این کتاب دارای دو بخش است. بخش نخست، «در بزرگداشت پل تیلیخ» مجموعهٔ سه سخنرانی است که سن تن از دوستان و همکاران پل تیلیخ، چند روز پس از درگذشت او در مراسم یادبود وی ایراد کردهاند و هرکدام بهاختصار به جنبهای از حیات او پرداخته است. بخش دوم «مقالات پل تیلیخ» دربرگیرندهٔ چهار گفتار از گفتارهای اواخر عمر تیلیخ است که کمابیش با یکدیگر مرتبطند و درمجموع بیانگر نگرش پل تیلیخ نسبت به «آیندهٔ ادیان» محسوب میشود. این چهار گفتار به ترتیب عبارتند از: ۱. اثرات اکتشافات فضایی بر وضع و حال و مقام آدمی؛ ۲. مرزها؛ ۳. انحطاط و اعتبار اندیشه پیشرفت؛ ۴. اهمیت تاریخ ادیان برای الهیدان جامعنگر.
Paul Tillich was a German-American theologian and Christian existentialist philosopher. Tillich was – along with his contemporaries Rudolf Bultmann (Germany), Karl Barth (Switzerland), and Reinhold Niebuhr (United States) – one of the four most influential Protestant theologians of the 20th century. Among the general populace, he is best known for his works The Courage to Be (1952) and Dynamics of Faith (1957), which introduced issues of theology and modern culture to a general readership. Theologically, he is best known for his major three-volume work Systematic Theology (1951–63), in which he developed his "method of correlation": an approach of exploring the symbols of Christian revelation as answers to the problems of human existence raised by contemporary existential philosophical analysis.
Tillich's last words. Literally. His last public lecture is contained in this volume. I enjoyed reading his take on the effects of space exploration on humanity's spiritual condition. His proposal of a "Religion of the Concrete Spirit" is also found here and reflects his encounter with the religions of Japan. Still ahead of his time.