Søren Kierkegaard opposed courage to angst, while Paul Tillich opposed an existential courage to be with non-being,[39] fundamentally equating it with religion:
Courage is the self-affirmation of being in spite of the fact of non-being. It is the act of the individual self in taking the anxiety of non-being upon itself by affirming itself … in the anxiety of guilt and condemnation. … every courage to be has openly or covertly a religious root. For religion is the state of being grasped by the power of being itself.[40]
Tillich 1952, pp. 152–183.