Module 07

Biography

Paul Tillich (1886-1965)

Working time

180 - 240 minutes

Material

PDF

Overview

The module works through the course of Paul Tillich's life. It also helps to place his publications in their biographical and historical context.

What this module covers

You do not need to read this beforehand — feel free to simply begin. For planning a session, this is what the module aims at.

You are able to set out the stations of Tillich's life between 1886 and 1965 in their chronological order, and to name the turning points at which his thinking visibly shifts.
You are able to place selected publications by Tillich — “Die sozialistische Entscheidung” [“The Socialist Decision”] (1933), say, or “The Shaking of the Foundations” (1948) — in the historical circumstances out of which they came.
You are able to assess with reasons what the experiences of the First World War, of religious socialism and of emigration meant for the questions Tillich pursued theologically.

Learning section

The sections of the conversation

The conversation can be found in the listening area under Ted Farris on his grandfather Paul Tillich — ten sections, each playable on its own, in German and in English.

Opening (0:26)
What was it like to have Paul Tillich as a grandfather? (1:15)
Which memories do you have of Hanna Tillich? (0:40)
How did you come to realise that your grandfather was such a well-known theologian? (0:55)
What do you think about Paul Tillich’s works? (6:54)
Was his way of thinking typically German? (2:19)
What was Tillich’s relationship with his children like? (2:53)
Why was Mutie responsible for the estate? (1:17)
Which parts of the work should be focused on in future? (5:12)
Thanks and close (0:25)

Ilona Nord interviews Ted Farris, Paul Tillich’s grandson, on 19 July 2019 in New York.

Ted Farris recalls his grandparents Paul and Hanna Tillich and describes his own way into Paul Tillich’s work. He also considers how Tillich’s approach to the world and to religion connects with a present that is increasingly mediated by technology.

Paul Tillich (1886-1965), German-American Protestant theologian and philosopher, taught at various universities from 1919 to 1933.

Because of his leading role in the Fellowship of Religious Socialists he was suspended in 1933 and emigrated to the United States, where he took American citizenship in 1940. After teaching first at Union Theological Seminary in New York, he moved to Harvard University in 1955 and from 1962 was professor at the University of Chicago.

1933

Paul Tillich’s engagement with political and social questions (“religious socialism”) and his book “Die sozialistische Entscheidung”, published in 1933, drew the hostility of National Socialism, and in the spring of 1933 he was suspended from his chair in Frankfurt.

In the summer of that same year American theologians secured him a provisional appointment at Union Theological Seminary in New York, and Tillich emigrated to the United States. What began as a guest year was eventually to become a full professorship in philosophical theology.

20 August 1886

Born in Starzeddel, district of Guben, son of the Lutheran pastor Johannes Tillich (1857–1937), who came from Berlin, and his wife Mathilde.

Tillich’s birthplace in Starzeddel on a postcard.

1904–1910

Studies theology and philosophy at the universities of Berlin, Tübingen and Halle.

Tillich as a student in full fraternity dress.

1910

Takes his doctorate (Dr phil.) at the University of Breslau with a thesis on Schelling under Eugen Kühnemann.

1911

Begins his curacy in Nauen.

May 1911

Second theological examination.

1912

Awarded the Licentiate of Theology (Lic. theol.) at the University of Halle with a second thesis on Schelling. Tillich thus holds two academic degrees — the philosophical one of 1910 and the theological one; this is what Matthias Kroeger refers to in the module “Introduction” when he speaks of two doctorates.

18 August 1912

Ordination in St Matthew’s Church, Berlin.

1912–1913

Serves as assistant preacher at the Church of the Redeemer in Berlin-Moabit.

1914

Marries Greti Wever.

Paul and Greti Tillich.

1914–1918

Volunteer army chaplain on the Western Front.

1916

Habilitation in theology at the University of Halle.

1919

Transfer of his habilitation from Halle to Berlin.

Major publication: “Über die Idee einer Theologie der Kultur”, published in: Religionsphilosophie der Kultur: zwei Entwürfe [lectures given in the Berlin section of the Kant Society] by Gustav Radbruch and Paul Tillich.

1919–1924

Privatdozent at the University of Berlin.

1921

Divorce from his first wife, Greti.

1923

Major publication: “Das System der Wissenschaften nach Gegenständen und Methoden”, published by Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.

1923

Marries Hannah Werner.

Major publication: “Rechtfertigung und Zweifel”, published in volume 39 of Vorträge der theologischen Konferenz zu Gießen, Töpelmann.

1924–1925

Extraordinary professor of systematic theology at the Philipps University of Marburg an der Lahn.

1925

Major publications: “Religionsphilosophie”; “Dogmatik” (published posthumously).

1925–1929

Full professor of religious studies at the Saxon Technical University of Dresden.

1926

Major publication: “Die religiöse Lage der Gegenwart”, published by Ullstein.

1926

Major publication: “Das Dämonische: Ein Beitrag zur Sinndeutung der Geschichte”; also “Kairos und Logos”.

1927–1929

At the same time honorary full professor of the philosophy of religion and the philosophy of culture at the University of Leipzig.

1928

Major publication: “Das religiöse Symbol”, published in: Paul Tillich, Gesammelte Werke, vol. 5, Die Frage nach dem Unbedingten: Schriften zur Religionsphilosophie, Berlin 1964, pp. 196–212.

1929–1933

Full professor of philosophy and sociology at the University of Frankfurt am Main.

1930

“Religiöse Verwirklichung”, published by Furche.

1933

Major publication: “Die sozialistische Entscheidung”. Full text available for download.

1933–1934

Lecturer at Columbia University in New York.

1933–1937

Lecturer at Union Theological Seminary in New York.

1936

Major publication: “The Interpretation of History”, published by C. Scribner’s Sons.

1937–1940

Associate Professor of Philosophical Theology at Union Theological Seminary in New York.

1940

Tillich becomes an American citizen.

1940–1955

Professor of Philosophical Theology at Union Theological Seminary in New York.

Tillich with colleagues in New York.

1942–1944

Major publication and addresses: “An meine deutschen Freunde” — Paul Tillich’s political addresses broadcast over the Voice of America during the Second World War.

1948

First journey to Germany after the Second World War.

Major publication: “The Shaking of the Foundations”. Full text available for download.

1948

Major publication: “The Protestant Era”. Full text available for download.

1951

Major publication: “Systematic Theology I”.

1952

Major publication: “The Courage to Be”.

1954

Major publication: “Love, Power, and Justice”.

1955

Major publications: “Biblical Religion and the Search for Ultimate Reality”; “The New Being”.

1955–1962

University Professor at Harvard University.

1957

Major publications: “Systematic Theology II”; “Dynamics of Faith”.

1961

Awarded the Grand Cross of Merit with Star of the Federal Republic of Germany.

The German ambassador to the United States, Greve, pins the Star of the Order of Merit on Tillich.

1962

Peace Prize of the German Book Trade.

1962–1965

John Nuveen Professor at the Divinity School of the University of Chicago.

1963

Major publications: “Systematic Theology III”; “Christianity and the Encounter of the World Religions”; “The Eternal Now”; “Morality and Beyond”.

1965

Paul Tillich dies in Chicago on 22 October.

Memorial stone in New Harmony.

Select text to keep a passage.

Materials

PDF · M1Paul Tillich, Die sozialistische EntscheidungPaul Tillich, Die sozialistische Entscheidung, Medusa Verlag Wölk + Schmid, Berlin 1933.Über jede Universitätsbibliothek zu bestellen. Auch in: Gesammelte Werke Band II, Evangelisches Verlagswerk Stuttgart 1962.

PDF · M2Paul Tillich, The Shaking of the FoundationsPaul Tillich, The Shaking of the Foundations, Charles Scribner's Sons, New York 1948.Über jede Universitätsbibliothek zu bestellen; Neuauflage bei Wipf and Stock (ISBN 978-1-61097-813-4). Deutsch: „In der Tiefe ist Wahrheit“, Evangelisches Verlagswerk Stuttgart, sowie in: Religiöse Reden, Berlin/New York 1987.

PDF · M3Paul Tillich, The Protestant EraPaul Tillich, The Protestant Era, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 1948.Über jede Universitätsbibliothek zu bestellen. Die gekürzte Ausgabe von 1957 ist antiquarisch verbreitet; deutsche Teilübersetzungen finden sich in den Gesammelten Werken.

Origin

Created by

Jan Christian Pinsch, Paderborn University, in cooperation with the Chair of Protestant Theology II at the University of Würzburg.

Version

Version 2017.

Rights

paultillich.de / NeoLecture

Image credit

Ted Farris as a boy beside his grandfather Paul Tillich, East Hampton. Privataufnahme der Familie Tillich/Farris. Family collection of Ted Farris, provided for this project, 1963. By express permission of Ted Farris. No reuse outside this platform without his consent.

Tasks · 0 of 7 done

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Prompts for thinking along — no right answer, no assessment. Ticking a box hides the task.

Task 1
Begin by getting an overview of the timeline from 1886 to 1965.
1. Mark three breaks that strike you as particularly consequential, and give reasons for your choice.
2. Record the places where Tillich taught, and for how long in each case.
Task 2
Look closely at the years 1914 to 1919: army chaplain on the Western Front, habilitation in 1916, transfer of his habilitation to Berlin, and the lecture “Über die Idee einer Theologie der Kultur” [“On the Idea of a Theology of Culture”] (1919).
1. Describe what lies between these dates.
2. Put forward a conjecture as to how the experience of war might have entered into the design of a theology of culture — and say what in your conjecture would be verifiable and what would not.
Task 3
Read the opening pages of “Die sozialistische Entscheidung” (M1).
1. Note the political position Tillich takes there.
2. Explain why this book could contribute to his suspension from the Frankfurt chair in 1933.
Task 4
Compare the German text of 1933 with a sermon from “The Shaking of the Foundations” (M2, 1948). Attend to language, addressees and tone. What has changed, and what has remained?
Task 5
The timeline records the Grand Cross of Merit for 1961 and the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade for 1962. Discuss how these late honours from Germany stand in relation to the suspension of 1933.
Task 6
Hannah Tillich, his wife, said of him: “He had a very strong relationship to the sea, to the mountains, to the trees, to the flowers. […] And he was — he was ecstatic.” Tillich himself writes in Systematic Theology I that ecstasy has “a legitimate place in theology” (p. 136). The quotation from Hannah Tillich comes from a ZDF film in the series “Tagebuch” (Wolf-Rüdiger Schmidt), cited here from Peter Haigis's reportage script.
1. Record what such a statement by a family member achieves that a scholarly account does not — and where its limits lie.
2. Test it against the timeline: does this picture fit the life the timeline shows, or does it stand in tension with it?
Task 7
From the timeline, compile a short biography of your own, condensed to ten dates. Give reasons in two or three sentences for why these ten in particular — and for what your selection reveals about your own approach to Tillich.