Tuesday, November 28, 2006

Reading Tillich Series

Well, my reading Tillich series is finished. It has been a few years since I last read through the system, and my appreciation of Tillich's theology has not changed. The system is not perfect - the last part is not very interesting IMO - but there is a lot of stuff in here that is still very much relevant, and there is still need for Tillich's kind of theology, maybe now more than ever. Tillich tries to embrace life in its entirety and bring it to theology, not by placing it under theology, but by allowing it to inform it.

What I have realized when reading the system this time is that it is quite possible to read Tillich as a kind of spiritual guide. All this philosophy, weird new language, it all serves the purpose of making it possible to communicate spiritual experience in a post-Christian world.

My comments in this series have been very uneven, some almost pointless. Tillich's quotes are usually far better, something that should come as a surprise to few. Anyway. I'm happy with a few of them: 3, 4, 16, 18, 21, 22, 23, 30, 34.

Here's the whole list:

Reading Tillich 1
Reading Tillich 2: New Theonomy
Reading Tillich 3: Mystery
Reading Tillich 4: Sainthood
Reading Tillich 5: Symbolical Language
Reading Tillich 6:Religious nationalism
Reading Tillich 7: Destiny and Freedom
Reading Tillich 8: Destiny and Meaning
Reading Tillich 9: God and Existence
Reading Tillich 10: Being Created
Reading Tillich 11: Human Creativity
Reading Tillich 12: Prayer
Reading Tillich 13: Participating Theology
Reading Tillich 14: Angels and Demons
Reading Tillich 15: Sin
Reading Tillich 16: Collective Guilt
Reading Tillich 17: Christ
Reading Tillich 18: The Law
Reading Tillich 19: Christology
Reading Tillich 20: Deliteralisation
Reading Tillich 21: Acceptance
Reading Tillich 22: Morality
Reading Tillich 23: Art
Reading Tillich 24: The Unity of Morality, Culture and Religion
Reading Tillich 25: Ecstasy
Reading Tillich 26: The Latent Church
Reading Tillich 27: Belonging
Reading Tillich 28: Contemplation
Reading Tillich 29: Equality
Reading Tillich 30: Self-transcendence
Reading Tillich 31: Faith and Mysticism
Reading Tillich 32: Trinitarian Thought
Reading Tillich 33: The End of History
Reading Tillich 34: The End of History II
Reading Tillich 35: The Kingdom of God
Reading Tillich 36: Divine Life

What I think is extremely cool is that some people have said they have started to read Tillich, in part because of my writings! I think this means that I have made the world a little bit better with these posts! (Check out Andrew's thoughts on holiness!)

6 comments:

byron smith said...

Congratulations on finishing a marathon (both the reading and the posting)!

Anonymous said...

Thanks again for the series. Count me in as one of those who consider reading Tillich again after reading your posts.

Anonymous said...

Great series!

I love reading Tillich's sermons.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for such a wonderful series, and, perhaps most importantly for those of us who came in at the end, thanks for this post directing us to all the others. I look forward to starting at the begining to catch up on what I missed.

Anonymous said...
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Anonymous said...

Patrick,
I just wanted to thank your for your help on my article about Tillich and Piper some month ago. I've got an "1.3" that would be an A- or something. I think the other topics wouldn't have worked that good. And btw: I could use some things I learned from Tillich in quite different contexts (Nietzsche, sociology). I think I'm starting to like him! Thank you!
Arne