Summary

In this sixth and final chapter, Tillich brings his argument regarding the dyadic structure of courage to a compelling resolution. He reiterates his prior points that courage involves self-affirmation in the face of the threat of nonbeing, a type of affirmation that is always necessarily a contingent risk. This risk and the anxiety that comes along with it is correlated to either pole of courage’s ontological structure: one can risk becoming fully immersed in participation, which would result in a loss of individuality, or one can err on the side of self-affirmation and thus risk losing the world to solipsism. Because of this risk, Tillich argues that courage needs a power of being that transcends this risk and anxiety and is therefore more powerful than both the individual and its world. Because of this transcending...