Argument of Love and War

Works of Love is, perhaps, the greatest single piece of literature written in the history of humankind. Astonishingly, it has been greatly ignored by philosophers, laymen, and theologians alike. Unlike its predecessors Works of Love has largely remained unknown in the Western world. In an attempt to introduce my parents to this masterpiece, I discovered that the Russians had not even bothered to produce a translation to this very day! Reading recent reviews written by modern readers—a bare dozen or so—I recognized in their writings precisely how I felt about the book: mesmerized and changed. Most reviewers were both disturbed by the fact that such a life-altering book could have been given a cold shoulder, lasting a swiftly-approaching two centuries.

A person has needs in life, and the needs are arranged and gradual, some of them are basic and necessary, some of them touch his physical needs, and they are the ones that preserve his survival and presence in life, and some affect the mental and psychological side, and they help in his advancement, progress and creativity.

This book is a cry of protest against those who rejoice at the death of ideas and doctrines and declare in a foolish trance that existentialism is dead

Hegel's lectures have had as great a historical impact as the works he himself published. Important elements of his system are elaborated only in the lectures, especially those given in Berlin during the last decade of his life.

These 16 sermons contain in concentrated form some of Tillich's most lambent themes. Although they were first published in the early 1960s, the pieces in question take up preoccupations which continue to haunt us at the beginning of the 21st century.