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The God of the Existentialist Philosophers Fate, Freedom, and the Mystery David P

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The God of the Existentialist Philosophers Fate, Freedom, and the Mystery David P Volume 7, No 2, Fall 2012 ISSN 1932-1066 The God of the Existentialist Philosophers Fate, Freedom, and the Mystery David P. Nichols Saginaw Valley State University [email protected] Abstract: The following essay traces the influence of apophatic mysticism among prominent existentialist philosophers. I compare three post-war texts: Jaspers' Von der Wahrheit, Sartre's Existentialism is a Humanism, and Heidegger's Letter on Humanism. In the immediate aftermath of WWII, all three philosophers offer ways of thinking about historical transformation coupled with the responsibilities that human beings 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 being a creator who determines our essence in advance. This illustrates Sartre's unwillingness to explore more sophisticated possibilities for thinking about the divine, especially the "unknown God" motif informing the philosophies 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; atheism. 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 will focus on three texts that address the Existentialist philosophers can agree, on some level, divine—postwar samples from Karl Jaspers, Jean-Paul with Nietzsche's proclamation that "God is dead." At Sartre, and Martin Heidegger. Jaspers' Tragedy is Not least they can consent to the doctrine that the God of Enough, from his 1947 Von der Warheit,2 encourages one metaphysics 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 principle 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 difference" 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 existence 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 self- the existentialist privileges it as the wider locale where concealing source for all appearances. The superiority transcendence happens. For this reason 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 experiences 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 notion 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 Heraclitus a primordial The rejection extends to any grand organizing experience of this self-concealment expressed in the principle for the meaning of beings in their totality, principle that "nature (physis) loves to hide."5 Heraclitus including an Archimedean point, image of perfection, explores many examples of negation among his object 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 good reason. The Western with a negative, parallel sheltering. Thus he offers us an intellectual tradition has ushered in a long succession of early example of the apophatic approach to ontology: 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 Parmenides shares something in to "the highest being." The existentialist also bemoans common with Heraclitus here, despite their differences the metaphysical tendency to treat the essences 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 night. Before he can reach her for experience. Nor does it do us any good to approach her truths, he makes an ascent to the imposing gates Being from the perspective of this same essentialism. 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, Religion, 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 Plato and Aristotle 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 philosopher 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 time 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 gods 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.
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