Man’s ultimate concern must be expressed symbolically, because symbolic language alone is able to express the ultimate.

Paul Tillich (1886–1965), a German-American Protestant theologian and philosopher, developed a “method of correlation” that interprets religious symbols as answers to existential questions. In his mid‑20th‑century work—especially after emigrating to the United States and teaching at Union Theological Seminary—Tillich argued that God and the “ultimate” cannot be captured by literal, objectifying language without distortion. In this framework, “ultimate concern” names the deepest, unconditional orientation of a person’s life (what one takes with ultimate seriousness). The quote reflects Tillich’s insistence that religious language functions symbolically rather than as straightforward description, because the ultimate transcends ordinary conceptual grasp.

Tillich is claiming that whatever matters to us unconditionally—our “ultimate concern”—cannot be stated adequately in literal propositions, as if the ultimate were just another finite object. Literal language tends to reduce the ultimate to something manageable and comparable, which for Tillich becomes a kind of idolatry. Symbolic language (myth, metaphor, ritual, sacrament, poetic naming) does not merely decorate an idea; it participates in and points beyond itself to a depth of reality that cannot be exhausted by concepts. The quote thus defends religious symbolism as cognitively and existentially necessary: symbols disclose meaning where discursive language reaches its limits.