Overcoming Onto-Theology: Toward a Postmodern Christian Faith

2. Heidegger’s “Theologische” Jugendschriften

2 Heidegger’s zyx “Theologische” Jugendschriften EARLYHEIDEGGER zyxwvut is proving to be every bit as interesting as early Hegel. In both cases the posthumously published zy JzcgelrdScIZriffelr are of intrinsic interest as well as providing invaIuable keys to the subsequent writings. Heidegger’s postwar lectures as Privatdocent in Freiburg (KNS 1919 to zyx SS 1923) have already appeared in volumes 56-59,61, and 63 of the Gcsanrtazqybc. Now volume60 appears under the title Phiilronzerzologie des religioscn Leberrs. It consists of (1)“Introduction to the Phenomenology of Religion,” a lecture course from WS 1920-21 based on five Nmhsclzriffen (IPR); (2) ”Augustine and Neoplatonisrn,” a lecture course from SS 1921 based on Heidegger’s manuscript and three Nnchsclzrifterz (AN); and (3) notes and sketches prepared by Heidegger for a course entitled ”Philosophical Foundations of Medieval Mysticism” (MM). The mysticism course was scheduled €orWS 1919-20 but canceled so that Heidegger couldexpand his first ”Basic Problems of Phenomenology” course. zyxwv I Based on various degrees of access to the manuscripts, these texts have received ,considerablerecent attention prior to their publication.2They can fruitfully be read as belonging to the Ent- ! Published as GA 58.The volume translated into English under that title by Albert Hofstadter (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1982) zy IS from SS 1927and is GA 24. See Theodore Kisiel, The Gcnesis zyxwv of Heidqpr’s Being and Time (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993);John D. Caputo, Demyfhologizing Heidqger (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993);John van Buren, The Yourlg Heidtggar: Rurmr of the Hiddell Kill8 (Bloommgton: Indiana University Press, 1994); and Theodore Kisiel and John van Buren, eds., Readilrg Heideggu from the Start: Essays ill His Earliesf TImrgIlf (Albany: SUNY Press, 1994). Earlier there was the brief discussion in Otto Poggeler, Mnrfirr Heidqger‘s Path of TIrinkirlg (New York: Humanities, 1987; German original, 1963), and Thomas Sheehan, ”Heidegger‘s ‘Introduction to the Phenomenology of Religion,’ 1920-21,” Tlrr P ~ s ~ n a l i s f (July1979),pp.312-24. 30 zyxwvut OVERCOMING ONTO-Tf IEOLOGY zyxwv steh~rlzgsgesclzichteof Eeizzgzyxwv azzd Time.3Equally important, inrelation to thelaterHeidegger, is JohnCaputo’sstory of how Heidegger, before the “myth of the single origin”of thinking in pre-Socratic Greece, finds a dual impetus to thought in early Christianity and Aristotle. I want to suggest a third context for reading what TheodoreKisiel calls ”the religioncourses,” not in the least mutually exclusivewith the other two, namely, Heidegger ’s later critiqueof metaphysics as onto-theology. In ldentity lznd Difference, Heidegger notes that God enters into philosophy, when it is onto-theologically constituted, ”only insofar as philosophy, o f its own accord and by its own nature, requires and determines that and how the deity enters into it.’’ The mainstream of the philosophical tradition that Heidegger has in mind has as itstask to render the whole of reality intelligible , to render everything present to the light of reason; and it makes God into the Highest Being as a means to this its own end. This imperialism puts us in touch with a construct, not with genuine religious experience: ”Man can neither pray nor sacrifice to this god. Before the causa sui, man can neither fall to his knees inawe nor can he play music and dance before this god.”4 Thiscomplaint (1957) echoes theearlierwarning (1949) that Christiantheologyshould not buyintotheonto-theological project but should remember the Pauline reminder that the wisdom of the (Greek) world is foolishness before God.‘ Far from being a Nietzschean assumption that theology is by its servile nature willing and eager to be colonized by philosophy, Heidegger ‘s critique is an open invitation to theology to find a way to be true to itself. The 1949 appeal to Paul echoes in turn the religion courses before us, especially IPR. The connecting linkis the 1927lecture “Phenomenology and Theology,” where Heidegger distinguishes theologyas an ontic sciencefrom philosophyas an ontoFor reservations on this approach, see van Buren’s review of Gsiel, “Is It an Objective or Subjective Genitive?” Internatiotzal PhiIasophicaI QuarferlyXXXV, no. zyxwvu 4 (December 1995),pp. 483-89. Identify zyxwvuts nnd zyxwvutsrq Difference, trans. Joan Stambaugh (New York:Harper & Row, 1969),pp. 56 and 72. In the 1949 Introduction to What Is Metaphysics?, “The Way Back into the Ground of Metaphysics,’’ in Exzstcntinlisnl zyxwv from Dostoevsky to Snrtre, ed. Walter Kaufmann, 2nd ed. (New York: New American Library, 19751,pp. 275-76, HEIDEGGEII'S "THEOLOGISCHE" zyxw JUCENDSCHRIFTEN zyx 31 logical science. Theology has faith...