Paul Tillich

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Lore & Background

Tillich was born on August 20, 1886, in the small village of Starzeddel, Province of Brandenburg, then part of Germany (modern-day Starosiedle, Poland). He had two younger sisters. His Prussian 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. When Tillich was four, his father was assigned to Bad Schönfliess (now Trzcińsko-Zdrój, Poland). In 1898, he was sent to Königsberg in der Neumark (now Chojna, Poland) for gymnasium schooling. In 1900, his 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 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 PhD at the University of Breslau in 1911 and his Licentiate in Theology at Halle-Wittenberg in 1912. 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. 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. His academic career began after the war; he became a Privatdozent of Theology at the University of Berlin from 1919 to 1924. On his return from the war, he met Hannah Werner-Gottschow (then married and pregnant). In March 1924, they married; it was the second marriage for both. 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. 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, Tillich held the post of professor of philosophy and sociology at the University of Frankfurt from 1929 to 1933. While at Frankfurt, his two assistants were Harald Poelchau and Theodor Adorno. Tillich also 'was instrumental in hiring Max Horkheimer as the Director of the Institut für Sozialforschung and to a professorship in sociology at the University of Frankfurt.' 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. Along the way Tillich also remained in conversation with Erich Przywara. 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' of prominent German academic 'enemies of the Reich' to be summarily dismissed from their tenured positions. Reinhold Niebuhr visited Germany in the summer of 1933 and, already impressed with Tillich's writings (they had known one another since 1919), contacted Tillich upon learning of his dismissal. Niebuhr urged Tillich to join the faculty at New York City's Union Theological Seminary; Tillich accepted. At the age of 47, Tillich moved with his family to the United States. 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. '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.' Tillich acquired tenure at Union in 1937, and in 1940 he was promoted to professor of philosophical theology and became an American citizen. He published *On the Boundary* in 1936; *The Protestant Era* in 1948; and *The Shaking of the Foundations*, the first of three volumes of his sermons, also in 1948. His most heralded achievements 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). 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. These works led to an appointment at Harvard Divinity School in 1955, where he was university professor, among the (at the time) five highest ranking professors at Harvard. In 1959, Tillich was featured on the cover of *Time* magazine. In 1961, Tillich became one of the founding members of the Society for the Arts, Religion and Contemporary Culture. During this period, he published volume two of the *Systematic Theology*, as well as *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.'

Reader's Guide

Tillich's significance lies in his synthesis of Protestant Christian theology with existentialist philosophy. His *Systematic Theology* was lauded by John Herman Randall Jr. as 'beyond doubt the richest, most suggestive, and most challenging philosophical theology our day has produced.' For the general public, *The Courage to Be* (1952) and *Dynamics of Faith* (1957) explored themes of courage, anxiety, and faith in a secular age. His 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, '[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.' 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.

Did You Know?

• Tillich was awarded the Iron Cross for bravery under fire while serving as a chaplain in the trenches during World War I.
• He was hospitalized three times for combat trauma during the war.
• In 1959, Tillich was featured on the cover of *Time* magazine.
• The faculty of Union Theological Seminary agreed to a 5% pay cut, at the height of the Great Depression, to bring Tillich and his family to the U.S.
• Tillich became the first theologian to be honored in Kegley and Bretall's Library of Living Theology in 1964.