Paul Tillich: The Escape from God (Live Reading)

Having just finished The Sickness Unto Death, we will take a short time to read something related before beginning again on Kierkegaard.

In The Sickness Unto Death, as well as in other works, such as The Philosophical Fragments, Kierkegaard discusses the notion of offense at the paradox. Simply put, offense at the paradox is an occurrence where one lashes out at something that does not conform to our expectations. Such an object that offends us will be blamed for what amounts to a limit of our powers. In the sermon, The Escape from God, Paul Tillich (1886–1965) meditates on a similar theme which we can hopefully use as an additional opportunity to reflect upon the theme of offense in Kierkegaard.

Amazon Link: https://www.amazon.com/Shaking-Foundations-Paul-Tillich/dp/1620322943/

PDF: https://libgen.li/adsc35481e407f22aa64c2d285dbd7caf684WQBOUKC

Tillich on Kierkegaard:

[...] "Kierkegaard was largely a forgotten individual in his century. I recall with pride how as students of theology in Halle we came into contact with Kierkegaard's thought through translations made by an isolated individual in Württemberg. In the years 1905-1907 we were grasped by Kierkegaard. It was a very great experience. We could not accept the theological orthodoxy of repristination. We could not accept especially those "positive"—in the special sense of "conservative"—theologians who disregarded the historical-critical school. For this was valid science which was carried on by this school. It cannot be denied if honest research is conducted into the historical foundations of the New Testament.

"But on the other hand we had a feeling of moralistic distortion and amystical emptiness, an emptiness in which the warmth of the mystical presence of the divine was missing, as in the whole Ritschlian school. We were not grasped by this moralism. We did not find in it the depths of the consciousness of guilt as classical theology had always had. So we were extremely happy when we encountered Kierkegaard. It was this combination of intense piety which went into the depths of human existence and the philosophical greatness which he had received from Hegel that made him so important for us. The real critical point would be the denial that Hegel's idea of reconciliation is a genuine reconciliation. Man is not reconciled by the reconciliation in the philosopher's head. We will hear the same thing from Marx later on." (From A History of Christian Thought)

On the Friday Meetings:

The Friday meetings started on January 1st, 2016 with an initial goal of reading through the first half of Kierkegaard's works. Due to continued interest, we have decided to return to previous works for review, study more background texts, and continue on beyond the first half of Kierkegaard's writing.

Works read so far in the series:

• The Concept of Irony, With Continual Reference to Socrates (Kierkegaard)
• Notes of Schelling's Berlin Lectures (Kierkegaard)
• Either/Or (Victor Eremita, et al.)
• Two Upbuilding Discourses (Kierkegaard)
• Fear and Trembling (Johannes de Silentio)
• Repetition (Constantin Constantius)
• Three Upbuilding Discourses (Kierkegaard)
• Four Upbuilding Discourses (Kierkegaard)
• Two Upbuilding Discourses (Kierkegaard)
• Three Upbuilding Discourses (Kierkegaard)
• Philosophical Fragments (Johannes Climacus)
• Johannes Climacus or De Omnibus Dubitandum Est (Johannes Climacus)
• Concept of Anxiety (Vigilius Haufniensis)
• Prefaces (Nicolaus Notabene)
• Writing Sampler (A.B.C.D.E.F. Godthaab)
• Four Upbuilding Discourses (Kierkegaard)
• Three Discourses on Imagined Occasions (Kierkegaard)
• Stages on Life's Way (Hilarious Bookbinder)
• Concluding Unscientific Postscript to the Philosophical Fragments (Johannes Climacus)
• The Sickness Unto Death (Anti-Climacus)

Works read for background:

• The First Love (Scribe)
• The Berlin Lectures (Schelling)
• Clavigo (Goethe)
• Faust Part I (Goethe)
• Antigone (Sophocles)
• Axioms (Lessing)

Some background on Soren Kierkegaard in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy:
https://iep.utm.edu/kierkega/