Heidegger und die christliche Tradition: Annäherung an ein schwierwiges Thema ed. by Norbert Fischer and F.-W. von Herrmann (review)

340 BOOK REVIEWS Heidegger und die christliche Tradition: Annaherungan ein schwierwiges Thema. Edited by NORBERT FISCHER and F.-W. VON HERRMANN. Hamburg: Meiner Verlag, 2007. Pp. 288. 18.80 €.ISBN 978-3-7873-1816-2. In May 2006, Germany celebrated the seventieth birthday of Karl Kardinal Lehmann, the president of the German Catholic Bishop's conference for more than twenty years. During the state-ecclesiastical celebration, Bundeskanzlerin Angela Merkel spoke and former Bundeskanzler Helmut Kohl gave the laudatio. The academic celebration, which I had the pleasure of attending, was organized by F.-W. von Herrmann, professor emeritus ofUniversitat Freiburg and Norbert Fischer, ordentliche professor fiir philosophische Grundfragen at Universitat Eichstatt. Karl Kardinal Lehmann's Habilitationschrift dealt with the relation of Heidegger to Augustine of Hippo. Naturally then the conference theme was the relation of Martin Heidegger to the Christian tradition. May 26, 2006, was the thirtieth anniversary of the death of Martin Heidegger. Former assistants or students are now reaching, or have already reached, retirement age. Many wish to share their memories, their correspondence , and their versions of Heidegger's thought and the events in his life. During the 1940-1970, in the German universities, Heidegger was "ganz einfach in der Luft": Heidegger interpretation has become a "cottage industry" in contemporary Germany. The papers from this conference have now been edited and published in one volume, entitled Heidegger und die christliche Tradition. The volume consists of eleven articles with an introduction by the editors, N. Fischer and F-.W. von Herrmann. The articles are of the high quality, though the articles dealing with the poets Holderlin and Rilke are of another genre than the others. In the first article, entitled "Faktische Lebenserfahurng und christliche Religiositat. Heideggers phanomenologische Auslegung Paulinischer Briefe," F.-W. von Herrmann, the editor of Heidegger's Gesamtausgabe for the past forty years and the world's leading scholar on Heidegger, writes on Heidegger's exegesis of Paul's Epistles to the Thessalonians. Heidegger's exegesis is neither dogmatic nor theological-exegetical but rather phenomenological, from the point of view of his own phenomenology of Faktizitat des Lebens. The second article is authored by M. Roesner and is entitled "Logos und Anfang. ZurJohanneischen Dimension in Heidegger's Denken." Roesner treats the place of the Heraclitean and Johannine (Philonian) Logos in Heidegger's thought and notes the differences between them. N. Fischer, a leading light in Augustinian, Kantian, and Heideggerian research in Eichstatt, writes of "Selbstsein und Gottesuche. Zur Aufgabe des Denkens in Augustins 'Confessiones' und Martin Heideggers 'Sein und Zeit.' " The search for God has become a veritable topos in Fischer's writings. J. Greisch of Institut Catholique examines "Warum denn das Warum. Heidegger und Meister Eckhart von der Phanomenologie zum Ereigneisdenken." Meister Eckhart's mysticism and its place in Heidegger's thought has now and again occurred as a scholarly theme. Karl Kardinal Lehmann, the honoree of the conference, contributed" 'Sagen was Sagen ist': Der Blick auf die Wahrheit der BOOK REVIEWS 341 Existenz. Heideggers Beziehung zu Luther." As familiarity with Heidegger's works increases, it becomes ever more evident that Luther had a profound influence on his thought, especially with regard to the inaccessibility of God to human reason. In his contribution entitled "Heidegger und Pascal-eine verwischte Spur," A. Raffelt, from Universitiit Freiburg im Breisgau, attempts to show that Pascal might have been an intermediary for Heidegger's knowledge of the Augustinian tradition. But Heidegger knew Augustine directly. Entia non multiplicentur sine necessitate. P. Coriando, a much respected Privatdozent in Freiburg, adds "Sprachen des Heiligen, Heidegger und Holderlin." The "holy" is a theme, of course, in German literature since R. Otto. Kierkegaard and Schelling are the subject of ]. Ringleben's piece entitled "Freiheit und Angst. Heidegger zwischen Schelling und Kierkegaard." Heidegger may well have become familiar with Angst from the reading Kierkegaard, but his ultimate source, at least indirectly, is Augustine's timor castus and timor servilis. Finally, "Dichten und Denken: Bemerkungen zu Rilke und Heidegger" from the pen of U. Fiilleborn examines Heidegger's relation to the poet Rilke. The article, though probably of interest to Rilke scholars, has more to do with the nature of poetic speech than with Heidegger. Two other essays...