Paul Johannes Tillich 1886-1965

paul johannes tillich, who became a “theologian among philosophers” and a “philosopher among theologians,” died on October 22, 1965,. Born in Starseddel, Prussia on August 20, 1886, he received, in 1912, his doctorate in philosophy (Breslau), licentiate in theology (Halle), and ordination in the Evangelical Lutheran Church. “An idealist,” during his chaplaincy in the Kaiser's army he became a “tragic realist.” Following World War I he attacked “the other-worldliness and individualism of traditional church piety” and “the scientific utopian delusions of the political left.” In 1933 he said “I had the honor to be the first non-Jewish professor dismissed from a German university,” and was invited to the Union Theological Seminary in New York. After retirement he had two more university careers at Harvard and the University of Chicago.

He wrote over thirty books, including his masterwork, Systematic Theology. The New York Times has commented:

This patient scholar took as his subject all of life … His prolific, provocative writings also probed art and literature, ethics and education, economics, politics, sociology, psychology and even psychotherapy. He strove tirelessly—often against bitter opposition— to make religion meaningful today.

We of the Association for the Advancement of Psychoanalysis have had the privilege of hearing Dr. Tillich on three memorable occasions. In 1952 he participated with Dr. Horney in the symposium “Human Nature Can Change.” He said:

… the unchangeable element in man is his freedom to change himself and his world. It is not an unlimited freedom … But as a finite being he has freedom … ‘finite freedom’ … Unchangeable is his having a centered self which has a world to which it belongs and at which it looks at the same time … Unchangeable is his capability of transcending every given situation by asking questions and receiving demands … Unchangeable is man's ability to deliberate and decide … to respond in freedom, that is, through the center of the