How Tillich and Kohut both find courage in faith

Courage has long been considered an important virtue, but throughout most of history its prime location was the battlefield. The chief exemplars of courage were warriors. Theologian Paul Tillich and psychologist Heinz Kohut have both written about courage, and each in his own way contributes to a new and broader understanding of courage, making it more applicable to the battlefields of everyday life. Specifically, they explain why courage is needed to fight emotional and spiritual dangers— and why religious faith vitalizes the self to overcome those dangers. Although the ideas of Tillich and Kohut on courage have been critiqued separately, this essay is the first attempt to integrate the two writers' theories. As psychologists and theologians look for intersections between their disciplines, this case study on courage shows how two prominent representatives in their fields are more compatible than people may realize.