them—there is always an irreducible otherness and transcendence to
them. 23 Third, such experience is hermeneutical (due to one’s historical
situatedness and fi nitude) and verbal, that is, expressive of what has been
said, handed down. And fourth, inasmuch as understanding is an event of
personal encounter in language, it is saturated with the ontological—as
Gadamer says: “ Being that can be understood is language” ( TM , 474, ital-
ics added). This last point is taken up by Zabala in exploring what remains
of Being after the destruction of metaphysics, and to this we now turn our
attention.
Z ABALA: “ BEING IS CONVERSATION ”
Santiago Zabala has provided a unique, original, and provocative
interpretation of the tradition bequeathed to us from Heidegger.
Heidegger famously “destroyed metaphysics” and with it Being—or,
at least the Western tradition of understanding, appropriating, and
endorsing Being. 24 In the settling dust of this destruction, Zabala has
identifi ed what he calls the remains of Being; Being can no longer
be said to be (statically), instead it remains: “Being is not but hap-
pens ” ( RB , 14, italics original). After this “destruction,” 25 philosophers
must become listeners responding to “the remains of Being ... in order
to establish an audition” ( RB , 8). 26 Hermeneutics becomes the most
appropriate means by which to enter “Being’s way, path, happening”
( RB , 23). But hermeneutics is not merely a method but a practice, a
way of life, a manner of conducting oneself in the world ( RB , 16). 27
Hermeneutics does not pursue Being’s origins but “aims to discover
Being’s effects.” 28 Zabala identifi es six post- metaphysical philosophers,
one of whom is Gadamer, whose projects constitute a hermeneutics of
Being’s remains. Our interests are primarily in Zabala’s retrieval and
appropriation of Gadamer.
Zabala identifi es Gadamer’s analysis of language as the ontological
medium of hermeneutic encounter as a fi tting candidate for a home in
which Being’s remains may reside. However, he specifi es conversation
as the true locus of Being’s remains: because Gadamer recognizes that
“conversation is the medium in which language alone is alive,” 29 then
“the remnant of Being is the conversation that takes place through lan-
guage” ( RB , 79). Being manifests itself through conversation in lan-
guage—and since genuine conversation has no end or goal, cannot be
begun or ended but only entered into, it follows that Being also neither
CONVERSATION, BEING, AND TRINITY: TOWARD A TRINITARIAN... 37