Interpreting the Sacred: Investigations of Heidegger’s Phenomenology of Religion by Brian Rogers A Thesis presented to The University of Guelph In partial fulfilment of requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Philosophy Guelph, Ontario, Canada © Brian Rogers, December, 2013 ABSTRACT INTERPRETING THE SACRED: INVESTIGATIONS OF HEIDEGGER’S PHENOMENOLOGY OF RELIGION Brian Rogers Advisor: University of Guelph, 2013 Professor John Russon This thesis is an investigation of Heidegger’s phenomenological analysis of religion. The author argues that Heidegger’s thought opens the way for descriptive conceptual analysis of religious experience and its object without undue theoretical distortion or reduction. Heidegger dismantles uncritical distortions of religious life under “scientific” rationality and objectivity. While the self-understanding implicit in religious practice is certainly transformed through Heidegger’s own philosophical analysis, philosophy undergoes its own transformation through thinking encounter with religious life. Philosophy cannot produce an objectively neutral, universal analysis of religion, but must in its own way participate in the object of religious life. The wonder and awe at the manifestation of being which gives rise to philosophical questioning finds orientation in poetic and revelatory sources of inspiration whose content exceeds conceptual grasp. Philosophical questioning brings thought to the paradoxes at the limits of our understanding of language and human experience. Philosophy cannot conceive of the origin systematically. But religious attunement to the origin, aided by the prophetic utterances of the poet, then enables philosophical speculation as to the highest form of human flourishing. The author concludes by calling into question interpretations of Heidegger’s phenomenology of religion in the work of Jean-Luc Marion and John D. Caputo. These remains bound up in part with the philosophical project for transcendental analysis of universal religion. Drawing on the hermeneutic phenomenology of Hans-Georg Gadamer and the philosophical theology of John Milbank and William Desmond, the author sketches an alternative reading of Heidegger’s critique of the Western metaphysical tradition and philosophical retrieval of religion in light of the notion of incarnation, arguing that this alternative offers a better phenomenological account of religion as such. iv To my wife v Acknowledgments This work developed as the unfolding of a gift. If the work was inspired in the pages of great thinkers and writers, it was brought to fruition through my many conversations with mentors and friends. I wish to extend my gratitude to John Russon for helping see this project through. John’s passion for wisdom spills out into his compassion as a teacher. Many thanks also to Jay Lampert for his helpful guidance and mentoring, and to John Hacker-Wright and Dominic Marner. I am grateful to Andrew J. Mitchell for his offering extensive feedback on an earlier draft of this dissertation. I thank Reiner Schaefer for our many hours of musing together. I am grateful to have a philosopher of language patiently endure my waxing eloquent about poetry and the gods. This project bears many traces of our invaluable exchanges. I thank David Fennema for his stimulating conversations about myth, religion, Tao, Buddhism and Christianity during lunch breaks on the chicken farm. His life and thought emerges from a deep and profound gratitude of existence. I thank Professor James K. A. Smith for ushering me into the world of Reformed thought and for opening up the wonders of St. Augustine to me. There are, of course, many people whose love and support gave me the means to carry out this project. I can name only a few here. I thank Rev. John Vanderstoep and the community at Maranatha Christian Reformed Church in Cambridge, Ontario for welcoming our family with open arms and for providing a nourishing place to set down our roots. I extend gratitude to all my friends at Friday night small group, to Craig and Kathy Vanderzwaag, Rev. Dr. David Courey, Kasie and Tristan Brake, and Rick Price. I thank my parents, Brad and Deb Rogers, for their encouragement and not a little financial support from time to time. And of course, I thank my family. Caleb and Nathaniel patiently endured as this project far too often stole away their father’s time and attention. Yet, I cannot imagine myself having written it without them, and now, without baby Aaron. Sarah my wife tirelessly gave her encouragement and support over these eight years of graduate school. She has given so much; this project would not have been possible without her. I owe an eternal debt of love. vi Contents List of Abbreviations viii Introduction: From Philosophy of Religion to Religious Philosophizing 1 Chapter 1: Phenomenological Analyses of Religion from the Earliest Writings 14 1.1 Introduction: Early Sketches of a Phenomenological Method 14 1.1.1 Shape of a Method: The Formal Indication as Phenomenological Retrieval of Life 19 1.1.2 From Grasping to Being Grasped: Method as Existential Transformation 31 1.2 Retrieval of Primordial Religious Life 36 1.2.1 Destruktion of Neo-Kantianism and Historicism 38 1.3 The Ground-up Retrieval of Religious Life 45 1.3.1 Content-sense of Religion: Living Before God in the World 48 1.3.1.1 The content of the proclamation in Paul 49 1.3.1.2 The content of religion as the happy life in Augustine 53 1.3.2 Relational-sense of Religion: Dependence and Care 57 1.3.3 Enactment-sense of Religion: The event 62 1.4 Conclusion: Directions for circling back on religious life 72 Chapter 2: Turnings: Heidegger’s Philosophical Retrieval of the Event 74 2.1 Introduction: The Problem of Religious Self-Determination 74 2.2 Phenomenology and Theology 75 2.2.1. Making Room for Faith 76 2.2.2. Phenomenology as Corrective to Theology 78 2.3 Destruktion of the Transcendental Standpoint 85 2.3.1 Mythical Dasein: Heidegger’s Review of Cassirer 86 2.3.2 Disrupting Ontology: Heidegger’s 1929/30 Lecture Course 92 2.4 The step back from onto-theo-logy 98 2.4.1 The onto-theo-logical Verfassung of metaphysics 99 2.4.2 Heidegger on Schelling’s retrieval of myth 108 2.5 Conclusion: From philosophy of religion to religious philosophizing 114 Chapter 3: Dwelling Religiously: Anticipating the Holy with the Poet 116 3.1 Introduction: Dwelling on/in Language 116 3.2 Of Human Dwelling 120 3.2.1 The nature of language and of the poetic 121 vii 3.2.2 Dwelling Poetically 128 3.3 Religiously We Dwell 136 3.3.1 The holy as the beginning and the end 144 3.3.2 Dwelling in the Fourfold 149 3.4 Conclusion: Between Religion and Philosophy 157 Chapter 4: Beyond Nihilism: Religious Thinking as Suspension of Metaphysics 160 4.1 Recapitulation of the Task 160 4.2 Transforming Horizons: Thinking in the Purview of the Poetic 165 4.2.1 Metaphysics in Four Senses 167 4.2.2 Nihilism and the Religious Turn 175 4.2.3 Faith and the Overcoming of Metaphysics 183 4.3 The Possibility of Religious Thinking 189 4.3.1 Prayerful Thinking 192 4.4 Conclusion: Circling back on Heidegger 198 Chapter 5 Repetitions: Heidegger and Phenomenology of Religion 202 5.1 Introduction: Speculations, or beyond pure phenomenology 202 5.2 Marion’s Phenomenology of Givenness 207 5.2.1 God without Being? Jean-Luc Marion’s retrieval of Heidegger’s ontology 208 5.2.2 Phenomenology of Givenness: Marion’s reduction of religion 212 5.3 John D. Caputo’s Religion without Religion 220 5.3.1 De-mythologizing/De-eschatologizing Heidegger 221 5.3.2 Caputo’s Religious Philosophy 226 5.4 Retrievals: Heidegger and Philosophical Theology 230 5.4.1 Philosophical Theology and the Thought of Being 232 5.4.2 Towards an incarnational phenomenology 2344 5.4.3 “Fleshing out” the Incarnation 237 5.5 Conclusion: Directions for Phenomenology of Religion 245 Conclusion: Thinking with Heidegger beyond Heidegger 247 Appendix 248 Bibliography 249 viii List of Abbreviations References are given to original language texts and to published English translations. Because most of my citations of Heidegger’s work are from published English translations, I give the abbreviation of the translated work first, followed by a backslash and the abbreviation of the original German text. Where I have modified a translation I indicate this in parentheses. Except Sein und Zeit, which is abbreviated with “SZ”, works from Heidegger’s Gesamtausgabe (Frankfurt: Klostermann, 1976ff.) are abbreviated with a “GA” followed by the volume number of the text. German Texts GA 3 Kant und das Problem der Metaphysik (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1991) GA 4 Erläuterungen zu Hölderlins Dichtung (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1981) GA 5 Holzwege (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1981) GA 6.2 Nietzsche (Zweiter Band) (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1997) GA 7 Vorträge und Aufsätze (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1977) GA 8 Was Heisst Denken? (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 2002) GA 9 Wegmarken (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1976) GA 11 Identität und Differenz (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 2006) GA 12 Unterwegs zur Sprache (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1985) GA 15 Seminare (Heraklit/Vier Seminare/Zürcher Seminare) (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1986) GA 20 Prolegomena zur Geschichte des Zeitbegriffs (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1979) GA 24 Die Grundprobleme der Phänomenologie (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1975) GA 26 Metaphysische Anfangsgründe der Logik im Ausgang von Leibniz (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1978) ix GA 29/30 Die Grundbegriff der Metaphysik. Welt—Endlichkeit—Einsamkeit (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1983) GA 40 Einführung in die Metaphysik (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1983) GA 41 Die Frage Nach Dem Ding (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1984) GA 42 Schelling: Vom Wesen Der Menschlichen Freiheit (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1988) GA 48 Nietzsche: Der Europäische Nihilismus (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1983) GA 50 Nietzsches Metaphysik.