Without the eros toward truth, theology would not exist. - Paul Tillich

No religion as such produces the New Being. Circumcision is a religious rite, observed by the Jews; sacrifices are religious rites, observed by the pagans; baptism is a religious rite, observed by the Christians. All these rites do not matter — only a New Creation. And since these rites stand, in the words of Paul, for the whole religion to which they belong, we can say: No religion matters — only a new state of things. Let us think about this striking assertion of Paul. What it says first is that Christianity is more than a religion; it is the message of a New Creation.

The Great Commandment demands of everyone the total love of God and the love one's neighbour according to the measure of man's natural self-affirmation. If love is emotion, how can it be demanded? Emotions cannot be demanded. We cannot demand them of ourselves. If we try, something artificial is produced which shows the traits of what had to be suppressed in its production. Repentance, intentionally produced, hides self-complacency in perversion. Love, intentionally produced, shows indifference or hostility in perversion. The means: love as an emotion cannot be commanded. Either love is something other than emotion or the Great Commandment is meaningless.

Plato … teaches the separation of the human soul from its “home” in the realm of pure essences. Man is estranged from what he essentially is. His existence in a transitory world contradicts his essential participation in the eternal world of ideas.