Learning modules on Paul Tillich · 1886–1965
The boundary is the truly fruitful place of knowledge.
Learning modules on the life and thought of Paul Tillich — with original recordings, source texts and tasks. For seminars, teaching and independent study. No sign-up.
15 modules
Each module carries one session. The stated time is the working time, not the length of the recording — listening, reading and tasks together.
- 01Paul Tillich‘s understanding of religionThis module offers an introduction to Paul Tillich’s understanding of religion. To this end, a pop-cultural approach is chosen that enables students to develop their own definitions of religion, theology and God independently of Tillich.
- 02Paul Tillich: Religion and Culture (Part 1)In his text “Religion und Kultur” [“Religion and Culture”], Paul Tillich sets out a reciprocal relationship between the two. This relationship can be opened up against the background of his definitions of religion and of culture, and with the help of his account of a “contemporary culture” — and it can be carried over into the world we live in today. The module was created by Marlene Rudolf, a student at the University of Education Schwäbisch Gmünd, as part of a bachelor’s thesis in Protestant theology. Because of its length it has been divided into two parts; this is the first.
- 03Paul Tillich: Religion and Culture (Part 2)In his text “Religion und Kultur” [“Religion and Culture”], Paul Tillich sets out a reciprocal relationship between the two. This relationship can be opened up against the background of his definitions of religion and of culture, and with the help of his account of a “contemporary culture” — and it can be carried over into the world we live in today. The module was created by Marlene Rudolf, a student at the University of Education Schwäbisch Gmünd, as part of a bachelor’s thesis in Protestant theology. Because of its length it has been divided into two parts; this is the second.
- 04Paul Tillich and Judaism before and during his emigrationIn contrast to contemporary Protestant theology, Paul Tillich had already taken an interest in the "living" Judaism of his time in the 1920s. After emigrating to the USA in 1933 following Hitler's rise to power, he repeatedly commented on Nazi anti-Semitism, particularly after the Reichspogromnacht in 1938.
- 05Paul Tillich’s lectures on “The Jewish Question”Paul Tillich repeatedly commented on anti-Semitism during the Nazi era – with a clarity that was still lacking in the first church confessions of guilt after 1945. With his lectures on the “Jewish question” in 1953, he did important groundwork for the necessary readjustment of the Christian-Jewish relationship.
- 06Introduction: Tillich in conversationA series of conversations on stations of liberal Protestantism, part 5. Matthias Kroeger in conversation with Rüdiger Achenbach, Deutschlandfunk, 4 March 2013This module offers an introduction to Paul Tillich's understanding of religion, based on a Deutschlandfunk radio interview with Matthias Kroeger.
- 07BiographyPaul Tillich (1886-1965)The module works through the course of Paul Tillich's life. It also helps to place his publications in their biographical and historical context.
- 08On the BoundaryThe boundary is the truly fruitful place of knowledgeThe boundary is the truly fruitful place of knowledge — with this sentence Tillich opens an autobiographical reflection of 1936 that is not a life story but a walk along boundaries: between theology and philosophy, church and society, home and foreign land. Written three years after his forced emigration, and to be tested on exactly that: how far does a reading carry that turns loss into a figure of thought?
- 09What Is Truth?Tillich as preacher — two sermons on truth and on depthThe module works on Tillich's sermon “What Is Truth?” alongside “The Depth of Existence”.
- 11Tillich and German IdealismSchelling, Fichte, Hegel — the philosophical roots of Tillich's theologyTillich was a theologian, but he came from philosophy. He took two doctorates on Schelling, and German idealism remains the ground his concepts stand on — "ground of being" cannot be understood without it. Christian Danz shows what Tillich takes over and where he breaks away.
- 12Encountering Paul TillichWerner Schüßler on his path to Tillich and on Tillich's concept of GodTo work on Tillich is to work on someone who is dead. Whether a body of work lives on is decided not by the work alone but by those who read it. This module brings your own biography into contact with his — and asks what of it holds.
- 13Comparative TheologyTillich as mediator and partner in dialogue between the religionsThis module deals with comparative theology: how Tillich's understanding of God as the “ground of being” can help towards understanding other religions and towards building a bridge to them.
- 14Love, Power and JusticeThe Six Nations and Tillich's notions of justiceThis module works closely on the book “Love, Power and Justice”. Verna Ehret gives an insight into her own engagement with Tillich's work and into the way the US government dealt with the Seneca Nation in the region around Pittsburgh. Tillich's remarks on justice connect particularly well with present-day questions about racism.
- 15God does not existA sentence of Tillich's, and what it does to the images we make of GodTwelve images of God are on offer — the rewarder, the watchman, the plumber, the Supreme Being. You accept them or reject them, and in doing so you notice that rejecting comes more easily than saying what you would put in their place. That is exactly where Tillich's sentence begins: God does not exist. Not as a denial, but as an objection to a God who would be one thing among other things.
- 16The Technical City as SymbolTillich on technology, disenchantment and the life of its own that things take onIn 1928 Tillich gave a lecture in Dresden on the technical city. He sees in it a victory over the uncanny — and recognises at the same time that this very victory brings forth a new threat: the more powerful technical structures become, the more they take on a life of their own.
How it works
This site needs no account and no password. Everything you do here is yours — and stays with you unless you decide otherwise. What the platform can do is set out below, in the order in which you will meet it.
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Work through a module
Fifteen modules, each carrying one session. The stated time is the working time — listening, reading and tasks together, not the length of the recording. You can start at the beginning or step in anywhere; the modules do not build on one another.
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Tick off tasks
There is a box beside every task. Whatever you tick, the browser remembers at once — no sign-up, no account.
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Mark and annotate
Select a passage in the running text with the mouse or your finger — a small bar appears offering “Keep”. For every passage you mark you can write a sentence about why it matters to you.