Risk and Failure

He who risks and fails can be forgiven. He who never risks and never fails is a failure in his whole being.


Paul Tillich

 

Cruelty towards others is always also cruelty towards ourselves.


Paul Tillich

 

Your short reply makes me wonder what you really know about Tillich.

He was born in Germany, not the US, though it was in the US that he gained his fame, especially with the publication of his multiple-volume set of "Systematic Theology". He was quite active in his opposition to Nazi Germany. That is why he had to leave and could not return until after the war. In fact, I do not know if he ever returned to Germany. He did visit Europe in 1936 and his travel diary of that trip has been published ... it is quite interesting in that it is not theological, but observations of what he saw going on and the tragic growth of the Nazi's in Europe. Perhaps that makes him liberal in your view.

He was not enamored by Communism as some would like to think. This is quite clear in the Travel Diary, 1936.

Perhaps you simply do not understand what he wrote. Have you read "The Shaking of the Foundations" or any of his others writings or are you simply mouthing what others say?

You cannot judge him as liberal by the thinking of today as he died in 1965. Just as we do not want to be judged by the thinking of an era in the future you should make your decision of him according to the times when he was alive. [Your use of "is" seems to indicate, Rev, that you thought he was still alive.]

Even if he was ultra-liberal, that does not mean that the quote is not accurate.

Anyway Rev. I think you interpret scripture through the current lens of right-winged philosophy in the US.

Blessings.

 

I have no problem with your analysis.

I think Tillich was talking about the person who will never take a stand or a chance ... note the word "never" in the quote.