The Courage to Be

Rating:
Summary: Tillich makes the world look shimmeringly alive.
Review: "It takes tremendous courage to resist the lure of appearances. The power of being which is manifest in such courage is so great that the gods tremble in fear of it." Paul Tillich, The Courage to Be.

Paul Tillich's ideas are a response to existentialism, German philosphy, modern physics & the success of totalitarian movements in Germany, Russia & Italy. He is a bridge between the 19th Century & the growth of new theological thought in latter part of the Twentieth.

Tillich is not all that difficult to understand in The Courage to Be. However, it's unfortunate that his three wonderful collections of sermons (The Shaking of the Foundations; The New Being; The Eternal Now) are out-of-print, as these are his best introductions.

Readers coming to Tillich will have to grapple with the common metaphors of Christian faith. For Tillich, the concepts of Heaven & even an afterlife are not terribly important, as they imply a continuation of life in time that he is not able to accept scientifically or on faith. So one meets those lovely semi-metaphors of "being itself," "non-being" & "ground of being" that, for me at least, were a more clear explanation of how I experience the world than God the "Father" or Holy Ghost.

This makes Tillich a crucial step into Feminist & Language theology, although he couldn't quite make the big leap himself.

Basically, Tillich says we're stuck in an undefinable present that moves creatively into an unknown future in which nothing is a given but the fact that we are alive right now, so what do we intend to do about it? This is "being" & being, above all else, requires courage; the courage of early Christians facing the axe or the fire. As for Tillich's "Ground of Being," one might compare it - inadequately - to a tree as a reflection of its roots - a metaphor I copped from another Paul ...artist Paul Klee. Tillich says that we cannot speak unsymbolically about being.

In the aftermath of September 11, 2001, Paul Tillich's theology gains even greater relevance. He witnessed in Germany the acquiescence of the established churches to National Socialism & the failure of Democratic Christian Socialism. I do not believe he would have many kind words for contemporary Islam, a religious system so bound to orthodoxy as to make it incapable of relevant reform. On the other hand, Tillich would have immediately recognized those manifestations of the "Kingdom of God" which began appearing even before the Twin Towers had collapsed. Our estrangement from God in the Eternal Now (which invites demonic energy as a tall tree invites lightning) is overcome only in the present moment. Evil may be defeated with violent retaliation, but it is conquered with love.

Paul Tillich is especially liberating for artists. Stopping just short of Buddhism, Tillich makes the world look shimmeringly alive & filled with possibilities, yet so transient - a world of appearances.

"The courage to be is rooted in the God who appears when God has disappeared in the anxiety of doubt." Paul Tillich, The Courage to Be

Bob Rixon

Also recommended" Henri Bergson, An Introduction to Metaphysics

Rating:
Summary: This book is a real eye opener!
Review: "The Courage To Be" has confirmed, at least for me, a feeling that I have had for a long time now. Paul Tillich should not be considered to have been a theologian.

I know that some will object to my position by saying something along the lines of: "How can someone who has written a systematic theology not be a theologian?" Go ahead and ask. I know of no sane person who has read his systematic all the way through without having been compelled by someone higher up in the power structure of academia.

This leads me to the thesis of my review. Tillich was not a theologian or as some would no doubt suggest, a philosopher. I cannot put my finger on exactly what he was. The most honest and least vitriolic (though this book simply begs for vitriol) description I can provide of this book is that it is vague. Tillich seems to want to make some universalist and yet subjective statement about courage and anxiety, but he never pulls the trigger on it. He dances round and round the subject, leaving the reader both tired and queasy.

This leads me back to the question of Tillich. Is this book the work of Tillich the theologian, Tillich the existentialist philosopher, or an undefined, wholly other Tillich? I don't know. However I do believe I know who Tillich was writing for; and I believe this is the key to our question about Tillich, meaningful as part of understanding the book, and of the utmost importance to you as you consider whether or not to buy and read this book. It is my sincere belief that this book was written for that all too common half-breed that is found in our universities: the Liberal Academic (those who are too lacking in honesty to be true scholars and yet still fearful enough to admit their own atheism).

Tillich is still widely read by captive audiences under the tutelage of these academics. This ensures why this book is still read and discussed. This notwithstanding I urge you to take my honest and heartfelt advice: don't read this book unless one of them forces you to.

Rating:
Summary: What sort of book is this being?
Review: "The Courage To Be" has confirmed, at least for me, a feeling that I have had for a long time now. Paul Tillich should not be considered to have been a theologian.

I know that some will object to my position by saying something along the lines of: "How can someone who has written a systematic theology not be a theologian?" Go ahead and ask. I know of no sane person who has read his systematic all the way through without having been compelled by someone higher up in the power structure of academia.

This leads me to the thesis of my review. Tillich was not a theologian or as some would no doubt suggest, a philosopher. I cannot put my finger on exactly what he was. The most honest and least vitriolic (though this book simply begs for vitriol) description I can provide of this book is that it is vague. Tillich seems to want to make some universalist and yet subjective statement about courage and anxiety, but he never pulls the trigger on it. He dances round and round the subject, leaving the reader both tired and queasy.

This leads me back to the question of Tillich. Is this book the work of Tillich the theologian, Tillich the existentialist philosopher, or an undefined, wholly other Tillich? I don't know. However I do believe I know who Tillich was writing for; and I believe this is the key to our question about Tillich, meaningful as part of understanding the book, and of the utmost importance to you as you consider whether or not to buy and read this book. It is my sincere belief that this book was written for that all too common half-breed that is found in our universities: the Liberal Academic (those who are too lacking in honesty to be true scholars and yet still fearful enough to admit their own atheism).

Tillich is still widely read by captive audiences under the tutelage of these academics. This ensures why this book is still read and discussed. This notwithstanding I urge you to take my honest and heartfelt advice: don't read this book unless one of them forces you to.

Rating:
Summary: an existential classic....
Review: ....of faith, fortitude, and integrity. Tillich's gift for combining the theological and the philosophical works in full force here, where he demonstrates the ontology of what other thinkers have called being-toward-oneself.

Rating:
Summary: an existential classic....
Review: ....of faith, fortitude, and integrity. Tillich's gift for combining the theological and the philosophical works in full force here, where he demonstrates the ontology of what other thinkers have called being-toward-oneself.

Rating:
Summary: Enriching, stimulating (but difficult, obfuscated)
Review: As one gets older, one learns to evaluate books on several levels. Not every book requires such an approach, but this one does. I've read it three times. No, three and a half: the very first time (which I count for half an attempt ) I became angry and annoyed after some 50 pages and hurled this book across the room; then I rushed to post a negative review here, but for some reason held my fire and let a few days pass. Then, for reasons I can't quite express here, I felt impelled to try again. I realized that The Courage to Be has several layers, and even though not all of these layers may be equally interesting, at least some deserve making another attempt. Let me now consider this book from such a viewpoint.

First, any book can be read as a textbook, that is in order to learn some quantity of information that you didn't know before. This is the first, simplest level at which one appropriates a book's content; the first thing that comes to mind when you ask yourself why you read: to learn. On this level this book is not that great -- and that is why I hated it so violently at first. Tillich writes in the typical German-philosophy style (of which Hegel is an extreme example.) It's very convoluted and opaque; there's hardly a single phrase in the whole book that can be understood clearly and unequivocally. Someone said: what can be said, can be said clearly. And Wittgenstein concluded this inspiring but incomplete thought with "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must remain silent." Yet Tillich uses words in such a way that they seem to suggest rather than simply denote; he never defines the terms so that no further clarification would be desired; then he proceeds to use these terms to build more and more complex structures, denying the reader any degree of semantic control.

Why then five stars and not one? Because of the second, much less obvious level. The book is unclear, yes, but it is not meaningless. It *can* be understood, though not unequivocally. Every thesis of his may mean different things and this turns out to be incredibly intellectually stimulating. In other words, you will never be able to state what exactly he says, but it will give you a lot of food for your own thought. Most books make you think about what is said in them; this one makes you think yourself; this is very unusual. It triggers your own thought process; your mind will digress from the book itself and go off in your own directions and wander. In other words, although it's not a book to learn from, you will, to your own surprise, discover that meantime it has surreptitiously began to serve as a prop -- in a sense, like a hypnotist's pendulum -- for your own thinking.

There's yet another level to this book: Tillich, clearly, was an encyclopedic mind. The book is small, he doesn't explicate much, he skips the background -- time and again he says himself: this is not the place to explain (which tends to irritate, btw), but he adduces striking historical observations, parralels, and analyses. For the missing background he frequently refers the reader to his Systematic Theology; one could resort to other sources, of course; in any case one's curiosity will be stimulated, one will be motivated to dig deeper, to go beyond this one book -- who knows how far? History, politics, religion... there's no limit; *you* will decide when to stop. That's what my five stars are due to. I'm glad I returned to this book after I tossed it.

How to read it, what to expect. The book is smallish, but one should have no illusions -- it is difficult. It is unclear semantically -- but not fluffy verbally: everything matters, there's no hot air that could be skept without loss. You will need to read it slowly. You will have to "fall back" many times. You will have to use a pencil and a marker; you will need to make notes. You will lose track on many occasions and need to go back, find the beginning of the line of reasoning you got stuck with and retrace it to where you are. Like a chess player, you will need to keep in mind many possible lines of development (again, the book cannot be understood in a single, unique way; it's multivariate, so to say -- the number of possible interpretations will be limited only by your own imagination and thinking; it may become overwhelming; you may need to write things down.)

It may be that I've made of this book something that the author did not intend, but it is all there, so who cares about the author's intent? After all, if that's not what he meant, he should have been writing more clearly. Some will say the book is cumbersome and obscure and therefore not good -- and that view cannot be wholly denied as unfounded. It certainly is all that, but, as I've tried to show above, there is (but only if you will want to make it so) much more to this book; whether this is what the author himself intended I don't know. But then it's irrelevant, I think. Reading this book is hard work, but there's a high reward for those who like to think in general and are willing to persevere.

PS. A small caution: this is not a "self-improvement" book (by "self-improvement book" I mean typical mass-market twaddle targeting the Oprah constituency.)

Rating:
Summary: Mandatory reading for deeper spiritual and personal growth.
Review: I first read this book in high school, then in seminary, in graduate psychology classes, and several times since then. Each time I read it I gain insight and growth. Tillich will challenge your intellect and force you to think. He defines courage in a way that will change you if you take it to heart. This is a book that you will need to read several times to apperciate it's depth, but it is well worth it. I often feel I obtain a higher leval of consciousness and often I feel in an altered state after reading and pondering Tillich's writting. Tillich outlines fundemental concepts for existentialist and modern theology. Starting with Tillich's books of sermon is a good work up to this book.

Rating:
Summary: Where struggle ends and grace begins
Review: I first read this book when I had to write an existential paper for one of my counseling classes. It was difficult for me to understand at first, but I read it again, and it changed my life in ways. So many times, we look at God and box him/her into compartments. When we do this, we think we have a good handle on who and what God is. Then as time goes on, and we evolve, our thoughts on God no longer relate or apply to our lives. Through the struggle to know, seek and experience God, we many times are disappointed when God and ourselves do not connect. Paul Tillich tells us that through the struggle, we must have absolute faith, and the god who is really God appears in Grace.

Rating:
Summary: A GREAT BOOK
Review: [e-mail] I first read this book in 1954 while enrolled in Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. I don't know how many times since then I have pulled it out and reread it. LUTHER BUTLE

Rating:
Summary: Entrancing, Engaging, Spectacular
Review: One of the greatest contemporary accounts of existentialism from the theological perspective. Tillich writes with extreme precision and emphasizes the need for faith in an age when meaninglessness animates the quest for self-understanding. Existentialism has been dominated by secular sentiment, and Tillich brings it back into its theological context by offering an ontological account of faith which is disguised as "courage." Important points include: the God beyond god, and the three categories of the fear-anxiety correlation in respect to both their historical and philosophical manifestations. I believe this book originally went through seven editions within a two year period, an unprecedented accomplishment for an author.