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International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 48: 139–156, 2000.

© 2000 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.139

Negative theology in Heidegger’s Beiträge zur Philosophie

DAVID R. LAWUniversity of Manchester, UK

Introduction

Even by Heidegger’s standards Beiträge zur Philosophie1 is a difficult

book. Jeff Owen Prudhomme speaks of the book’s ‘densely compacted and

bewildering formulations’ and comments that, ‘This is a difficult text even

for veteran Heidegger readers.’2

George J. Seidel is even blunter, writingthat, ‘By all accounts the Beiträge, or Contributions, is a weird work, even

by Heideggerian standards.’3 Joan Stambaugh comments that, ‘At times it is

more hermetic than hermeneutic. In a way, it is less a train of thought than a

circling around what he is trying to say.4 The difficulty of the work is further

compounded by its unfinished and fragmentary nature. Indeed, some parts of

the work seem almost to be in shorthand. Otto Pöggeler rightly describes the

text as aphoristic,5 and it is fair to say that much of the text is reminiscent of a

‘brainstorming’ session.6 Beiträge zur Philosophie, then, is far from an easy

read, even for those well-versed in the complexities of Heidegger’s thought.

At the same time, however, Beiträge zur Philosophie has been recognized

as one of the Heidegger’s most significant works. Both Pöggeler and Emad7

regard it as Heidegger’s second major work after Being and Time and for Fred

Dallmayr it is ‘the magnum opus of Heidegger’s mature years.’8 Dallmayr

sees Beiträge as ‘a study comparable in weight to Being and Time’ and as

‘the crucial link between Heidegger’s earlier and later phases.’9 Similarly,

Tom Rockmore comments that the Beiträge ‘is without doubt a key text for

a grasp of the thought of the later Heidegger.’10 Despite its baffling nature,

then, the Beiträge zur Philosophie is not a work that can be ignored.

The difficulty of the Beiträge zur Philosophie seems to have been inten-

tional on Heidegger’s part, for late on in the work he writes that, ‘philos-

ophy commits suicide when it makes itself intelligible’ ( Beiträge, 435).11

Philosophical intelligibility means dragging Being down into categories

and thought-forms that are inappropriate to it. To ‘understand’ Heidegger’sphilosophy is thus to force it into the straitjacket of traditional metaphysics,

that is, to imprison it in precisely those modes of thought which Heidegger

sees it as his task to overthrow. The difficulty of the Beiträge, then, is due not



140 DAVID R. LAW

merely to the unfinished and fragmentary nature of the work, but is a delib-

erate methodological principle on Heidegger’s part: he wishes to shatter his

readers’ attachment to traditional modes of thinking and enable them to make

the transition to seynsgeschichtliches Denken,12 a kind of non-metaphysical

thinking in which the human being becomes the clearing in which Being

comes to be as Being. This methodological principle bears some resemblance

to negative or apophatic theology, a resemblance I wish to consider in this

paper.13 Our first task, however, is to set the scene for our discussion by briefly

sketching the structure and task of the Beiträge zur Philosophie.

The structure of the Beiträge zur Philosophie

Heidegger describes the structure (Gefüge) of the Beiträge zur Philosophie as

a ‘fugue’14 consisting of six ‘Fügungen’15 ( Beiträge, 81–82), namely, ‘asson-

ance’ (der Anklang), ‘play’ (das Zuspiel), ‘leap’ (der Sprung), ‘grounding’(die Gründung), ‘the future ones’ (die Zu-künftigen), and ‘the last God’ (der

letzte Gott ). These six Fügungen are framed by a further two sections, namely,

section I, ‘Preview’ (Vorblick ), and section VIII, ‘Being’ ( Das Seyn).16

As its name indicates, the Vorblick is a preview of the issues Heidegger

wishes to address in Beiträge zur Philosophie. The first of the Fügungen,

namely, der Anklang, is concerned with the ‘first beginning’, Heidegger’s

term for Western philosophy from Anaximander to Nietzsche. The ‘first

beginning’ of Western philosophy has been dominated by what Heidegger

terms the Leitfrage, the ‘leading’ or ‘guiding question’, namely, ‘What is

ontic being? (Was ist das Seiende?) ( Beiträge, 12). Heidegger holds that

Western metaphysics arrives at a conception of Being by searching for

a common substance held to underlie all (individual) ontic being(s) (das

Seiende). Western philosophy is thus a metaphysics of presence, under-

standing Being as a suprahistorical and enduring presence, undergirding all

that is. For Heidegger this concern with the underlying, enduring substance

of entities means that Western philosophy has been concerned not, as it has

erroneously supposed, with Being (Sein) but with an abstract form of ontic

being (das Seiende). The consequence of this identification of Being (Sein)

with ontic being (das Seiende) is, Heidegger argues, that Western thought has

now forgotten, indeed abandoned Being (Sein).17 Nevertheless, there remains

a dim resonance ( Anklang) or echo of the question of Being in Western

philosophy, which Heidegger sees it as his task to recover.

The second Fügung is concerned with the transition from the first begin-ning to ‘the other beginning’. This transition accounts for the title Zuspiel,

which is a sporting term denoting the passing of the ball from one player to

another. The question of Being is, as it were, passed from the first beginning



NEGATIVE THEOLOGY 141

to the other beginning. A new beginning is being made, a beginning that takes

up the first beginning but transforms it.18 Thinking the question of Being from

the other beginning means dispensing with thinking about Being in terms of

substance. It means interrogating not ontic being, but posing what Heidegger

terms the Grundfrage, the ‘ground’ or ‘fundamental question’. The Grund-

frage asks the question of the truth of Being (Seyn), namely, ‘Wie west das

Seyn?’ (How does Being essence?) ( Beiträge, 7).

This transformation of the question of Being is the theme of the remaining

Fügungen of Beiträge zur Philosophie. The transition from the first to the

other beginning is achieved by means of a leap (Sprung) in which the realiza-

tion dawns that Being has been forgotten and abandoned. This marks the

beginning of a new positing of the question of Being. This new beginning,

however, is not a direct transition, but a leap in which Being is understood not

in metaphysical terms but as an Event of appropriation ( Ereignis). By means

of this leap into the Ereignis of Being, the grounding of the place of Being

( Augenblicksstätte) becomes possible. This grounding is to be undertaken by‘the future ones’ (die Zu-künftigen).

Seyn, Wesung, and Ereignis

What, then, is this Being with which Heidegger is concerned? Heidegger

provides us with a definition of Being in the following passage:

‘Being’ (Seyn) means not merely the reality of what is real (die Wirklich-

keit des Wirklichen), nor does it mean merely the possibility of what is

possible (die Möglichkeit des Möglichen), and it certainly does not merely

mean Being (Sein) from the perspective of the respective ontic being (das

Seiende). Rather, it means Being (Seyn) out of its primordial essencing(Wesung) in the complete fissure ( Zerklüftung), essencing (Wesung) not

restricted to ‘presence’ ( Beiträge, 75).

What Heidegger seems to mean by this and similar passages is that Being is

not an enduring, underlying substance. Being is not an objective presence, but

‘presences’ in the moment of the Event of Being. This lack of objective pres-

encing means that Being is not Grund (Ground) but also Abgrund (Abyss).

Heidegger writes: ‘A-byss is the hesitating denial of the ground. In the denial

the primordial emptiness opens itself, the primordial clearing occurs, but [it

is] simultaneously the clearing whereby the hesitation shows itself’ ( Beiträge,

380; original emphasis). In understanding Being in terms of not-Ground

or Abyss ( Ab-grund ) one passes beyond substance ontology and creates a‘clearing’ in which a new sense of Being ‘beckons’ (winkt ).

To articulate his conception of Being without falling back into substance

ontology, Heidegger makes use of a number of neologisms. Wesung and



142 DAVID R. LAW

wesen are the terms Heidegger employs to describe the mode of being of

Being. The verb ‘to be’ is appropriate to ontic being (das Seiende), but

in order to make clear that Being’s mode of being is of a different order

and to avoid Seyn being understood metaphysically as Seiendheit , Heidegger

describes Being’s mode of being as Wesung. As Heidegger puts it, ‘Das

Seiende ist. Das Seyn west’ (Ontic being is. Being essences) ( Beiträge, 30,

74).19

To grasp what Heidegger means by these neologisms, it is helpful

to consider the distinction he makes between das Vergangene and das

Gewesene. Das Vergangene is the term Heidegger employs to designate

the conventional, everyday understanding of the past as that which once

happened, is now over, and is irretrievably separated and distant from us in

time. Das Gewesene, on the other hand, expresses the idea that although the

past has passed into the past, it is nevertheless a past that reverberates into the

present and future. Following on from this, we could perhaps render Wesung

and its cognates as ‘coming-to-be-as-having-been.’ That is, Wesung is histor-ical event ( Ereignis) in which Being has come to be and as having come to

be opens up possibilities of appropriation in the present. As Heidegger puts

it on the opening page of Beiträge zur Philosophie, ‘No longer is it a case

of acting “on” something and portraying an objective reality, but of being

made over to the Event (sondern dem Er-eignis übereignet werden), which is

equivalent to the transformation of the human being’s essence (Wesenswandel

des Menschen) from rational animal into Dasein’ ( Beiträge, 3). Being is a

temporal event of disclosedness in which Being moves into presence through

its appropriation by and in Dasein.

When Heidegger attempts to explain the nature of Being’s Wesung, he

makes use of the concept of Ereignis.

20

As he puts in the opening pages of Beiträge, ‘That is the essencing of Being (Seyn) itself; we call it the Ereignis’

( Beiträge, 7).21 The interpretation of Being as Ereignis is Heidegger’s attempt

to establish an understanding of Being that is distinct from that of traditional

metaphysics. Ereignis is Heidegger’s counterpart to ‘substance’, and is his

answer to the question of the mode of being of Being. For Heidegger, ‘Being

(Seyn) essences (west ) as the Ereignis’ ( Beiträge, 30). Whereas in Western

philosophy (ontic) being was understood as substance, for Heidegger Being

should be understood as an ‘event’, an event in which Being comes-to-be-as-

having-been through appropriation by Dasein.

The nature of negative theology

There are two ways of drawing parallels between negative theology and the

Beiträge zur Philosophie. The first, more general way is to point to features




of Heidegger’s thought that seem to resemble the concerns and interests of

the negative theologians. Certain features of Heidegger’s treatment of Being

in the Beiträge zur Philosophie lend themselves to this treatment. In partic-

ular, Heidegger’s discussion of the problems of speaking about Being seem,

at first sight at least, to have parallels with certain aspects of the negative

theologians’ discussion of the incapacity of human language to speak of God.

The second approach to considering Beiträge zur Philosophie in terms of

negative theology is to compare Heidegger’s notion of God in the Beiträge

with that of negative theology. To set the scene for our discussion, let us

know turn to a brief sketch of negative theology.

Negative theology emphasizes the transcendence of God. Clement of

Alexandria speaks of God as ‘the absolutely first and oldest principle’22 and

as ‘above both space, and time, and name, and conception.’23 Dionysius

the Areopagite describes God as the ‘Super-Essential’, who is not at the

pinnacle of a hierarchy of being but utterly transcends being. Similarly,

Meister Eckhart writes that ‘God is something that necessarily transcendsbeing,’24 and that, ‘if I say that God is a being, that is not true: he is a

transcendent being, and a superessential nothingness.’25

A consequence of God’s transcendence stressed by all three of the afore-

mentioned theologians, is that human thought and language are unable to

grasp and express God’s nature. Because God is utterly transcendent, Clement

writes, he is ‘not a subject for demonstration,’26 for the ‘science of demonstra-

tion . . . depends on primary and better known principles. But there is nothing

antecedent to the Unbegotten.’27 God is thus ‘a Being difficult to grasp

and apprehend, even receding and withdrawing from him who pursues.’ 28

Consequently, ‘God is not capable of being taught by man, or expressed

in speech,’

29

but is ‘above all speech, all conception, all thought, [and] cannever be committed to writing.’30 Similarly, Dionysius writes, ‘We cannot

know God in his nature, since this is unknowable and is beyond the reach

of mind or of reason.’31 For Eckhart, ‘the brightness of the divine nature is

beyond words’32 and he warns his listeners that, ‘If you understand anything

of him, that is not he, and by understanding anything of him you fall into

misunderstanding.’33

Does this incapacity of human thought and language to grasp God

mean that we are condemned to silence? Ultimately, yes, but the negative

theologians wish to show us a path to a knowledge of God that transcends

the limitations of human reason. The first stage in this process, however,

is to construct a ‘cataphatic’ or affirmative theology. Cataphatic theology is

concerned with providing positive concepts which go some way to expressingsome aspect of the divine nature. The two methods upon which cataphatic

theology is based are the via eminentiori and the analogia entis. That is,



144 DAVID R. LAW

concepts from human experience are applied to God in an analogous and

qualitatively higher way. Thus terms such as ‘wisdom’, ‘goodness’, ‘love’,

and so on, can be applied to God provided it is understood that they are being

predicated of him to a pre-eminent degree that transcends human experience

and comprehension of these qualities. We thus gain some (limited) insight

into the nature of God by envisaging human attributes transposed on to a

divine plane.

For the negative theologian, however, the insights arrived at by means

of cataphatic theology are not sufficient. To achieve a deeper knowledge of

God, we must go beyond the conceptuality of affirmative theology to the

Divine Mystery that underlies them. This is achieved by negating the terms

developed by cataphatic theology, a classic example of which is Eckhart’s

plea to his congregation: ‘You should love [God] as he is: a non-God, a

non-spirit, a non-person, a non-image.’34 Similarly, Dionysius speaks of our

relationship with God as an ‘ascent’ towards the super-essential Godhead,

which takes place by means of a threefold negation of positive terms predic-ated of God. First, Dionysius negates concepts drawn from the physical

world. He sets up polar opposites such as greatness and smallness and rejects

the applicability of both terms to God. Secondly, Dionysius rejects terms

which are based on or related to the concept of being. Terms such as being

and non-being, eternity and time, etc., are rejected as inadequate descriptions

of the Super-Essential. Thirdly, Dionysius negates traditional descriptions of

God such as power, wisdom, and divinity. These terms are simply not capable

of grasping the transcendent mystery that is God.

It might seem from this process of negation that the via negativa involves

the utter abandonment of God and ultimately leaves us standing before sheer

nothingness. For the negative theologians, however, it is precisely negationthat enables us to sweep aside the impediments that stand in the way of

the soul’s ascent to an ultimate union with the transcendent, super-essential

Godhead. As Dionysius puts it, ‘But my argument now rises from what is

below up to the transcendent, and the more it climbs, the more language

falters, and when it has passed up and beyond the ascent, it will turn silent

completely, since it will finally be at one with him who is indescribable.’35

Apophatic elements in the Beiträge zur Philosophie

The incapacity of language

An area in which the concerns of Beiträge zur Philosophie seem to overlap

with those of negative theology is Heidegger’s emphasis on the incapacity

of language. Talk about Being, Heidegger tells us, presents considerable




difficulties. The primary reason for this is that language is constructed in

relation not to Being (Seyn) but to ontic being (das Seiende): ‘All talk

(Sagen) keeps itself in words and namings which, because they are intelli-

gible to the everyday thinking ( Meinen) of ontic being and have been thought

out exclusively in this direction, are capable of being misinterpreted as a

pronouncement of Being (Seyn)’ ( Beiträge, 83). Indeed, human language

actually conceals Being: ‘The word itself reveals something (something

known) and thereby conceals that which is supposed through intellectual talk

(denkerisches Sagen) to be brought into the open’ ( Beiträge, 83). There is

nothing that can be done to eliminate this problem; human language will

always and inevitably be incapable of speaking about Being: ‘It is impossible

to remove this difficulty, indeed the attempt to do so indicates a misjudgement

of all talk (Sagen) about Being (Seyn)’ ( Beiträge, 83).

Does this mean that we can say nothing meaningful about Being? The

answer to this question must be ‘yes’, if by ‘meaningful’ we understand only

that which can be expressed in the language of ontic being. There is, however,another approach in which the difficulty of language’s concealment of Being

is ‘taken on and grasped in its essential belongingness to the thinking of

Being (Wesenszugehörigkeit zum Denken des Seyns)’ ( Beiträge, 83). This will

require, however, the development of a new type of thinking. As Heidegger

puts it, ‘This requires (bedingt ) a procedure that, within certain boundaries,

at first always has to accommodate conventional thinking (das gewöhnliche

Meinen) and has to accompany conventional thinking on a certain path for

some distance, in order then at the right moment to demand the reversal

(Umschlag) of thinking ( Denken) but under the power of the same word’

( Beiträge, 83–84).

An important feature of this new way of thinking about Being is itsemployment of the logic of silence. Heidegger employs two terms to describe

the logic of the new thinking. The first term is Erschweigung, which,

Heidegger writes, ‘is the “logic” of philosophy, as far as philosophy asks the

ground question on the basis of the other beginning’ ( Beiträge, 83). This term

Erschweigung is a neologism derived from the verb schweigen, to be silent or

to keep silent. By adding the intensifying prefix ‘er-’ Heidegger makes clear

the fundamental nature and persistence of the silence required by the new

thinking.

The second neologism Heidegger employs to denote the logic of silence

of the new thinking is a Germanized form of the Greek term that corresponds

to Erschweigung, namely, die Sigetik . This term, which we shall translate as

‘sigetics’, is derived from the Greek σιγαν, meaning ‘to be, fall, or keepsilent.’ The point Heidegger wishes to make by these two neologisms is

that Being cannot be immediately or directly expressed and that we only



146 DAVID R. LAW

‘express’ it, if I may speak loosely and in a non-Heideggerian way, when

we refrain from expressing it and fall silent. But precisely this falling silent

is an expression of Being, for as Heidegger puts it, ‘ Erschweigung originates

(entspringt ) from the coming-to-be source of language itself’ and ‘in sigetics

the coming-to-be of language is grasped for the first time’ ( Beiträge, 79). Like

the God of the negative theologians, then, Being is a highly elusive concept.

It is indefinable and can be spoken of only by falling silent.

Deity in the Beiträge zur Philosophie

Beiträge zur Philosophie is permeated with references to deity. Heidegger,

however, prefers to speak of ‘the God’ or ‘the gods’ rather than ‘God’,

not because he is a pantheist, but because he wishes to ‘indicate inde-

cision concerning the Being of the gods, whether of one God or of many’

( Beiträge, 437). The God, Heidegger makes clear, is not to be identified with

Being ( Beiträge, 26). Neither is monotheism, nor pantheism, nor atheismappropriate to God, for all three of these terms are ‘miscalculating defini-

tions’ derived from ‘Jewish-Christian apologetics, which has metaphysics as

its intellectual presupposition (denkerische Voraussetzung’ ( Beiträge, 411).

Perhaps the most intriguing designation of deity employed by Heidegger is

der letzte Gott , the last God. Beiträge is unique among Heidegger’s writings

in introducing this concept.

The last God, Heidegger tells us, should not be equated with other concep-

tions of God ( Beiträge, 403). To speak of the last God is not disparaging,

nor is it blasphemous, nor does it mean the cessation ( Aufhören) of God.

Such interpretations arise only when we think ‘calculatively’. Far from being

blasphemous, in speaking of the last God we are addressing the question of

the essencing or mode of be-ing (Wesung/Wesen) of the God, indeed we are

raising it, Heidegger tells us, to its highest form. What Heidegger seems to

mean by this is that in order to make God an issue again, we have to recover

the God’s uniqueness, which means liberating the God from metaphysics and

its treatment of God as an entity. This means recovering the strangeness of

God, God’s unsettling (befremdend ) and unpredictable nature ( Beiträge, 406).

Such a God is ‘the most profound beginning’ ( Beiträge, 405, cf. 406).

It is the task of the ‘future ones’ (die Zu-künftigen) to prepare for what

Heidegger terms the passing-by (Vorbeigang) of the last God. Ours is an age

of transition from the first to the other beginning, from metaphysical thinking

to seynsgeschichtliches Denken, and this also plays itself out in relation to

deity. We live in an age which finds itself situated between the passing-byof the last God. The first passing-by of the god has already taken place (cf.

Beiträge, 412). But the second or future passing-by has yet to come. The task

of ‘the future ones’ is to prepare for this and to create the space in which it




can take place. This entails creating a place of silence (Stille) in which the

passing-by of the last God can be brought about.

The last God is the beginning of the longest history in its shortest path

( Bahn). Long preparation is needed for the great moment of the passing-by of the last God. Nations and states are too ‘small’ for this task because

they have withdrawn themselves from growth and have been handed over

to manipulation. Only the great and hidden single individuals will create

the silence for the passing-by of the last God. ( Beiträge, 414)

As a result of the future ones’ preparation for the last God and their creation

of the silence necessary for the last God’s passing-by, Being, Heidegger tells

us, is being withdrawn from the ‘massiveness’ ( Massenhaftigkeit ) of ontic

being ( Beiträge, 414–415), a withdrawal which will only come to pass when

‘the truth of Being comes to the Being of truth’ ( Beiträge, 415). However, this

moment is a long way off. At present we are living in the age of transition andour task is to prepare for the moment when the last God passes by.

What, then, is this last God? Seidel interprets the phrase Christologic-

ally. It is Christ who is the last God.36 This interpretation seem unlikely,

however, in view of Heidegger’s critique of Christianity in the Beiträge and,

above all, in light of the apparently anti-Christian subtitle or motto of the

chapter entitled ‘The Last God’, namely, ‘The quite different God against

those [Gods] who have been, especially against the Christian God’ ( Beiträge,

403).

Although it is improbable that the last God has a Christological origin,

Heidegger’s description of the last God as passing by may have biblical roots.

It is possibly an allusion to Moses’ encounter with God on Mount Sinai,

where Moses is granted the favour of seeing the glory of the Lord pass by

(Exod. 33.18–34.9). However, although Exodus may have been one of the

sources for Heidegger’s development of the concept of the passing by of

the last God, the most significant influence on Heidegger was most probably

Hölderlin, whom Heidegger had begun to read intensively in the 1930s.37 It is

in particular Hölderlin’s verses on the temporality of the divine that seem to

have most impressed Heidegger. In the poem Friedensfeier , Hölderlin speaks

of God touching the dwellings of human beings only for a moment ( Augen-

blick ), and yet, despite the momentary nature of this contact with the divine,

its effects reverberate through time. It is this idea of briefly touching human

existence before moving on which prompts Hölderlin to employ the term

vergänglich. But, as Heidegger points out in his lectures on Hölderlin, thisterm should not be understood in its usual sense of ‘transitory’ or ‘passing-

away,’ but is rather to be understood as the ‘passing-by’ of the God. Heidegger

replaces vergänglich with Vorbeigang in order to make clear that the passing-



148 DAVID R. LAW

by of the last God does not mean that the God has disappeared forever into

the past. The God has touched time in the precipitous moment of his passing-

by. But the correct term for this is not das Vergangene (that which is past) but

das Gewesene (that which is as having been). Prudhomme succinctly sums

up Heidegger’s point as follows: ‘The gods who have passed by are as having

been around, that is, they are present in their having been there as the ones

who have flown, and yet who in their absence still determine who we are.’ 38

But why is this passing God the last God? What does Heidegger intend

to convey by means of this enigmatic word? Prudhomme prefers to translate

letzt not as ‘last’ but as ‘ultimate’. The term letzt , he argues, does not mean

the last in a succession, in the way that to talk of a last bottle of wine is

to say that after this bottle there will be no more. The term letzt is not to

be understood as if Heidegger were referring to the final god in a series of

gods, after whom there will be no more gods. The term, Prudhomme claims,

is used in the sense of ‘ultimate’, that is, in the sense that the God of whom

Heidegger speaks embodies all that God can be. As Prudhomme puts it, ‘Thelast God is not the final deity in the sense of the end appearance at the close

of the historical series of deities, but is, strictly speaking, the God of God . . .

The final God is the God of God (in more traditional terms, the Godhead or

the divinity of God) in the sense that it gathers together all the possibilities

of the deity; it shows what it means for God to be God; it is the being of

God.’39 Why does Heidegger speak in this way? According to Prudhomme, it

is to avoid misleading the reader ‘into thinking that here we are dealing with

the essence or idea of that entity which is conceived of as the highest most

supreme entity, and thus is the cause of the being of all other entities.’ 40 For

Prudhomme, then, the phrase ‘the last God’ does not mean the end or death of

God, but is an attempt to recover the Being of God in such a way that God’sBeing does not fall back into metaphysical conceptions of God. This being

of God is expressed when the God or the gods are passing by or have already

passed by.

Esposito, on the other hand, interprets the phrase der letzte Gott in

Nietzschean terms. The last God refers to the death of the Christian God

and the God of traditional metaphysics. He writes: ‘The God who enters the

history of Being – by passing by – is not the “last” in so far as he is God

(which would still imply a grounding of a transcendent type), but is on the

contrary “God” in so far as he is genuinely the last, in a supra-metaphysical

sense, and that means not as full and highest presence, but as pure withdrawal.

This is his “lastness”, namely that the last God does not want to be understood

as the only God, and still less does the phrase describe a persona Dei.’41 InEsposito’s opinion, Heidegger wishes to bring to fulfilment the death of God

prophesied by Nietzsche by radicalizing it still further through its application




to Being. The finitude of Dasein, which has been laid bare through the death

of the metaphysical Christian God, provides the foundation for a more radical

finitude, namely that of Being itself. The ‘last’ God is a symbol of the absence

of Being and expresses the insight that human beings recover or re-discover

themselves in and through the non-being of God.

Which of these two interpretations is to be preferred? The answer to this

question depends on whether we regard Hölderlin or Nietzsche as the primary

key to the interpretation of the last God. While acknowledging Nietzsche’s

influence on Heidegger, it is clear that at the time of the composition of

Beiträge zur Philosophie, Hölderlin was beginning to exert a powerful influ-

ence on Heidegger’s thinking. On these grounds Prudhomme’s interpretation

of the last God in terms of Hölderlin’s poem Friedensfeier is probably to be

preferred. Clearly, Prudhomme’s interpretation lends itself more readily to

theological appropriation than that of Esposito.

Can we know the last God? Can we know his passing-by? Heidegger’s

answer seems to be that we cannot, if we mean knowledge in the conventionalsense, for the conventional understanding of knowledge is contaminated by

metaphysics. But God does appear, but in a way which removes God from

metaphysical knowledge. Both points are made in the following passage:

Coming from an attitude towards ontic being ( zum Seienden) that is

determined by metaphysics we will only with difficulty and slowly be

able to know the Other, that neither in ‘personal’ nor in ‘mass’ exper-

ience ( Erlebnis) does the God appear but only in the abysmal ‘space’

(abgründigen ‘Raum’) of Being (Seyn) itself. ( Beiträge, 416)

The passing-by of the last God is not something we know in any normal sense

of the word, then, but it is possible for us to create a place of silence in whichthe God’s passing-by can come to pass, a passing-by which creates a nexus

of possibilities for our own being.

Conclusion: Negative theology and the Beiträge zur Philosophie

There exist certain structural parallels between Heidegger’s thought in the

Beiträge zur Philosophie and negative theology. As we saw earlier, the

negative theologians are intent on removing the modes of thinking and

language that impede the pure vision of God. Similarly, Heidegger is

concerned to shatter conventional ways of thinking in order to lead the reader

to a deeper, almost intuitive understanding of Being, but an understanding thatresists being dragged down into the intelligibility of conventional conceptu-

ality. In doing so, he speaks of the withdrawal of Being and the necessity

of silence, ideas that resemble the negative theologians’ emphasis on the



150 DAVID R. LAW

incapacity of language and thought to grasp God. Both Heidegger and the

negative theologians can be said to be clearing space for, on the one hand,

Being and, on the other, God. It is this concern to ‘clear space’ that accounts

for the similarities between them.

When we look more closely, however, we discover that underlying these

parallels are some fundamental differences between the two parties. The

thrust of Eckhart’s statement that God is not a being, for example, is to

emphasize God’s transcendence. God is so beyond human conception that

even the concept of Being is inadequate to describe him. That Heidegger’s

grounds for rejecting the identification of Being and God are rather different

is indicated by his rejection of the concept of transcendence upon which the

Christian conception of God is based. The problem with the Christian under-

standing of transcendence, he argues, is that it is defined as ‘that which goes

beyond (übersteigt ) present-at-hand ontic being (das vorhandene Seiende)’

( Beiträge, 24). This reverses the proper order, which is that transcendence

should be the principle upon which the understanding of human nature isconstructed; indeed, it is precisely the fixity of human nature that has to be

shattered if human being is to be properly defined. Heidegger’s rejection of

transcendence also expresses itself in a different view of God’s relationship

to time and being. For the negative theologians God is utterly above and

beyond time, so much so that the creation of a hierarchy of Being is necessary

in order for the eternal, infinite God to be able to relate to the temporal,

finite world. For Heidegger, however, the last God is temporal. The last God

briefly touches time before passing by into the past, leaving only the nexus of

possibilities created by his temporary and temporal presence in time.

A further significant difference between Heidegger and the negative

theologians concerns Heidegger’s understanding of the relation between Godand Being. Whereas negative theology and Christian theology in general

has tended to identify the two terms, Heidegger holds them strictly apart.

We are told that God needs Being ( Beiträge, 415) and that Being is the

‘middle’ or ‘between’ where God and human beings meet. Heidegger speaks

of ‘the essential preparation of the clash of the God and human beings in the

midst of Being (Seyn)’, which no previous cults and churches can provide

( Beiträge, 416). The God or gods need Being as the time-space ( Zeit-raum)

in which they can come to light. Heidegger’s God, then, is subordinate to

Being (Seyn) (cf. Beiträge, 6–7). God’s being is temporal, bound up with

time, and expressed and comes to light in time. This is what gives Being

precedence over God. In this respect Heidegger’s thinking about God is very

different from that of traditional metaphysics, including that of the negativetheologians.




Finally, perhaps the most significant difference between Heidegger and

the negative theologians is that the reality at which they are aiming is funda-

mentally different. For the negative theologians, although human thought

and language are incapable of grasping the mystery that is God, the term

‘God’ nevertheless designates a ‘real’ reality. For Heidegger, however, such

an approach remains at the level of ontic being. The Christian God, he argues,

is an abstraction from ontic being that must be left behind if Being is truly to

come to be. In a sense, then, Heidegger can be said to be more radical than

the negative theologians, because he does not simply negate conventional,

cataphatic descriptions of God, but attacks the very ontological foundations

upon which such descriptions are based.

What insights can we derive from this comparison of Beiträge zur Philo-

sophie with negative theology? There are, I believe, two lessons that we

can draw from our discussion. The first concerns the interpretation of what

we might loosely term the ‘theological’ elements of Heidegger’s thought.

It is clear that the understanding of God in the Beiträge is not Christian.The concepts of ‘the last God’ and ‘the gods’ are an expression of Being

and of the possibilities open to Dasein. This is far removed from the God

of the negative theologians, who, for all his ineffability and transcendence,

still remains a reality with which the believer can commune. A similar point

is made by Caputo in his comparison of Heidegger with Eckhart. Caputo

points out that the fundamental difference is that for all his transcendence

and ineffability, Eckhart’s God remains a God who loves and is loved. This

is very different from Heidegger’s Event of Being. As Caputo puts it, ‘There

is nothing benevolent about the giving of the Event; there is no gratitude in

the thanking of Dasein.’42 Such fundamental differences between Heidegger

and that form of Christian theology which has most in common with histhinking supports the claim of Karl Barth43 and others that Heidegger’s God

is non-Christian and lends weight to those commentators who draw parallels

between Heidegger and Eastern mysticism.44

The second lesson I would like to draw from our discussion concerns the

use of the Beiträge as a theological resource. To what degree, if any, can

Heidegger help the theologian out in thinking theologically in the current

climate?

It is uncontroversial to claim that the experience of many people in the

West has been that of the absence of God. Classical negative theology was,

of course, also conscious of the absence of God. The thought-forms of tradi-

tional negative theology, however, are no longer able to address this problem

in a language that speaks to modern human beings. Firstly, negative theologyis based on an outmoded metaphysics, namely neoplatonism, and secondly

and more importantly, the starting-point for classical negative theology was



152 DAVID R. LAW

the utter transcendence of God. The modern experience of God’s absence

stems not from a sense of God’s transcendence, however, but from the

widespread modern conviction that God is simply irrelevant.

In Beiträge zur Philosophie Heidegger provides us with a profound

analysis of the modern experience of this absence and may thereby may create

the space for theological thinking in the context of this absence. Heidegger

provides us with a trenchant critique of the metaphysical basis of the modern

forgetfulness of Being that may enable us to question the assumptions of

modern Western agnosticism and atheism. However, to make use of this

critique we must employ it in an unHeideggerian manner by putting it at

the service of the defence of the concept of God. The Christian theologian,

however, has no choice. God is too important a concept to allow it to be

discarded by Western culture and too much of a reality to allow Heidegger’s

critique of metaphysics to undermine it.

This Christian correction of Heidegger’s critique of metaphysics is neces-

sary because in wishing to avoid treating Being as ontic being (Seiendheit ),Heidegger leaves us ultimately with nothing. His concept of Being is the

emptiest of all. In rejecting the God who stands over against us, Heidegger

leaves a void that can all too easily be filled by other things. Indeed, this

may be one of the reasons that Heidegger succumbed to Nazism.45 Quite

simply, he had no standard of judgement by means of which he could assess

the validity of different expressions of Being. As Heidegger famously said in

his Spiegel interview, ‘Only a God can save us.’ This saviour God, however,

surely cannot be the God of Beiträge zur Philosophie.

Acknowledgments

An earlier version of this paper was given in the Philosophy of Religion

Section at the American Academy of Religion, San Francisco, November

1997. I am grateful to the Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung for the award

of a Research Fellowship, which has enabled the reworking of the paper.

Notes

1. Martin Heidegger, Gesamtausgabe, Vol. 65: Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis)

(Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1989). Heidegger wrote the Beiträge zur

Philosophie between 1936 and 1938, but abandoned it before completion. It was not

published until 1989. An English translation has recently been published by Indiana

University Press: Heidegger, Contributions to Philosophy (From Enowning), trans. by

Parvis Emad and Kenneth Maly (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1999).




2. Jeff Owen Prudhomme, ‘The Passing-By of the Ultimate God: The Theological Assess-

ment of Modernity in Heidegger’s Beiträge zur Philosophie,’ Journal of the American

Academy of Religion 59/3 (1993): pp. 443–454; p. 444.

3. George J. Seidel, ‘A Key to Heidegger’s Beiträge,’ Gregorianum 76/2 (1995): pp. 363–

372; p. 363.4. Joan Stambaugh, The Finitude of Being (New York: SUNY, 1992), p. 112; original

emphasis.

5. Ottom Pöggeler, Neue Wege mit Heidegger (Freiburg/Munich: Karl Alber, 1992), p. 465.

6. This fragmentary and ‘shorthand’ quality of the work may well be due to the fact that

the work was not published and it is possible that Heidegger did not intend to publish

the work. Esposito tells us that the Beiträge zur Philosophie was ‘written precisely with

the intention of not being published.’ Costantino Esposito, ‘Die Geschichte des letzten

Gottes in Heideggers “Beiträge zur Philosophie” ’, in Heidegger Studies, Vol. 11 (1995):

The Onset of the Thinking of Being (Berlin: Ducker & Humblot, 1995), pp. 33–60; p. 33

(original emphasis). If Heidegger did not intend to publish the Beiträge zur Philosophie,

then the fragmentary nature of the work may well be due to the fact that Heidegger was

content merely with a draft of his new understanding of Being and was not concerned to

produce a manuscript that would be accessible to the general public. This view would

seem to be confirmed by the fact that the work most closely related to the Beiträge,

namely, the Grundfragen der Philosophie (1937–1938), deals with many of the same

issues and yet is expressed in a more intelligible form than the Beiträge. Martin Heide-

gger, Gesamtausgabe, Vol. 45: Grundfragen der Philosophie (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio

Klostermann, 1984).

7. Parvis Emad, ‘The Echo of Being in Beiträge zur Philosophie – Der Anklang: Directives

for its Interpretation,’ Heidegger Studies, Vol. 7 (1991), pp. 15–35, p. 15.

8. Fred Dallmayr, The Other Heidegger (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1993), pp. 55;

cf. p. 97.

9. Dallmayr, The Other Heidegger , p. 110.

10. Tom Rockmore, On Heidegger’s Nazism and Philosophy (London: Harverster Wheat-

sheaf, 1992), p. 182.

11. All translations are by the author.

12. To distinguish his conception of Being from that of traditional metaphysics, Heideggeradopts the archaic spelling Seyn. The inappropriateness of the verb ‘to be’ to Seyn also

accounts for Heidegger’s practice of omitting the verb from sentences dealing with Seyn.

Elsewhere Heidegger makes the same point by crossing out the word Being: Sein! . It is

difficult to find an adequate translation for Seyn. David Farell Krell opts for Beyng, but

unlike Seyn, which is the Middle High German spelling of Sein, ‘Beyng’ has no history in

the English language (David Farell Krell, Daimon Life: Heidegger and Life-Philosophy).

We shall translate it as ‘Being’, but will make clear its distinctiveness by placing the

German Seyn in parentheses. It is also difficult to find an appropriate translation for the

term seynsgeschichtlich. The most obvious translation of ‘onto-historical’ is unable to

capture the meaning of Seyn rather than Sein, and as a consequence risks reducing the

notion to precisely the sort of metaphysical concept Heidegger is anxious to combat.

13. Among Heidegger scholars to have drawn parallels between Heidegger and negative

theology are John D. Caputo, The Mystical Element in Heidegger’s Thought (Athens,

OH: Ohio University Press, 1977); Michael E. Zimmerman, Heidegger’s Confrontation

with Modernity: Technology, Politics, and Art (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University

Press, 1990), pp. 241–242; Reiner Schürmann, Meister Eckhart: Mystic and Philos-

opher (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1990). See Wolfgang Ullrich for



154 DAVID R. LAW

a brief comparison of the God of Dionysius the Areopagite and Nicholas of Cusa

with Heidegger’s concept of Being; Wolfgang Ullrich, Der Garten der Wildnis. Eine

Studie zu Martin Heideggers Ereignis-Denken (Munich: Wilhelm Fink, 1996), pp. 85–

90. See Pöggeler, Neue Wege mit Heidegger , pp. 387–389, 426–442, for a discussion of

Heidegger’s life-long interest in Meister Eckhart.14. The translation and interpretation of the term Fuge presents considerable difficulties. The

term Fuge has two meanings in German. Firstly, it can mean ‘fugue’, i.e., a piece of music

in which the theme is given by one part and is then successively taken up and answered

by the other parts. Applying this to the Beiträge zur Philosophie, we can understand the

work as consisting of a taking up and repetition of the main theme, namely Being as

Event ( Ereignis). That is, the Beiträge should be understood as a fugue that plays out the

theme of Being in a variety of related ways. This musical interpretation of the structure of

Beiträge zur Philosophie is supported by the other musical metaphors Heidegger employs

in the work. The first section after the preview is entitled Anklang, a word which means

echo, resonance, or reverberation. Another term with musical connotations that frequently

appears in Beiträge is Stimmung, which can mean both ‘mood’ and the ‘tuning’ of a

musical instrument. The use of musical terms has the advantage of avoiding the metaphys-

ical concepts of which Heidegger is so suspicious. It also allows us to obviate conceiving

of reality in visual terms, which lend themselves more easily to the metaphysical objecti-

fication Heidegger wishes to avoid.

The second meaning of Fuge comes from the construction industry, where the term

designates the space or gap between adjacent elements or parts of a building. Thus the

gap between two adjacent bricks can be described as a Fuge. It is likely that Heidegger

intends these meanings also to be present in our minds in our reading of the Beiträge zur

Philosophie. The Beiträge constitute an attempt to provide an insight into Being as that

joint, juncture, or fulcrum upon which history, God, and Dasein turn.

15. The ‘fugue’ of the Beiträge zur Philosophie, Heidegger tells us, falls into six Fügungen.

Again, it is very difficult to find an adequate English translation for this term. Its meaning

in everyday German is dispensation, chance, or stroke of fate. It is possible to speak of eine

Fügung Gottes, an act of divine providence, or eine Fügung des Schicksals, an act of fate.

Within linguistics the term can also be employed to refer to a grammatical construction

or sequence of words. It can also convey the meaning of das Sichfügen, meaning ‘to beobedient’, ‘to obey’, or ‘to bow to’ or ‘accept something’ (e.g., ‘fate’, ‘the inevitable’).

Fügung is an odd term for Heidegger to choose to describe the structure of his fugue on

Being. What is clear, however, is that the Fügungen are closely related to the fugue-like

structure of the Beiträge zur Philosophie. They constitute elements of the fugue of Being.

Heidegger writes: ‘The six Fügungen of the Fuge each stand for themselves, but only in

order to make the essential unity more urgent (eindringlich). In each of the six Fügungen

the attempt is made to say the same thing ( das Selbe) about the same thing (das Selbe),

but in each case from a different region of essencing (Wesensbereich) of that which the

Ereignis names’ ( Beiträge, pp. 81–82). Perhaps the closest approximation to Fügung in

English is ‘dispensation’.

16. For an excellent summary of the contents and main arguments of the Beiträge zur

Philosophie see Stambaugh, Finitude of Being, pp. 111–151.

17. Der Anklang is permeated with references to Seinsvergessenheit (forgetfulness of Being)

and Seinsverlassenheit (abandonment of and/or by Being). See, e.g., Beiträge, pp. 107,

110–112, 113–114, 115–124.

18. Thinking Being from the other beginning does not mean, however, the simple rejection of

Western metaphysics. Such an outright rejection, Heidegger argues, remains imprisoned




within the metaphysical thinking that it claims to reject ( Beiträge, p. 5). It is this that

accounts for Heidegger’s assessment of Nietzsche. Although Nietzsche marks the end of

traditional metaphysics, for Heidegger he nevertheless remains within its framework. It is

this conviction that enables Heidegger to speak of Neitzsche as the greatest Platonist.

19. The term west is the third person singular of a neologism created by Heidegger. Theverb wesen and cognate terms such as Wesung are derived from the noun das Wesen,

meaning ‘essence’ or ‘nature’, which is in turn derived form gewesen, the past participle

of the verb ‘to be’ (sein). The term should not be understood in its traditional sense of

an underlying essence. By transforming Wesen into a verb, Heidegger wishes to make

clear the active, dynamic sense in which Being ‘is’. This raises the difficult problem of

how best to translate the term wesen and its cognates. Emad opts for ‘unfold’, while

Rockmore prefers ‘essencing’, a translation which we shall adopt here, although it is

unable to capture all the nuances of Heidegger’s use of Wesen and its cognates. Rockmore,

On Heidegger’s Nazism and Philosophy, p. 184.

20. This is again a difficult term to translate. Krell opts for ‘propriation’ (Krell, Daimon Life,

ch. 6). Emad translates its as ‘appropriation’ (p. 15 and passim), while Dallmayr prefers

‘happening of being’ (Dallmayr, The Other Heidegger , pp. 5, 55), but this translation fails

to capture the notion of appropriation that Ereignis also contains.

21. Pöggeler suggests that Heidegger’s concept of Ereignis was influenced by Bultmann’s

book Jesus (1926) and by Bultmann’s conception of Christian revelation as an (Christ-)

event. Pöggeler, Neue Wege mit Heidegger , pp. 36–37.

22. Clement, Str . v. 81. 4 (ii. 269). The first reference is to Otto Stählin’s Greek edition of

Clement’s works: Clements Alexandrinus, ed. O. Stählin (Die Griechischen christliche

Schriftsteller der ersten drei Jahrhunderte), i (2nd edn, Leipzig, 1936), ii (3rd edn, Berlin,

1960), iii (Leipzig, 1909). The reference in parentheses is to the Ante-Nicene Chris-

tian Library translation: The Writings of Clement of Alexandria, i–ii, trans. W. Wilson

(Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1867–1889).

23. Clement, Str . v.71.5 (ii, p. 264); cf. ii, p. 6 (ii, p. 4); Paed . i. 71. 1 (i, p. 161).

24. Meister Eckhart: Sermons and Treatises, i–ii, trans. and ed. by M. O’C. Walshe (Shaft-

esburg, Dorset: Element, 1979), ii. pp. 67. 149. The first Arabic numeral refers to the

sermon, the second to the page number. Not all of Eckhart’s sermons are contained in

Walshe. For this reason reference will sometimes be made to: Meister Eckhart: The Essential Sermons, Commentaries, Treatises, and Defense, Classics of Western Spiritu-

ality, trans. and intro. by E. Colledge and B. McGinn (London: SPCK, 1981). It should be

noted that Walshe numbers the sermons differently from Colledge and McGinn.

25. Walshe, Sermons, ii, 96. 332.

26. Str . iv. 156. 1 (ii, p. 212).

27. Str . v. 82. 3 (ii, p. 270).

28. Str . ii. 5.3 (ii, p. 4).

29. Str . v. 71. 5 (ii, p. 264); cf. v. 78. 3 (ii, p. 267); v. 79. 1 (ii, p. 268).

30. Str . v. 65. 2 (ii, p. 260); cf. v. 79. 1 (ii, p. 268).

31. Dionysius, The Divine Names vii. 3 (869C–869D). All translations are taken from Pseudo-

Dionysius: The Complete Works, Classics of Western Spirituality, trans. Colm Luibheid

(London: SPCK, 1987).

32. Colledge and McGinn, Sermon 53, p. 203.

33. Walshe, Sermons, ii. 96. 333.

34. Walshe, Sermons, ii. 96. 335.

35. Dionysius, Mystical Theology iii (1033 C), cf. ii (1025 B).

36. Seidel, ‘A Key to Heidegger’s Beiträge.’



156 DAVID R. LAW

37. Heidegger gave a lecture course on Hölderlin during the winter semester of 1934–

1935, published as Gesamtausgabe 39: Hölderlins Hymnen ‘Germanien’ und ‘Der Rhein’

(Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1980).

38. Prudhomme, ‘The Passing-By of the Ultimate God,’ p. 449.

39. Prudhomme, ‘The Passing-By of the Ultimate God,’ p. 450.40. Prudhomme, ‘The Passing-By of the Ultimate God,’ p. 450.

41. Esposito, ‘Die Geschichte des letzten Gottes in Heideggers “Beiträge zur Philosophie” ’,

p. 51.

42. John D. Caputo, ‘Meister Eckhart and the Later Heidegger: The Mystical Element in

Heidegger’s Thought,’ in Christopher Macann, Martin Heidegger: Critical Assessments,

4 vols. (London and New York: Routledge, 1992), vol. 2, ch. 21, p. 169.

43. Barth writes: ‘In Heidegger’s thought, nothing seems lacking in none of the essential

features of the conventional features of God (aseity, uniqueness, omnipotence, omni-

science, infinity, etc.), but nothing has of course no relation to the biblical concept of

God, which is not taken into account by either Heidegger or Sartre in their respective

mythologies.’ Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1961), III/3,

p. 344.

44. See, for example, Graham Parkes, Heidegger and Asian Thought (Honolulu: University

of Hawaii Press, 1987); Reinhard May, Heidegger’s Hidden Source. East Asian Influences

on his Work , trans., with a complementary essay by Graham Parkes (London: Routledge,

1996).

45. It is interesting to note that there are a number of passages in which Heidegger makes

a connection between Being and the nation. See Beiträge, §§ 15, 45, 196, 251, 252. See

Philipse for a magisterial and penetrating analysis of Heidegger’s question of Being and its

connection with Heidegger’s involvement with National Socialism. Philipse goes so far as

to argue that ‘Heidegger’s later works are a continuation of Nazism by other means’, and

advances the argument that, ‘Heidegger tried to develop an authentically German relgion

in Beiträge zur Philosophie, and this unpublished book informed his entire later oeuvre.

Hitler and Himmler wanted to replace the Christian God of love with a German God

of strife and war, to which individual Germans might be willing to sacrifice themselves.

Heidegger’s Being is a plausible candidate for this job, for Heidegger talks repeatedly

about strife (Streit ) and sacrifice (Opfer ).’ Herman Philipse, Heidegger’s Philosophy of Being. A Critical Interpretation (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1998), p. 299.

Address for correspondence: Dr David R. Law, Department of Religions and Theology,

University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester, M13 9PL, UK

Phone: +44 161 962–0297; Fax: +44 161 275–3613; E-mail: [email protected]

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