Theological Influences in Heideggers’s Being and Time
“Man that is born of a woman is of
few days and full of trouble”, Job 14:1. According to the scriptures, Job was a
perfect and upright man and feared God and eschewed evil. He made this
statement after having lost all that he had, including children and property,
in addition to having sores all over his body. He was scorned by his friends
and was advised by his wife to curse God and die. His response was, “I know that my redeemer
liveth and all of the days of my appointed time, I will wait for my change to
come, Job 14; 14.
The former verse, Job 14:1, seems to incorporate meanings for all of the
structures and analyses of Dasein , as
Job contemplated his being in the world. The understanding and wisdom that
Heidegger explicates of Being in the world also has some resonance with what one
reads in the Books of Wisdom, (Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes. These books, as
well as Heidegger’s Dasein and mit-Dasein, express an everydayness of being in
the world with others and the things in the world. These books also relate an
everydayness of being in the world, highlighted by daily activities and often
exclusive of the themes of salvation or religion.
Listening to lectures on
Heidegger’s’ Being and Time, it
resonates very strongly with theology and the sermons and teachings that one
hears in a church setting, even though his
approach or interpretation of the same theme is different. Upon learning that
theologians and religious persons have commented on the relationship of
theology to Heidegger, I am extremely elated to learn that I have also seen it.
Without any previous knowledge of him, I see a theological perspective in the
phenomenological attitude that is wonderfully radiant. Philosophy and theology
are so intertwined that they both reflect on the major themes of being and
time. When reading the Scriptures, one is positioned in a transcendental mode,
(which some theologians would call spiritual) and is able to grasp different
meanings and aspects of being in the world.. In this paper, I would like to illuminate
the similarities of fallenness found in theology and Heidegger.
Fallen-ness is considered perhaps
the most universal theme in the Scriptures, as one learns of the fall in the
Garden of Eden and the broken relationship with God. Everything else that
follows is related to understanding the fall and the pathway to return to unity
with God. The fall from Grace is the other dominant fall that is one of the
doctrines of the church. This fall is a potential for everyone as he is thrown
into the world and his return to a state of fellowship. In an article entitled,
Heidegger’s Hermeneutic of Fallenness, Journal
of the American Academy of Religion, James J. DiCenso discusses Paul Tillich’s (theologian) hermeneutical
interpretation of the biblical narrative of the Fall as an event that happened
at a particular time in history (spatial and temporal). The Fall, represents a
universal human situation. Fallenness is experienced in a variety of ways in
the course of individual and social experience. Here Di Censo, is quoting Tillich,
who says that the notion of “falling”, addresses issues and concerns that are
endemic to the human situation. The problem of fallenness is a problem of
estrangement from the ground of being. Within the context of estrangement, one
realizes transitional movements represented in innocence, temptation and
lessons gained from experience. Paul Tillich’s argument requires the
presupposition of an understanding of the nature of “essential being”. He
clearly makes a distinction between essence and existence; existential states
fluctuate. Perhaps, Tillich had Job in mind; the essence of Job never changed
from being an upright and perfect man, though the vicissitudes that presented
themselves to him placed him in a constant state of fluctuation.
Both Tillich and Heidegger are
similar in having dualistic metaphysical presuppositions about being i.e.,
dualistic conceptual structures. These have been criticized by a variety of
contemporary philosophical schools, and philosophers of religion. Heidegger
comes under criticism, also for his questionable paradigms of the nature of
being. The paradigm and the formulations about the nature of being for which Heidegger
is being criticized “are ordered around one fundamental axis: that which
separates the authentic from the inauthentic and…primordial from fallen
temporality”, p. 668. In this respect, Heidegger and Tillich are similar in
having dualistic metaphysical presuppositions about the nature of being. Heidegger’s
dualism is found elsewhere in similar distinctions in Being and being, ontic
and ontological, and hermeneutical and assertive language. Some have come to
the defense of Heidegger’s dualism by stating that perhaps hermeneutical
inquiry sees a critical capacity to make critical distinctions between the
fallen and the authentic with historical, linguistic social and ethical
relevance.
The dualism that is seen in
Heidegger, as in Being and being, is not necessarily dualism for Heidegger; for
him, Being refers to the being of
beings. This resonates with me and I may absolutely agree with Heidegger. I
understand being as an extension of Being. As I understand the Christian
theology of being, man is just an extension of God, the image of God or the
likeliness of God. “So God created man in
his own image, in the image of God, created he him, male and female created he
them, Gen. 1:27. There is no apparent dualism here. For Heidegger, human
beings are designated by the term, Dasein that he uses to say “being there” or
placement in the world. Being is an issue for Dasein and is also disclosed to
it. There is a relationship between humans and Being, Being is also understood
as the modality of being and in its constitution and it is active, linguistic
and relational. There are temporal activities of human beings and Heidegger
does not delineate static categories. This idea is further expressed in “there
exists no comportment of beings that would not understand Being, and on the
other “no understanding of Being is possible that would not root in a
comportment toward being”, p. 669. The ontologically inquiry of human existence
supersedes the fixed culturally-derived modes of being. Such modes of being
represent fallen-ness and inhibit the possibilities of being and the way in
which we understand others.
For Heidegger, the ontic modes of
being are related to the condition of fallen-ness. The ontic notion of being involves
the existential apprehension of things as “present-at-hand. These things are
reflected upon in everyday existence. For a true understanding of the nature of
being, there must be some reflection. In a mean-ends orientation to
understanding the things in the world, there are pre-determined possibililites
because of a foreknowledge that we have and this often repressed. This is
fallen-ness. In the Fall in the garden, Adam received knowledge and became
aware of the things “present-at-hand” and lost his foresight. “For God doth know that in the day ye eat
thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good
and evil, Gen. 3:5. Adam did eat of the fruit and this disobedience
resulted in his fall from true reflection; and with this ontic existence in the
world, he became aware of things present-at-hand in a constricted sense. However, upon reflection, we still ponder
what it was that Adam lost. Some say that it was his perfection as a being,
even though we only have some idea of what that perfection is or was. In some
other ways of thinking about the fall of Adam, it appears that in his loss, he
also gained something. He gained knowledge of what right and wrong and the
moral nature of man. However, we acknowledge that some gains are fruitless and
very harmful depending on their effect. I settle my own conflicts in stating
that the imperfect can never really know or understand the perfect. And in
fact, only Adam knew what it was that he really lost. In our state of
fallen-ness, we can only reflect upon it. Christians also speak of a fall from
Grace.
Grace
often refers to the sixth dispensation of time, i.e., one of the seven
covenants God has established with human kind in Scripture and the way in which
God has dealt with man. The seven dispensations are innocence, moral
responsibility, human government, promise, law, grace and finally eternity. The
dispensation of Grace refers to the unmerited favor of God and is available to
all through limitless mercy and forgiveness. It is given to us just for the
asking. As we ask for his forgiveness, we are in a state of grace. Our state of
imperfection often gives way to behaviors that are not what they should be and
we temporarily lose the grace that has been given to us. Thus, one speaks of a fallen
state in grace. This fall represents, otherwise, not being in fellowship with
God. Black Theology is unique and strong.
Long before Liberation Theology became a movement, the Black Church Egypt America
Back to Heidegger, the connection
between hermeneutics and the problem of fallenness involves an interpretation
of things present-at-hand upon something we have in advance. This
interpretation is inclusive for all of the occurrences in our lives, the
everydayness of life, as well as exegesis of text. This is wonderful and this
interpretation is in fact a foundation for understanding phenomenology as we
partake in the transcendental world and are able to see sides, perspectives and
aspects of any given object. For me, this happens also in the many ideas that
we have in life that parade through our minds at any given point in time. The
interpretations of the everydayness of life, indulged in hermeneutics are
easily attributed to our cultural and linguistic experiences. Heidegger makes a
clear distinction between hermeneutic and apophantic modes of language use.
Apophantic language is assertive, points something out and is indispensable for
practical affairs. However, it pre-supposes an interpretive apprehension of a
reality within the framework of some paradigm, worldview, or intended object. Hermeneutic
language takes primacy over apophantic language because any assertion has “its
ontological origin” in “interpretation which understands, pg 671. The
relationship between hermeneutical and apophantic language parallels the
relationship between the ontological and the ontic.
My observation has been that there
is still a major problem with language in the transcendental or phenomenological
attitude. This is clearly seen in Being and Time as Heidegger makes an effort
to communicate to us what he is apprehending or seeing. To find within a
language expressions that mean the same to all of us is no easy feat. Ineffable
is the term that we used when we mean something cannot be expressed in words. I
believe that all of what Heidegger wants to express is not available to others.
Hermeneutics, a type of ontological inquiry does not dwell within
pre-interpreted givenness of things that are ontic but rather into the nature
of the interpretations. This is the work of Heidegger, as he dwells on the
nature of being rather than some pre-interpreted meaning. Ontological inquiry
as hermeneutical offers a fruitful approach to the problem of fallenness.
Dasein exists within cultural worlds and there is a collective nature of human
existence, often referred to as the “they world”. Because of this, the
individual often becomes subjected to the distortions found in particular
social worlds or fixed interpretive worldviews. This immersion constricts and
conditions the human experience. It becomes difficult to retrieve ones self
from this world as one exists in determined frameworks of intentionality
defined by goals, values, judgments and biases. All of these things repress
alternate possibilities of seeing and acting. Perhaps, in a nutshell, this is
what Heidegger defines as fallenness.
In this critique of fallenness from
the perspective of Heidegger, theological and religious persons, I have
attempted to demonstrate my grasp of one of the major aspects of Dasein, the
other being death. A person who has lived and had various and diverse
experiences in life is able vicariously live and see what Heidegger is
attempting to express. All of the aspects of Dasein that he writes about in
Being and Dasein are very profound and attest to being in the world. Though he
speaks about the everydayness of Dasein and its participation in the world and
with others, it is in the phenomenological attitude that these meanings become
more available and disclose themselves. I love phenomenology for what it does
for all of us and being an inclusive philosophical discipline. I more readily
see clear distinctions between Husserl and Heidegger and the more profound
nature of Being and Time.
Bibliography
Dicenso, James, Heidegger’s Hermeneutic of Fallenness,
Journal of the American
Heidegger, Martin, Existence and
Being, H. Regnery Co, Chicago ,
1949
Heidegger, Martin, Being and Time,
Harper, New York ,
1962
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