clearing is what is, and if it is the space that allows for the unconcealment
of beings as the being they are, then it is the clearing that points to what
is true. That is, truth reveals itself in the dual concealing and unconcealing
of beings, in the clearing. 7
Heidegger writes that another form of concealment occurs beyond that
which is made evident in the limit of knowledge. There is a concealing that
is more than the kind of appearing. Heidegger writes that appearance can
occur as an appearing “of something,” but that such an appearance does
not necessarily mean that the thing has shown itself. 8 Rather, that when
an appearance appears as something, it is also not appearing as something
which it also is. Heidegger alludes to this in “The Origin of the Work of
Art,” that this other kind of concealment is the appearing of another that
both conceals itself and the other to whom it appeared. He writes: “One
being places itself in front of another being, the one helps to hide the
other.” 9 In so doing, being obscures itself and appears as something other
than it is. This will be important in the discussion of the way in which the
“move” of the Holy Spirit is interpreted in pentecostal worship, but for
now we will let it dwell where it is in an inchoate state.
If truth, in nature and character, is connected to being, then there
is another way that we can approach the character of truth through
Heidegger. This other way is that of language. However, we will get there
fi rst by looking at what questioning language illuminates about being.
Heidegger begins the “Letter on Humanism”:
But what “is” above all is being. Thinking accomplishes the relation of being
to the essence of the human being. It does not make or cause the relation.
Thinking brings this relation to being solely as something handed over to
thought itself from being. Such offering consists in the fact that in think-
ing being comes to language. Language is the house of being. In its home
human beings dwell. 10
We begin with the naming of language as the house of being. What does
it mean for being to dwell in language? First, to be a human means to
dwell. 11 But what is it about being that dwelling points to? Perhaps sim-
ply that to be signals that one is somewhere. But not merely somewhere;
rather, it is to be in a place in which one preserves for themselves a place
in which they can be. 12 Thus, language as the house in which being dwells
signals that it is in language that being is. What Heidegger is suggest-
ing is that to think is to be, because to think is in a way to articulate the
54 J. VAZQUEZ