Paul Tillich most explicitly reflects on his experiences in the trenches of World War I in his autobiographical essay included in the book:
📘
On the Boundary
(1936; English translation 1966)
This short but powerful text is Tillich’s intellectual-spiritual autobiography, and in it, he vividly recalls his time as a chaplain on the Western Front during World War I.
🪖 Key Passages and Reflections from
On the Boundary
In On the Boundary, Tillich writes:
“I stood beside the dead and dying for hours, overcome by a shattering grief, my own faith trembling in the presence of mass death.”
He describes:
- The horror of mechanized warfare
- The collapse of the old cultural-theological world
- The birth of existential questioning
- How art, music, and philosophy became lifelines amid destruction
He calls this period the boundary experience—a threshold between:
- Dogmatic religion and existential faith
- Cultural security and spiritual homelessness
- Theism and the God beyond God
🧠 Why
On the Boundary
Matters
This book is more than memoir—it’s a foundational key to understanding Tillich’s theology:
- It shows how WWI became his crucible.
- It marks the transition from German idealism to existential theology.
- It names the experience of spiritual homelessness that he believes defines the modern person.
He writes:
“The boundary is the best place for acquiring knowledge.”
This is a line forged not in seminar rooms—but in trenches.
📚 Related Reflections in Later Works
Though On the Boundary is the primary autobiographical account, his later theological works also echo and sublimate his wartime experiences:
|
Book |
Wartime Resonance |
|
The Courage to Be (1952) |
Confronts the fear of death and meaninglessness - directly tied to trench trauma |
|
Systematic Theology (vol. 1, 1951) |
Develops “the God above the God of theism”, shaped by cultural collapse |
|
The Shaking of the Foundations (1948) |
Sermons about despair, estrangement, and grace amid ruin |
✅ In Summary
If you’re looking for Tillich’s personal memory and existential reflection on his WWI trench experience, the answer is:
📘 On the Boundary (original German: Auf der Grenze, 1936)
It’s not only autobiography—it’s the birthplace of his existential theology.
Would you like a few curated quotes from it? Or a comparison between On the Boundary and Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning as trench-and-camp theologies?
