The early Heidegger and medieval philosophy: phenomenology for the godforsaken

7. Primal Christianity

Chapter Seven P R I M A L C H R I ST IA N I T Y Above all Martin Heidegger’s existential analysis of Dasein appears to be nothing more than a secular philosophical presentation of the New Testament insight into human existence. Rudolf Bultmann In the light of the early Freiburg lectures, it is hard to deny Rudolf Bultmann’s claim that a direct relationship exists between the Daseinanalytic and early Christianity.1 Heidegger and Bultmann, a specialist on the New Testament at Marburg University, worked closely together during Heidegger’s Marburg years. Heidegger participated in Bultmann’s seminars on New Testatment theology and gave lectures to Bultmann’s students. In addition to the lecture “Das Problem der Sünde bei Luther ,” which Heidegger gave in Bultmann’s seminar in 1924, the lecture Der Begriff der Zeit was delivered that same year to the Marburg Theologians Society. In this short piece, Heidegger’s thinking on being-untoan -end comes into sharp focus. The likelihood that this was a product of Bultmann’s theological influence is strong. Bultmann in turn was deeply influenced by Heidegger’s “existentialism,” which served him as a conceptual frame within which to understanding the thinking of the first 185 1. Rather than complain that the New Testament is being interpreted [by Bultmann] with “categories drawn from Heidegger’s philosophy of Existenz,” Bultmann argues that we should be “shocked, that philosophy already sees on its own what the New Testament says.” Rudolf Bultmann, “Neues Testament und Mythologie. Das Problem der Entmythologisierung der neutestamentlich Verkündigung,” in Kerygma und Mythos. Ein theologisches Gespräch, ed. Hans Werner Bartsch (Hamburg-Volksdorf, 1951), 15 ff. See Pöggeler, “Heideggers Luther-Lektüre,” 187. Christian community. Heidegger and Bultmann shared an interest in retrieving the ethos of early Christianity. Bultmann wanted to free it from mythology; Heidegger, from Scholastic theology. Heidegger was already well into his religion research by the time he met Bultmann. The two Freiburg courses, “Einleitung in die Phänomenologie der Religion” (1920) and “Augustinus und der Neuplatonismus” (1920–21) (both published in GA60), represent the apogee of his work in the phenomenology of religion. The method and content of these lectures reflect Heidegger’s involvement with radical Protestantism, both professionally and personally. These are resolutely anti-Scholastic, formally atheistic interpretations of theological texts. Together with Heidegger ’s reading of Luther, and “Phänomenologie und Theologie,” they show Heidegger’s ambivalent position on the relationship of phenomenological ontology to Christian theology. Three apparently incompatible possibilities for understanding that relationship emerge from the texts: (1) Bultmann’s contention: Heidegger secularizes Christian theology; (2) Heidegger’s claim in “Phänomenologie und Theologie”: phenomenology leaves theology untouched insofar as theology remains concentrated on its proper subject matter, Christian faith; (3) a third possibility: Heidegger obliterates theology by making it obsolete and ontologically insigni ficant. There are good reasons in support of each of these positions. They can only be made mutually compatible by distinguishing two kinds of theology, one which Heidegger leaves intact (radical Lutheranism), the other which he makes impossible (Scholastic, or more broadly, Roman Catholic). Heidegger “secularizes” in the sense that he “finds” ontological indications (not to be misconstrued as proofs) for the New Testament view of the human being as fallen and thrown. He leaves a Lutheran interpretation of fallenness intact while censoring any metaphysical (i.e., Scholastic) interpretation of fallenness. On the other hand, he obliterates Scholastic theology by denying its foundation: the analogical unity between uncreated and created being. Heidegger’s polemical relationship to Scholastic theology is, then, the key to understanding his approach to the New Testament, to Augustine, and to Christian theology in general. 186 PRIMAL CHRISTIANITY The Early Christian Breakthrough to the Historical Self It is clear from unpublished notes and numerous references in the early lectures that Wilhelm Dilthey’s effort to establish the conditions of historical knowledge had a profound influence on the young Heidegger, perhaps even determining the direction of his religion research.2 In his Einleitung in die Geisteswissenschaften, Dilthey traces historical consciousness back through the Reformation to early Christianity.3 The religious experience of the early Christian community precipitated a turn away from Greek metaphysics and made possible spontaneous expressions of the historical self. Heidegger’s claim, “Christian religiosity lives temporality as such” sums up Dilthey’s thesis (GA60 80). In a differentiation of consciousness that set them...