Abstract
This essay considers the philosophical and theological significance of the phenomenological analysis of Christian faith offered by the early Heidegger. It shows, first, that Heidegger poses a radical and controversial challenge to philosophers by calling them to do without God in an unfettered pursuit of the question of being (through his ‘destruction of onto-theology’); and, second, that this exclusion nonetheless leaves room for a form of philosophical reflection upon the nature of faith and discourse concerning God, namely for a philosophy of religion in a phenomenological mode (as exemplified most clearly in Heidegger’s 1920/21 lectures on the phenomenology of religious life). However, it is argued that the theological roots of Heidegger’s own phenomenological analyses subvert his frequently asserted claim concerning the incompatibility of Christian faith and philosophical inquiry.
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Notes
Letter to Engelbert Krebs, 9 Jan, 1919. Cited in Safranski (1998, p. 107).
For a summary of historical recollections to this effect, see van Buren (1994a, pp. 149–50).
This connection is established by van Buren (1994b).
The Pauline/Lutheran idea of radical faith only served as a desideratum for Heidegger for a few years, roughly corresponding to his ‘phenomenological decade’ (1919–29). But even after primitive Christianity ceased to possess for Heidegger the aura of authenticity, this ‘retrieval’-narrative remained determinative—only now (roughly stated) primitive Greek displaced primitive Christian experience as the desideratum of retrieval.
The use of the contrasting terms ‘theism’ and ‘faith’ in this essay is an attempt to reflect Heidegger’s tendency to categorize onto-theology as a ‘theoretical’ comportment and primitive Christian belief as a more originary, pre-theoretical (roughly, ‘practical’) comportment.
This expression appears in a number of places, but is most famously and fully explicated in the 1957 essay entitled ‘The Onto-theo-logical Constitution of Metaphysics’ in Heidegger (1974, pp. 42–74).
This is the fundamental thesis of Heidegger (1962, p. 19, et passim).
Cf. Heidegger (1985, p. 80).
A version of this claim was made by contemporaries of Heidegger such as Rudolf Bultmann and Max Scheler, and has reappeared often, including in remarks by such diverse commentators as John Macquarrie, John D. Caputo, Hubert L. Dreyfus, and Jacques Derrida.
See also similar remarks in Heidegger (1961, pp. 6–9).
This unresolved tension does, however, seem to have resolved itself into an outright rejection of theology and hostility towards Christianity in the 1930s. See McGrath (2006, pp. 54–7).
Cf. Heidegger (1962, p. 30): ‘Theology is seeking a more primordial interpretation of man’s Being towards God, prescribed by the meaning of faith itself and remaining within it. It is slowly beginning to understand once more Luther’s insight that the “foundation” on which its system of dogma rests has not arisen from an inquiry in which faith is primary, and that conceptually this “foundation” not only is inadequate for the problematic of theology, but conceals and distorts it.’
These phenomenological sketches are revisited and developed in a slightly different register in the other lecture course reprinted in Heidegger (2004) from Summer Semester 1921, ‘Augustine and Neo-Platonism’.
1 Thess. 1:9–10 (NRSV), my emphasis. Cf. Heidegger (2004, pp. 65–74).
An illuminating reading of Heidegger’s phenomenology of religion as a critique of Neo-Kantian philosophy of religion is offered in Crowe (2008).
See the discussion of Angst in Heidegger (1962, pp. 228ff; cf. pp. 172 ff.).
The influence of Schleiermacher on Heidegger (reinforced by Dilthey and Adolf Reinach) has been noted in the major historical studies. See van Buren (1994a, esp. pp. 147–48, 278, 304–18, 342–50); Kisiel (1993, pp. 89–93); McGrath (2006, pp. 49–51, 139–43). But the account given above suggests deeper philosophical affinities than are usually acknowledged. These affinities are given some attention by Crowe (2008, pp. 66–70, 78–79) and Jensen (2008).
It was not Schleiermacher who first opened Heidegger’s eyes to the existence of a pre-theoretical ‘relatedness to being as a whole’. This was already established as a theme for Heidegger’s philosophical research through his earlier study of Brentano, Husserl and medieval philosophy. For an excellent reconstruction of Heidegger’s early path of thinking which gives attention to this topic, see McGrath (2006, esp. pp. 60–119).
Cf. Heidegger (1962, pp. 30, 74–75).
Heidegger himself even notes the novelty of Augustine’s self-questioning in comparison to the philosophical question of the Greek tradition (Heidegger 2004, 124).
This claim is offered here as little more than a speculative possibility for the purposes of the argument. It is conceivable that, for essential reasons, such a claim could only ever have a speculative status. Although, perhaps a study of Heidegger’s late work could provide the means for a textual substantiation of such a reading. It is suggestive, for instance, that Heidegger speaks in his final years of ‘holding oneself open for the arrival, or for the absence, of a god’ (Heidegger 1981, 58).
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Russell, M. Phenomenology and Theology: Situating Heidegger’s Philosophy of Religion. SOPHIA 50, 641–655 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11841-011-0256-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11841-011-0256-2