Begin with the question that Heidegger raises in “The Onto-Theo-Logical Constitution of
Metaphysics”: “How does the deity enter into philosophy?” (1969, 55). When it enters, it
does so, says Heidegger, on philosophy's terms: “The deity can come into philosophy
only insofar as philosophy, of its own accord and by its own nature, requires and
determines that and how the deity enters into it” (56). Specifically, the deity enters
philosophy on the terms and requirements of ontotheology; for ontotheology is
metaphysics, and metaphysics is at the core of traditional philosophy.
And what is ontotheology? Starting with beings, the metaphysician raises the question of
Being. The question bifurcates. The metaphysician asks, for one thing, What is Being as
such, so as to account for the fact that all these different beings are beings? Second, he
asks What is Being as such, so as to account for there being all these beings? The first
question is the ontological question; the second, the theological question. Each asks for
an account, for a logos; both are “logics.” What unites them is that each, in its own way,
is inquiring into the grounding of beings in Being. Hence: onto-theo-logic. Here's how
Heidegger puts it in one passage:
Metaphysics thinks of the Being of beings both in the ground-giving unity of what is
most general, what is indifferently valid everywhere [ontology], and also in the unity of
the all that accounts for the ground, that is, of the All Highest [theology]. The Being of
beings is thus thought of in advance as the grounding ground. Therefore all metaphysics
is at bottom, and from the ground up, what grounds, what gives account of the ground.
(1969, 58)
Once again, then: How does the deity enter philosophy? The deity enters philosophy “as
the first cause, the causa prima that corresponds to the reason-giving path back to the
ultima ratio, the final accounting.” It enters “as causa sui. This is the metaphysical
concept of God” (60). Causa sui “is the right name for the god of philosophy” (72).
What then follows, in Heidegger's text, are these provocative words:
Man can neither pray nor sacrifice to this god. Before the causa sui, man can neither fall
to his knees in awe nor can he play music and dance before this god. The god-less
thinking which must abandon the god of philosophy, god as causa sui, is thus perhaps
closer to the divine God. Here this means only: god-less thinking is more open to Him
than onto-theo-logic would like to admit. (1969, 72)
We have to hear that last sentence as meaning: thinking that isn't engaged in the project
of trying to explain is perhaps more open to the divine God than is such thinking.
In his “Letter on Humanism,” Heidegger in effect removes the “perhaps” from this
passage. He's been rehearsing his contention in earlier writings that being-in-the-world is
“the basic trait of the humanitas of homo humanus” (1977, 228). He observes that some
of his readers have interpreted this as an affirmation of athe
end p.267
ism; there is only Dasein (man) and the material world. He then refers to a passage in an
earlier article of his that “no one bothers to notice” (229). The passage is this:
Through the ontological interpretation of Dasein as being-in-the-world no decision,
whether positive or negative, is made concerning a possible being toward God. It is,
however, the case that through an illumination of transcendence we first achieve an