Product Description

This book presents Paul Tillich at his very best--brief, clear, stimulating, provocative. Speaking with understanding and force, he makes a basic analysis of love, power, and justice, all concepts fundamental in the mutual relations of people, of social groups, and of humankind to God. His concern is to prenetrate to the essential, or ontological foundation of the meaning of each of these words and thus save them from the vague talk, idealism, cynicism, and sentimentality with which they are usually treated. The basic unity of love, power, and justice is affirmed and described in terms that are fresh and compelling.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #315383 in Books
• Published on: 1960-12-31
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 144 pages

Review
"One of the most thoughtful analyses of a basic problem of Christian ethics which we have had in our day."--Reinhold Niebuhr

"Tillich...is one among the few leading Christian theologians who have begun to write in a provocative and fresh way in areas immediately relevant to the problem of ethics."--Philosophical Review

Customer Reviews

Tillich Weighs in on Love
This preeminent 20th century Christian theologian argues in this small book that love, power and justice all imply an ontology and must be understood in aspects of being itself. It is in this book that he famously defines love as "the drive toward the unity of the separated" (25). He also refers to love as the moving power of life and believes all love includes qualities of eros and agape.

Tillich does not believe that one can speak of self-love in anything more than a metaphorical sense. After all, if love is the drive toward the reunion of the separated, it is difficult to speak meaningfully of self-love.

In his exposition of the nature of power Tillich notes that love is the foundation, not the negation, of power. Love is the ultimate principle of justice, although justice preserves what love unites. "The basic assertion about the relation of God to love, power and justice is made, if one says that God is Being-itself" (109). However, everything that one says about Being-itself, must be said symbolically.

Interesting and exciting blend of philosophy and theology
Calvin O. Schrag (emeritus, Purdue University), while a graduate student at Harvard in the 1950s, was Paul Tillich's assistant. He humorously observed that Tillich was considered by some narrow-minded academics to be a "thinker, not a philosopher." _Love, Power, and Justice_, now celebrating its 50th birthday from original publication, is a short volume that integrates Tillich's passions in philosophy, especially existential thought, and Christian theology. The result is in an exciting synthesis of strands of 20th century thought.

I had long desired to do a careful read of this text, so I assigned it to my Ethics class. We went through it, chapter by chapter, and discussed the relevance of each of the volume's three major concepts to our core course concepts: philosophy, critical thinking, freedom, responsibility, and political justice. I believe that the text served its purpose quite well, and would use it again in a course. Teaching it gave me a deeper insight into the mind of Tillich as well as the important ethical concepts of love, power, and justice.

This book changed my life and my thinking
I came across this book while searching for an answer to the question of how--if power comes from God--it can so often be used to destroy works of love and justice. Tillich shows that when power is separated from its ontological oneness with love and justice, it's another example of our alienation from God--of our free will at work in the worst way.

"Ontological" means "the study of being." Tillich says love, power and justice are united in the structure of being(using philosophical terms)or united in the heart of God (paraphrasing from his Systematic Theology--Tillich doesn't say much about God in this book).

When love, power and justice are separated in a situation, it becomes unstable. "Being" (or God) is the power that drives the situation toward stability--that is, toward a situation where love, power and justice are in balance.

In life, the attempt to achieve this balance is dynamic, ever-changing, shifting--sometimes creating a worsening situation, sometimes one that's improving. A Hitler may gain immense power (divorced from justice) in the short-term. Eventually, forces of resistance emerge to stop him.

(Tillich doesn't try to explain why it takes so long to stop abusive situations or why so many people are hurt in the process: he was a philosopher/theologian, not God himself).

There are times when love, power and justice come together in moments of transcendence. In his Systematic Theology, Tillich says that at times we experience the realm of God in a way that is "preliminary and in anticipation."

Because _Love, Power and Justice_ is based on lectures Tillich gave, it packs an incredible amount of insight into six small chapters. It is one of my all-time favorite books, highly recommended, and worth every penny.