A report delivered in a class on Poststructuralism under Prof. Florentino Hornedo, Ph.D.

SEARCHING FOR THE THEOLOGICAL CONSTANTS: A PROPOSED METHOD FOR A

POST-HEIDEGGERIAN DECONSTRUCTION OF ONTO-THEOLOGICAL RELIGIOUS
THINKING

I. THE HEIDEGGERIAN CRITIQUE AGAINST PHILOSSOPHY AS METAPHYSICS

The early writings of Martin Heidegger showed certain fondness for the early Greek thinkers.
In fact, in his book Parmenides, he praised Parmenides as a thinker who has hinted the
aletheia of Being. With the early Greek thinkers, Being is a physis, a coming-to-be, or an
unfolding. Being lies in the truth’s unfolding of itself. Hence, Being is perceived more as a
dynamic act of disclosure rather than a static presence.

Heidegger was insisting on the aletheia of Being. This refers to the gradual unfolding of
things. We encounter Being, for example, in our work. When new things confront us in our
workplaces, these are new disclosures of Being. By experience, we know that work only
becomes exciting when there are new things to learn. But, when it simply becomes
routinary, we become bored and lose our interest. The new things coming up in our
workplaces are, for Heidegger, the new disclosures of Being. Being precisely gives meaning
to human existence because it always invites man to reflect and pay attention as it unfolds
fresh insights into seemingly old things.

But Heidegger also believes that, in the history of the philosophy of the West, such Being
has been slowly replaced by the concept of presence and essence especially with the
philosophy of Plato and Aristotle. Plato introduces the first metaphysics and the rest of the
history of the West followed him.1 Since Plato, philosophy becomes metaphysics. Being is no
longer the process of coming to be. Rather, it was reduced to a complete but static
presence. Being becomes that which is common to all beings, hence Plato calls it as the
Beingness of beings or what is later known as the essence.

The entire philosophical tradition becomes an attempt to name Being as the essence, even if
essence has been substituted by many other names like Idea, Substance, God, or the Spirit.
Every era in the history of the West has become an attempt to give a complete narrative
about the Being of beings.

II. METAPHYSICS AS ONTO-THEOLOGICAL

Furthermore, Heidegger contends that metaphysics is necessarily onto-theological.

Philosophy as onto-theology searches for the ground of being which is perceived as the
source or the creator. Hence, philosophy has become a science of both God - as the creator
of beings, and of the Being of beings or that principle which is common to all things. 2 The
God of onto-theology is just another objective reality that grounds the existence of all other
things. It is completely ‘present’ just like any other being even if it is the first or the best in
the gradation of things. Furthermore, the Being of beings is the essence of things. As Plato
would say, the meaning of a table is the Idea of table or tableness, outside the tableness of
the table, that table cannot be.

With this, Being was reduced to being, which leads philosophy to abandon its original
vocation to think. Philosophy ceases to become attentive to the unfolding of Being. Rather, it
becomes a mere empirical science. It seeks to grasp the essence of things in order simply to
manipulate and control them. This onto-theological character of philosophy as metaphysics
is in fact the necessary predecessor of the control freak mathematico-scientific thinking 3,
 A report delivered in a class on Poststructuralism under Prof. Florentino Hornedo, Ph.D.
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which in turn results to the many disasters of our modern time because of its incapacity to
transcend the mere physicality of things. With this, there is a need for what he calls as “the
task of destroying the history of ontology.”4

III. OVERCOMING METAPHYSICS AND THE CALL FOR A NEW WAY OF THINKING

Heidegger further argues that metaphysics favors calculative thinking over the reflective
thinking of an authentic philosophy. He then calls for the destruction of metaphysics, which
is not an absolute abandonment but a step-back. This is a retreat from the calculative
temperament of onto-theology in order to recapture the reflective thought. Philosophy needs
to step-back to its original vocation to reflect on the disclosure of Being rather than on
being. Whereas being is objectified in metaphysics, in the step-back, Being becomes a no-
thing. Since it is not a thing whose existence is complete and objectified, Being always left
something unsaid and hidden. Being would always have a ‘reserve’.5

The task of this new way of thinking then is to uncover the hiddenness of Being. There is
always something that can be said and discovered because in every utterance there would
always also be the concealment of Being. Philosophy then necessarily becomes reflective. It
becomes a patient paying attention to Being’s simultaneous ‘unfolding’ and ‘concealment’.
It awaits and is awed by Being’s every disclosure because such would always be fresh and
new. At the same time, philosophy is also aware that every temporal revelation is
incomplete. There always remains something hidden, and such would always be an
invitation for further reflection.

IV. THE WHITHER OF RELIGIOUS THINKING

If philosophy needs to overcome metaphysics in order to escape its onto-theological

tendencies, how about theology? Where can theology go after Heidegger’s criticism against
onto-theology?

Max Myer clarified that after Heidegger’s destruction of metaphysics6 and the
poststructuralist thinkers who followed him, theology or religious thinking could no longer
remain as what it was throughout centuries. The foundationalist theology of Scholasticism
that is anchored on presence could no longer continue to ignore the hiddenness of Being.
Religious thinking has also to confront the fact that it has to give account for the absence of
Being.

In this sense, even theology is not just about faithful handing down of revealed truths. It is
also a relevant utterance of the Gospel. Theology is not just about repetitious professions of
the doctrine of the Fathers. Rather, it is also about articulating the Gospel in a way that is
meaningful to our context. The Fathers and all the rest of the generations following them
have certainly articulated the Gospel in a way that is mindful of their respective culture and
time. It would then be the role of our contemporary theologizing to articulate the Gospel in
such a way that is both attentive to the temperament of the people especially the young
and, at the same time, in a manner that is faithul to the Judaeo-Christian Tradition as has
been initiated by the members of the first Christian communities. The question, however, is:
how are we to do this?

The Search for the Theological Constants

Contemporary theologians have realized that to do contextual theology is now an

imperative.7 A well-acclaimed Filipino theologian, José de Mesa, once claimed: “Theology
endeavors to express the Gospel faithfully and yet only does it contextually.”8 The real test
of contextual theologizing rests on its method. This even allows Stephen Bevans to
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distinguish six models of contextual theology, the classifications of which are mostly based
on a particular reflection’s method which gives emphasis on either of the two poles: a
theology’s faithfulness to the Gospel or its rootedness to the culture of the people.
Contemporary theologizing needs to strike a meaningful balance of these two emphases,
that is, aiming to be significant to a particular culture while at the same maintaining its
fidelity to the truth of the Gospel. Whereas it’s true that the culture plays a significant role in
articulating the faith so much so that Paul VI argues that “evangelization loses much of its
force and effectiveness if it does not take into consideration the actual people to whom it is
addressed, if it does not use their language, their signs and symbols, if it does not answer
the question they ask, and if it does not have an impact on their concrete life.” (E.N. 63)9 It
is equally important to note also that “Theology does not only have to square with the
demands of meaning, but also of truth. Legitimate attention to relevance, after all, does not
dispense with fidelity to the Tradition.”10 This is where the notion of the theological
constants may become an important contribution.

José de Mesa is among the first contemporary theologians who insisted on utilizing the
theological constants.11 In his mentioned article on the “Contextual Theological Reflection on
Justice,” de Mesa emphasized the importance of exploring the various traditions of Catholic
theological reflections and of discerning the areas whereby they converge. He calls these
similarities as the theological contants.

These theological constants facilitate the work of contextualized theological reflections.

They assure us of two things: a particular reflection’s fidelity to the Judeao-Christian
Tradition, and its meaningfulness to the context of the people.

It is important to take note that these constants are not a priori principles. Rather, they are
discovered. The constants are the various disclosures of Being in the various eras and
contexts of theological reflections.

It is true that our conscioiusness is also shaped by our time and context, and the way we
understand the movements of God may also be influenced by the kind of consciousness
formed by our own context and time. Hence, we would be justified in distinguishing
theologies like that of the Fathers, of the Scholastics, of African theologians, or that of a
Latin American theology or a Filipino theology. If a theological articulation would have to be
meaningful to the people, it should never ignore the context in which the theological
articulation is done or addressed.

But while it is true that the context of theologians are varied, which is also the condition of
the variety of theological articulations, we should not also ignore the fact that these
articulations are all reflections of the ONE Gospel of Christ. Hence, they could not be totally
different. They have to converge on certain things simply because they talk of an only single
TRUTH, Christ Himself.

This is where the constants play an important role. Discovering the converging themes in
the established theological traditions is an assurance that we are paying attention to the
unfolding of God’s Being as it takes a meaningful form. The a posteriori approach is a
testimony that we are not making arbitrary namings of God’s disclosure. The constants are
the authentic experiences of the people. In a sense, the constants are God’s own way of
dealing with the multipliciy of the people’s cultures and traditions. Hence, discovering them
in a theological articulation is an assurance that such singular and particular tradition is also
faithful to God’s revelation in the Gospel.

Using the Constants as Guides for Fresh Theological Articulations

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Assuring a theology’s faithfulness to the Gospel is not the only function of the theological
constants. They also serve as guides for fresh articulations.12 For a theology to be relevant to
the culture of the people, it has to assume the language of that culture. Hence, it has to take
new formulations. In doing this, the constants can be used as guides. They would ensure
that the new formulations are not totally severed from the Judaeo-Christian Tradition. With
the constants, the new articulations are assured that they are still linked to the Gospel.

Hence, the constants open the possiblity for a fresh articulation of the Gospel. It allows the
realization that there are new facets of the truth that is uniquely revealed to a particular
culture. Although, theology could not ignore the elements of the culture because God’s
Being is certrainly revealed in all culture, it is also aware at the same time that “in speaking
about the faith, such elements are not totally adequate. There may be a need to qualify or
at times even negate them in the light of the faith it speaks about.”13 The constants then
become helpful guides in evaluating which elements of the culture are faithful to the Gospel,
and which elements would have to be taken out.

Understanding the Constants as Affirmation of the Hiddenness of Being

Among the important contributions of the use of the constants in theological articulations
are the facts that they are discovered a posteriori and they are open to the fresh
articulations of the Gospel. The use of the constants overcomes what Heidegger calls as
onto-theology.

Heidegger even contends that when metaphysics takes the work of theology by assuming
upon itself the question about God, as the first being or the uncaused cause, it does a
“contradiction.” It is a “round-square” for it is certainly impossible to speak of God in the
language of metaphysics.14

Such objection to theology, as equated to Christian Philosophy, is oftentimes used as

testimonies for Heidegger’s alleged atheism. However, if we are to thoroughly examine
Heidegger’s claim about religion and theological thinking, we might also be justified to say
that Heidegger’s objection is not a total rejection of God. He was plainly criticizing the
method or the language used in speaking about God. 15 He despises the onto-theological
articulations of God, but his call for the god-less thinking, as an alternative to the onto-
theological metaphysics of the West, may not be taken as a plain rejection of the Being of
God. Heidegger himself clarifies his claim by saying, “the god-less thinking which must
abandon the god of philosophy, god as causa sui, is thus perhaps closer to the divine God.
Here this means only: the god-less thinking is more open to Him than the onto-theologic
would like to admit.”16

Hence, it becomes our business now to discern as to what could this alternative (god-less,
that is, free from the idols that we create of God) thinking which is perhaps closer to God
Himself, which Heidegger is talking about. How are we to attain this kind of step-back from
onto-theological thinking, that would afford us of an authentic theological reflection?

I propose here that a contextual theological reflection that uses the “theological constants”
can be taken as a kind of a step back from the onto-theological character of the metaphysics
of the West, which relies so much on the redundant articulations of the faith even if they are
already devoid of meaning for the people.17 The use of the theological constants allows the
unfolding of what Myers would call as the reserve of Being. Using the theological constants
as a guide for fresh articulations is a feasible means for a faithful reconstruction of the truth
of the Gospel in a way that would be relevant to a particular culture. This reconstruction is a
new articulation that is devoid of the instrumentality of the onto-theological thought, and is
rather characterized by a patient waiting of the manifestations of Being. The use of the
theological constants provides venues for authentic dialogue between the culture and the
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Gospel. This requires that the theologian takes the attitude of a patient listener who allows
Being to speak, rather than that of manipulator who strategize things so that he could
achieve his pre-conceived goal. The reconstructed articulation of a theology that utilizes the
theological constants is one that allows an “opening to that which is held in reserve, the
unsaid along with the said.”18 Furthermore, “such an opening to the unsaid is incompatible
with certainty and self-justification, since it is such an opening to that which cannot be
projected as a possibility beforehand by the self.”19

This answers Heidegger’s critique against a pseudo-reflective religious thinking. Heidegger

reminds us of the possible trap of an inauthentic theological thought which he refers to with
the following words:

Anyone for whom the Bible is a Divine revelation and truth has the anwer to
the question, “why are there essents rather than nothing?” even before it is
asked: everything that is, except God himself, has been created by Him. God
himself, the increate creator, “is.” One who holds to such faith can in a way
participate in the asking of our question without ceasing to be a believer and
taking all the consequences of the step. He will only be to act as if... On the
one hand a faith that does not perpetually expose itself to the possibility of
unfaith is no faith but mere convenience: the believer simply makes up his
mind to adhere to the traditional doctrine. This is neither faith nor
questioning, but the indifference of those who can busy themselves with
everything, sometimes even displaying a keen interest in faith as well as
questioning.20

This also allows Myers to claim that the future of religious thinking must gear towards the
destruction of idols or “symbols which claims to be the center of a structure of meaning...”21
He also argues further that religious thinking must also be wary of a reconstruction “which is
only a repetition of the earlier event for it knows that time is the way that being reveals
itself and that no one can step to that stream twice.” 22 For Myers, the post-Heideggerian
religious thinking is destructive of both conventionalism and traditionalism “which longs for
the eternal return of the same.”23

This certainly are the aims of the use of the theological constants. The approach is an
explicit search for the various disclosures of Being. De Mesa claims that the use of the
theological constants

...enable cross-historical and cross-cultural comparisons thereby serving as

reminders as to which aspects of the faith (as represented by particular
constants) need to be attended to in a new formulation by a local community.
It may be well that a set of constants discovered in one local church may alert
other local churches to certain aspects of the faith which they have not quite
paid attention to but recognize as essential.24

The theological constants overcome the rigidity of fundamentalism and traditionalism upon
which Heidegger frowns upon. These constants reorient theological thinking into the aletheic
character of Being which reveals and conceals at the same time. As De Mesa again says,

After all, every contextualization of the Gospel tends to bring certain aspects
of it to the foreground, while others are relegated to the background. This
implies that the use of constants in gauging the truthfulness of a given
theological reflection requires dialogue with other communities of faith,
whether of the past or the present. Openness and willingness to learn is an
imperative within this framework and procedure because constants are
precisely discovered in a communally-oriented theologizing.25
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The use of the constants provide us the means to confront the two-fold challenge of doing
contextual theological reflection and of facilitating the step back to where Heidegger has
invited us. The theological constants assure us that the a particular reflection remains
faithful to the one Gospel of Christ as it is, at the same time, meaningful to the culture of the
people. Furthermore, they also assure us that our theological articulations would always be
open to the simulataneous disclosure and concealment of Being, the aletheic character of
Being, which would ensure that every theological articulation is a further reflection about the
truth of the Being of God.
1
Martin Heidegger himself says in the End of Philosophy, trans. Joan Stambaugh (New York:
Harper and Row, 1973), p.4 that ‘In the beginning of its history, Being opens itself out as emerging
(physis) and unconcealment (aletheia). From there, it reaches the formulation of presence and
permanence in the sense of enduring. Metaphysics proper begins with this.’ Furthermore, Charles
Guignon, in his ‘Introduction’ for the Cambridge Companion to Heidegger, ed. Charles Guignon
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), p.18, adds that ‘As a result to the first dawn of
history, being comes to be thought of as what endures, what is permanent, what is always there. It
is the continuous presence of the substance (ousia) that which remains through all changes...
Because Plato inaugurated this interpretation of beingness, the entire history of metaphysics can
be called ‘Platonism’.’
2
Martin Heidegger, Identity and Difference, trans. Joan Stambaugh (New York: Harper and Row,
1969), p.54.
3
Max A. Myers. ‘Towards what is religious thinking underway?,’ in Deconstruction and Theology.
(New York: Crossroad Publishing Company, 1982), p. 119.
4
Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, trans. John Macquarrie and Edwad Robinson. (Tubingen:
Neomarius Verlag, 1963), p. 41.
5
Myers, ‘Towards what is religious thinking underway?,’ p.138.
6
Myers, ‘Towards what is religious thinking underway?,’ p.124.
7
“There is no such thing as theology; there is only contextual theology... The contextualization of
theology – the attempt to understand Christian faith in terms of a particular context – is really a
theological imperative,” in Stephen Bevans, Models of Contextual Theology. (Manila: Logos
Publications, Inc., 2003), 3.
8
José de Mesa, “Contextual Theological Reflection on Justice,” Philippiniana Sacra, vol. XLIII, no.
127 (January-April, 2008), 5.
9
Paul VI, Evangelii Nuntiandi. (Pasay City: Daughters of St. Paul, 1976), art. 26; Cf. de Mesa, 8.
10
De Mesa, 9.
11
De Mesa, 10-11. He however attributes the originality of the use of the concept of the “contants”
to the following authors: James D.G. Dunn, Unity and Diversity in the New Testament: An Inquiry
into the Character of Earliest Christianity (2nd ed., London: SCM Press, 1990, 11-32; Paul VI,
Evangelii Nuntiandi (Pasay City: Daughters of St. Paul, 1976), art. 26; Edward Schillebeeckx ,
Interim Report on the Books “Jesus” & “Christ” (New York: Crossroad, 1981) 51-55; and Stephen
Bevans and Roger P. Schroeder, Constants in Context: A Theology of Missions for Today
(Maryknoll, New Yok: Orbis Books, 2004).
12
De Mesa, 12.
13
De Mesa, 11.
14
Cf. Martin Heidegger, Introduction to Metaphysics, trans. Ralph Manheim (London: Yale University
Press, 1959), 7, where he says: “Christian philosophy is a round square and a misunderstanding.”
15
Heidegger’s objection against the god of onto-theology is rooted on his rejection of the
philosophical notion of God as the highest Being and the uncaused cause, the causa sui. Hence,
Heidegger says, “Man can neither pray nor sacrifice to this god. Beofre the causa sui, man can
neither fall to his knees in awe nor can he play music and dance before this god.” Martin
Heidegger (ID), 1969, 72.
16
Heidegger (ID), 1969, 72.
17
For examples of studies that utilizes the notion of theological contants in actual contextual
theologizing, please see the following articles produced by the members of the theology research
team of the John Paul II Research Center of UST: Arvin Eballo, “Theological Cosntants of Justice in
the Old Testament,” Philippiniana Sacra, vol. XLIII, no. 127 (January – April 2008), 15-22; Jose de
Mesa, “Theological Constants of Justice in the New Testament,” Philippiniana Sacra, vol. XLIII, no.
127 (January – April 2008), 23-32; Jannel Abogado, et. al., “Theological Constants in Tommaso
d’Aquino’s Theology of Justice,” Philippiniana Sacra, vol. XLIII, no. 127 (January-April 2008), 33-66;
and Dionisia Roman and Pablito Baybado, “Theological Constants of Justice in Catholic Social
Teaching,” Philippiniana Sacra, vol. XLIII, no. 127 (January-April 2008), 83-98.
18
Myers, 141.
19
Myers, 141.
20
Heidegger, 1959, 7.
21
Myers, 142.
22
Myers, 142.
23
Myers, 142.
24
De Mesa, 12-13.
25
De Mesa, 13.