Abstract

Paul’s Tillich’s formal definition of faith constituted a brilliantly creative attempt to clarify the meaning of a word that tradition heavily burdened with theological baggage. The question of course concerns the extent, if any, to which his definition of the term was compelling and helpful. The first major contention of this essay is that his analysis did not necessitate faith being defined as ultimate concern. The second principal argument is that the treatment he gave to doubt failed to demonstrate its dynamic role in the life of faith. The concluding point is that the truth of faith cannot and should not be separated and shielded from the truths of science, psychology, history, philosophy, as well as from the other disciplines of human endeavor, by conceiving faith to be, as he suggested, in another dimension of meaning