Date: Thu, 28 May 1998 21:21:24 -0700
From: Mike Staples <mstaples-AT-argusqa.com>
Subject: Re: God and Being


Prof. Dr. Rafael Capurro wrote:

> Michael,
> the question of god and the question of being are indeed, according to
>
> Heidegger (and in contra-diction to metaphysical tradition) two
> different
> questions concerning two different matters. According to H.
> metaphysics
> (Aristotle) was asking for a (!) being that would give the measure for
> all
> other beings (ontology=theology). H. intends to separate both
> questions: the
> being of god is not the measure for the being of beings. Why? Well
> because
> according to metaphysics the being of god is conceived as permanent
> presence
> (aei nun, nunc stans). H. _falsifies_ (in a Popperian way) metaphysics
> by
> showing that there is at least one being (Dasein) whose being is not
> only
> presence but - time (past and future). Further on H. shows that this
> first
> approximation to the question of being only provides a _relative_
> foundation
> of ontology, given that other ways of being (of beings) such as
> mathematical
> objects, readiness-to-hand etc. cannot be related to the preliminary
> _foundation_ of the analytic of Dasein without distorting in some way
> their
> specificity. Further on H. states that there is no _a_ frame of
> casting
> being but that this question is subjected to historic variations.
> Hegel had
> tried to connect all this forms into a single (hi)story but the price
> for
> this is a a-historical (theological) fundament (metaphysics once
> again).
> There is no question of substituting Got for Being, but a question of
> how
> God's (and human's) being can be casted. Tradition thought human
> _being_
> according to _the_ Being of God, identifying indeed God and Being.
> Heidegger
> is not just doing the contrary but trying to separate the question of
> being,
> from the question of god and finally also from the question of Da-sein
> as
> far as Being and Dasein _need_ each other but are not _the same_ (in
> the
> sense of _das Gleiche_, maybe in the sense of _das Selbe_ i.e. that
> they
> belong together although they are ant-agonistic). By thus re-placing
> the
> question of being outside the question of god H. at the same time lets
> open
> the way(s) of casting god's being (I recall in this regard that K.
> Rahner
> was one of the first theologians to think the question of an evolution
> of
> christian _dogmata_...). So, thinking being within the context of
> _a-letheia_ give us the opportunity not only to _state_ the question
> of god
> from a very different horizon as done by (metaphysical) tradition but
> also ,
> given the historicity of being, to become open for a casting of being
> _inside_ which a god may shine. This is not a gnostic proposition of
> _waiting for Godot_ but it means simply the acknowledgement that there
> is
> (probably) a being whose appearence (or disappearence) is not
> dependent
> (alone) on our casting. Yes, there is some _theologia negativa_ in all
> this,
> if we here the word _negative_ in the sense of the _lethe_ i.e. as a
> dimension possibilitating the shining. In short: no identification of
> being
> and god but a separation of both questions (and subjects), although
> replacing the question of being into an existential context gives rise
> to a
> _new_ thinking of god's being. All this remains terribly speculative
> if we
> do not conceive it in the sense of a _formale Anzeige_ i.e. as a start
> for
> living without fundament, open (among others) to _some-thing_ we have
> being
> calling (in both sense of the word) got.
> kind regards
> rafael

Dr. Capurro. Thank you for this explanation. I have enjoyed all of your
postings, but this one especially. At the start, I offered up a couple
of quotes that, as I understood them, suggested that the understanding
of God might be favorably altered by thinking about our understanding of
God from the position of Heidegger's understanding of Being. Moreover,
our understanding of Heidegger's understanding of Being might be
favorably altered by thinking about it from the position of our
understanding of God.

What I had in mind at the onset was not, I think, a traditional view of
God as a big guy with a white robe. I had in mind something more of an
experience tha is fundamentally mysterious, or numinous. The idea of God
as a being seems rather strange to me personally, though I have several
born-again Christian friends who do indeed think like this.

It seems to me that the objection to my quotes came in the form of
insisting that the very term "God" is a metaphysical concoction with a
history of God-as-a-being, which could not be overlooked. "Being" meant
one thing (forgive the loose use of 'thing'). "God" meant another thing,
and it simply confused the issue to say that the term "God" meant
something less like a being, and more like Being per se.

Once this was agreed to, it apparently ment that anyone who attempted to
think "God" from a position other than the traditional metaphysics of
a-being, was confusing the issues. My impression was that this is where
you came into the picture by saying, "Hold the phone! It isn't that
simple. Some people have understood God in ways that are indeed more
in-line with Heidegger's thinking of Being." Now, is that what you said,
or did I get that wrong? Because if that IS what you said, and it holds
water, then it may not be so easy to write off the substitution of God
for Being Steiner suggests, without asking after Steiner's understanding
of God first.

Michael Staples






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