From: Laurence Paul Hemming[SMTP:llh21@xxxxxxxxx]
Sent: 18 April 1996 09:30
[text deleted]
<<I wonder if we might consider the more gristly fare of what is actually
going on in Heidegger's understanding of God (harder to chew on but more
nourishing in the end).
For Heidegger, the proposition (for those who might have trouble with
Heidegger and propositions, I refer them to Zur Sache des Denkens, in
particular the last paragraph on p. 25)
"God does not exist"
speaks only of existence and says nothing whatever of God. This is less
cryptic (though no less demanding) than it seems if one bears in mind that,
for instance, for Eckhart one can speak of God's essence, but that he held
God did not exist.
Heidegger is a philosopher of *existence* - is this why he does not
undertake a *theology* (of God)? Here the very term "atheism" breaks down.
"Atheism" is perhaps no more than a further determination of
onto-theo-logy. But then it would be, wouldn't it?>>
How could there be a theology of anything other than God - theos, as you
know, simply means God (or god, if you will). And in what way does the term
atheism break down - H. affirms on multiple occasions that philosophy is
methodologically atheistic. I don't have the text to hand but I believe H.
says this clearly in his 1924 lecture on the Concept of Time. Something
like it is also presupposed in the critical KNS 1919 course, according to
Theodore Kisiel, where H. calls for a kind of 'religious reduction' (ie
bracketing out). For crudely, philosophy concerns itself with the original
ontological conditions of the possibility of _any_ worldview - so it must
be funadamentally atheistic.
That he himself was apparently unwilling or unable to consistently reflect
this in his own thought in the very early 20's - is presumably a
consequence of his own ontic commitment to christian faith of some kind.
This conflict surely finds itself expresed in his sense that he is a
christian theo_logian_ (letter of 1921) - which summarises both his own
commitment to some form of faith and also a search for the springs out of
which faith was possible (a search which ended up as the philosophy of
fundamental ontology - a philosophy which was formally atheistic).
In the same way his decisive commitment to methodological atheism - again,
according to Kisiel, comes in October 1922 (in the Introduction to his
proposed work on Aristotle) - and is allied with something like a personal
loss of faith (or prehaps, transformation of faith) following H.'s reading
of Nietzsche's friend Franz Overbeck.
<<To undertake the "step back" and so to move out of onto-theo-logy would
mean to cease to work with terms like "atheism" "theism" etc, but does it
therefore mean to cease to have faith or to bring oneself into faithful
proximity with Christian revelation?>>
Again what I think is a key question - if H's thought/philosophy is
methodologically atheistic in what way can it offer any resources at all to
bring you into 'faithful proximity with Christian revelation'? Of course if
this is so - you may well have faith - but its grounds will be wholly other
than anything which is to be found in H's thought - since his thought
(indeed all thought, presumably) can have nothing to say to the life of
faith. In this way of looking, faith can hardly be called an ontological
region at all (in the way that H. says that the particular sciences are) -
it is not explained, or grounded by fundamantal ontology - fundamental
ontology does not uncover the grounds of its possibility.
It's interesting in this light that some of those theologians who have
recently reflected on H. have been led to draw upon the theology of Karl
Barth - which is crudely, a theology of 'supernatural' revleation.
On the other hand - there is a doublesidedess about this - for H. by the
late 20's, and 30's does seem to think not just of christian institutions
but of christian faith itself as in some way just another irredeemable
facet of metaphysics. In this way then faith is simply another mired
ontological region. Presumably this would be tied in with H's commitment
not just to methodological but also to ontic atheism and also to his
mythopoetic philosophising/thinking (as you will) from 1929 onwards. So,
his thought ironically becomes the new 'piety' and his thought is to be the
site of the new beginning - the new encounter with the Holy. And is it only
when this project finally collapses (?1945) that H. moves again to some
kind of partial reconciliation with christian faith.
Sorry to have gone on so long.
Cheers,
Jacob Knee
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