Because love is not an irrelevant feeling; it is the blood of life, the power to reunite the separated. We can speak without a voice to the trees and the clouds and the waves of the sea.
The Eternal Now by Paul Tillich Part 1: The Human Predicament
Chapter Two: Forgetting and Being Forgotten
The Riddle of Inequality
But we can do this: we can explore the breadth and depth of the mystery of inequality; and we can try to find a way to live with it, unresolved as it may remain. They are at least as foolish as those who dream of the future abolition of inequality.
The Good That I Will, I Do Not
Only if we accept with our whole being the message that it is broken, it is also broken in us. But it is the vision of something infinitely important happening on this small planet, in our bodies and minds.
Heal the Sick; Cast Out the Demons
Or is it because of the lack of healing power in the church, sick in its fear of sickness. But you are supposed to express and represent the healing and demon-conquering power implied in the message of the Christ, the message of forgiveness and of a new reality.
Man and Earth
What does it have to say about the meaning of the earth, the stage of man. What about the short span of time allotted to this planet and the life on it, compared to the unimaginable length of the rhythms of the universe? What about the Christ, who in the New Testament is called the Lord of the universe.
What remains in our present view of reality is the importance of earth and the glory of man. In the story of the flood, God regrets having created man and decides to wipe him off the face of the earth. For only the eternal can save us from our sense of being lost before the time and space of the universe.
The Eternal Now by Paul Tillich Part 2: The Divine Reality
Spiritual Presence
I'm not religious, or at least not a Christian, and I'm certainly not a bearer of the Spirit. These are the works of the Spirit, signs of the Spiritual Presence with us and in us. How can we combine the message of spiritual presence with the experience of an absent God.
It is the work of the Spirit that removes God from our sight, not only for some men, but sometimes for many for a certain period. Life in the Spirit is ebb and flow - and that means - regardless of whether we experience the present or the absent God, it is the work of the Spirit. I could say that the work of the Spirit that frees us from the law is freedom.
The Divine Name
Perhaps he now thinks that religion as such is a misuse of the name of God. There is a form of abuse of the name of God that offends those who hear it with a sensitive ear, just because it did not bother those who abused it without sensitivity. I am now speaking of a public use of the name of God, which has little to do with God, but much to do with human purposes - good or bad.
The frequent use of God's name is often praised, as this is an expression of our being a religious nation. It says something about the power of the divine name, and it says something about him who hesitates to use it. There certainly can be no answer because we do not know the nature of divine providence.
God’s Pursuit of Man
The glory of the Christ and the misery of his followers would not be so clearly visible. Later traditions in the gospels try to smooth out the hard and painful sides of the original picture. This is not necessarily the way of the prodigal son in the parable of Jesus.
This cannot be said of the last group of those who run away from God. And if someone is arrested by God and made aware of the lack of seriousness of his doubt and his despair, the doubt is not taken away from him, and the despair does not cease to be a threat. And if someone is arrested by God and made aware of the ambiguous character of his religious life, religion is not taken away from him.
Salvation
It is the evil one -- the symbol of the distorting and destructive forces in the world -- that keeps us inside. All liberating, all healing power comes from the other side of the wall that separates us from eternal life. It is one of the most memorable facts in the biblical stories about Jesus that a large part of them are healing stories.
However, in great feats of technical control we have a penetration of the eternal into the temporal; they cannot be ignored when we speak of saving power and salvation. Here, the last two prayers of the Lord's Prayer become a request: forgive us our sins and deliver us from the evil one - this is the same thing. Therefore, two other prayers of the Lord's Prayer ask for the same thing: Save us from the evil one and let Your kingdom come.
The Eternal Now
The mystery of the future is answered in the eternal, which we can speak of in images from time. The mystery of the past from which we come is that it is and is not present in every moment of our lives. Few periods knew more about the continued operation of the past in the present than ours.
If the meaning of the past is changed by forgiveness, so is its impact on the future. The mystery of the future and the mystery of the past merge into the mystery of the present. They have not entered into the eternal rest that stops the flow of time and gives us the blessing of the present.
The Eternal Now by Paul Tillich Part 3: The Challenge to Man
Do Not Be Conformed
One can become conformed to oneself and be prevented from transforming oneself through a renewal of the spirit. He means the corrupt state of the universe, and especially of our universe -- the universe of men -- when he warns us not to conform to it. How can the commandment to honor father and mother be combined with the warning of the apostle not to be equal to this aeon.
They did not stop doubting, despite the depth and passion of their faith. But they would resist if anyone applied the apostle's warning to the church itself. But it is difficult not to conform to anything, not even to oneself, and to pronounce divine judgment against idolatry, not so much because the bold act may lead to suffering and martyrdom, but because of the danger of failure.
Be Strong
Paul does not ask of the Christians in Corinth something that is foreign to them. There is the word of the many who are called and the few who are chosen. He who is strong in the spiritual universe is strong in the power of the word.
Of course, he is referring to the faith in the form in which he brought it to the Corinthians. Breaking the way to this ground is the meaning of Christ's appearance. We have not only lost the power of the word; we have also lost the power of a unified, focused personality.
In Thinking Be Mature
It is the temptation of the churches in all generations to justify their human folly by calling it divine folly. The apostle's word is just as valid for them as it is for the church: be mature in thinking. It is neither difficult nor worthwhile to deal with the petty immaturities of the secular mind.
No representative of the church should criticize them carelessly, as if they are speaking with the possession of maturity to those who are immature. It is for this reason that I prefer not to refute the attacks of the secular mind on the church. No mature scholar is humanly mature who has not asked the question of the meaning of his existence.
On Wisdom
Man does not know the way to it and is not found in the land of the living. Therefore, the preachers of wisdom tell us that the first step in acquiring it is the fear of God and awareness of the sacred. Without the experience of fear in the face of the mystery of life, there is no wisdom.
The wisdom that God looks at in the creation of the world, the eternal wisdom, they call fools. Wisdom is the recognition of limits; it is the awareness of the right measure in all life relationships. None of them kept in the middle of the road; they had to find new paths in the wilderness.
In Everything Give Thanks
Certainly, He is creatively present in everyone at every moment, whether we are aware of it or not. But when we are in a state of silent gratitude, we are aware of His presence. experience an elevation in life that we cannot achieve through copious words of thanks, but that can happen to us if we are open to it. He meant that he was aware of the divine presence, but only rarely did he use words of prayer and thanksgiving to express this awareness.
This is not simply a profound theological insight; it is also a practical standard in situations where we are uncertain about accepting or rejecting something. But there is one consolation: we are not separated from the ever-active presence of God, and we can become aware of it every moment. For we are not alone and nothing is ours except what You have given us.