Paul Johannes Tillich (1886-1965) was a German-American theologian and Christian existentialist philosopher. Tillich, along with contemporary Karl Barth, is considered by many as one of the most influential Protestant theologians of the twentieth century.
Tillich was born in Germany, in 1886. From 1904 to 1909 he studied at universities in Berlin, Tübingen, and Halle, and in 1910 he received the Ph. D. degree from the University of Breslau. He was ordained in the Lutheran Church in Berlin in 1912 and served as an army chaplain on the Western front during World War I.
From 1924-25 Tillich was Associate Professor of Theology at the University of Marburg, from 1925-29 Professor of Philosophy and Religious Studies at the Dresden Institute of Technology, and from 1929-33, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Frankfurt.
In 1933 Tillich's position was suspended by the Nazi government. Later that year he accepted an invitation from Reinhold Niebuhr to teach at the Union Theological Seminary and moved to New York. He was Visiting Professor of Philosophy of Religion and Systematic Theology at Union Theological Seminary from 1933 to 1937 and continued there as a professor until 1955.
From 1955-62, he was University Professor at Harvard, and during his last three years, the Nuveen Professor Theology in the Divinity School, University of Chicago.
Selected works[]
- The Interpretation of History, 1936
- The Protestant Era, 1948
- The Shaking of the Foundations, 1948
- Systematic Theology, 1951–63 (3 volumes): ISBN 0226803376, ISBN 0226803384, ISBN 0226803392
- The Courage to Be, 1952, ISBN 0300084714 (2nd ed)
- Love, Power, and Justice, 1954
- Biblical Religion and the Search for Ultimate Reality, 1955, ISBN 0226803414
- The New Being, 1955
- Dynamics of Faith, 1957, ISBN 0060937130
- Christianity and the Encounter of the World Religions, 1963
- My Search for Absolutes, 1967 (posthumous), Simon & Schuster 1984 reprint ISBN 0671505858 (includes autobiographical chapter)
- My Travel Diary: 1936, 1970 (edited and published posthumously by J.C. Brauer)
- A History of Christian Thought: From its Judaic and Hellenistic Origins to Existentialism, 1972 (edited from his lectures and published posthumously by C. E. Braaten), ISBN 0671214268
- The Essential Tillich, (anthology) F. Forrester Church, editor; 1987 (Macmillan): ISBN 0020189206; 1999 (U. of Chicago): ISBN 0226803430
Further reading[]
- Russell Re Manning, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Paul Tillich. Cambridge University Press, 2009.
- Andrew O'Neill, Tillich: A Guide for the Perplexed. T&T Clark, 2008.
- John Heywood Thomas, Tillich. Outstanding Christian Thinkers. Continuum, 2000.
See also[]
External links[]
- Biography and summary of his theology from Boston Collaborative Encyclopedia of Western Theology