| Author Quoted | Paul Tillich |
| Title Quoted | Theology of Culture |
| Date (Year/Month/Day) | 1959/09/04 |
| Imprint | |
| Quotation | For some time I have owed you this letter acknowledging your kind gift of Love Power and Justice with your own words and signature on the flyleaf. At the same time I want to thank you for the other books which Mrs. Leonard sent me. I will have more to say about them later on, when I have studied them more thoroughly. I have not yet finished The Theology of Culture, which in many respects is the most interesting"”but I want at least to give you my impressions of the moment and convey to you something of the gratitude I owe you for the enjoyment derived from the books. Love Power and Justice I found difficult at first. The book did not open up to me until your magnificent chapter on being and power with its, to me, central intuition that "the power of being is its possibility to affirm itself against the non-being in it and against it." From then on the book became an illuminating and exciting experience, and the concept you expressed has helped me to get much out of your other work too. |
| Quotation Source | The Hidden Ground of Love: The Letters of Thomas Merton on Religious Experience and Social Concerns.; Selected and edited by William H. Shannon. / New York : Farrar Straus Giroux. 1985, p. 576 |
| Letter to | Paul Tillich |
| Notes | |
| Link to Merton's Copy |
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