You’re lying in bed at 3 a.m. The house is silent, but your brain is screaming. It’s not about your bills or that weird thing you said to your boss. It’s deeper. It’s that cold, creeping realization that life is fragile, maybe even meaningless, and one day you simply won’t exist.
That feeling? Paul Tillich called it the "threat of nonbeing."
Honestly, most of us just scroll TikTok or grab a snack to make that feeling go away. But in his 1952 masterpiece, The Courage to Be, Tillich argued that we can't actually run from it. We shouldn’t. Instead, we have to look it in the eye. Tillich wasn't just some dusty theologian; he was a guy who survived the trenches of World War I and was kicked out of Nazi Germany. He knew a thing or two about real-life terror.
The Three Flavors of Anxiety
Most people use "anxiety" as a catch-all term for being stressed. Tillich, though, broke it down into three specific types that hit differently. Understanding which one is gnawing at you is basically half the battle.
First, there’s the Anxiety of Fate and Death. This is the big one. It’s the "ontic" fear that we are finite. You can’t negotiate with death. It’s coming, and the sheer randomness of fate—accidents, diseases, literal bad luck—reminds us that we aren't in control.
Then you’ve got the Anxiety of Guilt and Condemnation. This is the moral stuff. It’s the feeling that you’ve wasted your life, or that you aren't the person you're "supposed" to be. You feel judged. Not necessarily by a guy in a white beard on a cloud, but by your own potential. You realize you’ve made choices that can't be undone.
Lastly—and this is the one Tillich thought defined the modern era—is the Anxiety of Emptiness and Meaninglessness. This is the spiritual void. It’s the "Why am I even doing this?" feeling. When your old beliefs or your job or your relationships no longer provide a "spiritual center," you’re left with a hollow chest.
It sucks.
But Tillich says this anxiety isn't a disease to be cured by a pill. It’s a part of being human. You can’t have "being" without "nonbeing" lurking in the shadows.
Being a Part vs. Being Yourself
So, how do we cope?
Usually, we pick a side. Tillich calls these two paths the "courage to be as a part" and the "courage to be as oneself."
The courage to be as a part is what happens when you dive headfirst into a group. Think of it like joining a political movement, a fanatical sports fan base, or even a strict religious sect. You lose yourself in the "we." The group gives you meaning, and suddenly, you don't feel so alone or meaningless. The problem? You trade your soul for safety. You become a cog. If the group goes off a cliff, you go with it.
The courage to be as oneself is the opposite. This is the radical individualist. The rebel. The person who says, "I don't care what society thinks; I'm doing me." Existentialists like Nietzsche or Sartre loved this. It sounds cool, right? But Tillich warns that if you go too far, you end up in "solipsism." You’re so focused on yourself that the world loses its reality. You become an island, and islands eventually get swallowed by the sea.
Most of us oscillate between these two, never quite finding the balance.
What People Get Wrong About Tillich's "God"
If you think Tillich is telling you to just "have faith and go to church," you’ve missed the point entirely. In fact, he famously said that arguing for the "existence" of God is actually a form of atheism.
Wait, what?
Basically, Tillich thought that if you treat God like a "thing" or a "person" who exists alongside other things, you’ve made God too small. He called this the "God of theism"—a tyrant who watches you from the sky. Nietzsche said this God had to die because no human can tolerate being a mere object of absolute control.
Tillich agreed.
💡 You might also like: Why Your Real Map of the World is Totally Lying to You
Instead, he points toward the God above God.
This isn't a being; it’s the "Ground of Being." It’s the power that allows anything to exist at all. When your world falls apart—when you lose your faith, your job, and your sense of self—that power is still there. It’s the force that keeps you breathing even when you want to quit.
The Courage to Accept Acceptance
The real "aha!" moment in The Courage to Be is Tillich’s definition of faith. He calls it the "courage to accept acceptance."
Think about that for a second.
Usually, we feel we have to earn our way. We have to be "good enough" or "successful enough" to be accepted. Tillich says the ultimate courage is accepting that you are already accepted, even though you are "unacceptable." You’re a mess. You’ve failed. You’re going to die. And yet, the universe (the Ground of Being) still says "Yes" to you.
Taking that "Yes" seriously is the only thing that actually cures the deep, existential dread. It’s not a one-time thing, either. It’s something you have to do every single morning when you wake up and realize you're still here.
Practical Steps to Cultivate the Courage to Be
You don't need a PhD in theology to use this. It’s about a shift in how you handle your own brain when things get dark.
- Stop trying to "fix" your existential anxiety. If you feel the weight of the world, it doesn't mean you're broken. It means you're awake. Recognize the anxiety of death or meaninglessness as a sign of your humanity.
- Audit your "Participation." Are you hiding in a group or a brand or a lifestyle just because you're afraid to be alone? If your identity depends entirely on being a "part" of something, you're fragile.
- Find your "Spiritual Center" through action. Tillich believed meaning is found in "spiritual creativity." This doesn't mean painting a masterpiece. it means engaging with something—art, a hobby, a person, a cause—that feels bigger than your daily survival.
- Practice "Accepting Acceptance." Next time that voice in your head tells you you're a failure, don't argue with it. Just acknowledge the failure and then realize that the power of life is still pulsing through you anyway. You are here. That is enough.
Tillich’s work is a reminder that being alive is a daring act. It’s "in spite of" the darkness that we find our light. It’s not about being fearless; it’s about having the guts to exist anyway.
Next Steps for Deepening Your Understanding:
- Read the primary text: If you find the concepts intriguing, pick up a copy of The Courage to Be. While dense, it is remarkably short and stays focused on the human experience rather than abstract dogma.
- Explore Existential Psychology: Look into the works of Viktor Frankl or Rollo May. They took Tillich’s philosophical foundations and applied them to clinical therapy, showing how these "ontological" fears manifest in everyday mental health.
- Journal on "In Spite Of": Identify one area of your life where you feel a "threat of nonbeing" (whether it's fear of failure or loss of purpose) and write down what it looks like to move forward in spite of that specific fear.