On the Meaning of Human Being
By
Richard Oxenberg
Political
Animal Press
Toronto
ISBN:
978-1-895131-30-7
248
Pages
Review
by Dennis Daly
Not
since Saint Thomas Aquinas channeled Aristotle by way of Boethius in
Summa Theologica has philosophy and theology met in such an
unexpected and enlightened way. Richard Oxenberg in his new book, On
the Meaning of Human Being, Heidegger and the Bible in Dialogue, uses
a framework employed by the estimable (and somewhat infamous) Martin
Heidegger to get at the ethical basis of humanity and the relevance
of religion in the twenty-first century.
The
first half of the Oxenberg book sets up his secular and foundational
approach as well as developing a tool box of helpful terms and
delving philosophic concepts. His choice of Heidegger seems at first
rather odd (more on that later) and then… and then… not so much.
Being and Time, Heidegger’s breakthrough work of phenomenological
investigations, is clearly up to the task. Oxenberg manipulates
Heidegger’s perceptions masterfully, architecturally structuring
his own original arguments from them with deftness and certainty.
Human
Being, as defined by Heidegger/ Oxenberg, exists as more than an
entity. It is rather a subject connected to objects which are
influenced by pretty spooky forces. Oxenberg explores this complex
world with verbs that signify value such as “care” and “matter”
as in “we care about things” or “things matter to us.” Each
object is an object because of a subject’s concern. According to
Oxenberg this concern is basic to Being. In his dialectic Being
exists not only in a space-time dimension, but also in a qualitative
or axiological dimension. The values intrinsic to this dimension are
inseparable from Being itself. Humans derive meaning from mattering.
Goodness mattered to Plato and Aristotle and also matters to
Judao-Christianity and the basis of these sets of beliefs match up in
uncanny ways.
Oxenberg
deals with the estrangement of theology and philosophy forthwith and
without hesitation. Rene Descartes is quickly fingered as the evil
genius and historical bad guy and his philosophical dualism, although
spectacularly successful in mechanistic living, entices questioning
seekers down the wrong rabbit hole in mankind’s search for meaning
and truth. According to Oxenberg/ Heidegger Cartesian facts are
nothing more than abstractions of our “caring about things.” When
humans set their sights on an object (a desk, a chair, a friend,
themselves) they do so for the sake of something. Subjects project
that value onto their object and this defines meaning. The subject
cannot be separated from the object, and thus this is not a
subjective process. Nor can this be considered objective. It is a
process of projection that extends into the future and back to the
past, and it must be understood as a whole.
Heidegger
calls his re-envisioned human being Dasein or Being-in-the-World.
Each Dasein can be described as Being-towards-Death, that is,
authentic being, or Das Man, that is, inauthentic being. Later on
Oxenberg describes yet another mode of existence he terms
Being-towards-Life offered by Judeo-Christianity. Soren Kierkegaard
points out man’s alienation when confronting death in his arguably
authentic life. Anxiety causes this Being, a being lost to
existential despair, to seek eternal life to fulfill himself.
Eternal, by the way, is not necessarily defined in temporal terms.
Oxenberg goes to great lengths to describe its qualitative fabric.
Curiously,
early in the book Oxenberg states that modern scientific thought
deliberately “seeks to discount the subjective concerns of the
observer in an effort to provide a strictly “objective” account
of reality.” He argues that this viewpoint results in a distorted
understanding of Being. Oxenberg is right on both counts, of course,
if he is referring to Newtonian science and mathematics and I think
he is. But he would not be right if he were referring to the bane of
Einstein’s original and elegant theoretical inclinations (God does
not play dice with the world)—quantum physics. In fact it is
impossible to read Oxenberg’s description of Heidegger’s
phenomenological ontology without one’s mind wandering into the
realm of quantum mechanics (think Heisenberg’s Uncertainty
Principal and the Double Slit Experiment). In this quantum world the
observer by his very observing alters his object. Also in this world
exotic particles demonstrate invisible connections over space and
time. This spookiness, begging for theological answers, finds its
equivalent in Heidegger’s concepts and buttresses, in an
architectural sense, Oxenberg’s theological explorations.
Heidigger,
who in his life purported to seek authenticity with the same zeal
that Aristotle sought goodness, joined the German Nazi Party before
World War II. His supporters argue that he did so for career purposes
and never became an active party member. Maybe. Oxenberg does rehash
those sorry facts in a brief and unsatisfying attempt to understand
Heidegger’s disastrous move. In fairness, Oxenberg had no choice,
his use of Heidegger’s analytic necessitates some kind of
explanatory comment. Ignominy can’t be ignored in the midst of
righteous exploration.
In
the second half of the book Oxenberg creates a rapprochement of sorts
between philosophy and religion. He aims to accomplish this by
explicating the Old and New Testaments with the use of Heidegger’s
already developed hermeneutical tools. Heidegger would not have
approved. That said, Oxenberg’s approach I think succeeds, and
succeeds startling well at that. His understanding of language raises
up Jewish and Christian traditions to a connective level of
philosophical symbolism. His coverage includes the iconic stories
within Genesis, as well as the biblical Jesus Christ. His analysis
of the Christ as messiah and the appellations of the Son of Man used
by Christ himself and the Son of God used by the Christian faithful
hit the mark. The human spirit seems to transfigure into the Spirit
of God, a oneness more often acknowledged by mystics, traditional
Buddhism, and other eastern religions.
Oxenberg
makes no claim for Christian exclusivism, but he does argue for the
“existential disposition” of Christ’s revealed teachings. The
Spirit of Christ becomes for Oxenberg a mode of Being-in–the–World
that gives the slip to the proponents of existentialism (Jean-Paul
Sartre, Camus, et al) and seeks the goodness of love and community.
Religious beliefs for Oxenberg seem to merge in a rarified
metaphorical and transcendent, but no less real philosophic, realm.
Paul Tillich, Thomas Merton and others have followed similar lines of
reasoned mysticism. Keep in mind that Aristotle identified
contemplation as the highest form of happiness. In any case, Oxenberg
is in good company.
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