Paul Tillich - Definition and Overview

Paul Johannes Tillich (August 20, 1886 - October 22, 1965) was a German-born American theologian and Christian existentialist philosopher.

Born in Starzeddel (Guben county), Germany, Tillich studied at a number of German universities—those of Berlin, Tübingen, Halle, and Breslau—before finally obtaining a degree. Shortly thereafter, in 1912, he was ordained minister in the Lutheran Church, and soon took up a career as professor. He moved around to a number of universities throughout Germany over the next two decades, teaching theology at the universities of Berlin, Marburg, Dresden, and Leipzig, and philosophy at Frankfurt. However, his opposition to the Nazis cost him his job: he was fired in 1933 and replaced by philosopher Arnold Gehlen, who had joined the NSDAP that year. Finding himself thus barred from German universities, Tillich accepted an invitation from Reinhold Niebuhr to teach at the Union Theological Seminary in the United States, to which country he emigrated later in that year.

It is at the Union Theological Seminary that Tillich earned his reputation, publishing a series of books that outlined his particular synthesis of Protestant Christian theology with existentialist philosophy (drawing on research in psychology in the process). A 1952 work outlining many of his views on the subject, The Courage to Be, proved popular even outside philosophical and religious circles, earning him considerable acclaim and influence. This led to a prestigious appointment at Harvard University in 1954, where he wrote another popularly acclaimed book, Dynamics of Faith (1957). He was also a very important contributor to modern just war thought. In 1962, he moved to the University of Chicago, where he continued until his death in Chicago in 1965. Tillich's ashes were interred in 1965 in the Paul Tillich Park in New Harmony, Indiana.

Tillich has been called the last great 19th century theologian by 21st century ethicist Stanley Hauerwas and United Methodist bishop William Willimon, who put forth in their 1989 book Resident Aliens (ISBN 0687361591) that Tillich, though brilliant, failed to take seriously the words, work, and person of Jesus Christ, and that Tillich's innovations were little more than a re-telling of 19th century Protestant Liberal thought.

According to his wife, Hannah Tillich,'s autobiography, the Tillich's were involved with both men and women in their life.

Major Books

• The Interpretation of History, 1936
• The Protestant Era, 1948
• The Shaking of the Foundations, 1948
• Systematic Theology, 1951-63 (3 volumes)
• The Courage to Be, 1952, ISBN 0300084714 (2nd ed)
• Love, Power, and Justice, 1954
• Biblical Religion and the Search for Ultimate Reality, 1955
• The New Being, 1955
• Dynamics of Faith, 1957
• Christianity and the Encounter of the World Religions, 1963
• My Search for Absolutes, 1967 (published posthumously)
• My Travel Diary: 1936, 1970 (edited and published posthumously by J.C. Brauer)
• A History of Christian Thought, 1972 (edited and published posthumously by C.E. Braaten) ISBN 0671214268

Pictures

• [1] (http://faculty.evansville.edu/ck6/bstud/tillich.jpg) James Rosati's sculpture of Tillich's head in the Paul Tillich Park in New Harmony, Indiana.
• [2] (http://www.agecon.purdue.edu/crd/localgov/images/tillich_stone.jpg)Paul Tillich memorial stone in the Paul Tillich Park in New Harmony, Indiana.

External links

• [3] (http://www.bautz.de/bbkl/t/tillich_p.shtml)Paul Tillich in the German-language Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon with further reading.