front cover of Systematic Theology, Volume 1
Systematic Theology, Volume 1
Paul Tillich
University of Chicago Press, 1951
This is the first part of Paul Tillich's three-volume Systematic Theology, one of the most profound statements of the Christian message ever composed and the summation and definitive presentation of the theology of the most influential and creative American theologian of the twentieth century.

In this path-breaking volume Tillich presents the basic method and statement of his system—his famous "correlation" of man's deepest questions with theological answers. Here the focus is on the concepts of being and 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 and the Bible and 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.
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front cover of Systematic Theology, Volume 2
Systematic Theology, Volume 2
Paul Tillich
University of Chicago Press, 1957
In this volume, the second of his three-volume reinterpretation of Christian theology, Paul Tillich comes to grips with the central idea of his system—the doctrine of the Christ. Man's predicament is described as the state of "estrangement" from himself, from his world, and from the divine ground of his self and his world. This situation drives man to the quest for a new state of things, in which reconciliation and reunion conquer estrangement. This is the quest for the Christ.
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front cover of Systematic Theology, Volume 3
Systematic Theology, Volume 3
Paul Tillich
University of Chicago Press, 1963
In this volume, the third and last of his Systematic Theology, Paul Tillich sets forth his ideas of the meaning of human life, the doctrine of the Spirit and the church, the trinitarian symbols, the relation of history to the Kingdom of God, and the eschatological symbols. He handles this subject matter with powerful conceptual ability and intellectual grace.

The problem of life is ambiguity. Every process of life has its contrast within itself, thus driving man to the quest for unambiguous life or life under the impact of the Spritual Presence. The Spritual Presence conquers the negativities of religion, culture, and morality, and the symbols anticipating Eternal Life present the answer to the problem of life.
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Trinitarian Explorations in Systematic Theology
Unpacking Lonergan's Four-Point Hypothesis
Neil Ormerod
Catholic University of America Press, 2026
In his Latin theological textbook, Bernard Lonergan proposed a way of correlating the four trinitarian relations (paternity, filiation, active spiration and passive spiration) with four distinct participations in the divine nature vis. the Incarnation, the beatific vision, sanctifying grace and the habit of charity. This book uncovers the genetic origins of this hypothesis in Augustine and Aquinas, its significance in terms of the grace-nature debate, and the insights it provides to key Christian doctrines such as Christology, ecclesiology, the nature of holiness, and the beatific vision. The author engages with contemporary theological literature to demonstrate the explanatory power of Lonergan’s construct in relation to competing proposals. Vatican I taught that the role of systematic theology is to understand divine mysteries through analogy and through the nexus between these mysteries. This work argues that Lonergan’s hypothesis perfectly fulfils the second of these tasks and thus provides a needed unification of the diverse topics that confront systematic theologians. Each individual chapter has appeared in leading theological journals: Theological Studies, Irish Theological Quarterly and Louvain Studies. The chapters are ordered here not in terms of publication date, but in such a way as to guide the reader through a more synthetic grasp of the issues involved.
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