The Piety of Thinking by Martin Heidegger

Abstract

488 BOOK REVIEWS particular period of history, even though this may not be personal guilt. The doctrine of original sin is difficult to accept in our time not simply because of distortions of it in history or because of adjustments that must be made to relate it to the modern understanding of man's development as evolutionary but also because of the individualism that is so deeply ingrained in men of our time and that stands in opposition to the acceptance of this mystery. St. Anselm's Abbey Wa6hington, D. C. Jorrn FARRELLY, 0. S. B. The Piety of Thinking. By MARTIN HEIDEGGER. Translated with an Introduction by James G. Hart and John C. Maraldo. Bloomington: University of Indiana Press, 1976. $10.95. The Piety of Thinl~ing contains translations of four essays by Martin Heidegger and a formal report of a " Conversation with Martin Heidegger," with extensive and very helpful notes on the texts. The translators, James Hart and John Maraldo, also provide a lengthy commentary on the themes covered in the essays and on Heidegger's thought in general. I shall discuss the four essays in order, considering the " Conversation " in conjunction with the second of these, and finally I shall turn to the translators ' commentary. 1. " Phenomenology and Theology " is an address given by Heidegger in 1927 and again in 1928 and slightly reworked prior to its publication in 1969. Thus its conception roughly coincides with that of Being and Time and Kant and the Problems of Metaphysics, early works which manifest Heidegger's struggle to find clarity with regard to the question of Being. It is an attempt to define the relationship between theology and philosophy . Heidegger concludes by clarifying the fundamental differences between the two and by enjoining cooperation between the two within the " community of sciences." Heidegger in this essay characterizes theology as a positive science which has faith as its object. Theology is a positive science in the sense that it attempts the conceptualization and demonstration of its positiim, faith. Faith is both the motivation and the object of theology; thus theology is understood as fides qiwerens intellectum. Kierkegaard's influence upon Heidegger becomes visible in the understanding of faith that Heidegger proffers. Faith names a believing existence, a " rebirth," a " faith-full existence." The science of theology concerns itself with " subjective truths "; it is an analysis of a specific kind of BOOK REVIEWS 489 existence. God is only mentioned in passing in this essay. Heidegger notes that etymologically theology means the science of God. He comments that traditionally theology studies the relationship between God and man. But he rejects these notions of theology for his own. Theology is Christian theology whose object is Christian faith. Philosophy, by contrast to theology, is the science of Being, Ontology. As in Heidegger's other early works, Being is a transcendental concept by which the totality of beings is grasped; Being is the ontological ground concept. That notion of Being tended to be unworkable in Heidegger's developing efforts to rethink Being more radically. His success at this rethinking gives clarity by contrast; his later reflections on these early statements about Being amount almost to retractions. He includes his own works among those which must be overcome because they a!·e metaphysical and unable to think Being. As Kant and the Problem of Metaphysfos points out, ontology can become possible only after the foundation for metaphysics is established. This effort Heidegger terms "fundamental ontology," which is the basic theme of Being and Time. The phenomenological analysis of Dasein's being functions as an analogy according to which the Being of beings can be known. The phenomenological method is employed by Heidegger in service of the task of fundamental ontology; it makes possible a demonstration that ontological knowledge of Being is possible. This same notion of phenomenology obtains in " Phenomenology and Theology: " " Phenomenology is always the name for the procedure of ontology, which essentially distinguished itself from all other positive sciences" (p. QI). From this it follows that philosophy is understood as the phenomenological analysis of Dasein in service of the question of Being. Philosophy is neither a positive nor an antic science; its " object " is Being...