On Courage

Courage does not remove anxiety. Since anxiety is existential, it cannot be removed. But courage takes the anxiety of nonbeing into itself. Courage is self- affirmation "in spite of," namely in spite of nonbeing. She who acts courageously takes, in her self-affirmation, the anxiety of non-being upon herself. Both prepositions, "into" and "upon," are metaphoric and point to anxiety as an element within the total structure of self-affirmation, the element which gives self-affirmation the quality of "in spite of" and transforms it into courage. 

Anxiety turns us toward courage, because the other alternative is despair. Courage resists despair by taking anxiety into itself. This analysis gives the key to understanding pathological anxiety.  She who does not succeed in taking her anxiety courageously upon herself can succeed in avoiding the extreme situation of despair by escaping into neurosis.  She still affirms herself but on a limited scale. Neurosis is the way of avoiding nonbeing by avoiding being. In the neurotic state self-affirmation is not lacking; it can indeed be very strong and emphasized. But the self which is affirmed is a reduced one. Some or many of its potentialities are not admitted to actualization, because actualization of being implies the acceptance of nonbeing and its anxiety...

This structure explains the ambiguities of the neurotic character. The neurotic is more sensitive than the average person to the threat of nonbeing. And since nonbeing opens up the mystery of being he can be more creative than the average. This limited extensiveness of self can be balanced by greater intensity, but by an intensity which is narrowed to a special point accompanied by a distorted relation to reality as a whole... 

One cannot command the courage to be and one cannot gain it by obeying a command. Religiously speaking, it is a matter of grace.

Paul Tillich