Abstract

Tillich seems to fall in for a rougher treatment at the hands of his commentators than do other prominent theologians of our time. Kenneth Hamilton’s The System and The Gospel was extremely severe on him and although J Heywood Thomas sets out to put positive appreciation before criticism, he is hardly less severe in the end. It is true that the charges of ambiguity and vagueness in concept and term can be levelled against Tillich with far more justice than they could be levelled even against Barth, for instance, and this may be because of the variety of influences that have gone into the making of Tillich’s thought. Thomas is probably correct in insisting that Tillich depends mostly on Schelling but there are whole sections in Systematic Theology which come almost directly from Kierkegaard while the modern existentialists and particularly Heidegger find constant echoes in all Tillich’s writing. Even the characteristic concept of ‘ultimate concern’ with its corresponding ‘ground of being’ is of uncertain parentage.