Paul Tillich’s Theological Circle Betwen Fear and the Courage to Be

Abstract

One of the attempts of establishing the contemporary ethics is Paul Tillich's very existential analysis and evaluation of the courage to be. In man's encounter or rather existential confrontation with the threat of nonbeing, revealed in the categories of space and time, determination and freedom, and especially in experiencing guilt, absurdity, fear, doubts, and other limitations of being, there is an opportunity to ask a question about the meaning of life and searching for sources of power in order to accept and surpass all these challenges. At the same time, Tillich uses this as an opportunity to ask questions about God, or rather about Being-itself, which provides the power to accept all tensions and anxieties of being. Religion thus means to accept being accepted. Based on this relationship or rather the acceptance of the Being-itself, the courage to be is born in a man, when he, realising and accepting his own finality, surpasses the notion and opens himself up to Infinity. This infinity of Being-itself is not something abstract but it realises itself as Love, from which man gets courage to live in love, power, and justice.