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theses

Standing at the intersection of intellectual history, religious history, and the history of psychology, this dissertation examines the German-American Protestant theologian Paul Tillich (1886-1965) and, through him, the encounter between religion and psychoanalysis in American thought after the Second World War. Tillich was a public intellectual, a minor academic celebrity, and a broker in the mid-twentieth-century rapprochement between the liberal Protestant ministry and the therapeutic helping professions, especially psychoanalysis. Tillich incorporated Freudian and existentialist insights about human nature into his theological outlook while also offering sharp critiques of depth psychology in its purely secular forms. In successive chapters, this dissertation details Tillich’s psychoanalytic critique of religious moralism, his dialogues with secular psychotherapists, his complex and tumultuous inner life, and his influence on pluralist and post-Protestant religious trends that emerged during his later years. Throughout, I aim to portray Tillich’s biography as well as his theological and psychological thought against the backdrop of his intellectual milieu in post-World War II America, an environment that I label the “inward moment.”

ETD_10392

Ph.D.

Includes bibliographical references

doi:10.7282/t3-k8ww-x468

ETD doctoral

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