Faith and Paradox: A Contemporary Consideration of Karl Barth’s and Paul Tillich’s Reception of Martin Luther’s Conception of Christian Faith

Abstract The article discusses the concept of faith in three sections based on Paul Tillich’s and Karl Barth’s reflections. For both, the concept of paradox becomes the focus of their understanding of faith, especially in their writings after the First World War, and both refer to the theology of Martin Luther. However, both Tillich and Barth use the reference to the Reformation’s understanding of faith to construct a specifically modern understanding of religion. This is taken up in the concluding section of this article and developed into a hermeneutical conception. Faith, according to the proposal of these explanations, is to be understood as a symbolically productive reality of the Christian religion.