Abstract
To quote Ted Peters, Paul Tillich is ‘one of the most influential theologians of the Twentieth Century’. Tillich is indeed a giant among twentieth-century theologians, even producing two books (The Courage to Be and The Dynamics of Faith) which appeared on the New York Times Best Seller list, a feat never equalled before or since by any other theologian. He was in fact such a household name, that when he died in 1965 at the age of 79, his death was reported across North America on national news bulletins.
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Notes
- 1.
Carl E. Braaten, Carl E. and Robert W. Jenson (eds.) A Map of Twentieth-Century Theology: Readings from Karl Barth to Radical Pluralism (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1995). Back-jacket Review by Ted Peters.
- 2.
Whilst it is true that Tillich wished to de-mythologise Christianity, to suggest that he wanted to diminish participation in the faith would be absolutely false. He chose to use non-traditional language in relation to important Christian concepts in order to make them more accessible to people in their everyday lives. The methodology of his whole system is designed to be as relevant as possible for its readers. It is also the case that he argues theology can have many sources, including the Bible and revelation, but to suggest that this ‘down-grades’ the importance of the Bible in Tillich’s thought would be absolutely wrong. He describes the Bible as one of the ‘norms’ of Christian Theology and makes clear that there being other sources for theology does not diminish the significance of the Bible.
- 3.
Yunt, Jeremy D. The Ecotheology of Paul Tillich: The Spiritual Roots of Environmental Ethics (USA: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2009).
- 4.
For an examination of the differences between animal theology and eco-theology, see Andrew Linzey, ‘So Near and Yet So Far: Animal Theology and Ecological Theology’ in Roger S. Gottlieb (Ed) Handbook of Religion and Ecology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006).
- 5.
In Systematic Theology: Volume Three, Tillich defines ‘spirit’ as ‘the unity of life-power and meaning’ and postulated that only humans could meet its criteria. He arrives at this narrow definition by fusing the empiricistic view of spirit as intellect with the Latin meaning of spirit as ‘breath’ (spiritus). For a fuller description of how he arrived at this definition, see STIII, p. 22f.
- 6.
The diagrams related to the Multidimensional Unity of Life are located immediately before the bibliography.
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Smith, AA. (2017). Introduction. In: Animals in Tillich's Philosophical Theology. The Palgrave Macmillan Animal Ethics Series. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-40856-9_1
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