The Courage of Liminality: Tillich and Theological Anthropology in Post-modernity

Abstract

Abstract The challenges of postmodernity have opened up new ways of engaging faith. Postmodern thought recognizes the contextual quality of religious claims. The risk of the skepticism born out of postmodernity, however, is the loss of transcendence in a perceived secular age. The theological anthropology of Paul Tillich can reawaken the significance of transcendence in human flourishing. Human life is uncertain and liminal where we live on the boundary between the secular and religious. Tillich’s work provides a framework for re-imagining the symbol of imago dei as a cipher of transcendence, and through that symbol a transcontextual narrative of liminality is born.