Luther

The last decades have seen superb scholarship related to the development of Heidegger’s philosophy and an increased interest in Heidegger’s intellectual roots in Augustine, Luther, and Kierkegaard. Almost all central concepts of Being and Time (1927), as we know now, are derived from Heidegger’s re-readings of these theologians and philosophers whom he discussed in his lecture courses between 1919 and 1923. Luther plays a central role in Heidegger’s early lecture courses at the University of Freiburg, before he took over a chair of philosophy at the University of Marburg in 1923. This entry gives an overview of the influence of Luther on Heidegger.

Theological Research. The Journal of Systematic Theology, 2019

This essay argues that Luther's "metaphysics" is present in Heidegger's Beiträge zur Philosophie (Contributions to Philosophy), a text many consider to be Heidegger's second magnum opus. I argue that Luther's "metaphysics" is present in Heidegger's Contributions in primarily two ways: (1) there is a Lutheran structure (of existential categories) that Heidegger appropriated not only in Being and Time, but also much earlier in his lectures on St. Paul from the 1920s, of responding to a call and converting in anxious anticipation toward a futural not-yet (what Heidegger calls "the last god"); and (2) Contributions' project concerns overcoming metaphysics, which involves first thinking through to metaphysics' conditions for possibility, which means recognizing the "ironic nature" of beyng via what Heidegger calls "thinking concealment," the logic of which originates in Luther's attacks on not only Greek metaphysics, but upon Judaism and the Mosaic law as well.

Rough draft of an essay to appear in J. RIvera & J. O. Leary, Handbook of Phenomenology and Theology, Routledge.

2001

2014

Martin Heidegger is the 20th century theology philosopher with the greatest importance to theology. A cradle Catholic originally intended for the priesthood, Heidegger's studies in philosophy led him to turn first to Protestantism and then to an atheistic philosophical method. Nevertheless, his writings remained deeply indebted to theological themes and sources, and the question of the nature of his relationship with theology has been a subject of discussion ever since. This book offers theologians and philosophers alike a clear account of the directions and the potential of this debate. It explains Heidegger's key ideas, describes their development and analyses the role of theology in his major writings, including his lectures during the Nazi era. It reviews the reception of Heidegger's thought both by theologians in his own day (particularly in Barth and his school as well as neo-Scholasticism) and more recently, suggesting throughout directions for theology's possible future engagement with Heidegger's work.

A Companion to Heidegger’s Phenomenology of Religious Life, 2010

Continental Philosophy Review, 2009

The return to religion in contemporary continental philosophy is characterized by a profound sense of intellectual humility. A significant influence within this discussion is Heidegger's anthropology of finitude in Being and Time and his later critiques of onto-theology. These critiques, however, were informed by Heidegger's earlier phenomenology of the lived experience of religious humility performed alongside his reading of Martin Luther's theology. This article shows that for Luther and Heidegger, religious humility is foremost an affection structured according to the enactment of one's dissimilitude from God and resulting existential tribulation. During a seminal period in his development, Heidegger's phenomenology of humility changed from an Eckhartian conception of detachment culminating in the unio mystica to a Lutheran conception of humiliation and Anfechtung. Heidegger's break from a mystical phenomenology of humility parallels Luther's own break from that tradition, and anticipates contemporary developments in the continental philosophy of religion.

2019

It will be terrible to assume that, Luther just came ‘out of the blue’ and carry the flag of the Reformation course which he effectively delivered. Though few have denied any kind of influence upon him by either the Religious ideas of his time or the Intellectual setting within which he was brought up. However, in this short paper I deem it fit to investigate both the religious and intellectual setting of Luther, to point out how he was indeed influenced by them, and how because of this influence he was able to reconstruct the task of a “true theologian” and what a “true theology” should be (or is).