The Pauline Understanding of Life in the Young Heidegger (1920–21)

In the years after the First World War many authors returned to the Apostle Paul to rethink the meaning of history in a time of crisis. In this period the problem of time represents a crucial topic of Heidegger’s philosophy as well, through which he reconsiders the meaning of the Being of the whole metaphysical tradition. Heidegger already develops his reconsideration of temporality in his early Freiburg lectures on the phenomenology of religious life through the interpretation of Paul’s epistles. The article focuses on the analysis of the category of temporality in these lectures, where the philosopher investigates the experience of conversion and the expectation of the parusia in the proto-Christian communities, within which the radically historical dimension of existence clearly emerges. This contribution aims to show that such phenomenological analysis of early Christian temporality emphasizes the disquieting nature of the evangelical message, which unsettles any fixed identity and transforms personal, communitarian history and social, opening it to the future.

Apostle · Epistemology · Interpretation (philosophy) · Meaning (existential) · Metaphysics · Phenomenology (philosophy) · Temporality · Theology · Memory, History, Trauma, Identity · Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy · Philosophy · Philosophy and Historical Thought