Heidegger's Hermeneutic of Fallenness

Abstract

PAUL TILLICH'S DISCUSSION of Fall seeks to mediate between biblical narrative and religious situation of modem individuals. Tillich deliteralizes biblical narrative, arguing that must clearly and unambiguously represent 'the Fall' as a symbol for human situation universally, not as story of an event that happened 'once upon a time' (29). When literally interpreted, narrative of Fall describes an event that is isolated in a particular spatial and temporal location, although its effects are understood to be experienced universally. Tillich's concern, however, is that theological concepts and images should be able to address more directly pressing dilemmas of human existential situations. Fallenness is experienced in a variety of ways in course of individual and social existence. According to Tillich, theology must take upon itself task of speaking to complex realities of such experiences. The mediation at heart of Tillich's work maintains universal scope of theological discourse, without isolating this universality from particularity and immediacy of human experience. Tillich's notion of falling addresses issues and concerns that are endemic to human situation. He describes fallenness as the transition from essence to existence (29). This transitional movement is expressed in terms of problems of innocence and temptation, as well as in relation to lessons of experience and problem of estrangement from ground of (31ff.). In order to maintain tension and estrangement of transition from innocence to experience, Tillich's argument requires presupposition of an understanding of nature of essential Being (33, 36ff.). The binary opposition between essence and existence, however, involves positing essences that can be apprehended apart from existential fluctuations. This positing is an instance of type of metaphysical presupposition that has been