adequate concept of Dasein, with respect to which it can now be asked how the
relationship of Dasein to God is ontologically ordered. (229–30)
“Transcendence,” in this passage, refers of course to Being—in contrast to beings.
Having cited the passage, Heidegger then goes on to say this: “If we think about this
remark too quickly, as is usually the case, we will declare that such a philosophy [i.e., his
philosophy] does not decide either for or against the existence of God. It remains stalled
in indifference. Thus it is unconcerned with the religious question. Such indifferentism
ultimately falls prey to nihilism” (230).
Heidegger then proceeds to insist, in words that ooze annoyance with his misinterpreters,
that though his philosophy does not settle the issue of theism one way or the other, it does
put us in a position where we can rightly consider the issue. It is thus not indifferent to
the issue, let alone offering the atheistic answer:
Thinking that proceeds from the question concerning the truth of Being questions more
primordially than metaphysics can. Only from the truth of Being can the essence of the
holy be thought. Only from the essence of the holy is the essence of divinity to be
thought. Only in the light of the essence of divinity can it be thought or said what the
word “God” is to signify. Or should we not first be able to hear and understand all these
words carefully if we are to be permitted as men, that is, as eksistent creatures, to
experience a relation of God to man? How can man at the present stage of world history
ask at all seriously and rigorously whether the god nears or withdraws, when he has
above all neglected to think into the dimension in which alone that question can be
asked? But this is the dimension of the holyPerhaps what is distinctive about this world-
epoch consists in the closure of the dimension of the hale [des Heilen]. Perhaps that is the
sole malignancy [Unheil]. (1977, 230)
It would take us much too far afield to consider here what is that manner of thinking that
Heidegger urges as the alternative to ontotheology, or even to explore why he thinks the
ontotheological mode of thinking is so deleterious. Let us ask, instead, what we are to
make of the words, “Or should we not first be able to hear and understand all these words
carefully if we are to be permitted as mento experience a relation of God to man.” It's not
entirely clear what we are to make of them. I think it's not implausible, however, to hear
them as an allusion to Heidegger's thought in his lecture “Phenomenology and
Theology.”
Christian theology, says Heidegger—and now he most emphatically does not mean
ontotheology—Christian theology “is a knowledge of that which initially
end p.268
makes possible something like Christianity as an event in world history” (1976, 9). And
what does make something like Christianity possible as an event in world history? Faith,
says Heidegger. Faith makes it possible. He goes on to explain that Christian faith does
not arise from Dasein, nor “spontaneously through Dasein.” Rather, faith arises “from
that which is revealed in and with this mode of existence, from what is believed. For the
Christian' faith, that which is primarily revealed to faith, and only to it, and which, as revelation, first gives rise to faith, is Christ, the crucified GodThe crucifixionand all that belongs to it is an historical eventOneknows' about this fact only by believing” (9).