Systematic Theology, vol. 1A Beautiful Classic
Anyone who wants to do any type of serious theological work must be well-versed in Tillich and his theology. His masterpiece is a wonderful place to pick up this experience. Read it and you'll find yourself coming back to it again and again. --Reviewer: S. W. Anthony from Chicago, IL United States
Paul Tillich's ~Systematic Theology~ is one of the most important theological works of the 20th century, and the theological system par excellence of liberal Protestant Christianity. In his day, Tillich was held in high esteem not only among theologians, but by experts in many different fields for his incredible breadth of knowledge, his insight into culture, and his humanity.
'Liberal Protestantism' sought to reconcile the gospel and the Christian faith with contemporary cultural ideas, rather then set the two up against each other. Religion is, for Tillich, the best of culture. (An alternative view, for example, is that of Karl Barth, who saw the gospel as fundamentally a critique of culture - as the Word speaking from outside ~to~ the world, not within the world). So, for Tillich, there should be signs of God everywhere, not just in Christianity, and religion and culture and closely connected.
God, for Tillich, is not therefore the anthropomorphized God of the Old Testament, who has a personality and creates and destroys and judges in an almost arbitrary fashion. Instead, Tillich sees God as 'the ground of being'. God is the very fundament on which rests everything that is. God is the Abyss.
The problem with man, for Tillich, is his 'finitude'. Man's life is finite, his body makes him finite, his capacities are finite, yet he craves to transcend these, to be unlimited, to be God. This is impossible; rather one should accept one's finitude courageously. This is what Jesus did singularly and perfectly - he never sinned, because he always accepted the finite nature of his being; he faced death courageously. Tillich's christology is therefore a 'spirit christology' (Jesus was led by the spirit) rather than a 'logos christology' (Jesus was God incarnate, the Word made flesh).
The last important thing is that Tillich makes use of his famous 'theory of correlation'. This is how the 3 volumes of his ~Systematic Theology~ are set up. According to this theory, things in culture are correlated with the theology; theology provides the 'answers' to the 'questions' posed by culture. So his five sections (divided among the 3 volumes) are called: 'Reason and Revelation', 'Being and God', 'Existence and the Christ', 'Life and the Spirit', 'History and the Kingdom of God'.
Tillich's writing is for the most part easy enough to read for the layperson - just don't get bothered by particular tricky bits. I would recommend it to anyone interested in theology; it has influenced a generation of theologians. --Reviewer: nessander from ATLANTA, GA United States
