Abstract
AbstractIn Heidegger, fear reveals the thing to be feared in a fuller way than theory can. However, anxiety is distinct from fear, for while fear is directed towards a specific thing within the world, anxiety is anxious about existence itself, disclosing the totality of Being. A similar method could be applied to faith. Arguably, faith is a mood; a feeling of trust in the divine that can be phenomenologically consistent and overwhelming. However, faith is not necessarily directed towards a specific object within the world. One cannot point and say: “God is right there!” Indeed, attempts to do so through miracles, teleology or dialectics have been roundly critiqued by the Western tradition. But then what is this mood of faith disclosing if not something within the world? Perhaps, like anxiety, faith is not revealing an object within the world, but the world as a totality. Since God—at least the God central to much of the Judeo-Christian tradition—is not a being but Being itself (or in some formulations is actually ‘beyond being’), God therefore cannot be disclosed in the world as an object but has to be disclosed as that which is transcendently beyond it. Such a conclusion does not simply flee the realm of the everyday, but derives from, and legitimates, basic descriptions of religious experience. Specifically, Judeo-Christian descriptions of (1) divine providence, (2) happiness/ joy, (3) the eschatological ‘not yet’, and (4) Divine Hiddenness. This paper will argue that appropriating Heidegger’s phenomenological method in his discussions of fear/anxiety and applying them to Judeo-Christian descriptions of faith thus leads to a radically different ontology from that of Heidegger himself, offering a renewed basis for religion that contrasts the nothingness revealed by anxiety with the divinity revealed by faith, challenging us to weigh for ourselves which mood is more swaying.
Highlights
Heidegger’s embracement of mood is a possible way forward for a phenomenological theology
Anxiety is distinct from fear, for while fear is directed towards a specific thing within the world, anxiety is anxious about existence itself, disclosing the totality of Being
This paper will argue that appropriating Heidegger’s phenomenological method in his discussions of fear/anxiety and applying them to JudeoChristian descriptions of faith leads to a radically different ontology from that of Heidegger himself, offering a renewed basis for religion that contrasts the nothingness revealed by anxiety with the divinity revealed by faith, challenging us to weigh for ourselves which mood is more swaying
Summary
Heidegger’s embracement of mood is a possible way forward for a phenomenological theology. (This need not imply that God cannot or has not disclosed Godself within the world—e.g., in the incarnation or theophanies—but merely that certain aspects of the mood of faith are not directed at, or limited to, something in the world.)[2] Such a conclusion does not flee the realm of the everyday, but derives from, and legitimates, basic phenomenological descriptions of religious experience. (4) Descriptions of the hiddenness of God from our earthly lives, as well as the possibility of our removal from earth in our own death These aspects of religious experience— among many others—point to a divine that is not a being in the world but something more; not an object in existence but rather that which is at the root of existence. This paper will argue that appropriating Heidegger’s phenomenological structure of fear/anxiety and applying it to Judeo-Christian[3] descriptions of faith leads to a radically different ontology from that of Heidegger himself, offering a renewed basis for religion that contrasts the nothingness revealed by Heideggerian anxiety with the divinity revealed by faith, challenging us to weigh for ourselves which mood is more swaying
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