Ultimate Concern and Finitude: Schelling’s Philosophy of Religion and Paul Tillich’s Systematic Theology

Authors

Michael Vater, Marquette UniversityFollow

Document Type

Article

Language

eng

Publication Date

2017

Publisher

Philosophy Documentation Center

Source Publication

Philosophy and Theology

Source ISSN

0890-2461

Abstract

This paper explores Paul Tillich’s use of the Friedrich Schelling’s philosophy in his explorations of the relevance of historical forms of Christian belief to contemporary culture, where human experience is marked by anxiety and guilt, and where the search for ultimate meanings seems to dead-end in meaninglessness. For Tillich as for Schelling, religion points to metaphysics. The only literal or nonsymbolic truth about God is that God is the affirmation of being over against the possibility of nonbeing, a divine Yes that is an overcoming of a prior No or self-inclusion. The ambiguity of existence as current human beings experience it is itself religious experience.

Comments

Accepted version. Philosophy and Theology, Vol. 29, No. 2 (2017): 384-395. DOI. © 2017 Philosophy Documentation Center. Used with permission.

Recommended Citation

Vater, Michael, "Ultimate Concern and Finitude: Schelling’s Philosophy of Religion and Paul Tillich’s Systematic Theology" (2017). Philosophy Faculty Research and Publications. 700.
https://epublications.marquette.edu/phil_fac/700