© The Author(s) 2016 51
K.J. Archer, L.W. Oliverio, Jr. (eds.), Constructive
Pneumatological Hermeneutics in Pentecostal Christianity,
DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-58561-5_4
CHAPTER 4
Tongues and the Revelation of Being:
Reading Pentecostal Spirituality
with Heidegger
Jared Vazquez
J. Vazquez ( )
University of Denver , Denver , CO , USA
To refl ect on language means—to reach the speaking of language in such
a way that this speaking takes place as that which grants an abode for the
being of mortals.
—Martin Heidegger, Poetry, Language, Thought 1
Martin Heidegger’s theory about language and of the self-revealing
nature of truth are curiously helpful in seeking to understand the
pentecostal belief in the divine revelation of truth in the manifesta-
tion of the Holy Spirit through speaking in tongues. When Heidegger
speaks in his often confounding and seemingly circular or cryptic style
of the truthing of truth, or the redoubling behavior of concealment
and unconcealment, or of the way in which being discovers dwelling
through language, and of language that reveals and is simultaneously
incapable of full revelation, he is, one might say, in a way speaking of
the very heart of experience in pentecostal spirituality and mystery. I
will not argue here that the events of a single Sunday worship service
