Heideggers Dasein and Luthers Christian:

Revealing an Ontic Source of Freedom and Servitude

Though there is a strong body of work dealing with early Heideggers (Being and Time
and prior) relation to Luther, generally such work focuses either on Heideggers use of Luthers
method of destruction or the Lutheran origins of key concepts such as conscience and Angst. 1
There is, however, at least one theme that is as yet untouched. This theme concerns the way in
which authentic Dasein is simultaneously free and bound, and which, in terms of Luthers work,
receives its most sustained and systematic treatment in the appropriately titled work, The
Freedom of a Christian. While there is no direct evidence that Heidegger ever read The
Freedom of a Christian, there are circumstantial reasons to suppose that he did and therefore
reasons to raise the question of this works relation to Being and Time. First, it appears that
Heidegger studied Luthers work for more than a decade, and there are statements concerning
Luthers immense personal and philosophical importance. 2 Second, we know that Heidegger at
least owned a copy of it. 3 Finally, for a period Heidegger and Julius Ebbinghaus read Luthers
reformatory writings, of which The Freedom of a Christian is generally considered among the

For strong representative works dealing with these relations see, Theodore Kisiel, The Genesis of Heideggers
Being and Time (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995); John van Buren, The Young Heidegger: Rumor of
the Hidden King (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994); Benjamin Crowe, Heideggers Religious Origins:
Destruction and Authenticity (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2006); Herman Philipse, Heideggers
Philosophy of Being: A Critical Introduction (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1998); David Vessey,
Heideggers Existential Domestication of Luther, in The Devils Whore: Reason and Philosophy in the Lutheran
Tradition, ed. Jennifer Hockenbery Dragseth (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2011), 131139.
2

Heideggers earliest engagement with Luther seems to have been in 1908 and may have ebbed around 1923;
Otto Pggler, Heideggers Luther-Lektre im Freiburger Theologenkonvikt, in Heidegger und die Anfnge seines
Denkens, ed. Alfred Denker, Hans-Helmuth Gander, and Holger Zaborowski, vol. 1, Heidegger-Jahrbuch (Mnchen:
Karl Alber, 2004), 192; van Buren, The Young Heidegger, 149; Kisiel, The Genesis of Heideggers Being and
Time, 452. Luther may have also been more than philosophically important to Heidegger if Heidegger wished to
be a new Luther. Charles B. Guignon, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Heidegger, 1st ed. (New York:
Cambridge University Press, 1993), 41 n34.
3

In 1921 Heidegger was awarded the complete Erlangen edition of Luthers works. van Buren, The Young
Heidegger, 149; Kisiel, The Genesis of Heideggers Being and Time, 228.

most important. 4 It is doubtful that such a lengthy and intensive engagement with Luther that
spanned Luthers entire writing career would have skipped this fundamental text. 5 It seems
reasonable, then, to ask what, if any, influence The Freedom of a Christian had on Heidegger. In
fact, as I will argue the Christian conceptions of freedom and servitude Luther explicates form
important, though not necessarily exclusive, ontic material from which Heidegger draws in order
to come to an ontological understanding of authentic Daseins power over its existence and
servitude to its communal involvements.

I.

Luthers Law/Gospel Distinction

From a Lutheran perspective, the specific similarities I propose to illuminate between

Heideggers authentic Dasein and Luthers Christian lie within Luthers more general categories
of the Law and the Gospel. Therefore, it is first necessary to provide a general overview of the
way in which these categories function in relation to this specific topic.
For Luther the Law/Gospel distinction has various functions depending on the sphere in
which it is deployed; though it is important to bear in mind that these functions overlap and are
complexly interrelated. Politically and socially the Law/Gospel distinction informs Luthers
two kingdoms doctrine and the ways in which, somewhat anachronistically, church and state
4

John van Buren, Heideggers Early Freiburg Courses, 1915-1923, Research in Phenomenology 23 (1993):
138. Lohse, for example, includes The Freedom of a Christian among the three central Reformation works.
Bernhard Lohse, Martin Luther: An Introduction to His Life and Work, trans. Robert Schultz (Philadelphia: Fortress
Press, 1986), 489.
5

The earliest of Luthers writings that Heidegger cites is Quaestio de viribus et voluntate hominis sine gratia
disputata (1516), the latest is Luthers Lectures on Genesis (1544) both in Martin Heidegger, Das Problem der
Snde bei Luther, in Sachgemsse Exegese: Die Protokolle aus Rudolf Bultmanns Neutestamentlichen Seminaren
1921-1951, ed. Wilfried Hrle and Dieter Lhrmann (Marburg: N.G. Elwert Verlag, 1996), 2833. Additionally, it
cannot be overstressed how central The Freedom of a Christian is to understanding Luther. To be a Luther expert
one must know The Freedom of a Christian; Charles B. Guignon, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Heidegger, 1st
ed. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 41 n34.

relate. In ecclesiology, it informs the distinction between the visible church and invisible church.
In biblical hermeneutics it determines the ways in which one interprets the meaning and purpose
of specific portions of scripture. Here I am concerned with what might be best termed, though
also somewhat anachronistically, its existential function. 6
According to its existential function, the Law/Gospel distinction accounts for human
existence in sin and in faith, the relation between the two, and how one transitions from the
former to the latter. One may, initially, say that Law applies to and accounts for existence in sin;
while the Gospel applies to and accounts for existence in faith. In other words, for Luther there
are two general modes of being human. One may be human in sin under the Law; one may be
human in faith under the Gospel. However, this relation is complicated, first, by the fact that
according to Luther one cannot truly know ones existence in sin or under the Law until one has
encountered the Gospel and received faith. Second, existence in faith is neither static nor
perfect. For Luther, the Christian must continually encounter the Law, perhaps even daily, in
order to come back to the Gospel. Third, on one reading of Luther, which Heidegger shares,
existence in sin is neither negated nor destroyed in favor of a new existence in faith (GA 9:
63/51). In technical Lutheran terms, a Christian is simul peccator et justus, simultaneously
sinner and justified. Here one gains a new relation to ones existence in sin.
Existence in sin is not Luthers primary concern in The Freedom of a Christian. Here
Luther presupposes that one has already encountered the Gospel, received faith and become a
Christian. However, because a Christians existence under the Law or in sin continues into
existence in faith, though relationally modified, it is important to provide a brief overview of this
6

For prominent examples of terming this function existential see Jaroslav Pelikan, From Luther to
Kierkegaard: A Study in the History of Theology (St. Louis, MO: Concordia Publishing House, 1950); Bernhard
Lohse, Martin Luthers Theology: Its Historical and Systematic Development, trans. and ed. Roy Harrisville
(Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1999).

existence, paying particular attention to the ways in which one transitions from Law or sin to
Gospel or faith. This is equally true of Heidegger. That which composes ones inauthentic
existence does not simply disappear in authenticity; rather it is modified. This, then, is the
subject of the next section where I will show that Heidegger shares with Luther a cluster of
concepts that may be grouped under the larger concept of Anfechtungen (trials, tribulations, or
assaults). These Anfechtungen are the existential encounters of death, anxiety, and conscience
and bring Dasein to authenticity and the Christian to faith. Thereafter, the ways in which
Authentic Dasein and the Christian gain new sense of freedom and servitude may be illuminated.

II.

Becoming a Christian and Becoming Authentic

For Heidegger, one of the first encounters that initiates the movement to authenticity is the
encounter with death; though death not in the physical sense, which he terms perishing
(Verenden), or the end of being-there that he reserves for demise or decease (Ableben), but
death (Tod) as the end of possibilities of Dasein (GA 2: 328/247, 333/250-1). As with anxiety
and conscience, the experience of projecting onto death or being-towards-death is individual and
individualizing, something that no other Dasein can do or experience for another. Here Dasein
projects itself forward and sees the certain possibility of the impossibility of it being-there.
Essentially, Dasein meets a limit, discovers that it is finite, and is thrown back on itself, back on
its being-in-the-world.
For Luther, death is also often described as certain and individual. The summons of
death comes to us all, and no one can die for another. Every one must fight his own battle with
death by himself, alone. We can shout into anothers ears, but every one must himself be

prepared for the time of death, for I will not be with you then, nor you with me. 7 This might
sound, however, more like Heideggers perishing or demise. Though Luther does at times speak
of death in the more straightforward sense of the end of human life, there are also times when
Luther intends a deeper meaning. Luthers deeper understanding of death is one which
signifies the death of our existence as a sinner and the rebirth in Christ as Christians: It [the
sacrament of Christs suffering] signifies the death of sin in us and grants it [faith] to those who
believe. 8 In fact, for Luther it is possible, even necessary, to experience this sense of death
multiple times. For Luther asserts that one is never forever rid of the Law and the Anfechtungen
it brings: The more Christian a man is, the more evils, sufferings, and deaths he must endure. 9
Luther, through his own experience, knew how slippery the footing of faith was and how
easily one falls from faith back into the Law and its Anfechtungen. 10 Christianness, for Luther,
is then the art of continually reentering the Gospel and faith. 11 In theory, this seems equally
possible for Heidegger insofar as we may forget our ownmost possibility for being thereby
requiring multiple encounters with death (Cf. GA 2: 384/289, 396/299). More importantly,
Luthers death also seems to be a limit. This sense of death may be understood as the limit
7

The First Sermon, March 9, 1522, Invocavit Sunday in LW 51, 392. In all candor, this is one of many points
where Luther is not always consistent. For example, in his Sermon on Preparing to Die, he states that in the hour
of death no Christian should doubt that he is not alone. For the eyes of God, Christ, the angels, the saints, and all
Christians are on him; Martin Luther, Sermon on Preparing to Die, in Martin Luthers Basic Theological Writings,
ed. Timothy E. Lull (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1989), 651.
8

Lectures on Galations, Chapters 1-6, 1519 in LW 27, 238. It is common practice to simply cite the volume of
Luthers Work; since I, however, find it useful to know the exact work being drawn from I have included the title of
the work in the initial citation. Also, to add textual and historical support to the present argument citations to Luther
outside of The Freedom of a Christian have been limited almost exclusively to works Heidegger knew or likely to
have read based on the volumes of the Weimar or Erlangen editions of Luthers work cited throughout Heideggers
corpus.
9

Luther, Martin, The Freedom of a Christian, in Martin Luthers Basic Theological Writings, ed. Timothy E.
Lull (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1989), 606. Hereafter cited parenthetically.
10

Lectures on Galatians (1535) in LW 26, 63-4.

11

Lectures on Galatians (1535) in LW 27, 27.

separating Law and sin from Gospel and faith. The Laws ultimate function is to show the
person to be limited or dead in sin such that one is wholly incapable of coming to faith by ones
own means.
Death then moves to the mutually entailing experience of anxiety (Angst), and here,
Heidegger is uncharacteristically forthright about Luthers contribution (GA 2: 252-3n3/190n1).
For Heidegger, while death is associated with understanding and projection, anxiety is associated
with attunement and thrownness (GA 2: 333-5/251-2). In anticipating the indefinite certainty of
death, Dasein opens itself to a constant threat arising out of its own there (GA 2: 352/265). In
projecting towards and anticipating death we are thrown anxiously back on how we are in the
world. Anxiety is anxiety before being-in-the-world when the involvements that compose the
world collapse in on themselves and completely lack significance (GA 2: 247/186).
For Luther, anxiety and death are also interwoven: But if you look at death in any other
way [than through Christ], it will kill you with great anxiety and anguish. 12 And there also
seems, for Luther, to be a sense of the collapsing of significance with anxiety: Just as joy is a
certain freedom of the heart, even in tribulation, so [anxiety] represents a certain narrowing and
constriction in tribulation. 13
For Heidegger, both anxiety and death allow for the possibility of having a conscience
[Gewissen], which mutually supports seeing death as an ownmost possibility and makes one
ready for anxiety (GA 2: 392/296, 404/305, 410/310). The conscience is then a call from within
Dasein itself to recognize itself as Being-guilty: The call of conscience has the character of an
appeal of Daseins to its ownmost potentiality-for-Being-its-Self and that by way of a summons
12

Martin Luther, Sermon on Preparing to Die, 643. The same word is variously translated as anxiety, anguish,
and distress.
13

Lectures on Romans in LW 25, 179.

to its ownmost Being-guilty (GA 2: 358/269). Here, guilt actually strikes the conscience (GA
2: 407/307).
For Luther, death and anxiety are also tied up in the conscience that co-condemns the
individual with God for their state of sin. Here Luthers and Heideggers language are
remarkably similar: For it [the Lords Supper] is given to those who need strength and comfort,
who have timid hearts and terrified consciences, and who are assailed by sin, or have even fallen
into sin. 14 Here we see the final step of the Law, its final Anfechtung, which reveals a unique
ontic, Christian truth only available once one has traversed these trials.
The ultimate purpose of the above encounters, for Heidegger and Luther, is to show
Being-guilty (Schuldigsein) and sin, respectively. For Heidegger, Being-guilty is tied to lostness
in the they and once this is revealed, then one is ready for authenticity: The understanding of
the call of conscience exposes the lostness in the they. Resoluteness returns Dasein to its
ownmost potentiality for-Being-its-Self. In the understanding of being towards death as the
ownmost possibility, then ones own potentiality-for-Being becomes authentic and entirely
transparent (GA 2: 406/307). Heidegger is in fact quite explicit that sin is the faithful or
Christian, ontic understanding of Being-guilty (GA 2: 406n1/306n1).
For Luther, these concepts and encounters have a similar function; however, rather than
authenticity they lead one to the Gospel and Christ. For example, in The Freedom of a Christian
he states, Now when a man has learned through the commandments [i.e. the Law] to recognize
his helplessness and is distressedthen, being truly humbled and reduced to nothing in his own
eyes, he finds in himself nothing whereby he may be justified and saved. Here the second part of
Scripture [i.e. the Gospel] comes to our aid (FC, 600). And it is here that Dasein and the

14

Martin Luther, The Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ-Against the Fanatics, in Martin Luthers
Basic Theological Writings, ed. Timothy E. Lull (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1989), 248. Emphasis added.

Christian gain a unique sense of freedom, part of which will involve freedom from the above
Anfechtungen, if only temporarily.

III.

Dasein, the Christian, and Their Freedom

Having elucidated the basic process of becoming authentic for Heidegger and becoming a
Christian for Luther, we may now turn to the central theme of The Freedom of a Christian. This
works entire thematic purpose is to explain what the following two propositions are and how
they work together: A Christian is a perfectly free lord of all, subject to none. A Christian is a
perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject to all (FC, 596).
The first statement concerns the inner man, while the second concerns the outer (FC,
596, 610). Admittedly, Heidegger does prefer to avoid such distinctions. Yet, it is important to
note that for Heidegger, Luther is operating primarily at the ontic level, and therefore, it is at
least in a formal sense, appropriate for him to make such distinctions. However, there is a
striking similarity between Heideggers distinction between the they (das Man) and authentic
self (eigentlichen Selbst) (GA 2: 173/130, 420/317). This should not be confused with the
distinction between the they-self (Man-selbst), which is inauthentic, and the authentic beingones-self (eigentliche Selbstsein), which is authentic (ibid). Rather the they and authentic
self are existentials that may be modified in ones becoming either the inauthentic they-self or
authentic authentic being-ones self (ibid). Here we are concerned with how the they and
authentic self appear under the auspices of authentic being-ones-self. Ultimately, I am
arguing that there are correspondences between the authentic self and Luthers free, inner
Christian, and between the they and Luthers bound, outer Christian, though again as they are

authentically modified.
I will begin with the inwardly free Christian. First, this freedom in its more negative
formulation, derived from the clause subject to none, is freedom from works, or the belief and
requirements that to receive justification and salvation one needs to perform any acts. This, then,
is essentially freedom from the Law (FC, 601). 15 Freedom from the Law carries with it freedom
from sin and the Anfechtungen that brought one to faith: Thus the believing soul by means of
the pledge of its faith is free in Christ, its bridegroom, free from all sins, secure against death and
hell (FC, 604).
Christian freedom, for Luther, does not stop with the above negative sense of freedom,
however. It has a more vital, positive formulation derived from the clause lord of all. Though
of course this freedom does not physically free the Christian from the world nor grant some
physical power over the world (FC, 606). Christians and non-Christians alike are subject to
the vagaries of the world (FC, 606). But it does make everything bend to the power of faith and
aid the Christian in salvation. Every Christian is by faith so exalted above all things that, by
virtue of a spiritual power, he is lord of all things without exception, so that nothing can do him
any harm. As a matter of fact, all things are made subject to him and are compelled to serve him
in obtaining salvation (FC, 606). For example, the Lords Supper taken in sin is useless for
salvation, perhaps even detrimental. [F]or one who does not believe is not served by
anythingand all things turn out badly (FC, 607). But in faith the same acts are turned to the
salvific advantage of the Christian. In fact, Luther takes the phrase lord of all quite seriously
for even the above encounters that brought one to faith and seemed most threatening to ones
salvation work in the Christians favor: [I]n all things I can find profit toward salvation, so that
the cross and death itself are compelled to serve me (FC, 607).
15

Also see LW 27, 49-50.

For Heidegger, this freedom given by Christ to the Christian has its ontological
foundation in his understanding that in anticipatory resoluteness (vorlaufende Entschlossenheit),
which is an authentic projection onto death that reveals Being-guilty, Dasein is given power over
its existence in the technical sense associated with projection and understanding (GA 2: 405/3056, 410/310). Power over existence then means power over possibilities. Here it seems that what
was once detrimental to Daseins authenticity, the possibilities it unreflectively took over from
the they, work to its advantage in being authentic. Just as the Lords Supper appears the same
in sin or in faith, yet functions quite differently depending on which one is in, the possibilities
and roles that Dasein takes up may appear the same yet function very differently. Dasein may
take up the roles of mother or professor. In inauthenticity these roles work against Dasein. In
inauthenticity these roles are a part of the everyday concerns into which Dasein falls. Dasein
unreflectively does what such roles entail. Once authentic, however, these roles become
advantageous. Here such roles work to fill out and complete Dasein. They aid in making Dasein
a whole. Just as for the Christian the ontic conception of death is turned to aid in salvation,
ontological death also becomes advantageous for Dasein. The authentic appropriation of roles or
possibilities turns death, as the possibility of being whole or complete, to Daseins advantage.
In authenticity, anxiety even comes with a prepared joy (gerstete Freude) (GA 2:
410/310). Here, it seems, that though authentic Dasein is powerless in the face of fortunate
circumstances and the cruelty of accidents, it gains a certain superior power that makes it
ready for adversity (GA 2: 508-9/385). Again, even adversities seem to bend to the power of
Daseins authenticity. This powerless superior power, also has its correlate in Luther: Christ
says, Come to me, all who labor and are heavy-laden and I will give you rest [Matt. 11:28],
That is to say: If things go badly, I will give you courage even to laugh about it; and if even

10

though you walk on fiery coals, the torment shall nevertheless not be so severe and the devil
shall nevertheless not be so bad, and you will rather feel that you are walking on roses. 16
There is even a temporal correlation between Luthers ontic, Christian freedom
understood as Gods futural promise of sanctification and Heideggers ontological freedom of
Dasein as fate (Schicksal). For Luther, the Christian must turn [their] eyes to God, to whom the
path of death leads and directs [them]. Here [they] find the beginning of the narrow gate and of
the straight path to life. 17 First, this is an extreme focusing of the Christians life. The reason all
things turn to the Christians salvific advantage is that they have turned completely to God, and
understand and orient all things according to this single path, a theme of which Heidegger was
well-aware (GA 60: 96-7/67-8). Second, the Christian, according to Luther, understands this
individual path to lie between Gods past promise of salvation, constantly made present in the
sacraments and preaching, and to be fulfilled in the future. Heideggers temporal category of
fate has a similar formal structure: Only anticipating death drives out every incidental and
tentative possibility. Only the freedom for death gives Dasein its aim outright and thrusts
existence into its finitude. The striking finitude of existence tears Dasein back from the endless
multiplicity of possibilitiesand brings Dasein into the simplicity of its fate (GA 2: 507/384).
So in authenticity for Dasein and faith for the Christian there is freedom. This is not,
however, freedom from external coercion or an unhindered ability to choose. Rather this sense
of freedom modifies the way in which Dasein or the Christian relates to the world. This new
relation discloses the truth of possibilities, which, for Luther, is determined by their relation to
God (See GA 2: 394-5/297-8). And with this new relation to the world and others comes a

16

LW 51, 392.

17

LW 42, 99.

11

unique responsibility or servitude.

IV.

Dasein, the Christian and Their Servitude

For Luther, having become a Christian through faith, she now has Christ within her.
Christ has conquered and freed the Christian from death, sin, the terrors of conscience and so
forth. Having done so, Christ has at the same time bound the Christians outer self to ones
neighbors. Hence, as our heavenly Father has in Christ freely come to our aideach one
should become as it were a Christ to the other that we may be Christs to one another and Christ
may be the same in all, that is, that we may be truly Christians (FC, 619-20). In becoming
Christian one also becomes Christ for others. A function Christ has for the Christian is to bring
one to the Gospel and faith. Christians, therefore, should aid others in overcoming the Law and
coming to faith. Much of how Heidegger conceives of authentic Dasein being bound to others is
contained within this one formulation by Luther. This might, for instance, remind one of
Heideggers distinction in the existential structure of solicitude between the authentic leaping
ahead (vorausspringen) and the inauthentic leaping in for (einspringen). In the inauthentic
leaping in for Dasein disburdens others and accomplishes their possibilities. In the authentic
leaping ahead authentic Dasein helps make the Other transparent to itself thereby helping to
free it as authentic Dasein is free (GA 2: 163/122). Authentic Dasein can do so by becoming
the conscience of Others. Functioning as Christ for one another may at first sound like
inauthentic solicitude; however, being Christ for the other does not disburden the other of the
task of being Christian. Rather, the fellow Christ functions as the vehicle of the Word that calls
one to faith. For example, in Luthers The Sacrament of Penance he is careful to distinguish

12

between the human ability to actually forgive sins and the human ability to convey the Word:
For any Christian can say to you, God forgives you your sins, in the name, etc., and if you
accept that word with a confident faith, as though God were saying it to you, then in that same
faith you are surely absolved. 18 The fellow Christian can give another the word, but only the
individual can accept it in faith.
If one goes outside The Freedom of a Christian to another work Heidegger is likely to
have read, the communal link of Christians, as a church, is even stronger: Hence it is that
Christ and all saints are one spiritual body, just as the inhabitants of a city are one community
and body, each citizen being a member of the other and of the entire city. All saints, therefore,
are members of Christ and of the church, which is a spiritual and eternal city of God. 19 Here
having faith and Christ does not merely link one individually existing Christian to another, rather
having Christ and faith, and being in the community of Christ are mutually necessary and
entailing. You cannot have one without the other, and the existence of one Christian is bound up
with the existence of all other Christians in virtue of belonging to one body, or one church. An
ontological understanding of this might also be found in Being and Time.
First, Dasein is not simply the authentic self which calls itself to authenticity. Dasein still
has the existential structure of the they that must also be modified in authenticity. Dasein is
still bound insofar as the possibilities that it freely takes up, the power it has to exist or project, is
still dependent on the they. This point is particularly strong in Heideggers communal correlate
to fate, i.e. destiny (Geschick). But, as being-in-the-world, if fateful Dasein exists essentially in
Being-with Others, its happening [or historizing (Geschehen)] is a co-happening (Mitgeschehen)
and is determined as destiny (GA 2: 508/384). Dasein never exists as an independent fate. Or
18

The Sacrament of Penance, 1519,in LW 35, 12. (My emphasis)

19

The Blessed Sacrament of the Holy and True Body of Christ, and the Brotherhoods (1519) in LW 35, 51.

13

for Luther, the Christian never exists alone on its individual path to salvation. First, Daseins
fate is still dependent on the heritage (Erbe) that has come down to it. Second, in authentically
choosing and taking up the possibilities in its heritage as fate, it necessarily does so with others.
Only as fateful destiny [schicksalhafte Geschick]in and with its Generation is there a full
authentic happening of Dasein (GA 2: 508/384-5). In fact, the earliest signs of Heidegger
understanding community in this way are religious. In his lectures on Pauls letters to the
Thessalonians, Heidegger makes statements such as the following: He [Paul] necessarily coexperiences [miterfhren] himself in them [the Thessalonians] (GA 60: 93/65). And Their
having-become [Gewordensein] is also a having-become of Pauls (ibid). So it seems that just
as a Christian cannot exist alone for Luther, authentic Dasein cannot either.

Conclusion

In a 1927 letter to Rudolf Bultmann, Heidegger names Luther as philosophically essential for
the cultivation of a more radical understanding-of-Dasein. 20 The above has then shown one
way in which Heidegger found Luther philosophically essential. In Being and Time,
Heidegger explicitly states that his method is to work from the ontic to the ontological (GA 2:
412-4/311-3). If one wishes to pursue, understand, and evaluate Heideggers thought, then
knowing his ontic sources and how he used them is indispensible. The preceding has sought to
demonstrate that many of Luthers ontic understandings of what it means for a Christian to be
both free and bound fit within Heideggers ontological structures. Coupled with Heideggers
extensive knowledge of and self-professed indebtedness to Luther, it should be evident that,
along with the method of destruction and the existential encounters of death, anxiety and
20

Kisiel, The Genesis of Heideggers Being and Time, 452.

14

conscience, Heidegger draws on Luthers ontic understanding of a Christian to inform authentic

Daseins freed existence and servitude to communal involvements.
I hope the preceding has mitigated the perception of Heideggers Being and Time as
fundamentally and extremely individualistic. There are undoubtedly extreme and important
individualistic elements in Being and Time. Most notably, death, anxiety, and conscience are all
fundamentally defined as individualizing moments (GA 2: 249-50/187-9, 350/263-4, 406-7/307).
However, on the other side of these moments, in authenticity, Dasein is necessarily once again
communal. For while it is true that, for Heidegger, Dasein can be authentically itself only if it
makes this possible for itself of its own accord, the structures of concern and solicitude are
never severed from Dasein and share in conditioning the possibility of any existence [either
authentic or inauthentic] whatsoever (GA 2: 350/263). For Luther and much of the Lutheran
tradition, it is impossible to be Christian outside the community. A Christian is always Christian
in Christ with others all drawing on and repeating anew a shared heritage. This seems equally
ontologically true for Heidegger. Whether ontically understood as the church, the polis, or,
controversially, the Volk, authenticity involves co-existing, in the technical sense, with a
community and appropriating the heritage contained within that community.
Finally, with Luther playing such a vital role in Heideggers early projects, it seems
worth investigating the continuities and discontinuities between Heideggers understanding and
appropriation of Luther with that of his immediate predecessors and contemporaries. During
Heideggers most intensive engagement with Luther, a Luther renaissance was underway. In
section 3 of Being and Time, Heidegger mentions this renaissance in contemporary theology and
its positive potential for properly grounding theology. Heidegger knew this community and in
some respects engaged with it. If we then apply Heidegger to himself, then it is reasonable to

15

assume that he is also bound to the Luther renaissance that surrounds him. Understanding
Heidegger might just then also require understanding the various Luthers surrounding him.

16

References
van Buren, John. Heideggers Early Freiburg Courses, 1915-1923. Research in
Phenomenology 23 (1993): 132152.
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