The Cambridge Companion to Paul Tillich (Cambridge Companions to Religion) [Paperback]

Russell Re Manning (Editor)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0521677351 | ISBN-13: 978-0521677356 | Publication Date: February 23, 2009 | Edition: 1

The complex philosophical theology of Paul Tillich (1886-1965), increasingly studied today, was influenced by thinkers as diverse as the Romantics and Existentialists, Hegel and Heidegger. A Lutheran pastor who served as a military chaplain in World War I, he was dismissed from his university post at Frankfurt when the Nazis came to power in 1933, and emigrated to the United States, where he continued his distinguished career. This authoritative Companion provides accessible accounts of the major themes of Tillich's diverse theological writings and draws upon the very best of contemporary Tillich scholarship. Each chapter introduces and evaluates its topic and includes suggestions for further reading. The authors assess Tillich's place in the history of twentieth-century Christian thought as well as his significance for current constructive theology. Of interest to both students and researchers, this Companion reaffirms Tillich as a major figure in today's theological landscape.

Editorial Reviews

Book Description

This authoritative Companion to the theologian Paul Tillich provides an accessible account of the major themes in his diverse theological writings. It embodies and develops recent renewed interest in Tillich's theology and reaffirms him as a major figure in today's theological landscape.

About the Author

Russell Re Manning is University Lecturer in Philosophy of Religion at the Faculty of Divinity, University of Cambridge and Fellow of St Edmund's College, Cambridge. He is author of Theology at the End of Culture: Paul Tillich's Theology of Culture and Art (2005).

Product Details

• Paperback: 348 pages
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press; 1 edition (February 23, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0521677351
• ISBN-13: 978-0521677356
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.8 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #285,265 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Cambridge Companions Do It Again, May 24, 2010

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CarolinaThomist - See all my reviews

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This review is from: The Cambridge Companion to Paul Tillich (Cambridge Companions to Religion) (Paperback)

The Cambridge Companions to Religion are reliably solid and informative introductions to both basic theological topics (i.e. Jesus, the Gospels) and specific theologians (i.e. Karl Barth, Karl Rahner). While this series is not particularly controversial, and tends not to introduce any radically new ideas, it does represent the best of contemporary scholarship, and provides good, general overviews, which are of use to students and teachers alike. This particular book in the series does a good job of appraising Tillich's highly complex and evolving thought, and fills a very important gap in modern literature on Tillich. The one caveat may be that such a broad introduction may lack depth. However, as with all the Cambridge Companions, each chapter here provides a competent survey of a particular area of Tillich's intellectual life and thought, with plenty of direction as to where the interested reader can continue his or her research.

4.0 out of 5 stars A Broad and Continuing Range of Influence, December 4, 2011

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Roger Andout "Roger" (Invisible America) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Cambridge Companion to Paul Tillich (Cambridge Companions to Religion) (Paperback)

Today Tillich's most observable legacy may well be that of a spiritually-oriented public intellectual and teacher with a broad and continuing range of influence. Tillich`s chapel sermons (especially at Union) were enthusiastically received (Tillich was known as the only faculty member of his day at Union willing to attend the revivals of Billy Graham). When Tillich was University Professor at Harvard he was chosen as keynote speaker from among an auspicious gathering of many who had appeared on the cover of Time Magazine during its first four decades. Tillich along with his student, psychologist Rollo May, was an early leader at the Esalen Institute. Contemporary New Age catchphrases describing God (spatially) as the "Ground of Being" and (temporally) as the "Eternal Now," in tandem with the view that God is not an entity among entities but rather is "Being-Itself" - notions which Eckhart Tolle, for example, has invoked repeatedly throughout his career - were pioneered by Tillich. The introductory philosophy course taught by the person Tillich considered to be his best student, John E. Smith, "probably turned more undergraduates to the study of philosophy at Yale than all the other philosophy courses put together. His courses in philosophy of religion and American philosophy defined those fields for many years. Perhaps most important of all, he has educated a younger generation in the importance of the public life in philosophy and in how to practice philosophy publicly" (The Chronicle of Higher Education, 24 January 2010). In the 1980s and '90s the Boston University Institute for Philosophy and Religion, a leading forum dedicated to the revival of the American public tradition of philosophy and religion, flourished under the leadership of Tillich's student and expositor Leroy S. Rouner.