The Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory

Contributions to Philosophy (from Enowning)

The Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory January 1, 2001

Crockett - Review of Heidegger's Contributions to Philosophy - JCRT 2.3

On God and Being: A Review of Martin Heidegger's Contributions to Philosophy

Review of Martin Heidegger, Contributions to Philosophy (From Enowning), translated by Parvis Emad and Kenneth Maly (Indiana University Press, 1999).

Clayton Crockett
Wesley College

Originally written between 1936 and 1938, first published in German in 1989, and finally translated into English in 1999, Heidegger's Beitr'ge zur Philosophie is one of the most original works of twentieth-century philosophy. The translators claim that "Heidegger's second major work" after Being and Time (1927) not only foreshadows the development of his later thinking, but "unlike Being and Time, it is the first treatise whose maturation and unfolding are not reflected in any of the lecture courses of the years 1919 to 1937." Rather, "the singular importance of Contributions to Philosophy (From Enowning) consists in its being Heidegger's first fundamental work in which 'being-historical thinking' is enacted" (xv). A careful reading and understanding of this constructive work in the context of Heidegger's thought addresses two significant issues in contemporary Continental thought and theology. I will briefly detail the first problematic, that of Heidegger's turn from his early to later philosophy, prior to laying out the general structure and content of the book. Finally, I will suggest the significance of the Beitr'ge for contemporary discussions of the interrelationship of God and being based on the critical interpretations of Jean-Luc Marion and Jacques Derrida.

Hasn't Heidegger written what he says he would have liked to write, a theology without the word being? But didn't he also write what he says should not be written, namely a theology that is open, dominated, and invaded by the word being?

But the last god, is that not debasing god, nay the greatest blasphemy? But what if the last god has to be so named because in the end the decision about gods brings under and among gods and thus makes what is own most to the uniqueness of the divine being most prominent? (286).

What if that domain of decision as a whole, flight or arrival of gods, were itself the end? What if, beyond that, be-ing in its truth would have to be grasped for the first time as enownment, as that which enowns what we call refusal? (285).

Notes

Clayton Crockett is the author of A Theology of the Sublime, and editor of Secular Theology: American Radical Theological Thought, as well as Managing Editor of the Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory. He teaches religion and philosophy at Wesley College in Dover, Delaware.

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