Geburt in Gott. Religion, Metaphysik, Mystik und Phänomenologie

Abstract

[1] In his new bookGeburt in Gott, the phenomenologist and German translator of Michel Henry's work, Rolf Kühn, aims at no less than a combination of a transcendental phenomenology and mysticism into a new, non-onto-theological metaphysics. He describes his programme right at the beginning of the book. The pure appearance of God as self-revelation does not occur under alien conditions, but in an `I' that experiences itself as given: `So wie das reine Ego als lebendige Subjektivität erst dann auftreten kann, wenn die Voraussetzung einer horizonthaften Sichtbarkeit dieses Ego selbst in der Epoché verschwindet, so kann auch Gott erst in demAugenblick zu einer Realität werden, die nichtmehr denmundanen Phänomenbedingungen unterliegt, sofern diese Subjektivität selbst als reine Passibilität zugelassen wurde, das heiÿt: das Ich zugunsten eines passiv im Leben gezeugten Mich seinen egologischen Erkenntnisanspruch aufgibt. Diese Armut oder Leere des Denkens als seine transzendentale Geburt im Leben ist dann zugleich die identische Selbstoffenbarung dieses selbstaffektiven Lebens als Gott vor aller Intuition.' (7). Kühn unfolds his programme in two parts. The rst part is dedicated to an analysis of the understanding of religion as passibility. He relates this understanding of religion to phenomenology. In the second part Kühn applies the analysis of the rst part to examples from the mystical tradition and thereby, attempts to make the connection between mysticism and phenomenology, which he then nally describes as a road towards a new metaphysics. [2] Kühnsmain thesis is: God is not a highest Being, but an absolute life that appears, and in this appearance, reveals itself. The absolute life then, is taken as the individuality from which the particular being, the living, ows. This absolute life encloses the particular. This absolute life appears particularly in the `I' that experiences itself as given by this life. Therefore, subjectivity plays a key-role in the knowledge of the absolute: the `I' knows itself as a non-re exive and affective `I', as a witnessed `me' that does not originate in itself, but in something else. This `me' is, in its pure passivity, passibility. It is the origin of the `I' which is only constituted by this `me'. Therefore, the `me' can no longer be taken in an egological way, but it must be taken as an expression of the ground that constitutes the `I' while not belonging to it. This ground is the absolute life in which the `I' participates and appears in it. This phenomenon is interpreted by Kühn as an eternal process, as a