Volume 4, 2014
Musa Duman
Pages 14-38
Questioning and the Divine in Heidegger’s Beiträge
In this paper, I explore a number of basic themes surrounding the issue of the last god in Heidegger’s Beiträge. I first examine the significance Heidegger attaches to “questioning” in this regard. Questioning, I suggest, is the ground upon which the preparation for the Ereignis of the last god (“grounding”) is to be exercised. Heidegger sees himself working on the path to a futural thinking (the inceptual thinking), one in which metaphysics would be left behind, but we can see that this task that Heidegger sets before thinking, once taken place, corresponds to a supreme historical moment for the West, namely the other beginning as the passing-by of the last god. Thinking becomes essential only in orienting itself towards such historical possibility. This unique moment of the last god (“passing-by”) grounds its hinting presence that attunes/determines the historical world of the other beginning. I discuss in detail the implications of this perspective laid out in the Beiträge.