=1912 | publication-date = 1974 |publisher= Bucknell University Press | isbn = 978-0-83871493-5}}
* {{Citation | last = Tillich | first = Paul | author-mask = 3 | title = The Religious Situation | orig-year = 1925, ''Die religiöse Lage der Gegenwart''; Holt 1932 | publisher = Meridian Press | year = 1956 | url = http://www.religion-online.org/showbook.asp?title=376 | url-status = dead | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20051126182103/http://www.religion-online.org/showbook.asp?title=376 | archive-date = 2005-11-26 }}.
* {{Citation | last = Tillich | first = Paul | author-mask = 3 | title = The Socialist Decision | orig-year = 1933, ''Die Sozialistische Entscheidung''; Alfred Protte, Potsdam 1933; new edition: Medusa, Berlin, 1980| place = New York | publisher = Harper & Row | year = c. 1977}}.
* {{Citation | last = Tillich | first = Paul | author-mask = 3 | title = The Interpretation of History| year = 1936 | url = http://www.religion-online.org/showbook.asp?title=377 | url-status = dead | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20051126182128/http://www.religion-online.org/showbook.asp?title=377 | archive-date = 2005-11-26 }}.
* {{Citation | last = Tillich | first = Paul | author-mask = 3 | title = The Protestant Era| year = 1948 | publisher = The University of Chicago Press | url = http://www.religion-online.org/showbook.asp?title=380 | url-status = dead | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20051126182248/http://www.religion-online.org/showbook.asp?title=380 | archive-date = 2005-11-26 }}.
* {{Citation | last = Tillich | first = Paul | author-mask = 3 | title = The Shaking of the Foundations| year = 1948 | publisher = Charles Scribner's Sons | type = sermon collection | url = http://www.religion-online.org/showbook.asp?title=378 | url-status = dead | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20051126182155/http://www.religion-online.org/showbook.asp?title=378 | archive-date = 2005-11-26 }}.
* {{cite book| author1-last = Tillich | author1-first = Paul | author1-mask = 3 | title=Systematic Theology (in 3 volumes)|date= 1951–1963 |location=Chicago, IL | publisher = University of Chicago Press}}
** {{citation | last = Tillich | first = Paul | author-mask = 3 | title = Systematic Theology | volume = 1 |year=1951 | publisher = University of Chicago Press | isbn = 978-0-22680337-1 |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=WIyz0mYxAwkC}}.
** {{citation | last = Tillich | first = Paul | author-mask = 3 | title = Systematic Theology | volume = 2: Existence and the Christ |year = 1957a | publisher = University of Chicago Press |isbn = 978-0-22680338-8 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=MTsMPVv5QR8C}}.
** {{citation | last = Tillich | first = Paul | author-mask = 3 | title = Systematic Theology | volume = 3: Life and the Spirit: History and the Kingdom of God | year = 1963 | publisher = University of Chicago Press | isbn = 978-0-22680339-5}}
* {{citation | last = Tillich | first = Paul | author-mask = 3 | title= The Courage to Be | year = 1952 |publisher= Yale University Press | isbn = 978-0-30017002-3 |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=WEz3kAHzMrEC}}.
* {{citation | last = Tillich | first = Paul | author-mask = 3 | title=Love, Power, and Justice: Ontological Analysis and Ethical Applications | year=1954 |publisher= Oxford University Press  |isbn= 978-0-19500222-5 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=VpIyyyOe3K8C}}
* {{citation | last = Tillich | first = Paul | author-mask = 3 | title = Biblical Religion and the Search for Ultimate Reality |year = 1955 | publisher =University Of Chicago Press | isbn = 978-0-22680341-8 |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=jgYZOmCpbI0C}}
*{{cite journal |last1=Tillich |first1=Paul | author-mask = 3 |date=July 1955b |title=What is Truth? |url=https://biblicalstudies.org.uk/pdf/cjt/01-2_117.pdf |journal=[[Canadian Journal of Theology|The Canadian Journal of Theology]] |volume=I |issue=2 |pages=117–122 |doi= |access-date=April 27, 2024}}
* {{citation | last = Tillich | first = Paul | author-mask = 3 | title= The New Being | year = 2006 | publisher = Bison Press | orig-year = 1955, Charles Scribner's Sons | isbn = 978-0-80329458-5 | others = introd. by Mary Ann Stenger | url= https://books.google.com/books?id=peUcgX_VMAQC | type = sermon collection}}, [https://web.archive.org/web/20051126182030/http://www.religion-online.org/showbook.asp?title=375 Religion online].
* {{citation | last = Tillich | first = Paul | author-mask = 3 | title=Dynamics of Faith | year = 1957b |publisher =Harper & Row |isbn = 978-0-06203146-4 |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=aA7EuFYk6UMC}}
* {{citation | last = Tillich | first = Paul | author-mask = 3 | title = Theology of Culture | year = 1959 |publisher= Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19976353-5 |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=BsiJbOR6AGoC}}
* {{Citation | last = Tillich | first = Paul | author-mask = 3 | title = Christianity and the Encounter of the World Religions | year = 1963 | publisher = Columbia University Press | url = http://www.religion-online.org/showbook.asp?title=1557 | url-status = dead | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20051126185238/http://www.religion-online.org/showbook.asp?title=1557 | archive-date = 2005-11-26 }}.
* {{citation | last = Tillich | first = Paul | author-mask = 3 | title = Morality and Beyond | orig-year =1963, Harper & Row |isbn = 978-0-664-25564-0 |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=c_JtUlsewbYC | year = 1995 | publisher = Westminster John Knox Press}}.
* {{Citation | last = Tillich | first = Paul | author-mask = 3 | title = The Eternal Now | orig-year = 1963, Charles Scribner's Sons | year = 2003 | publisher = SCM Press | isbn = 0-334-02875-2 | type = university sermons 1955–63 | url = http://www.religion-online.org/showbook.asp?title=1630 | url-status = dead | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20051126185932/http://www.religion-online.org/showbook.asp?title=1630 | archive-date = 2005-11-26 }}.
* {{Citation | last = Tillich | first = Paul | author-mask = 3 | title = Ultimate Concern: Tillich in Dialogue | year = 1965 | editor-first = D. Mackenzie | editor-last = Brown | publisher = Harper & Row | url = http://www.religion-online.org/showbook.asp?title=538 | url-status = dead | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20051126181109/http://www.religion-online.org/showbook.asp?title=538 | archive-date = 2005-11-26 }}.
* {{cite book| author1-last = Tillich | author1-first = Paul | author1-mask = 3 | title=The Future of Religions |location=New York | publisher =Charles Scribner's |date=1966 }}
** {{Citation | last = Tillich | first = Paul | author-mask = 3 | title = The Future of Religions | orig-year = 1966 | type = posthumous; includes autobiographical chapter | editor1-last=Brauer | editor1-first = Jerald C. | editor1-link = Jerald C. Brauer  | publisher = Harper & Row | year = 1976 | isbn=0060682477 }}.
* {{cite book| author1-last = Tillich | author1-first = Paul | author1-mask = 3 | title = On the Boundary | url = https://archive.org/details/onboundaryautobi0000till | url-access = registration |location=New York |publisher=Charles Scribner's |date=1966 }}
* {{Citation | last = Tillich | first = Paul | author-mask = 3 | title = My Search for Absolutes | orig-year = 1967 | type = posthumous; includes autobiographical chapter |editor1-last = Anshen | editor1-first = Ruth Nanda |editor1-link=Ruth Nanda Anshen | publisher = Simon & Schuster | year = 1984 | isbn = 0-671-50585-8 | url = http://www.religion-online.org/showbook.asp?title=1628 | url-status = dead | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20051126185908/http://www.religion-online.org/showbook.asp?title=1628 | archive-date = 2005-11-26 }}
* {{cite book| author1-last = Tillich | author1-first = Paul | author1-mask = 3 |editor1-last=Adams |editor1-first=James Luther |editor1-link=James Luther Adams |title=What Is Religion? |location=New York |publisher=Harper & Row |date=1969 }}
* {{Citation | last = Tillich | first = Paul | author-mask = 3 | title = My Travel Diary 1936: Between Two Worlds | year = 1970 | publisher = Harper & Row | editor-first = J.C | editor-last = Brauer | url = http://www.religion-online.org/showbook.asp?title=3181 | url-status = dead | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20060622082710/http://www.religion-online.org/showbook.asp?title=3181 | archive-date = 2006-06-22 }}.
* {{citation | last = Tillich | first = Paul | author-mask = 3 | title=A History of Christian Thought: From its Judaic and Hellenistic Origins to Existentialism |publisher=Simon & Schuster |year=1972 |isbn=978-0-67121426-5 | editor-first =Carl Edward | editor-last = Braaten |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=LvsBjzLYo0IC}} (edited from his lectures and published posthumously).
** ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20060106105318/http://www.religion-online.org/showbook.asp?title=2310 A History of Christian Thought]'' (1968), Harper & Row,  contains the first part of the two part 1972 edition (comprising the 38 New York lectures).
* {{citation | last = Tillich | first = Paul | author-mask = 3 | title= The System of the Sciences According to Objects and Methods | year =1981 | others = Paul Wiebe transl. | location =London |publisher = Bucknell University Press |isbn = 978-0-83875013-1 |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=apXAvr8SODcC | orig-year = German, 1923}}.
* {{citation | last = Tillich | first = Paul | author-mask = 3 | title=The Essential Tillich | type = anthology |editor-first = F. Forrester | editor-last = Church |url = https://books.google.com/books?id=NhsrRclfFbYC | publisher =U. of Chicago Press |year=1999 | isbn = 978-0-22680343-2}}
* {{citation | last = Tillich | first = Paul | author-mask = 3 | title=The Meaning of Health | type = Book |editor-first = Paul | editor-last = Lee | editor1-link=Paul Lee (environmentalist) | publisher =North Atlantic Books |year=1981 | isbn = 9780913028872| oclc = 1078847441 }}

== See also ==
* [[Christian existentialism]]
* [[Existential Thomism]]
* [[List of American philosophers]]
* [[Neo-orthodoxy]]
* [[Panentheism]]
* [[Philosophical theology]]
* [[Postmodern Christianity]]
* [[Systematic theology]]
* [[Theistic personalism]]

== References ==
{{Reflist|30em}}

== Further reading ==
* Adams, James Luther. 1965. ''Paul Tillich's Philosophy of Culture, Science, and Religion''. New York: New York University Press
* Armbruster, Carl J. 1967. ''The Vision of Paul Tillich''. New York: Sheed and Ward
* Breisach, Ernst. 1962. ''Introduction to Modern Existentialism''. New York: Grove Press
* {{Citation | last = Bruns | first = Katja | year = 2011 | title = Anthropologie zwischen Theologie und Naturwissenschaft bei Paul Tillich und Kurt Goldstein. Historische Grundlagen und systematische Perspektiven | language = de | journal = Kontexte. Neue Beiträge zur historischen und systematischen Theologie | volume = 41 | place = Goettingen | publisher = Ruprecht | isbn = 978-3-7675-7143-3}}.
* Bulman, Raymond F. and Frederick J. Parrella, eds. 1994. ''Paul Tillich: A New Catholic Assessment.'' Collegeville: The Liturgical Press
* Carey, Patrick W., and Lienhard, Joseph. 2002. ''Biographical Dictionary of Christian Theologians''. Mass: Hendrickson
* Chul-Ho Youn. 1990. ''God's Relation to the World and Human Existence in the Theologies of Paul Tillich and John B. Cobb, Jr.''
* [[John P. Dourley|Dourley, John P.]]  2008. ''Paul Tillich, [[Carl Jung]], and the Recovery of Religion''. London: Routledge 
* Ford, Lewis S.  1966. "Tillich and Thomas: The Analogy of Being." ''Journal of Religion'' 46:2 (April)
* Freeman, David H.  1962. ''Tillich''.  Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co.
* Gilkey, Langdon.  1990. ''Gilkey on Tillich''.  New York: Crossroad
*  Grenz, Stanley, and Olson, Roger E. 1997. ''20th Century Theology God & the World in a Transitional Age''
* Hamilton, Kenneth. 1963. ''The System and the Gospel: A Critique of Paul Tillich''. New York: Macmillan
* Hammond, Guyton B.  1965.  ''Estrangement: A Comparison of the Thought of Paul Tillich and Erich Fromm''.  Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press.
*  Hegel, G. W. F.  1967.  ''The Phenomenology of Mind'', trans. With intro. J. B. Baillie, Torchbook intro. by George Lichtheim.  New York: Harper Torchbooks
*  Hook, Sidney, ed. 1961  ''Religious Experience and Truth: A Symposium'' (New York: New York University Press)
*  Hopper, David.  1968.  ''Tillich: A Theological Portrait''.  Philadelphia: Lippincott
* Howlett, Duncan.  1964.  ''The Fourth American Faith''.  New York: Harper & Row
* {{Citation | last = Kaufman | first = Walter | year = 1961a | title = The Faith of a Heretic | place = New York | publisher = Doubleday}}.
* {{Citation | last = Kaufman | first = Walter | author-mask = 3 | year = 1961b | title = Critique of Religion and Philosophy | place = Garden City, NY | publisher = Anchor Books, Doubleday}}.
* {{Citation | editor1-last = Kegley | editor1-first = Charles W | editor2-last = Bretall | editor2-first = Robert W | year = 1964 | title = The Theology of Paul Tillich | place = New York | publisher = Macmillan}}.
* Keefe, Donald J., S.J.  1971.  ''Thomism and the Ontological Theology of Paul Tillich''.  Leiden: E.J. Brill
* Kelsey, David H.  1967  ''The Fabric of Paul Tillich's Theology''.  New Haven: Yale University Press
* {{Citation | author-link = Jan Adrian Lata| last = Łata | first = Jan Adrian | year = 1995 | language = pl | title = Odpowiadająca teologia Paula Tillicha | publisher = Oficyna Wydaw | place = Signum, Oleśnica | isbn = 83-85631-38-0}}.
* MacIntyre, Alasdair.  1963.  "God and the Theologians," ''Encounter'' 21:3 (September)
* Martin, Bernard.  1963.  ''The Existentialist Theology of Paul Tillich''.  New Haven: College and University Press
* Marx, Karl.  n.d.  ''Capital''.  Ed. Frederick Engels.  trans. from 3rd German ed. by Samuel Moore and Edward Aveling.  New York: The Modern Library
* May, Rollo.  1973.  ''Paulus: Reminiscences of a Friendship''.  New York: Harper & Row
* {{Citation | last = McKelway | first = Alexander J | year = 1964 | title = The Systematic Theology of Paul Tillich: A Review and Analysis | place = Richmond | publisher = John Knox Press}}.
* Modras, Ronald.  1976.  ''Paul Tillich 's Theology of the Church: A Catholic Appraisal''.  Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1976.
* O'Meara, Thomas F., O.P. and Donald M. Weisser, O.P., eds.  1969.  ''Paul Tillich in Catholic Thought.''  Garden City: Image Books
* Palmer, Michael.  1984.  ''Paul Tillich's Philosophy of Art''.  New York: Walter de Gruyter
* {{Citation | last1 = Pauck | last2 = Wilhelm | last3 = Marion | year = 1976 | title = Paul Tillich: His Life & Thought | volume = 1: Life | place = New York | publisher = Harper & Row}}.
* Re Manning, Russell, ed. 2009. ''The Cambridge Companion to Paul Tillich''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
* Re Manning, Russell, ed. 2015. ''Retrieving the Radical Tillich. His Legacy and Contemporary Importance''. New York: Palgrave Macmillan
* Rowe, William L.  1968.  ''Religious Symbols and God: A Philosophical Study of Tillich's Theology''.  Chicago: University of Chicago Press
* Scharlemann, Robert P.  1969.  ''Reflection and Doubt in the Thought of Paul Tillich''.  New Haven: Yale University Press
* Schweitzer, Albert.  1961.  ''The Quest of the Historical Jesus'', trans. W. Montgomery.  New York: Macmillan
* Soper, David Wesley. 1952.  ''Major Voices in American Theology: Six Contemporary Leaders.'' Philadelphia: Westminster
* Tavard, George H.  1962.  ''Paul Tillich and the Christian Message''.  New York: Charles Scribner's Sons
* {{citation |editor-last=Taylor | editor-first = Mark Kline |year=1991 |title= Paul Tillich: Theologian of the Boundaries | place = Minneapolis |publisher= Fortress Press | isbn = 978-1-45141386-1 |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=OfClHSBP65EC}}
* {{Citation | last = Thomas | first = George F | year = 1965 | title = Religious Philosophies of the West | place = New York | publisher = Scribner's}}.
* {{Citation | last1 = Thomas | first1 = J. Heywood | year = 1963 | title = Paul Tillich: An Appraisal | place = Philadelphia | publisher = Westminster}}.
* Tillich, Hannah. 1973. ''From Time to Time''. New York: Stein and Day
* Vîrtop Sorin-Avram: "Integrating the symbol approach in education" in Conference Proceedings 2, Economic, Social and Administrative Approaches to the knowledge based organisation,  « Nicolae Bălcescu » Land Forces Academy Publishing House, Sibiu, Romania, 2013. ISSN 1843-6722 pp.&nbsp;454–459, [https://www.researchgate.net/publication/318724749_1_Virtop_Sorin-Avram_Integrating_the_symbol_approach_in_education_in_Conference_Procedings_2_Economic_Social_and_Administrative_Approaches_to_the_knowledge_based_organisation_Nicolae_Balcescu_Land_Forces researchgate]
* Tucker, Robert. 1961. ''Philosophy and Myth in Karl Marx''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
* Wheat, Leonard F. 1970. ''Paul Tillich's Dialectical Humanism: Unmasking the God above God.'' Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press
* Woodson, Hue. 2018. ''Heideggerian Theologies: The Pathmarks of John Macquarrie, Rudolf Bultmann, Paul Tillich, and Karl Rahner.'' Eugene: Wipf and Stock

== External links ==
{{Commons |Paul Tillich}}
{{Wikiquote}}
* The Harvard Divinity School Library at [[Harvard Divinity School]] holds the papers of Paul Tillich and Hannah Tillich.
** [https://hollisarchives.lib.harvard.edu/repositories/12/resources/1017 "A Conversation With Dr. Paul Tillich and Werner Rode, Graduate Student in Theology."] Film reel, 1956.
** Tillich, Paul, 1886–1965.  [https://hollisarchives.lib.harvard.edu/repositories/12/resources/1032 Audiocassettes, 1955–1965]
** Tillich, Paul, 1886–1965.  [https://hollisarchives.lib.harvard.edu/repositories/12/resources/1030 Papers, 1894–1974]
** Tillich, Paul, 1886–1965, collector.  [https://hollisarchives.lib.harvard.edu/repositories/12/resources/1091 Literature about Paul Tillich, 1911–1994]
** Tillich, Hannah.  [https://hollisarchives.lib.harvard.edu/repositories/12/resources/1090 Papers, 1896–1976]
* {{Internet Archive author |sname=Paul Tillich}}
* [https://faculty.evansville.edu/ck6/bstud/tillich.jpg James Rosati's sculpture of Tillich's head] in the Paul Tillich Park in New Harmony, Indiana.
* [https://www.napts.org/ North American Paul Tillich Society].
* {{BCEWT|id=tillich|title=Paul Tillich (1886–1965)|author=James Wu}}
* Reverend Bill Ressl [https://web.archive.org/web/20110910150604/http://www.billressl.us/tillichparklabyrinth.pdf Tillich Park in New Harmony, Indiana.]
* [https://www.giffordlectures.org/lecturers/paul-tillich Tillich profile, and synopsis] of [[Gifford Lectures]]
*[https://people.bu.edu/wwildman/tillich/index.htm Paul Tillich Resources]. [[Wesley Wildman]].
**[https://web.archive.org/web/20210924003121/https://people.bu.edu/wwildman/tillich/stguide/stguide2.htm Reader's Guide to Tillich's ''Systematic Theology'']. Archived from the [https://people.bu.edu/wwildman/tillich/stguide/stguide2.htm Original] in 2021 on the [[Wayback Machine]].
{{Philosophy of religion}}
{{Ethics}}
{{Union Theological Seminary (New York City)}}
{{Friedenspreis des Deutschen Buchhandels}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Tillich, Paul}}
[[Category:1886 births]]
[[Category:1965 deaths]]
[[Category:Existentialist theologians]]
[[Category:20th-century German writers]]
[[Category:20th-century American writers]]
[[Category:20th-century American philosophers]]
[[Category:20th-century German Protestant theologians]]
[[Category:American Lutheran theologians]]
[[Category:German Lutheran theologians]]
[[Category:20th-century German philosophers]]
[[Category:German military chaplains]]
[[Category:Christian existentialists]]
[[Category:People from Krosno Odrzańskie County]]
[[Category:People from the Province of Brandenburg]]
[[Category:Lutheran philosophers]]
[[Category:Emigrants from Nazi Germany to the United States]]
[[Category:Systematic theologians]]
[[Category:American sermon writers]]
[[Category:University of Breslau alumni]]
[[Category:Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg alumni]]
[[Category:Academic staff of the University of Marburg]]
[[Category:Academic staff of Leipzig University]]
[[Category:Academic staff of Goethe University Frankfurt]]
[[Category:Union Theological Seminary faculty]]
[[Category:University of Chicago Divinity School faculty]]
[[Category:Harvard Divinity School faculty]]
[[Category:Transtheism]]
[[Category:Knights Commander of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany]]
[[Category:World War I chaplains]]
[[Category:Philosophers of religion]]
[[Category:Philosophers of language]]
[[Category:Death of God theologians]]
[[Category:United Church of Christ ministers]]
[[Category:German male non-fiction writers]]
[[Category:German Christian socialists]]
[[Category:Lutheran socialists]]
[[Category:Christian socialist theologians]]