Beyond Theism and Atheism: Heidegger’s Significance for Religious Thinking

Book excerpt: My first year in graduate school marked by initial expo sure to Heidegger and some of his important early essays. At tha~ time, disenchanted with the state in which "religious thought" lay, I was quickly struck by the potential Heidegger presented for breaking new ground in a field that had seeming ly exhausted itself by reworking the same old issues and answers. That insight, along with the conviction that Heideg ger had been misused and misunderstood by theologians and religious thinkers ever since he burst upon the intellectual scene with the publ ication of Sein und Zei t, grew throughout my graduate career and resulted in a dissertation on Heidegger and religious thinking, of which the present text is a revised and updated version. This text reflects my belief that Heid egger, when "properly" understood on such matters as truth, God (and gods), and "faith", presents us with a unique voice and vision that cannot be co-opted into any sort of theology -- be it negative, existential, dialectical or Thomistic - and indeed seriously challenges the viability of any "theol ogy".