VISION OF GOD AND THINKING OF BEING: VLADIMIR LOSSKY AND MARTIN HEIDEGGER

Abstract

The paper is devoted to the dialogue between Orthodox theology of the latter half of the 20th century and Heidegger's philosophy. We focus on the interpretation of the apophasis in the works of Vladimir Lossky. Our research tasks are not so much the description of the direct influence of Heidegger's philosophy on the Lossky's theological reflections, but, rather, a demonstration of the parallels between Heidegger's existential and historical thinking and Lossky's negative theology. In the first part we highlight the points common to early Heidegger's interpretation of the mystical theory of cognition and Lossky's understanding of the mystical theology of the Eastern Church: the correlation between theology and mystical experiencing, overcoming the conceptual frameworks, the knowledge of God as a transformative practice, which is aimed at the radical unity with God. There are also common features in both in Heidegger's and Lossky's critical interpretations of the identity of the concepts of God and being in Meister Eckhart's mystical theology. Lossky opposes Eckhart's God as Esse absconditum with the apophaticism of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite who has thought out God beyond being. Heidegger insists on the theological differentiation distinguishing between God and being. We also compare the concept of detachment given in the works of Eckhart, Lossky and later Heidegger. Lossky's explanation of the human personality is focused on irreducibility of a person to nature; he referred to the ecstatic character of existence of Dasein, but his anthropology is constituted on doctrine of a human being seen as the image and likeness of God. Further development of Orthodox apophaticism (Chr. Yannaras, D. B. Hart and J. P. Manoussakis) demonstrates a critical attitude towards Heidegger's philosophy. Such attitude originates in their attempts to develop the ontology of personal being. We argue that Orthodox thinkers correlate with Heidegger in their search for a renewal of theological method, for the identical-differential mode of thinking moving from subject-object speculation to the ecstatic transformations of subject. The difference is in the emphasis on the personal character of the mystical ecstasy, founded on the trinitarian provisions inherent to the Eastern Church.