A couple of weeks ago, I finally started reading a book that had been near the top of my "to-read" list for years: The Courage to Be by Paul Tillich.
The fact that I still haven't finished reading it, and I'm actually nowhere near finishing it, shows the amount of respect I have for this book. I’ve been stopping every couple of pages to take notes. Not because I feel like I have to; I didn't pick up this book with the intention of it being a good source of material for my future writing. It was a selfish reading choice. And I see now why one of my favorite teachers, Rollo May, held Tillich in such high regard.
But let's address the title of this essay before we dive into the subject matter itself. I understand it can come off as click-baity, so I want to lay out what you're in for.
Paul Tillich was a Christian existentialist. Nietzsche was, well... Nietzsche.
In this essay, I want to reflect on a single sentence from "The Courage to Be." A single sentence that might very well reflect the main message of Tillich's book. Where does Nietzsche fit into this? His influence on this sentence is not only obvious to anyone who has read him, but it's also multilayered. Allow me to disect—that is, overthink this sentence—and in the process hopefully show that Nietzsche and at least one Christian thinker agree on, not just an idea, but one of the ultimate questions of life.
Joy is the emotional expression of the courageous Yes to one's own true being.
- Paul Tillich (The Courage to Be)
Joy
I would start by noting that Tillich doesn’t use the word happiness but joy. There is no need to go into the different definitions of these words, but we can all agree that joy is regarded as a more intense feeling. As we will see, this intensity is important.
And it is in the concept of joy that we notice Nietzsche’s influence for the first time. More specifically, we could relate it to one of his masterpieces and most joyful books, pun intended, The Gay Science.
“Gay” in "The Gay Science" doesn’t refer to homosexuality, if you didn’t already know. We often hear how it actually means "The Happy Science." But that's not entirely true either. Happiness is an emotion that Nietzsche showed very little interest in. It’s a joyful science. Joyful, playful, life affirming. It is at the end of The Gay Science that Nietzsche introduces Zarathustra, the protagonist of the book that he would call his "greatest gift to humanity." And in Zarathustra, who is Nietzsche's mouthpiece and the embodiment of his philosophy, we see two important symbols: dance and laughter. Nietzsche's philosophy is that of dance and laughter. Therefore, joy is a much more appropriate emotion than happiness.
Besides Nietzsche, another figure that Tillich was influenced by talks about joy. In his letters to Lucilius, Seneca writes,
“Real joy, believe me, is a stern matter…”
The joy that all three thinkers are discussing is not the joy of fulfilling your base desires. It is a type of joy that will ultimately show how we relate to life itself. Because of that, Seneca says
“Above all, my dear Lucilius, make this your business: learn how to feel joy.”
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