Systematic Theology, Vol 1

This is the 1st part of Paul Tillich's 3-volume Systematic Theology, one of the most profound statements of the Christian message ever composed & the summation & definitive presentation of the theology of the most influential & creative American theologian of the 20th century. This pathbreaking volume presents the basic method & statement of Tillich's system—his famous "correlation" of man's deepest questions with theological answers. Here the focus is on the concepts of being & reason. Tillich shows how the quest for revelation is integral to reason itself. In the same way a description of the inner tensions of being leads to the recognition that the quest for God is implied in finite being. Here also Tillich defines his thought in relation to philosophy & the Bible & sets forth his famous doctrine of God as the "Ground of Being." Thus God is understood not as a being existing beside other beings, but as being-itself or the power of being in everything. God cannot be made into an object; religious knowledge is, therefore, necessarily symbolic.