≡ PDF Gratis The Eternal Now Paul Tillich 9780684719078 Books

The Eternal Now Paul Tillich 9780684719078 Books

Download As PDF : The Eternal Now Paul Tillich 9780684719078 Books

The Eternal Now Paul Tillich 9780684719078 Books

This is another excellent volume of live sermons from Tillich. Easier than Systematic Theology, this book is recommended for seminarians and theologians wishing to prepare to read Systematic Theology. Very important in its own right for Tillich;s distinctive style of blending ontology, theology, and even the psychology of the unconscious. Very enlightening on the subject of Spirit, Christ, and pantheism. Unconditionally recommended.


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The Eternal Now Paul Tillich 9780684719078 Books Reviews

Paul Tillich (1886-1965) was a German-American theologian and Christian philosopher, who was dismissed from his teaching position in Germany after Hitler came to power in 1933. He came to America, where he taught at Union Theological Seminary and the Harvard Divinity School. Tillich's major work was his three-volume Systematic Theology, vol. 1,Systematic Theology, vol. 2 Existence and the Christ, and Systematic Theology, vol. 3 Life and the Spirit History and the Kingdom of God, but he also published books such as A History of Christian Thought,The Courage to Be,Dynamics of Faith, etc. The other volumes of his sermons (many given during chapel at Union Theological Seminary) are The Shaking of The Foundations and The New Being.

The psychologist Rollo May [a close friend of Tillich’s] wrote a sympathetic biography of him (Paulus) and Tillich’s wife Hannah wrote a much less-friendly account (From Time to Time). [NOTE page numbers below refer to the 179-page paperback edition.]

He wrote in the Preface to this 1963 book, “Most of these sermons were delivered in university and college chapels… The present collection dates from 1955 to 1963. The title … indicates that the presence of the Eternal in the midst of the temporal is a decisive emphasis in most of the sermons. I could have chosen ‘The Spiritual Presence’ as the general title, but the many unfavorable connotations with which the word ‘Spiritual’ is burdened excluded this possibility. Only for a particular sermon in which every sentence interpreted the meaning of ‘Spiritual,’ could the word be used. It is my hope that this collection… will show that the Christian message… is relevant for our time if it uses the language of our time.”

In the first sermon, he points out, “man and woman remain alone even in the most intimate union. They cannot penetrate each other’s innermost center. And if this were not so, they could not be helpers to each other; they could not have human community. This is why God Himself cannot liberate man from his aloneness it is man’s greatness that he is centered within himself. Separated from his world, he is thus able to look AT it. Only because he can look at it can he know and love and transform it. God, in creating him the ruler of the earth, had to separate him and thrust him into aloneness. Man is also therefore able to be spoken to by God and by man. He can ask questions and give answers and make decisions. He has the freedom for good and evil. Only he who has an impenetrable center in himself is free. Only he who is alone can claim to be a man. This is the greatness and this is the burden of man.” (Pg. 17)

He observes, “there is a forgetting, to which Paul witnesses, that liberates us not from the memory of past guilt but from the pain it brings. The grand old name for this kind of forgetting is repentance. Today, repentance is associated with a half-painful, half-voluptuous emotional concentration on one’s guilt, and not with a liberating forgetfulness. But originally it meant a ‘turning around,’ leaving behind the wrong way and turning towards the light. It means pushing the consciousness and pain of guilt into the past, not by repressing it, but by acknowledging it, and receiving the word of acceptance in spite of it. If we are able to repent, we are able to forget, not because the forgotten act was unimportant… but because we have acknowledged our guilt and can now live with it. For it is ETERNALLY forgotten.” (Pg. 31-32)

He states, “we cannot applaud every act of moral self-restraint, knowing that its cause may be cowardice preventing a revolution against inherited, though already questioned, rules of behavior. Nor can we praise every act of daring non-conformism, knowing that its reason may be the inability of an individual to resist the persuasive irresponsibility of a group of noncomformists. In these and countless other cases, we experience a power that dwells in us and directs our will against itself. The name of this power is sin.” (Pg. 50)

He notes, “Evil in the divine order is not only mystery; it is also revelation. It reveals the greatness and danger of life. He who can become sick is greater than he who cannot, than that which is bound to remain what it is, unable to be split in itself. He alone who is free is able to surrender to the demonic forces that turn his freedom into bondage. The gift of freedom implies the danger of servitude; and the abundance of life implies the danger of sickness. Man’s life is abundant life, infinitely complex, inexhaustible in its possibilities, even in the vitally poorest human beings. Man’s life is most open to disease.” (Pg. 61)

He argues, “We therefore have to deal with an astonishing fact the same events that pushed man from his place in the center of the world, and reduced him to insignificance, also elevated him to a God-like position both on earth and beyond! Is there an answer to this contradiction?... Man is rooted in the same Ground in which the universe with all its galaxies is rooted. It is this Ground that gives greatness to everything, however small it may be… and it is this that makes all things small, however great---the stars as well as man. It gives significance to each individual man, and to mankind as a whole. This answer quiets our anxiety about our smallness, and it quells the pride of our greatness.” (Pg. 72)

He points out, “What the Christian message does tell us is that the meaning of history lies above history, and that, therefore, its length is irrelevant to its ultimate meaning. But it is not irrelevant with respect to the innumerable opportunities time affords for creation of life and spirit, and it is for these that we must right with all our strength. Furthermore, if history should end tomorrow, though mankind’s self-annihilation, the appearance of this planet and of man upon it will NOT have been in vain. For a being shall have appeared at least once, in the billions of years of the universe, towards whose creation all the forces of life on earth worked together, and in whom the image of the divine Ground of all life was present. At least once, a living being shall have come into existence, in whom life achieved its highest possibility---spirit. This is the ultimate source of man’s greatness… the depth of all things became manifest in ONE being, and the name of that being is MAN, and you and I are man!” (Pg. 76)

He says, “For this is what the Divine Spirit means God present to our spirit. Spirit is not a mysterious substance; it is not a part of God. It is God Himself; but not God as the creative ground of all things and not God directing history and manifesting Himself in its central event, but God as present in communities and personalities, grasping them, inspiring them, and transforming them.” (Pg. 84)

He admits, “Doubt, and not certitude, is our human situation, whether we affirm or deny God. And perhaps the difference between them is not so great as one usually thinks. They are probably very similar in their mixture of faith and doubt. Therefore, the denial of God, if serious, should not shake us. What should trouble everyone who takes life seriously is the existence of indifference. For he who is indifferent, when hearing the name of God, and feels, at the same time, that the meaning of his life is being questioned, denies his true humanity.” (Pg. 97-98)

He observes, “The New Testamen speaks of eternal life, and eternal life is not continuation of life after death. Eternal life if beyond past, present, and future we come from it, we live in its presence, we return to it. It is never absent---it is the divine life in which we are rooted and in which we are destined to participate in freedom---for God alone has eternity. Man should not boast of having an immortal soul as his possession for, as the letter to Timothy says, God alone has immortality.’ [1 Tim 616] We are mortal like every creature, mortal with our whole being---body and soul---but we are also kept in the eternal life BEFORE we lived on earth, WHILE we are living in time, and AFTER our time has come to an end.” (Pg. 114-115)

He advises, “‘Stand firm in your faith’ means---don’t give up that faith that alone can make you ultimately strong, because it gives you the ultimate Ground on which to stand. Standing firm in one’s faith does not mean adhering to a set of beliefs; it does not require us to suppress doubts about Christian of other doctrines, but points to something which lies beyond doubt in the depth in which man’s being and all being is rooted. To be aware of this Ground, to live in it and out of it is ultimate strength.” (Pg. 151)

Tillich’s sermons are a much more accessible and “personal” side of his theology/philosophy, and will be of great interest to anyone seriously studying modern theology.
The book was out of print and i am glad to replace the one I lost - good service and fair pricing
Professor Tillich, in his book the Eternal Now, expressed an interesting Anthology of human mind, in state of mind, in his personality, in his will.
Tillich state that human mind, can be in a state of assertiveness with God, but consequently from is personality state of mind, and the psychological factor that human my find at that moment, The mental capacity the serenity of the spirit to seek a connection not Idolatry with
God, humans can have a sincere and peaceful approach, spiritually and harmoniously to create question of modern man and women,
A good read.
Fairly heavy going. But valuable.
This is another excellent volume of live sermons from Tillich. Easier than Systematic Theology, this book is recommended for seminarians and theologians wishing to prepare to read Systematic Theology. Very important in its own right for Tillich;s distinctive style of blending ontology, theology, and even the psychology of the unconscious. Very enlightening on the subject of Spirit, Christ, and pantheism. Unconditionally recommended.