The Courage to Be

The Courage To Be by Paul Tillich

Paul Tillich 's The Courage to Be is a deep research on the theme of anxiety and fear . Paul Tillich , a famous theologian and Christian existentialist philosopher explores the theme of anxiety and uses different approaches to investigate this . Fear and anxiety have become universal phenomena nobody can escape . These s are widely discussed in modern art and culture and finally they have caused great interest to this . As states Paul , Today it has become almost a truism to call our time an "age of

anxiety " This holds equally for America and Europe (Tillich , 35 ) That is the reason he has chosen this complicated and controversial phenomenon as an object of his fundamental research

Tillich distinguishes three types of anxiety . He distinguishes these types according to the types of threats which nonbeing creates to being In the first type of anxiety nonbeing threatens human ontic self-affirmation . It can threaten it either in terms of fate or in terms of death . Nonbeing can also threaten spiritual self-affirmation and it is the second type of anxiety . It can threaten being in a form of emptiness or , in extreme degree , in a form of meaningless . The third type of anxiety is manifested when nonbeing threatens moral self-affirmation . Relatively it can be expressed in terms of guilt and absolutely it is expressed in terms of condemnation . Three types of threat give birth to three types of anxiety . They create an anxiety of death , an anxiety of loss of meaningless and an anxiety of condemnation accordingly . All types of anxiety are existential since they belong to the sphere of being . Tillich opposes existential anxieties to neurotic ones , which are peculiar to the abnormal state of mind . As he states "Neurosis is a away of avoiding non-being by avoiding being (Tillich 67 ) That makes the main distinction between clinical neuroses and real courage to be , which must become the core of everybody 's life

Tillich states that the anxiety of meaningfulness is caused by the concerning about the necessity to find meaning for everything in the Universe . When a person fails to find the meaning this type of anxiety appears and a person loses ultimate concern , which gives meaning to all meanings . Since this kind of anxiety threatens spiritual mode of being it can be caused by a loss of spiritual centre . Tillich believes this type of anxiety to be central for contemporary civilization . He views different types of anxiety not as a stable phenomena but a continuous process , which changes with the development of mankind . As he states different civilization had dominating anxieties . Ontic anxiety was typical for ancient world , where people had being preoccupied with the idea to survive . Middle Ages became the period of development of morals . It was during Middle Ages when special attention was paid to moral and ethical norms . That is the reason moral anxiety was especially popular during those times . People of Modern era are centred on the spiritual search...