Paul Tillich, more than any other theologian of the twentieth century, maintained an energetic dialogue with psychology, and especially psychotherapy. This book explores what Tillich's theology has to offer psychologists and others working in the field of mental health, spiritual development, and pastoral counseling. Tillich's interaction with Carl Rogers, Erich Fromm, Rollo May, and other famous psychologists became an important part of his thinking. Tillich frequently pushed psychologists to see the underlying philosophical assumptions of their work. This investigation of the underpinnings of psychotherapy then encouraged psychotherapists to become more aware of the ultimate questions about meaning, purpose, and ethics that informed their work. Perhaps the greatest contribution this book offers is a careful narrative and analysis of the meetings of the New York Psychology Group, which involved such figures as Tillich, Fromm, May, Rogers, Seward Hiltner, Ruth Benedict, and David Roberts, to name just a few. This important group, which met from 1941 to 1945, dealt with issues that are very much with us today, such as whether faith can be psychologically explained, the meaning of transcendence, the relationship between psychotherapy and ethics, the appropriateness of self-love, and whether human love is parallel with Divine love.

The Courage to Be introduced issues of theology and culture to a general readership. The book examines ontic, moral, and spiritual anxieties across history and in modernity. The author defines courage as the self-affirmation of one's being in spite of a threat of nonbeing. He relates courage to anxiety, anxiety being the threat of non-being and the courage to be what we use to combat that threat. Tillich outlines three types of anxiety and thus three ways to display the courage to be. Tillich writes that the ultimate source of the courage to be is the "God above God," which transcends the theistic idea of God and is the content of absolute faith (defined as "the accepting of the acceptance without somebody or something that accepts").

Is religion a positive reality in your life? If not, have you lost anything by forfeiting this dimension of your humanity? This book compares the theology of Tillich with the psychology of Jung, arguing that they were both concerned with the recovery of a valid religious sense for contemporary culture. Paul Tillich, Carl Jung and the Recovery of Religion explores in detail the diminution of the human spirit through the loss of its contact with its native religious depths, a problem on which both spent much of their working lives and energies. Both Tillich and Jung work with a naturalism that grounds all religion on processes native to the human being. Tillich does this in his efforts to recover that point at which divinity and humanity coincide and from which they differentiate. Jung does this by identifying the archetypal unconscious as the source of all religions now working toward a religious sentiment of more universal sympathy. This book identifies the dependence of both on German mysticism as a common ancestry and concludes with a reflection on how their joint perspective might affect religious education and the relation of religion to science and technology. Throughout the book, John Dourley looks back to the roots of both men's ideas about mediaeval theology and Christian mysticism making it ideal reading for analysts and academics in the fields of Jungian and religious studies.

A comparative study of Jung's and Tillich's perspectives on God. -- Back cover.

Author Biography: Paul Tillich (1886-1965), an early critic of Hitler, was barred from teaching in Germany in 1933. He emigrated to the United States, holding teaching positions at Union Theological Seminary, New York (1933-1955); Harvard Divinity School (1955-1962); and the University of Chicago Divinity School (1962-1965). Among his many books are "Theology of Culture, Dynamics of Faith," and the three volumes of "Systematic Theology."

Paul Tillich was one of the great theologians and philosophers of the 20th century. Born before the advent of the automobile, he lived to see the launch of Sputnik, the Mercury and Gemini programs, and the dawn of the nuclear age. One of the key events in his early life was the First World War, during which he served the German army as a Chaplain. He survived that war, and his early works grew out of the optimistic and creative zeitgeist that emerged in its wake. Before he turned 60, he had survived the Second World War as well. His later work might be seen as a reaction to the pessimism and anxiety triggered by that conflict’s atrocities and by technological advancements capable of extinguishing life on this planet. Tillich always lived his life on boundaries. He straddled 19th and 20th centuries, feeling at home in both, but never quite feeling as if he fully belonged to either. If such a boundary existence created anxiety for him, it also brought him both intellectual and personal satisfaction. He believed that, to fully live, one must do so on the boundary. While the works of other existentialist philosophers have been applied to education, there have been few, if any, attempts to apply Tillich’s work specifically. This book demonstrates Tillich’s place in pedagogy, by showing how a specifically “Tillichian” approach to education may help diminish students’ existential anxieties and make them better prepared to live in the modern world. It suggests that taking such an approach might also help in diminishing devastating societal ills, such as opioid dependence and suicide rates.