American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly

Volume 79, Issue 2, Spring 2005

The Facticity of Being God-Forsaken
The Young Heidegger and Luther’s Theology of the Cross

The early Freiburg lectures have shown us the degree to which Heidegger is influenced by Luther. In Being and Time, Heidegger designs a philosophy that can co-exist with a radical Lutheran theology of revelation. Heidegger’s hermeneutics of facticity constitutes a polemic with the Scholastic idea of a natural desire for God and an accommodation of a theology of revelation. However, Heidegger’s implicit assent to the Lutheran concept of God-forsakenness is philosophically problematic. To be God-forsaken is not to be ignorant of God; it is to be abandoned by God, to have a history of dealing with God that has resulted in a decisive rupture and distance. But if this is a theological position, as Luther would be the first to argue, it can be justified only theologically.