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Home , Existentialism, Jean Beaufret

Volume 7, No 2, Fall 2012 ISSN 1932-1066

The of the Existentialist Fate, , and the Mystery David P. Nichols Saginaw Valley State University [email protected]

Abstract: The following essay traces the influence of apophatic among prominent existentialist philosophers. I compare three post-war texts: Jaspers' Von der Wahrheit, Sartre's is a , and Heidegger's . In the immediate aftermath of WWII, all three philosophers offer ways of thinking about historical transformation coupled with the responsibilities that human have for letting another historical beginning take root. Jaspers and Heidegger are comfortable with a considerable amount of God-talk about deliverance, salvation, withdrawal, healing, and the holy. Sartre promotes a humanistic approach to existentialism, which dismisses God on the basis of a creator who determines our in advance. This illustrates Sartre's unwillingness to explore more sophisticated possibilities for thinking about the divine, especially the "unknown God" motif informing the of Jaspers and Heidegger. Moreover, the failure of Sartre's particular humanism stems from his inability to successfully place the human being within the world in such a way as to be its guest. While Sartre settles for a rather shallow appraisal of religious claims reminiscent of Enlightenment skepticism, Jaspers and Heidegger find a way to let the history of Being unfold through and from religious life.

Keywords: Existentialism; Heidegger, Martin; Jaspers, Karl; Sartre, Jean-Paul; mysticism; humanism; apophatic; .

Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift. still possibilities that remain for existentialists to talk – St. Paul1 about God. For the sake of comparison, most of our attention focus on three texts that address the Existentialist philosophers can agree, on some level, divine—postwar samples from , Jean-Paul with Nietzsche's proclamation that "." At Sartre, and . Jaspers' Tragedy is Not least they can to the doctrine that the God of Enough, from his 1947 Von der Warheit,2 encourages one has proven itself to be a failure, an artifact to place hope in a transcendence that has providential of the human being's attempt to organize the world overtones. Sartre's Existentialism is a Humanism (1945)3 around a singular rational for the whole of stresses a humanistic response to the state of theological beings. Despite this metaphysical failure, there are 2 Karl Jaspers, Von der Wahrheit, Munich: R. Piper, 1947. 1 Alfred Marshall, ed., The Interlinear Greek-English 3 Jean-Paul Sartre, Existentialism is a Humanism, trans. New Testament, Authorized Version, Grand Rapids: Carol Macomber, New Haven: Yale University Press, Zondervan Publishing House 1976, II Cor. 9:15. 2007. [Henceforth cited as EH]

David P. Nichols, "The God of the Existentialist Philosophers: Fate, Freedom, and the Mystery," Existenz 7/2 (2012), 36-44 First posted 5-9-2013 The God of the Existentialist Philosophers: Fate, Freedom, and the Mystery 37 abandonment. Heidegger's Letter on Humanism (1946)4 limited to another being at all. invites us to reconsider the divine in light of an The failure of the metaphysical pursuit of the "ontological " between Being and beings. highest being still leaves us with the difficult task Each of these texts attempts to open a future path for of getting to the source for the showing of beings. human out of the smoldering ash of a war Existentialism attempts to find this ground from within that challenged our sense of purpose and historical the human being as the contextual whole through direction. But Jaspers and Heidegger take their which a world appears. Instead of simply reducing the theological cues from the standpoint of the unknown being of the human being to one being among others, God, where God necessarily remains hidden, a - the existentialist privileges it as the wider locale where concealing source for all appearances. The superiority transcendence happens. For this the relationship of their positions, when compared to Sartre, lies in the that we have toward the world is not merely one of acknowledgement that our historical transformation reception; rather, the world always comes to us as our depends on an ontological grace just as much as it world, its phenomena wedded to our own historical depends on the exercise of human freedom. development. Moreover, what hides itself in the revelatory process is every bit as important as what The Legacy of the Unknown God shows itself in that process. The human being just is an ecstatic movement, a standing-out from itself as it In some ways existentialist philosophers can be stands within its world, so that it hides its ontological remarkably unified with respect to matters about God. origin beneath the totality of the very that Regardless of whether existentialists fall into "theistic" open for it. or "atheistic" camps, they share this much in common: We find many advocates for the of a self- a rejection of the God of Western metaphysics. Of concealment of Being in Western history, although course, this includes more than just the creator-God never so numerous as those in the ancient world. of omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient qualities. Heidegger attributes to a primordial The rejection extends to any grand organizing of this self-concealment expressed in the principle for the of beings in their totality, principle that " () loves to hide."5 Heraclitus including an Archimedean point, image of perfection, explores many examples of negation among his of ascent, meat-grinder of history, or rational fragments, but here he seems to get closer to its origin, Absolute. The existentialist renders any God of that insofar as he associates even the giving of appearances sort as unbelievable, and for reason. The Western with a negative, parallel sheltering. Thus he offers us an tradition has ushered in a long succession of early example of the apophatic approach to : divine portraits, each one meant to correct the flaws of in order to get to the source, we must concentrate on those that had gone before, until finally we have come the self-negating, self-concealing process that occurs to see in these portraits little more than the projection within the showing of beings. He demonstrates the of our own need to organize the world. The problem interpretive power of this apophasis or affirmation- seems to have originated, at least in some measure, through-negation for mythology when he says, "The from trying to size up Being on the basis of beings, as One, the only wisdom, does and yet does not consent though what we meant by Being was somehow akin to be called Zeus."6 shares something in to "the highest being." The existentialist also bemoans common with Heraclitus here, despite their differences the metaphysical tendency to treat the as fixed in regard to nothingness. In the proem to Parmenides' points, as though the "what" of whatever exists has didactic poem, he pays a visit to the goddess who changeless meaning, wholly independent of human resides at the halls of . Before he can reach her for experience. Nor does it do us any good to approach her , he makes an ascent to the imposing gates Being from the perspective of this same . What Being means must not be limited to another fixed 5 point on the horizon; in fact, what is meant must not be G. S. Kirk, J. E. Raven, and M. Schofield eds., The Presocratic Philosophers: A Critical History with a Selection of Texts, 2nd edition, Cambridge: Cambridge 4 Martin Heidegger, "Letter on Humanism," in Pathmarks, University Press 1984, Fragment B123. trans. William McNeill, Cambridge: Cambridge 6 Quoted in Richard Geldard, Remembering Heraclitus, University Press, 1998. [Henceforth cited as LH] Herndon, VA: Lindisfarne Books 2000, p. 28.

Existenz: An International Journal in Philosophy, , Politics, and the Arts 38 David P. Nichols held fast by dikē or cosmic order. The doors swing wide for the spectators.9 We must still hold and open, which enables Parmenides to pass from the realm responsible for the ways in which they send the Western of mere seeming to the realm of what is. The fact that the tradition down the path of the God of metaphysics. But goes beyond the cosmic order to the halls of they deserve credit all the same for retaining a sense of night to meet the goddess shows how much he resembles self-concealment that mirrors the primordial religious the initiate of a mystery cult, his journey an attempt to experience. They recognize that beings have a way of penetrate the inner recesses of the darkest mystery of all. hiding, camouflaged by their everyday appearances, Plato and Aristotle have their own ways of until such as their mysteriousness once again communicating self-concealment, especially when renews itself for us. the essences are at issue. For example, they agree that The Greek tragedies demonstrate the battleground philosophy has its origin in the experience of wonder for the appearances made possible by the human (thaumaston), which causes human beings to question being's ecstatic position. Hölderlin's formula for the essences.7 The poet or mythmaker supplies us with grasping the hero's transgression is most helpful for our the earliest responses to wonder by describing the purposes—the rebellion against the for the sake essences as deities. But that is not to say that Plato and of better serving the gods.10 The tragic hero opposes a Aristotle are simply dismissing the gods of mythology reigning structure of meaning—the prevailing gods— as crude misapprehensions of what is; rather, these through a creative effort that then opens another philosophers are highlighting something extraordinary horizon for beings to show themselves. Aeschylus' about the appearances themselves. At the core of these Prometheus exemplifies this with his stubborn experiences, explains Aristotle, before anthropomorphic refusal to submit to Zeus. The one who steals fire from and zoomorphic "mythological accretions" were added, the gods waits in chains, knowing that Zeus must also human beings were quite right to identify something one day succumb to the fate of being eclipsed by his divine pervading the whole of nature (AM 1074b1-14). successor. The same fidelity to the origin of creativity Wonder estranges and displaces us from our current occurs in Sophocles' , its heroine speaking for mode of thinking;8 it makes us aware of our own the ground upon which the city stands. Absence has ignorance, and thereby prompts a transition toward rarely had a better advocate than Antigone, keeper of increased . Aristotle provides a similar the dead, who shows her disdain for all human and account of wonder in his explanations for tragic drama: divine order, except for the laws belonging to Hades the denouement of the occurs with a turning point himself.11 Eventually the whole robust tragic cycle, with in the plot, whereby reversal, recognition, and its transition from old gods to new gods, gives way to befall characters all at once—a rupture conducive to a another layer of concealment, the flight of the gods. In wondrous or literally awesome (thaumaston) encounter Euripides' Bakkhai, Dionysus, the god of tragedy, life and , presence and absence, returns to his home with a curse of madness for the city that has forgotten him. If Heraclitus was right that nature loves to hide, 7 claims in the Theaetetus that the experience it was perhaps only a of time before the god of wonder is "an experience which is characteristic of a philosopher," and that "this is where philosophy

begins and nowhere else." Plato, Theatetus, Plato, 9 Complete Works, ed. John Cooper, Indianapolis: Aristotle, "Metaphysics," in Aristotle XVII and XVIII, Hackett Publishing Company 1997, 155d2-4. Loeb Classical Library, trans. Hugh Tredennick, Aristotle says, "It is through wonder that men now Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1990, 1452a2-5. begin and originally began to philosophize…." 10 Friedrich Hölderlin, "The Ground for Empedocles," in Aristotle, "Metaphysics," in Readings in Ancient Greek Essays and Letters on Theory, trans. Thomas Pfau, New Philosophy, From Thales to Aristotle, Third Edition, York: State University of New York Press 1988, pp. 53, 55. eds. Marc S. Cohen, Patricia Curd, and C.D.C. Reeve, Antigone describes her position this way in her Indianapolis, Hackett 2005, 982b12-13. [Henceforth defense before Kreon. Sophocles, Sophocles' Antigone, cited as AM]. trans. Richard Emil Braun, New York: Oxford UP 8 Martin Heidegger, Basic Questions of Philosophy: 1973, pp. 450-470, 519. Selected Problems of Logic, trans. Richard Rojcewicz 11 George Steiner, Antigones: How the Antigone Legend has and Andre Schuwer, Indianapolis: Indiana University Endured in , Art, and , New Press 1984, p. 147. Haven: Yale University Press 1984, pp. 76-7. http://www.existenz.us Volume 7, No. 2, Fall 2012 The God of the Existentialist Philosophers: Fate, Freedom, and the Mystery 39 cloaked itself further in absence. that continued to dominate Byzantine , while continues the apophatic tradition Western leaned toward the God of in its theological exploration of the Godhead. The metaphysics, its own mysticism steadily marginalized, earliest example may come from Paul's sermon at the often dismissed as an inferior response to the rational Areopagus where, Stoics in attendance, he associates the system. gospel with the Athenians' altar to the unknown god.12 He distances this unknown God from every temple and Karl Jaspers and the Background of All Backgrounds idol, all the while stressing his nearness: "for, ‘In him we live and move and have our being'; as even some Karl Jaspers was one of those existentialist philosophers of your poets have said" (RSV Acts 17:28). This accords who remained comfortable with a considerable with Paul's admonition to believers to be in the world amount of God-talk. This theological component of his without being of the world—to posture themselves philosophy reflects his commitment to transcendence in eager expectation for the coming , the as a necessary ingredient for existential and world- parousia. It would take a few more centuries before historical transformation. His view of transcendence Christianity could settle upon a definitive solution also illustrates his opposition to the God of metaphysics to the Trinitarian Godhead. In the decades following by requiring us to forsake any singular rational meaning the first Council of Nicaea the Cappadocian fathers for Being. Jaspers likewise rejects the speculative articulated a Trinitarian vision that not only maintained assumption that we can assume a God's eye view of the equality of Father, Son, and , but also sought the whole of human history or .16 Instead he to keep intact the mysterious otherness of Paul's associates the experience of transcendence with those unknown God. They saw in the Father the unknowable unusual moments where human beings stand at the origin of all being, from which the begetting of the Son limits of their world totality, no longer conforming to its and the proceeding of the Spirit are made possible. immanence. The opportunities for such limit-situations Although the fathers did borrow the language of the may range anywhere from religious experience classical philosophers to depict the essence (ousia) and to psychological disorder. But in each relevant persons (hypostaseis) of God, they expressly rejected the case, the authentic person is someone who draws whereby essences were supposed upon the infinite possibilities stored up within the to exist independently of particulars.13 They certainly Encompassing—the comprehensive whole surpassing were not aiming with their account of God to describe any given horizon. This effort requires the would-be some "thing" with a few qualities or manifestations, as agent of authenticity to rise up with the passionate these perspectives were among the heresies that they creativity that swells from a pre-rational freedom. meant to circumvent.14 By the fifth century, the legacy Jaspers uses the term Existenz to describe this potential of the unknown God found expression in "The Mystical to be, which, in the moment of authenticity, culminates Theology" attributed to Dionysus the Areopagite. This in heightened self-awareness and willfully resists the theologian summoned readers to plunge into the prevailing horizon of meaning. At these two poles of unintelligible but brilliant darkness of God, "so that our finite existence, we experience God as the depth of we may unhiddenly know that unknowing which an infinite sea—elusive, unknowable, yet every bit as itself is hidden from all those possessed of knowing real as the world immediately available to us. amid all beings…."15 Such was the apophatic In Jaspers' estimation, the unknown God was important for existentialism at least as early as 12 Herbert May and Bruce M. Metzger, eds, The Oxford Kierkegaard and Nietzsche. He reviews a host of Annotated with Apocrypha, Revised Standard telling similarities between the two, despite their Version, New York: Oxford UP, 1973, Acts 17:18, 22-23. apparent opposition regarding Christianity. Among [Henceforth cited as RSV] these affinities, Jaspers notes that both philosophers 13 Anthony Meredith, The Cappadocians, New York: St. expressed interest in the unknown God when they Vladimir's Press 1995, pp. 105, 108. 14 Vladimir Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Paulist Press 1987, pp. 135-6, 138. Church, New York: St. Vladimir's Press 1976, pp. 48-9. 16 Karl Jaspers, Reason and Existenz, trans. William Earle, 15 Dionysus the Areopagite, Pseudo-Dionysus: The Marquette: Marquette University Press 1997, p. 48. Complete Works, trans. Colm Luibheid, New York: [Henceforth cited as RE]

Existenz: An International Journal in Philosophy, Religion, Politics, and the Arts 40 David P. Nichols were young. He quotes the twenty-five-year-old of our current meaning structure, and thereby welcome Kierkegaard who writes, "In spite of the fact that I am transcendence, amounts to a yearning for deliverance very far from understanding myself, I have… revered (TNE 42). The time may come for a civilization when the unknown God" (RE 35). And a twenty-year-old tragic no longer suffices as the ultimate Nietzsche composes a poem entitled, "To the Unknown expression of this saving power (TNE 37). This explains God," in which he writes, why world saviors like Jesus or the Buddha offer I would know Thee, Unknown, messages of universal salvation for humanity. Their Thou who grips deep in my , messages establish in a transcendent and wandering through my life like a storm, provide a way for humanity to work together toward Thou inconceivable, my kin! the goal of deliverance. Whenever human beings I would know Thee, even serve Thee. [RE 35] experience transcendence, they become cognizant of a wider context of fundamental reality. World The result of this devotion to a non-rational or at are better equipped to capitalize on this expansive least extra-rational source of transcendence becomes, openness as they break through the limits of the tragic for Kierkegaard and Nietzsche, a "worldless " cycle, exposing it for its own constraints. Tragedy was that makes them exceptions in their time. Jaspers' always open to the destruction of our most sacred truths; account of this loneliness is strikingly reminiscent of as Jaspers sees it, tragedy itself must suffer shipwreck that Pauline instruction to wait upon the appearance so that we can arrive at a better understanding of of the Lord without submitting to the current world ourselves and our world. order. Another example of the apophatic attitude in The justification that Jaspers gives for transcending Kierkegaard and Nietzsche comes in the form of their tragic knowledge depends in no small measure on the proclivity for indirect communication—language that unknown God of apophaticism. He clearly points to deliberately conceals and masks (RE 27). Jaspers notes the divine in the self-concealing transcendence of the that in their ambiguous modes of expression they Encompassing when he describes God at one point summon us to the hiding that necessarily accompanies as "the background of all backgrounds" (TNE 43). In great ontological truths. The wisdom of this comparison addition, Jaspers insists that we not limit our conception of Kierkegaard and Nietzsche—one whom Jaspers of Being to mere nothingness, as though we knew characterizes as a theist, the as an atheist—rests in its essence to be simply one of negation. If we equate the that at the root of existentialism is a mystery our experiences of transcendence with nothingness, of Being that runs deeper than conventional categories we adopt a philosophy that leads us into despair. In of , atheism, or for that matter . fact, he argues that such a perspective fails to be truly In the final section of Von der Warheit Jaspers tragic insofar as it forsakes any hope in the prospect of offers a hermeneutical analysis of tragedy meant to deliverance. Jaspers encourages his contemporaries to demonstrate the significance of transcendence for the create a new beginning for themselves in the wake of development of human .17 Again he the war—to recognize an expansion of the possibilities describes the ecstatic condition of human existence in of meaning in place of the suffocating stranglehold of terms of shared horizons with boundaries, and limit- . He makes reference to the hopefulness situations that can prepare us for transcendence. The that has when speaking of the unknown (TNE tragic drama imitates the recurring shipwreck of our 69, quoted): existence against the limits of our temporary horizon, There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, at the cost of every seemingly complete turning Than are dreamt of in your philosophy. into failure (TNE 56). Still, the best tragedies never simply abandon us to destruction; they involve a The same optimism persists in Jaspers' rejection of catharsis where humans transcend their suffering on any "pan-tragism" of ontology for which Being "has a the way to a superior encounter with reality (TNE 80). crack running through it" (TNE 93-4). "We object to it," For Jaspers the tragic effort to break asunder the bonds he says, "as to every metaphysics that would approach Being and Reality deductively and that would make descriptive statements about the nature of Being or 17 Karl Jaspers, Tragedy is Not Enough, trans. Harald A. T. God—we object to it because it seeks to make them Reiche, Harry T. Moore, and Karl W. Deutsch, Boston: both absolute and finite" TNE( 97). In Jaspers' view the Archon Books, 1969. [Henceforth cited as TNE] http://www.existenz.us Volume 7, No. 2, Fall 2012 The God of the Existentialist Philosophers: Fate, Freedom, and the Mystery 41 finite and the infinite are separated in the same manner astonishing when we consider how indebted Sartre was as the immanent and the transcendent. to an ecstatic view of human existence. He recognizes, Jaspers organizes much of his approach to human indeed emphasizes, the role of self-concealment in the existence around the need to preserve the mystery ecstatic process of being human, yet never gives a fair of Being from attempts to rationally order it. But that hearing to the apophatic approach to God. Sartre works might cause us to question whether Jaspers can truly out the self-concealment in terms of "two ekstases"—the know what he claims to know about that Reality. For pre-reflective and reflective poles of formation.19 example, how does he know that the proponent of pan- He describes the pre-reflective cogito, or being-in-itself, tragism has wrongly attributed the to Being as the existence that we have been thrown into and that itself? Could it not be Jaspers who wrongfully assumes we continue to be. He couples this with the that the the purity of the infinite? He says that transcendence human being also exists in order to be its own witness, a dooms everything to failure in tragedy, but we have being-for-itself realized by way of a reflective cogito BE( reason to suspect that our finitude, along with the self- 74). The bifurcation between being-in-itself and being- concealment that happens in transcendence, has its for-itself results in the problem of "not being what one source in a deeper Not, a "death of God" just as much is": as we posit who we are, we engage in a surpassing as a life of God (TNE 78). We might also question that simultaneously negates who we are; we dwell in whether Jaspers has been too cavalier about associating the absence, and not only the presence, of ourselves. Being with God. But at least in this case we can give The whole fissure would not be possible, argues Sartre, him credit for his ability to uncover examples of grace were it not for the way that nothingness haunts Being. operative in our experiences—examples which do, He seems to be in agreement with Jaspers here insofar after all, constitute the primary empirical evidence as both reject the notion of an absolute nothing, a fissure available to us for such a divinity. The grace that speaks that would run as deep as Being itself. Sartre claims for the unknown God comes to us in different gifts: that Being has not the tiniest crack, but that non-being the finite world that we inhabit as a shared horizon, resides only on its surface, coiled around it, lingering as the transcendence that alerts us to an infinite vastness, its shadowy derivative (BE 16). and the deliverance that lifts us from one structured Sartre's (1943) had already existence to another. On occasion Jaspers goes so far included scattered remarks about the impossibility of with this grace as to observe "flashing signals" in our God. Each one of these criticisms targets the traditional sky—glimpses of storms not quite released, indicators God of metaphysics, without so much as acknowledging for what could belong to the next horizon (RE 22, 43).18 any other descriptive options. For instance, Sartre None of this historical transformation can happen, rejects ontological and cosmological proofs for the however, without a whole lot of mutual effort on our on the basis that they are attempts part. So he draws on the religious legacy of human to ground contingent beings on the firm foundation beings struggling together and loving one another, their of a non-contingent being (BE 81-2). Instead, he says, communication resulting in openness and expansion of the surpassing of being-in-itself through being-for- meaning. This exempts him from the label of humanism itself is a movement that originates from a contingent in the traditional sense of an affirmation of humanity basis, and yet loses itself in its attempts to ground itself marshaled against divinity. Instead, Jaspers' brand of as consciousness. Yet the self-concealment that Sartre humanism affirms human existence in cooperation traces in the surpassing is precisely where he could with what the unknown God has to offer. welcome apophatic alternatives to the conventional God of the philosophers. He argues that God cannot Sartre and the God of Inconsistent possibly exist because "a being which would be its own foundation could not suffer the slightest discrepancy The possibilities for the unknown God, albeit between what it is and what it conceives" (BE 80). In prominent in Jaspers' writings, are entirely vacant from other words, Sartre expects God to have to suffer the Sartre's analysis of the divine. The silence is all the more same fate as the rest of us—the fate of "not being what

18 Karl Jaspers, Philosophy of Existence, trans. Richard F. 19 Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, trans. Hazel Grabau, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania E. Barnes, New York: Philosophical Library 1956, p. Press 1971, p. 26. 44. [Henceforth cited as BE]

Existenz: An International Journal in Philosophy, Religion, Politics, and the Arts 42 David P. Nichols one is"—as he surpasses himself by means of his self- heaven, he overlooks his commitment to one of the comprehension. The theist falls into a contradiction most stubbornly persistent forms of metaphysics—the at this point according to Sartre: the God who was Absolute . This failure is evident, for example, supposed to be the basis for his own existence cannot in his reworking of Kant's categorical imperative. Sartre at the same time manage to remain self-identical (BE clearly rejects the possibility of establishing universally 90). These criticisms of theism demonstrate just how binding rules of , notwithstanding the fact of much Sartre had ensconced himself in that historical Kant's transparency about these rules being self-made about God that expects to organize beings (EH 49). But this rejection of binding does not in cooperation with the greatest being. His numerous stop Sartre from reestablishing universality at a deeper references to God as "a being" are particularly damning; level of , one in which I must still commit as an existentialist committed to atheism, he owes us an myself to an image of humanity—an image according argument for why his conception of Being, ever cloaked to which I would be willing to have the rest of humanity in that absence that accompanies our fall to reflective regulated (EH 26-7, 45). He claims that the human being consciousness, differs so much from the unknown God. commits himself to a portrait of humanity by way of Similar attacks on the God of metaphysics persist his very actions, much like an artist must commit to his in Sartre's Existentialism is a Humanism, which he first painting; yet no single portrait can ever suffice to capture delivered at the Club Maintenant of in October humanity once and for all (EH 37). Where Kant stresses 1945. The humanism that Sartre prescribes in the respect for , Sartre again takes us deeper into immediate aftermath of the war involves an affirmation a self-projected humanity: by willing my own freedom, of human existence in response to our theological I necessarily will the freedom of all others. Where Kant abandonment (EH 27). He traces the consequences of describes a "kingdom of ends" comprised of moral this abandonment, or the realization that God does agents who create the moral laws that they are also not exist, at two levels. First, he rejects the teleological subject to obey, Sartre recognizes a "universal human conception of a divine craftsman who determines the condition" in which every free person, regardless of essence of humanity in advance of its existence. Unlike class or culture, shares in the human reality of having a manufactured objects such as a book or paper knife, project with its own "universal " (EH 42-3). Sartre the existence of the human being actually precedes its even goes so far as to label the perpetual construction essence. Here Sartre attempts to explain our ecstatic of humanity—being a project, forming one's essence— situation in terms of a self-projecting subjectivity as "the absolute" (EH 43-4). What Sartre never quite whereby the human being remains "nothing other than grasps about all of this self-affirmation is that he has his own project" and "nothing but a series of enterprises" merely replaced the divine craftsman and his heavenly (EH 37-8). Since we cannot authentically take refuge principles with a heavenly human subject. Regardless in a divine craftsman, we find ourselves left to the of how ecstatic, impermanent, or self-creating this awesome and inescapable responsibility of deciding process of subjectivity may be, it remains for Sartre an for ourselves who we will be, albeit without any model organizing principle for beings based on the greatest for doing so. Sartre next extends the consequences of being. abandonment to a second level, the elimination of all Instead of seeking refuge from the God of principles inscribed in an intelligible heaven (EH 28). metaphysics in the Cartesian subject, Sartre should Whenever humanism draws upon a predetermined have sought ways to usher human existence further essence of humanity, a universal scheme of , under the shadow of its world. His alternative to the or a utopian vision, these heavenly archetypes cause teleological world-production of the divine craftsmen it to fall back into the theist's trap of attributing to is the freely chosen world-production of the human the human being what properly belongs to the paper project. As a result the human subject remains largely knife—an essence formed in advance of its existence. at the helm of the sending of the history of the world Not surprisingly, Sartre also thinks that among the and its phenomena. Of course Sartre does acknowledge two kinds of existentialists, whom he categorizes as the "" of our historical situation, so that Christians and atheists, the latter are more consistent we are by necessity the recipients of what others have about their freedom (EH 20). contributed to this ongoing project. But this is a far cry Despite Sartre's attempts to distill his own existential from the providential qualities of Jaspers' Encompassing humanism of principles inscribed in an intelligible or what Heidegger calls the "world that worlds" for http://www.existenz.us Volume 7, No. 2, Fall 2012 The God of the Existentialist Philosophers: Fate, Freedom, and the Mystery 43 our being-in-the-world.20 The humanism that Sartre (LH 257). This allows him to introduce a postwar message promotes ultimately fails to take responsibility for our far more subdued than what he had favored several place in the world: it turns a deaf ear to what the world years past in the polemical themes of tragic heroism. can say to us from itself. He shows how truly myopic The letter invites the reader to prepare for the possibility his has become when he describes objects of a primordial encounter with Being in the way that it like the book or paper knife as having meaning because reveals itself to us through beings. It also facilitates one of the purpose assigned to them—for if not from God, of Heidegger's best opportunities to talk about divinity, then by default, from us. In truth neither objects nor which he chooses to pursue in the context of "the holy." subjects have their meaning solely from the purposes He does so through descriptions of dwelling in the world consciously determined for them. Sartre at least needs that might otherwise seem peculiar to religious life. an account of phenomena—book and paper knife, "Language is the house of Being," says Heidegger rock and stream—more penetrating than what he can (LH 239). This is crucial for his portrayal of our ecstatic reach through the bare constructivism of the repainted existence because language plays the role of sustaining canvas. These phenomena are just as much the result of what Being gives us. Language can also help us to bridge an ontological grace where beings reveal themselves to the ontological difference, the divide between beings us and yet at the same time conceal themselves from us as and their source—at least in the sense of bringing that they are products resulting from the artisan's projection. source nearer to our experience. In order to realize the close proximity we have to our ontological source— Martin Heidegger and the God of the Holy to "dwell" through language—we must assume an attitude of guardianship for our home. This requires a Only a year had passed since Sartre presented his thinking that lets beings be, by preserving, caring for, Existentialism is a Humanism when his colleague Jean or shepherding beings in regard to their essences rather Beaufret received a letter from the Black Forest of than dominating them with the instrumental purposes of Germany. It had come from the hand of a philosopher metaphysics. In truly apophatic fashion, Heidegger calls who had recently lost his teaching privileges and for less philosophy and more thinking, less speaking suffered a nervous breakdown as a result of his dubious and more listening—in short, a heightened awareness associations with the now fallen regime. This early of what eludes language altogether, the indescribable version of what would later be published as the Letter on gift of being-here (LH 243, 276). The creative genius of Humanism was Heidegger's response to a list of questions the poet arises from this attentiveness, whereas the about humanism recently sent to him from Beaufret.21 linguistic activities of the grammarian or logician already Much of the letter attacks Sartre for unwittingly come too late. When the creators and guardians, poets committing himself to metaphysical and thinkers finally locate the words for what they have through his account of human existence in Existentialism been listening to, they open the opportunity for what is a Humanism. Heidegger chastises him for effectively Hölderlin calls the homecoming. Heidegger interprets secularizing a medieval conception of God—that God is this to mean the arrival of another historical epoch his own being—in order to reconstitute that God in the whereby humans get a fresh view of beings as they are domain of human subjectivity (LH 249). Heidegger also being disclosed, and thereby experience another way rejects Sartre's effort to reverse the order of essence and of belonging to the world that has been handed down existence, saying that this tactic remains indebted to the to them. In the meantime, Nietzsche's proclamation of potentiality and actuality of Aristotelian metaphysics the death of God, not to be mistaken for a declaration of (LH 250). In place of Sartre's misguided approach to atheism, recognizes the homelessness that has overtaken "humanity" Heidegger stresses how Being is responsible Western history (LH 257). for sending the human being into its ecstatic existence The Letter on Humanism furnishes us with one of the finest apophatic examples of how to talk about God without talking about God. Heidegger tiptoes 20 Martin Heidegger, "The Origin of the Work of Art," around the traditional minefield of metaphysical in Poetry, Language, Thought, trans. Albert Hofstadter, New York: Harper & Row 1971, p. 44. God-talk in order to inch us closer to the possibility 21 of a genuine encounter with divinity. He dissociates , Dialogue with Heidegger, trans. Mark himself from both theism and atheism so he can avoid Sinclair, Bloomington: Indiana University Press 2006, pp. vii-viii. any metaphysical baggage attached to those positions.

Existenz: An International Journal in Philosophy, Religion, Politics, and the Arts 44 David P. Nichols

Meanwhile he maintains that his own position categories of religious experience. He illustrates this about God was never one of disinterestedness. His when he borrows from Aristotle the story of Heraclitus explanations for Being do in fact open avenues for welcoming his students at the hearth. "Here too the talking about God, as when he describes the of gods come to presence," Heraclitus tells his visitors a clearing where "there is" (es gibt) being (LH 254-5). He (LH 269-71). For Heidegger this shows how thinking highlights the dependency of the phrase es gibt upon clears a path for beings to reemerge as extraordinary the verb geben (to give). The theological allusion to grace within an otherwise familiar, everyday environment. is difficult to miss at this point: "The ‘gives' names the But the assertion that "language is the house of Being" essence of being that is giving, granting its truth. The suggests that Heidegger has far more to offer with self-giving into the open, along with the open region respect to the sacred and the profane. He summons us itself, is being itself" (LH 255). Only from the giving of to a mindfulness about our place within language—a this opening of a world for us, Heidegger, can language that not only envelopes us, but also speaks to we have an exceptional meeting with "God or the gods." us with sacred power. This sounds strikingly liturgical Again, thinking prepares the ground for this possibility or dramaturgical, allowing us to be at home with our because it favors the nearness of Being among beings, world in much the same way as formerly allowed by which in turn allows for an atmosphere of holiness ancient ritual performance. Heidegger had mostly Everything about this strategy for dealing with neglected the ritual dimension of drama when he God rests on accepting the presence and absence at attempted, during the years of WWII, to capture the work through our ecstatic projection. For Heidegger heroism of Greek tragedy. Now he finds the recipe for the self-concealment of Being occurs not only in its this theatrical mode of interpretation at the confluence shadow, but as a direct result of the corrosive nothing of language and letting beings be. at its middle. Where the grace most presences the When Jaspers, Sartre, and Heidegger speak about holiness or nearness of Being becomes increasingly God after the war they are making decisions about the apparent and the presence of the god blooms from viability of that for any future historical projects. within. Where the absence reigns the god withdraws, In each of their writings they address divinity as it relates darkness descends over our ability to see clearly, to the ongoing ecstatic existence of the human being. All and domination gets its foothold. Heidegger speaks three philosophers are equally dismissive of the God of therapeutically, if not cathartically, about what can metaphysics since that entails belief in a highest being happen for us in the region of the presence of the holy. meant to explain all other beings. But they differ in that He identifies a semantic link between the holy (heilig) Sartre alone refuses to press the analysis further, to search and healing (heilen), and mourns the absence of their in a post-metaphysical clearing for the presence (and presence as the sole malignancy of our era (LH 267). absence) of the unknown God. This shows his failure to Perhaps what Heidegger does not say about the terms get underneath the Western intellectual tradition in such is more interesting, at least for theological purposes— a way as to uncover and recover the mystery of Being for that the stem heil carries the meaning of salvation in the its emergent grace in religious experience or elsewhere. therapeutic sense of well-being. Given his tendency to The heavy subjectivism of Sartre's philosophy distracts integrate holiness with the "fittingness" of beings, so him from the need to explore an ontological grace that the nearness of Being radiates through the whole operative in the showing of the world. Of course Jaspers enjoining structure, his descriptions are not far from a and Heidegger differ somewhat in their descriptions body of God motif. The letter to Beaufret resembles a of God, including disagreements about the conceptual doctor's prescription long overdue for a patient who among God, Being, and Nothing. Moreover, has been gasping for breath in the marginal zone of Jaspers embraces a more synergistic approach to our death and life. In spite of the devastation of the war, world-historical situation with God, whereas Heidegger with all the symptoms connected to its metaphysical waits for another revelation and makes preparations underpinnings, Heidegger holds out hope for a "day of accordingly. Nevertheless they do share a theological the holy" to dawn in the subsequent clearing. bond common to many existentialists insofar as they Heidegger's apophatic approach to God potentially remain completely disinterested in God as a mere lends itself to important hermeneutical applications. being that may or may not exist. They choose instead to For example, it has the potential to transform our preserve the mystery that lies beyond and yet surfaces understanding of the sacred and the profane as through the ecstatic project of our worldly existence. http://www.existenz.us Volume 7, No. 2, Fall 2012