Born in 1886 in Starzeddel, town of Brandenburg. His family moved in 1900 to Berlin, where his father, a Protestant pastor, had accepted a position at the Royal Hall. Between 1904 and 1909 he studied theology at the universities of Berlin, Tübingen and Halle. At that time the student will receive the lasting influence of FWJ Schelling's later philosophy.

Between 1908 and 1918 developed his work as a pastor in the vicinity of Berlin during the war, as military pastor in the Western Front. He teaches at the Faculty of Theology Berlin between 1919 and 1924 and during those years leading a working group of socialist orientation in which it is discussed the religious situation of the present. Between 1924 and 1933 developed his teaching in theology and philosophy of religion at Marburg, Dresden and Frankfurt am Main. With the advent of National Socialism makes the decision to leave Germany and come with his family in November 1933 in New York. There he held until 1955 publicística intense and intellectual work; his philosophical and theological thinking will left the religious socialism of earlier stages to opt to anthropology and philosophy of existence. Between 1955 and 1962 he taught and lectured as Professor at Harvard University, then, until his death in 1965, as professor of theology at the Divinity School of the University of Chicago.

In his extensive work in German and English are The Shaking of the Foundations (1948), The New Being (1955) and Systematic Theology, in three volumes (1951, 1957, 1963).