International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 48: 139–156, 2000.

139
© 2000 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

Negative theology in Heidegger’s Beiträge zur Philosophie

DAVID R. LAW
University of Manchester, UK

Introduction

Even by Heidegger’s standards Beiträge zur Philosophie1 is a difficult

book. Jeff Owen Prudhomme speaks of the book’s ‘densely compacted and
bewildering formulations’ and comments that, ‘This is a difficult text even
for veteran Heidegger readers.’2 George J. Seidel is even blunter, writing
that, ‘By all accounts the Beiträge, or Contributions, is a weird work, even
by Heideggerian standards.’3 Joan Stambaugh comments that, ‘At times it is
more hermetic than hermeneutic. In a way, it is less a train of thought than a
circling around what he is trying to say.4 The difficulty of the work is further
compounded by its unfinished and fragmentary nature. Indeed, some parts of
the work seem almost to be in shorthand. Otto Pöggeler rightly describes the
text as aphoristic,5 and it is fair to say that much of the text is reminiscent of a
‘brainstorming’ session.6 Beiträge zur Philosophie, then, is far from an easy
read, even for those well-versed in the complexities of Heidegger’s thought.
At the same time, however, Beiträge zur Philosophie has been recognized
as one of the Heidegger’s most significant works. Both Pöggeler and Emad7
regard it as Heidegger’s second major work after Being and Time and for Fred
Dallmayr it is ‘the magnum opus of Heidegger’s mature years.’8 Dallmayr
sees Beiträge as ‘a study comparable in weight to Being and Time’ and as
‘the crucial link between Heidegger’s earlier and later phases.’9 Similarly,
Tom Rockmore comments that the Beiträge ‘is without doubt a key text for
a grasp of the thought of the later Heidegger.’10 Despite its baffling nature,
then, the Beiträge zur Philosophie is not a work that can be ignored.
The difficulty of the Beiträge zur Philosophie seems to have been inten-
tional on Heidegger’s part, for late on in the work he writes that, ‘philos-
ophy commits suicide when it makes itself intelligible’ (Beiträge, 435).11
Philosophical intelligibility means dragging Being down into categories
and thought-forms that are inappropriate to it. To ‘understand’ Heidegger’s
philosophy is thus to force it into the straitjacket of traditional metaphysics,
that is, to imprison it in precisely those modes of thought which Heidegger
sees it as his task to overthrow. The difficulty of the Beiträge, then, is due not
140 DAVID R. LAW

merely to the unfinished and fragmentary nature of the work, but is a delib-
erate methodological principle on Heidegger’s part: he wishes to shatter his
readers’ attachment to traditional modes of thinking and enable them to make
the transition to seynsgeschichtliches Denken,12 a kind of non-metaphysical
thinking in which the human being becomes the clearing in which Being
comes to be as Being. This methodological principle bears some resemblance
to negative or apophatic theology, a resemblance I wish to consider in this
paper.13 Our first task, however, is to set the scene for our discussion by briefly
sketching the structure and task of the Beiträge zur Philosophie.

The structure of the Beiträge zur Philosophie

Heidegger describes the structure (Gefüge) of the Beiträge zur Philosophie as

a ‘fugue’14 consisting of six ‘Fügungen’15 (Beiträge, 81–82), namely, ‘asson-
ance’ (der Anklang), ‘play’ (das Zuspiel), ‘leap’ (der Sprung), ‘grounding’
(die Gründung), ‘the future ones’ (die Zu-künftigen), and ‘the last God’ (der
letzte Gott). These six Fügungen are framed by a further two sections, namely,
section I, ‘Preview’ (Vorblick), and section VIII, ‘Being’ (Das Seyn).16
As its name indicates, the Vorblick is a preview of the issues Heidegger
wishes to address in Beiträge zur Philosophie. The first of the Fügungen,
namely, der Anklang, is concerned with the ‘first beginning’, Heidegger’s
term for Western philosophy from Anaximander to Nietzsche. The ‘first
beginning’ of Western philosophy has been dominated by what Heidegger
terms the Leitfrage, the ‘leading’ or ‘guiding question’, namely, ‘What is
ontic being? (Was ist das Seiende?) (Beiträge, 12). Heidegger holds that
Western metaphysics arrives at a conception of Being by searching for
a common substance held to underlie all (individual) ontic being(s) (das
Seiende). Western philosophy is thus a metaphysics of presence, under-
standing Being as a suprahistorical and enduring presence, undergirding all
that is. For Heidegger this concern with the underlying, enduring substance
of entities means that Western philosophy has been concerned not, as it has
erroneously supposed, with Being (Sein) but with an abstract form of ontic
being (das Seiende). The consequence of this identification of Being (Sein)
with ontic being (das Seiende) is, Heidegger argues, that Western thought has
now forgotten, indeed abandoned Being (Sein).17 Nevertheless, there remains
a dim resonance (Anklang) or echo of the question of Being in Western
philosophy, which Heidegger sees it as his task to recover.
The second Fügung is concerned with the transition from the first begin-
ning to ‘the other beginning’. This transition accounts for the title Zuspiel,
which is a sporting term denoting the passing of the ball from one player to
another. The question of Being is, as it were, passed from the first beginning
 NEGATIVE THEOLOGY 141

to the other beginning. A new beginning is being made, a beginning that takes
up the first beginning but transforms it.18 Thinking the question of Being from
the other beginning means dispensing with thinking about Being in terms of
substance. It means interrogating not ontic being, but posing what Heidegger
terms the Grundfrage, the ‘ground’ or ‘fundamental question’. The Grund-
frage asks the question of the truth of Being (Seyn), namely, ‘Wie west das
Seyn?’ (How does Being essence?) (Beiträge, 7).
This transformation of the question of Being is the theme of the remaining
Fügungen of Beiträge zur Philosophie. The transition from the first to the
other beginning is achieved by means of a leap (Sprung) in which the realiza-
tion dawns that Being has been forgotten and abandoned. This marks the
beginning of a new positing of the question of Being. This new beginning,
however, is not a direct transition, but a leap in which Being is understood not
in metaphysical terms but as an Event of appropriation (Ereignis). By means
of this leap into the Ereignis of Being, the grounding of the place of Being
(Augenblicksstätte) becomes possible. This grounding is to be undertaken by
‘the future ones’ (die Zu-künftigen).

Seyn, Wesung, and Ereignis

What, then, is this Being with which Heidegger is concerned? Heidegger

provides us with a definition of Being in the following passage:
‘Being’ (Seyn) means not merely the reality of what is real (die Wirklich-
keit des Wirklichen), nor does it mean merely the possibility of what is
possible (die Möglichkeit des Möglichen), and it certainly does not merely
mean Being (Sein) from the perspective of the respective ontic being (das
Seiende). Rather, it means Being (Seyn) out of its primordial essencing
(Wesung) in the complete fissure (Zerklüftung), essencing (Wesung) not
restricted to ‘presence’ (Beiträge, 75).

What Heidegger seems to mean by this and similar passages is that Being is
not an enduring, underlying substance. Being is not an objective presence, but
‘presences’ in the moment of the Event of Being. This lack of objective pres-
encing means that Being is not Grund (Ground) but also Abgrund (Abyss).
Heidegger writes: ‘A-byss is the hesitating denial of the ground. In the denial
the primordial emptiness opens itself, the primordial clearing occurs, but [it
is] simultaneously the clearing whereby the hesitation shows itself’ (Beiträge,
380; original emphasis). In understanding Being in terms of not-Ground
or Abyss (Ab-grund) one passes beyond substance ontology and creates a
‘clearing’ in which a new sense of Being ‘beckons’ (winkt).
To articulate his conception of Being without falling back into substance
ontology, Heidegger makes use of a number of neologisms. Wesung and
142 DAVID R. LAW

wesen are the terms Heidegger employs to describe the mode of being of
Being. The verb ‘to be’ is appropriate to ontic being (das Seiende), but
in order to make clear that Being’s mode of being is of a different order
and to avoid Seyn being understood metaphysically as Seiendheit, Heidegger
describes Being’s mode of being as Wesung. As Heidegger puts it, ‘Das
Seiende ist. Das Seyn west’ (Ontic being is. Being essences) (Beiträge, 30,
74).19
To grasp what Heidegger means by these neologisms, it is helpful
to consider the distinction he makes between das Vergangene and das
Gewesene. Das Vergangene is the term Heidegger employs to designate
the conventional, everyday understanding of the past as that which once
happened, is now over, and is irretrievably separated and distant from us in
time. Das Gewesene, on the other hand, expresses the idea that although the
past has passed into the past, it is nevertheless a past that reverberates into the
present and future. Following on from this, we could perhaps render Wesung
and its cognates as ‘coming-to-be-as-having-been.’ That is, Wesung is histor-
ical event (Ereignis) in which Being has come to be and as having come to
be opens up possibilities of appropriation in the present. As Heidegger puts
it on the opening page of Beiträge zur Philosophie, ‘No longer is it a case
of acting “on” something and portraying an objective reality, but of being
made over to the Event (sondern dem Er-eignis übereignet werden), which is
equivalent to the transformation of the human being’s essence (Wesenswandel
des Menschen) from rational animal into Dasein’ (Beiträge, 3). Being is a
temporal event of disclosedness in which Being moves into presence through
its appropriation by and in Dasein.
When Heidegger attempts to explain the nature of Being’s Wesung, he
makes use of the concept of Ereignis.20 As he puts in the opening pages of
Beiträge, ‘That is the essencing of Being (Seyn) itself; we call it the Ereignis’
(Beiträge, 7).21 The interpretation of Being as Ereignis is Heidegger’s attempt
to establish an understanding of Being that is distinct from that of traditional
metaphysics. Ereignis is Heidegger’s counterpart to ‘substance’, and is his
answer to the question of the mode of being of Being. For Heidegger, ‘Being
(Seyn) essences (west) as the Ereignis’ (Beiträge, 30). Whereas in Western
philosophy (ontic) being was understood as substance, for Heidegger Being
should be understood as an ‘event’, an event in which Being comes-to-be-as-
having-been through appropriation by Dasein.

The nature of negative theology

There are two ways of drawing parallels between negative theology and the
Beiträge zur Philosophie. The first, more general way is to point to features
 NEGATIVE THEOLOGY 143

of Heidegger’s thought that seem to resemble the concerns and interests of

the negative theologians. Certain features of Heidegger’s treatment of Being
in the Beiträge zur Philosophie lend themselves to this treatment. In partic-
ular, Heidegger’s discussion of the problems of speaking about Being seem,
at first sight at least, to have parallels with certain aspects of the negative
theologians’ discussion of the incapacity of human language to speak of God.
The second approach to considering Beiträge zur Philosophie in terms of
negative theology is to compare Heidegger’s notion of God in the Beiträge
with that of negative theology. To set the scene for our discussion, let us
know turn to a brief sketch of negative theology.
Negative theology emphasizes the transcendence of God. Clement of
Alexandria speaks of God as ‘the absolutely first and oldest principle’22 and
as ‘above both space, and time, and name, and conception.’23 Dionysius
the Areopagite describes God as the ‘Super-Essential’, who is not at the
pinnacle of a hierarchy of being but utterly transcends being. Similarly,
Meister Eckhart writes that ‘God is something that necessarily transcends
being,’24 and that, ‘if I say that God is a being, that is not true: he is a
transcendent being, and a superessential nothingness.’25
A consequence of God’s transcendence stressed by all three of the afore-
mentioned theologians, is that human thought and language are unable to
grasp and express God’s nature. Because God is utterly transcendent, Clement
writes, he is ‘not a subject for demonstration,’26 for the ‘science of demonstra-
tion . . . depends on primary and better known principles. But there is nothing
antecedent to the Unbegotten.’27 God is thus ‘a Being difficult to grasp
and apprehend, even receding and withdrawing from him who pursues.’28
Consequently, ‘God is not capable of being taught by man, or expressed
in speech,’29 but is ‘above all speech, all conception, all thought, [and] can
never be committed to writing.’30 Similarly, Dionysius writes, ‘We cannot
know God in his nature, since this is unknowable and is beyond the reach
of mind or of reason.’31 For Eckhart, ‘the brightness of the divine nature is
beyond words’32 and he warns his listeners that, ‘If you understand anything
of him, that is not he, and by understanding anything of him you fall into
misunderstanding.’33
Does this incapacity of human thought and language to grasp God
mean that we are condemned to silence? Ultimately, yes, but the negative
theologians wish to show us a path to a knowledge of God that transcends
the limitations of human reason. The first stage in this process, however,
is to construct a ‘cataphatic’ or affirmative theology. Cataphatic theology is
concerned with providing positive concepts which go some way to expressing
some aspect of the divine nature. The two methods upon which cataphatic
theology is based are the via eminentiori and the analogia entis. That is,
144 DAVID R. LAW

concepts from human experience are applied to God in an analogous and

qualitatively higher way. Thus terms such as ‘wisdom’, ‘goodness’, ‘love’,
and so on, can be applied to God provided it is understood that they are being
predicated of him to a pre-eminent degree that transcends human experience
and comprehension of these qualities. We thus gain some (limited) insight
into the nature of God by envisaging human attributes transposed on to a
divine plane.
For the negative theologian, however, the insights arrived at by means
of cataphatic theology are not sufficient. To achieve a deeper knowledge of
God, we must go beyond the conceptuality of affirmative theology to the
Divine Mystery that underlies them. This is achieved by negating the terms
developed by cataphatic theology, a classic example of which is Eckhart’s
plea to his congregation: ‘You should love [God] as he is: a non-God, a
non-spirit, a non-person, a non-image.’34 Similarly, Dionysius speaks of our
relationship with God as an ‘ascent’ towards the super-essential Godhead,
which takes place by means of a threefold negation of positive terms predic-
ated of God. First, Dionysius negates concepts drawn from the physical
world. He sets up polar opposites such as greatness and smallness and rejects
the applicability of both terms to God. Secondly, Dionysius rejects terms
which are based on or related to the concept of being. Terms such as being
and non-being, eternity and time, etc., are rejected as inadequate descriptions
of the Super-Essential. Thirdly, Dionysius negates traditional descriptions of
God such as power, wisdom, and divinity. These terms are simply not capable
of grasping the transcendent mystery that is God.
It might seem from this process of negation that the via negativa involves
the utter abandonment of God and ultimately leaves us standing before sheer
nothingness. For the negative theologians, however, it is precisely negation
that enables us to sweep aside the impediments that stand in the way of
the soul’s ascent to an ultimate union with the transcendent, super-essential
Godhead. As Dionysius puts it, ‘But my argument now rises from what is
below up to the transcendent, and the more it climbs, the more language
falters, and when it has passed up and beyond the ascent, it will turn silent
completely, since it will finally be at one with him who is indescribable.’35

Apophatic elements in the Beiträge zur Philosophie

The incapacity of language

An area in which the concerns of Beiträge zur Philosophie seem to overlap

with those of negative theology is Heidegger’s emphasis on the incapacity
of language. Talk about Being, Heidegger tells us, presents considerable
 NEGATIVE THEOLOGY 145

difficulties. The primary reason for this is that language is constructed in

relation not to Being (Seyn) but to ontic being (das Seiende): ‘All talk
(Sagen) keeps itself in words and namings which, because they are intelli-
gible to the everyday thinking (Meinen) of ontic being and have been thought
out exclusively in this direction, are capable of being misinterpreted as a
pronouncement of Being (Seyn)’ (Beiträge, 83). Indeed, human language
actually conceals Being: ‘The word itself reveals something (something
known) and thereby conceals that which is supposed through intellectual talk
(denkerisches Sagen) to be brought into the open’ (Beiträge, 83). There is
nothing that can be done to eliminate this problem; human language will
always and inevitably be incapable of speaking about Being: ‘It is impossible
to remove this difficulty, indeed the attempt to do so indicates a misjudgement
of all talk (Sagen) about Being (Seyn)’ (Beiträge, 83).
Does this mean that we can say nothing meaningful about Being? The
answer to this question must be ‘yes’, if by ‘meaningful’ we understand only
that which can be expressed in the language of ontic being. There is, however,
another approach in which the difficulty of language’s concealment of Being
is ‘taken on and grasped in its essential belongingness to the thinking of
Being (Wesenszugehörigkeit zum Denken des Seyns)’ (Beiträge, 83). This will
require, however, the development of a new type of thinking. As Heidegger
puts it, ‘This requires (bedingt) a procedure that, within certain boundaries,
at first always has to accommodate conventional thinking (das gewöhnliche
Meinen) and has to accompany conventional thinking on a certain path for
some distance, in order then at the right moment to demand the reversal
(Umschlag) of thinking (Denken) but under the power of the same word’
(Beiträge, 83–84).
An important feature of this new way of thinking about Being is its
employment of the logic of silence. Heidegger employs two terms to describe
the logic of the new thinking. The first term is Erschweigung, which,
Heidegger writes, ‘is the “logic” of philosophy, as far as philosophy asks the
ground question on the basis of the other beginning’ (Beiträge, 83). This term
Erschweigung is a neologism derived from the verb schweigen, to be silent or
to keep silent. By adding the intensifying prefix ‘er-’ Heidegger makes clear
the fundamental nature and persistence of the silence required by the new
thinking.
The second neologism Heidegger employs to denote the logic of silence
of the new thinking is a Germanized form of the Greek term that corresponds
to Erschweigung, namely, die Sigetik. This term, which we shall translate as
‘sigetics’, is derived from the Greek σ ιγ αν, meaning ‘to be, fall, or keep
silent.’ The point Heidegger wishes to make by these two neologisms is
that Being cannot be immediately or directly expressed and that we only
146 DAVID R. LAW

‘express’ it, if I may speak loosely and in a non-Heideggerian way, when

we refrain from expressing it and fall silent. But precisely this falling silent
is an expression of Being, for as Heidegger puts it, ‘Erschweigung originates
(entspringt) from the coming-to-be source of language itself’ and ‘in sigetics
the coming-to-be of language is grasped for the first time’ (Beiträge, 79). Like
the God of the negative theologians, then, Being is a highly elusive concept.
It is indefinable and can be spoken of only by falling silent.

Deity in the Beiträge zur Philosophie

Beiträge zur Philosophie is permeated with references to deity. Heidegger,

however, prefers to speak of ‘the God’ or ‘the gods’ rather than ‘God’,
not because he is a pantheist, but because he wishes to ‘indicate inde-
cision concerning the Being of the gods, whether of one God or of many’
(Beiträge, 437). The God, Heidegger makes clear, is not to be identified with
Being (Beiträge, 26). Neither is monotheism, nor pantheism, nor atheism
appropriate to God, for all three of these terms are ‘miscalculating defini-
tions’ derived from ‘Jewish-Christian apologetics, which has metaphysics as
its intellectual presupposition (denkerische Voraussetzung’ (Beiträge, 411).
Perhaps the most intriguing designation of deity employed by Heidegger is
der letzte Gott, the last God. Beiträge is unique among Heidegger’s writings
in introducing this concept.
The last God, Heidegger tells us, should not be equated with other concep-
tions of God (Beiträge, 403). To speak of the last God is not disparaging,
nor is it blasphemous, nor does it mean the cessation (Aufhören) of God.
Such interpretations arise only when we think ‘calculatively’. Far from being
blasphemous, in speaking of the last God we are addressing the question of
the essencing or mode of be-ing (Wesung/Wesen) of the God, indeed we are
raising it, Heidegger tells us, to its highest form. What Heidegger seems to
mean by this is that in order to make God an issue again, we have to recover
the God’s uniqueness, which means liberating the God from metaphysics and
its treatment of God as an entity. This means recovering the strangeness of
God, God’s unsettling (befremdend) and unpredictable nature (Beiträge, 406).
Such a God is ‘the most profound beginning’ (Beiträge, 405, cf. 406).
It is the task of the ‘future ones’ (die Zu-künftigen) to prepare for what
Heidegger terms the passing-by (Vorbeigang) of the last God. Ours is an age
of transition from the first to the other beginning, from metaphysical thinking
to seynsgeschichtliches Denken, and this also plays itself out in relation to
deity. We live in an age which finds itself situated between the passing-by
of the last God. The first passing-by of the god has already taken place (cf.
Beiträge, 412). But the second or future passing-by has yet to come. The task
of ‘the future ones’ is to prepare for this and to create the space in which it
 NEGATIVE THEOLOGY 147

can take place. This entails creating a place of silence (Stille) in which the
passing-by of the last God can be brought about.
The last God is the beginning of the longest history in its shortest path
(Bahn). Long preparation is needed for the great moment of the passing-
by of the last God. Nations and states are too ‘small’ for this task because
they have withdrawn themselves from growth and have been handed over
to manipulation. Only the great and hidden single individuals will create
the silence for the passing-by of the last God. (Beiträge, 414)

As a result of the future ones’ preparation for the last God and their creation
of the silence necessary for the last God’s passing-by, Being, Heidegger tells
us, is being withdrawn from the ‘massiveness’ (Massenhaftigkeit) of ontic
being (Beiträge, 414–415), a withdrawal which will only come to pass when
‘the truth of Being comes to the Being of truth’ (Beiträge, 415). However, this
moment is a long way off. At present we are living in the age of transition and
our task is to prepare for the moment when the last God passes by.
What, then, is this last God? Seidel interprets the phrase Christologic-
ally. It is Christ who is the last God.36 This interpretation seem unlikely,
however, in view of Heidegger’s critique of Christianity in the Beiträge and,
above all, in light of the apparently anti-Christian subtitle or motto of the
chapter entitled ‘The Last God’, namely, ‘The quite different God against
those [Gods] who have been, especially against the Christian God’ (Beiträge,
403).
Although it is improbable that the last God has a Christological origin,
Heidegger’s description of the last God as passing by may have biblical roots.
It is possibly an allusion to Moses’ encounter with God on Mount Sinai,
where Moses is granted the favour of seeing the glory of the Lord pass by
(Exod. 33.18–34.9). However, although Exodus may have been one of the
sources for Heidegger’s development of the concept of the passing by of
the last God, the most significant influence on Heidegger was most probably
Hölderlin, whom Heidegger had begun to read intensively in the 1930s.37 It is
in particular Hölderlin’s verses on the temporality of the divine that seem to
have most impressed Heidegger. In the poem Friedensfeier, Hölderlin speaks
of God touching the dwellings of human beings only for a moment (Augen-
blick), and yet, despite the momentary nature of this contact with the divine,
its effects reverberate through time. It is this idea of briefly touching human
existence before moving on which prompts Hölderlin to employ the term
vergänglich. But, as Heidegger points out in his lectures on Hölderlin, this
term should not be understood in its usual sense of ‘transitory’ or ‘passing-
away,’ but is rather to be understood as the ‘passing-by’ of the God. Heidegger
replaces vergänglich with Vorbeigang in order to make clear that the passing-
148 DAVID R. LAW

by of the last God does not mean that the God has disappeared forever into
the past. The God has touched time in the precipitous moment of his passing-
by. But the correct term for this is not das Vergangene (that which is past) but
das Gewesene (that which is as having been). Prudhomme succinctly sums
up Heidegger’s point as follows: ‘The gods who have passed by are as having
been around, that is, they are present in their having been there as the ones
who have flown, and yet who in their absence still determine who we are.’38
But why is this passing God the last God? What does Heidegger intend
to convey by means of this enigmatic word? Prudhomme prefers to translate
letzt not as ‘last’ but as ‘ultimate’. The term letzt, he argues, does not mean
the last in a succession, in the way that to talk of a last bottle of wine is
to say that after this bottle there will be no more. The term letzt is not to
be understood as if Heidegger were referring to the final god in a series of
gods, after whom there will be no more gods. The term, Prudhomme claims,
is used in the sense of ‘ultimate’, that is, in the sense that the God of whom
Heidegger speaks embodies all that God can be. As Prudhomme puts it, ‘The
last God is not the final deity in the sense of the end appearance at the close
of the historical series of deities, but is, strictly speaking, the God of God . . .
The final God is the God of God (in more traditional terms, the Godhead or
the divinity of God) in the sense that it gathers together all the possibilities
of the deity; it shows what it means for God to be God; it is the being of
God.’39 Why does Heidegger speak in this way? According to Prudhomme, it
is to avoid misleading the reader ‘into thinking that here we are dealing with
the essence or idea of that entity which is conceived of as the highest most
supreme entity, and thus is the cause of the being of all other entities.’40 For
Prudhomme, then, the phrase ‘the last God’ does not mean the end or death of
God, but is an attempt to recover the Being of God in such a way that God’s
Being does not fall back into metaphysical conceptions of God. This being
of God is expressed when the God or the gods are passing by or have already
passed by.
Esposito, on the other hand, interprets the phrase der letzte Gott in
Nietzschean terms. The last God refers to the death of the Christian God
and the God of traditional metaphysics. He writes: ‘The God who enters the
history of Being – by passing by – is not the “last” in so far as he is God
(which would still imply a grounding of a transcendent type), but is on the
contrary “God” in so far as he is genuinely the last, in a supra-metaphysical
sense, and that means not as full and highest presence, but as pure withdrawal.
This is his “lastness”, namely that the last God does not want to be understood
as the only God, and still less does the phrase describe a persona Dei.’41 In
Esposito’s opinion, Heidegger wishes to bring to fulfilment the death of God
prophesied by Nietzsche by radicalizing it still further through its application
 NEGATIVE THEOLOGY 149

to Being. The finitude of Dasein, which has been laid bare through the death
of the metaphysical Christian God, provides the foundation for a more radical
finitude, namely that of Being itself. The ‘last’ God is a symbol of the absence
of Being and expresses the insight that human beings recover or re-discover
themselves in and through the non-being of God.
Which of these two interpretations is to be preferred? The answer to this
question depends on whether we regard Hölderlin or Nietzsche as the primary
key to the interpretation of the last God. While acknowledging Nietzsche’s
influence on Heidegger, it is clear that at the time of the composition of
Beiträge zur Philosophie, Hölderlin was beginning to exert a powerful influ-
ence on Heidegger’s thinking. On these grounds Prudhomme’s interpretation
of the last God in terms of Hölderlin’s poem Friedensfeier is probably to be
preferred. Clearly, Prudhomme’s interpretation lends itself more readily to
theological appropriation than that of Esposito.
Can we know the last God? Can we know his passing-by? Heidegger’s
answer seems to be that we cannot, if we mean knowledge in the conventional
sense, for the conventional understanding of knowledge is contaminated by
metaphysics. But God does appear, but in a way which removes God from
metaphysical knowledge. Both points are made in the following passage:
Coming from an attitude towards ontic being (zum Seienden) that is
determined by metaphysics we will only with difficulty and slowly be
able to know the Other, that neither in ‘personal’ nor in ‘mass’ exper-
ience (Erlebnis) does the God appear but only in the abysmal ‘space’
(abgründigen ‘Raum’) of Being (Seyn) itself. (Beiträge, 416)

The passing-by of the last God is not something we know in any normal sense
of the word, then, but it is possible for us to create a place of silence in which
the God’s passing-by can come to pass, a passing-by which creates a nexus
of possibilities for our own being.

Conclusion: Negative theology and the Beiträge zur Philosophie

There exist certain structural parallels between Heidegger’s thought in the

Beiträge zur Philosophie and negative theology. As we saw earlier, the
negative theologians are intent on removing the modes of thinking and
language that impede the pure vision of God. Similarly, Heidegger is
concerned to shatter conventional ways of thinking in order to lead the reader
to a deeper, almost intuitive understanding of Being, but an understanding that
resists being dragged down into the intelligibility of conventional conceptu-
ality. In doing so, he speaks of the withdrawal of Being and the necessity
of silence, ideas that resemble the negative theologians’ emphasis on the
150 DAVID R. LAW

incapacity of language and thought to grasp God. Both Heidegger and the
negative theologians can be said to be clearing space for, on the one hand,
Being and, on the other, God. It is this concern to ‘clear space’ that accounts
for the similarities between them.
When we look more closely, however, we discover that underlying these
parallels are some fundamental differences between the two parties. The
thrust of Eckhart’s statement that God is not a being, for example, is to
emphasize God’s transcendence. God is so beyond human conception that
even the concept of Being is inadequate to describe him. That Heidegger’s
grounds for rejecting the identification of Being and God are rather different
is indicated by his rejection of the concept of transcendence upon which the
Christian conception of God is based. The problem with the Christian under-
standing of transcendence, he argues, is that it is defined as ‘that which goes
beyond (übersteigt) present-at-hand ontic being (das vorhandene Seiende)’
(Beiträge, 24). This reverses the proper order, which is that transcendence
should be the principle upon which the understanding of human nature is
constructed; indeed, it is precisely the fixity of human nature that has to be
shattered if human being is to be properly defined. Heidegger’s rejection of
transcendence also expresses itself in a different view of God’s relationship
to time and being. For the negative theologians God is utterly above and
beyond time, so much so that the creation of a hierarchy of Being is necessary
in order for the eternal, infinite God to be able to relate to the temporal,
finite world. For Heidegger, however, the last God is temporal. The last God
briefly touches time before passing by into the past, leaving only the nexus of
possibilities created by his temporary and temporal presence in time.
A further significant difference between Heidegger and the negative
theologians concerns Heidegger’s understanding of the relation between God
and Being. Whereas negative theology and Christian theology in general
has tended to identify the two terms, Heidegger holds them strictly apart.
We are told that God needs Being (Beiträge, 415) and that Being is the
‘middle’ or ‘between’ where God and human beings meet. Heidegger speaks
of ‘the essential preparation of the clash of the God and human beings in the
midst of Being (Seyn)’, which no previous cults and churches can provide
(Beiträge, 416). The God or gods need Being as the time-space (Zeit-raum)
in which they can come to light. Heidegger’s God, then, is subordinate to
Being (Seyn) (cf. Beiträge, 6–7). God’s being is temporal, bound up with
time, and expressed and comes to light in time. This is what gives Being
precedence over God. In this respect Heidegger’s thinking about God is very
different from that of traditional metaphysics, including that of the negative
theologians.
 NEGATIVE THEOLOGY 151

Finally, perhaps the most significant difference between Heidegger and

the negative theologians is that the reality at which they are aiming is funda-
mentally different. For the negative theologians, although human thought
and language are incapable of grasping the mystery that is God, the term
‘God’ nevertheless designates a ‘real’ reality. For Heidegger, however, such
an approach remains at the level of ontic being. The Christian God, he argues,
is an abstraction from ontic being that must be left behind if Being is truly to
come to be. In a sense, then, Heidegger can be said to be more radical than
the negative theologians, because he does not simply negate conventional,
cataphatic descriptions of God, but attacks the very ontological foundations
upon which such descriptions are based.
What insights can we derive from this comparison of Beiträge zur Philo-
sophie with negative theology? There are, I believe, two lessons that we
can draw from our discussion. The first concerns the interpretation of what
we might loosely term the ‘theological’ elements of Heidegger’s thought.
It is clear that the understanding of God in the Beiträge is not Christian.
The concepts of ‘the last God’ and ‘the gods’ are an expression of Being
and of the possibilities open to Dasein. This is far removed from the God
of the negative theologians, who, for all his ineffability and transcendence,
still remains a reality with which the believer can commune. A similar point
is made by Caputo in his comparison of Heidegger with Eckhart. Caputo
points out that the fundamental difference is that for all his transcendence
and ineffability, Eckhart’s God remains a God who loves and is loved. This
is very different from Heidegger’s Event of Being. As Caputo puts it, ‘There
is nothing benevolent about the giving of the Event; there is no gratitude in
the thanking of Dasein.’42 Such fundamental differences between Heidegger
and that form of Christian theology which has most in common with his
thinking supports the claim of Karl Barth43 and others that Heidegger’s God
is non-Christian and lends weight to those commentators who draw parallels
between Heidegger and Eastern mysticism.44
The second lesson I would like to draw from our discussion concerns the
use of the Beiträge as a theological resource. To what degree, if any, can
Heidegger help the theologian out in thinking theologically in the current
climate?
It is uncontroversial to claim that the experience of many people in the
West has been that of the absence of God. Classical negative theology was,
of course, also conscious of the absence of God. The thought-forms of tradi-
tional negative theology, however, are no longer able to address this problem
in a language that speaks to modern human beings. Firstly, negative theology
is based on an outmoded metaphysics, namely neoplatonism, and secondly
and more importantly, the starting-point for classical negative theology was
152 DAVID R. LAW

the utter transcendence of God. The modern experience of God’s absence

stems not from a sense of God’s transcendence, however, but from the
widespread modern conviction that God is simply irrelevant.
In Beiträge zur Philosophie Heidegger provides us with a profound
analysis of the modern experience of this absence and may thereby may create
the space for theological thinking in the context of this absence. Heidegger
provides us with a trenchant critique of the metaphysical basis of the modern
forgetfulness of Being that may enable us to question the assumptions of
modern Western agnosticism and atheism. However, to make use of this
critique we must employ it in an unHeideggerian manner by putting it at
the service of the defence of the concept of God. The Christian theologian,
however, has no choice. God is too important a concept to allow it to be
discarded by Western culture and too much of a reality to allow Heidegger’s
critique of metaphysics to undermine it.
This Christian correction of Heidegger’s critique of metaphysics is neces-
sary because in wishing to avoid treating Being as ontic being (Seiendheit),
Heidegger leaves us ultimately with nothing. His concept of Being is the
emptiest of all. In rejecting the God who stands over against us, Heidegger
leaves a void that can all too easily be filled by other things. Indeed, this
may be one of the reasons that Heidegger succumbed to Nazism.45 Quite
simply, he had no standard of judgement by means of which he could assess
the validity of different expressions of Being. As Heidegger famously said in
his Spiegel interview, ‘Only a God can save us.’ This saviour God, however,
surely cannot be the God of Beiträge zur Philosophie.

Acknowledgments

An earlier version of this paper was given in the Philosophy of Religion

Section at the American Academy of Religion, San Francisco, November
1997. I am grateful to the Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung for the award
of a Research Fellowship, which has enabled the reworking of the paper.

Notes

1. Martin Heidegger, Gesamtausgabe, Vol. 65: Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis)
(Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1989). Heidegger wrote the Beiträge zur
Philosophie between 1936 and 1938, but abandoned it before completion. It was not
published until 1989. An English translation has recently been published by Indiana
University Press: Heidegger, Contributions to Philosophy (From Enowning), trans. by
Parvis Emad and Kenneth Maly (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1999).
 NEGATIVE THEOLOGY 153

2. Jeff Owen Prudhomme, ‘The Passing-By of the Ultimate God: The Theological Assess-
ment of Modernity in Heidegger’s Beiträge zur Philosophie,’ Journal of the American
Academy of Religion 59/3 (1993): pp. 443–454; p. 444.
3. George J. Seidel, ‘A Key to Heidegger’s Beiträge,’ Gregorianum 76/2 (1995): pp. 363–
372; p. 363.
4. Joan Stambaugh, The Finitude of Being (New York: SUNY, 1992), p. 112; original
emphasis.
5. Ottom Pöggeler, Neue Wege mit Heidegger (Freiburg/Munich: Karl Alber, 1992), p. 465.
6. This fragmentary and ‘shorthand’ quality of the work may well be due to the fact that
the work was not published and it is possible that Heidegger did not intend to publish
the work. Esposito tells us that the Beiträge zur Philosophie was ‘written precisely with
the intention of not being published.’ Costantino Esposito, ‘Die Geschichte des letzten
Gottes in Heideggers “Beiträge zur Philosophie” ’, in Heidegger Studies, Vol. 11 (1995):
The Onset of the Thinking of Being (Berlin: Ducker & Humblot, 1995), pp. 33–60; p. 33
(original emphasis). If Heidegger did not intend to publish the Beiträge zur Philosophie,
then the fragmentary nature of the work may well be due to the fact that Heidegger was
content merely with a draft of his new understanding of Being and was not concerned to
produce a manuscript that would be accessible to the general public. This view would
seem to be confirmed by the fact that the work most closely related to the Beiträge,
namely, the Grundfragen der Philosophie (1937–1938), deals with many of the same
issues and yet is expressed in a more intelligible form than the Beiträge. Martin Heide-
gger, Gesamtausgabe, Vol. 45: Grundfragen der Philosophie (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio
Klostermann, 1984).
7. Parvis Emad, ‘The Echo of Being in Beiträge zur Philosophie – Der Anklang: Directives
for its Interpretation,’ Heidegger Studies, Vol. 7 (1991), pp. 15–35, p. 15.
8. Fred Dallmayr, The Other Heidegger (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1993), pp. 55;
cf. p. 97.
9. Dallmayr, The Other Heidegger, p. 110.
10. Tom Rockmore, On Heidegger’s Nazism and Philosophy (London: Harverster Wheat-
sheaf, 1992), p. 182.
11. All translations are by the author.
12. To distinguish his conception of Being from that of traditional metaphysics, Heidegger
adopts the archaic spelling Seyn. The inappropriateness of the verb ‘to be’ to Seyn also
accounts for Heidegger’s practice of omitting the verb from sentences dealing with Seyn.
Elsewhere Heidegger makes the same point by crossing out the word Being: Sein ✕ . It is
difficult to find an adequate translation for Seyn. David Farell Krell opts for Beyng, but
unlike Seyn, which is the Middle High German spelling of Sein, ‘Beyng’ has no history in
the English language (David Farell Krell, Daimon Life: Heidegger and Life-Philosophy).
We shall translate it as ‘Being’, but will make clear its distinctiveness by placing the
German Seyn in parentheses. It is also difficult to find an appropriate translation for the
term seynsgeschichtlich. The most obvious translation of ‘onto-historical’ is unable to
capture the meaning of Seyn rather than Sein, and as a consequence risks reducing the
notion to precisely the sort of metaphysical concept Heidegger is anxious to combat.
13. Among Heidegger scholars to have drawn parallels between Heidegger and negative
theology are John D. Caputo, The Mystical Element in Heidegger’s Thought (Athens,
OH: Ohio University Press, 1977); Michael E. Zimmerman, Heidegger’s Confrontation
with Modernity: Technology, Politics, and Art (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University
Press, 1990), pp. 241–242; Reiner Schürmann, Meister Eckhart: Mystic and Philos-
opher (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1990). See Wolfgang Ullrich for
154 DAVID R. LAW

a brief comparison of the God of Dionysius the Areopagite and Nicholas of Cusa
with Heidegger’s concept of Being; Wolfgang Ullrich, Der Garten der Wildnis. Eine
Studie zu Martin Heideggers Ereignis-Denken (Munich: Wilhelm Fink, 1996), pp. 85–
90. See Pöggeler, Neue Wege mit Heidegger, pp. 387–389, 426–442, for a discussion of
Heidegger’s life-long interest in Meister Eckhart.
14. The translation and interpretation of the term Fuge presents considerable difficulties. The
term Fuge has two meanings in German. Firstly, it can mean ‘fugue’, i.e., a piece of music
in which the theme is given by one part and is then successively taken up and answered
by the other parts. Applying this to the Beiträge zur Philosophie, we can understand the
work as consisting of a taking up and repetition of the main theme, namely Being as
Event (Ereignis). That is, the Beiträge should be understood as a fugue that plays out the
theme of Being in a variety of related ways. This musical interpretation of the structure of
Beiträge zur Philosophie is supported by the other musical metaphors Heidegger employs
in the work. The first section after the preview is entitled Anklang, a word which means
echo, resonance, or reverberation. Another term with musical connotations that frequently
appears in Beiträge is Stimmung, which can mean both ‘mood’ and the ‘tuning’ of a
musical instrument. The use of musical terms has the advantage of avoiding the metaphys-
ical concepts of which Heidegger is so suspicious. It also allows us to obviate conceiving
of reality in visual terms, which lend themselves more easily to the metaphysical objecti-
fication Heidegger wishes to avoid.
The second meaning of Fuge comes from the construction industry, where the term
designates the space or gap between adjacent elements or parts of a building. Thus the
gap between two adjacent bricks can be described as a Fuge. It is likely that Heidegger
intends these meanings also to be present in our minds in our reading of the Beiträge zur
Philosophie. The Beiträge constitute an attempt to provide an insight into Being as that
joint, juncture, or fulcrum upon which history, God, and Dasein turn.
15. The ‘fugue’ of the Beiträge zur Philosophie, Heidegger tells us, falls into six Fügungen.
Again, it is very difficult to find an adequate English translation for this term. Its meaning
in everyday German is dispensation, chance, or stroke of fate. It is possible to speak of eine
Fügung Gottes, an act of divine providence, or eine Fügung des Schicksals, an act of fate.
Within linguistics the term can also be employed to refer to a grammatical construction
or sequence of words. It can also convey the meaning of das Sichfügen, meaning ‘to be
obedient’, ‘to obey’, or ‘to bow to’ or ‘accept something’ (e.g., ‘fate’, ‘the inevitable’).
Fügung is an odd term for Heidegger to choose to describe the structure of his fugue on
Being. What is clear, however, is that the Fügungen are closely related to the fugue-like
structure of the Beiträge zur Philosophie. They constitute elements of the fugue of Being.
Heidegger writes: ‘The six Fügungen of the Fuge each stand for themselves, but only in
order to make the essential unity more urgent (eindringlich). In each of the six Fügungen
the attempt is made to say the same thing (das Selbe) about the same thing (das Selbe),
but in each case from a different region of essencing (Wesensbereich) of that which the
Ereignis names’ (Beiträge, pp. 81–82). Perhaps the closest approximation to Fügung in
English is ‘dispensation’.
16. For an excellent summary of the contents and main arguments of the Beiträge zur
Philosophie see Stambaugh, Finitude of Being, pp. 111–151.
17. Der Anklang is permeated with references to Seinsvergessenheit (forgetfulness of Being)
and Seinsverlassenheit (abandonment of and/or by Being). See, e.g., Beiträge, pp. 107,
110–112, 113–114, 115–124.
18. Thinking Being from the other beginning does not mean, however, the simple rejection of
Western metaphysics. Such an outright rejection, Heidegger argues, remains imprisoned
 NEGATIVE THEOLOGY 155

within the metaphysical thinking that it claims to reject (Beiträge, p. 5). It is this that
accounts for Heidegger’s assessment of Nietzsche. Although Nietzsche marks the end of
traditional metaphysics, for Heidegger he nevertheless remains within its framework. It is
this conviction that enables Heidegger to speak of Neitzsche as the greatest Platonist.
19. The term west is the third person singular of a neologism created by Heidegger. The
verb wesen and cognate terms such as Wesung are derived from the noun das Wesen,
meaning ‘essence’ or ‘nature’, which is in turn derived form gewesen, the past participle
of the verb ‘to be’ (sein). The term should not be understood in its traditional sense of
an underlying essence. By transforming Wesen into a verb, Heidegger wishes to make
clear the active, dynamic sense in which Being ‘is’. This raises the difficult problem of
how best to translate the term wesen and its cognates. Emad opts for ‘unfold’, while
Rockmore prefers ‘essencing’, a translation which we shall adopt here, although it is
unable to capture all the nuances of Heidegger’s use of Wesen and its cognates. Rockmore,
On Heidegger’s Nazism and Philosophy, p. 184.
20. This is again a difficult term to translate. Krell opts for ‘propriation’ (Krell, Daimon Life,
ch. 6). Emad translates its as ‘appropriation’ (p. 15 and passim), while Dallmayr prefers
‘happening of being’ (Dallmayr, The Other Heidegger, pp. 5, 55), but this translation fails
to capture the notion of appropriation that Ereignis also contains.
21. Pöggeler suggests that Heidegger’s concept of Ereignis was influenced by Bultmann’s
book Jesus (1926) and by Bultmann’s conception of Christian revelation as an (Christ-)
event. Pöggeler, Neue Wege mit Heidegger, pp. 36–37.
22. Clement, Str. v. 81. 4 (ii. 269). The first reference is to Otto Stählin’s Greek edition of
Clement’s works: Clements Alexandrinus, ed. O. Stählin (Die Griechischen christliche
Schriftsteller der ersten drei Jahrhunderte), i (2nd edn, Leipzig, 1936), ii (3rd edn, Berlin,
1960), iii (Leipzig, 1909). The reference in parentheses is to the Ante-Nicene Chris-
tian Library translation: The Writings of Clement of Alexandria, i–ii, trans. W. Wilson
(Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1867–1889).
23. Clement, Str. v.71.5 (ii, p. 264); cf. ii, p. 6 (ii, p. 4); Paed. i. 71. 1 (i, p. 161).
24. Meister Eckhart: Sermons and Treatises, i–ii, trans. and ed. by M. O’C. Walshe (Shaft-
esburg, Dorset: Element, 1979), ii. pp. 67. 149. The first Arabic numeral refers to the
sermon, the second to the page number. Not all of Eckhart’s sermons are contained in
Walshe. For this reason reference will sometimes be made to: Meister Eckhart: The
Essential Sermons, Commentaries, Treatises, and Defense, Classics of Western Spiritu-
ality, trans. and intro. by E. Colledge and B. McGinn (London: SPCK, 1981). It should be
noted that Walshe numbers the sermons differently from Colledge and McGinn.
25. Walshe, Sermons, ii, 96. 332.
26. Str. iv. 156. 1 (ii, p. 212).
27. Str. v. 82. 3 (ii, p. 270).
28. Str. ii. 5.3 (ii, p. 4).
29. Str. v. 71. 5 (ii, p. 264); cf. v. 78. 3 (ii, p. 267); v. 79. 1 (ii, p. 268).
30. Str. v. 65. 2 (ii, p. 260); cf. v. 79. 1 (ii, p. 268).
31. Dionysius, The Divine Names vii. 3 (869C–869D). All translations are taken from Pseudo-
Dionysius: The Complete Works, Classics of Western Spirituality, trans. Colm Luibheid
(London: SPCK, 1987).
32. Colledge and McGinn, Sermon 53, p. 203.
33. Walshe, Sermons, ii. 96. 333.
34. Walshe, Sermons, ii. 96. 335.
35. Dionysius, Mystical Theology iii (1033 C), cf. ii (1025 B).
36. Seidel, ‘A Key to Heidegger’s Beiträge.’
156 DAVID R. LAW

37. Heidegger gave a lecture course on Hölderlin during the winter semester of 1934–
1935, published as Gesamtausgabe 39: Hölderlins Hymnen ‘Germanien’ und ‘Der Rhein’
(Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1980).
38. Prudhomme, ‘The Passing-By of the Ultimate God,’ p. 449.
39. Prudhomme, ‘The Passing-By of the Ultimate God,’ p. 450.
40. Prudhomme, ‘The Passing-By of the Ultimate God,’ p. 450.
41. Esposito, ‘Die Geschichte des letzten Gottes in Heideggers “Beiträge zur Philosophie” ’,
p. 51.
42. John D. Caputo, ‘Meister Eckhart and the Later Heidegger: The Mystical Element in
Heidegger’s Thought,’ in Christopher Macann, Martin Heidegger: Critical Assessments,
4 vols. (London and New York: Routledge, 1992), vol. 2, ch. 21, p. 169.
43. Barth writes: ‘In Heidegger’s thought, nothing seems lacking in none of the essential
features of the conventional features of God (aseity, uniqueness, omnipotence, omni-
science, infinity, etc.), but nothing has of course no relation to the biblical concept of
God, which is not taken into account by either Heidegger or Sartre in their respective
mythologies.’ Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1961), III/3,
p. 344.
44. See, for example, Graham Parkes, Heidegger and Asian Thought (Honolulu: University
of Hawaii Press, 1987); Reinhard May, Heidegger’s Hidden Source. East Asian Influences
on his Work, trans., with a complementary essay by Graham Parkes (London: Routledge,
1996).
45. It is interesting to note that there are a number of passages in which Heidegger makes
a connection between Being and the nation. See Beiträge, §§ 15, 45, 196, 251, 252. See
Philipse for a magisterial and penetrating analysis of Heidegger’s question of Being and its
connection with Heidegger’s involvement with National Socialism. Philipse goes so far as
to argue that ‘Heidegger’s later works are a continuation of Nazism by other means’, and
advances the argument that, ‘Heidegger tried to develop an authentically German relgion
in Beiträge zur Philosophie, and this unpublished book informed his entire later oeuvre.
Hitler and Himmler wanted to replace the Christian God of love with a German God
of strife and war, to which individual Germans might be willing to sacrifice themselves.
Heidegger’s Being is a plausible candidate for this job, for Heidegger talks repeatedly
about strife (Streit) and sacrifice (Opfer).’ Herman Philipse, Heidegger’s Philosophy of
Being. A Critical Interpretation (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1998), p. 299.

Address for correspondence: Dr David R. Law, Department of Religions and Theology,

University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester, M13 9PL, UK
Phone: +44 161 962–0297; Fax: +44 161 275–3613; E-mail: david.law@t-online.de