RobS
Protokentarchos
- Joined
- Jul 30, 2014
- Messages
- 3,918
- Reaction score
- 0
- Points
- 36
My human existence is finite. I die. We are always living in this state of finitude. When that finish comes, existence ends, being ends and there is in fact nothing. The one thing that can never be avoided is this nothingness into which we inevitably vanish. Nothingness is an existential condition that all humans must face: the possibility of our own impossibility.
In the face of this frightful inevitable possibility, we construct an ontology in which there is something and there always will be something. But this is inauthentic.
Existence is only meaningful (i.e., things only exist) while you are alive. Nothingness is inevitable and fundamental.
Kierkegaard was the first to explore this in The Concept of Dread, where he argues that nothingness wells up into our awareness through moods and emotions. Our existence is constantly directed at "something" (we are mad at something, amused by something, love something). But this is accompanied by a constant backdrop of dread that all the somethings are contingent on our continued existence, which will end, leaving nothing.
Heidegger asks in "What Is Metaphysics?" why is there something rather than nothing at all? He argues that draw back from the concept of nothing and cannot "think it" since our existential structure is shattered by this inevitable state. Human existence, and philosophy itself is ultimately groundless. But according to Heidegger, that's why were free, indeed, doomed to be free.
Doesn't Christianity transform this finite human existential condition into something else after our baptism? We are no longer temporal finite beings, since mystically we have died and risen in Christ, and after we "walk in newness of life". If what it means to be human is this basic state of finitude but now we are gifted eternal life, how can we say we are human anymore? Death no longer has any power over us, we no longer need to despair over it. What does Christianity make of this nothingness? Maybe I'm wrong here...
What I still have trouble grappling with is being, meaning and consciousness exist together. And since consciousness is mine but also finite, being too ends with death. Being is subject to time. So how could an eternal being...well be? Who I am is finite, so wouldn't I be someone other in an eternity?
Maybe this is why faith is thrust on us with such urgency...
Thoughts?
In the face of this frightful inevitable possibility, we construct an ontology in which there is something and there always will be something. But this is inauthentic.
Existence is only meaningful (i.e., things only exist) while you are alive. Nothingness is inevitable and fundamental.
Kierkegaard was the first to explore this in The Concept of Dread, where he argues that nothingness wells up into our awareness through moods and emotions. Our existence is constantly directed at "something" (we are mad at something, amused by something, love something). But this is accompanied by a constant backdrop of dread that all the somethings are contingent on our continued existence, which will end, leaving nothing.
Heidegger asks in "What Is Metaphysics?" why is there something rather than nothing at all? He argues that draw back from the concept of nothing and cannot "think it" since our existential structure is shattered by this inevitable state. Human existence, and philosophy itself is ultimately groundless. But according to Heidegger, that's why were free, indeed, doomed to be free.
Doesn't Christianity transform this finite human existential condition into something else after our baptism? We are no longer temporal finite beings, since mystically we have died and risen in Christ, and after we "walk in newness of life". If what it means to be human is this basic state of finitude but now we are gifted eternal life, how can we say we are human anymore? Death no longer has any power over us, we no longer need to despair over it. What does Christianity make of this nothingness? Maybe I'm wrong here...
What I still have trouble grappling with is being, meaning and consciousness exist together. And since consciousness is mine but also finite, being too ends with death. Being is subject to time. So how could an eternal being...well be? Who I am is finite, so wouldn't I be someone other in an eternity?
Maybe this is why faith is thrust on us with such urgency...
Thoughts?