Heidegger’s God

The Thomist 62 (1998): 373-418 HEIDEGGER'S GOD LAURENCE PAUL HEMMING Peterhouse, University ofCambridge Cambridge, England THE QUESTION OF Heidegger's God is normally treated as a supplement, a hanging thread at the edge of the weave of his work. Why should we be concerned with Heidegger's God? Which is to say, is the question of Heidegger's God simply an internal question about Heidegger's thought, or is something else at stake? What is at issue here can to some extent be explained by Karl Lowith's persistent accusation that Heidegger had supplanted God with "being,"1 which is tantamount to saying that in contradistinction to Scholasticism, which appeared to be saying that God and being are the same, for Heidegger, being and God are the same-what's the difference? Lowith even goes so far as to suggest that Heidegger is nothing other than a latter-day Scotist.2 The question may be asked in a more sophisticated form as to what extent is Heidegger still in dialogue with the Christian tradition which arises out of Scholasticism and can it be in any sense clarified by trying to understand better Heidegger's God? Yet in considering the place of God, or the God, gods, and die Gottlichen (let us leave this term untranslated for now) as supplemental in Heidegger's work, already a decision has been made, a forcing of Heidegger's God on to the margin. If I do not believe in God myself (or if I do, and know the God well in 1 Heidegger-Denker in durftiger Zeit (1953; rev. ed. [1960] published in Siimtliche Schriften, Band 8 [Stuttgart: Metzler, 1984); English translation in Martin Heidegger, European Nihilism, ed. Richard Wolin [New York: Columbia, 1995]). 2 Ibid. Cf. the footnote on p. 139 (p. 254 of the English text) which refers to pp. 348-5 I of Heidegger's 1916 Habilitationsschrift, Die Kategorien- und Bedeutungslehre des Duns Scotus, published in Fruhe Schriften (Frankfurt: Klostermann, 1972). 373 374 LAURENCE PAUL HEMMING whom I believe-too well, after all, to let him be touched by this Heidegger) then why should I concern myself with Heidegger's God? Let me instead speak of Heidegger's phenomenology, or politics, or what have you. Commentators who try to make sense ofthe "later" Heidegger's fourfold (earth, heaven, mortals and die Gottlichen) almost always leave unexplained just what might be meant by die Gottlichen, whereas the origin of the other three can be traced in say, ~ucru; (earth), or the analytic ofDasein (mortals), or transcendence (heaven). But didn't Heidegger himself decide this question? Is it not he who forces God on to the margin of his work? Does he not say in a lecture course as early as 1925, "Philosophical research is and remains atheism"?3 And does this not mean we need worry no longer about Heidegger's God? Overwhelmed with confidence, we know in advance what is meant (in this case, by Heidegger, but indeed by anyone) by "God" and "atheism" and "philosophical research." For Heidegger does not only say in these lectures "philosophical research is and remains atheism." This particular phrase "philosophical research" occurs towards the end of a passage that is strictly concerned with phenomenological intentionality. Philosophical research is, therefore, phenomenological intentionality, whatever that might be. It is, Heidegger says, a "new research." This new research, he tells us, "is explained by defining it in retrospect from the past situation of philosophy." So what we heard initially-that all philosophical research is atheism-which seemingly spoke to us as if it had always been this way, proves not to be perennial, but to be something new. Why might atheism belong to phenomenology? Further on, Heide&ger says "Philosophy becomes what a great man once called the 'joyful science."' In the German text the phrase "joyful science," "Frohliche Wissenschaft" is capitalized. The great man is Nietzsche, whose Die Frohliche Wissenschaft tells the story of the madman's proclamation of the death of God. In other words, phenomenology, this atheism, can and does come about only after 3 Published as Prolegomena zur Geschichte des 'Zeitbegriffs, Gesamtausgabe Band 20 (Frankfurt: Klostermann, 1979), 109f. (English translation by T. Kisiel, History...