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The Courage to Be

Paul Tillich,

Harvey Cox (Introduction)

4.10 · Rating details · 2,931 ratings · 205 reviews

Originally published more than fifty years ago, The Courage to Be has become a classic of twentieth-century religious and philosophical thought. The great Christian existentialist thinker Paul Tillich describes the dilemma of modern man and points a way to the conquest of the problem of anxiety. This edition includes a new foreword by Harvey Cox that situates the book with ...more

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Paperback, 240 pages

Published July 8th 2014 by Yale University Press (first published 1952)

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Sep 30, 2009 Chris Shank rated it really liked it · review of another edition

I first started reading this book because I want answers to the existential angst that plagues me and others aware of the implications of post-modern ideas. I don’t mean to say that I wanted an alternative to post-modernism; I don’t believe that is any more realistic than saying that I want an alternative to turning 32, for that’s just wishful thinking. I’m not a post-modernist, for I am not merely a product of my culture, but I am influenced by my culture. If I’m being honest with myself, there I first started reading this book because I want answers to the existential angst that plagues me and others aware of the implications of post-modern ideas. I don’t mean to say that I wanted an alternative to post-modernism; I don’t believe that is any more realistic than saying that I want an alternative to turning 32, for that’s just wishful thinking. I’m not a post-modernist, for I am not merely a product of my culture, but I am influenced by my culture. If I’m being honest with myself, there is simply no escaping thinking in part like a post-modernist, for I am steeped in a post-modern era of thought and practice. It doesn’t help to revert to modernist ‘fact-finding’ when immersed in a society that is exploring the cognitive foundation of what we call objective reality—but people attempt this regressive tactic nonetheless because it’s a familiar place. But the past is dead and done; it is worn into a deep rut, and a new path must be found. We must confess, though disheartened, that facts don’t find nearly as much as they don’t find. Enter post-modernism.

Tillich starts by differentiating between fear and anxiety. Fear is a manifestation of universal, existential anxiety; and as a leaf and not a root, fear can be more directly dealt with than anxiety. The individual fears are embodiments that can be avoided, resisted, opposed and even eliminated—while the root of fear—anxiety—is really the ever-present awareness of non-being that constantly hovers. This anxiety cannot be removed, and is a necessary part of self-preservation (“self-affirmation”) which adds to one’s valuation of life. This principle of ineradicable anxiety is one of most difficult parts of this book to make peace with (didn’t I start reading to do exactly that…decrease anxiety?). But Tillich reveals that just as torture can be accepted at the hand of a trusted physician, so existential anxiety can be courageously endured because of a deeper realization that affirms one’s sense of purpose and identity. This truth is revealed in the last quarter of the book.

There are three basic forms of anxiety: anxiety about death (“non-being”—which ultimately subsumes the other two), anxiety about meaninglessness (an empty life), and condemnation (guilt about a wrong life). One can deal practically with fears, but anxiety (no matter which sort) must ultimately be accepted into one’s ultimate sense of self-worth and one’s right to BE (again, “self-affirmation). This is what the author refers to as ‘taking it [fears, doubts, anxiety] into oneself’. In spite of anxiety, one can still do what must be done, and can remain confident that God is still holding them. This is the confidence of Being—COURAGE—that gives one the strength to stare down non-being in its many forms.
This courage, however, does not always come easy, nor or is always immediately apparent when it does arrive. Courage can be partly obstructed by one’s lack of realization that confidence in one’s own being can take place only as an ancillary to the deeper confidence in what Tillich calls “being-itself”, viz. God. Pre-mature courage often evidences itself as ‘courage to be as a part’ [collectivism], or ‘courage to be as oneself’ [individualistic existentialism]; the former missing out on a belief in self, the later missing out on a belief in the world.

I can certainly say that I comprehend our existential predicament a bit more clearly after reading this book. Never have I read a work that so faithfully scrutinized our ontology as if it were under a microscope, but did not abandon the soul under the microscope to wriggle and die. In the words of the psychologist Carl Jung, our author has stood and stared into face of the monster of the maternal abyss, and has not been mesmerized by its power, but has overcome. This understanding of the source of our anxiety and fear can help bring a renewed determination to renew the fight, and to be hopeful and courageous even when all hope seems lost. It brings new meaning to the idea that while one is alive, there is still confidence to believe that one is ‘meant’ to be alive. In the words of Robert Browning, “This world’s no blot for us nor blank; it means intensely, and means good. And to find its meaning is my meat and drink.”
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Sep 23, 2012 Hans rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Interesting how as I read through more and more of the so called "great authors" I find an underlying pattern and message that is repeated over and over again. These are men and women who have journeyed deep into the darkness of the their own soul and have survived to tell the rest of us about it. To let us know that the alienation we feel is not ours alone, but of all mankind when our cultural, religious, philosophical and societal safe-guards have all failed. When we stand naked and vulnerable ...more

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Jul 27, 2008 Amber rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

If I were to try to describe to someone my faith, I would call myself a "Tillichian" more than a "Christian." Unfortunately, nobody knows who Tillich is outside on PLU, so I need to say "liberal, non-literal, existentialist Protestant" instead. ...more

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Aug 15, 2007 Adrienne rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I put this book in league with Dennis Brutus (who I also adore) and his poem "Stubborn Hope." Tillich is easy to read, even when he is doing the background philosophy work. I read Tillich when I feel discouraged or disheartened. He makes me feel like the mundane struggles of life have meaning. ...more

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Feb 17, 2008 Ade Bailey rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: philosophy

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Oct 29, 2007 Greg Bell rated it liked it · review of another edition

Although Tillich's writing can seem frustratingly academic, the ideas he presents are extremely relevant. He provides a historical framework on the philosophy of courage from Plato to Spinoza and then uses that platform to posit his own reasoning as a religious philosophic. Give this some time to sink in. It's worth it.

Do not read this unless you have some momentum going already. ...more

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Jun 24, 2016 Ci rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: how-to-books, re-read-books

This book is related to Tillich’s “Dynamic of Faith” while the Faith is defined as in a state of being “ultimately concerned”. Faith is not religion, and this book is not about searching for a form of religious practice. It is certainly not explicitly promoting Christianity as the conduit for faith. Instead, it is about “Courage” and “To Be” in the ontological sense.

The “Courage to Be” is the operative mode of faith in Tillich sense. Both “courage” and “to be” are used in philosophic and theolo This book is related to Tillich’s “Dynamic of Faith” while the Faith is defined as in a state of being “ultimately concerned”. Faith is not religion, and this book is not about searching for a form of religious practice. It is certainly not explicitly promoting Christianity as the conduit for faith. Instead, it is about “Courage” and “To Be” in the ontological sense.

The “Courage to Be” is the operative mode of faith in Tillich sense. Both “courage” and “to be” are used in philosophic and theological sense, far from their common-day usage. Much of the challenge of reading this book is to remind oneself that common words such as “courage”, “to be”, “being/nonbeing”, “anxiety” and “existential” having much tighter philosophic meanings.

First, what is Courage? Starting with soldierly fortitude, Tillich moved on to the Stoic’s courage through control by reason and wisdom, then the self-affirmational Christian courage through Spinoza. But modern world has changed what conditions that challenged one’s courage — from the random fate and destiny of Homer and Seneca’s time to the retrenching of traditional modes of faith in the advance of science and secularism. Courage is the living mode for a life ultimately concerned, a state of being instead of a state of mind or a mood. It is the most vital and stable trait of a person’s life. Perhaps it is best to imagine a life that is not courageous — the negation of one’s fear through submerging into a social whole, the negation of one’s doubts through distraction created by entertainment or activities, and the negation of creative despair through noncreative, empty personal piety. Courage is engagement “in spite of” something repellant, fearful, doubtful and uncertain.

“To Be” is difficult to pin down at my first read. The concept is expounded in lengthy segments in philosophical and theological sense. “To be” confronts the anxiety of non-being, a negation of one’s self in the vast and likely uncaring universe. Existentialism is heavily discussed and differentiated. Can we say Tillich is proposing a Christian Existentialism, solving the problem through Courage instead of Nietzsche’s Will to Power?

However much of the discussion on existential anxiety is lost on me, I infer the “to be” is associated with the mode of being engaged in self-affirmation, through both as a part of something and as an individual. This mode of being is actively aware of the uncertainty and doubt in one’s own life, the constant destruction of non-being inherent in the individual instead of the universal. Self-Affirmation refuses to be submerged into unburdening one’s own anxiety into conventional piety or institutional ideals such as Nationalism or Democracy.

I must read this book again.

*** additional notes

I found most of the concept difficult to digest fully. At this stage, I am holding on to certain literary figures and charactered that have exhibited what I consider Courage.
In the recent television show “True Detective”, we encounter another in the character of Rust Cohle. The fact that Cohle exhibits Stoicism coincides with the starting point of Tillich’s definition of courage through the Stoics such as Marcus Aurelius and Seneca. Courage of the Stoic is a different type from Fortitude, a soldierly virtue. Instead, Courage is the control of reason and self-affirmation, taking in doubt and anxiety into itself. Cohle acts upon his reason while refuses to ease his doubt and anxiety through other social and personal means (such as his college Hart does). Cohle has no delusion of human nature, yet he orients his whole being toward something of infinitely meaning, despite having no visible allegiance to any Ideals. He is a true Stoic, courage with resignation.

Maybe Hamlet is the first character exhibiting Courage to Be, courage despite of his intense reasoning through fogs of uncertainty, doubts and non-being. On the other hand, Camus’s Meursault in “The Stranger” is not courageous in the Tillich sense since he is devoid of any subjectivity. Tillich pointed out that Meursault holds no relationship of self versus his world, no act is meaningful. The Stranger is estranged from all aspects of human conscious life, hence his courage in front of death does not count (page 133).

In the War and Peace, Prince Andrei Bolkonsky instead of Pierre Bezukhof exhibits the centered, grounded courage instead of the transitory enlightenment experienced by the latter. Andrei Bolkonsky is closer to Tillich’s Courage to Be as he moved on from a pure resignation to a state of creative through his actions in the battlefield.
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Sep 06, 2017 Mack Hayden rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: philosophy, religion

This is one hell of a book, compadres. I don't think I've ever read something that so concisely and incisively describes the history of man's existential anxieties and the ways he's tried to deaden or cure them. It'd be wildly impressive simply as an overview, but the fact Tillich's own commentary is so eloquent and straight-for-the-jugular makes it doubly so. If you spend any time worrying and wondering about the situation we humans have found ourselves in, I really think you owe it to yourself ...more

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Sep 18, 2017 Andrew added it · review of another edition

Shelves: philosophy

I'm the worst sort of agnostic. And as a devoted follower of pragmatist philosophy, it's hard for me to find the vast majority of theology to be anything more than a fancy shell game carried on by intellectuals whose primary task is to close their minds off to anything that fails to qualify for their dogma-of-choice.

And yet I decided to overcome my theology phobia by reading Paul Tillich. Firstly, he states his inspirations -- the Stoics, Spinoza, and Nietzsche (seriously, how many theologians s ...more

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Feb 20, 2009 Erik Graff rated it liked it · review of another edition

Recommends it for: Christians

Recommended to Erik by: Howard Burkle

Shelves: religion

Grinnell College's Psychology Department was oriented towards laboratory work. I, being a vegetarian, couldn't participate in much of it. Fortunately, the theoretical side of the field was being handled by the new Religious Studies Department which had a number of psychotherapists as adjuncts and instructors in addition to philosophically inclined senior faculty. My interest in any case was with questions of meaning, those kinds of "psychological" problems which everyone has--or should have at l ...more

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Jun 14, 2017 Rowan Leigh rated it liked it · review of another edition

I found this book to be a little repetitive and too academic in its tone. For the subject matter, I'd rather read Rollo May, who happened to be a friend of Tillich's. His writing is more accessible. ...more

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Mar 21, 2011 Bob Nichols rated it it was ok · review of another edition

This book has two overarching themes that Tillich ties together. First, the modern age is plagued with anxiety, which is an awareness of our potential for "non-being." The three threats to "being" are death, emptiness and loss of meaning, and self-condemnation about not fulfilling our destiny. The result, despair, can be addressed only by an affirmation of our essence, our true self, which is our reason that allows us to participate in universal reason and the cosmic logos. Taking that affirmati This book has two overarching themes that Tillich ties together. First, the modern age is plagued with anxiety, which is an awareness of our potential for "non-being." The three threats to "being" are death, emptiness and loss of meaning, and self-condemnation about not fulfilling our destiny. The result, despair, can be addressed only by an affirmation of our essence, our true self, which is our reason that allows us to participate in universal reason and the cosmic logos. Taking that affirmative step is one component of "the courage to be." Second, this is the realm not of the gods, but of Being itself that transcends space and time. It is the realm of "God above God," and our mystic union with it enables us to "participate in the self-affirmation of being-itself". In this "personal encounter with God," we can negate "non-being" through "divine forgiveness" and "grace," and leave our non-transcendent fears and desires behind. But this also requires us to accept our "entrance" into this transcendent realm. "It is the accepting of the acceptance without somebody or something that accepts," he says. This act of accepting requires affirmation on our part. It is a "spiritual or intellectual love". It too constitutes the courage to be.

Tillich's theology is not the stuff of biological self-affirmation dedicated to survival. That is too earth-bound, with no way to transcend our fear of death, and our boundedness to the realm of desire, including the desire to live beyond death. Humanism rejects the idea of salvation, but it does not address our existential problem because it also rejects the renunciation of this world of desire. While the affirmation of the essential self "is identical with the power of Brahman," Indian mysticism's focus on other worldly union leaves the problem of meaninglessness in this world behind. In Tillich's theology, our existential condition in this world results in neurosis where we avoid "non-being by avoiding being." Its correction means "being in this world" and requires our participation in a world beyond the self and a generosity toward others.

The reference to generosity towards others seems incidental to Tillich's theology. His focus is on a personal encounter with the divine to deal with one's despair and this seems strikingly self-oriented. While the reference to "God above God" is clear enough, a question nevertheless is why there is this reference to "God" at all? In reading Tillich, there is a sense that he has acknowledged that a theistic God in this day is not tenable so he raises the bar by creating a God above God and, for now, he has inoculated his ultimate reality from the acids of modernity. A problem here is that his theology keeps hope alive in the sense that, while there's no place in heaven for humankind, we can participate in an eternal order nevertheless. If God as personal deity no longer works, maybe God as eternal order will. On these matters of faith and grace, of course, we each find our own way. For those who are less certain than Tillich, it could be that real courage is to accept our utter finitude straight up and take our rightful place in the order of the universe that way. Rather than fighting this life, it could be that we can then experience its pleasures, including those derived from a generosity for others, as well as its pain. Is Tillich's God necessary for that?

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Oct 13, 2019 Chris M.H rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction

That was some experience.

The ideas and concepts in this book will no doubt stay with me for the rest of my life. Paul Tillich has encouraged me to bear the responsibilities of my existential anxieties, of which a couple I had no notion of before. The Courage to Be, in spite of nonbeing is found in absolute faith, and he defines faith towards the end of the book in a completely radical way to what I’d encountered in my experience in any theism. He describes faith as the courage to accept acceptan That was some experience.

The ideas and concepts in this book will no doubt stay with me for the rest of my life. Paul Tillich has encouraged me to bear the responsibilities of my existential anxieties, of which a couple I had no notion of before. The Courage to Be, in spite of nonbeing is found in absolute faith, and he defines faith towards the end of the book in a completely radical way to what I’d encountered in my experience in any theism. He describes faith as the courage to accept acceptance despite nonbeing – anxiety of fate and death - not the belief in something metaphysical and unknowable, but a true human quality which we all possess and makes life worth preserving and experiencing.

Reading about the three kinds of existential anxiety from an ontological perspective I found to be extremely disconcerting but also awe inspiring. I knew that the fear of death is something only the human being must contend with but I wasn’t aware that from Tillich's perspective it’s in the background in every moment of our lives in the form of nonbeing which branches into three main existential anxieties; Ontic, Spiritual and Moral.

A couple of passages which really struck me:

“Courage resists despair by taking anxiety into itself” and “Neurosis is the way of avoiding nonbeing by avoiding being.”

What more motivation should you need to welcome and then carry your existential anxieties proudly and without shame. In my amateur view to know that we all contend with universal fears and anxieties, serves only to unite humankind in acceptance and hopefully transcendence rather than polarising groups of people.

Another part I liked – quote from Sartre:

‘“The essence of man is his experience” (…) man creates what he is. Nothing is given to him to determine his creativity. The essence of his being (…) is not something which he finds; he makes it”

I absolutely love the message in from this Existential position. It confirms what I and others must feel all along, that we do truly determine our own lives, that our every action matters, perhaps far more than we can ever comprehend, and that we should not fail to start or avoid any responsibility we can bear.
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Jun 06, 2016 David rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: philosophy, theology

Tillich is one of the giants of 20th century theology and this book is probably the work most accessible to people. The cultural condition he diagnoses is on target, discussing our anxiety in the face of meaninglessness and death. In the face of this, we find God who is beyond our notions of God; God is not a being among other beings but is the ground of being, Being itself. As Tillich says at the highpoint of the book (page 184-the end), "The God of theological theism is a being beside others a ...more

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Aug 17, 2018 B. Rule rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Tillich lays out the problem of meaninglessness (and what he calls broadly "Existentialism") with elegant parsimony and inexorable explication. It's one of the best accounts I've read of the history of philosophy from an existential perspective and I was doubly impressed by how compact he managed to make it. His move at the end to explain "the courage to be" as a faith in "God above God", while inspiring, left me a little confused. As best as I can tell, the "God above God" can really be nothing ...more

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Feb 16, 2012 Scott rated it it was ok · review of another edition

If I had read The Courage To Be years ago when I bought it, I would have given it five stars. It is cerebral and insightful and at the time I was into such books - I was reading Erich Fromm, Kierkegaard, et.al. But I have taken up Zen Buddhism since then and I found TCTB too abstract and cerebral for my present tastes. It is a fine book to occupy your mind, but it did not encourage my heart or transform my being.

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Jul 16, 2017 Matt rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, christian-non-fiction, 2017-finished-books

This is a deep, theological, philosophical examination of fear and anxiety. There were lots of insights here, some I understood and some I didn't. I get the feeling that I wouldn't agree with everything that Tillich believes, but he still has a lot of profound thoughts that I can learn from. ...more

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Mar 01, 2020 Raoul G rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: theory, physically-mine

'The Courage to Be' is Paul Tillich's most famous book and was, according to the introduction by Harvey Cox, quite popular even among laypeople. But this doesn't mean that this is an easy read. Tillich is a philosopher after all, and even though the concepts he deals with, such as anxiety, death, guilt, meaning, faith and others are important and his language is quite concise, the nature of the subjects require quite abstract thinking at times.

The first chapter is quick tour through the history ...more

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Apr 13, 2013 Lindsay Moore rated it liked it · review of another edition

Tillich is brave in the face of the void, but faith ultimately offers no more than knowledge or will (Nietzsche). The ultimate question requires a new wisdom-before-death, some true seeing through the veil, something religious and supernatural. What is the spirit that seeks what is not known without skepticism?
Inspired by Heidegger, Tillich takes a great run at it with this classical book, and achieves a new high-water mark for 1952. Regrettably for those of ultimate concern, the new wisdom is ...more

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Sep 24, 2020 Kyle rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I felt that this is a great book. I read it once when I was in the army getting ready to deploy to Iraq and I found it very helpful. Now I am a little bit older, married, trying to conceive, and struggling with the effects of PTSD and discrimination, and I still find this book just as meaningful. It can be very abstruse and you have to take it slowly and ponder it for a while.

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Jul 30, 2016 Narguess Sabetti rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Writing such a book calls for a huge daring! The Courage to Write...
It takes time to finish reading, but do not miss this book.

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Jun 25, 2020 Alex Lee rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: 2020, impressive, philosophy, mystical, psyche

I wouldn't expect what starts off as an book about emotions to be this concise or deep in wrapping up the Western philosophical tradition with its religious tradition. But it is concise and deep despite being fairly short. Tillich is capturing what it means in an emotional/pragmatic way to be in the world -- which in some sense is what philosophy and religion attempts to address, if from very different directions.

In some ways, Tillich still requires a transcendental ground. While he captures the ...more

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Oct 10, 2018 Kevin Spicer rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

There is a lot that resonates with me in existentialist philosophy. I like how it takes the meaning of human suffering seriously, its rigorous relation to absolute values and ethics, its revolt against the large scale dehumanization of modern society, and the pessimistic intellect mixed with an optimistic will.

This book examines the role that anxiety and courage plays in our ultimate relation to being, the relation between pathological and existential anxiety, the tensions between individualiza ...more

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Sep 19, 2017 Aaron Mcilhenny rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

A very good analysis of the relationship between and individual and their anxiety. It was a bit dated (he goes very hard into how much Stalinism sucks) and I think a bit limited by its focus only on the individual effects of anxiety on the development of self, because I think we live now in a world where our (or at least, my) anxiety is inextricably tied to external world events. Still, this was the smartest (but also tbh only) theory I've read in a while, and I think it provides a very good jum ...more

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Jan 14, 2019 Amy GB rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: own, inspirational

Really lucid exploration of a lot of existential issues. I remain unconvinced about some of the final conclusions, I think perhaps because of my background/bias in contrast to the author's. But a really thought-provoking read. ...more

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Apr 04, 2020 Akash Ahuja added it · review of another edition

Shelves: philosophy-psychology-sociology

Someday I’ll reread this book and I’ll hopefully understand it then

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May 07, 2020 Brent McCulley rated it it was amazing

Tillich was a great mind. Excellent book.

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Apr 27, 2014 Paul Bard rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Shelves: not-to-be-read

Tillich in "The Courage to Be" tries to overrule Aquinas, Aristotle and Plato's intelligible, logical and sensible ordering of human goods so that instead of the traditional position of wisdom and justice being the controlling greater goods of the other virtues - that is, of courage, prudence and temperance - courage overrules all other virtues as the highest good.

To this end he begins by misreading Plato's Laches as concluding without any understanding of courage (when in fact it points towards ...more

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Aug 14, 2012 Patrick rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

The first and most important task for Tillich is to render courage ontologically, over and against an ethical concept. Courage as a productive, creative and energetic response to non-being is being-itself, and thus provides the ground for our own courage to be. Of course, Tillich’s book does not offer a reason for the courage to be; if the courage to be was founded on a reason, an intellectual process, it would be ultimately foundationless and as meaningless as that which it should overtake. Yet ...more

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May 06, 2017 Brandt rated it really liked it · review of another edition

The underlying intent of the Terry Lectures conveyed at Yale University and compiled as The Courage to Be, gives the impression of offering a scientific and philosophical edge to theology. As such, Paul Tillich focused on the idea and meaning of the term “courage” as a convergence point of Sociology, Philosophy, and Theology.

Tillich’s preliminary aim focuses on a discussion of the conception of courage from a historical context. This discussion bestows diverse defining characteristics used to e

Tillich’s preliminary aim focuses on a discussion of the conception of courage from a historical context. This discussion bestows diverse defining characteristics used to explain the property [essence?] of courage. Notwithstanding, Tillich judges many of these attempts at definition incoherent, inconsistent, and/or contradictory. For Tillich, “Courage is an ethical reality, but is rooted in the whole breadth of human existence and ultimately in the structure of being itself “(p. 1). Hence, courage is the ability to strive towards an affirmation and preservation that is what makes the self itself.

Perhaps the most striking part of Tillich’s presentation is his interesting analysis of the ontology of anxiety. Tillich explores an extremely contemporary subject from a beautifully constructed Existential viewpoint. This part of the book alone is enough to encourage even the most ardent critic to take caution when plundering the groundwork of Existentialism.
Tillich envisages the important role that anxiety plays in humanity and concisely sums it up as,

“Anxiety is the awareness of unsolved conflicts between structural elements of the personality, as for instance conflicts between unconscious drives and repressive norms, between different drives trying to dominate the center of personality, between imaginary worlds and the experience of the real world, between trends towards greatness, and perfection and the experience of one’s smallness and imperfection, between the desire to be accepted by other people or society or the universe and the experience of being rejected, between the will to be and the seemingly intolerable burden of being which evokes the open or hidden desire not to be” (pp. 64-65).

Additionally, Tillich explains that there can be an institutional (religious) limitation placed on an individual’s courage to be. This can be understood as the organizational structure of religion has the potential to feed a state of neurotic anxiety, if not fully understood by the caretakers (ministers, priests, et al) of that religious system. This was not a causal claim against religion, but a warning about the potentially dangerous power of religions to lead towards the pathological self-reduction of being.

Once this anxiety becomes pathological, the individual is unable to affirm their worth of self due to their affirmation of an unrealistic reach towards the unreal. Hence, the anxiety is no longer of this world; instead, it becomes a misplaced fear of the unknown.

Tillich also presents the arguments for how the courage to be, manifests itself from the view of being, individualization, and participation. Of interest is the understanding of the courage to be in a “Democratic Conformism” model. Here Tillich expresses that the idea of being “productive” is an essential theme within a democratic nee Capitalistic society. In this “type” of a system (akin to the United States), “[T]he productive process in which one is a participant naturally includes risks, failures, catastrophes”. However, this should not undermine the courage to be. Further, the emphasis should be placed on the productive acts itself, opposed to just “production,” where being is present. (p. 108).

Tillich then turns towards the philosophers of life, the Romantics, the Naturalists, and the Bohemians, that he rightly sees as the forbearers of Existentialist thought. Through their lenses, Tillich envisions the radical [Neitzschean?] concept of the courage to be “as one’s self". From the existentialist parallax, Tillich explains this as an expression of self, and a type of protest in the form of “in spite of [trotz]”. In spite of everything that might, could, was, is – in spite of it all, being embraces itself and that which is opposed to it, nonbeing. Nonbeing belongs to being, it cannot be separated from it” (p. 179). Hence, when we analyze the power of being-itself it affirms what is already known viz., “Nonbeing belongs to being” (p. 179). Further, “[I]f the self participates in the power of being-itself it receives itself back” (p. 180).

Ultimately, Far from being a religious text, it is perhaps the most profound “personal” source of understanding Existentialism that I have read. I have run my highlighter almost dry throughout the book. Almost every other page has some form of understanding that is concise and speaks to the root of being.

Now that I hope I have piqued your interest in reading the book, let me leave you with just one of the many passages that I have had the pleasure to read:

“The safety which is guaranteed by well-functioning mechanisms for the technical control of nature, by the refined psychological control of the person, by the rapidly increasing organizational control of society – this safety is bought at a high price: man, for whom all this was invented as a means, becomes a means himself in the services of means. This is the background of Pascal’s attack on the rule of mathematical rationality in the 17th century; it is the background of the romantics’ attack on the rule of moral rationality in the late 18th century; it is the background of Kierkegaard’s attack on the rule of depersonalizing logic in Hegel’s thought. It is the background of Marx’s fight against economic dehumanization, of Nietzsche’s struggle for creativity, of Bergson’s fight against the spatial realm of dead objects. It is the background of the desire of most of the philosophers of life to save life from the destructive power of self-objectivation. They struggled for the preservation of the person, for the self-affirmation of the self, in a situation in which the self was more and more lost in its world. They tried to indicate a way for the courage to be as oneself under conditions which annihilate the self and replace it by the thing” (Paul Tillich, The Courage to Be” (pp. 138-139).

Happy reading!

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About Paul Tillich

Paul Tillich

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Paul Tillich was a German-American theologian and Christian existentialist philosopher. Tillich was – along with his contemporaries Rudolf Bultmann (Germany), Karl Barth (Switzerland), and Reinhold Niebuhr (United States) – one of the four most influential Protestant theologians of the 20th century. Among the general populace, he is best known for his works The Courage to Be (1952) and Dynamics of ...more