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 has always preached liberation. As the Israelites were in bondage in Egypt, so were African-Americans in chattel slavery in America and God delivered both groups. The Black church preaches fallenness regularly as we experience unwise decisions and choices, failure, moments of disgrace, small peccadilloes and even major ones and the return to fellowship from any given fall is reached through grace. “Get up”.  In my reading, there has been no record that Heidegger ever refers to either of these states of fallen-ness in his explication of being and time. However, for me, the correlation between Heidegger and theological fallen-ness are magnificent.

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.