Tillich and Fear and Anxiety

In the second chapter of The Courage to Be Tillich addresses the difference between, and the interdependence of, “fear” and “anxiety.” This is very important for Tillich as much of the rest of the book is devoted to “The Courage to Be” in the sense of how this “Courage” offers solutions to these anxieties.

As I understand it, Tillich says that fear is different than anxiety in that fear is directed towards a definite object whereas anxiety has no particular object. Rather, its “object is the negation of every object.” (Courage p. 36.) Anxiety is not, however, simply directed at the unknown. After all lots of things in life are unknown and are faced without any particular anxiety at all. The unknown giving rise to anxieties is the type of unknown that “which by its very nature cannot be known, because it is nonbeing.” (Courage, p. 37.)

Tillich gives, as the clearest illustration of this point, the example of death. The fear component Tillich describes as the fear of dying – the object being the sickness, possible agony, and loss of everything that accompanies the anticipated event of death. It is just a component of the anxiety, which has as its object the unknown of “after” death – the threat of the unknown inherent in non-being. The anxiety lies in the inability of an individual to preserve her or his own being. This basic anxiety, Tillich tells us, cannot be done away with because it “belongs to existence itself.” (Courage, p. 39.)

Tillich identifies three types of anxiety that he focuses on for the rest of the book. They are (1) the anxiety of “fate and death,” (2) the anxiety of “emptiness and meaninglessness,” and (3) the anxiety of “guilt and condemnation.” These basic anxieties of life are what the courage to be, according to Tillich, must help us overcome. These three types of anxiety point to the three directions in which “non-being can threaten being.” (Courage, p. 41.)

Now this may sound quite depressing (that the rest of the book is largely about death, meaninglessness, and guilt) but it is actually quite uplifting because it really is about a positive approach to dealing with those large problems. This courage eventually leads Tillich to ideas about a "God above God" that allows theism itself to be transcended. But there are a few more steps on the way before he gets there...