Paul Tillich What Is Faith Summary

Paul Tillich makes a claim in his writing “What is Faith?” that says that a core part of faith is it being a core part of you as a human. In his second section he says, “This leads to the question of how faith as a personal, centered act is related to the rational structure of one's personality which is manifest in his meaningful language, in his ability to know the true and to do the good, in his sense of beauty and justice. All this, and not only his possibility to analyze, to calculate and to argue, makes him a rational being.”(Paul Tillich What is Faith Pg. 6) I feel this encompasses the idea of what “faith” is well. To some it may be the idea of the infinite, the incomprehensible, something that is completely intangible. This is how
In the dictionary the second definition reads, “strong belief in God or in the doctrines of a religion, based on spiritual apprehension rather than proof.” I do not think that faith should be regarded as strictly a religious belief or a belief in an infinite entity. Many people find the same strong feelings of belief and meaningfulness in countless other things just like religion brings to many. For example if we look at the group that called themselves “New Atheists” referred to in Jonathan Haidt’s “Religion is a team sport” these scientists called religion a delusion and refuted all religious belief, but those actions were in the name of science and reason. These people put their faith into the laws of science. From that they live a meaningful life and the same lessons can be learned through a life dedicated to science or a life dedicated to religion. Faith is the idea you build your own identity and moral structure
So what about those that reject faith fully? In Freud's “Future of Illusion” he explains how religion and faith satisfies many human wishes like love and establishment of morality. He completely rejects all aspects of religion as a delusional fantasy. Unfortunately he does not speak on where we can exist without a personal faith at all. We can make some estimations based on his life and his writing. We know that Sigmund Freud was a good person in his life, a large loving family, brought great works of literature, and could be regarded as the greatest psychologist of all time. So we can see that he lives an extremely meaningful and morally lived life without the presence of a faith in his life. He is extremely intelligent and understands how a moral man should lead his life, in his writing he makes the point that some people may not have the intelligence to understand the difference between right and wrong. Some may say that he puts his faith in is intelligence or into the idea of reason. They may be right, it's hard to make such a conclusion without him telling us directly , but at the end of his writing he states “We shall tell ourselves that it would be very nice if there were a God who created the world and was a benevolent Providence, and if there were a moral order in the universe and an afterlife; but it is a very