In a confession which Hans-Georg Gagdamer has called "the turn before the turn", Heidegger in a letter dated
January 9, 1919 declared the "system of Catholicism problematic and unacceptable, but not Christianity and
metaphysics - these though, in a new sense."
Then later in lectures in 1920-21, in the lectures on the phenomenology and religions life Heidegger grasps with a new language, in
an attempt to come in terms with Christian life compared to Greek life. In this lecture Hedegger displays a tremendous amount of
theological knowledge arguing to retrieve a pre-philosophical character of concrete life. Then later Heidegger would introvert his
claim and argue for primordial Greek experience rather than uncontaminated pre-philosophical (faith-like) experience.
After that period Heidegger increasingly distanced himself from Christianity, resigning theology to the history of metaphysics as
the ontic science of faith, or part of the "onto-theology". In "Phenomenology and Theology" (1928) Heidegger finally bid farvel to
Christian theology and argues for the formal ontological and existential structures of fundamental ontology over the ontic and existential
character of theology (the positive science of faith).
In the "Onto-theo-logial Constitution of Metaphysics" (1969) Heidegger looks back at the essential origin of metaphysics, and concludes metaphysical
thinking is determined by the difference between Being and beings., and his relation has given structure to both ontology and theology
because both posit an ultimate ground; ontology thinks Being as the first and most universal ground to all beings, and theology thinks Being as the
highest ground above all beings is God. Therefore, the God who has squeezed himself into western metaphysics and into philosophy is not
the god/s recognized in primordial Greek experience, or what would enable us to with awe and wonder experience god/s and divinity - and
before whom we could pray and sacrifice or sing and dance.
The God who has made his way into philosophy, the God caught in the essential metaphysical history of nihilism, governed by the onto-theo-logic, is
furthest removed from the "godless God" Heidegger will pass by with the "the last god/s" in "Contributions to Philosophy (from Enowning)" (2001).
An interpretation of this is that the godless-God represents the possibility of another beginning outside the onto-theo-logic, and thus
outside of the history of nihilism enabling us to critically reconstruct values, before the onset of nihilism.
Coming to my questions:
Who are these god/s that are recognized in primordial Greek experience for Heidegger?
Is the notion of the onto-theo-logical not prescribed in Western Languages?
Would it therefore not entail a massive dekonstruction/reform of Western Languages?
And then how does Heidegger want to put this into practice, how are we readers of Heidegger supposed to stand outside the onto-theo-logical and
even stand outside technology in order to reconstruct values before the onset of nihilism?
And what are the benefits to the primordial Greek experience as supposed of the Americana Nihlisistic Evangelistic-Catholicism?
Best Regards
/Haukur Thor Thorvardarson.
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