by Paul Tillich (179.6 TIL)
Paul Tillich was a Christian existentialist philosopher, a religious socialist, and a Lutheran theologian. The Courage to Be, published in 1952, was originally a lecture for the Terry Foundation on the topic of “religion in the light of science and philosophy.” Before I discuss the content and arguments of the book, I would encourage you to read both the Introduction to the Third Edition, by Harvey Cox, and the Introduction to the Second Edition, by Peter J. Gomes. I would also like to point out that this is one of those books that defies any kind of reductive summary, so intricately and intensely argued as it is. I will continue with my review, nevertheless.
In the first chapter, “Being and Courage,” Tillich points out that the title of his book unites the ethical and the ontological meanings [ontology being the study of existence or being] of the concept of courage: “Courage as a human act, as a matter of valuation, is an ethical concept. Courage as the universal and essential self-affirmation of one’s being is an ontological concept.” He traces the philosophical and religious history of courage, first talking of courage and fortitude, from Plato to Thomas Aquinas. For Plato, courage is related to “that element of the soul which is called thymós (the spirited, courageous element), […] which lies between the intellectual and the sensual element in man.” For Aquinas, “courage is the strength of mind, capable of conquering whatever threatens the attainment of the highest good.” Tillich then addresses courage and wisdom in the ancient Stoic philosophers, such as Seneca and Epictetus, who, by answering the problem of existence and conquering the anxieties of fate and death, did so in a basic religious attitude, which prompted Tillich to say that Stoicism “is the only real alternative to Christianity.” Stoic courage “is based on the control of reason in man.” Next, he writes of courage and self-affirmation, referring to Spinoza, for whom courage is “an expression of the essential act of everything that participates in being, namely self-affirmation.” In relation to courage and life, he cites Nietzsche, who observes that life is ambiguous, and “courage is the power of life to affirm itself in spite of this ambiguity.”
In the second chapter, “Being, Nonbeing, and Anxiety,” the focus is on anxiety. He addresses the interdependence of fear and anxiety, pointing out that “fear, as opposed to anxiety, has a definite object […] which can be faced, analyzed, attacked, endured.” Anxiety has no object, “therefore participation, struggle, and love with respect to it are impossible.” Tillich distinguishes three types of anxiety: the anxiety of fate and death, the anxiety of emptiness and meaninglessness, and the anxiety of guilt and condemnation. For the first type, fate depends on contingency, that is, unpredictability and the impossibility of anxiety around fate showing its meaning and purpose. “Fate is usually identified with necessity in the sense of an inescapable causal determination.” In the second type, “the anxiety of emptiness is aroused by the threat of nonbeing to the special contents of the spiritual life, […] but a spiritual center cannot be produced intentionally, and the attempt to produce it only produces deeper anxiety, […] the anxiety of emptiness [which] drives us to the abyss of meaninglessness.” In the third type, Tillich argues that man’s being, “ontic [relating to real, actual existence or individual physical things, as opposed to abstract concepts or theories about existence] as well as spiritual, is not only given to him but demanded of him. He is responsible for it.” He must answer for it; he is judged for it, which causes the anxiety of guilt.
In the third chapter, “Pathological Anxiety, Vitality, and Courage,” Tillich reminds us that “anxiety tends to become fear in order to have an object with which courage can deal.” However, “Courage does not remove anxiety. Since anxiety is existential, it cannot be removed.” He distinguishes between existential anxiety and neurotic anxiety, the latter being “the inability to take one’s existential anxiety upon oneself”; and between neurosis and creativity, pointing out that “pathological anxiety, in spite of its creative potentialities, is illness and danger and must be healed by being taken into a courage to be which is extensive and well as intensive.” The courage to be is also a function of vitality, which is a biological process. Vitality “is the power of creating beyond oneself without losing oneself.”
In the fourth chapter, “Courage and Participation [The Courage to Be as a Part],” participation is defined as “being a part of something from which one is, at the same time, separated.” Participation can be used in the sense of sharing — as in a room, or in the sense of having in common, or being a part of — for instance, of a political movement. So here, we are not talking of the courage to be oneself, but the courage to be as a part. This would be the case in what Tillich calls “collectivist societies.” He makes a clear distinction, though, between this kind of collectivist society and what he calls neocollectivism—fascism, Nazism, and communism. Interestingly, Tillich makes an observation about American culture which may have been true in 1952 when he wrote this book, though it was questionable even then, but is clearly now no longer true: he says that “present-day [remember, this is 1952] American courage [is] one of the great types of courage to be as a part. Its self-affirmation is the affirmation of oneself as a participant in the creative development of mankind.”
In the fifth chapter, “Courage and Individualization [The Courage to Be as Oneself],” Tillich first explains “The Romantic and Naturalistic Forms of the Courage to Be as Oneself,” before getting to his principal discussion of “Existentialist Forms of the Courage to Be as Oneself.” He distinguishes between Existentialism as an attitude and as a content. As a content, it can have three meanings: “as a point of view, as protest, and as expression.” As an example of existentialism as a point of view, he cites Plato, for whom “man is estranged from what he essentially is,” and the classical Christian doctrines of the fall, sin, and salvation. As examples of existentialism as protest, or revolt, he refers to the philosophies of Schelling, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche. For examples of existentialism as expression, he discusses the courage of despair in contemporary [1952] art and literature, in which “Existentialism, […] the great art, literature, and philosophy of the 20th century [reveals] the courage to face things as they are and to express the anxiety of meaninglessness.” Among the novels and plays that deal with this, he cites Kafka’s The Castle and The Trial, Camus’s The Stranger, Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman, and Tennessee Williams’s A Streetcar Named Desire.
Tillich begins the sixth chapter, “Courage and Transcendence [The Courage to Accept Acceptance],” by outlining a threefold anxiety: “Courage needs the power of being, a power transcending the nonbeing which is experienced in the anxiety of fate and death, which is present in the anxiety of emptiness and meaninglessness, which is effective in the anxiety of guilt and condemnation.” This brings Tillich to address a final consideration, a double question: “How is the courage to be rooted in being-itself, and how must we understand being-itself in the light of the courage to be?” His answer begins here: “If participation is dominant, the relation to being-itself has a mystical character; if individualization prevails, the relation to being-itself has a personal character; if both poles are accepted and transcended the relation to being-itself has the character of faith.” In mysticism, the individual strives for a participation in the ground of being which approaches identification, whereas the pole of individualization expresses itself in the religious experience as a personal encounter with God. As for faith, it is “the state of being grasped by the power of being-itself. The courage to be is an expression of faith and what ‘faith’ means must be understood through the courage to be.” Furthermore, the content of absolute faith is the “God above God.” “Absolute faith and its consequence, the courage that takes the radical doubt, the doubt about God, into itself, transcends the theistic idea of God.”
Theism can have three meanings. First, it can mean the unspecified affirmation of God. “In this sense [it] does not say what it means if it uses the name of God.” Second, “it can be the name of what we have called the divine-human encounter, [pointing] to those elements in the Jewish-Christian tradition which emphasize the person-to-person relationship with God.” Third, it can have a strictly theological meaning, which is “dependent on the religious substance which it conceptualizes.” Tillich criticizes all three of these meanings: “theism in the first sense must be transcended because it is irrelevant, and theism in the second sense must be transcended because it is one-sided. But theism in the third sense must be transcended because it is wrong. It is bad theology.” Thus, the content of absolute faith is the “God above God.”
Tillich returns to the concept of absolute faith to say that it is “both the courage of despair and the courage in and above every courage. It is not a place where one can live, it is without the safety of words and concepts; it is without a name, a church, a cult, a theology.”
He ends the book with this statement, in italics: “The courage to be is rooted in the God who appears when God has disappeared in the anxiety of doubt.” Although this is meant to be a final and succinct summary of his book, it begs to be the beginning of another book altogether.