This volume makes a powerful case for the inclusion of ultimate concerns - spiritual and religious themes in personal strivings - in an attempt to build a motivational theory of personality. The book first reviews the growing body of empirical and clinical literature on goal seeking and its relationship to subjective well-being, life satisfaction, and personality description. Emmons then sets forth an innovative framework for the assessment and measurement of ultimate concerns.

Paul Tillich's account of "ultimate concern" has been crucial for his theological legacy. It is a concept that has been taken up and adapted by many theologians in an array of subfields. However, Tillich's own account of ultimate concern and many of the subsequent uses of it have focused on intelligibility: the ways it makes what is ultimate more accessible to us as rational beings. This volume charts a different course by placing Tillich's theology in conversation with theories of radical embodiment. The essays gathered here use discourses on the particularity and mutability of the body to offer a critical vantage point for constructive engagement with Tillich's central theological category: ultimate concern. Each essay explores how individuals can be special bearers of ultimate concern by engaging the body's role in faith, religion, and culture. As Mary Ann Stenger, professor emerita from University of Louisville, observes in her introduction: "From concerns about bodily integrity to considering bodies on the margins of society to discussions of technologically modified bodies, these articles offer us fresh theological insights and call us to ethical thinking and actions in relation to our bodies and the bodies around us. And certainly, today, the body and a person's right to bodily integrity have become central, critical issues in our culture." Book jacket.

Attempts to show the religious dimension in many special spheres of man's cultural activity.

One of the greatest books ever written on the subject, Dynamics of Faithis a primer in the philosophy of religion. Paul Tillich, a leading theologian of the twentieth century, explores the idea of faith in all its dimensions, while defining the concept in the process. This graceful and accessible volume contains a new introduction by Marion Pauck, Tillich's biographer.

Meditations on key passages from the Bible by the leading Protestant theologian of the 20th century.

Too often we see reality in black and white, overlooking nuances that require the discernment of tensions between the brokenness of our world and our desires for reconciliation. Yet the gap between wounding words and actions and the hope for acts of reconciliation can lead to even more violence and despair. The authors of this volume explore these tensions and the valences of ‘brokenness’ and ‘reconciliation’ in Paul Tillich’s thought. Together, they contribute to a richer understanding of the thought of the German American theologian and philosopher, his commitments, and the constructive interpretations his work can induce for us today. Think of the ruptures and efforts of dialogue among divided Christian churches, or the commitment of the social worker; reflect on how love as agape, or the courage to be, can be at the heart of this constructive work; or consider the reconciliation processes of peoples torn apart by violence, to mention a few contributions from this volume. Collectively, these contributions raise the hope of a Tillichian creative justice, a hope that can stimulate a broad audience to go beyond the superficiality and instantaneity of social media to something deeper, more enduring, and transformative.