September 21, 2026

Trust Your Ultimate Concern

Faith is the state of being ultimately concerned.

Paul Tillich opens Dynamics of Faith, published in 1957, with this definition of faith as an act of trust rather than an assent to doctrine. He wrote it while teaching at Harvard, addressing a generation suspicious of religious language but still hungry for something to organize their lives around. For Tillich, faith means surrender: you hand over your whole self, not to a set of facts, but to whatever concern claims you above all others. The real question was never whether someone has faith, but where they have placed their trust.