Eros Toward the World: Paul Tillich and the Theology of the Erotic

Alexander Irwin’s original and important work retrieves and develops the often-neglected but extremely fruitful notion of eros in Paul Tillich’s thought. Irwin’s recovery of Tillich’s rich concept shows how eros is a crucial dimension in human existence and a driving force in all human creativity - in art, social ethics, politics, and religion. Yet Tillich’s theology and his personal life also contained a destructive aspect that begs the question of relational justice. Confronting the demonic in eros leads Irwin to augment Tillich’s notion with recent feminist theologies of the erotic and yields a profound and promising avenue for contemporary religious thought.