Book Review
The Courage to Be. By Paul Tillich. Second Edition. New Haven,
Yale University, 2000 (1st ed. 1952). 197 pages.
Reviews by JL and
SC
German Protestant philosopher and theologian Paul
Tillich published The Courage to Be (TCTB) in
1952. It is a confrontation of the concept of “courage”
and the types of anxiety confronted by people,
particularly in the modern age, expressed in the
language of depth psychology and existentialism. This
book succeeds in introducing to a “lay readership” a
sophisticated philosophical discussion of human
ontology, anthropology, psychological tendencies and
theology. Tillich presents anxiety as the primary modern
psychological epidemic resulting from a loss of meaning
in life. He supplies courage as the antidote. Courage is
the strength to affirm one’s own life in spite of the
fact that life will inevitably end, that it may seem to
have no purpose, and that people are destined to carry
great burdens of guilt for not being perfect or
“acceptable” in their own eyes.
The book opens with a discussion of the concept of
courage in several philosophical and theological
contexts. Tillich reviews courage with respect to
fortitude, wisdom, self-affirmation and existence
itself, drawing respectively on Plato and Aquinas, the
Stoics, Spinoza, and Nietzsche. Tillich understands
courage as “rooted in structure of being...it must be
considered ontologically in order to be understood
ethically” (1). The “courage to be,” specifically, is
“the ethical act in which man affirms his own being in
spite of those elements of his existence which conflict
with his essential self-affirmation” (3). It is the
affirmation of one’s essential nature, and its analysis
must precede an understanding of such attributes as
faith, wisdom and joy. Courage involves “striving toward
self-preservation or toward self-affirmation [that]
makes a thing what it is,” and is a definitively
virtuous process of careful reasoning and intentionality
(21). Even though life is ambiguous above all, “courage
is the power of life to affirm itself in spite of this
ambiguity, while the negation of life because of its
negativity is an expression of cowardice” (27).
Affirmation of one’s own being involves the acceptance
of one’s finitude and inevitable nonbeing; the courage
to be takes into itself the anxiety of death.
Tillich pursues an ontology of anxiety, starting with
an analysis of nonbeing, recognizing it as the necessary
balance to an exploration of being. It “is not a concept
like others. It is the negation of every concept” (34).
But nonbeing is a part of being, just as destruction is
a part of creation. “Being ‘embraces’ itself and
nonbeing” (34); “there could be no negation if there
were no preceding affirmation to be negated” (40). Enter
anxiety: “the state in which a being is aware of its
possible nonbeing” (35). Tillich differentiates anxiety
from fear in that fear has a definite object which can
be faced and attacked, endured or conquered, whereas
anxiety has no object and “therefore participation,
struggle, and love with respect to it are impossible”
(36). Without an object or a tactic to defeat it,
anxiety surfaces as the pain of impotence, negation and
disempowerment. But the power of being stirs deeply
beneath anxiety; nonbeing strives toward being when
“anxiety strives to become fear, because fear can be met
by courage” (39).
Tillich distinguishes three types of anxiety: that of
fate and death (ontological); that of emptiness and loss
of meaning (spiritual); and that of guilt and
condemnation (moral) (41). Tillich discusses these forms
of existential anxiety as realities in individual life,
“then with their social manifestations in special
periods of Western history” (ibid.). The first, the
anxiety of fate and death, is universal and inescapable;
“everybody is aware of the complete loss of self which
biological extinction implies” (42). Fate is the
“mini-death” which constantly afflicts the human being
in a contingent existence, where one is constantly
subject to changing conditions and aware of their
impermanence and susceptibility to weakness, disease,
and accidents. Nonbeing is not only felt through death
and fate but also spiritually in the encounter with
meaninglessness, the result of which is the second kind
of anxiety; the antidote is spiritual self-affirmation,
which “occurs in every moment in which man lives
creatively in the various spheres of meaning” (46).
Living spontaneously, participating in the creation and
enrichment of meaning, can stave off the threat of
nonbeing to the spiritual life, which is described in
terms of “doubt, a creative and destructive function in
man’s spiritual life...based on man’s separation from
the whole of reality, on his lack of universal
participation, on the isolation of his universal self”
(48, 49). The doubting individual will often deal with
spiritual pain through overcompensatory fanaticism or
desperate participation in something external. Spiritual
anxiety is a threat to the whole being, revealed in “the
desire to throw away one’s ontic existence rather than
stand the despair of emptiness and meaninglessness”
(51). Finally, anxiety surfaces in the realm of guilt,
when human beings fall short in their moral
self-affirmation, the act by which they actualize their
potential. “A profound ambiguity between good and evil
permeates everything he does...the awareness of this
ambiguity is the feeling of guilt” (52). This state
results in self-rejection, or the conscious choice of
nonbeing. Tillich notes that the three types of anxiety
are visible in periods in Western history: “At the end
of ancient civilization ontic anxiety is predominant, at
the end of the Middle Ages moral anxiety, and at the end
of the modern period spiritual anxiety” (57).
In addition to three forms of existential anxiety
there is also non-existential anxiety, “the result of
contingent experiences in human life” (65). Courage does
not remove this anxiety but embraces it by acknowledging
it, affirming oneself “in spite of” the anxiety of
nonbeing, meaninglessness and guilt. Neurotic anxiety,
much like overcompensatory fanaticism that avoids full
confrontation with the meaninglessness of existence, “is
the way of avoiding nonbeing by avoiding being” (66).
The neurotic clings to “a fixed, though limited and
unrealistic, self affirmation” (68), eschewing the
reality of illness or danger, instead hiding in a
“castle of defense” (69). Inasmuch as anxiety has a
psychosomatic character and surfaces in various
diseases, vitality and courage, too, have psychosomatic
characters; they are biological as well as physical
(78). Courage “is the readiness to take upon oneself
negatives...for the sake of a fuller positivity.
Biological self-affirmation implies the acceptance of
want, toil, insecurity, pain, possible destruction…. The
more vital strength a being has the more it is able to
affirm itself in spite of the dangers announced by fear
and anxiety” (ibid.). Since the courage to be is a
function of vitality, strengthened vitality brings forth
the power to be and allows one to create beyond oneself
without losing oneself. “The periods of a diminished
courage to be are periods of biological weakness” (79).
What, asks Tillich, is “the relation of
self-affirmation and love toward others”? (22) It is not
an isolated act for the individual but “is participation
in the universal or divine act of self-affirmation”
(23). Tillich thus introduces a major theme of TCTB: the
dialectic of individualization and participation. TCTB’s
Chapter 4, “Courage and Participation,” and Chapter 5,
“Courage and Individualization,” confront the basic
polar structure of being, that of self and world.
Tillich argues that these realms are interconnected and
mutually influencing; self-affirmation “is not the
courage to be as oneself, but the courage to be as a
part” (89); “the more self-relatedness a being has the
more it is able...to participate (90). Tillich reviews
collectivist and semi-collectivist historical
manifestations such as feudal societies of the Middle
Ages (90); neo-collectivist manifestations such as
fascism, Nazism and communism (96); and the democratic
conformism of America and its tie to the idea of
constant progress in such specifically American
philosophies as pragmatism, process philosophy, the
ethics of growth, progressive education, and crusading
democracy (109). In Chapter 5 he takes the opposite
tactic and examines the rise of modern individualism,
tracing the context and experience of selfhood through
successive historical periods, noting how the
interaction of societies with religious authorities or
trends (such as the Roman Church, pietism and Methodism)
often determine the tenor of the anxiety of guilt and
condemnation. Post-Enlightenment, “the courage to be is
the courage to follow reason and to defy irrational
authority” (116); with the help of reason, courage
affirms itself as a transforming reality and conquers
the threat of meaninglessness with courageous action.
In reviewing the late romantic, Bohemian and
romantic-naturalistic approaches to courage, Tillich
unveils Existentialism as the most radical form of the
courage to be as oneself, because it demands involvement
and participation over a theoretical or detached
approach to life. Nietzsche is the more important
forerunner of the Existentialist courage to be as
oneself. Tillich describes the individual who has
self-affirmed in this way: “He mediates the powers of
being which are concentrated in him. He has them within
himself in knowledge…. He directs the course of his
life” (120-121). Tillich follows existentialism as a
point of view, a form of protest, and a kind of
expression; it is pervasive in the art, literature and
philosophy--and therefore the cultural destiny--of the
twentieth century and is the answer to its all-pervading
anxiety of doubt and meaninglessness (126-131).
Tillich introduces his well-known notion of “the
courage to accept acceptance” in the final chapter of
TCTB. He presents religion as a realm where the power of
being, and thus the courage to be, can be accessed,
particularly in mysticism, where “the individual self
strives for a participation in the ground of being which
approaches identification...it is self-surrender in a
higher, more complete, and more radical form...the
perfect form of self-affirmation” (157). The mystic
conquers the anxiety of fate and death by elevating the
soul above the finite to the infinite. The other kind of
religious encounter with the power of being is the
personal encounter or communion with God and the
“courage of confidence in the personal reality which is
manifest in the religious experience” (160). This
courage of confidence derives from divine forgiveness,
which facilitates “the courage to accept oneself as
accepted in spite of being unacceptable” (164). It is
not the good or wise or pious who receive the courage to
accept acceptance but “those who are lacking in all
these qualities and are aware of being unacceptable”
(165). In accessing the accepting love of the self
beyond the self, the anxiety of guilt and condemnation
is conquered. This may be more powerful than mysticism
because “conquest of the anxiety of guilt is also
conquest of the anxiety of fate” (168). But both require
faith, “the state of being grasped by the power of
being-itself” (172). Tillich insists that faith can
coexist with doubt and despair.
Despair and doubt are necessary tools of faith and
self-affirmation. The courage of despair “takes despair
[into itself] and resist[s] the radical threat of
nonbeing by the courage to be as oneself” (140). Such
courageous acceptances of the negative, creative
expressions of decay, and meaningful attempts to reveal
the meaninglessness of our situation (ibid.) are often
misunderstood by collectivist or conformist affirmers,
who neurotically avoid the reality of life’s challenges
in favor of temporary security. But the courage to face
things as they are, displayed in much art and philosophy
of the twentieth century, is a radical and creative
negativity that actually points to deeper hope. “The
faith which makes the courage of despair possible is the
acceptance of the power of being, even in the grip of
nonbeing…. The act of accepting meaningless is itself a
meaningful act” (176). Once we overcome the No in our
surrounding conditions, we reach a Yes that is livelier
than ever before (180). Accepting suffering affirms life
instead of rose-coloring it in fantasy. Likewise,
transcending a rhetorical theism and striving to
participate in God-beyond-God, the power of being, is
required for doubt and meaninglessness to be taken into
the courage to be. Otherwise the theistic God figure is
used as a shield to obscure the reality of ambiguity in
life. When one has the courage to take the anxiety of
meaningless upon oneself, a true power of being is
revealed. “The courage to be is rooted in the God who
appears when God has disappeared in the anxiety of
doubt” (190).
Tillich engages primarily male language to discuss
both humanity and divinity, which falls “dated” on
today’s ear. The first and last “thirds” of the book,
devoted to the exploration of the ontology and flavors
of courage and of the various anxieties, would naturally
be read personally and reflectively and have a somewhat
intimate feeling. Thus, the middle third of the book,
with its pursuit of the roots and manifestations of
individualism, collectivism and existentialism in
historical and cultural contexts, feels strangely
distant and impersonal, and less immediately, intimately
relevant for the reader. The final third of the book,
through its return to the theme of “accepting
acceptance,” is once again deeply psychological, and
also suddenly takes on a surprising amount of religious
language. More surprisingly, this language remains
“unpacked,” which I imagine might be alienating for
readers who were not comfortable with terms like “divine
forgiveness,” “personal communion with God,” and other
such seeming references to an agential deity.
I first read The Courage to Be several years
ago, when I was still unfamiliar and uncomfortable with
theistic and agential God-language. I used the same copy
of this text for this review and was interested to see
my own “marginalia” from years ago that indicated my
inability to access or work productively with these
terms even metaphorically. Several years of theological
study and personal work with such loaded terms later, I
understand the manner in which Tillich is using this
language. But since this book is intended for a lay
readership unacquainted with classical theological
constructions—and a radical, metaphorical Tillichian
engagement with them—I can imagine that this last third
must be alienating for readers seeking (needing?) a
purely philosophical, psychological, or historical
discussion. This language is introduced somewhat
suddenly and without positioning for the secular ear.
Perhaps the readers of Tillich’s time could have
stomached this language more fluidly—as well as the
patriarchal language—but the upshot is that the book
feels dated and may not pack the same popular punch as
it did in its time.
This is not to say the book has nothing to offer the
contemporary reader; far from it. The illumination of
human anxieties and human courage is still provocative,
spiritually motivating, and indeed radicalizing for
readers who have not yet thought of God as the ground
and power of being. As a reader always concerned about
active engagement and application of theory, I found
myself wishing Tillich had more practical or
prescriptive suggestions in discussing how courage can
actually be accessed; the most concrete recommendation
seems to be the embracing of doubt, despair, and life’s
ambiguity. I also wondered what a feminist rendering of
this text would look like as much of Tillich’s
discussion of the human condition seems specific to the
white, middle-aged Western male. Moreover, familiarity
with Tillich’s biography and personal struggles greatly
illuminates the urgency of this text.
Paul Tillich’s book, The Courage to Be comes
from a series of lectures he presented between 1950-51 at Yale University as
part of the Terry Foundation lectures. The aim of these talks was to address
religion in light of science and philosophy, a task Tillich responds to by
an analysis of the human situation through the examination of the concept of
“courage”. His claim is that as courage is an ontological condition of
existence it points to the nature of being itself.
Tillich begins by separating courage into two parts:
the ontological concept and the ethical reality. As is typical of his
systematic approach, he claims that it is the separation of these two from
one another that leads to a distorted understanding of courage. He tracks
this development from Plato to Nietzsche showing at each step along the way
how the contemporary philosophers and society at large viewed courage in
relation to the conditions of the world around them. Of particular interest
to Tillich are the Platonic ideas aligning courage and spirit with the
phylakes or armed aristocracy of ancient Greece and the development of these
ideas up through Thomas Aquinas, and the competing view of the Stoics, a
group he sees as ultimately choosing the path of cosmic resignation in the
face of the anxieties of existence. In Spinoza and Nietzsche, Tillich finds
kindred, but incomplete definitions of “courage” to the one he espouses:
affirmation of one’s being when faced with the threat of nonbeing.
Anxiety, its origins, form and character, are Tillich’s
next point of exploration. Anxiety for Tillich is the recognition of the
threat of non-being; it is ontologically necessitated and is the counterpart
to courage. Following his pattern of creating dialects between external and
internal, universal and particular, Tillich differentiates between anxiety,
the response to being faced with non-being, and fear as an object-specific
response. Fear inherently is “fear of” something, while anxiety is always
directly resultant from facing the threat of non-being (a true nothingness).
He differentiates between three kinds of anxiety (ontic - anxiety of fate
and death; spiritual - anxiety of emptiness and meaninglessness; and moral -
anxiety of guilt and condemnation) and then dissects each of these to show
how they result from a recognition of the human condition, and how the
specific milieu of different historical periods leads to a prevalence of
particular types of anxiety. He next applies the categories of anxiety to
the neurotic and pathological to gain better understanding of their
character. The neurotic, recognizing the danger of non-being builds a false
castle of security when faced with anxiety, and can exhibit intense bouts of
creativity, but at the cost of full human potential, while pathological
anxiety by contrast is a result of people’s total inability to face their
existential anxiety, and results in a certitude that leads to fanaticism.
Healthy anxiety is that which leads to the courage to absorb the threat of
non-being into oneself through an act of courage.
Having laid the groundwork for his book through his
exploration of courage and anxiety as ontological concepts, Tillich makes
his final move to an examination of the dialectic ontological categories of
participation and individuation and their relation to courage and anxiety.
For Tillich, it is in the alignment and unification of these concepts of
being that we find true “courage to be.” Tillich takes us through the
manifold ways in which we can fail to hold these two together. Beginning
with participation, or “being a part of”, he gives examples of Eastern and
Western societies which exemplify the complexities and failures of finding
courage in one’s participation within a group, the primary problems being
the inherent falseness of such a position, and the danger of completely
subsuming the self within the group and thus a loss of one of the poles of
existence. The inverse, an emphasis on individualization is examined through
the modes of romanticism, naturalism and existentialism. While both
romanticism and naturalism aim in the right direction by emphasizing the
importance of the individual self, they do not attain the level of
resistance to dehumanization and self-affirmation realized in
existentialism. This too can be taken to the extreme and a loss of the world
can result.
Tillich has revealed a problem that can only be solved
through transcendence: to face the anxieties of the self-world split one
cannot look to either the self or the world as these are within the realm of
existence and therefore subject to the split. Courage demands looking beyond
this to being itself which transcends the divide. Courage is the faith that
one is acceptable even in the face of unacceptability. Tillich calls this
“absolute faith”, and in the closing chapter of his book he outlines how
this meets and conquers the three forms of anxiety that run throughout
existence.
This biggest strength of Tillich’s Courage to Be
is his analysis and presentation of the human condition. Tillich’s book
speaks to the very real human condition of anxiety in the face of death,
meaninglessness and condemnation while simultaneously capturing the breadth
and depth of human attempts to escape this anxiety. We all encounter death
in our lives but few of us truly “face” it, often losing ourselves in
communities of faith who “deal” with the icky parts for us, or else ignoring
it completely as Western culture does so well in the complete sanitization
of death and dying. We don’t see a corpse until it is drained, filled,
starched, pressed and in full make-up. To see it otherwise would bring us
face-to-face with our own mortality and limits. So it is with Tillich’s
book, for readers on either path (participatory or individualistic),
Tillich’s book can be a harsh experience as he confronts the reader time and
again with the contradictions implicit in their actions and beliefs.
In rooting his theology in ontology Tillich is able to
escape the problems of a theistic God, but it is not clear that he replaces
this with something equally comforting. Confronted with the great abyss of
meaninglessness, Tillich proposes that we are faced with a decision between
courage and despair and that we should choose courage, that is we should
live in a meaningful way in spite of being unsure. Several times throughout
the book he notes that Stoicism with its decision for resigned defeat is a
plausible alternative. While Tillich does show the benefits of choosing
courage over despair, his admitted inability to know for certain that faith
is more “true” does ultimately leave open the possibility for making the
opposite choice. This reader for one remains uncomfortably stuck on the
contingency of a choice for courage.
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