Frasi di Paul Tillich

„"Dio" è la risposta alla domanda implicita nella finitezza dell'uomo; egli è il nome di ciò che interessa ultimamente l'uomo.“

—  Paul Tillich

Origine: Da Teologia sistematica; citato in Gibellini, p. 99.

„il confine è il luogo migliore per acquisire conoscenza.“

—  Paul Tillich

„Un atto morale non è un atto di obbedienza ad una legge esterna, umana o divina, [invece è] l'innata legge del nostro vero essere e della nostra natura essenziale e creata, che ci chiede di realizzare ciò che proviene da essa.“

—  Paul Tillich

Origine: Da Morality and Beyond; citato in Andrew Linzey, Teologia animale, traduzione di Alessandro Arrigoni, Cosmopolis, Torino, 1998, p. 6. ISBN 978-88-87947-01-4

„La religione non è una funzione accanto alle altre, ma è l'orientamento, che sostiene tutte le funzioni dello spirito verso l'incondizionato.“

—  Paul Tillich

Origine: Citato in Gibellini, p. 89.

„Le tendenze conservatrici delle chiese ufficiali non sono mai riuscite a sopprimere la tendenza del cristianesimo al sovvertimento della storia. Tutti i movimenti rivoluzionari dell'Occidente ne dipendono, che lo sappiano o no.“

—  Paul Tillich

Origine: Citato in Vittorio Messori, Ipotesi su Gesù, SEI, Torino, 1976, cap. IX.

„Neppure il comunismo potrebbe vivere se fosse totalmente sprovvisto degli elementi della Comunità Spirituale.“

—  Paul Tillich

Origine: Citato in Gibellini, p. 104.

„La religione è il fatto di essere presi da un interesse ultimo.“

—  Paul Tillich

Origine: Citato in Gibellini, p. 90.

„Contro Pascal, io dico: il Dio di Abramo, d'Isacco e di Giacobbe e il Dio dei filosofi è lo stesso Dio.“

—  Paul Tillich

Origine: Citato in Gibellini, p. 91.

„Soltanto se la tradizione viene trasformata frequentemente può essere salvata come realtà vivente. Una conseguenza fatale del tradizionalismo è l'elusione di questioni assai serie. Sembra che le conferenze ministeriali tendano ad evitare i problemi teologici basilari. In un tempo in cui vengono attaccati tutti gli elementi fondamentali del cristianesimo, tale atteggiamento acuisce fortemente l'irrilevanza. […] La parola "controverso" è divenuta oggi, nell'insieme, una parola negativa. Dovrebbe essere invece una parola quanto mai positiva. Nelle controversie, infatti, nel "sì e no", è possibile conoscere la verità e in nessun altro modo. Se si escludono – vuoi da parte della chiesa, vuoi da parte della società – le affermazioni controverse, tale chiesa e tale società sono condannate ad una lenta decadenza.“

—  Paul Tillich

Origine: Da L'irrilevanza e la rilevanza del messaggio cristiano per l'umanità oggi.

„La dimensione religiosa dell'imperativo morale è il suo carattere incondizionato.“

—  Paul Tillich

„La religione è la sostanza della cultura, la cultura è la forma della religione.“

—  Paul Tillich

Origine: Da Teologia della cultura; citato in Gibellini, p. 92.

„Dio lo dobbiamo chiamare la potenza infinita dell'essere che resiste alla minaccia del non-essere. In teologia classica è l'essere-stesso. Se l'angoscia viene definita la coscienza di essere finiti, Dio lo dobbiamo chiamare il fondamento infinito del coraggio. In teologia classica è la provvidenza universale.“

—  Paul Tillich

Origine: Da Teologia sistematica; citato in Gibellini, p. 97.

„The anxiety of fate is conquered by the self-affirmation of the individual as an infinitely significant microcosmic representation of the universe.“

—  Paul Tillich, libro The Courage to Be

Origine: The Courage to Be (1952), p. 120

„Faith is the state of being ultimately concerned.“

—  Paul Tillich

Dynamics of Faith (1957)
Contesto: Faith is the state of being ultimately concerned. The content matters infinitely for the life of the believer, but it does not matter for the formal definition of faith. And this is the first step we have to make in order to understand the dynamics of faith.

„A self which has become a matter of calculation and management has ceased to be a self. It has become a thing. You must participate in a self in order to know what it is.“

—  Paul Tillich, libro The Courage to Be

Origine: The Courage to Be (1952), p. 124
Contesto: There are realms of reality or — more exactly — of abstraction from reality in which the most complete detachment is the adequate cognitive approach. Everything which can be expressed in terms of quantitative measurement has this character. But it is most inadequate to apply the same approach to reality in its infinite concreteness. A self which has become a matter of calculation and management has ceased to be a self. It has become a thing. You must participate in a self in order to know what it is. But by participating you change it. In all existential knowledge both subject and object are transformed by the very act of knowing.

„There is a third element in absolute faith, the [[acceptance of being accepted.“

—  Paul Tillich, libro The Courage to Be

Origine: The Courage to Be (1952), p. 177
Contesto: There is a third element in absolute faith, the acceptance of being accepted. Of course, in the state of despair there is nobody and nothing that accepts. But there is the power of acceptance itself which is experienced. Meaninglessness, as long as it is experienced, includes an experience of the "power of acceptance". To accept this power of acceptance consciously is the religious answer of absolute faith, of a faith which has been deprived by [[doubt of any concrete content, which nevertheless is faith and the source of the most paradoxical manifestation of the courage to be.

„The union of kairos and logos is the philosophical task set for us in philosophy and in all fields that are accessible to the philosophical attitude.“

—  Paul Tillich

"Philosophy and Fate"
The Protestant Era (1948)
Contesto: The union of kairos and logos is the philosophical task set for us in philosophy and in all fields that are accessible to the philosophical attitude. The logos is to be taken up into the kairos, universal values into the fullness of time, truth into the fate of existence. The separation of idea and existence has to be brought to an end. It is the very nature of essence to come into existence, to enter into time and fate. This happens to essence not because of something extraneous to it; it is rather the expression of its own intrinsic character, of its freedom. And it is essential to philosophy to stand in existence, to create out of time and fate. It would be wrong if one were to characterize this as a knowledge bound to necessity. Since existence itself stands in fate, it is proper that philosophy should also stand in fate. Existence and knowledge both are subject to fate. The immutable and eternal heaven of truth of which Plato speaks is accessible only to a knowledge that is free from fate—to divine knowledge. The truth that stands in fate is accessible to him who stands within fate, who is himself an element of fate, for thought is a part of existence. And not only is existence fate to thought, but so also is thought fate to existence, just as everything is fate to everything else. Thought is one of the powers of being, it is a power within existence. And it proves its power by being able to spring out of any given existential situation and create something new! It can leap over existence just as existence can leap over it. Because of this characteristic of thought, the view perhaps quite naturally arose that thought may be detached from existence and may therefore liberate man from his hateful bondage to it. But the history of philosophy itself has shown that this opinion is a mistaken one. The leap of thought does not involve a breaking of the ties with existence; even in the act of its greatest freedom, thought remains bound to fate. Thus the history of philosophy shows that all existence stands in fate. Every finite thing possesses a certain power of being of its own and thus possesses a capacity for fate. The greater a finite thing’s autonomous power of being is, the higher is its capacity for fate and the more deeply is the knowledge of it involved in fate. From physics on up to the normative cultural sciences there is a gradation, the logos standing at the one end and the kairos at the other. But there is no point at which either logos or kairos alone is to be found. Hence even our knowledge of the fateful character of philosophy must at the same time stand in logos and in kairos. If it stood only in the kairos, it would be without validity and the assertion would be valid only for the one making it; if it stood only in the logos, it would be without fate and would therefore have no part in existence, for existence is involved in fate.

„In all existential knowledge both subject and object are transformed by the very act of knowing.“

—  Paul Tillich, libro The Courage to Be

Origine: The Courage to Be (1952), p. 124
Contesto: There are realms of reality or — more exactly — of abstraction from reality in which the most complete detachment is the adequate cognitive approach. Everything which can be expressed in terms of quantitative measurement has this character. But it is most inadequate to apply the same approach to reality in its infinite concreteness. A self which has become a matter of calculation and management has ceased to be a self. It has become a thing. You must participate in a self in order to know what it is. But by participating you change it. In all existential knowledge both subject and object are transformed by the very act of knowing.

„There are moments, as I myself have emphasized on different occasions, in which "kairos," the right time, is united with "logos," the "eternal truth," and in which the fate of philosophy is decided for a special period.“

—  Paul Tillich

"Philosophy and Fate", a translation of his inaugural address as chair of Professor of Philosophy at the University of Frankfort on the Main (June 1929)
The Protestant Era (1948)
Contesto: As Hegel called the place at the end of philosophy the "place of truth," so Marx thought that the proletariat occupies this favored position, and the psychoanalyst attributes it to the completely analyzed personality, and the philosopher of vitalism to the strongest life, to the process of growth, to an élite or a race. There are, according to these ideas, favored moments and positions in history when truth appears and reason is united with the irrational. There are moments, as I myself have emphasized on different occasions, in which "kairos," the right time, is united with "logos," the "eternal truth," and in which the fate of philosophy is decided for a special period.