Paul Tillich Quotes

There is no condition for forgiveness. ~ Paul Tillich

Astonishment is the root of philosophy. ~ Paul Tillich

Cruelty towards others is always also cruelty towards ourselves. ~ Paul Tillich

He who participates in God participates in eternity. ~ Paul Tillich

Genuine forgiveness is participation, reunion overcoming the powers of estrangement ... We cannot love unless we have accepted forgiveness, and the deeper our experience of forgiveness is, the greater is our love. ~ Paul Tillich

I loved thee beautiful and kind, And plighted an eternal vow; So altered are thy face and mind, t'were perjury to love thee now! ~ Paul Tillich

[T]he question of the existence of God can be neither asked nor answered. If asked, it is a question about that which by its very nature is above existence, and therefore the answer - whether negative or affirmative - implicitly denies the nature of God. It is as atheistic to affirm the existence of God as it is to deny it. God is being-itself, not a being. On this basis a first step can be taken toward the solution of the problem which usually is discussed as the immanence and the transcendence of God. As the power of being, God transcends every being and also the totality of beings - the world. Being-itself is beyond finitude and infinity; otherwise it would be conditioned by something other than itself, and the real power of being would lie beyond both it and that which conditioned it. Being-itself infinitely transcends every finite being. There is no proportion or gradation between the finite and the infinite. There is an absolute break, an infinite "jump." On the other hand, everything finite participates in being-itself and in its infinity. Otherwise it would not have the power of being. It would be swallowed by nonbeing, or it never would have emerged out of nonbeing. This double relation of all beings to being-itself gives being-itself a double characteristic. In calling it creative, we point to the fact that everything participates in the infinite power of being. In calling it abysmal, we point to the fact that everything participates in the power of being in a finit ~ Paul Tillich

Is no love which does not become help, taught the theologian Paul Tillich.) ~ Elizabeth Gilbert

Love that cares, listens. ~ Paul Tillich

I do not think of God theistically, that is, as a being, supernatural in power, who dwells beyond the limits of my world. I rather experience God as the source of life willing me to live fully, the source of love calling me to love wastefully and to borrow a phrase from the theologian, Paul Tillich, as the Ground of being, calling me to be all that I can be. ~ John Shelby Spong

The citizens of a city are not guilty of the crimes committed in their city; but they are guilty as participants in the destiny of [humanity] as a whole and in the destiny of their city in particular; for their acts in which freedom was united with destiny have contributed to the destiny in which they participate. They are guilty, not of committing the crimes of which their group is accused, but of contributing to the destiny in which these crimes happened. ~ Paul Tillich

Existential anxiety of doubt drives the person toward the creation of certitude of systems of meaning, which are supported by tradition and authority. Neurotic anxiety builds a narrow castle of certitude which can be defended with the utmost certainty. ~ Paul Tillich

Theology moves back and forth between two poles, the eternal truth of its foundations and the temporal situation in which the eternal truth must be received. ~ Paul Tillich

Doubt is not the opposite of faith; it is one element of faith ~ Paul Tillich

Accept the fact that you are accepted, despite the fact that you are unacceptable. ~ Paul Tillich

One of the unfortunate consequences of the intellectualization of man's spiritual life was that the word "spirit" was lost and replaced by mind or intellect, and that the element of vitality which is present in "spirit" was separated and interpreted as an independent biological force. Man was divided into a bloodless intellect and a meaningless vitality. The middle ground between them, the spiritual soul, in which vitality and intentionality are united, was dropped. ~ Paul Tillich

I hope for the day when everyone can speak of God without embarrassment. ~ Paul Tillich

Man is the question he asks about himself, before any question has been formulated. It is, therefore, not surprising that the basic questions were formulated very early in the history of mankind. ~ Paul Tillich

Our search for such [moral] principles can start with ... the unconditional imperative to acknowledge every person as a person. If we ask for the contents given by this absolute, we find, first, something negative-the command not to treat a person as a thing. This seems little, but it is much. It is the core of the principle of justice. ~ Paul Tillich

The basic anxiety, the anxiety of a finite being about the threat of non-being, cannot be eliminated. It belongs to existence itself. ~ Paul Tillich

Our language has wisely sensed these two sides of man's being alone. It has created the word "loneliness" to express the pain of being alone. And it has created the word "solitude" to express the glory of being alone. ~ Paul Tillich

Grace strikes us when we are in great pain and restlessness. It strikes us when we walk through the dark valley of a meaningless and empty life. It strikes us when our disgust for our own being, our indifference, our weakness, our hostility, and our lack of direction and composure have become intolerable to us. It strikes us when, year after year, the longed-for perfection of life does not appear, when the old compulsions reign within us as they have for decades, when despair destroys all joy and courage. Sometimes at that moment a wave of light breaks into our darkness, and it is as though a voice were saying: You are accepted. ~ Paul Tillich

In the courageous standing of uncertainty, faith shows most visibly its dynamic character. ~ Paul Tillich

Where there is faith there is an awareness of holiness. ~ Paul Tillich

Faith ... is a concern of the whole person; it is the most personal concern, and that which determines all others. ... it is not something which we can produce by the will to believe, but that by which we are grasped. ~ Paul Tillich

In a man like Friedrich von Schlegel the courage to be as an individual self produced complete neglect of participation, but it also produced, in reaction to the emptiness of this self-affirmation, the desire to return to a collective. Schlegel, and with him many extreme individualists in the last hundred years, became Roman Catholics. The courage to be as oneself broke down, and one turned to an institutional embodiment of the courage to be as a part. ~ Paul Tillich

We never really know what we want until after we get it. If after we get it, it makes life more miserable, we know that isn't what we wanted. If it makes our life wonderful, we know this is a strategy which will meet out need. That's why Paul Tillich, the theologian says we need to sin courageously. You ask for what you want, hoping to meet your needs. If you get it and it makes life worse, you learn that this isn't what I want. ~ Marshall B. Rosenberg

There is no place to which we could flee from God, which is outside of God. ~ Paul Tillich

The anxiety of fate is conquered by the self-affirmation of the individual as an infinitely significant microcosmic representation of the universe . ~ Paul Tillich

Man creates what he is. ~ Paul Tillich

Faith is an act of a finite being who is grasped by, and turned to, the infinite. ~ Paul Tillich

There is no love which does not become help. ~ Paul Tillich

The law of love is the ultimate law because it is the negation of law; it is absolute because it concerns everything concrete. The paradox of final revelation, overcoming the conflict between absolutism and relativism, is love. ~ Paul Tillich

Courage is a greater virtue than love. At best, it takes courage to love. ~ Paul Tillich

Cynically speaking, one could say that it is true to life to be cynical about it.
~ Paul Tillich

The basic error of fundamentalism is that it overlooks the contribution of the receptive side in the revelatory situation and consequently identifies one individual and conditioned form of receiving the divine with the divine itself. ~ Paul Tillich

Reasoning as a limited cognitive function, detached from the personal center, never could create courage. One cannot remove anxiety by arguing it away. ~ Paul Tillich

He who knows about depth knows about God. ~ Paul Tillich

The courage to die is the test of the courage to be. ~ Paul Tillich

The courage to be is the courage to accept oneself, in spite of being unacceptable. ~ Paul Tillich

If my tongue were trained to measures, I would sing a stirring song. ~ Paul Tillich

The being of God is being-itself. The being of God cannot be understood as the existence of a being alongside others or above others. If God is a being, he is subject to the categories of finitude, especially to space and substance. Even if he is called the "highest being" in the sense of the "most perfect" and the "most powerful" being, this situation is not changed. When applied to God, superlatives become diminutives. They place him on the level of other beings while elevating him above all of them. Many theologians who have used the term "highest being" have known better. Actually they have described the highest as the absolute, as that which is on a level qualitatively different from the level of any being - even the highest being. Whenever infinite or unconditional power and meaning are attributed to the highest being, it has ceased to be a being and has become being-itself. Many confusions in the doctrine of God and many apologetic weaknesses could be avoided if God were understood first of all as being-itself or as the ground of being. The power of being is another way of expressing the same thing in a circumscribing phrase. Ever since the time of Plato it has been known - although it often has been disregarded, especially by the nominalists and their modern followers - that the concept of being as being, or being-itself, points to the power inherent in everything, the power of resisting nonbeing. Therefore, instead of saying that God is first of all being-itself, it ~ Paul Tillich

As Paul Tillich put it, suffering introduces you to yourself and reminds you that you are not the person you thought you were. ~ David Brooks

The fatal pedagogical error is to throw answers like stones at the heads of those who have not yet asked the questions. ~ Paul Tillich

The fact that man never is satisfied with any stage of his finite development, the fact that nothing finite can hold him, although finitude is his destiny, indicates the indissoluble relation of everything finite to being-itself. ~ Paul Tillich

In this respect fundamentalism has demonic traits. It destroys the humble honesty of the search for truth, it splits the conscience of its thoughtful adherents, and it makes them fanatical because they are forced to suppress elements of truth of which they are dimly aware ~ Paul Tillich

Loneliness can be conquered only by those who can bear solitude. ~ Paul Tillich

This is biblical ethics. It has little to do with the middle-class ethics of avoiding a few things which are supposed to be wrong and doing a few things which are supposed to be right. Biblical ethics means standing in ultimate decisions for or against God. ~ Paul Tillich

He who is grasped by the one thing that is needed has the many things under his feet. They concern him but not ultimately, and when he loses them he does not lose the one thing he needs and that cannot be taken from him. ~ Paul Tillich

It is the expression of the anxiety of meaninglessness and of the attempt to take this anxiety into the courage to be as oneself. (139) ~ Paul Tillich

Doubt is the necessary tool of knowledge. ~ Paul Tillich

Man is asked to make of himself what he is supposed to become to fulfill his destiny. ~ Paul Tillich

The theologian Paul Tillich wrote that "loneliness can be conquered only by those who can bear solitude." Because the borderline finds solitude so difficult to tolerate, she is trapped in a relentless metaphysical loneliness from which the the only relief comes from of the physical presence of others. So she will often rush to singles bars or with crowded haunts, often with disappointing--or even violent--results. ~ Jerold J. Kreisman

Every institution is inherently demonic. ~ Paul Tillich

Our spirituality is the ground of our being. ~ Paul Tillich

Faith is the state of being ultimately concerned. ~ Paul Tillich

Knowledge of that which concerns us infinitely is possible only in an attitude of infinite concern. ~ Paul Tillich

Man is able to decide for or against reason, he is able to create beyond reason or to destroy below reason ~ Paul Tillich

The passion for truth is silenced by answers which have the weight of undisputed authority. ~ Paul Tillich

Individualism is the self-affirmation of the individual self as individual self without regard to its participation in its world. As such it is the opposite of collectivism, the self affirmation of the self as part of a larger whole without regard to its character as an individual self. ~ Paul Tillich

Ordinary theism has made God a heavenly, completely perfect person who resides above the world and mankind. The protest of atheism against such a highest person is correct. There is no evidence for his existence, nor is he a matter of ultimate concern. God is not God without universal participation. "Personal God" is a confusing symbol. ~ Paul Tillich

[American] conformism might approximate collectivism, not so much in economic respects, and not too much in political respects, but very much in the pattern of daily life and thought. Whether this will happen or not, and if it does to what degree, is partly dependent on the power of resistance in those who represent the opposite pole of the courage to be, the courage to be as oneself. ~ Paul Tillich

We must be ourselves, we must decide where to go. ~ Paul Tillich

History has shown that the most terrible crimes against love have been committed in the name of fanatically defended doctrines. ~ Paul Tillich

Loneliness expresses the pain of being alone and solitude expresses the glory of being alone. ~ Paul Tillich

The typical American, after he has lost the foundations of his existence, works for new foundations ~ Paul Tillich

Only the philosophical question is perennial, not the answers. ~ Paul Tillich

Parents need to listen as much to their kids as they do to them: "The first duty of love is to listen." ~ Paul Tillich

All things and all people, so to speak, call on us with small or loud voices. They want us to listen. They want us to understand their intrinsic claims, their justice of being. But we can give it to them only through the love that listens. ~ Paul Tillich

Out of the element of participation follows the certainty of faith; out of the element of separation follows the doubt in faith. And each is essential for the nature of faith. Sometimes certainty conquers doubt, but it cannot eliminate doubt. The conquered of today may become the conqueror of tomorrow. Sometimes doubt conquers faith, but it still contains faith. Otherwise it would be indifference. ~ Paul Tillich

Sometimes I think it is my mission to bring faith to the faithless, and doubt to the faithful. ~ Paul Tillich

You are accepted. You are accepted, accepted by that which is greater than you, and the name of which you do not know. Do not ask for the name now; perhaps you will find it later. Do not try to do anything now; perhaps later you will do much. Do not seek for anything; do not perform anything; do not intend anything. Simply accept the fact that you are accepted! ~ Paul Tillich

And he wanted more than anything else, deeply and compassionately, to be of help; and he could be of help in this age, and was of help, because artist and philosopher as well as theologian, he cared for culture as well as for Christ.6 ~ Paul Tillich

Truth without the way to truth is dead. ~ Paul Tillich

Love is the infinite which is given to the finite. ~ Paul Tillich

Why does philosophy use concepts and why does faith use symbols if both try to express the same ultimate? The answer, of course, is that the relation to the ultimate is not the same in each case. The philosophical relation is in principle a detached description of the basic structure in which the ultimate manifests itself. The relation of faith is in principle an involved expression of concern about the meaning of the ultimate for the faithful. ~ Paul Tillich

Nothing truly real is forgotten eternally, because everything real comes from eternity and goes to eternity. ~ Paul Tillich

We are known in a depth of darkness through which we ourselves do not even dare to look. And at the same time, we are seen in a height of a fullness which surpasses our highest vision. ~ Paul Tillich

The separation of faith and love is always a consequence of a deterioration of religion. ~ Paul Tillich

The name of this infinite and inexhaustible depth and ground of all being is God. ~ Paul Tillich

Faith consists in being vitally concerned with that ultimate reality to which I give the symbolical name of God. Whoever reflects earnestly on the meaning of life is on the verge of an act of faith. ~ Paul Tillich

Man is not what he believes himself to be in his conscious decisions. ~ Paul Tillich

Plato ... teaches the separation of the human soul from its " home " in the realm of pure essences. Man is estranged from what he essentially is. His existence in a transitory world contradicts his essential participation in the eternal world of ideas . ~ Paul Tillich

The abundance of a grateful heart gives honor to God even if it does not turn to Him in words. An unbeliever who is filled with thanks for his very being has ceased to be an unbeliever. ~ Paul Tillich

For encountering God means encountering transcendent security and transcendent eternity. ~ Paul Tillich

Man is free, in so far as he has the power of contradicting himself and his essential nature. Man is free even from his freedom; that is, he can surrender his humanity ~ Paul Tillich

I have given no definition of love. This is impossible, because there is no higher principle by which it could be defined. It is life itself in its actual unity. The forms and structures in which love embodies itself are the forms and structures in which love overcomes its self-destructive forces. ~ Paul Tillich

The awareness of the ambiguity of one's highest achievements - as well as one's deepest failures - is a definite symptom of maturity. ~ Paul Tillich

Wine is like the incarnation
it is both divine and human ~ Paul Tillich

Anxiety may consist of the loss of psychological or spiritual meaning which is identified with one's existence as a self, i.e., the threat of meaninglessness. ~ Paul Tillich

But freedom is the possibility of a total and centered act of the personality, an act in which all the drives and influences which constitute the destiny of man are brought into the centered unity of a decision. ~ Paul Tillich

Knowledge of revelation cannot interfere with ordinary knowledge. Likewise, ordinary knowledge cannot interfere with knowledge of revelation. There is no scientific theory which is more favorable to the truth of revelation than any other theory. It is disastrous for theology if theologians prefer one scientific view to others on theological grounds. And it was humiliating for theology when theologians were afraid of new theories for religious reasons, trying to resist them as long as possible, and finally giving in when resistance had become impossible. This ill-conceived resistance of theologians from the time of Galileo to the time of Darwin was one of the causes of the split between religion and secular culture in the past centuries.

The same situation prevails with regard to historical research. Theologians need not be afraid of any historical conjecture, for revealed truth lies in a dimension where it can neither be confirmed nor negated by historiography. Therefore, theologians should not prefer some results of historical research to others on theological grounds, and they should not resist results which finally have to be accepted if scientific honesty is not to be destroyed, even if they seem to undermine the knowledge of revelation. Historical investigations should neither comfort nor worry theologians. Knowledge of revelation, although it is mediated primarily through historical events, does not imply factual assertions, and it is therefore not exposed to ~ Paul Tillich

Paul Tillich, a theologian who grew up in Weimar Germany, similarly explained the rise of Nazism as a response to anxiety. "First of all a feeling of fear or, more exactly, of indefinite anxiety was prevailing," he writes of 1930s Germany. "Not only the economic and political, but also the cultural and religious, security seemed to be lost. There was nothing on which one could build; everything was without foundation. A catastrophic breakdown was expected every moment. Consequently, a longing for security was growing in everybody. A freedom that leads to fear and anxiety has lost its value; better authority with security than freedom with fear. ~ Scott Stossel

He who risks and fails can be forgiven. He who never risks and never fails is a failure in his whole being. ~ Paul Tillich

It is not Christianity as a whole, but Calvinist Protestantism whose attitude towards nature contradicts almost completely the Buddhist attitude. ~ Paul Tillich

In those who rest on their unshakable faith, pharisaism and fanaticism are the unmistakable symptoms of doubt which has been repressed. Doubt is not overcome by repression but by courage. Courage does not deny that there is doubt, but it takes the doubt into itself as an expression of its own finitude and affirms the content of an ultimate concern. Courage does not need the safety of an unquestionable conviction. It includes the risk without which no creative life is possible. ~ Paul Tillich

Joy is the emotional expression of the courageous YES to one's own true being. ~ Paul Tillich

Fear is the absence of faith. ~ Paul Tillich

Faith as the state of being ultimately concerned implies love, namely, the desire and urge toward the reunion of the seperated. ~ Paul Tillich

Neither the Ten Commandments nor the great commandment is revelatory if separated from the divine covenant with Israel or from the presence of the Kingdom of God in the Christ. These commandments were meant and should be taken as interpretations of a new reality, not as orders directed against the old reality. They are descriptions and not laws.
~ vol. 1, p.125 ~ Paul Tillich