Heidegger's Theology

Only arising gods - gods coming forth - can newly fulfill the essence of divinity: the fact that beyng itself is required as the arena of the extreme decisions regarding a possible essential occurrence of truth.  Arising gods - establish their divinity in the prefigured passageway of an approach to the human being, who is himself first to be decided with regard to beyng.  The arising gods found the deepest history and are the precursors of the last god.  Therefore, the merely underhanded and retrograde power-attitude, e.g., that of the ecclesial God of the Christian-curial Churches, has no essential force, even if the appeals to this God might still for a long time offer solace and support to many.  But the decision does not concern the consolation of precisely present-at-hand human beings in their apparently still unaffected "pursuit of life," a pursuit supposedly assured by the previous forms of society and structures of community.  The question is not whether the humans of this age will still have available a way of escape into solace and comfort - for all this - apart from the merely semblant seriousness of a pretended meditation - remains entirely a calculation over the security of the human being - ; "God," introduced here only as a "savior", is degraded to the role of a help in time of need - and no one comes to terms with the divinity of God...


M.H., Ponderings XIII. 1941.


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