Hope as Atmosphere: An Existential-phenomenological and Inter-cultural Study into the Phenomenon of Hope [1 ed.] 9783666568589, 9783525568583

Citation preview

Xu Wang

Hope as Atmosphere An Existential-phenomenological and Inter-­ cultural Study into the Phenomenon of Hope

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44

Religion, Theologie und Naturwissenschaft / Religion, Theology, and Natural Science

Edited by Christina Aus der Au, Celia Deane-Drummond, Agustn Fuentes, Jan-Olav Henriksen, and Markus Mühling Volume 37

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44

Xu Wang

Hope as Atmosphere An Existential-phenomenological and Inter-cultural Study into the Phenomenon of Hope

Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44

Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek: The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data available online: https://dnb.de.  2022 by Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Theaterstraße 13, 37073 Göttingen, Germany, an imprint of the Brill-Group (Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands; Brill USA Inc., Boston MA, USA; Brill Asia Pte Ltd, Singapore; Brill Deutschland GmbH, Paderborn, Germany, Brill Österreich GmbH, Vienna, Austria) Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Hotei, Brill Schöningh, Brill Fink, Brill mentis, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Böhlau and V&R unipress. All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without prior written permission from the publisher. Cover image: 

Cover design: SchwabScantechnik, Göttingen Typesetting: le-tex publishing services, Leipzig

Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht Verlage j www.vandenhoeck-ruprecht-verlage.com ISSN 2197-1110 ISBN 978-3-666-56858-9

Acknowledgments

In this six-year-long academic journey, I was not walking alone but made my joyous wayfaring together with many others. I am grateful for their companionship and supports. I am deeply indebted to my supervisor Professor Dr. Markus Mühling, without whose encouragement and support I would not have gotten this far. He accompanied me at every major stage of this thesis, supported me in every colloquium, and encouraged me to explore different possibilities of thought. I am also inspired by his words, “although every work has to end somewhere, we should write our work as if we will never finish it.” As this journey of writing ends, the thoughts on the themes of hope, in-betweenness, and co-humanity will continue further in my life. Besides Professor Mühling, I am grateful to Professor Dr. Philipp Stoellger for organizing the Heidelberg colloquia and inviting me to it. In these colloquia, I have greatly profited from the questions, suggestions, and critiques of other participants. I am also thankful to Micha Edlich and Reinhard Werner from the writing center and my colleagues Hannah Stewart, Katharina Wanckel, and Carsten Card-Hyatt. They have helped me with proofreading and have given me useful tips on thinking and writing. Furthermore, I would like to thank the Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes, not only for its four-year-long financial aid but also for its wide variety of activities. I have benefited a great deal from its summer academy programs and its Ph.D. forum. I would also like to express my sincere gratitude for its support for students with children. As a student mother, I was encouraged to be a good scholar and a good caregiver. Finally, my thanks are dedicated to my family members – my mother, Jinlan An, my husband, Tianyi, and my lovely daughter Dongting. They are not only my most precious treasures in life but have also contributed to this thesis in a special way. As the readers will see, my reflections on and enjoyment of my relations with these beloved ones are integrated into the words and chapters on love in this thesis.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments.................................................................................

5

List of Figures....................................................................................... 11 Introduction.......................................................................................... 13 1. Philosophical Understandings of Hope .............................................. 1.1 Grammar of Hope....................................................................... 1.1.1 The Objective Side of Hope .................................................. 1.1.2 The Subjective Side of Hope ................................................. 1.1.3 Hope in Different Parts of Speech ......................................... 1.2 Fundamental Hope ..................................................................... 1.2.1 The Distinction between Ordinary Hope and Fundamental Hope ............................................................. 1.2.2 Fundamental Hope as a Fundamental Human Existential ........ 1.3 Ontological Presuppositions of Hope.............................................

19 20 20 23 27 28

2. The Possibility of a Phenomenology of Hope ...................................... 2.1 Hope in Heidegger’s Existential Phenomenology ............................ 2.2 Critiques of Heidegger’s Existentiality ............................................ 2.3 Marcel’s Phenomenology of Hope ................................................. 2.3.1 The Ontological Foundation of Hope .................................... 2.3.2 The Two-fold Definition of Absolute Hope............................. 2.3.3 Hope for the Immortality of Love ......................................... 2.3.4 Critical Acceptance of Marcel’s Phenomenology of Hope .........

37 37 41 43 43 45 47 49

3. Christian Theological Understandings of Hope ................................... 3.1 Philosophical Hope and Christian Hope ........................................ 3.2 Christian Hope in the Context of Christian Eschatology .................. 3.3 The Trinitarian Basis of Christian Hope ......................................... 3.4 The Human Bearers of Christian Hope .......................................... 3.5 Deification as the Unambiguous Spes Quae of Christian Hope .......... 3.6 Hope in a Christian Context .........................................................

51 51 53 54 58 61 64

28 30 32

8

Table of Contents

4. Atmosphere, Qi(气) and the Existentiality of In-betweenness .............. 4.1 The Concept of Atmosphere ......................................................... 4.1.1 Atmosphere as the Reformulation of Affectivity...................... 4.1.2 Atmosphere as the Sphere of Bodily Presence ......................... 4.1.3 Atmosphere as the Affordances of Air ................................... 4.2 Being-in-the-air and Atmospheric Co-existence ............................. 4.3 Zhang Zai’s Philosophy of Qi ........................................................ 4.3.1 Qi as the Cosmological and Ontological Foundation of Chinese Philosophy......................................................... 4.3.2 Qi as Resonance and Void.................................................... 4.3.3 The Way of Great Harmony.................................................. 4.4 In-betweenness as the Most Basic Characteristic of Human Existence ................................................................................... 4.4.1 Atmospheric Co-existence as an Expression of Existentiality of In-betweenness ........................................... 4.4.2 The Relativity of Self-center ................................................. 4.4.3 In-betweenness and Mineness ..............................................

67 67 68 69 72 74 77

5. Fundamental Hope Revisited ............................................................ 5.1 Fundamental Hope in an Existentiality of In-betweenness ................ 5.2 Changing Metaphors from Light to Atmosphere ............................. 5.2.1 The Metaphor of Light in Hope ............................................ 5.2.2 Hope as Atmosphere ........................................................... 5.3 Hopeful Co-existence in Patria and in Via...................................... 5.3.1 Hopeful Co-existence in Patria............................................. 5.3.2 Hopeful Co-existence in Via ................................................ 5.3.3 Hopeful Co-existence in Via and in Patria ............................. 5.4 Hopeful Co-existence in Joy ......................................................... 5.4.1 The Connection between Hope and Joy ................................. 5.4.2 The Joy of Hopeful Co-existence........................................... 5.5 Hopeful Co-existence in Love and towards Life............................... 5.5.1 Hopeful Co-existence in Love .............................................. 5.5.2 Hopeful Co-existence towards Life........................................ 5.6 Hopeful Co-existence as Virtue..................................................... 5.6.1 Hopeful Co-existence as a Good Way of Co-existence ............. 5.6.2 Hopeful Co-existence as Moral Directions ............................. 5.6.3 The Desperate Ways of Existence ..........................................

91 92 94 94 95 96 96 99 101 101 102 102 104 104 106 108 108 109 112

77 79 82 84 84 86 88

6. Resonating with Confucian and Christian Traditions ........................... 115 6.1 The Confucian Way of Hopeful Co-existence ................................. 115 6.1.1 Ren (仁) as Co-humanity..................................................... 115

Table of Contents

6.1.2 Compassion as the Concrete Beginning of Co-humanity (Ren)............................................................. 6.1.3 One Body with the Universe ................................................ 6.1.4 The Confucian Way of Hopeful Co-existence ........................ 6.1.5 Singing Together in the Spring Breeze ................................... 6.2 The Christian Way of Hopeful Co-existence ................................... 6.2.1 The Triune God as Hopeful Co-existence............................... 6.2.2 The Human Person and the Church as the Concrete Loci of Christian Human Hopeful Co-existence ..................... 6.2.3 Deification as Way of hopeful co-existence between God and Human ................................................................ 6.2.4 The End is Music ................................................................ 6.3 Fundamental Hope and Ultimate Hope..........................................

117 119 121 123 124 124 125 127 129 129

Conclusion ........................................................................................... 133 Bibliography ......................................................................................... 135 Index ................................................................................................... 145

9

List of Figures

Figure 1 Figure 2 Figure 3 Figure 4 Figure 5 Figure 6

The Scale of Mineness ............................................................... The Closed-circuit Authenticity.................................................. Böhme and Ingold’s Concepts of Atmosphere .............................. Two Ways of Writing Qi in Chinese ............................................ Meshwork ............................................................................... The Scale of In-betweenness ......................................................

38 39 72 78 85 86

Introduction

This thesis explores the meaning of hope in the language of atmosphere. Generally speaking, it belongs to the existential-phenomenological endeavor of interpreting hope as existentially fundamental. Following the anthropologist Tim Ingold’s insights in his concept of atmosphere and the Chinese neo-Confucian philosopher Zhang Zai (张载)’s philosophy of qi (气), fundamental hope is formulated as a hopeful co-existence in the conceptual constellation of atmospheric co-existence, meshwork, in-between, resonance, and void. So understood, hope not only gains new meaning and metaphor within the Western context but also finds expression in other contexts. As this thesis will present, it can also find anchorage and expression in Confucian central doctrine of ren (仁, co-humanity), which is usually claimed to be devoid of the discourse of hope. As a human phenomenon, hope is not merely situated at the margin, beginning or end, but in the midst of our everyday life.1 In human life, hope is found everywhere. For example, the hope for something desirable to happen, the hope in you as the one who I can trust, and the hope with other companions together. These different forms of hope cannot simply be packed into a formula, because hope is a complex human phenomenon that has many interwoven aspects and layers of meaning. Indeed, as Karl Woschitz claims, “a concept in each case is the focal point (Konvexpunkt) of a variety of historical experiences and thing-affair-relations (Sachbezüge).”2 In the Western context, the current usage of the concept of hope is a mixture of both human hope and Christian theological hope.3 On the one hand, in the Western philosophical tradition, the concept of hope is highly ambiguous and controversial. It is sometimes powerful and sometimes weak, sometimes positive and sometimes deceptive, it sometimes consists of passive waiting and sometimes of resistant act, sometimes with a clear aim and sometimes merely a personal disposition, sometimes individual and sometimes social. Besides these tensions in this concept, there are also various competing theories regarding the basic status of hope and its value. Moreover, everyday hope seems to be always entangled with other phenomena such as wish, desire, fear, imagination, belief, expectation,

1 See Ingolf U. Dalferth, Hoffnung (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2016), 43. 2 Karl M. Woschitz, Elpis, Hoffnung: Geschichte, Philosophie, Exegese, Theologie eines Schlüsselbegriffs (Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 1979), 335. 3 See Karl Lehmann, “Gegen Hoffnung in Hoffnung. Ihre anthropologischen und theologischen Grundlagen,” in Die Kunst des Hoffens: Kranksein zwischen Erschütterung und Neuorientierung, ed. Giovanni Maio (Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 2016), 7–37, 8.

14

Introduction

trust, and optimism, making it all the more difficult to formulate an unambiguous understanding of hope philosophically. On the other hand, Christian theology offers a very well-formed and clear concept of hope within the constellation of the triune God, Christian eschatology, salvation, and promise. To speak generally, in Christian theology, hope is theologically rooted and anthropologically fundamental. As one of the three theological virtues that reveal the fundamental connection between human existence and God, hope serves as a central concept in Christian doctrine. In contrast to the fundamental significance that Christian theology attributes to hope, the dominant assumption in Western philosophical history is that hope is peripheral to human existence and to reality as a whole. That is to say, although hope is everywhere within our everyday life, it is only a decorative phenomenon, sometimes helpful and enthusing, sometimes blind and poisonous, but is never profound enough to decide what human being is and has no bearing on truth and reality. Accordingly, hope is only treated in passing. As Paul Ricoeur claims, “hope does not primarily belong to philosophical discourse; the theologians of the past were right when they call it a ‘theological virtue’ –  along with faith and love.”4 However, among various philosophical approaches, the existential-phenomenological approach stands out and takes hope as a fundamental and central human experience. In this scope, hope is fundamental for human Dasein in relation to an inexhaustive and bearing reality. In summary, hope is unambiguously fundamental to human existence in the Christian theological context, while understood philosophically, it can be either peripheral or fundamental. Therefore, in philosophical understanding, a distinction between ordinary hopes and fundamental hope can be made. Ordinary hopes are those common ones that pass by without much bearing on our essential identity, reality, and Being, whereas fundamental hope is constitutive and decisive for them. This thesis also follows this distinction and focuses mainly on fundamental hope. In this thesis, fundamental hope is expounded as hopeful co-existence – a fundamental existential mode of in-betweenness, which finds its proper expression in atmospheric co-existence and atmospheric reality. Concretely speaking, it is our conscious and persistent enactment of atmospheric co-existence that finds orientation in an atmospheric reality.

4 Paul Ricoeur, “Hope and the Structure of Philosophical Systems,” in Figuring the Sacred: Religion, Narrative and Imagination, ed. Mark I. Wallace (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995), 203–216, 204. Regarding this point, Schumacher also argues that “as a topic for study, hope has largely been left to psychologists and theologians. For the most part philosophers treat hope en passant.” Bernard N. Schumacher, A Philosophy of Hope: Josef Pieper and the Contemporary Debate on Hope (New York: Fordham University Press, 2003), xi.

Introduction

It is worth noting that although fundamental hope is expressed in this thesis as the short formula of hopeful co-existence, it cannot be tidily pressed into one single formula in principle. Fundamental hope is a concrete complex in its core.5 It consists of a constellation of meaning that has many equiprimordial characteristics, for example, open temporality, the possibility of good, gift, and intersubjectivity. Situated in different theoretical contexts with different concerns, the meaning of fundamental hope is also differently arranged with different basic characteristic(s) highlighted. In this sense, it invites a pluralistic understanding based on different basic characteristic(s) in principle. This thesis presents an interpretation of fundamental hope with a particular stress on in-betweenness. In the meanwhile, it also holds that there are other formulas of fundamental hope with emphasis on other basic features.6 Therefore, this thesis explores hope neither comprehensively as an exhibition of various types of hope, nor in a reductionistic way, claiming that there is one single version of fundamental hope from which every other understanding and form of hope is derived. Rather, it investigates into its basic characteristic of in-betweenness and offers a conceptual constellation regarding this characteristic, that is, hope in the language of atmospheric co-existence and atmospheric reality. In this thesis, two major threads – the existential-phenomenological and the inter-cultural – hold the arguments together. Firstly, fundamental hope can be put in the existential-phenomenological background and understood as one of the fundamental existential modes of human Dasein. In the existential phenomenology conceived by Martin Heidegger in Being and Time, human existence is not traced back to any form of substance but is disclosed in existentiality – a coherent structure of different possible modes “to be.”7 Following this insight, this thesis holds that hope is also one of the possible modes of Dasein. However, since Heidegger claims that every existential possibility is inevitably “always-being-mine (jemeinig),” he presents a self-centered existentiality that cannot do justice to the relational structure of fundamental hope. Thus it requires another existential framework for fundamental hope, which is found

5 The terminology of concrete complex is borrowed from Kuang-Ming Wu, On the “Logic” of Togetherness: A Cultural Hermeneutic (Leiden: Brill, 1998), 405. 6 For example, Ingolf Dalferth defines hope as “our sense of the gift of the possibility of the good (unser Sinn für die Gabe der Möglichkeit des Guten),” Marcel expresses hope in the formula of hope “in thee – for us,” and Bollnow says that hope is the decisive determination of the “inner temporal structure of human life.” See Dalferth, Hoffnung, 5, Gabriel Marcel, Homo Viator: Introduction to a Metaphysic of Hope, trans. Emma Craufurd (Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1951), 60, and Otto F. Bollnow, Neue Geborgenheit: das Problem einer Überwindung des Existentialismus (Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2011), 79. 7 Martin Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, 17th ed. (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1993), 12.

15

16

Introduction

in Gabriel Marcel’s phenomenology of hope.8 For Marcel, fundamental hope is essentially a hope for us, which implies an intersubjective ontology. Moreover, intersubjectivity finds a more proper and detailed expression in the concept of atmosphere. In Tim Ingold’s concept of air-centered atmosphere, human existence becomes a de-centered dynamic co-existence that happens in the form of sentient and creative inner touch. This form of co-existence is not traced back to any sense of “mineness” but is thought of in terms of in-betweenness. That is to say, atmospheric co-existence is not primarily an existential mode of a singular Dasein, but that of Daseins that exist in-between and exist together as a living meshwork. Inspired by Ingold, this thesis argues that atmospheric co-existence discloses an existentiality of in-betweenness against Heidegger’s self-centered one, which provides a more proper existential context for fundamental hope. Secondly, fundamental hope is also expounded in an inter-cultural context. First, Christian theological hope constitutes a crucial source for the understanding of fundamental hope. Instead of executing a phenomenological reduction on theological hope, this thesis focuses on how the triune God as the basis of Christian hope reveals a living relational structure, which enriches the understanding of in-betweenness and hopeful co-existence in a concrete and unique way. Moreover, in resonance with the atmospheric understanding of hope, Christian hope can also find an alternative expression as resonance and interpenetration between two pieces of meshwork, that is, the divine way of hopeful co-existence and human way of hopeful co-existence. Second, this thesis also brings the Chinese philosophy of qi (气) and Confucian tradition of ren (仁, co-humanity) into play. In this thesis, atmospheric co-existence is essentially complemented by neo-Confucian scholar Zhang Zai’s philosophy of qi. To be concrete, the concepts of resonance (gan感), Great Void (taixu 太虚) and Way of Great Harmony (taihe zhidao太和之道) in Zhang Zai’s philosophy of qi are introduced as important theoretical resources for an atmospheric reality. While the concept of resonance is similar to Ingold’s sentient and creative inner touch, the concepts of Great Void and Way of Great Harmony reveal a breathable and extending atmospheric reality of in-betweenness. Moreover, in this thesis, the central Confucian doctrine of ren (仁, co-humanity) is also introduced as a concrete way of human hopeful co-existence, which begins from an everyday situation of resonant compassion and extends into a refreshing roomy sphere of a universal body. It is important to emphasize that Christian hope and Confucian ren (仁, cohumanity) are not two concrete examples of a formal structure of hopeful co-

8 See Gabriel Marcel, “Sketch of Phenomenology and the Metaphysics of Hope,” in Homo Viator: Introduction to a Metaphysic of Hope, trans. Emma Craufurd (Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1965), 29–67.

Introduction

existence; this thesis is not merely a pure phenomenological effort to make sense of hope for human existence as such. In this thesis, the trinitarian basis of Christian hope, the Confucian doctrine of co-humanity, and atmospheric co-existence are three concrete narratives in communication, and the understanding of fundamental hope as hopeful co-existence is a fruit of this communication, rather than an abstract philosophical structure that waits for the support of concrete examples. Finally, interpreting fundamental hope in the language of atmosphere also brings some “fresh air” to both Western and Chinese understandings of hope. Within the Western context, this interpretation brings an alternative metaphor for hope other than light. As will be expounded in detail in Chapter 5, this atmosphere metaphor avoids many of the disadvantages that the light metaphor connotes. In the Chinese context, this interpretation belongs to the endeavor of doing philosophy in its own metaphors.9 Since Chinese thought is fundamentally air-based (which is manifest in the Chinese philosophy of qi), hope in the language of atmosphere becomes more accessible to those who live in Chinese tradition.

9 In his book A Theology of Dao, the Korean theologian Heup Young Kim uses the East Asian philosophical concept of dao to interpret Christian theology and considers it an endeavor of “doing theology in our own metaphors.” In this respect, this thesis shares his insight. See Heup Young Kim, A Theology of Dao (Maryknoll: Orbis, 2017), X.

17

1.

Philosophical Understandings of Hope

This chapter is a brief introduction to the current philosophical understandings of hope. As briefly pointed out in the Introduction above, in the Western philosophical tradition, the concept of hope is ambiguous and complicated. Accordingly, it can be interpreted in different directions and with different approaches. For example, hope can be analytically understood as a desire and probability assignment,1 rationally judged as ignorant, illusional, superfluous or even poisonous,2 and existentially established as one of the fundamental possibilities of human existence.3 Moreover, hope can also be attributed to some regions of the human mind, to the probability of the objects that are hoped for, to various external factors, and to some power that transcends both the subject and the object. Finally, hope can reveal its meaning in comparison to the relevant or antonymous phenomena such as desire, wish, optimism, expectation, trust, Angst, and despair.4 In this chapter, these relations and approaches are not presented in detail. In brief, this thesis shows that in the Western philosophical context, the interpretations of hope are inevitably more or less subject to its grammatical system. Specifically, hope can be divided into a subjective side and an objective side, and it can be further allocated to a certain part of speech (such as a noun, verb, and adjective) (1.1). Moreover, this thesis argues that there is a basic distinction between ordinary hopes and fundamental hope, and that fundamental hope should be understood as a fundamental human existential of living hopefully that makes human life humane (1.2). Furthermore, in this chapter, the ontological presuppositions of hope are also presented in two models – the subject-object model and the communal model. In the subject-object model, hope is characterized by a relation of having, a logic of lacking, a self-center, and an extrapolatory and closed temporality. In the communal model, hope is characterized by a relation of Being, a logic of superabundance, ex-centricity, gift, and an open and rhythmic temporality (1.3).

1 For an introduction to this understanding see Ariel Meirav, “The Nature of Hope,” Ratio 22, no. 2 (June 2009): 216–233. 2 These judgments are expounded, for example, by Dalferth. See Ingolf U. Dalferth, Hoffnung (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2016), 11–16. 3 This approach will be introduced in detail in Chapter 2. 4 See for example, Otto F. Bollnow, Neue Geborgenheit: Das Problem Einer Überwindung Des Existentialismus (Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2011), 102–109, Alois Edmaier, Horizonte der Hoffnung (Regensburg: Pustet, 1968), 82–115, and Bernard N. Schumacher, A Philosophy of Hope: Josef Pieper and the Contemporary Debate on Hope (New York: Fordham University Press, 2003), 66–88.

20

Philosophical Understandings of Hope

1.1

Grammar of Hope

1.1.1 The Objective Side of Hope Hope, in this case, refers to what is hoped for; it is spes, quae speratur. This spes quae has a wide spectrum of meaning that ranges from most ordinary things and events5 to some final aims in realms such as politics, art, and religion.6 It may include some very specific objects, objectives, events, outlooks, and prospects, or the more vague ones that are expressed in “the good” or “something more.” When spes quae refers to daily ordinary objects or events, they are usually trivial and fleeting. These ordinary ones are subject to change according to situations and can be easily substituted without influencing the being of the one who hopes. For example, I invite a friend to a casual dinner. I hope that his train will not be late, so that he will arrive here on time and the soup will still be hot. When he comes on time, I cease hoping for it, quickly forget this thing I hoped for, and begin to focus on other things, such as hoping my guest will enjoy the dessert. Besides this daily usage, spes quae can also refer to some final aim that has an inner relationship with being and reality, for example final salvation or summum bonum. According to Aquinas’ classic definition, the formal object of hope is an agreeable future good, difficult but possible to obtain.7 Following this definition, Alois Edmaier holds that there are three basic features of spes quae, that is, relation to the future, the good, and uncertainty.8 This thesis shares Edmaier’s idea of three basic features of spes quae. First, what is hoped for has a relationship to the future. As Edmaier points out, this future-relation belongs to the oldest content of the concept of hope.9 This does not necessarily mean that spes quae lies in the chronological future. Concerning this point, Ingolf Dalferth argues that “what is decisive is not that the hoped-for event lies in the future, but that the one who hopes does not know whether it is the case or not; it is

5 Whether spes quae may actually be considered an object can be disputed. For Godfrey, the hope for a certain object is not concerned with the existence of the object but rather for a certain relationship with that object. Therefore, he suggests that “it is preferable for clarity’s sake… to understand the targets of hoping not as things but as states of affairs or events – not as objects, but as objectives.” Joseph J. Godfrey, A Philosophy of Human Hope (Dordrecht: Nijhoff, 1987), 11. This thesis holds that the broad range of what is hoped for does not necessarily exclude objects. 6 See Karl M. Woschitz, Elpis, Hoffnung: Geschichte, Philosophie, Exegese, Theologie eines Schlüsselbegriffs (Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 1979), 4f. 7 Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, I–II, 40.1. 8 See Edmaier, Horizonte der Hoffnung, 74, 35–45. 9 Edmaier, Horizonte der Hoffnung, 35–39. Edmaier gives a detailed historical account of this future content in hope.

Grammar of Hope

about epistemic uncertainty instead of the futurity of what is hoped for.”10 However, when time is not conceived chrono-metrically, it is still reasonable to argue that spes quae lies in the future-mode of temporality. This future-mode can be expressed, for example, in Ernst Bloch’s ontology of not-yet-being,11 that is, “of reality not yet fully ontologically constituted, immanently pointing toward its future,” as Slavoj Žižek summarizes.12 Moreover, it can also find expression in the open temporality that Otto Bollnow describes.13 This open temporality offers a horizon of unforeseeable possibilities, within which spes quae becomes unpredictable gifts of the future instead of an object that is subordinate to a subject. In this case, it is spes quae that comes to the one who hopes, instead of the one who hopes projecting one’s own future or estimating the probability of the spes quae. Second, what is hoped for is a good. In this sense, hope is neither expectation nor fear. Whereas expectation can be indifferent to the goodness of what is expected, and fear is always a fear of something bad, hope is unambiguously directed to the good. The goodness of spes quae can be understood as something pleasant and desirable for the one who hopes without moral considerations. For example, it is possible that one may hope for the fulfillment of one’s own aim at the cost of another’s suffering. Moreover, it can also be understood as a final positive prospect or salvation.14 In this sense, the meaning of its goodness not only includes the moral good but also goes beyond what the moral good can bear. Third, what is hoped for is characterized by uncertainty. When understood epistemologically, the uncertainty of spes quae lies in the subjective estimation of objective probability. In this case, spes quae is estimated as something that is difficult but in principle possible to obtain. On the one hand, if one could easily get what one desires, then one does not need to hope but rather to plan for it. On the other hand, what one desires should not be so difficult that one knows for sure that one will definitely not achieve it. That is to say that despite the difficulty, one is still able to obtain the thing one hopes for. In this case, spes quae is neither under total control nor radically out of control, both cases would lead to the dissolving of hope.

10 Dalferth, Hoffnung, 37. Emphasis added. Therefore, Dalferth also holds that “the characteristic of futurity is neither sufficient nor necessary for what one can hope.” Dalferth, Hoffnung, 37. 11 Ernst Bloch, Philosophische Grundfragen. 1. Zur Ontologie des Noch-Nicht-Seins (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1961). 12 Slavoj Žižek, “Preface: Bloch’s Ontology of Not-yet-Being,” in The Privatization of Hope: Ernst Bloch and the Future of Utopia, ed. Peter Thompson and Slavoj Žižek (Durham: Duke University Press, 2013), 1–20, xvi. 13 Bollnow, Neue Geborgenheit, 75f. 14 Edmaier points out that this orientation to the good in this sense is a biblical inheritance. See Edmaier, Horizonte der Hoffnung, 39ff.

21

22

Philosophical Understandings of Hope

Moreover, the uncertainty can also be understood in the open “realm of somehow.” In this case, spes quae may be completely outside of the ability or even the imagination of the one who hopes. The uncertainty of spes quae in this sense implies that between the one who hopes and what is hoped for, there is always a realm of “somehow (Hof des Irgendwie).”15 For example, a patient who hopes to be cured of his or her disease may not understand the details of the cure, but he or she hopes that the doctor can somehow cure his disease with his expertise. Furthermore, this uncertainty implies that spes quae is always something more than what one can grasp or even imagine. In this respect, spes quae is no longer subject to an “act-andobject” structure,16 but always has an “external factor” that is more decisive than the objects of hope, as Ariel Meirav observes.17 So understood, spes quae can be rephrased as a desirable good plus something more. In hope, the best of what can be hoped for may be imagined from the situation of the one who hopes, but there can always be more than what is concretely imagined and what is supposed to be done to reach it. To push this logic further, spes quae can also be radically understood as nothing other than this “more” when every concrete spes quae fails. Conceived in this way, spes quae opens up a horizon that can never be closed by any concrete strategy, individual effort, or even any imagination. In this sense, it is both a negation of every concrete spes quae – a “hope against hope,” and a positive disclosure of the superabundance of Being. It is precisely in this “more” that the objective side of hope reaches an ontological depth. In this open horizon, the good in spes quae is no longer a fixed object or goal but becomes the possibility of the good. It points to something more than we can achieve, plan, foresee, or even imagine, and points to the superabundance of Being which is no longer merely mine. Finally, there remains one meaningful question on the objective side of hope, that is, can spes quae be another person? Furthermore, it can be asked whether one can hope for a person in the same way as one hopes for a concrete object, or in what sense is another person a spes quae? One can hope for a cup of water in a time of thirst as well as hope that someone might bring him or her some water; it seems that these two examples are very similar, and that a cup of water has the same function as a person who might bring the water. In this case, the person is reduced to a water-bringer. Similar to this example is the case of a patient hoping to be somehow cured by the doctor. In this case, the doctor can be understood as a means towards spes quae or as an external factor.

15 Bollnow, Neue Geborgenheit, 74. 16 For the act-and-object structure see Godfrey, A Philosophy of Human Hope, 14. 17 Meirav, The Nature of Hope.

Grammar of Hope

However, as Dalferth points out, “when I put hope in my doctor… my hope is directed to him, not to something specific that he will do in order to heal me, since I do not know what that might be. Not what he does, but that he does this, is the object of my hope.”18 In this sense, Dalferth insists that personal hope is a “hope-in,” which should be distinguished from the propositional “hope that…;”19 the former emphasizing a trust in that person, while the latter focusing solely on my own desire and takes other persons only as a function or external factor.20 Moreover, in personal hope, when the trust is not restricted to the competence of the doctor and is directed towards the whole person, hope becomes communal, which implies a loving relationship. In this sense, it is no longer proper to put the other person in the category of spes quae. As will be introduced in next chapter, it requires the intersubjective ontology suggested by Marcel. Marcel argues that the spes quae of such hope is not the fulfillment of a particular wish or desire on the part of an individual but rather the indestructible living communion. 1.1.2 The Subjective Side of Hope The subjective side of hope is “spes, qua speratur,” which refers to the process of hope and the human potential for hope itself. In this category, hope may be understood as a mental state and be allocated to a specific region of the mind, such as affection, conation, and cognition.21 Moreover, it can also refer to the practice of hope. When hope is understood as a good act or quality that contributes to human excellence, it becomes a virtue. Finally, in existential phenomenology, it can also be seen as an existential possibility. As a mental state, hope is seen to be situated in the region of affection as a passion of the soul, in the region of conation as wish or will, and in the region of cognition as the calculation of probability or anticipatory consciousness. However, these three regions should not be seen as clearly separated; in the phenomenon of hope, they are intertwined with one another, and each of them emphasizes only one of the subjective elements of hope respectively. Neither is hope as a mental state separated from hope as practice; it is not merely wishful feeling or thinking, but act-motivating. In some cases, hope takes the form of self-transformation or transcendence, which concerns the whole being of the one who hopes so that it is meaningless to ask whether hope is a mental state or an act.

18 Dalferth, Hoffnung, 46. 19 Dalferth, Hoffnung, 43f., 169. 20 In this sense, Dalferth points out that propositional hope and personal hope follow different logics; the former should be understood within the structure of desire, and the latter in the structure of trust. See Dalferth, Hoffnung, 43, 62. 21 See Joseph J. Godfrey, A Philosophy of Human Hope (Dordrecht: Nijhoff, 1987), 15.

23

24

Philosophical Understandings of Hope

For example, in the well-known account of hope in analytical philosophy, hope “consists in desire combined with the assignment of probability.”22 In this sense, hope is a state between the cognitive conviction and the conative wish.23 That is to say, hope can neither be understood as a pure wish, desire, or will, nor as a pure aimed desiderative-calculative form of hope; the unbalanced emphasis on the former leads to the problem of false hope, while a stress on the latter leads to a plan instead of hope. The cognitive and conative aspects are also integrated in Bloch’s theory of anticipatory consciousness and docta spes. For Bloch, hope is not merely an emotion but essentially “a directing act of a cognitive kind.”24 This cognitive act will not result in a closed system of knowledge that already exists but is characterized by “venturing beyond” and “not-yet-conscious.” In contrast to the unconscious that is driven by libido in a psychoanalytic sense, “not-yet-conscious” is driven by hunger, which highlights the conative aspect of hope. However, Bollnow criticizes Bloch’s central position in docta spes, in which human being bears all responsibility for the future and can realize the future with the power of will and the insight of understanding. Regarding such position, Bollnow argues that knowledge and hope cannot be mingled with each other into one “knowing hope (wissende Hoffnung),” and that “only beyond what is perceived in the clarity of intellect and what is reached in the power of will can a realm be opened up, in which true hope is legitimate and necessary at the same time.”25 In this sense, hope always has an element of pathos, which is revealed in the affective aspect of spes qua. As an emotion, hope is usually marginalized by Western early modern rationalism. For example, Descartes treats hope as a passion of the soul among others without special importance,26 and Spinoza defines hope as “nothing but an inconstant joy which has arisen from the image of a future or past thing whose outcome we doubt.”27 In phenomenology, hope is no longer understood as an emotional state

22 Meirav calls this account of hope the Standard Account. See Meirav, The Nature of Hope, 217. 23 See Sabine A. Döring, “Was Darf Ich Hoffen?,” in Theologie Der Gefühle, ed. Roderich Barth and Christopher Zarnow (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2015), 61–75, 62, and Godfrey, A Philosophy of Human Hope, 32. 24 Ernst Bloch, Das Prinzip Hoffnung (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1985), 10. 25 Bollnow, Neue Geborgenheit, 83. 26 For Descartes, hope is a desire that usually occurs together with anxiety. When hope becomes strong and entirely excludes anxiety, it becomes confidence; and when anxiety becomes so strong that it entirely excludes hope, it becomes despair. See René Descartes, “The Passions of the Soul,” in The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, Vol I, trans. J. Cottingham, R. Stoothoff, and D. Murdoch (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 325–405, 389. 27 Baruch Spinoza, The Collected Works of Spinoza, Volume 1, ed. and trans. Edwin Curley (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985), 505.

Grammar of Hope

in the black box of psyché. The phenomenological discussions of attunement (Stimmung)28 and the more recent discussions of atmosphere29 subvert the traditional understanding of emotion as an individual private state of the soul. In light of these phenomenological insights, hope can be conceived as either a basic attunement that discloses our existential situation or as an atmosphere that pours out in our bodily present sphere. In this sense, the hopeful feeling can also be rephrased as an existential feeling or cosmic feeling, which is more than just a psychological feeling.30 This phenomenological understanding also opens the door to understanding hope in a radical sense. From this perspective, hope is neither caused by a specific concrete object nor even related to an objective side, but becomes instead an “objectless expectancy,” which can be expressed as “I am hopeful” in an intransitive sense.31 For example, when a doctor announces that the disease of the patient is incurable, despite this desperate situation and a seemingly dead-end, the patient can still retain his or her hope and says, “although, medically speaking, there is no cure for my disease, I remain hopeful.” Understood as a hope for the cure of this disease regardless of all the empirical evidence, this hope could be regarded as identical to superficial optimism, claiming naïvely that things will turn out better no matter how bad the situation is right now. However, understood as a basic attunement (Grundstimmung), hope is no longer a merely subjective feeling or attitude but concerns the human being as a whole and human being with an intrinsic link with a bearing reality. In Marcel’s phenomenology of hope, this intransitive meaning of hope is also expounded, not in terms of an existential or cosmic feeling, but in terms of a transcendent act of “I hope.” However, when hope is understood as an act, it must face the question raised by Dalferth, namely, what do we do when we hope?32 The act of hope can be understood as a passive waiting that fails to recognize the right

28 See, for example, Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, §29, and Otto F. Bollnow, Das Wesen der Stimmungen (Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2009). 29 See, for example, Hermann Schmitz, Atmosphären (Freiburg: Verlag Karl Alber, 2014), Gernot Böhme, Atmosphäre: Essays zur neuen Ästhetik (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1995), Tonino Griffero, Atmospheres: Aesthetics of Emotional Spaces, trans. Sarah De Sanctis (London: Routledge, 2014), and Tonino Griffero, Quasi-Things: The Paradigm of Atmospheres, trans. Sarah De Sanctis (Albany: SUNY Press, 2017). Chapter 4 of this thesis presents a more detailed introduction of the concept of atmosphere. 30 For an explanation of existential feeling see Matthew Ratcliffe, “What Is It to Lose Hope?,” Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 12, no. 4 (December 2013): 597–614. And the understanding of hope as a cosmic feeling see Godfrey, A Philosophy of Human Hope, 35. 31 See Godfrey, A Philosophy of Human Hope, 34f. 32 See Dalferth, Hoffnung, 169.

25

26

Philosophical Understandings of Hope

moment to act.33 This answer is clearly rejected by Bloch. For him, the act of hope should be actively understood as a revolution against the wretched situation of present. In Bloch’s words, there is a “Promethean accent” in hope.34 Both of these answers are rejected by Marcel. For Marcel, hope is a relaxed non-acceptance of an inevitable destiny;35 it is an active waiting that presupposes patience, and patience in this context should not be confused with lethargy.36 Finally, Dalferth suggests another alternative to this question. He argues that “although we speak of hope in the form of active verb,… the verb does not mark the activity of the one who hopes, but it rather denotes that the one who hopes is determined by the possibility of the good and thus denotes a non-activity.”37 Moreover, this non-activity should not be understood in terms of a passion, but in terms of a mode of life, in which one does something; that is, “one works hopefully, one loves hopefully, and one believes in good hope.”38 This section concludes with a final question of “who this subject is, who hopes?” The subject of hope may be an individual subject in relation to some concrete objects of hope, a moral agent in a society, a person in a loving relationship, or a group of people named “we.” The final two constitute the primary concern of this thesis. As a person in a loving relationship, the subject of hope enters into an intrinsic relationship with the one in whom he or she puts hope. As already mentioned in the last section, in this sense, the other is no longer spes quae. This thesis claims further that the other becomes a co-hoper who hopes together and, in this sense, a plural subject of “we” is formed. Moreover, a group of people named “we” can either be understood in an anonymous and collective sense or in an ontological sense which constitutes human personal identity and reality as a whole. In the latter sense, Dalferth suggests that hope is one of the phenomena that should be primarily seen as a communal one (Gemeinschaftsphänomen). In his words, “it must be understood and clarified in the horizon of the respective shared practices.”39 33 For a description of this kind of hope see Karl Jaspers, “Die Kraft der Hoffnung,” in Die Hoffnungen unserer Zeit: zehn Beiträge (München: Piper, 1963), 9–23, 23. 34 Ernst Bloch and Gabriel Marcel, “Gespräch über die Hoffnung,” in Bloch-Almanach. 1 (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 1981), 117–128, 121. 35 See Gabriel Marcel, Homo Viator: Introduction to a Metaphysic of Hope, trans. Emma Craufurd (Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1951), 38f. 36 For an explanation of patience in hope see Bloch, Marcel, Gespräch über die Hoffnung, 123. And Bollnow, neue Geborgenheit, 74. 37 See Dalferth, Hoffnung, 98. 38 See Dalferth, Hoffnung, 98f. 39 Ingolf U. Dalferth, Selbstlose Leidenschaften: christlicher Glaube und menschliche Passionen (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013), 270.

Grammar of Hope

Here one must ask whether intersubjective or communal hope needs to begin from “I”?40 If it begins from “we,” then what does it mean to hope together? Does it necessarily mean that we have the same spes quae? This thesis argues that the same spes quae is not the decisive question here and that hoping together must be traced back to the question of what it means to live together. In Chapter 4, living together is expounded as atmospheric co-existence, which, when lived consciously and persistently, becomes a hopeful co-existence. 1.1.3 Hope in Different Parts of Speech In these last two sections, the idea of hope from both objective and subjective points of view was introduced. The objective perspective views hope from its contents or relata. In this case, hope is used as a substantive. The subjective perspective regards hope as a process and a human potential. From this point of view, hope can be used as a verb and an adjective. Understood in respect to its conative and cognitional aspects, and as an act, hope can be expressed as “I hope (with or without relation to spes quae),” and understood in respect to its affective aspect, hope can be expressed as “I am hopeful.” Besides the substantive, verbal, and adjective forms of hope, Dalferth also highlights the adverbial usage. When beginning with the question of what we do when we hope,41 the verbal hope can either be understood within the structure of desire or in the structure of personal hope.42 In this sense, it is plausible to claim that one either desires something or trusts someone when one hopes. However, why should the act of hope be reduced to other verbs? Does it imply that trust and desire (or other acts such as believing and loving) are clearer and more fundamental than the act of hope? The answer to this question does not necessarily lead to the inferior position of hope in comparison with other verbs. As Dalferth alternatively points out, “although we speak of hope in the form of an active verb,… the verb does not mark the activity of the one who hopes, but it rather denotes that the one who hopes is determined by the possibility of the good and thus denotes a non-activity.”43 As already indicated in the last section, this non-activity should be understood as a mode of life in which one does something.44 In this sense, it is used as an

40 It is noticeable that both Dalferth and Marcel’s understanding of communal hope begins from “I” and takes the form of “I hope in you, with you, and for us.” 41 See Dalferth, Hoffnung, 169. 42 See Dalferth, Hoffnung, 169. 43 See Dalferth, Hoffnung, 98. 44 See Dalferth, Hoffnung, 99.

27

28

Philosophical Understandings of Hope

adverb of “hopefully,” and the one who hopes does not do anything specific, but lives hopefully.45 In agreement with Dalferth, this thesis holds that the adverb “hopefully” is the “grammatical indicator of a life characterized by hope.”46 As will be argued in the next section, hope in a fundamental sense is not a substance, an overall attitude, a basic existential/cosmic feeling, or a transcendent act. Instead, fundamental hope is a fundamental adverbial modality of human existence which makes human life humane.

1.2

Fundamental Hope

1.2.1 The Distinction between Ordinary Hope and Fundamental Hope In the grammatical analysis of hope, what is noticeable is the ambiguity of human hope. It is first manifest in the ambiguity of spes quae. As already shown, hope can be directed to many objects that range from the ordinary daily ones to a final aim, and finally, hope can also point to an ambiguous “more,” the meaning of which is not yet entirely clear. Moreover, what is good in spes quae can be considered from different points of view. For example, it may be good according to the desire of an individual subject or a group that has the same interest, be good for humanity as a whole, or be good in the sense of the possibility of the good. The ambiguity also comes from its subjective side. Hope on this side can be understood as a passion, a desire, an act-motivating will, a cognitive act, or, more accurately, something arising from a combination of them all. When it comes to the act of hope, we have to face the controversial question of “what we actually do when we hope.” Various views suggest that the act of hope may be passive waiting, active revolt, active non-acceptance, or a mode of life as a whole that is not restricted to any specific activity. Finally, this ambiguity also concerns the value of human hope. On the one hand, human hope can be passively evaluated as an illusional consolation, our naïve ignorance, an irrational logic, or a passive and powerless waiting. On the other hand, it may be positively assessed as having either functional or intrinsic value. Despite this ambiguity regarding the meaning of human hope, a distinction can still be made between hope in an ordinary sense and hope in ontological depth, with the meaning of the latter being clearer and more philosophically relevant. This basic distinction has already been highlighted by a number of philosophers in

45 See Dalferth, Hoffnung, 6. 46 See Dalferth, Hoffnung, 174.

Fundamental Hope

different names.47 This thesis also follows this basic distinction and addresses it as the distinction between “ordinary hopes” and “fundamental hope.” After a basic introduction to this distinction in this section, this thesis will focus mainly on the latter. Ordinary hopes refer to those objects and mental states or acts in an ordinary everyday sense. Ordinary objects of hope are usually represented as having a specific picture in mind.48 They are specific things, events, and prospects that are fleeting, without much significance to the basic process of our life and Being. Moreover, a subject is engaged in what Marcel calls “a relation of Having” with the objects of hope. In such a relation, the objects of hope are subject to the calculation and the desire of a subject. Although these objects are uncertain to some degree, they are still taken as the potential possession of a subject. On the subjective side, ordinary hopes can be those conditioned by the probability-evaluation and empirical verification of its ordinary objects. In this sense, the one who hopes can be disappointed without losing the ability to hope. Moreover, ordinary hopes can also be a mere fluctuation of affect in the black box of psyché without connection to reality; in this sense, they are only epiphenomena. Finally, ordinary hopes can also be illusional or only have functional value. In any case, they are characterized by lightness and insignificance. In contrast, fundamental hope is not a form of hope that comes and goes on the surface of life but reaches the very depth of human existence and reality. It not only reveals a possibility of the good in an ontological sense, but is also a “fundamental resource of human life.”49 On the objective side, such hope transcends any concrete pictures and finds its expression in “more” and superabundance of life; it refers to what can still be left after all the ordinary objects of hope are declined or disqualified. In this sense, spes quae is an irreducible relata instead of something that a subject will be in possession or dispossession of. On the subjective side, fundamental hope is steadfast and not subject to empirical justification. It concerns the whole being of the ones who hope – not as isolated 47 The distinction between ordinary hope and fundamental hope is also made by Schumacher. (See Schumacher, A Philosophy of Hope, 97–134). This distinction is also called relative and absolute hope by Bollnow, (see Bollnow, Neue Geborgenheit, 70f.), object-related hope and fundamental hope (Gegenständliche Hoffnung, Grundhoffnung) by Edmaier, (see Edmaier, Horizonte der Hoffnung, 74–77), superficial and substantial hope by Pettit, (see Philip Pettit, “Hope and Its Place in Mind,” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 592 (2004): 152–165), and vulgar and fundamental hope (gemeine Hoffnung, fundamentale Hoffnung) by Plügge (see Herbert Plügge, Wohlbefinden und Missbefinden: beiträge zu einer medizinischen Anthropologie (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1962), 22). 48 See Bollnow, Neue Geborgenheit, 82. 49 Dalferth, Hoffnung, 3.

29

30

Philosophical Understandings of Hope

individuals – but as beings with an intrinsic relation with life and reality as a whole. In Bollnow’s words, fundamental hope “can sustain or collapse, but in both cases not on the basis of a single concrete event, but only due to a disturbance of the human relationship to life as a whole.”50 In this sense, fundamental hope “is not something people only occasionally have, at times when other hopes have lost their meaning,”51 rather it lies at the most basic layer of human existence. Furthermore, it is also reasonable to call this basic distinction relative and absolute hope. Ordinary hopes are relative ones, which are always entangled with their counterparts of fear and despair. Sometimes, such hopes are nearly indistinguishable from them. For example, Bollnow says that ordinary hope is perhaps only another form of fear,52 and Meirav argues that desire plus assignment of probability constitutes both hope and despair.53 In contrast, fundamental hope does not have such opposite. It is an absolute phenomenon and is not understood at the same level with fear or existential Angst in an ontological sense.54 Moreover, this thesis insists that fundamental hope is not only manifest in dark situations but also lies right in the middle of everyday life without a light-darkness contrast. In this respect, this thesis argues that it is necessary to find an alternative metaphor for hope other than that of light, due to the relativity that the light-metaphor brings. As will be shown in Chapter 5, the metaphor of atmosphere is better suited. 1.2.2 Fundamental Hope as a Fundamental Human Existential In this section, this thesis proposes that fundamental hope is not a substance, an overall attitude, a basic existential/cosmic feeling, or a transcendent act. Rather, it should be understood as a fundamental adverbial modality or human existential which makes human life humane, instead of making human life ontologically possible. As was discussed above, Dalferth understands hope adverbially as the mode of living hopefully. To speak more concretely, the adverbial hope is a basic mode of enactment (Vollzugsweise) of life that finds orientation in the possible realm of life

50 51 52 53

Bollnow, Neue Geborgenheit, 71. Ratcliff, What is it to Lose Hope? See Bollnow, Neue Geborgenheit, 66f. “Hope involves desire and the assignment of probability. But typically so does despair.” Meirav, The Nature of Hope. 54 See Bollnow, Neue Geborgenheit, 69.

Fundamental Hope

(Möglichkeitsraum des Lebens).55 In this sense, hope can be understood as a human existential (Heidegger) and as adverbial modality (Levinas).56 As a human existential, fundamental hope is more than a concrete noun, verb (or a group of verbs), or as an adjective; it is a fundamental mode of existence on the basis of which concrete objects, acts, and feelings are born. So understood, the spes qua and spes quae are not two separate realities but are intrinsically one, which reveals its concrete meaning in the adverbial modality of living hopefully. It must be emphasized that “fundamental” in this thesis is not understood in a reductionistic way. In other words, fundamental hope is neither the foundation of human existence as such nor is it the prerequisite for all forms of ordinary hopes. This widely held view is rejected here.57 Instead, this thesis proposes that life without fundamental hope can still survive in some sense. Such life may be viewed as colorless, tragic, and even ominous,58 however, it is not necessary to understand it in this negative way. For example, in Heidegger’s existential structure, Dasein can still receive countless possibilities that its own death offers and grasps its ownmost existence without fundamental hope. His being-towards-death offers a dynamic way of existence rather than a tragic and ominous one. Moreover, this thesis argues that fundamental hope is fundamental not for human existence as such but the humanity of humans. As Dalferth argues, the question of “what is human” can either be answered from a scientific perspective (for example from biology, psychology, sociology, and economy) or discussed as an anthropological question of how to live humanely. As an anthropological question, it is not merely descriptive but normative and open; it discusses how we desire to (wollen) and how we should (sollen) live in a humane way.59 Fundamental hope is an anthropological question that explores humanity in its possibility of the good. Therefore, it does not reveal a fixed human existential structure as such but constitutes a fertile soil on which humanity grows, blossoms, and thrives in its unique and unexpected way. In fundamental hope, our humanity remains an open question; it is constantly realized on the way.

55 See Ingolf U. Dalferth, “Gemeinsam hoffen. Grundlinien einer menschlichen Orientierungsweise,” in Die Kunst des Hoffens: Kranksein zwischen Erschütterung und Neuorientierung (Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 2016), 116–154, 137. And Dalferth, Hoffnung, 170. 56 See Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, 44. And Emmanuel Levinas, Entre Nous, trans. Michael B. Smith and Barbara Harshav (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000), 210f. For a detailed explanation of hope as existential and adverbial modality, see Chapter 2 of this thesis. 57 For example, this view is held by Bollnow (see Bollnow, Neue geborgenheit, 81, 84), Edmaier (see Edmaier, Horizonte der Hoffnung, 77), and Ratcliff (see Ratcliff, What is it to Lose Hope). 58 Dalferth describes life without hope as colorless and inhumane (See Dalferth, Hoffnung, 3), Marcel describes such life as tragic (see Marcel, Phenomenology and the Metaphysics of Hope), and Bollnow views such life as ominous (verhängnisvoll) (see Bollnow, Neue Geborgenheit, 80). 59 See Dalferth, Selbstlose Leidenschaften, 266f.

31

32

Philosophical Understandings of Hope

Finally, it should be stressed again that fundamental hope is a complex phenomenon that has many basic characteristics and cannot be condensed into one single formula. Situated in different theoretical contexts with different concerns, the meaning of fundamental hope is also differently arranged with different basic characteristic(s) highlighted. On this basis, this thesis anchors itself in in-betweenness, regarding it as one of the most essential characteristics of fundamental hope, while maintaining that there are other formulas of fundamental hope which place special emphasis on other basic features of this concept. Focusing on the basic characteristic of in-betweenness, this thesis will argue in Chapter 5 that fundamental hope is a hopeful co-existence that is concerned with how we desire to and should live together humanely. In this sense, it is not fundamental for the humanity of every individual but for our co-humanity and shared life in-between.

1.3

Ontological Presuppositions of Hope

As is hinted in the discussions above, hope can happen in two different ontological frameworks, the subject-object model and the communal model.60 In the first model, the subject is engaged in a relation of having with what is hoped for. In this instance, what is hoped for already exists somewhere else (in mind or reality) but is not yet in my possession. On the subjective side, this model implies a subject with an absolute self-center. This subject is “a deficient being (Mängelwesen)” that either tries to get out of the present situation of captivity or wills more due to its current lack. Moreover, in this model, temporality is understood in terms of extrapolation and closedness. First, what is hoped for does not lie in the future dimension but is an extrapolation of what one already has and what is already there. Second, what is hope for in this case fills the present gap precisely so that time is closed by the moment of the fulfillment.61 Therefore, in the subject-object model, hope is characterized by a relation of having, a logic of lacking, self-center, and an extrapolatory and closed temporality. In the communal model, the language of the subject-object division should be abandoned, since spes qua and spes quae are not separate but present one reality in this model. First, the one who hopes is not an individual subject with an absolute self-center but a participant in an inner relation with others. In this sense, it requires

60 These two models are inspired by Godfrey’s distinction between the will-nature model and the intersubjective model. See Godfrey, A Philosophy of Human Hope, 156f. 61 See Bollnow, Neue Geborgenheit, 75.

Ontological Presuppositions of Hope

an ex-centric way of existence for the ones who hope. That is to say, the existential center of such participants is not within themselves, and they do not find their fundamental existential possibilities all by themselves but receive them as a gift from others and from the relationship with others. In this sense, Dalferth suggests that hope requires a change from an anthropology of lack (Mängelanthropologie) to an anthropology of gift (Gabe-Anthropologie).62 Moreover, in this model, it is not only I (as an internal participant) who live hopefully, but also and primarily we with an internal relation that live together hopefully. Second, the spes quae is not primarily some common objects or goals that we strive for together but rather our shared life together. As this thesis will show in detail in Chapter 5, this shared life is not a static and closed one that is protected by walls but a process of growth and an extending way. In this sense, spes quae is an “ever more” – our shared life in ever increasing profundity and extensiveness. For Ricoeur, this “more” reveals a logic of superabundance. As he points out, the logic of hope is not that of equivalence but that of increase and superabundance. For him, this logic is demonstrated in the bible verse of “where sin increased, grace increased all the more.”63 This thesis argues further that this proportional relation between sin/darkness and grace/light only tells half of the truth. The logic of superabundance is not only manifest in the darkness of the lived moment, captivity, and limit situation,64 but also in everyday life without remarkable trial and suffering. In the latter case, the logic of superabundance lies in a life in-between that bears more possibilities of life and so understood, this logic can be expressed as “when life increases, the possibilities of life increase all the more.” In this sense, the logic of superabundance also implies an internal relation with an inexhaustible and bearing reality. This reality is not an abstract universal whole but a concretely communal one that can only be found and realized in love. Therefore, the logic of superabundance is only possible based on an ontology of love. Moreover, hope in this model also reveals an open temporality and a temporality of living duration. First, communal hope opens up a future horizon of unpredictable

62 Dalferth, Gemeinsam hoffen, 133. 63 Paul Ricoeur, “Hope and the Structure of Philosophical Systems,” in Figuring the Sacred: Religion, Narrative and Imagination, ed. Mark I. Wallace (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995), 203–216, 205–207. And see Rom. 5:20 (NIV). 64 This position is also widely held by Western scholars, for example, by Marcel in Phenomenology and the Metaphysics of Hope; by Pannenberg, when he argues that “hope can attain the most glowing colors precisely in situations where there is no way out.” See Wolfhart Pannenberg, What Is Man?: Contemporary Anthropology in Theological Perspective, trans. Duane A. Priebe (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1970), 42. Or by Benjamin in his famous quote that “it is only for the sake of those without hope that hope is given to us.” See Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society (London: Routledge, 2002), 261.

33

34

Philosophical Understandings of Hope

and open possibilities.65 This realm of possibility is not closed by the fulfillment of a specific spes quae. In communal hope, spes quae is not a projected future good that can fill the present gap in a precise manner. Instead, it is “more,” that is to say, every fulfillment of such hope leads to more possibilities and thus is simultaneously a new beginning.66 Therefore, in the open temporality of communal hope, the category of novum is essential. Novum in this case does not mean a rupture between the present and the future but continuity. As Marcel points out, “hope always implies the super-logical connection between a return (nostos) and something completely new (kainon ti),” and in hope, “return” and “completely new” are actually “two abstractly dissociated aspects of one and the same unity.”67 That is to say, in communal hope, returning to an internal relation means simultaneously a renewal of it. In this sense, novum is better understood as a ceaseless renewal of the internal relationship and thereby also our humanity. In this thesis, the unity of these two aspects – return and renewal – will be shown as the unity of in patria and in via, in which home is simultaneously an extending way. Second, the temporality of communal hope also has a relaxed duration. It is a spes patiens in contrast to spes militans.68 As already indicated, for Marcel, hope is neither a passive waiting nor an impatient resistance but a relaxed non-acceptance. He argues further that such patience is found in the everyday language of “taking one’s time.”69 In this sense, communal hope does not lie in a highly condensed decisive moment but requires duration for patience and relaxation. This thesis suggests that the duration of communal hope be understood in terms of “polyphonic” temporality, which is proposed by Gernot Böhme as temporal companionship (Zeitgenossenschaft). For Böhme, this temporal companionship reveals a shared present in which “we can communicate with each other” and in which “our life tracks are entangled with each other.”70

65 66 67 68

See Bollnow, Neue Geborgenheit, 75. Chapter 5 gives a more detailed presentation of this logic. Marcel, Homo Viator, 67. For a discussion of the concepts of spes patiens and spes militans see Peter-Felix Ruelius, Mysterium Spes: Gabriel Marcels Philosophie der Hoffnung und ihre Relevanz für die Eschatologie (Würzburg: Echter, 1995), 141–154. Marcel has also expressed his view on spes militans. He argues that “hope is proper to the unarmed; it is the weapon of the unarmed, or (more exactly) it is the very opposite of a weapon and in that, mysteriously enough, its power lies.” Gabriel Marcel, Being and Having, trans. Katharine Farrer (Glasgow: The University Press, 1949), 76. 69 Marcel, Homo Viator, 39. 70 Gernot Böhme, Zeit als Medium von Darstellungen und Zeit als Form lebendiger Existenz, ed. Michael Großheim, Rostocker Phänomenologische Manuskripte 5 (Rostock: Univ. Inst. für Philosophie, 2009), 18.

Ontological Presuppositions of Hope

To summarize, in the communal model, hope is characterized by ex-centricity, gift, a relation of Being, a logic of superabundance, and an open and rhythmic temporality. This thesis argues that fundamental hope with an emphasis of inbetweenness should be understood in this model. In Chapter 5, these aspects will be expounded in a detailed analysis of the adverbial modality of hopeful co-existence.

35

2.

The Possibility of a Phenomenology of Hope

In Chapter 1, this thesis proposed that fundamental hope can be understood as an existential. In this chapter, Heidegger’s analysis of human existential structure (existentiality) will be first introduced as a possible context for hope. However, when embedded in Heidegger’s self-centered existentiality, hope becomes either inauthentic or incomprehensible (2.1). This thesis argues that this inauthenticity and incomprehensibility of hope does not mean that hope is existentially peripheral and beyond Dasein’s grasp; it only means that fundamental hope cannot reveal its true meaning within a self-centered existentiality. Through a critical re-examination, the missing link of Heidegger’s existentiality is found in a bearing reality, which is concretely manifest in the experience of communion and love. This thesis argues that only in this bearing horizon can fundamental hope be adequately understood (2.2). Finally, a detailed analysis of a bearing reality can be found in Marcel’s phenomenology of hope. In this context, hope is grounded in an intersubjective ontology and culminates in the affirmation of the immortality of love (2.3).

2.1

Hope in Heidegger’s Existential Phenomenology

In Being and Time, Heidegger offers a detailed analysis of human existential structure – in his terminology – the existentiality (Existenzialität).1 To give a brief account, it is firstly an attempt to understand human being from existence – the possible ways to be, instead of some forms of substance. As Heidegger points out, the first characteristic of the human is that “the ‘essence’ of this being lies in its to be”.2 For human being, there is no such thing as an objectively present substance on which various possibilities can be added as attributes; instead, human being is its possibilities (Möglichsein).3 So understood, the being of humans is not thought of in a substantial way, but as “adverbial modalities.”4 That is to say, in Heidegger’s existential analysis, a human being is thought of as a fabric of adverbs. In this sense, Heidegger suggests that human being is better called Dasein, which stresses human as way(s) of being-there; he also suggests that the concept of existential (Existenzial) 1 Martin Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, 17th ed. (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1993), 12. 2 Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, 42f. English translation see Martin Heidegger, Being and Time: A Translation of Sein und Zeit, trans. Joan Stambaugh (Albany: SUNY Press, 1996). 3 See Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, 143. 4 See Emmanuel Levinas, Entre Nous, trans. Michael B. Smith and Barbara Harshav (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000), 210.

38

The Possibility of a Phenomenology of Hope

should be used to express Dasein’s different adverbial modalities instead of category, which is only proper for things present-at-hand (vorhanden). In this framework, hope can be understood as an existential instead of an attribute that is attached to a substance. The question then arises, is it a distinguished one that is decisive for human Dasein or merely an ordinary one? According to what is said about fundamental hope, it can be argued that fundamental hope is one of the most decisive existentials, which constitutes one the major threads in the fabric of human Dasein. However, it seems that Heidegger does not support such an answer. Hope in Being and Time is only mentioned in passing and is treated as an ordinary form of affective situatedness (Befindlichkeit), which is not rooted in the temporality of future but belongs to the temporality of having-been that Dasein is already thrown into.5 This understanding of hope seems to be very confusing. Firstly, why does Heidegger claim that the seemingly future-oriented phenomenon of hope is rooted in thrownness? Secondly, why does his future-oriented understanding of human Dasein not require hope as a basic existential? The key to these questions is found in the second characteristic of Dasein, that is, always-being-mine (Jemeinigkeit). This characteristic states that Dasein always cares about its own being, thus claiming the self as an absolute center of Dasein (although self is understood in terms of adverbial modality and in relation to the surrounding and other Daseins). So understood, the characteristic of always-being-mine offers a scale of mineness on which every existential possibility is weighed (see Figure 1). On this scale, some possibilities are judged as Dasein’s ownmost (eigentlich) and thus authentic, while some others are judged as losing their own Dasein or being indifferent to their own Dasein, and thus inauthentic (uneigentlich).6

Figure 1 The Scale of Mineness

5 See Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, 345. 6 It is important to note that authenticity (Eigentlichkeit) does not mean original or primordial in Heidegger’s sense; it only means “it belongs to itself (sich zueigen)”. He also points out that inauthenticity does not signify a “lesser” being or a “lower” degree of being; authenticity and inauthenticity are only two ways of being (Seinsmodi) that are based on the characteristic of always-being-mine. See Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, 42f.

Hope in Heidegger’s Existential Phenomenology

According to this characteristic of always-being-mine, Heidegger’s existentiality offers an autobiographical story of Dasein. Although Dasein is always already in the world and with other Daseins, these possibilities of being-in-the-world and beingwith are all weighed on the scale of mineness. Moreover, for Heidegger, authentic possibilities are those that belong radically to Dasein itself without relation to the world and others; they come from Dasein itself and concern Dasein itself alone. In this sense, authentic Dasein is a radically isolated one. According to Heidegger, such possibilities are found in the basic situation of being-towards-death. For Heidegger, death is in the most radical sense mine. In authentic care, Dasein runs ahead into its own possibility of death. There, Dasein sees the explosion of all its everyday relations to the world and to others. It is then thrown back upon its naked “there (Da)” as an integrated whole. Therefore, the authentic integrity of Dasein is a closed-circuit one (see Figure 2). In the authentic process of running ahead into death, Dasein is like a boomerang that projects itself forward and is thrown back to itself again;7 its trajectory takes the turn at the moment when it hits the ownmost possibility of death, through which the old meaning related to this world goes to pieces and new meaning grows out of this pile of ashes. Indeed, it is “solipsistic,” as Heidegger himself describes it.

Figure 2 The Closed-circuit Authenticity

Like all other existential possibilities of Dasein, hope also has to be put on the scale of mineness. On this scale, Heidegger takes hope as an inauthentic way of affective situatedness that is not so disclosive as Angst. It is Angst that “fetches Dasein back out of its entangled absorption in the ‘world,’” which is characterized by tranquilized self-assurance and the everyday familiarity of being-at-home.8 It is Angst that throws Dasein back to one’s ownmost, individuated authentic possibility.9 Therefore,

7 In this sense, the authentic thrownness comes from Dasein itself. 8 See Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, 188f. 9 See Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, 187, 343.

39

40

The Possibility of a Phenomenology of Hope

Angst plays a crucial role in the navigation of the boomerang trajectory and thus contributes to authentic Dasein in a fundamental sense. In contrast, inauthentic hope is an elevated/elevating (gehoben/hebend) way of affective situatedness that “brings relief from depressing anxiousness.”10 In this way, it covers up the authentic possibility of Angst and death, and in the elevating hope, Dasein flees into the everyday life it is already thrown into. Despite Heidegger’s preference of Angst before hope, in Being and Time, he does write briefly on hope in a fundamental sense, that is, a hope hidden in joy. He says that “together with the sober Angst that brings us before our individualized possibility-of-being, goes the armed joy (gerüstete Freude) in this possibility.”11 This combination of Angst and joy is also consistent with his interpretation of 1 Thessalonians in his early lecture, The Phenomenology of Religious Life. In this lecture, he observes that in Paul’s eschatological experience, the reception of the word of God and the absolute turning-around (Umwendung) before God “consists in entering oneself into the anguish of life,” yet “a joy is bound up therewith, one which comes from the Holy Spirit and is incomprehensible to life.”12 As a phenomenological interpretation of Christian religious life, his lecture only focuses on the affliction and anguish of Paul and judges the joy that comes from the Holy Spirit as “incomprehensible.” It is also the same case with armed joy. In Being and Time, Heidegger claims that the analysis of such joy “goes beyond the limits” of his existential analysis.13 Integrating these two texts in Being and Time and Phenomenology of Religious Life, this thesis argues that for Heidegger, the joy of hope only appears in the horizon of God or transcendence, which “goes beyond the limit” of existential analysis and is incomprehensible within this scope.

10 See Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, 345. 11 Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, 310. Emphasis added. This passage alludes to Paul’s words in 1 Thess. 5:8 (NIV), “but since we belong to the day, let us be sober, putting on faith and love as a breastplate, and the hope of salvation as a helmet.” Interestingly, this “armed joy (gerüstete Freude)” is mistakenly translated into Chinese as “joy at ease (tandang zhile坦荡之乐).” This reveals the fact that without taking notice of the tacit Christian background in Heidegger’s Being and Time, this armed joy of hope becomes inexplicable. For the Chinese translation of Heidegger’s Being and Time see 海德格 尔 [Heidegger]. Cunzai yu shijian存在与时间 [Sein und Zeit], trans. Jiaying Chen [陈嘉映] and Qingjie Wang [王庆节] (Beijing: shangwu yinshuguan, 2016), 424. 12 Martin Heidegger, The Phenomenology of Religious Life, trans. Matthias Fritsch and Jennifer Anna Gosetti-Ferencei (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2010), 66. Emphasis added. See also 1 Thess. 1:6 (NIV), “for you welcomed the message in the midst of severe suffering with the joy given by the Holy Spirit.” 13 See Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, 310.

Critiques of Heidegger’s Existentiality

In summary, in Heidegger’s existential analysis, hope is either an inauthentic form of affectivity that covers up the authentic possibility of Dasein, or an armed joy that accompanies authentic sober Angst, yet incomprehensible from Dasein’s scope of mineness.

2.2

Critiques of Heidegger’s Existentiality

In this section, this thesis argues that the inauthenticity and incomprehensibility of hope does not mean that hope is existentially peripheral and beyond Dasein’s grasp; it only means that fundamental hope cannot reveal its true meaning within this self-centered existentiality. Therefore, before exploring the meaning of fundamental hope, a critical re-examination of Heidegger’s existentiality is needed. As Judith Wolfe indicates, Heidegger’s being-towards-death reveals an “eschatological existence.” She explains, “Being and Time is ‘eschatological’ both in its vision and its dynamic. Human existence can only be understood in light of the ‘last things’, which reveal human existence as a task, a way of dwelling in the world as uncanny, as not-at-home.”14 In Heidegger existential analysis, the furthest future horizon is death – a horizon of nothingness instead of a horizon of grace.15 As the ultimate horizon, death is not a gracious gift but only the power that, when grasped as Dasein’s ownmost possibility, can destruct all the meaning of everyday averageness. The presupposition is, however, that after such destruction, Dasein is able to re-create the meaning by its own. Therefore, authentic Dasein does not stay in the authentic state of not-being-at-home forever but can reconstruct its being-in-the-world in an authentic way, which means that Dasein is essentially resilient by itself. From this account, two meanings of authenticity are revealed – one of nothingness that brings destruction to everyday inauthentic relations and the other of resilience which reestablishes authentic being-in-the-world. While the former is clearly revealed in being-towards-death, the latter remains unexplained and perhaps unexplainable in Heidegger’s existentiality.16 With these two meanings mingling into one, the ground of resilience disappears, and the closed-circuit authenticity becomes something like Escher’s tricky design of the impossible waterfall.

14 Judith Wolfe, Heidegger’s Eschatology: Theological Horizons in Martin Heidegger’s Early Work (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 118, 125. 15 See Wolfe, Heidegger’s Eschatology, 127. 16 This two-fold meaning of authenticity is inspired by Stein’s distinction between Heidegger’s “Angst about (Angst vor)” and “Angst for (Angst um).” She argues that what Dasein feels angst about is the nullity of Being and what it feels angst for is the fullness of Being. Edith Stein, Welt und Person: Beitrag zum christlichen Wahrheitsstreben (Louvain/Freiburg: E. Nauwelaerts/Herder, 1962), 103.

41

42

The Possibility of a Phenomenology of Hope

Therefore, in Heidegger’s existentiality, there is something essential missing, which makes it impossible to find the ground for the resilience of Dasein. As Bollnow points out, Heidegger’s existential solitude and self-care can only be a biased and incomplete story, which need further decisive phenomena to reveal the whole existential story, of which hope is one.17 Bollnow suggests further that hope cannot be traced back to self-care at all; in fact, hope is more primordial than care, and only in the horizon of hope can care be properly grasped.18 Bearing in mind the scale of mineness described in last section, Bollnow’s suggestion means that hope cannot be weighed on the scale of mineness; rather, hope reveals another scale on which self-care should be weighed. For Bollnow, hope resides in a new form of security in contrast to “the questionless security of naïve men that has not been shaken by any threat.”19 This “new security (neue Geborgenheit)” implies a trust to Being (Seinsvertrauen) – Being that transcends humans and bears humans.20 Therefore, in hope lies a horizon of bearing possibilities (ein Horizont von tragenden Möglichkeiten).21 These possibilities are not Dasein’s ownmost in Heidegger’s sense; they come from elsewhere and yet can thrust themselves into the very center of human Dasein. Resilience is one example of such possibilities. Dasein cannot be resilient without the involvement of others and the relation to others, and these others do not merely belong to secondary and inauthentic being-with (Mitsein) that must be destructed; instead, they are constitutive to human existence in an essential way. So understood, this bearing horizon of hope shatters the logic of always-being-mine, which culminates in the closed-circuit authenticity. In Dalferth’s words, “those who seek their identity within themselves will fall into the bottomlessness and end up in self-centered self-distortion. The one who hopes breaks this self-distortion and opens oneself up to the possibility of the good, which can only come from outside and from others.”22 Concretely speaking, this bearing horizon of hope can be philosophically expressed as the fullness of Being, the mystery of Being, and the superabundance of Being.23 However, to stress is, these expressions do not imply that Being is an abstract or ambiguous wholeness, nor is it a mystical entity. This thesis argues 17 See Otto F. Bollnow, Neue Geborgenheit: das Problem einer Überwindung des Existentialismus (Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2011), 81. 18 See Bollnow, Neue Geborgenheit, 80. 19 Bollnow, Neue Geborgenheit, 11. 20 See Bollnow, Neue Geborgenheit, 12, 16, 101. 21 See Bollnow, Neue Geborgenheit, 81. 22 Ingolf U. Dalferth, Hoffnung (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2016), 172. 23 The fullness of Being is proposed by Stein, see Stein, Welt und Person, 103, the mystery of Being is put forward by Marcel, see Gabriel Marcel, The Mystery of Being, Volume I: Reflection and Mystery, trans. G. S. Fraser (South Bend: St. Augustine’s Press, 2001), and the superabundance of Being is mentioned by Ricoeur, see Paul Ricoeur, “Hope and the Structure of Philosophical Systems,” in

Marcel’s Phenomenology of Hope

that this bearing Being lies concretely in life in-between and can be approached from the concrete activity of resonance rather than mystical practices. Such an understanding and approach is presented in detail in Marcel’s phenomenology of hope, which grounds hope in an intersubjective ontology.

2.3

Marcel’s Phenomenology of Hope

2.3.1 The Ontological Foundation of Hope For Marcel, hope is conceived as one of the most basic existential possibilities of human Dasein. However, these possibilities are not based on the mineness of human existence, but on an intersubjective ontology. Marcel also distinguishes between ordinary hopes and fundamental hope – which he calls absolute hope.24 Ordinary hopes are synonymous with desire and wish; they are attached to and restricted by their objects. As the objects disappear, ordinary hopes also vanish. These hopes can be traced back to the “rank of Having,” which is characterized by “shackles of ownership.”25 So understood, the reasons for ordinary hopes are “exterior to myself, they are outside my being, far from having their roots in the very depths of what I am.”26 In contrast, absolute hope “tends inevitably to transcend the particular objects to which it at first seems to be attached.”27 It is able to transcend all specific objective conditions and reaches the ontological depth; as will be shown later, it can transcend the most radical human condition of death on the basis of love. Thus, absolute hope belongs to the “rank of Being,” and Being in Marcel’s understanding is not dead truth but always living Being as an inexhaustible mystery, which needs direct participation and engagement. Therefore, absolute hope is rooted in the mystery of Being and always concerns the very essence and identity of the one who hopes. Furthermore, for Marcel, the “I” who hopes should firstly be understood as homo viator rather than a ready-made entity or identity. Situated in the rank of Being, homo viator is a being that is always on the way towards its own being on an ever deeper ontological level, and in Marcel’s words, “personality is vocation.”28

24 25 26 27 28

Figuring the Sacred: Religion, Narrative and Imagination, ed. Mark I. Wallace (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995), 203–216. See Gabriel Marcel, Homo Viator: Introduction to a Metaphysic of Hope, trans. Emma Craufurd (Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1951), 32. Marcel, Homo Viator, 61. Marcel, Homo Viator, 29. Marcel, Homo Viator, 32. Marcel, Homo Viator, 23.

43

44

The Possibility of a Phenomenology of Hope

Therefore, for Marcel, “I” is not a singular, but implies a relationship to itself. That is to say, “I” is not equal to “self,” nor does “I” have “self ” in the same way that a person has a body. The relation between “I” and “self ” is not a problem of having but an inexhaustible mystery in the realm of Being. Secondly, this relation between “I” and “self ” is not the original relation but must be mediated by communion. That is to say, there is no direct way from “I” to “self.” The relation between the two must be mediated through a “thou,” through the communal bond I and thou build as “we.”29 So understood, human being is essentially defined by the availability to others30 and by communion. As Randall aptly observes that in Marcel’s philosophy, “the value of the individual person is not based on the self (the I), but must be founded upon our shared humanness, i.e., upon the ‘we’ that is within each person.”31 Therefore, according to Marcel, only in the perspective of “we” can one’s “self ” be achieved and understood in its most authentic way. So understood, it presents an ontology of “we are” rather than “a metaphysic of I think,”32 and in the ontology of “we are,” “esse (to exist) is co-esse (to co-exist).”33 In line with this intersubjective ontology, existential reality cannot be awakened on the level of an ego but is only possible in togetherness and in the series of personengagement-community.34 This reality is not some objective and fixed structure explored from outside but a living structure that we are inside. In Marcel’s words, “it is a world in which everything is in communication, in which everything is bound together,” and communication is always “living communication.”35

29 Regarding this point, Marcel argues that “a complete and concrete knowledge of oneself cannot be heauto-centric,… it must be hetero-centric. The fact is that we can understand ourselves by starting from the other, or from others, and only by starting from them.” Marcel, The Mystery of Being II, 8. Moreover, he argues that “my relationship to myself is mediated by the presence of the other person, by what he is for me and what I am for him,” and “the fact of the reciprocal love, the communion, will be enough to bring about a deep transformation in the nature of the bond which unites me to myself.” Marcel, Homo Viator, 49. 30 In Marcel’s context, availability means “the aptitude to give oneself to anything which offers, and to bind oneself by the gift.” Marcel, Homo Viator, 23. 31 Albert B. Randall, The Mystery of Hope in the Philosophy of Gabriel Marcel, 1888-1973): Hope and Homo Viator (Lewiston: E. Mellen Press, 1992), 238. 32 See Marcel, The Mystery of Being II, 9. 33 Randall, The Mystery of Hope, 236. 34 See Marcel, Homo Viator, 22. Marcel also argues that a certain fullness of life is our starting point of thinking and being, and “this fullness of life can in no circumstances be that of my own personal experience considered in an exclusively private aspect, considered in as much as it is just mine; rather must it be that of a whole which is implied by the relation to the with, by the togetherness.” Marcel, The Mystery of Being II, 8. 35 Marcel, The Mystery of Being II, 15.

Marcel’s Phenomenology of Hope

2.3.2 The Two-fold Definition of Absolute Hope For Marcel, absolute hope is only possible and meaningful within an intersubjective ontology. However, the rank of Having still dominates everyday life and constitutes our basic situation of captivity. Consequently, Marcel’s definition of absolute hope stretches in two different directions. On the one hand, it is defined in response to the rank of Having; on the other, it is defined in terms of communion and love. Therefore, it is between the contrasts of darkness and light, captivity and liberation, the temptations of despair and the possibility of salvation, that the full meaning of absolute hope is revealed. First, hope is defined as a response to a situation that involves captivity.36 Recalling his experiences during the war, Marcel claims that hope is “an active reaction against a state of captivity. It may be that we are capable of hoping only in so far as we start by realizing that we are captives.”37 Captivity as our most basic situation can be traced back to ego-centrism and its logic of Having. As already explained briefly, this logic poses everything external to the “self ” as the objects of its knowledge and desire. The only possible relationship between “I” and “not-I” is that of theoretical knowing or practically having. Based on this common understanding of “self,” the basic human condition seems to be that of captivity and exile. Although we can know, own, and manipulate other things and people through a series of techniques or methods, we are, at the same time, owned by what we have or do not have. Marcel’s formulation of “shackles of ownership” shows that to have always means to be had. Moreover, the things or persons we have or desire will finally imprison ourselves, because in this relationship, we are always afraid of losing something that is ultimately external to ourselves. Thus, in the world of Having, our entire life is trapped, and this world can be metaphorically understood as a prison. Furthermore, as time goes on, we will eventually lose whatever we have, even our own life. If this is the only possible story of what it means to be human, then existence would be better described as homo absurdus, and the only logical ending of this story is despair.38 However, as Marcel points out, understood in the rank of Being, despair is not merely a logical deduction of a fatum, but a “capitulation before a certain fatum laid down by our judgment.”39 Despair does not mean to recognize the basic situation of captivity as an objective fact but to “go to pieces under this sentence and to disarm

36 See Marcel, Homo Viator, 58. 37 Marcel, The Mystery of Being II, 160. 38 The comparison between homo viator and homo adsurdus see Clyde Pax, An Existential Approach to God: A Study of Gabriel Marcel (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1972), 106. 39 Marcel, Homo Viator, 37.

45

46

The Possibility of a Phenomenology of Hope

before the inevitable.”40 In capitulation, we are not just passive receivers of a fact but active conspirators in our own tragic fate. Viewed from this angle, hope lies in resisting the shackles of ownership and the temptation of capitulation before the basic situation of captivity. Despair is and will always be a temptation, but without the temptation of despair, there is no hope. It is precisely hope’s mission to respond to a situation of captivity and exile, and thus to transcend it.41 As Marcel indicates, “the truth is that there can strictly speaking be no hope except when the temptation to despair exists. Hope is the act by which this temptation is actively or victoriously overcome.”42 Second, absolute hope is defined as the remedy of communion and love.43 By this remedy, we come out of the darkness of captivity and also “cause light to shine forth in our prison.”44 This process from darkness to light means coming out of the rank of Having and entering into the mystery of Being. As already introduced, Marcel’s rank of Being can only be understood in an intersubjective ontology and reached by communion. In this sense, hope is essentially communal and “inseparable from love.”45 Understood in the context of love, “I hope” is a hope from “us” and for “us.” That is to say, the ontological reality of “we are” is not only the source but also the ontological endeavor of hope. These two aspects are expressed in Marcel’s formula of hope “in thee – for us.” In Marcel’s own explanation, between this ‘thou’ and this ‘us’ which only the most persistent reflection can finally discover in the act of hope, what is the vital link? Must we not reply that ‘Thou’ is in some way the guarantee of the union that holds us together, myself to myself, or one to the other, or these beings to those other beings? More than a guarantee which secures or confirms from outside a union which already exists, it is the very cement which binds the whole into one.46

40 Marcel, Homo Viator, 37f. 41 See Marcel, Homo Viator, 31. 42 Marcel, Homo Viator, 36. Marcel also argues in another place that “the general condition of man, even when his life appears to be quite normal, is always that of a captive… all creative activity, whatever it may be, is bound up with this condition, in the double meaning which we have given to the word, and that it is in reality the only means given us of causing light to shine forth in our prison.” Marcel, Homo Viator, 58. And “at the back of hope lies some sort of tragedy. To hope is to carry within me the private assurance that however black things may seem, my present intolerable situation cannot be final; there must be some way out.” Marcel, The Mystery of Being II, 160. 43 See Marcel, Homo Viator, 60. 44 Marcel, Homo Viator, 58. 45 Gabriel Marcel, Tragic Wisdom and Beyond, trans. Stephen Jolin and Peter McCormick (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1980), 43. 46 Marcel, Homo Viator, 60f.

Marcel’s Phenomenology of Hope

In this formula, “thou” in the expression of “in thee” should be understood as the capitalized form of “Thou” – the internal guarantee and “cement” of the union, which implies the source of hope, and “for us” indicates the communal life of I and thou, which is the ontological endeavor of hope. Joseph Godfrey suggests that it is necessary to distinguish between empirical thou and the Absolute Thou in this context.47 As this thesis will argue in Chapter 5, this guarantee of “Thou” does not necessarily imply a theological understanding;48 it may be understood in both an ontological and a Christian sense. In each case, “Thou” should not be understood as a single being but an indestructible living bond of love in its most profound form. 2.3.3 Hope for the Immortality of Love Finally, communal hope culminates in the recognition of the immortality of love. In this sense, it is a power of transcendence that can break the prison of death and unite “the human soul and the mysterious reality.”49 Among all the trials of life, the ultimate prison and separation is death; it brings the problem of nothingness to the question of Being: “death at first sight looks like a permanent invitation to despair.”50 In Marcel’s intersubjective ontology, the problem of death represents a more serious challenge; it does not primarily imply the finality of an individual but the ultimate rupture of the bond between us. For Marcel, the experience of the death of the beloved one is far more crucial than the death of oneself. As he responds to Mr. Brunschvicg at the Congress of Philosophy, “what matters is neither my death, nor yours; it is the death of the one we love.”51 Therefore, in intersubjective ontology, the crucial problem here is not the conflict between Being and non-Being but the existential conflict between love and death. In the case of the death of the beloved one, Marcel boldly claims that “to love a being is to say to you, you in particular, will never die.”52 In line with his understanding of despair as capitulation and conspiracy, Marcel points out that “to consent to the death of a being is in a sense to give him up to death,”53 it is not only a surrender but also a betrayal that conspires to “destroy human communion

47 See Joseph J. Godfrey, A Philosophy of Human Hope (Dordrecht: Nijhoff, 1987), 208ff. 48 This point is also made by Viale in Tyler Viale, “Gabriel Marcel: Hope and Love in Time of Death,” in Hope: Claremont Studies in the Philosophy of Religion, Conference 2014, ed. Ingolf U. Dalferth and Marlene A. Block (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2016), 159–172, 168ff. 49 Marcel, Homo Viator, 59. 50 Randall, The Mystery of Hope, 225. 51 Gabriel Marcel, Presence and Immortality (Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1967), 231. 52 Marcel, Homo Viator, 147. 53 Marcel, Homo Viator, 147.

47

48

The Possibility of a Phenomenology of Hope

itself at its very center.”54 Marcel supports this point with the example of “a mother who persists in hoping that she will see her son again although his death has been certified in the most definite manner by witnesses who found his body, buried it, etc.”55 This persistent hope can neither be understood as an objective judgment nor as a false consolation; instead, it should be understood as a transcendent act of love. For the loving mother, “she has within her a loving thought which repudiates or transcends the facts, and it seems as though there was something absurd or even scandalous in disputing her right to hope, that is to say to love, against all hope.”56 Moreover, for Marcel, immortality is possible and only possible as the immortality of a living bond.57 That is to say, the immortality of the beloved one does not mean the immortality of another entity but that of love itself – a living and indestructible bond that binds me and my lover internally. As Marcel argues, “what is really important, in fact, is the destiny of that living link, and not that of an entity which is isolated and closed in on itself.”58 Again, for Marcel, the immortality of that living bond cannot be proved by lengthy arguments and calculations of probability from the outside but is only found in the transcendent act of affirmation out of love, which can establish the “vital duration” that “affords both the pledge and the first-fruit.”59 Therefore, as Marcel repeatedly argues, life in the rank of Having is characterized by captivity. In this rank, we are forced to admit the fact that as mortal bodies we shall all die. In contrast, life in the context of the intersubjective ontology is a life with an indestructible bond and vital duration, despite the temptation to despair in the face of death. Absolute hope can only be fully understood in the latter context. In Marcel’s words, we can say that hope is essentially the availability of a soul which has entered intimately enough into the experience of communion to accomplish in the teeth of will and knowledge the transcendent act – the act establishing the vital duration of which this experience affords both the pledge and the first-fruits.60

54 55 56 57

Marcel, Homo Viator, 152. Marcel, Homo Viator, 65. Marcel, Homo Viator, 65. Regarding this point, Marcel argues that “the indestructibility (of love) is much more that of a bond than that of an object.” Marcel, The Mystery of Being II, 154. 58 Marcel, The Mystery of Being II, 155. 59 Marcel, Homo Viator, 67. 60 Marcel, Homo Viator, 67. Translation modified. The original French text here is “affirme la pérennité vivante”. “Establishing the vital regeneration” is not the perfect translation, in contrast, the German translation “die lebendige Dauer bestätigen,” that is, the “affirming the vital duration” is a better alternative. French version see Gabriel Marcel, Homo Viator (Paris: Aubier-Montaigne, 1944), 91,

Marcel’s Phenomenology of Hope

2.3.4 Critical Acceptance of Marcel’s Phenomenology of Hope Compared to Heidegger’s version of self-centered existentiality, Marcel’s existential philosophy stresses that the indestructible living bond of “we” constitutes the basis and endeavor of human existence, and that love is the key to the most profound mystery of Being. Within this framework, hope is both its pledge and first-fruit. In Chapter 5 of this thesis, these insights will be taken up again, and redefined using the language of atmosphere. However, three points of Marcel are rejected in this thesis. First, the concept of intersubjectivity is avoided. This term has a strong tendency to stress the priority of subjectivity over “inter,” as well as restricting itself to subjectivity. In this thesis, intersubjectivity will be reformulated as atmospheric co-existence and in-between. Second, in Marcel’s context, hope is described as a transcendent act, that is, as a verb. As already argued in Chapter 1, fundamental hope is better understood as an adverbial modality of living hopefully. Therefore, instead of Marcel’s absolute hope in the form of “I hope,” this thesis suggests other expressions such as “I exist hopefully in us, through us and for us” and “we co-exist hopefully.” Third, Marcel’s two-fold definition of hope is also rejected. In this thesis, hope is not primarily defined in the basic situation of captivity as its response and remedy, but in the context of daily life in-between. In this context, hope is not situated in the setting of a contrast between light and darkness but in a setting of a breathable sphere of life, which can be hopefully extended by us into a roomy one. Therefore, the light-metaphor for hope is substituted by a metaphor of atmosphere, air, and breathing.

and German Version see Gabriel Marcel, Homo Viator: Philosophie der Hoffnung (Düsseldorf: Bastion-Verlag, 1949), 87.

49

3.

Christian Theological Understandings of Hope

In this chapter, this thesis gives a brief introduction to Christian theological understandings of hope. First, it will be argued that Christian hope is a unique and concrete hope that is irreducible to any purely philosophical analysis. In comparison with the philosophical understanding of human hope, Christian hope is seen to be an unambiguous, theocentric, and concrete hope-in-God (3.1). As theocentric hope, the meaning of Christian hope is disclosed in the horizon of Christian eschatology. Christian eschatology is not merely a general future-talk or temporal structure but is concerned primarily with the eschatos (the ultimate person of Christ), and the eschatoi (the ultimate trinitarian reality of God). It highlights the centrality and ultimacy of the concrete triune God as the ultimate ground of hope (3.2). This chapter argues further that the Christian triune God as the ultimate ground of hope cannot be understood in terms of substantial ontology but should be understood in a relational ontology, which is revealed in the divine essence of freely shared love (3.3). Accordingly, the essential identity of the human bearers of Christian hope (3.4) and their ultimate destiny of deification as Christian spes quae (3.5) are also oriented by this relational ontology and essence of love. Finally, in this context, Christian hope can be understood as the gift which comes from God’s freely shared love, that is, an adverbial modality that is oriented by God, and an eternal living hope that does not disappear in the ultimate fulfillment (3.6).

3.1

Philosophical Hope and Christian Hope

When it comes to the question of the relation and distinction between philosophically understood hope and Christian theological hope, it tends to become a question of reduction. From the philosophical stance, it can be argued that Christian hope is nothing but a concrete cultural unfolding of human existentiality, and can thus be reduced to a human existential such as affective situatedness (Befindlichkeit) and temporality.1 From the Christian theological point of view, secular forms of hope, 1 Such a stance is held by Heidegger. Tonning gives a succinct reformulation of Heidegger’s position in Heidegger’s essay Phenomenology and Theology. She explains that for Heidegger, “phenomenology is logically prior to theology because it lays bare the existential structures of which specifically Christian experiences or concepts are only particular existentiell outworkings.” See Judith E. Tonning, “‘Hineingehalten in die Nacht’: Heidegger’s Early Appropriation of Christian Eschatology,” in Phenomenology and Eschatology: Not Yet in the Now, ed. Neal Deroo and John P. Manoussakis (London:

52

Christian Theological Understandings of Hope

however extensive and profound they may be, are intrinsically limited and groundless due to the createdness and sinfulness of human beings. Only on a theological basis do human hopes get their foothold. However, this question is not necessarily understood in a reductionistic way. As already stated in the Introduction and Chapter 1, this thesis holds that the phenomenon of hope is not understood in a reductionistic manner, which means that there is no such thing as an original hope or a principle of hope on which every form of hope is derived. Philosophical and Christian theological hope are different forms of hope unfolded in different constellations of meaning. In this sense, this thesis argues that Christian hope has three main characteristics in contrast to philosophical understandings of hope. First, in contrast to the ambiguity of hope in a philosophical context, Christian hope is unambiguous with respect to its value, contents, and ground. It is good, fundamental, absolute, and ultimate due to its relatedness to God; it is not directed to some random objects or persons but is directed unambiguously to God and finds its ground only in God. Second, Christian hope is theocentric. The theocentricity of Christian hope means that hope is not primarily initiated by humans and judged by a human criterion. Hope in this context is only possible and becomes virtuous through the grace of God, suggesting the radical relatedness to and reliance on God.2 Moreover, it means that Christian hope does not merely take the fulfillment of human existence as its aim, even though it is indisputable that Christian hope is a human phenomenon, and that Christian hope is fundamental for human existence. Therefore, human existence is neither the starting point nor the final aim of Christian hope; instead, God constitutes the alpha and omega of Christian hope. The unambiguous theocentricity of Christian hope suggests that the bearers of Christian hope are no longer self-centered; it demands a radical disorientation and reorientation of human existence away from its egocentricity, which also implies that any form of self-centered existentiality is incompatible with Christian hope. Third, Christian hope is concrete. First of all, God as the basis and ultimate horizon of Christian hope is concrete.3 In this thesis, the Christian God is not

Routledge, 2016), 150. Edmaier also describes this position in Alois Edmaier, Horizonte der Hoffnung (Regensburg: Pustet, 1968), 174ff. 2 For example see Dominic Doyle, “SPE Salvi on Eschatological and Secular Hope: A Thomistic Critique of an Augustinian Encyclical,” Theological Studies 71, no. 2 (May 1, 2010): 350–379, 360, and Joseph J. Godfrey, A Philosophy of Human Hope (Dordrecht: Nijhoff, 1987), 2. 3 For example, following the insights of Barth, Jüngel argues that both God’s being and God’s selfcommunication to humanity are concrete. See Eberhard Jüngel, God’s Being Is in Becoming: The Trinitarian Being of God in the Theology of Karl Barth, trans. John Webster (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2001), 44.

Christian Hope in the Context of Christian Eschatology

understood as “timeless essence or unmoved mover, but ‘alive in himself.’”4 As will be introduced in 3.3, this God is a living and loving God in the concrete event of communio and perichoresis. Furthermore, the Christian God cannot be grasped as a formula but is concretely revealed to believers in the events of salvation history. Therefore, in this context, the Christian God can neither be reduced to an abstract principle nor the transcendent dimension of human Dasein. Seeking to avoid a reductionistic approach, this thesis argues that it is precisely this concreteness of the God-center, instead of God’s transcendence, that gives Christian hope its uniqueness. In this context, Christian hope is a concrete mode of hope-in-God that cannot be dissected analytically into an ordinary human way of “hope-that” or “hope-in” and a specific object called God. As Dalferth points out, “Christian hope is neither an everyday hope directed at a religious object or circumstance, nor a particular cognitive or emotional activity or attitude beside and among others.”5 Instead, it is an irreducible mode of life that is oriented by God.

3.2

Christian Hope in the Context of Christian Eschatology

The central position of the concrete God in Christian hope is expounded in Christian eschatology. Christian eschatology is not merely the general future-talk in the logic of extrapolation but concerns the ultimacy of God. Therefore, in this context, eschatological questions such as the general doctrine of the future and the afterlife, the speculation of what will happen at the end of time, and eschatological temporality should all be answered on the basis of the ultimacy of God. Viewed from the position of the ultimacy of the Christian God, several topics are introduced to eschatology, including the last things (eschata) according to the bible, the transcendent meaning of the ultimate end (eschaton), and eventually the ultimacy of the concrete person of Christ (eschatos).6 According to Jürgen

4 Robert W. Jenson, “The Great Transformation,” in The Last Things: Biblical and Theological Perspectives on Eschatology, ed. Carl E. Braaten and Robert W. Jenson (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002), 33–42, 41. 5 Ingolf U. Dalferth, “Gemeinsam hoffen. Grundlinien einer menschlichen Orientierungsweise,” in Die Kunst des Hoffens: Kranksein zwischen Erschütterung und Neuorientierung (Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 2016), 116–154, 148. 6 Reviewing the conceptual history of eschatology, Mühling summarizes at least five layers of meaning. First, eschatology means “the doctrine of all the possible conceptions of the future and afterlife” in a very general sense, including non-Christian ones. Second, it describes specifically the doctrine of the Last Things; the final events described in the bible such as the state after death, the parousia, judgment, heaven and hell, eternal life, and eternal condemnation. Such final events are known as eschata. Third, eschatology can also refer to “the doctrine of that which is ultimate,” focusing on the transcendent meaning of the ultimate end. In this sense, the term eschaton is used instead of eschata. Fourth, it can

53

54

Christian Theological Understandings of Hope

Moltmann, in Christian eschatology it is eventually not the last “things,” events, or principle, but the future and advent of the concrete person of Christ that is ultimate.7 The concrete person of Christ cannot be compared to anything else but is the final recourse of everything. Therefore, Christian eschatology cannot be reduced to any formal temporal structure; it is neither the prediction of a fact which will happen at the end of time on the chronological axis, nor the speculation on a temporal structure as such. As Moltmann puts it, it is not the doctrine about the future as such, but rather a doctrine concerning Christ and His future.8 Therefore, what is the ultimate in this context is always concretely personal.9 Thus, Christian theological hope is ultimately grounded in the concrete person of Christ and his events. As Christoph Schwöbel argues, “the patterns of Christian hope will always be a pattern based on the matrix of the Christ event.”10 Moreover, as the Christian God is always triune and the person of Christ can never be thought of without the other two divine persons, Markus Mühling suggests that “we must speak not about the eschatos as the ‘last’ or final person, but about the eschatoi as the ‘last’ persons.”11 Based on the eschatoi, the identity of the human bearers of Christian hope is also put in an eschatical context and integrated into the eschatical reality, which is the ultimate spes quae of Christian hope. In the next three sections, eschatoi, the eschatical identity of human being, and the eschatical reality (with the example of deification) will be introduced into the understanding of Christian hope.

3.3

The Trinitarian Basis of Christian Hope

Since the triune God is the ultimate ground of Christian hope, it should first of all be clarified who this triune God is. Concretely speaking, the Christian God firstly

7 8 9

10 11

refer to “a historical term for the future-orientated or apocalyptic character of the teachings and life of Christ.” Fifth, it describes the ultimate person of Jesus Christ in its concreteness, which is expressed in the term of eschatos. See Markus Mühling, T&T Clark Handbook of Christian Eschatology, trans. Jennifer Adams-Massmann and David A. Gilland (London: T&T Clark, 2015), 3–14. See Jürgen Moltmann, Worauf wir hoffen: das Kommen Gottes und der Weg Jesu Christi (Gütersloh: Kaiser, 1997), 18. See Jürgen Moltmann, Theologie der Hoffnung: Untersuchungen zur Begründung u. zu d. Konsequenzen e. Christlichen Eschatologie (München: Kaiser, 1977), 12. See Christoph Schwöbel, “Last Things First? The Century of Eschatology in Retrospect,” in The Future as God’s Gift: Explorations in Christian Eschatology, ed. David Fergusson and Marcel Sarot (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2000), 217–241. 226. Schwöbel, Last Things First, 237. Mühling, Handbook of Christian Eschatology, 39. For an introduction to trinitarian and relational eschatology see also Schwöbel, Last Things First, 238f.

The Trinitarian Basis of Christian Hope

differs from the Hebrew God in that it must be understood in a trinitarian way and expressed in the formula of “one in essence, three in person.” Secondly, the “one” and “three” in God are equally primordial, which constitutes a unity without blending and a plurality/diversity without separation. Thus, the Christian triune God cannot be understood in the model of substantial ontology, in which one precedes and transcends many,12 but should instead be understood relationally and dynamically, as many contemporary theologians have suggested.13 First, the trinitarian expression of “one in essence, three in person” can be understood in terms of personhood. John Zizioulas points out that “God ‘exists’ on account of a person,… and not on account of a substance.”14 That is to say, Christian God’s being consists of God’s concrete personhood, rather than an abstract substance. Moreover, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are three concrete divine persons whose identities are relationally constituted. They are intrinsically related in the sense that “the identity of the Father is not without the relation towards the Son and the Holy Spirit, the identity of the Son is not without the relation towards the Father and the Holy Spirit, and the identity of the Holy Spirit is not without the relation towards the Father and the Son.”15 This means that every divine person is not a person who first is and then relates himself to others, but is fundamentally constituted by relation. To quote Douglas Knight’s interpretation of Zizioulas, “the identity of a particular person is not to be found somewhere deep inside him or her: he has no self, center, soul or other form of private existence before being exposed to the world of relationship.”16 So understood, the divine persons can be described as “particularities emerging from relations,”17 which should be strictly distinguished from the concept of the individual. In this sense, every divine person is both relational and particular, implying both a relational unity in which he is an internal participant and a particularity emerging from internal relations.

12 The primacy of the “one” over multiplicity, difference, relationality, and communication see Gisbert Greshake, “Trinity as ‘Communio,’” in Rethinking Trinitarian Theology: Disputed Questions and Contemporary Issues in Trinitarian Theology, ed. Giulio Maspero and Robert Wozniak (London: T&T Clark, 2012), 331–345, 331. 13 Such an approach is suggested, for example, by Greshake, Mühling, Schwöbel, and Zizioulas. 14 John D. Zizioulas, Being as Communion: Studies in Personhood and the Church (London: Darton Longman & Todd, 2004), 42. 15 Christoph Schwöbel, Gott in Beziehung: Studien zur Dogmatik (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2002), 46. 16 Douglas H. Knight, “John Zizioulas on the Eschatology of the Person,” in The Future as God’s Gift: Explorations in Christian Eschatology, ed. David Fergusson and Robert Wozniak (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2000), 189–197, 189. 17 John D. Zizioulas, “Relational Ontology: Insights from Patristic Thought,” in The Trinity and an Entangled World: Relationality in Physical Science and Theology, ed. John C. Polkinghorne (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010), 146–156, 153.

55

56

Christian Theological Understandings of Hope

Second, the relational personhood and unity of the triune God can be understood with the concept of communio, that is, a living event of communion among three divine persons.18 For Gisbert Greshake, communio is not merely a unifying concept that stresses one-sidedly the union with one another, but is primarily a mediating concept between unity and particularity, and between identity and difference. In the event of communio, unity does not transcend plurality and particularity but has them within; it is an “enduring unity of many that are different.”19 Therefore, in the union of communio, the concrete persons do not merge into an undifferentiated whole but are engaged in the process of communication while maintaining their distinctive identity. Moreover, it should be emphasized that communio is a dynamic term, referring both to the dynamic process of communication and the dynamic process of “mediation of the particular with the many, the part with the whole, the different with the identical.”20 Therefore, understood in terms of communio, the triune God is neither three persons united by one abstract divine substance nor a “community of three independent self-sufficient persons,”21 but rather a living community that “pulsates” from unity to trinity and from trinity to unity.22 Third, the divine communion and communication happen in the mode of perichoresis,23 that is, “mutual interpenetration, participation and union of entities that are and continue to remain different.”24 On the one hand, this mutual interpenetration is so thorough that it results in a mutual inexistence and indwelling. On the other hand, in this process, there is no merging, blending, and confusion.25

18 19 20 21 22 23

See Greshake, “Trinity as ‘Communio,’” 338. Greshake, Trinity as “Communio,” 334. Greshake, Trinity as “Communio,” 334. Greshake, Trinity as “Communio,” 338. See Greshake, Trinity as “Communio,” 339. For an overview of this concept within Christian tradition, see Markus Mühling, Liebesgeschichte Gott: systematische Theologie im Konzept (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2013), 102–111, Greshake’s entry on Perichorese see Michael Buchberger and Walter Kasper, eds., Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, 3., völlig neu bearb. Aufl (Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 1993), 31–33, and Jüngel’s entry on Perichorese see Hans Dieter Betz, ed., Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart [RGG]; Handwörterbuch für Theologie und Religionswissenschaft, 4., völlig neu bearb. Aufl. (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1998), 1109–1111. 24 Jüngel, Perichorese, 1109. 25 John of Damascus explains this point in The Orthodox Faith, I.14: “the abiding and resting of the Persons in one another is not in such a manner that they coalesce or become confused, but, rather, so that they adhere to one another, for they are without interval between them and inseparable and their mutual indwelling is without confusion. For the Son is in the Father and the Spirit, and the Spirit is in the Father and the Son, and the Father is in the Son and the Spirit, and there is no merging or blending or confusion.” John of Damascus, Writings, trans. Frederic H. Chase Jr. (Washington: The Catholic University of America Press, 1999), 202.

The Trinitarian Basis of Christian Hope

This means that the unity of the triune God is not “one immutable monad”26 but a relational unity in the form of a dynamic process of mutual interpenetration, without dissolving into an undifferentiated whole. Moreover, each of the divine persons simultaneously penetrates the other two and is penetrated by them. In this manner, each divine person is never isolated but lives in the radical relationality, so that “in every single person, both the whole relational structure and the other persons are present.”27 That is to say, wherever a divine person is and whatever he does, the other two are always in and with him,28 sharing their life together. Therefore, in the mode of perichoresis, three divine persons are radically united, and the triune life is a radically shared life. Expounded with the concept of communio and perichoresis, the triune God is understood from the dynamic relation, both in terms of God’s personhood and God’s unity. In accordance, the triune God reveals a relational ontology, in which Being is fundamentally constituted by and gains access through this dynamic internal relation. This relational ontology of the triune God can be wrapped up in the expression of “God is love,” which states that the nature or essence of Christian God is love. Since the divine person does not have any private existence before exposed to the internal relations, love is not the private possession of any one of the divine persons, but originates in an open relational event of communio among three divine persons in the form of interpenetration. This divine love is unbreakable. Understood from the perspective of the radical unitedness in perichoresis, the divine persons have never for a moment lived and understood their life as a life of an individual.29 Moreover, the divine love is not a perfect and immutable monad, but an exuberant pulsation that mediates between a complex unity and relational particularity and a rhythmic exchange of love in givingreceiving-giving back.30 Furthermore, divine love should not be understood as an eternal closed circle. As love among three divine persons, it originally opens towards community and is a shared love.31 Following Richard of Saint Victor’s concept of

26 Greshake, Trinity as “Communio,” 335. 27 Gisbert Greshake, Der dreieine Gott: eine trinitarische Theologie (Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 1998), 199. 28 Regarding this point, Jüngel argues that “the perichoresis works in such a way that the divine modes of being mutually condition and permeate one another so completely that one is always in the other two and the other two in the one.” Jüngel, God’s Being is in Becoming, 45. 29 See John D. Zizioulas, “On Being a Person: Towards an Ontology of Personhood,” in Persons, Divine, and Human: King’s College Essays in Theological Anthropology, ed. Christoph Schwöbel (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1999), 33–46, 41. 30 For this idea of the rhythm of love see Greshake, Trinity as “Communio,” 342. 31 See Ingolf U. Dalferth, Existenz Gottes und christlicher Glaube: Skizzen zu einer eschatologischen Ontologie (München: Kaiser, 1984). 210.

57

58

Christian Theological Understandings of Hope

the Holy Spirit as co-loved (condilectus),32 it is argued by many theologians that the divine love is a perfect love that is freely shared with a third, since love between two persons usually result in a closed circle and mutual narcissism, while only the sharing of love can break the spell of closedness and egoism.33 So understood, the rhythm of love is not only an inter-trinitarian circulation of back and forth but also a rhythmic progression and extension, since the activity of giving back is also simultaneously an activity of passing the gift forward to others. Therefore, love in this context is not a self-sufficient loop but originates as a rhythmic extension that opens towards otherness and “more.” In this sense, divine love is nothing like a dead bond that binds divine persons together but is a living bond that continually grows and renews itself through its free extension towards others. It should be noted that such growth, renewal, and extension does not happen according to a set of specific principles, along specific paths, and following specific directions. There is no pre-existing principle, path, or direction that can limit the life of this loving community. To conclude, the Christian triune God in the conceptual constellation of personhood, communio and perichoresis is not an ultimate principle or substance but a living and loving community of three divine persons, which exist within the most dynamic exchange and expansion of love and life. This triune God constitutes the ultimate basis of Christian hope, and this ultimacy is not understood in terms of an entity but as an untranscended and unique event.34 This untranscended and unique event of love constitutes the Christian ultimate reality “that than which nothing with greater ultimacy can be said.”35

3.4

The Human Bearers of Christian Hope

Christian hope is similar to fundamental hope, in that they both concern the essential identity of human beings. Therefore, the understanding of Christian hope requires necessarily an introduction to the identity of the human bearers of hope.

32 Richard of Saint Victor, On the Trinity, 3.11, 14, 15. 33 This view is shared, for example, by Dalferth, Greshake, Mühling, and Ware. See Dalferth, Existenz Gottes, 210f., Greshake, Trinity as “Communio,” 342f., Markus Mühling, “The Humanifying Adventure,” in Verbs, Bones, and Brains: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Human Nature, ed. Agustín Fuentes and Aku Visala (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2017), 104–113, 109, and Kallistos Ware, “The Holy Trinity: Model for Personhood-in-Relation,” in The Trinity and an Entangled World: Relationality in Physical Science and Theology, ed. John C. Polkinghorne (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010), 107–129, 121ff. 34 See Jüngel, God’s Being is in Becoming, 75–79. 35 Mühling, Handbook of Christian Eschatology, 73.

The Human Bearers of Christian Hope

On the basis of the Christian triune God, human beings are first of all created beings out of divine shared love and according to God’s image. This implies that the humanity of human beings transcends human endeavor, and what is most mine (authentic in Heidegger’s sense) originally comes from a greater and higher source than me myself. Since the triune God is essentially a living and loving community that is relational, human beings in this context are also essentially relational.36 Therefore, in a Christian sense, human beings are neither isolated individuals nor a collective category but are primarily relationally defined as “persons emerging from relations.”37 The human person in this sense is neither reduced to an abstract substance or principle, nor led to isolation; it is particularity in irreducible concrete relations. Understood in this way, human beings are not primarily viewed in the light of Heidegger’s mineness, but from what Zizioulas calls “ecclesial being” and “catholic humanity.”38 In this relational understanding, “the authentic human being is not egocentric but exocentric,”39 implying a being from, with, and for others. Moreover, in this context, all human relations find their ultimate criterion and foundation in God’s relation to humans. As Schwöbel points out, the relationship of God to humanity is the key to the understanding of all relationships in which human beings exist, including humanity’s relationship to God… The relationships in which human beings exist to themselves, to other persons, to nature and to culture are constituted by and have their criterion of adequacy in God’s relation to the world.40

Therefore, in Christian anthropology, the authentic human being is not merely exocentric, but ultimately has the triune God as its absolute center and orientation. Oriented by the triune God, human beings are essentially created as a community of love. That is to say, human beings are not only integrated persons emerging from relations, but are also essentially the living community of “we” that is internally joined by love and open to others. As Kallistos Ware argues, “the divine image in which as humans we are created is not possessed by any one of us in isolation, but 36 Regarding this point, Mühling argues that “the image of God in humanity… consists in the relational capacity of the human being as a person: just as God is an uncreated event of three divine persons in relation, it is also to be expected that human beings are relational as well.” Mühling, Handbook of Christian Eschatology, 204. 37 For Zizioulas, “person” is a concept that is shared by both the triune God and human beings. See Zizioulas, On Being a Person. 38 John D. Zizioulas, The Eucharistic Communion and the World, ed. Luke Ben Tallon (London: T&T Clark, 2011), 128. 39 Ware, The Holy Trinity, 126. 40 See Christoph Schwöbel, “Human Being as Relational Being: Twelve Theses for a Christian Anthropology,” in Persons, Divine, and Human: King’s College Essays in Theological Anthropology, ed. Christoph Schwöbel (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1999), 141–165, 143, 146.

59

60

Christian Theological Understandings of Hope

comes to its fulfillment only in the ‘between’ of love, in the ‘and’ that joins the ‘I’ to the ‘thou.’”41 So understood, the community of “we” bound by love is the proper form of existence that is created according to the divine image. Furthermore, what is hoped for in a theocentric sense is not merely a fulfilled human relational existence, but ultimately an essential relational existence in the unmediated presence of God and in immediate communication with the divine persons. This point will be expounded in the next section by the concept of deification. However, the Christian humanity of human beings is not only ultimately shaped and oriented by the image of God, but it can also be shaped by humans on their own. In a Christian context, humanity shaped by humans alone means a refusal to be shaped according to the image of God. In such refusal, humans are cut off from their original source. As John Meyendorff observes, “fallen humanity is no longer ‘complete’ humanity because it has lost participation in divine life.”42 When viewed from a purely human perspective, the self-center becomes a dominant criterion by which every human possibility is measured, including the possibilities of openness and relationality. This can be compared to what Heidegger describes as the characteristic of “always-being-mine” in his existentiality. From both an anthropological and a Christian perspective, such a one-sided foothold on the self-center is seriously flawed. First, it does not do justice to the openness of human life. As Wolfhart Pannenberg points out, “all human life is carried out in the tension between self-centeredness and openness to the world,” and “only where the two poles of this tension… are held together by an encompassing unity” is life possible.43 However, for Pannenberg, the mediation between these two poles cannot be achieved by the human on its own, since every attempt to open up oneself and to situate oneself into a larger horizon only leads to a new triumph of self-centeredness. In this sense, Pannenberg holds that self-centeredness is a human sin that cannot be overcome by purely human effort.44 Second, as already shown in Heidegger’s existentiality, seen from such a self-center, the most radical possibility of Dasein is its own death. In this context, death not only cuts Dasein off from inauthentic ways of existence but also the intrinsic connection to the bearing reality, which in a Christian context, means the living and loving God. Therefore, in the Christian sense, only out of the grace of God is the fallen humanity restored to a new humanity, regaining the essential connection with the

41 Ware, The Holy Trinity, 126. 42 John Meyendorff, “Humanity: ‘Old’ and ‘New’ – Anthropological Considerations,” in Salvation in Christ: A Lutheran-Orthodox Dialogue (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1992), 59–66, 61. 43 See Wolfhart Pannenberg, What Is Man?: Contemporary Anthropology in Theological Perspective, trans. Duane A. Priebe (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1970), 56f. 44 For an understanding of “selfhood as a sin,” see Pannenberg, What is Man, 61–64.

Deification as the Unambiguous Spes Quae of Christian Hope

bearing reality. The cross and resurrection of Christ signifies the death of the old human being and the birth of the new one. In Christ, a new reconciled humanity is born, in which the essential identity is unambiguously rooted in God’s essence of love. In this sense, “human beings become persons determined by the action of the Holy Spirit, that is, spiritual bodies.”45 The new humanity is no longer characterized by being-towards-death but is essentially defined by the living and loving God. Thus, humanity is put in an eschatical setting. As the Lutherean expression of simul justus et peccator shows, although humanity is restored, it is not yet lived in a fully unambiguous sense. On the one hand, humans are sinners restricted by their self-center; on the other, they are justified by Christ and according to God’s promise will be communal persons in a real sense. In this sense, Mühling argues that “human beings are not yet persons but will be persons. In the present, human beings have their personal being and becoming and therefore their identities only in the mode of promise.” 46

3.5

Deification as the Unambiguous Spes Quae of Christian Hope

Whereas the spes quae of fundamental hope is ambiguously expressed as “somehow,” “more,” or “superabundance” in a philosophical sense, the question of “what dare we hope” is unambiguously rooted in the triune God in the Christian theological context. In this context, death is no longer the absolute end and destiny of human beings, but only one of the pre-eschata. According to Christian hope, the ultimate fate of human being is unambiguously taken up into the eschatoi, and this ultimate internal relation with God is expressed by the ecumenical concept of deification.47 Deification means that humans have the ultimate possibility of “being made divine” and “becoming divine” through God’s freely shared love, which is described in the Christian bible as “participating in the divine nature.”48 By participating in the divine nature, human beings will ultimately be unified with God and exist in the unmediated communication with God. This eschatical reality of deification must be understood Christologically. The Incarnation of Christ is intrinsically connected to the deification of human beings. Concretely speaking, it constitutes the ground of deification, which is expressed

45 Mühling, Handbook of Christian Eschatology, 299. 46 Mühling, Handbook of Christian Eschatology, 211. 47 Olson argues that “although the concept of theosis, or deification, is usually associated with Eastern Orthodoxy, it has enjoyed an ecumenical renaissance in modern and contemporary Christian theology.” Roger E. Olson, “Deification in Contemporary Theology,” Theology Today 64, no. 2 (July 2007): 186–200. 48 2 Peter 1:4. (NIV)

61

62

Christian Theological Understandings of Hope

by Saint Athanasius as “God be[coming] human so that humans might become God.”49 It is precisely the perichoretic relation between humanity and divinity in the person of Christ that makes human deification possible.50 In this way, deification as the ultimate union with God can be understood as the perichoresis of the redeemed humans and God, which means that deified human beings are both indwelling in God and indwelt by God.51 This perichoretic relation in deification can further be explained as the entanglement of two communities of love.52 As argued above, the Christian God is understood in a trinitarian way, and divine nature is not a common substance in three separate persons, but love understood in a communal and perichoretic way. So understood, participating in the divine nature does not mean a divine substance instilled in every individual human being but a participation as a community of love in God’s divine essence of love. This entanglement of two communities of love is expressed by Mühling as follows, “[a] person receives active relational possibility and stands in relation not only to Christ and other Trinitarian persons, but also those with whom they have mutually co-formed their identities through the course of their life histories in the here and now, as well as with non-personal entities.”53 In this sense, unity with God does not resemble any mystical experience of feeling or being one with the universe but is an “incorporation into the relational structure of the Trinity through grace.”54 In this process, “the alterity of otherness of persons is preserved; there is no process of amalgamation.”55 That is to say, human beings participate in the divine nature without losing their identity as human beings. This deified human implies further a self renewed by God. It means firstly a nihilation of the human individual with its constant effort to establish itself as 49 St. Athanasius, De incarnatione, 54, 3: PG 25, 192B. 50 “The intimate contact between humanity and divinity in the incarnation of the Word enabled the possibility of human deification.” Stephen Finlan and Vladimir Kharlamov, eds., Theosis: Deification in Christian Theology, Volume One (Eugene: Pickwick, 2006), 12. 51 This mutual indwelling is expounded by Rehfeld as Christ-inness (Christ-innigkeit). See Emmanuel L. Rehfeld, Relationale Ontologie bei Paulus: die ontische Wirksamkeit der Christusbezogenheit im Denken des Heidenapostels (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2012), 224–324, and Emmanuel L. Rehfeld, “Seinskonstitutive Christusbezogenheit. Relational-ontologische Denkstrukturen und ‘In-ChristusSein’ bei Paulus,” in relationale Erkenntnishorizonte in Exegese und systematischer Theologie (Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 2018), 69–90. Following Deissmann, Rehfeld argues that Christ-inness (Christ-Innigkeit) is both “being in Christ” (2 Cor. 5:17–19, 21), and “Christ in me/us/you” (Gal. 2:20, 2 Cor. 13:5, Rom. 8:10). This reciprocal “being-in” is not understood as mysterious unity but in a relational-ontological manner. See Rehfeld, Seinskonstitutive Christusbezogenheit, 81f. 52 In this regard, the God-human relation is not simply that of an I-thou, that is, a divine person and a human person facing each other. 53 Mühling, Handbook of Christian Eschatology, 298. 54 Mühling, Handbook of Christian Eschatology, 361. 55 Mühling, Handbook of Christian Eschatology, 299.

Deification as the Unambiguous Spes Quae of Christian Hope

the absolute center. To quote Tuomo Mannermaa, “before God gives himself to a person in his Word,… he performs his ‘nihilizing work’ – he makes the person ‘empty’ and ‘nothing.’ This reductio in nihilum… refers only to the destruction of the individual’s constant effort to make himself God and to justify himself.”56 Secondly, a new self is born in deification. This new self is not an updated version of the self-centered self but a transformation of the self into what Dalferth calls “co-humanity” (Mitmenschlichkeit).57 Understood in terms of co-humanity, the existential center of this new self is not within itself but firmly anchored in love – both in the love of God and the love of human community. Furthermore, deification is not an ultimate resting of two communities within each other but is dynamic in its most radical sense. While Saint Augustine said, “our heart is restless until it rests in you”58 and understood it in a Neoplatonic way as a timeless and motionless rest, the “end” and “rests” does not mean stopping in a static state here. As in the case of a piece of beautiful music, the fulfilled “end” means that one must play with passion and true skill, instead of playing it harshly to the end and coming to a stop. Therefore, this eschatical reality must be understood as a process, which can be described as the ultimate dynamic and rhythmic event of communio and mutual interpenetration between redeemed humanity and the triune God. Moreover, based on God’s shared and extending love, deification is an open and inexhaustible process that transforms continually and grows ceaselessly into a more intricate and complex communion and perichoresis, creating more and more otherness along the way and drawing them into a greater communion. In such way, it extends rhythmically without stopping. Finally, deification is internally felt and enjoyed by its participants. Deification as the eschatical reality is not a tedious and boring unity but a living union which is felt as the joyous adventure of exploring the mystery of God and being in/with God. To conclude, deification as participation in the divine nature means a transformation of human beings from individuals to persons of co-humanity. On the basis of Christ’s incarnation, deification means the communio and perichoresis of the Christian triune God and redeemed human beings with the highest degree of unity and particularity. Finally, deification is a dynamic and inexhaustible living process that can be internally felt with joy. To end with Greshake’s description, “the commu-

56 Tuomo Mannermaa, “Why Is Luther so Fascinating? Modern Finnish Luther Research,” in Union with Christ: The New Finnish Interpretation of Luther, ed. Carl E. Braaten and Robert W. Jenson (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), 1–2, 10. 57 See Dalferth, Gemeinsam hoffen, 146. 58 St. Augustine, Confessiones, 1.1.1.

63

64

Christian Theological Understandings of Hope

nio of creation when participating in the communio of the triune God remains an ever-new self-transformation, dynamic life, and ecstatic rejoicing without end.”59

3.6

Hope in a Christian Context

Integrating what has been described in this chapter, Christian hope can be summarized by the following three points. First, Christian hope is the free gift given by the grace of the triune God, rather than being a human endeavor. Regarding the createdness of human beings in the Christian context, to be a Christian means primarily and fundamentally to acknowledge that what can be hoped for – fulfillment, salvation, and deification – does not lie in the hands of human beings. This hope is only possible through the grace of God. Moreover, the spes quae of Christian hope is not merely directed towards the fulfillment of human existence but towards the fulfillment of God’s communion with God’s reconciled creation.60 Therefore, Christian hope is not primarily a human project in relation with God, but the project of God with God’s created world.61 In this sense, human beings do not have hope but live in hope. Second, Christian hope does not concern human beings in only specific aspects but their essential human identity. In this sense, Christian hope can be understood as an adverbial modality of human existence that is fully oriented by the love of the triune God. The hopeful life in this context is described by Dalferth as “a constant enacting movement of away-from-self (leaving oneself) and towards-God (reliance on God), and from-God and to-others/self-in-a-new-way (regaining oneself).”62 It is precisely this adverbial modality that makes human life genuinely humane. Through an orientation entirely within the horizon of the triune God, Christians have the possibility of living and loving hopefully, in communio, perichoretically, as genuine persons and a genuine community. Third, the spes quae of Christian hope – the deification – is a communal and perichoretic relation within a bearing reality of which Christians are a part. As a dynamic and inexhaustible process, this ultimate end of deification is not static but has an inner power of growth into a greater communion and a more profound way of perichoresis. Therefore, in this context, hope does not disappear after the fulfillment; instead, every fulfillment is simultaneously the beginning of a greater fulfillment, and the bearers of Christian hope remain eternally the seeker of God,

59 60 61 62

Greshake, Der dreieine Gott, 438. See Schwöbel, Gott in Beziehung, 465. See Schwöbel, Gott in Beziehung, 468. Dalferth, Gemeinsam hoffen, 143.

Hope in a Christian Context

seeking an ever-greater communion and ever-deeper interpenetration with and within God.63 In this sense, Christian hope is an ultimate and eternal living hope.

63 Regarding this point, Boros argues that as creatures, we cannot exhaust God’s eternal fullness. In this sense, “we are eternal seekers of God…. Our eternity will be a perpetual penetration (immerwährendes Hineinschreiten) in God.” Ladislaus Boros, Aus der Hoffnung leben (Freiburg im Breisgau: Walter, 1968), 15.

65

4.

Atmosphere, Qi(气) and the Existentiality of In-betweenness

As mentioned above in Chapter 2 and Chapter 3, in both Marcel’s philosophical approach and in Christian theological understanding, hope of the most fundamental and ultimate sort is embedded in a relational structure (intersubjective ontology and trinitarian theology). Based on Heidegger’s self-centered existentiality, fundamental hope becomes either inauthentic or incomprehensible. The following chapter will argue that from an anthropological perspective, fundamental hope reveals its rich meaning in an existentiality of in-betweenness – an existential structure that finds its expression in the concept of atmosphere and the Chinese philosophy of qi (气). First, this chapter gives a brief introduction to the concept of atmosphere proposed by Hermann Schmitz, Gernot Böhme, and Tim Ingold (4.1). In comparison to Schmitz and Böhme, Ingold’s atmosphere does not focus on how a bodily present subject perceives atmospheric feeling and its surroundings but describes how we exist together in the air. Following Ingold’s understanding of atmosphere, this thesis argues that the potential of this concept of atmosphere lies in its ability to de-center the self, which contributes further to an existentiality of in-betweenness. From Ingold’s concept of atmosphere, an atmospheric co-existence can be constructed as a dynamic co-existence, which occurs in the form of sentient and creative inner touch, forming a dynamic living meshwork (4.2). Moreover, Zhang Zai (张载)’s philosophy of qi also co-contributes to an atmospheric reality of in-betweenness with its concepts of resonance (gan 感), Great Void (taixu 太虚), and Way of Great Harmony (taihe zhidao 太和之道) (4.3). With the help of Ingold’s concept of atmosphere and Zhang Zai’s concept of qi, an existentiality of in-betweenness is proposed. In comparison to Heidegger’s self-centered existentiality, this form of existentiality offers an alternative scale of in-betweenness, which is better suited to an understanding of social and communal phenomena, including fundamental hope and Christian hope for deification (4.4).

4.1

The Concept of Atmosphere

It is only more recently that atmosphere has come to be considered as a philosophical concept. In the second half of the 20th century, the neo-phenomenologist Hermann Schmitz thematized this everyday word. Since this time, the concept of atmosphere

68

Atmosphere, Qi(气) and the Existentiality of In-betweenness

has revealed its great potential in the areas of affectivity, aesthetics, psychology, and intercultural philosophy.1 This section gives a brief introduction to the concept of atmosphere by three representatives – Hermann Schmitz, Gernot Böhme, and Tim Ingold. Within their respective contexts, the concept of atmosphere is developed with three different emphases. Schmitz expounds atmosphere from the perspective of affectivity, Böhme from the bodily present sphere, and Ingold from the dynamic aerial medium of air. Ingold’s concept of atmosphere is radically different form the other two. For Ingold, atmosphere is no longer understood in terms of affectivity and bodily perception but is anchored in life and reality in-between, without recourse to a self-center. 4.1.1 Atmosphere as the Reformulation of Affectivity In Schmitz’s system of neo-phenomenology, the concept of atmosphere is thematized for the purpose of reformulating emotions and feelings.2 Schmitz observes that ever since Democritus and Plato, a private inner sphere called “soul” was invented.3 From this time onwards, the Western tradition has treated emotions and feelings as private states imprisoned in this inner sphere of the soul.4 Against such an understanding, Schmitz tries to drag emotions out of the black box of the soul and puts forwards his famous thesis that “emotions are atmospheres poured out spatially that move the felt (not the material) body.”5

1 For example, Schmitz focuses mainly on its potential for affectivity, Böhme explores its aesthetic value, and Fuchs discusses its psychological relevance. The intercultural exchanges between Japan and German philosophers are also integrated into this concept. See Hermann Schmitz, Atmosphären (Freiburg: Verlag Karl Alber, 2014), Gernot Böhme, The Aesthetics of Atmospheres, ed. Jean-Paul Thibaud (London: Routledge, 2017), Thomas Fuchs, “The Phenomenology of Affectivity,” in The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy and Psychiatry (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 612–631, Gernot Böhme, “Brief an einen japanischen Freund über das Zwischen,” in Interkulturelle Philosophie und Phänomenologie in Japan: Beiträge zum Gespräch über Grenzen hinweg, ed. Tadashi Ogawa, Michael Lazarin, and Guido Rappe (München: Iuridicum, 1998), 233–239, and Yuho Hisayama, Erfahrungen des Ki – Leibessphäre, Atmosphäre, Pansphäre (Freiburg: Karl Alber, 2014). 2 See Schmitz, Atmosphären, and Hermann Schmitz, Rudolf Owen Müllan, and Jan Slaby, “Emotions Outside the Box – the New Phenomenology of Feeling and Corporeality,” Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 10, no. 2 (June 1, 2011): 241–259. 3 According to Schmitz, this private inner sphere was invented by a process called psychologisticreductionist-introjectionist objectification. See Schmitz, Müllan, and Slaby, Emotions Outside the Box, 247. 4 See Schmitz, Atmosphären, 7. 5 Schmitz, Müllan and Slaby, Emotions outside the Box, 247.

The Concept of Atmosphere

Firstly, Schmitz’ thesis argues that atmospheric affectivity is not primarily subjectbound but quasi-objective and social;6 it occupies the public space and constitutes an affective space (Stimmungsraum). This kind of space belongs to the rank of bodily present space, which has a qualitative difference from physical space yet possesses the same “degree” of reality.7 Therefore, following Schmitz, Thomas Fuchs further defines atmosphere as a “phenomenon of holistic spatial expression.”8 That is to say, affectivity as atmosphere is the affective quality and expression of bodily present space, before this atmospheric affectivity can be attributed to a subject. Second, atmospheric feeling becomes something mine when it affects, moves, and seizes the person corporeally. Otherwise, atmosphere is merely perceived by someone without being affected. For example, when a serious observer sees a carnival on the street, he or she may feel the jubilant atmosphere yet remain unaffected.9 In this sense, the affectivity in atmosphere can be further explained by the terminologies of being-affected (affektives Betroffensein), being-seized (Ergriffenwerden),10 suggestion of movement (Bewegungssuggestion),11 bodily dynamic/communication (leibliche Dynamik/Kommunikation),12 bodily attunement (Stimmung),13 and bodily resonance (leibliche Resonanz).14 4.1.2 Atmosphere as the Sphere of Bodily Presence Inspired by Schmitz, Böhme further develops the concept of atmosphere. Instead of an affective approach, Böhme puts this concept into the framework of bodily presence and perception. In this framework, the affective aspect of atmosphere

6 See Hermann Schmitz, Der Gefühlsraum (Bonn: Bouvier, 1969). Schmitz, Atmosphären, 50–64, See also Griffero, Quasi-Things: The Paradigm of Atmospheres, Michael Großheim, Kollektive Lebensgefühle: zur Phänomenologie von Gemeinschaften (Rostock: Univ. Inst. für Philosophie, 2015), 9–24, and Thomas Fuchs, Ecology of the Brain: The Phenomenology and Biology of the Embodied Mind (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), 179. 7 See Schmitz, Gefühlsraum, 87. 8 Thomas Fuchs, Leib, Raum, Person: Entwurf einer phänomenologischen Anthropologie (Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 2000), 213. 9 See Schmitz, Atmosphären, 35. 10 See Schmitz, Atmosphären, 36. 11 See Schmitz, Atmosphären, 36ff. 12 See Hermann Schmitz, “Entseelung der Gefühle,” in Gefühle als Atmosphären: neue Phänomenologie und philosophische Emotionstheorie, ed. Kerstin Andermann and Undine Eberlein (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2011), 21–34, 25. 13 See Thomas Fuchs, “The Phenomenology of Affectivity,” in The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy and Psychiatry (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 612–631. 14 See Fuchs, Leib, Raum, Person, 214.

69

70

Atmosphere, Qi(气) and the Existentiality of In-betweenness

becomes integrated into Böhme’s definition of atmosphere as “sphere of felt bodily presence.”15 Similar to Schmitz’s distinction between affective space and physical space, Böhme also insists on a distinction between space of bodily presence and space as a medium of representation. According to Böhme, “the space of bodily presence is the space within which we each experience our bodily existence: it is ‘being-here.’”16 Instead of the temporal meaning that Heidegger emphasizes in the existential situation of being-there (Dasein), Böhme’s concept of atmosphere focuses on the spatial meaning of our bodily “being-here.” That is, how I am situated here, and how I perceive the things other than myself and the environment as a whole. Understood as a bodily present sphere, atmosphere is not only constituted by affectivity. Weather, nature, landscape, architecture, artworks, things, and objects can also modify our sphere of felt bodily presence. Thus, the concept of atmosphere is not only an endeavor to drag feelings out of the black box of the soul, but also, and more primarily, it is an endeavor to show the common reality of both our affectivity and surroundings (including various things and objects in these surroundings). In Böhme’s words, “atmosphere is what relates objective factors and constellations of the environment with my bodily feeling in that environment. This means: atmosphere is what is in between, what mediates the two sides.”17 This in-betweenness is exemplified by his proposal of a phenomenology of weather. In Böhme’s phenomenology of weather, weather and feeling are fundamentally related as correlates of our bodily perception. Weather in this sense is not defined by “what weather is” in meteorological science, but by “how the weather is.” That is, how the weather is perceived by us bodily and how we are exposed to and situated in the weather.18 For example, when one says, “it is a bright morning,” one cannot often tell whether “bright” is a description of the sun or of one’s mood; it is both at the same time. Moreover, these two factors – the meteorological and aesthetical – are not in a causal relation. In other words, we do not feel bright simply because of a sunbeam, neither does the sun look bright because we feel cheerful.19 There is a structural relationship between the two, and they co-define what weather is. In this understanding, weather is neither an objective fact nor

15 Gernot Böhme, “Das Wetter und die Gefühle: für eine Phänomenologie des Wetters,” in Gefühle als Atmosphären: neue Phänomenologie und philosophische Emotionstheorie, ed. Kerstin Andermann and Undine Eberlein (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2011), 153–166, 155. 16 See Gernot Böhme, “The Space of Bodily Presence and Space as a Medium of Representation,” in Transforming Spaces. The Topological Turn in Technology Studies., ed. Mikael Hård, Andreas Lösch, and Dirk Verdicchio, 2003. 17 Böhme, the Aesthetics of Atmospheres, 2. 18 See Böhme, Das Wetter und die Gefühle. 154. 19 See Böhme, Das Wetter und die Gefühle. 154.

The Concept of Atmosphere

our subjective feeling towards an objective fact. Instead, it is “the state of our surrounding as a whole, in so far as we are affectively involved in it.”20 In this sense, weather is a phenomenon of in-betweenness, which reveals our bodily presence in an environment. Therefore, atmosphere as “sphere of felt bodily presence” describes both the weather in our bodily perception and the feeling that pours out in bodily perceived space, as well as how they are fundamentally related as correlates of our bodily perception. In the same way as weather, nature, landscape, architecture, and works of art are all modifications of the sphere of bodily presence that constitutes our surroundings (both natural and cultural) as a whole. In Böhme’s theory of the ecstasis of things, things and objects are not only present as something given to an isolated individual mind. Rather, they exist ecstatically. That is to say, their presence is the way through which they manifest themselves and thus the expression of their influential presence to others.21 In this sense, atmosphere refers not only to the reality of our bodily presence in our surroundings but also our bodily presence with other things and objects. Therefore, atmosphere can be further expounded as space tinctured by the influential presence of things, persons, or constellations of the environment.22 So understood, atmosphere is a sphere of co-presence and implies the common reality of both bodily present perceiver and things within its sphere.23 As a common reality, atmosphere holds an intermediate status between subject and object.24 Although Böhme’s atmosphere is described as a sphere in-between, a perceiving subject as lived body (Leib) still takes a central position. That is to say, it is a sphere in-between that is united in the presence of a bodily subject. Therefore, an I-standpoint and I-center is in this context necessary, and atmosphere in Böhme’s sense is actually a sphere of the bodily subject. In fact, Böhme’s does not intend to challenge the centrality of subjectivity but only to reconstruct it in a non-substantial and bodily way. In this respect, Böhme follows Western philosophy’s traditional line of thought, which relies on the centrality of subjectivity. Therefore, when put in Heidegger’s framework of existentiality, atmosphere still belongs to the basic characteristic of always-being-mine and can be seen as a concrete disclosure of how a bodily present subject, situated in its surroundings, perceives those surroundings as a whole.

20 Böhme, Das Wetter und die Gefühle. 154. 21 See Gernot Böhme, Atmosphäre: Essays zur neuen Ästhetik (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1995), 237. 22 See Böhme, Atmosphäre, 33. 23 See Böhme, Atmosphäre, 34. 24 See Böhme, Atmosphäre, 22.

71

72

Atmosphere, Qi(气) and the Existentiality of In-betweenness

4.1.3 Atmosphere as the Affordances of Air In contrast to Schmitz’s affective and Böhme’s perceptual approach, Ingold puts the concept of atmosphere into the framework of life. For Ingold, atmosphere is already a phenomenon of life which depicts a common reality of generative lives, before it is understood under the rubric of bodily affectivity and perception. In Ingold’s view, the concept of atmosphere explains how life is formed and carries on in the weather-world. As explained above, in Böhme’s concept of atmosphere, bodily perception takes a central position in mediating the cosmological/objective and the affective aspects. So understood, air/weather, affectivity, architecture, and objects can all be seen as correlates of bodily present sphere, without any fundamental differences between them. However, in Ingold’s description of atmosphere, it is air that constitutes the central position in mediating our existence and that of others.25 (See Figure 3)

Figure 3 Böhme and Ingold’s Concepts of Atmosphere

This leads Ingold to criticize “the complete absence of weather” in Böhme’s concept of atmosphere.26 In Böhme’s view, air and weather are reduced to the correlates of bodily perception, as a “total impression”27 that only has aesthetical meaning and value. However, the air or weather as a correlate of bodily perception is not the literal air or weather that we experience in real life. In real life, there is a fundamental difference between air and architecture or objects; air is not and cannot be reduced to a correlate of our perception. Rather, air constitutes the very condition and medium that we perceive in. As Ingold argues, the air… is not a person or a thing, or indeed an entity of any kind, and cannot therefore comprise part of any articulated assembly. It is, rather, quite simply, a medium which…

25 This includes not only human existence but also other kinds of existence, including animals, things, and artefacts. 26 Tim Ingold, The Life of Lines (London: Routledge, 2015), 77. 27 Böhme, Das Wetter und die Gefühle, 163.

The Concept of Atmosphere

affords locomotion, respiration and perception. As such, the air is not an interactant so much as the very condition of interaction. It is only because of their suspension in the currents of the medium that things can interact.28

Therefore, in real life, we are related to air and weather in a more fundamental way; that is, we are immersed and living in the aerial medium that affords perception, locomotion, and respiration. According to Ingold, air as the foundation and center of atmosphere constitutes a weather-world. As an aerial medium, air is juxtaposed with the terrestrial substances of the earth.29 In contrast to the relatively solid ground, aerial medium is always turbulent; it is “a continuous metamorphosis”30 and forms circulatory currents from within.31 The world we live in is not only constituted by solid ground, but also by this dynamic medium of air in its weathering. The world shaped by weathering is not a homogeneous and volumetric space, but “a patchwork of continuous variation, extending without limit in all directions.”32 So understood, we are living in a world of becoming and an extending sphere, in which the substances of the earth mingle and bind with the medium of air.33 While the experience of living on the solid ground has overemphasized, explored, and developed into a substantial ontology in Western philosophy, the aerial dimension of our bodily movement and experience has to a large extent been suppressed and forgotten.34 Highlighting the aerial aspect of world is thus a reminder that we not only live on the ground of solid substances but also live in the volatile medium of air, and including this aerial aspect of life in philosophy means that the “essence” of our existence and the world is not so solid as Western philosophy claims, but is essentially flexible and volatile. By focusing on the aerial dimension of the world, becoming is introduced into philosophy once again, not as some dispensable periphery of Being, but as the very center of philosophical reality. In this respect, atmosphere is intrinsically temporal.35 As will be shown later, the spatial and affective dimension should be understood from its temporality.

28 29 30 31 32 33

Ingold, Life of Lines, 70. See Ingold, Life of Lines, 38. Ingold, Life of Lines, 71. See Ingold, Life of Lines, 80. Ingold, Life of Lines, 81. See Ingold, Life of Lines, 64. See also Tim Ingold, Being Alive: Essays on Movement, Knowledge and Description (London: Routledge, 2011), 120. 34 See Ingold, Life of Lines, 69. 35 See Ingold, Life of Lines, 71. For Ingold, the temporality of atmosphere means the rhythmic alternation, attunement of attention, and response to rhythmic relations.

73

74

Atmosphere, Qi(气) and the Existentiality of In-betweenness

Immersed in and enveloped by air, our existence (and also any form of being) is also constituted by being-in-the-air.36 Air is not a vacuum but a dynamic medium full of the possibilities of breathing, moving, growing, interacting, transforming, and feeling. Living in the air, we are constantly enacting and realizing these possibilities. If Böhme’s phenomenology of weather establishes a way of perceiving weather in weather, then, in Ingold’s context, we do not perceive weather in weather, but receive the possibilities that the aerial medium affords us, including but not restricted to bodily perception. So understood, atmosphere is defined by the affordances of air, which describes our possibilities and modes of existence in and with the aerial medium.

4.2

Being-in-the-air and Atmospheric Co-existence

Viewed from Ingold’s concept of being-in-the-air, atmosphere not only refers to atmospheric feeling and atmospheric presence but also becomes an existential concept. First, for Ingold, being-in-the-air means a dynamic living existence. Weather is not erratic change but is formative, and we are all growing in the air instead of standing in the middle of it. Therefore, breathing as the most basic activity in the air is not merely the monotonous repetition of in-and-out of an individual body but the rhythmic exchange of life that pushes life forward and affords other possibilities of life.37 As Ingold formulates it, “it is from their exposure to weather that beings draw from the medium the inspiration, strength and resilience to carry on along their lines.”38 So understood, the I-standpoint is deconstructed temporally. Situated in the weather-world, we are not standing somewhere and perceiving this world from any standpoint, but constantly moving out-of-position and being pulled away from any standpoint.39 In this sense, human existence is described by Ingold as human becoming, and more vividly as lines of movement and growth.40 In Ingold’s words, “life in the open, far from being contained within bounded places, threads its way along paths through the weather world.”41

36 37 38 39 40 41

See Ingold, Life of Lines, 69f. See Ingold, Life of Lines, 67. Ingold, Life of Lines, 71. See Ingold, Life of Lines, 135. That is the reason why Ingold titles his book as Life of Lines. Tim Ingold, “Bindings against Boundaries: Entanglements of Life in an Open World,” Environment and Planning A 40, no. 8 (August 2008): 1796–1810.

Being-in-the-air and Atmospheric Co-existence

Second, being-in-the-air is always a mode of co-existence. Living in the weatherworld is fundamentally different from perceiving the weather. In perception, the bodily present subject stands in the middle of its environment alone and establishes a relation between bodily self and a cosmic/situational whole. However, living in the weather-world can never be alone in the middle and does not mean a direct relation with the weather-world as a whole. For Ingold, living in the medium of air means to interact, mix, and stir with other concrete becomings in and with the aerial medium. Therefore, it implies a relation of concrete co-becoming without any self-center. Third, co-existence in the air happens fundamentally as sentient and creative inner touch. Following Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Ingold calls this inner touch perception. However, perception in this context is not merely epistemological or aesthetical; instead, it is understood ontologically as the basic way of being-with. Ingold explains this way of perception by the atmospheric perception of a tree. In atmospheric perception, one does not primarily see a tree as an external object, but first of all immerses in and is penetrated by the presence of it. In this sense, the way one sees the tree always already absorbs the looming presence of it. Thus, it is a way one sees with the tree and conversely a way in which the tree sees through him or her. This seeing with and seeing through is described by Ingold in a model called coiling over.42 He describes it as follows, “I observe the tree with eyes that already absorbed its presence into their ways of looking. By way of these eyes of mine, the tree coil over and sees itself.”43 Although Ingold uses the word “see,” this way of perception is not optical but essentially haptic. In this sense, perceiving with and through is an inner touch and a way our own existence binds with others from within. Therefore, haptic perception is also described by Ingold as a movement of “sewing itself in” the texture of the world.44 This inner touch is sentient. In this context, affectivity is not primarily some feeling floating in the air that has the potential to affect anyone, but is the way we sensibly touch others and are being touched from within. Therefore, for Ingold, “to be sentient… is to open up to a world, to yield to its embrace, and to resonate in one’s inner being to its illuminations and reverberations.”45 Moreover, this inner touch is creative. The coil of inner touch is not a closed circuit back and forth but becomes a line of growth. That is to say, the tree is not only an object of perception but transforms into, for example, the expressions of painters and craftsmen as a work of art or a handicraft. In this sense, inner touch 42 43 44 45

Ingold, Life of Lines, 86. Ingold, Life of Lines, 86. See Ingold, Life of Lines, 81. Ingold, Life of Lines, 84.

75

76

Atmosphere, Qi(气) and the Existentiality of In-betweenness

is a generative activity. As Ingold vividly describes, “inhaling the atmosphere as it breathes the air, on the outward breath of exhalation it weaves its lines of speech, song, story and handwriting into the fabric of the world.”46 Moreover, in coiling over, the tree does not instill a form in the perceiver, but gives an evocative thrust; in this sense, the generative activity of inner touch is not an activity of passing down an already existing form but is truly a creative activity through evocation. Fourth, co-existence in the air also has a spatial dimension, and the spatiality must be thought of together with temporality. First of all, the weather-world in which co-existence is immersed is full of possibilities of interaction and traces of living lines; it is a dynamically transforming and extending world with continuous variation, patterns, and texture. Furthermore, when we are engaged in concrete activities of sentient and creative inner touch, we also contribute to the weatherworld’s texture by sewing ourselves in its pattern and growing out of it. Therefore, the sphere of co-existence is not an empty container, but a sphere woven and extended by co-existence, leaving the entangled traces as patterns and textures. Ingold describes this sphere of co-existence as meshwork. As previously discussed, Ingold’s concept of atmosphere and being-in-the-air has neither an I-standpoint nor a self-center. They disappear in the air-centered atmosphere both temporally, spatially, and in any affective or perceptual sense. Ingold’s atmosphere depicts a reality of co-becoming, which can be internally felt but not grasped and owned by any individual being. In this reality, subjectivity (both substantial and bodily) is a “sediment” of the dynamic and generative life of co-becoming instead of an unshakable center of perception. In this respect, Ingold’s concept of atmosphere offers a radical conception of atmosphere that deviates from the Western line of thought. On the one hand, it challenges the philosophical “prejudice” of egocentricity and explores how far we can think without it, and on the other hand, it explores whether our existence is based on the wholeness of a self or lies in co-becoming. From Ingold’s de-centering perspective of air, human existence can be described as atmospheric co-existence. It does not refer to how a lived body as the (static or dynamic) subjective center perceives its existence with others as a whole, but living bodies entangled in the air without recourse to any self-center. Therefore, the existential “antagonist” of atmospheric co-existence is strictly speaking not a living body in interaction with other living bodies but, to use Merleau-Ponty’s term, an integrated intercorporeality.47

46 Ingold, Life of Lines, 87. 47 In Merleau-Ponty’s argument, two persons are compared to two hands from the same body. When one touches the other, it is at same time touched by the other. In this reversibility of sensibility, the two persons “co-exist” or “are compresent”, just “like organs of a single intercorporeality.” For Merleau-

Zhang Zai’s Philosophy of Qi

4.3

Zhang Zai’s Philosophy of Qi

In this section, the Chinese philosophy of qi, primarily in the work of neo-Confucian scholar Zhang Zai (张载, 1020–1077), is introduced as a support and complement to the concept of an atmospheric reality.48 While Ingold claims that in Western philosophy air is either unthinkable or superfluous,49 Chinese philosophy is fundamentally constituted by air-thinking that is manifest in the philosophy of qi. From Zhang Zai’s detailed ontological investigation of qi, three significant concepts can be seen to complement a theory of atmospheric co-existence and atmospheric reality, that is, resonance (gan 感), Great Void (taixu 太虚), and the Way of Great Harmony (taihe zhidao 太和之道). While the concept of resonance is similar to Ingold’s sentient and creative inner touch, the Great Void and the Way of Great Harmony emphasize that in every particular being and concrete activity of resonance, there is still more possibilities of resonance, which extends into a Way of Great Harmony – a Way of generation and transformation of particular beings and a Way of unity and more possibilities of unity and particularity. 4.3.1 Qi as the Cosmological and Ontological Foundation of Chinese Philosophy The Chinese character 气 (romanized as qi and previously ch’i), originally a vivid portrayal of air, wind, cloud, steam, and vapor (see Figure 4),50 has long ago transcended its natural connotation and has become a cultural and philosophical concept in China. As one of the most ancient and fundamental concepts, it is served as key to explain almost every kind of phenomenon and every form of cultural practice. As Robin R. Wang and Weixiang Ding point out, the air one breathes, the force that drives the flow of blood, the food one eats, the strength of one’s mind, the flow of one’s thoughts, the deepest urges of one’s heart – all of these are

Ponty’s explanation of intercorporeality see Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Signs (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1964), 166–177. 48 Zhang Zai is regarded as one of the major figures in the period of Neo-Confucianism in the Song and Ming Dynasties (10th century – 17th century), in which the most basic Confucian theme of ren (benevolence/co-humanity) was evolved into cosmological and ontological profundity from different perspectives such as li (理, principle) and xin (心, mind). In comparison to other neo-Confucian scholars, Zhang Zai took the approach of qi. 49 See Ingold, Life of Lines, 69. 50 The pictographs of qi in Figure 4 can be found at “‘气’的字源字形 | 漢典,” accessed March 25, 2022, //www.zdic.net/zd/zx/說文小篆/气 and “‘氣’字的解释 | 汉典,” accessed March 25, 2022, //www.zdic.net/hans/氣.

77

78

Atmosphere, Qi(气) and the Existentiality of In-betweenness

understood in terms of qi. Thus qi extends across realms that might otherwise be divided in the spiritual, mental, or physical.51

Figure 4 Two Ways of Writing Qi in Chinese The left image is a pictograph of cloud vapor, which looks similar to the wind symbol depicted in a weather forecast. The right image includes rice under the cloud vapor, depicting the steam which appears when cooking rice.

Therefore, qi has long been regarded as the ontological and cosmological foundation upon which everything exists and which unites different aspects of reality as a whole.52 In this respect, it can be in some sense compared to the Western philosophical concept of Being.53 Inspired by Western philosophy, contemporary interpretations of qi, both by Western and Chinese interpreters, tend to adopt the framework of substantial ontology.54 In these interpretations, qi is the ultimate singular substance or essential

51 Robin R. Wang and Weixiang Ding, “Zhang Zai’s Theory of Vital Energy,” in Dao Companion to Neo-Confucian Philosophy, ed. John Makeham (Dordrecht: Springer, 2010), 39–57, 42. 52 For example, Lai Chen argues that “qi penetrates through everything; it is the fundamental medium that links everything into a unity (气贯通一切,是把一切存在物贯通为一体的基本介质。).” Lai Chen陈来. Renxue Bentilun仁学本体论 [Ontology of Ren]. (Beijing: sanlian shudian, 2014), 173. 53 It may be observed that qi is not the most fundamental concept in the Chinese way of thinking. In Chinese thought, there are many fundamental ontological concepts besides qi, such as dao (way), ti (essence/substance), ren (benevolence/co-humanity), and nothingness/emptiness/void. These concepts are combined into different ontological constellations in different contexts (for example Confucianism, Daoism, and Chinese Buddhism) without being reduced to a singular source-concept such as Being. 54 Kim points out that a misunderstanding of the concept of qi in terms of a substance monism is prevalent among Chinese and Western scholars, regardless of their theoretical premises and frameworks.

Zhang Zai’s Philosophy of Qi

stuff (material or vital, psychological or physical, or both) that constitutes things in the universe, and “the many entities and dimensions of this world are but derivative manifestations” of it.55 Understood in this way, qi is a unifying concept; that is, qi is something (regardless of whether it is essentially matter, energy, or principle) that can ultimately bridge the gaps between the physical and the spiritual, the natural and the cultural, and finally, one’s own small body and the great body of the whole universe. However, as will be seen in the work of the neo-Confucian scholar Zhang Zai, qi as an ontological concept does not support such a one-behind/under/above-many model. Zhang Zai’s philosophy of qi as an ontological endeavor offers an entirely different ontology to the substantial one. It is, to borrow Greshake’s description of communio, a dynamic concept that mediates between unity and multiplicity/ diversity/particularity.56 Moreover, it is an ontology that explains how things are generated, transformed, and united rather than an explication of what constitutes the substance of each individual being. Finally, it presents an ontological reality that is internally felt, participated in, and realized, rather than observed and speculated about from outside. 4.3.2 Qi as Resonance and Void Concretely speaking, Zhang Zai’s concept of qi is understood in two aspects, that is, as the concrete activity (yong用) of the generation, change, and transformation of myriad things, and as Great Void (taixu太虚) – the hidden “essence/reality” (ti体) of qi.57 The generation, change, and transformation of myriad things are understood in terms of resonance (gan 感). The connotations of resonance (gan 感) in ancient

See Jung-Yeup Kim, Zhang Zai’s Philosophy of Qi: A Practical Understanding (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2015), 2ff. 55 Kim, Zhang Zai’s Philosophy of Qi, 32. 56 Regarding this point, Kim also argues that “Zhang Zai’s practical message emphasizes the endeavor to create meaningful coherence amongst our differences, through mutual communication and transformation, without recourse to a realm of ‘oneness’ that transcends our differences.” Kim, Zhang Zai’s Philosophy of Qi, ix. 57 Regarding this understanding, this thesis is indebted to Junyi Tang [Chün-i Tang]’s explanation of Zhang Zai. In Tang’s work, these two aspects are called the horizontal and the vertical aspects. See Chün-i Tang, “Chang Tsai’s Theory of Mind and Its Metaphysical Basis,” Philosophy East and West 6, no. 2 (1956): 113–136.

79

80

Atmosphere, Qi(气) and the Existentiality of In-betweenness

Chinese texts include bodily sensation,58 influence/stimulation,59 and (sexual) intercourse.60 Moreover, resonance is often mentioned together with response (ying 应) and interpenetration (tong 通).61 To summarize, resonance can be understood as sentient inner touch (as the process that resembles intercourse) – a process of stimulation and response from within that leads to interpenetration and the new birth of life. In Zhang Zai’s philosophy of qi, the activity of resonance leads to unity in interpenetration.62 As the connotation of intercourse implies, it is not a static unity but a unity through which concrete things are born and completed. Therefore, things are born and completed in and through the activity of resonance. That is to say, resonance is not an additional activity attributed to a substantial being but the “substantial” activity that generates things. In this sense, things are not static entities

58 See Redmond’s English translation of The Book of Changes, Geoffrey Redmond, trans., The I Ching (Book of Changes): A Critical Translation of the Ancient Text (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2017), 192f. 59 See Baynes’ English translation of the Book of Changes, Richard Wilhelm and Cary F. Baynes, trans., The I Ching Or Book of Changes: The Richard Wilhelm Translation rendered into English by Cary F. Baynes (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1977), 300. 60 In Tang’s text, gan is translated into intercourse. This translation is based on The Book of Changes. In The Book of Changes, gan appears in the Hexagram Xian – a description of marriage. This concrete meaning of intercourse in marriage is further extended to the intercourse or resonance between heaven and earth, by virtue of which things come into being. The original text is as follows: “The weak is above, the strong below. The forces (qi) of the two stimulate (gan) and respond to each other, so that they unite. Keeping Still and joyousness. The masculine subordinates itself to the feminine. Hence it is said: ‘Success. Perseverance furthers. To take a maiden to wife brings good fortune.’ Heaven and earth stimulate (gan) each other, and all things take shape and come into being. The holy man stimulates (gan) the hearts of men, and the world attains peace and rest. If we contemplate the outgoing stimulating influences (gan), we can know the nature of heaven and earth and all beings. (柔上而刚下,二气感应以相与,止而说,男下女,是以亨利贞,取女吉也。天 地感而万物化生,圣人感人心而天下和平；观其所感,而天地万物之情可见矣!)” Chinese text see Gao Heng 高亨. Zhouyi Dazhuan Jinzhu 周易大传今注 (Shandong: qilu shushe, 2009) and translation see Wilhelm and Baynes, I Ching, 975. 61 For example, in Zhang Zai’s philosophy of qi, resonance and interpenetration are engaged in a causal relation. Resonance leads to interpenetration and thus the unity of different polarities. In Zhang Zai’s words, “only after resonance is there interpenetration; therefore, if there are no polarities there is no unity (感而后有通,不有两则无一).” Original text see Zhang Zai 张载. Zhang Zai ji张载集 [The Collected Works of Zhang Zai] (Beijing: zhonghua shuju, 1978). Translation see Kim, Zhang Zai’s Philosophy of Qi, 34. The connection between resonance and response is reflected in the famous Chinese philosophical expression of “天人感应” (tianren ganying), which states that heaven and humans are engaged in a relation of resonance and mutual response. 62 See Zhang Zai, The Collected Works. “Only after resonance is there interpenetration; therefore, if there are no polarities there is no unity (感而后有通,不有两则无一).”

Zhang Zai’s Philosophy of Qi

but are processual and completed in the very activity of resonance. As Zhang Zai writes, A thing cannot exist in isolation. Unless it is made manifest through the processes of identification and differentiation, extension and contraction, and beginning and ending, a thing would not be a thing although it seems to be. An event is completed when it has its beginning and end, but there is an event only when there is mutual resonance between identification and differentiation and between being and non-being. Unless there is an event, a thing would not be a thing although it seems to be. Therefore it is said, “the mutual resonance between contraction and extension makes life flourish.”63

Moreover, a complete being born out of resonance does not become a separate being but contributes further to the activity of resonance. Junyi Tang explains that in Zhang Zai’s text, “everything is generated through intercourse [resonance] between other things, and this thing is, in turn, in intercourse [resonance] with other things to generate still other things. Hence, the ether [qi] is both many and one, both diffused and united.”64 In this sense, qi in Zhang Zai’s context is not the substance of which everything is constituted but a description of the very activity of resonance in and through which everything exists. Furthermore, the activity of resonance is understood in terms of the Great Void (taixu 太虚) as its essence (ti体).65 Zhang Zai criticizes the Daoist and Buddhist understandings of nothingness/emptiness as an infinite and transcendent source of qi. He argues that if qi is the derivative of nothingness as Daoism understands it, then the essence and the activity of resonance (what Zhang Zai refers to as the function of qi) becomes separate; and if all qi-phenomena are but the subjective illusions in the void as Buddhism understands it, then things and the activity of resonance have nothing at all to do with reality.66 Against these positions, Zhang Zai claims that “void and emptiness is qi (xukong ji qi虚空即气),” and argues that the concrete activity of resonance should not be traced back to any form of unity that 63 “物无孤立之理,非同异、屈伸、终始以发明之,则虽物非物也；事有始卒乃成,非同异、有 无相感,则不见其成,不见其成则虽物非物,故一屈伸相感而利生焉。” Translation is based on the translations of Wing-Tsit Chan and Junyi Tang. See Wing-Tsit Chan, trans., A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969), 515. And Tang, Chang Tsai’s Theory of Mind, 126. 64 Tang, Chang Tsai’s Theory of Mind, 123. 65 Essence or substance in Chinese means literally origin-body (benti 本体). For a detailed introduction to the concept of ti (体) see Chung-ying Cheng, “On the Metaphysical Significance of Ti (Body-Embodiment) in Chinese Philosophy: Benti (Origin-Substance) and Ti-Yong (Substance and Function),” Journal of Chinese Philosophy 29, no. 2 (June 2002): 145–161. 66 For Zhang Zai’s critiques of the Buddhist and Daoistic understanding of void and emptiness see Chan, A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy, 502.

81

82

Atmosphere, Qi(气) and the Existentiality of In-betweenness

transcends the complexity of this process and renders it as less real or eventually unreal. Instead, the void essence is within the activity of resonance itself. Thus, in Zhang Zai’s context, the void neither implies a “negative lack,”67 as the Western philosophical understanding of non-being might suggest, nor a transcendent realm of unity, as Buddhist and Daoist understanding of nothingness/ emptiness argue. Instead, it is an essential, positive, and constitutive dimension within the activity of resonance. To explain it in more detail, the void within resonance means firstly that there is void nature in every particular being. With void nature inside it, a particular being is neither a solid object that cannot resonate68 nor an object that will ossify into a dead thing that loses any possibility of resonance. In this sense, void nature also implies the possibility of coming into a specific form through resonance and the possibility of breaking this form and becoming other forms, also through the process of resonance. Therefore, void does not mean death or nothingness but rather the change and transformation (hua化) of concrete things. Secondly, there is void within the concrete activity of resonance. Within the concrete activity of resonance lies the great possibility of resonance (Great Void). In this sense, unity in the activity of resonance is not and will not be a static unity but leads again and again to more possibilities of resonance, and thus more possibilities of unity and plurality. In this sense, resonance leads to extension, which is called the spirit/divinity (shen神), since one of the etymological meanings of spirit/divinity in Chinese is “to extend.”69 4.3.3 The Way of Great Harmony When resonance and void are taken together, they constitute an ontological reality of Great Harmony. Zhang Zai describes it as the Way of Great Harmony (taihe zhidao 太和之道). In his words, the Great Harmony is called the Dao (Way). In it lies the nature of the mutual resonance between emerging and submerging, rising and falling, and motion and rest. It is the origin of fusion, of mutual swinging, of overcoming and being overcome, and of contraction and extension. At the commencement, these processes are incipient, subtle, obscure, easy,

67 Kim, Zhang Zai’s Philosophy of Qi, 20. 68 As Tang explains, “whenever a thing is in intercourse with another, it is always that the thing by means of its void contains the other and prehends it.” Tang, Chang Tsai’s Theory of Mind, 124. 69 See Tang’s argument. “This activity of extension by virtue of the void is called by Chang [Zhang] spirit (shen), and by ‘shen’ here he means ‘to extend.’” The translator of this text then explains, “the word ‘shen’ in Chinese has a double meaning. The one is ‘to extend’ and the other is ‘spirit.’” Tang, Chang Tsai’s Theory of Mind, 125.

Zhang Zai’s Philosophy of Qi

and simple, but at the end they are extensive, great, strong, and firm… As it is diffused and spread it becomes visible qi; as it illuminates and penetrates it becomes invisible spirituality (shen神).70

As already expounded, in Zhang Zai’s context, qi is both a concrete activity of resonance and void within. The Way of Great Harmony as the synthesis of these two aspects71 describes the circulation and mutual enrichment between void and concretion, that is, between the possibility and activity of resonance. Through this circulation, the Way of Great Harmony is extended from a simple way to an “extensive, great, strong, and firm” way. As is hinted above, it is both a way of generation and transformation of particular beings and a way of extension. When the ontological reality is understood in this way, it can be argued first that ontology is not merely about a capitalized Being alone. An ontology of qi implies that the internal relation of resonance, becoming and void are those highest ontological concepts that cannot be reduced to a breathless hard blob of Being. A reality of qi is not a reality that can be traced back to a single source; it is primordially a resonant event with void inside. Second, the reality of qi as manifested in the Way of Great Harmony lies in its realization. It is not an abstract reality but is concretely created along the way of resonance and concretely treaded and felt by particular beings in resonance. Third, it also implies that a particular being has access to this reality only through participating in the concrete activity of resonance instead of perception from the perspective of a self-center or observation from the perspective of nowhere. Taking what is said on the atmospheric co-existence into consideration, it can also be argued that atmospheric co-existence happens in the activity, possibility (void), and Way (concretion and void) of resonance. It is a mode of existence that begins from resonance, in resonance and out of resonance; in possibilities and more possibilities of resonance; and on the way that leads both to the transformation of particularity and the superabundant unity.

70 “太和所谓道,中涵浮沈、升降、动静、相感之性,是生絪縕、相荡、胜负、屈伸之始。其来 也几微易简,其究也广大坚固...散殊而可象为气,清通而不可象为神。” Translation is mine. Other translations see Chan, A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy, 500, and Tang, Chang Tsai’s Theory of Mind, 125. 71 Tang calls this ontological reality “a synthesis of being and non-being, void and concretion.” Tang, Chang Tsai’s Theory of Mind, 123.

83

84

Atmosphere, Qi(气) and the Existentiality of In-betweenness

4.4

In-betweenness as the Most Basic Characteristic of Human Existence

4.4.1 Atmospheric Co-existence as an Expression of Existentiality of In-betweenness As indicated in Ingold’s understanding of atmosphere, the concept of atmosphere does not merely describe how a bodily present subject is situated in and perceives its surroundings as a whole. Combined with the insight of Zhang Zai’s philosophy of qi, it contributes to an existential mode in which self is de-centered and is only formed, transformed, and united in the activity and possibility of resonance. In this sense, atmospheric co-existence offers an alternative understanding of existentiality to the self-centered understanding. As already introduced in Chapter 2, in Heidegger’s existentiality, every existential possibility is weighed on the scale of mineness. On this scale, the most profound and radical possibility of human existence is the possibility of being an ownmost (authentic) self in its wholeness. Therefore, although for Heidegger, being-with is co-constitutive of human existence, it must be traced back to the basic existential characteristic of always-being-mine and be weighed on this scale. So understood, the most profound possibility of our social and communal existence lies in an authentic being-with, that is, a being-with constituted by authentic selves. As Heidegger explains it, “the resoluteness toward itself first brings Dasein to the possibility of letting the others who are with it ‘be’ in their ownmost potentiality-of-being…. It is from the authentic being a self of resoluteness that authentic being-with-oneanother first arises.”72 However, as demonstrated in this chapter, atmospheric co-existence finds its foothold in the air and on resonance. In atmospheric co-existence, self is no longer a perceptual and existential center but is relativized and becomes a “product” and participant of the central activity of resonance. In this sense, it is not being-with that is weighed on the scale of mineness but conversely, mineness weighed by being-with. If Heidegger conceives Dasein as a bundle of lines (adverbial modalities) that is bound up in a whole by the major thread of self-care, then atmospheric coexistence depicts a bundle of interwoven lines threading their way together through the weather-world and constituting a living and growing meshwork, without being sorted out and gathered up by every particular Dasein.73

72 Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, 298. 73 Regarding this point, Ingold argues that “organisms figure not as externally bounded entities but as bundles of interwoven lines of growth and movement, together constituting a meshwork in fluid space. The environment, then, comprises not the surroundings of the organism but a zone of

In-betweenness as the Most Basic Characteristic of Human Existence

Such an atmospheric co-existence can be depicted by the meshwork that Ingold draws in his book Lines, a Brief History (see Figure 5).74 In atmospheric co-existence, we exist and perceive not only along the I-related lines, but also in resonant entanglement with other lines, and as the philosophy of qi stresses, in these void spheres in-between. First, this means that in this meshwork, self does not arrive at its wholeness by withdrawal from these resonant entanglements but is born through and out of these resonant relations. Second, others are resonantly present, not beside but within me. Third, the void spheres in-between also play a crucial role in atmospheric co-existence. These void spheres are both the space for extension of the resonance and the space that invites others to engage in resonance. Therefore, in these void spheres lie more possibilities of resonance. The void within the meshwork reveals its breathability, openness, and vitality, and it is not merely the openness and vitality of a self but an interstitial openness in-between.

Figure 5 Meshwork

Therefore, the picture of meshwork is a vivid depiction not only of the activity of resonance but also of the void inside, which is neither a vacuum non-being nor a secondary being, but constitutes this meshwork of atmospheric co-existence in a fundamental sense. If existence means that possibility precedes facticity, then atmospheric co-existence shows that the existential possibilities come originally from the void.

entanglement. Life in the open, far from being contained within bounded places, threads its way along paths through the weather world.” Ingold, Binding against boundaries. 74 Ingold’s picture see Tim Ingold, Lines: A Brief History (London: Routledge, 2007), 82. Figure 5 is my own production.

85

86

Atmosphere, Qi(气) and the Existentiality of In-betweenness

One may observe that in this picture of atmospheric co-existence, there is no such thing as center in a strict sense. One might also tentatively say that the existential center in atmospheric co-existence lies in these void spheres in-between or as Ingold puts it, in the air. As suggested elsewhere in this thesis, self also gains a different meaning in this meshwork of atmospheric co-existence. In this meshwork, a clear-cut self does not exist. Existence winds its way along the I-related lines, in resonant entanglements with other lines, and within the void spheres. It begins from resonance and “ends” in more possibilities of resonance, without finally resting at wholeness of self in any authentic sense. However, this is not to suggest that self simply disappears in atmospheric co-existence. Rather, self-identity is co-defined by I-related lines, lines that belongs to others, and void sphere in-between; it is a growing identity in and out of the meshwork. Therefore, there is no need to gather up oneself in a closed-circuit form of wholeness. Instead, self is constantly transformed through resonance and gains new meaning along the way. In this sense, self becomes a de-centered, linear, and transformative participant. To conclude, the meshwork of atmospheric co-existence depicts a co-existence without a necessary foothold on self-center and a final aim of arriving at an integrated self. So understood, atmospheric co-existence is not weighed on the scale of mineness; instead, it reveals our most basic existential characteristic of inbetweenness that is irreducible to always-being-mine (See Figure 6). That is to say, in atmospheric co-existence, the dimension of social and communal existence does not find its meaning in an authentic self but in its in-betweenness, and the most radical existential possibility weighed by in-betweenness is the profundity and extensiveness of in-betweenness. In this sense, an ownmost (authentic) being-with is merely a paradox.

Figure 6 The Scale of In-betweenness

4.4.2 The Relativity of Self-center As mentioned in the last section, atmospheric co-existence offers a new understanding of existentiality – an existentiality of in-betweenness in which the self-center is relativized. There can be no doubt that self-center is written into the basic constitu-

In-betweenness as the Most Basic Characteristic of Human Existence

tion of human existence. We are our own body and perceive through our own body, and we view the world from our own perspective. The reflection of self-center has been a major theme in Western philosophy since Descartes. Böhme points out that ever since Descartes, “I” has been conceived as a “self-established act-center (sich selbst begründendes Aktzentrum)”.75 Against this philosophical tradition of subject, both Heidegger’s care-structure and Schmitz’ affectedness (affektive Betroffenheit) indicate a perspective of me (mir) – self in dative case. In this perspective, self appears in the form of pathos, and this pathos-self as relational is contrasted with self as an active center.76 However, self in this sense is still the center of thinking and existence, even if it appears in pathos and relation.77 Having said this, self-center is not an absolute one for human existence. Tetsuro Watsuji observes that Heidegger’s Dasein “was the Dasein of the individual only,”78 and that human existence must be understood in the duality of individuality and sociality.79 By sociality, Watsuji means the in-betweenness (Zwischen) of existence rather than a collectivity of individuals or being-with that can be reduced to mineness. He explains that “the structure of existence (ex-sistere, Hinaustreten) is not primarily the structure of ‘I,’ but ‘we,’ that is, to be out among other ‘I’s.” Moreover, “this is not an intentional relation but a ‘mutual relationship (Zwischen)’ of existence.”80 Therefore, when taking other perspectives into account, for example the East Asian understanding of the in-betweenness and void, it could be said that thinking and existing from a self-center and for the sake of the integrity of self is only a typical habitus of thought in Western modern philosophy. Moreover, when self is taken as an absolute center, it becomes “egolatry”81 and a prison.82 75 Gernot Böhme, Philosophieren mit Kant: zur Rekonstruktion der Kantischen Erkenntnis- und Wissenschaftstheorie (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1986), 235. 76 See Böhme, Philosophieren mit Kant. 236. 77 Besides the active and passive understanding, self-center can also be understood as the rhythmic movement of activity and passivity in self, as self in a greater context, and as self in expansion. Although there are various ways of attempting to transcend the self in these understandings, they all begin and revolve around a self-center. 78 Tetsuro Watsuji, Climate and Culture: A Philosophical Study, trans. Geoffrey Bownas (New York: Greenwood, 1961), Preface, 5f. 79 See Watsuji, Climate and Culture, 6. 80 See Watsuji, Climate and Culture, 4. See also the German translation, which is more accurate than the English translation. Tetsuro Watsuji, Fūdo – Wind und Erde: der Zusammenhang zwischen Klima und Kultur, trans. Dora Fischer-Barnicol and Okochi Ryogi (Darmstadt: Wiss. Buchges., 1992). 81 Marcel’s term “egolatry” is defined as “the idolatry of self.” See Marcel, Homo Viator, 20. 82 See Wolfhart Pannenberg, What Is Man?: Contemporary Anthropology in Theological Perspective, trans. Duane A. Priebe (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1970), 63. Here, Pannenberg argues that if human existence is eventually based on ego-centricity, no matter how open a man can be, he still “remains imprisoned in his selfhood.”

87

88

Atmosphere, Qi(气) and the Existentiality of In-betweenness

Therefore, whereas self or I-relatedness is an irrefutable fact and reality, it is not necessarily an absolute foothold of perception, thinking, and existence. As atmospheric co-existence demonstrates, self-center can be done away with without necessarily abandoning the self-identity. Therefore, the existentiality of in-betweenness does not imply the dissolving of self but only a relativity of self-center. 4.4.3 In-betweenness and Mineness As humans, we live in two coordination systems, one oriented by mineness and the other by in-betweenness. That is to say, human existence is always already mine, and always already in-between. According to the basic characteristic of always-beingmine, Heidegger constructed a self-centered existentiality, which establishes a way from everyday Dasein (in its world/with others) to its authentic self. According to the basic characteristic of in-betweenness, an existentiality of in-betweenness can be constructed, which establishes a way from in-between to in-between. From these two characteristics, different possibilities grow and reveal their meaning. Whereas self-centered existentiality reveals a way of coming back to one’s authentic self in its wholeness with an absolute end, existentiality in-between is a way of extending with loose ends. As long as life continues, the ends in this meshwork are always loose ends, providing more possibilities of growth, and moving towards both unity and particularity. When taking the existentiality of in-betweenness into account, there are at least two consequences for human existence. First, the particularity of self gains new meaning within the existentiality of in-betweenness. In this context, isolation is no longer the only approach to particularity. Instead, particularity can be achieved through engaging in resonant relations. In this sense, particularity lies in how “in-between” we are. Second, the existentiality of in-betweenness reveals an open realm of possibility. While what is ownmost (authentic) seems to have an answer in a self-centered existentiality, what is the most in-between for human existence is a meaningless question, since human existence in-between can always be extended. In the existentiality of in-betweenness, we are not forming a wholeness and reaching our finitude but growing and extending on this basis. Therefore, atmospheric co-existence will never result in a hard blob of Being in which breathing and growth is no longer possible. As Watsuji points out, “in the individual’s eyes, it is a case of ‘beingtowards-death,’ but from the standpoint of society it is ‘being-towards-life.’”83

83 Watsuji, Climate and Culture, 10. Translation modified according to the German texts. See Watsuji, Fūdo – Wind und Erde, 14.

In-betweenness as the Most Basic Characteristic of Human Existence

Finally, it must be emphasized that neither mineness nor in-betweenness constitute an absolute foothold of thinking and existence. Following Watsuji, this thesis insists that human existence is both mine and in-between. They are two interwoven questions without one being collapsed into the other, and any one-sided emphasis on a single foothold would lead to a distortion of who the human being is. Borrowing a term from the ancient Chinese medicine of acupuncture, they are two acupoints of human existence; each is for solving certain questions or healing “illnesses,” but neither can serve as a panacea for all human problems. This thesis argues that the right “acupoint” of fundamental hope lies in the existentiality of in-betweenness rather than a self-centered existentiality. As demonstrated in Chapter 2, fundamental hope becomes incomprehensible in Heidegger’s self-centered existentiality and only reveals its meaning in what Marcel calls intersubjective ontology. Here, this thesis argues further that fundamental hope and the Christian hope for deification are the existential possibilities that belong to the coordination of in-betweenness and must be weighed on this scale in order to show their depth of meaning.

89

5.

Fundamental Hope Revisited

In the last chapter, Ingold’s concept of atmosphere and its revolutionary contribution to an existentiality of in-betweenness is proposed. Together with Zhang Zai’s philosophy of qi, an atmospheric reality of in-betweenness is also presented. The methodological groundwork having been completed, fundamental hope is embedded in the coordination system of in-betweenness as an adverbial modality of hopeful co-existence. That is, as a conscious and persistent enactment of atmospheric co-existence that finds orientation in the atmospheric reality. In hopeful co-existence, human beings are not only internal participants of atmospheric reality but also constitute a living intercorporeality of “we” (5.1). So understood, this thesis suggests that fundamental hope can be compared to atmosphere instead of light, which avoids the inadequacies of the lightmetaphor (5.2). Moreover, hopeful co-existence reveals our basic existential situation of in patria and in via.1 In hopeful co-existence, home/living and way/wayfaring are not two separate conditiones humana but are intrinsically one, and can be described in the language of atmosphere as the activity of resonance and resonantly extending sphere. Understood in this way, hopeful co-existence is a mode of living/wayfaring together (5.3). This process of living/wayfaring together is internally felt and enjoyed and is thus permeated by an atmosphere of joy. This joy constitutes the basic attunement (Grundstimmung) of hopeful co-existence; in this sense, hopeful coexistence is a mode of joyous living/wayfaring together (5.4). Furthermore, communal love constitutes the ground of hopeful co-existence. Communal love takes resonance as an essential relation/activity and keeps the meshwork refreshed and open, guaranteeing more possibilities of resonance. On the basis of love, hopeful co-existence shows its ontological meaning as a way towards life. Therefore, hopeful co-existence is fully expressed as a joyous living/ wayfaring together in love and towards life (5.5). Understood in this way, it is a virtue that reveals the possibility of goodness inbetween and the beauty of co-humanity, which gives us moral directions concerning the common reality, alienness, and self-identity. Finally, hopeful co-existence introduced, this thesis also enumerates several un-hopeful ways of existence (5.6).

1 The metaphor of via/patria is borrowed from Saint Augustine’s Christology in De Civitate Dei. See also Ronnie Rombs, “Augustine on Christ,” in T&T Clark Companion to Augustine and Modern Theology, ed. C. C. Pecknold and Tarmo Toom (London: T&T Clark, 2016), 36–53, 44ff.

92

Fundamental Hope Revisited

5.1

Fundamental Hope in an Existentiality of In-betweenness

As proposed at the end of the last chapter, fundamental hope is an adverbial modality that belongs to the existentiality of in-betweenness, and thus must be weighed on this scale in order to show its depth of meaning. First, this proposition indicates that fundamental hope is an adverbial modality rather than a substance, an overall attitude, a basic existential feeling, or a transcendental act. As Dalferth suggests, the adverbial modality of living hopefully is a mode of enactment that finds orientation in the possibility-realm of the good. Combined with atmospheric co-existence and atmospheric reality, fundamental hope as an adverbial modality can be described as a conscious and persistent enactment of atmospheric co-existence that finds orientation in an atmospheric reality of inbetweenness. In this sense, fundamental hope is a life that takes root in and grows out of in-betweenness. In this life, hope lies in the air and the void spheres instead of within a self. To be specific, it lies in the activity of resonance, the breathability of meshwork, and the possibility of extension. Therefore, second, this proposition means that fundamental hope as an adverbial modality of in-betweenness explores primarily how “in-between” our existence can be instead of how an authentic self can be achieved. Fundamental hope is a phenomenon and practice of in-betweenness, that is to say, the primordial sphere in which fundamental hope takes place is not an individual subject, a biological organism, or a moral agent, but various forms of co-existence. Moreover, fundamental hope is not the most in-between possibility of human existence. as argued in the previous chapter, it is meaningless to try to find in what sense co-existence is most in-between, since an existentiality of in-betweenness constitutes an open realm of possibilities. In this sense, fundamental hope explores the profundity and extensiveness of in-betweenness. So understood, fundamental hope is not an adverbial modality of a self-centered Dasein but a participant of atmospheric co-existence and reality. Furthermore, since such a participant never exists alone but only in a plural form, fundamental hope refers to an adverbial modality of “we” with an internal living bond, as Marcel’s intersubjective ontology suggests. To speak more radically, this “we” should be understood as an original oneness of a living intercorporeality, and fundamental hope is thus also an adverbial modality of this living intercorporeality. Therefore, fundamental hope is a mode that describes both how the particular internal participant exists and how the living intercorporeality exists, the former echoing the way of generation and transformation of particular beings in the philosophy of qi, and the latter the way of extension. In the former case, fundamental hope can be expressed as “I exist hopefully in us, through us, and for us,” and in the latter, in the formula of “we co-exist hopefully,” or “our living intercorporeality exists hopefully.” In both cases, fundamental hope is always a hopeful co-existence. This means that

Fundamental Hope in an Existentiality of In-betweenness

there is no such thing as a hopeful individual; instead, there are hopeful participants in a hopeful relation/reality and a hopeful living intercorporeality. This idea of living intercorporeality needs further explanation. As is introduced in Chapter 4, in Merleau-Ponty’s argument, two persons are compared to two hands from the same body. When one touches the other, it is at same time touched by the other. In this reversibility of sensibility, the two persons “co-exist” or “are compresent”, just “like organs of a single intercorporeality.”2 In everyday life, the phenomena of intercorporeality are found everywhere, for example, in the motherinfant relation3 or in I-tree relation that Ingold mentions. However, they are usually seen as some form of primitive and pre-reflexive “we” or as special moments in life. In hopeful co-existence, intercorporeality is no longer an aspect or moment in life. Through the conscious and persistent enactment of atmospheric co-existence, intercorporeality becomes a living body that has its own life. That is to say, it is a living body that is consciously grown from these “sprouts” of intercorporeality in everyday life and a living body that is consciously felt as a life. Therefore, a living intercorporeality is a meshwork of “we” that is animated, vitalized, and, to express it in Christian terminology, spiritualized. In this sense, fundamental hope describes not only how the life of an I as an internal participant is nourished in the living bond of “we,” but also the birth, growth, and thriving of “we” as a living intercorporeality. In daily life, a living intercorporeality can be a loving relationship, a friendship, a family, or a community. When experienced as living intercorporealities, they are no longer fixed relations and social institutions but become living bodies which grow, transform, and are renewed along the way. A living intercorporeality can be described as a new birth and a new life that is different from biological birth and life. In this sense, life has two layers of meaning in hopeful co-existence, one is the life of every particular internal participant and the other the life of the living intercorporeality. This thesis therefore suggests that what Marcel mentions as “thou” in his formula of hope “in thee – for us” can be understood as a living bond of intercorporeality, whereas “us” refers to the internal participants of I and you in particular. As will be argued in Chapter 6, this living intercorporeality is not necessarily understood in theological terms. However, the concept contains within it the possibility of deification.

2 See Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Signs (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1964), 166–177. 3 See Thomas Fuchs, Ecology of the Brain: The Phenomenology and Biology of the Embodied Mind (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), 177–180.

93

94

Fundamental Hope Revisited

5.2

Changing Metaphors from Light to Atmosphere

Understood as a conscious and persistent enactment of atmospheric co-existence in an atmospheric reality, fundamental hope can be compared to atmosphere – a group of interwoven metaphors of breathing, music, and meshwork. This new metaphor of atmosphere is more advantageous than the light-metaphor. 5.2.1 The Metaphor of Light in Hope In the current discourse on hope, light is a dominant metaphor. It is one of the most important metaphors and phenomena in Christianity. Light in this context is a symbol of happiness, wisdom, life, and salvation; it symbolizes what is true, good, beautiful, and finally, it symbolizes divine.4 Since God is Being and the highest degree of Good, God is usually compared to pure and essential light, out of whose radiance various beings and good things in this world come into being.5 Just as all living beings need sunlight to grow and prosper physically, the human soul needs the light of God in order to be nourished spiritually. Furthermore, just as physical light can dispel the darkness that brings fear and the threat of death to a living being, the spiritual light can light up the darkness of the lived moment. In this sense, hope is compared to light – a gift of God which brings salvation from the darkness of sin and death. Moreover, the philosophical understanding of hope is indebted to this light-metaphor in Christian hope, as can be seen for example, in Marcel. However, the metaphor of light has several problems. First, with its strong connection to wisdom and visual experience, this metaphor can easily be misunderstood as a one-sided emphasis on soul or consciousness. However, both Christian hope and the philosophical understanding of fundamental hope concerns human existence in toto, rather than a single dimension of it. Second, the light-darkness contrast reduces hope to a relative virtue that reveals its full significance only within the framework of trial.6 However, fundamental hope is not only the weapon used to fight against despair in the dark moments of life; it is primarily and essentially rooted in the superabundance of Being and life. Therefore, not only does it save us from despair but more importantly, it is situated at the core of life; it saturates each life experience and every living moment.

4 See Werner Dettloff, “Licht und Erleuchtung in der christlichen Theologie, besonders bei Bonaventura,” Wissenschaft und Weisheit 49 (1986): 140–149, 141. 5 Dettloff, Licht und Erleuchtung, 142. 6 See Gabriel Marcel, Homo Viator: Introduction to a Metaphysic of Hope, trans. Emma Craufurd (Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1951), 30.

Changing Metaphors from Light to Atmosphere

Third, the metaphor of light leaves a strong impression that the spes quae, for example salvation and liberation, happens eventually in a decisive moment in a blink of an eye. However, as already pointed out, fundamental hope does not happen in this way but rather has a duration. To conclude, although light is a widespread metaphor in the current discourse of hope, it is not an ideal one due to the its connotations of soul/consciousness, light-darkness contrast, and instantaneity. 5.2.2 Hope as Atmosphere Considering these inadequacies in the metaphor of light, atmosphere establishes itself as an alternative metaphor that can offer a more satisfying answer to these inadequacies. Concretely speaking, to compare fundamental hope to atmosphere means that hope is in the air. That is to say, hope lies neither in subjectivity nor in the realization of its object but in the void sphere in-between where the possibility of resonance and extension reside. Moreover, inspired by atmospheric co-existence, atmosphere consists of a group of interwoven metaphors, that is, breathing, music, and meshwork. First, atmospheric co-existence can be described as breathing co-existence, since it happens in the form of resonance, which implies a relation and activity of inner touch and interpenetration.7 In this sense, it can be metaphorically said that the tree and I in Ingold’s model of “coiling over” constitute one breath of intercorporeality, or as Bernhard Waldenfels expresses, “aliens penetrate us like the air that we breathe, that we breathe in and out, but cannot grip, grasp, or classify.”8 Furthermore, as breathing can be practiced and become deeper and deeper, this process of interpenetration can also become more and more profound. Second, atmospheric co-existence in terms of breathing also constitutes the basic rhythm of life in which our life blossoms. This basic rhythm is not merely a rhythmic

7 Breathing co-existence is to be distinguished from breathing existence. In his book Gut Mensch Sein, Böhme puts forward a version of breathing existence (Atmendsein) and breathing consciousness, which at first seems to be very similar to Ingold’s discussion on our being in the air. Here, Böhme points out that as a being of and in nature, we are essentially aerial beings (Luftwesen), and our existence is dependent on being-able-to-breathe (Atmen-können). However, similar to the logic of his concept of atmosphere, breathing existence is primarily a self-centered one; it focuses primarily on the question of how Dasein as nature itself experiences and understands its being-in-nature. Accordingly, breathing existence is also practiced by one single bodily subject, for example, in singing, swimming, or meditative breathing exercise. See Gernot Böhme, Gut Mensch sein: Anthropologie als Proto-Ethik (Dietzenbach: Graue Edition, 2016), 182, 187. 8 Bernhard Waldenfels, Topographie des Fremden (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1997), 84.

95

96

Fundamental Hope Revisited

back and forth but constitutes a rhythmic open circuit that pushes life forward.9 In this sense, the rhythm of atmospheric co-existence is not only rhythmic circulation but also rhythmic progression and extension. Third, as atmospheric co-existence leaves its traces on the way, it constitutes a space that resembles meshwork. As Ingold’s depiction of meshwork shows, it is not a space that is hardened into substance but a fabric with interstices and void inside and thus a breathable sphere. We both live in and out of this meshwork, and through this rhythmic in-and-out, the meshwork is further extended. Therefore, the meshwork of atmospheric co-existence reveals a living sphere of co-existence, in which temporality and spatiality are intrinsically connected. So understood, comparing fundamental hope to atmosphere means that fundamental hope is a rhythmic breathing activity of a living intercorporeality, which constitutes a breathable sphere of meshwork. Compared to the metaphor of light, the atmospheric one does not have the connotation of soul and consciousness; instead, the breathing activity concerns life in-between in all of its dimensions. Moreover, breathing is a prerequisite of everyday life in-between rather than what is only manifest in dark and desperate situations. In the metaphor of atmosphere, hopeful co-existence happens also primarily in everyday settings without necessarily feeling the darkness and trial of the present moment. Finally, breathing is a rhythmic process that happens as long as life in-between goes on. In this sense, the spes quae does not happen in a decisive moment but has a rhythmic duration.

5.3

Hopeful Co-existence in Patria and in Via

5.3.1 Hopeful Co-existence in Patria Hopeful co-existence first reveals the basic existential situation of human existence in patria. In hopeful co-existence, it is not a Dasein that makes the resolution to stand on its own but internal participants that find “fundamental existential assurance” in “the affirmation of an original link,” as Marcel points out. He further observes that “one could even say [it is] an umbilical link, which unites the human being, not to the world in general, which would mean nothing, but to a certain

9 Regarding this point, Ingold argues that “as with the coil, they do not go back and forth but round and round, such that the second movement finishes the circuit initiated by the first while preparing for the cycle following. It does not, however, close the circuit, since a body that has recovered its initial position is nevertheless, spatiotemporally, further on.” See Tim Ingold, The Life of Lines (London: Routledge, 2015), 87.

Hopeful Co-existence in Patria and in Via

determinate ambiance which is as concrete as a cocoon or a nest.”10 Understood in terms of an “umbilical link,” home (cocoon or nest in Marcel’s words) is neither a fixed location nor a possession but in atmospheric terms, a sphere constituted by internal resonant relation(s) of entangled lines. Commonly understood, home reflects the desire for stability and is often understood as the realm of unconditional peace and security. It is where we are unconditionally accepted and feel comfortably free to be ourselves. However, there is a certain blindness in such understanding of home. For Heidegger, such a comfortable and tranquilizing way of living leads directly to the average everydayness of Dasein, and we can lose ourselves in such everyday familiarity on which we do not reflect.11 This is why Heidegger criticizes the average everydayness of being-at-home and founds human existence on the more primordial mode of not-being-at-home. In the basic existential situation of not-being-at-home, all the familiar entanglements and meanings lose their relevance. Dasein is thus fetched “out of its entangled absorption in the ‘world’” and comes back to itself in “solus ipse.”12 However, in hopeful co-existence, home is not a static and enclosed sphere of peace and security but a living sphere of resonance with internal void. This meaning of home is vividly presented by Ryōsuke Ōhashi’s description of the structure of the Japanese house. He describes it as follows: Let us take a look at the structure of the Japanese house, which is manifested characteristically in the summer room (Sommer-Zimmer). There, the interior and the exterior are not strictly separated, as in the European houses, where this separation is of fundamental importance.… The window and the door must be closed in European houses in principle, while in the traditional Japanese house, the sliding door and sliding windows are allowed to remain half-open so that the wind can always blow in and out.”13

Enlightened by this architectural and anthropological example, the concept of home in hopeful co-existence can be understood as a breathing sphere with constant exchange of air and wind, and thus also with constant internal activities of resonance. As such a breathing sphere, it is not primarily a place for tranquil rest but a sphere

10 Joan Nowotny, “Gabriel Marcel’s Philosophy of Hope” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Toronto, 1974), 285. For a more well-known translation see Gabriel Marcel, Tragic Wisdom and Beyond, trans. Stephen Jolin and Peter McCormick (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1980), 38. 11 See Martin Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, 17th ed. (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1993), 188f. 12 See Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, 189. 13 Ryōsuke Ōhashi, “Inwieweit ist der ‚Wind‘ ein Morphom? Eine Figurationsdynamik der Kultur in Japan,” Morphomata, January 1, 2007, 287–306, 301.

97

98

Fundamental Hope Revisited

and ground that sustains life, and more specifically, the birth, growth, transformation, and resilience of life. In this sense, home can be compared to a womb. In the womb, the fetus is secure and comfortable not to be but to grow.14 Therefore, wombing is not merely giving shelter but always “wombing forth” that enables and assists life.15 Similarly, home is also a sphere for fostering and cultivation, living at home, children develop the most basic sense of comfort and trust so that they can explore the world freely and at ease within the ambiance of their parents. In this sense, the meaning of home does not lie solely in peace and security. Instead, it unfolds somewhere between security and freedom, and between composure and exuberant growth. On the one hand, home constitutes a ground that allows life to grow in security and composure. On the other, the security and composure of being at home does not imply enclosure and tranquility but leads to the freedom to grow. Moreover, this ground is not a substantial one but a dynamic one; it is the basic breathing rhythm of life and for life. In this sense, home should be fundamentally understood as a resonant activity of ground-building that creates the basic rhythm of life.16 For example, this activity can find its expression in Kuang-Ming Wu’s description of mutual accommodation. To give a very brief recount, in mutual accommodation I accommodate you by emptying myself and accepting who you are. This acceptance forms a space that invites you to live freely, and in response to this invitation, you accept my acceptance of you and live in this room. Reciprocally, your acceptance accommodates me since it builds a void “as an environment wherein I can breathe and have my being as a person,” and in accepting your acceptance of me, I also “nihilate” my own self and become a member of your room.17 Therefore, in mutual accommodation, we find ourselves not beside each other or one another but in interpenetration.

14 As Fuchs points out, the maternal organism constitutes the primary biological environment that is significant for the development of brain and the later development of the child’s personality. See Thomas Fuchs, Ecology of the Brain: The Phenomenology and Biology of the Embodied Mind (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), 177. 15 This idea of mutual wombing-forth is explained in Kuang-Ming Wu, “The Other Is My Hell; The Other Is My Home,” Human Studies 16, no. 1/2 (1993): 193–202. 16 Ingold conceptualizes this activity as inhabiting instead of dwelling, since the discourse of dwelling has a strong connotation of earthly romanticism and topophilia. See Tim Ingold, “Bindings against Boundaries: Entanglements of Life in an Open World,” Environment and Planning A 40, no. 8 (August 2008): 1796–1810. 17 See Wu. The Other Is My Hell; The Other Is My Home, 194f. A similar idea is also expressed by Marcel, when he says that “I must somehow make room for the other in myself.” Gabriel Marcel, Creative Fidelity, trans. Robert Rosthal (New York: Fordham University Press, 2002), 88.

Hopeful Co-existence in Patria and in Via

To further emphasize, such a rhythm of life is neither a soothing and tranquilizing one nor is it a repetition that leads to a rest in drowsiness. Instead, it is a robust and refreshing progression that motivates us to swing in co-existence, encourages us to be involved in more internal resonances, and gives us the energy to recover when facing dangers, sufferings, and dissonances. Therefore, home is not merely a protective shell that wraps us up against all dangers, sufferings, and dissonant relations but is a basic rhythm through which life grows and renews itself. Furthermore, as the rhythmic activity of resonance is not only a circulation back and forth but also a rhythmic extension, the home of hopeful co-existence is also a rhythmically growing sphere and ground. In this sense, it is both a home consisting of hopeful co-existence and a home in which hopeful co-existence flourishes further; it constitutes a reality in which ground becomes growth and growth becomes ground again, forming an ever-extending ground. Therefore, the home of hopeful co-existence is a growing process in which more participants and resonant relations are included. It is no longer a closed-up sphere where we find security and rest without any longing or dynamics. Instead, home is a sphere in which we feel opened up to the world and in the meantime world-opening, and it is also a sphere in which we can be refilled and refreshed in order that we may begin the process again. To conclude, the concept of home in hopeful co-existence changes its basic meaning from a tranquil familiarity and solid ground to the dynamic activity of resonance and a resonantly extending sphere. While in Heidegger’s existentiality, the dynamism of existence comes from the existential restlessness of not-being-athome, in hopeful co-existence, the dynamism resides precisely at home. Home in this context is a living ground and sphere that is somewhere we can take root and grow, rather than a place reserved for rest. 5.3.2 Hopeful Co-existence in Via Fundamental hope as hopeful co-existence does not happen in a moment once for all, but is a constant growing process and a lifelong project. Therefore, hopeful coexistence also reveals the basic existential situation of in via. As was demonstrated in the discussion of the philosophical concept of qi, when the activity of resonance goes smoothly, it leads to both the transformation of particular beings and to more possibilities of resonance. In this sense, it is a journey of “we” as a living intercorporeality from in-between to more possibilities of in-between. On this journey, the participants are constantly transformed along the way; there is no resting to become any kind of ossified “true” self. So understood, in hopeful co-existence, in via is the basic existential situation of life rather than a means towards the end. This point is made clear by Ingold’s explanation of wayfaring. For Ingold, wayfaring is not a planned journey that has a

99

100

Fundamental Hope Revisited

final destination but the creative process of humanifying.18 In this sense, wayfaring is the life itself, so that we do not need to reach any destination as a terminal that leads to real life. Ingold also uses the metaphor of swimming or ferrying,19 in this metaphor, hopeful co-existence is not swimming across the riverbank and finally regaining foothold on the solid ground. Instead, it is midstreaming along the river of life without ever landing on any solid ground. Furthermore, in via in hopeful co-existence does not mean we are temporarily engaged in an exciting trip faraway, with exotic and exhilarating experiences contrasting with the daily monotony of life; it is the “daily routine” itself. As Wu observes in his reflection upon the famous opening chapter of “free and easy wandering” of the Book of Zhuangzi, “to soar and to roam is an enjoyment of life that is not… a violent excitement but a daily routine, the constant Tao [Dao] of things. To soar is to live in the perspective of the sky. To roam is to rise and fly with things. Not to soar and roam is to suffer in life.”20 Moreover, through our daily wayfaring, ways come into being. Way, in this case is not a pre-existing substantial ground on which wayfaring takes place but the meshwork constituted by both the concrete resonant activities and internal void. Furthermore, this meshwork called way does not at some point finally sediment into a solid ground and a flat surface; it always remains “a mesh of interweaving lines”21 and a sphere that has interstices and void, so that breathing and further entanglement is possible. Wayfarers as the living lines ceaselessly thread their way through, contributing to the weave and texture of the way, growing out of it and weaving into it again, forming open circles and growing ways in via. In this sense, “way” in hopeful co-existence can be understood as a basic existential and ontological vocabulary.22 Whereas “way” in ordinary language generally refers to the sediment of traces and fixed tracks or what is constructed according to a blueprint, “way” in an existential sense is the ceaseless spontaneous activity of wayfaring and the living sphere of meshwork.

18 See Ingold, Life of Lines, 117. Here, Ingold has borrowed Ramon Llull’s Latin dictum of “Homo est animal homificans.” See Ramon Llull, Selected Works of Ramon Llull, trans. Anthony Bonner, vol. I (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985), 609. 19 See Tim Ingold, Anthropology and/as Education (London: Routledge, 2018), 61, and Ingold, Life of Lines, 147–153. 20 Kuang-Ming Wu, The Butterfly as Companion: Meditations on the First Three Chapters of the Chuang Tzu (Albany: SUNY Press, 1990), 83. 21 Tim Ingold, Lines: A Brief History (London: Routledge, 2007), 75. 22 The ontological concept of dao (道) in Chinese philosophy also implies this. It is important to note that dao and qi are foundational ontological concepts shared by almost all schools of thought in Chinese philosophy.

Hopeful Co-existence in Joy

5.3.3 Hopeful Co-existence in Via and in Patria As described above, the home of hopeful co-existence is not a static sphere, and neither is the way in hopeful co-existence a fixed track. They are all meshwork, that is, a breathing and growing ground/sphere constituted by dynamic activities of living and wayfaring. On the one hand, home/living emphasizes that hopeful co-existence always has a concrete beginning and anchorage. For example, in the Confucian understanding of family, in Martin Buber’s encounter of I-thou, and in the Christian church. It is the primordial sphere and basic rhythm in which a living intercorporeality is born and then grows into a spreading way. On the other hand, way/wayfaring lays more emphasis on the ceaseless growing process of an intercorporeality. So understood, intercorporeality is neither a dead structure nor a closed circle but a living body and an extending way itself. Moreover, with void inside, this extending way is also an open invitation of encountering and resonance, which can in turn be understood as a process of home-building. In this sense, home and way are not non-reconcilable contradictions in which one stands for arrival and settlement and the other for exile and refugee, or one for deadly everyday averageness and the other for living dynamism. Neither are they in a relationship of means towards end, in which wayfaring is described as a process of homecoming. In what is depicted above, they are intrinsically one process and one reality of hopeful co-existence. Furthermore, the oneness of these two is neither understood as two contradictory situations reconciled into a synthesis nor as two phases of a situation but is one reality. In this reality, home is an extending way, and wayfaring is our way of beingat-home. To describe it in the language of atmosphere, they both depict a reality of a breathable and growing sphere of meshwork, which is constituted by resonance.

5.4

Hopeful Co-existence in Joy

As depicted in the last section, hopeful co-existence reveals our basic existential situation of in patria and in via, which also reveals a process of the birth and growth of a living intercorporeality. In this section, this thesis will argue that this process is sentiently felt from within and consciously enjoyed, thereby saturated with an atmosphere of joy. This joy is not a typically light and relative one, but a foundational affective experience that can be described as a feeling of being alive. Moreover, our living and wayfaring together is a process of making music together. Joy, when understood in terms of music, also constitutes the basic attunement (Grundstimmung) of existence in-between.

101

102

Fundamental Hope Revisited

5.4.1 The Connection between Hope and Joy Hope and joy are closely connected and often appear together in traditional discourse. To give just a few examples, ordinary hope can be understood as either the joyous expectation of a certain spes quae or a general attitude of optimism. As already introduced in Chapter 2, understood as fundamental hope, hope is accompanied either by an armed joy or a patient joy. Moreover, when hope is incarnated into a “little girl hope” as in Charles Peguy’s poem, hope is characterized as the carefree joy of children.23 However, in all these understandings, joy in hope seems to be characterized by lightness and relativity. In the case of ordinary hope, joy is not always evaluated as good and positive, since some kinds of joy and optimism can be shallow, naïve, illusionary, blind, and even poisonous. Moreover, in the case of fundamental hope, joy is always accompanied by and in contrast to the painful suffering and darkness of the lived moment. In this context, joy in hope is either the proud resistance against suffering or patience in the face of suffering. Therefore, in the existentialist tradition, it seems that the negative feelings and affective predicaments such as Angst and boredom are more profound in revealing the basic existential situation of human Dasein. It is precisely these “heavy” feelings that endow existence with its ontological weight. However, this thesis argues against the idea that the joy which saturates hopeful co-existence is light and relative to its situation. Instead, it is a profound, extensive, and dynamic joy, without a necessary contrast to and resistance against suffering. 5.4.2 The Joy of Hopeful Co-existence This thesis further proposes that hopeful co-existence is intrinsically connected to joy. Hopeful co-existence is not a passive breathing process that happens without our noticing it but is internally felt, consciously practiced, and enjoyed. In this sense, the atmosphere of joy describes how hopeful co-existence affects and saturates its participants and how it is internally felt and enjoyed. First, this joy is characterized by “refreshing roominess” or “roomy composure,” as Wu wonderfully expresses.24 As shown in the basic situation of in patria, on the one hand, the rhythmic breathing activity of hopeful co-existence can bring us homey touches that is reliable and supportive, which puts us at ease and brings us composure; on the other hand, it is spontaneous and roomy, “so refreshing as

23 See Charles Peguy, The Portal of the Mystery of Hope, trans. David Louis Schindler Jr. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005). 24 See Kuang-Ming Wu, Story-Thinking: Cultural Meditations (New York: Nova Science, 2010), 340f.

Hopeful Co-existence in Joy

to give me room freely to be myself.”25 Therefore, the breathing activity lends us a relaxed rhythm that, while it supports and nourishes life, it also gives us freedom, motivation, and the strength to become and create. Accordingly, joy in “refreshing roominess” rests in the balance between security and freedom. It does not lean itself exclusively on security, otherwise it becomes dull and even suffocating, nor does it lie solely in freedom, where it would become threatening and thus anxiety-causing. Thus, this joy is neither a joy of tranquility nor a joy of ecstasy. It is exuberant yet relaxed; it is a feeling of being simultaneously at ease and alive. Second, it is characterized by a tone of smoothness. In hopeful co-existence, the activities of resonance go smoothly and leads to an ever more profound interpenetration. In this process, the participants feel both being touched deeply from within and touch others deeply from within. Since this process does not imply intermingling into a unity without difference, this feeling of smoothness does not mean a mystical oceanic feeling or a feeling of universal unity (Einsfühlung), in which “self ” is dissolved into an abstract and boundless universal whole. In this context, smoothness refers to a feeling of the smooth exchange of life in the concrete activity of resonance, in which the participants easily and freely transcend their own selves, living in the open and in a smooth resonance with others. Thirdly therefore, this joy is also characterized by soberness. We enjoy the process without losing the sense of our selves. We feel the growth of our own lines and the lines of others through the sober activity of resonance. If smoothness emphasizes how we feel this unity, then soberness highlights the feeling of particularity, both of our own self and that of others. In sum, joy in hopeful co-existence can be described as a foundational affective experience of being alive26 and breathing well, that is, relaxed and exuberant, smoothly and soberly. It is a conscious enjoyment of life in the concrete breathing activity of resonance and the resonant sphere of meshwork. Moreover, this joy can be understood as the basic attunement (Grundstimmung) of our life in-between; it is the music we make together through living and wayfaring together. It is worth noticing that in Chinese language, music and joy are expressed by the same character, 乐, and the ancient Chinese text Book of Music explicitly states

25 Wu, Story-Thinking, 341. 26 For this explanation of the feeling of being alive see Fuchs, The Phenomenology of Affectivity. Whereas Fuchs follows the Western tradition in arguing that the feeling of being alive is a subjective (in terms of lived body) experience that is rooted in self-preservation, in this thesis, this feeling is embedded in an existentiality of in-betweenness and refers to how hopeful co-existence saturates and affects its participants.

103

104

Fundamental Hope Revisited

that “music is joy (夫乐者,乐也).”27 So understood, joy is not merely one particular emotion among others that is expressed through music, but a description of the harmonious and smooth progression of music itself, which is always to be enjoyed. Therefore, in terms of the music we make together in hopeful co-existence, joy is a harmonious and smooth circulation, progression, and extension of resonance. Regardless of whether this music is played fast or slow, cheerfully or patiently, or whether it has a tone of suffering and trial, the music of hopeful co-existence never loses its smooth and harmonious pace. Freely and easily, smoothly and soberly, profoundly and extensively, this is perhaps what the music of life in-between sounds like. It is a joy in which unity and particularity, security and freedom are simultaneously felt and enjoyed. In this sense, hopeful co-existence can be described as the adverbial modality of joyous living/wayfaring together.

5.5

Hopeful Co-existence in Love and towards Life

5.5.1 Hopeful Co-existence in Love In previous chapters, two interpretations of love were presented – one in Marcel’s phenomenology of hope and the other in the Christian theological context of hope. Both argue that hope in its most profound sense is only possible in the context of love.28 It should be admitted that human love, like human hope, is almost always ambiguous; it is sometimes immature, sometimes sporadic, and sometimes only occurs out of the egoistic desire. However, from Marcel’s explanation of love and the Christian theological understanding of love, love is revealed in its full sense. To give a brief review, love in Marcel’s context is a transcendent act, a living communication, and an indestructible bond that culminates in the bold claim of “you will never die.” In the Christian theological context, love is the living event of the communio and perichoresis between the three divine persons, which is freely shared with others and thus extends towards more unity and diversity. Drawing on these insights, this

27 See Yue Ji, 10a, 13b. See the Chinese text in Wang Mengou 王梦欧. Liji Jinzhu Jinyi 礼记今注今译 (Tianjin: tianjian guji chubanshe, 1987). See also the introduction to The Book of Music in Kenneth DeWoskin, A Song for One or Two: Music and the Concept of Art in Early China (Ann Arbor: Center for Chinese Studies, 1982), 85–98. 28 Love in Marcel’s phenomenology of hope see 2.3 of this thesis, especially 2.3.3, and love in the Christian theological context of hope see 3.3.

Hopeful Co-existence in Love and towards Life

thesis argues that hopeful co-existence only finds its full expression in the form of communal love.29 In communal love, the resonant activities and entanglements are not some incidental events that come and go. Instead, they constitute an unbreakable living bond of “we,” so that each participant never exists outside of the resonant activity and resonant sphere. First, as a living bond, love is full of creativity. Resonance is not a fixed principle but the concrete evocative and spontaneous activity itself. Therefore, no activity of resonance in communal love is an imitation or repetition of the former but is a new creative activity. For human beings, such creativity is not merely accomplished out of our human instinct but must be learned in the love in which we are already involved. Children often respond to others by imitating their parents or other persons around them. However, this copy-cat form of response is not resonance in its real sense. It is only through the experience of communal love, for example, the love between parents and among other mature persons and through constant practice with others, that children gradually learn how to resonate in a creative manner and be engaged in a truly creative communal love. Second, this living bond of communal love is unbreakable. Resonance in communal love is not restricted by time and space. Apart from the direct forms of resonance, for example heartfelt face-to-face communication, there are many other less direct forms of resonance in communal love. This is demonstrated by the fact that what I do and the way in which I treat others in my life is always already permeated by my own internal relations. So understood, how I am engaged in the world and how I treat others are all implicit responses to my own internal relations. For example, when a little girl shares her treats or happiness with her friends in kindergarten, this act of sharing is not only an open invitation to her friends, but simultaneously a response to her relation to parents or other adults with whom she is in close relationship.30 Marcel’s claim of the immortality of the beloved one should also be understood in this sense.31 In communal love, the biological death of my lover does not mean the death of the bond of “we.” That is to say, this bond does not become a dead 29 To distinguish between human love in an ambiguous sense and the love conceived by both Marcel and Christian theology, the latter is called “communal love” in this thesis, since communion is a shared key concept for the understanding of love in both Marcel’s works and in Christian theology. 30 This not merely implies that it is the child’s parents who have taught her to share. Her parents may also be selfish, cold-hearted, or in extreme cases, even abusive. However, in each case, the little girl responds to her relationship with her parents by her act of sharing. In the case of the good parents, she responds in a positive manner by passing down the good act, and in the case of the selfish or abusive parents, she responds in a resistant manner by refusing to repeat the way of her parents. 31 Marcel sometimes describes it in terms of telepathy, for example, in Gabriel Marcel, The Mystery of Being, Volume I: Reflection and Mystery, trans. G. S. Fraser (South Bend: St. Augustine’s Press, 2001),

105

106

Fundamental Hope Revisited

event in my life with which I no longer resonate. In my life, what I do and how I treat others is still the way I resonate with my biologically dead lover. Through these living activities of resonance, I am able to renew and keep alive this bond. Therefore, although resonance cannot happen directly in this case and it seems that something is forever lost in my life, the intercorporeality of “we” still lives and transforms itself into other forms of internal loving relationships with others. This love echoes the Christian divine love, in which the activity of giving back is simultaneously an activity of passing the gift forward to others. In the case of the death of the beloved one, the bond is kept alive by passing this love forward to others, which is simultaneously an act of giving back that nourishes the living intercorporeality. Thirdly therefore, communal love is also positively constituted by the void within. In this sense, communal love is characterized by openness and extension. It is not a closed-up relation between lovers protected by walls and communicated by some secret language. Understood as a fortress that encloses the relation more and more as love grows, it will end up as a suffocating prison. In contrast, communal love becomes firm and unbreakable, not through enclosure and protection, but through opening and extension. Therefore, communal love constantly keeps the bond as an open meshwork – a breathable sphere that invites more participation. It is a process of opening, a way that constantly leading to other persons, other directions, other scenery, and a more extensive life world and life story. To conclude, hopeful co-existence can only be fully expressed in communal love. In communal love, resonance is understood as essential activity that proceeds creatively without ceasing – it constitutes an indestructible living bond. In this process, communal love makes intercorporeality truly alive, instead of being only a briefly highlighted moment of delight, an embryonic being, or a dead body halfway. Furthermore, communal love keeps this living bond as an open meshwork, where more possibilities of resonances reside. In the context of communal love, the adverbial modality of hopeful co-existence is further described as joyous living/ wayfaring together in love. 5.5.2 Hopeful Co-existence towards Life Recalling Watsuji’s words that “in the individual’s eyes, it is a case of ‘being-towardsdeath,’ but from the standpoint of society it is ‘being-towards-life,’”32 at this point, this thesis argues that only when social life is understood as the indestructible living 182. This thesis holds that the atmospheric description is a more plausible explanation than this somewhat mystical approach. 32 Tetsuro Watsuji, Climate and Culture: A Philosophical Study, trans. Geoffrey Bownas (New York: Greenwood, 1961), 10.

Hopeful Co-existence in Love and towards Life

bond of “we” and living intercorporeality can our life become a hopeful co-existence and be experienced as a being-towards-life. Hopeful co-existence is not a hope for a specific love but hopeful co-existence in love. Hope for specific love is an ordinary hope that disappears when its spes quae is fulfilled. In contrast, hopeful co-existence in love is an unending project in which every fulfillment is a new beginning. As Robert Jenson points out, it “is itself hope for new opportunity of love.… To love some person is to accept in advance the surprises he or she will bring to me, as revelations of my own proper good.”33 This constantly rebirth of hope in love can be vividly demonstrated by the following Japanese Haiku – “living in Kyoto, at the call of the cuckoo, I long for Kyoto.” Waldenfels quotes it to explain the alienness inside the very things that are familiar to us. In his understanding, the familiar call of the bird can “startle us out of what is common or ordinary.”34 However, in the author’s reading of the Haiku, a contrast between the familiar and the alien in the same call of the cuckoo is not necessarily implied. The call of the bird in the sphere called home can also be the call for more love, more entanglement, and more meaning born out of this sphere. In communal love, we have a feeling of breathing well and continue to have a longing to breathe more extensively, firmly, and deeply. Thus, in this experience of freshness inside the things that are familiar, no tension of the alien and the familiar are felt. Instead, what is felt is the growth of love and the strengthening of our living bond. Therefore, in communal love, hopeful co-existence never stops at some final aim but always extends and renews itself. In communal love, we never stop longing for the surprise of the beloved, for the creative growth and strengthening of our living bond, and for more openness that invites more others to participate in our love. In this context, the ceaseless longing does not come from a life that is currently lacking. It does not imply that we currently possess less life and are therefore in a situation of lack. On the contrary, this longing comes precisely from life in superabundance. Life in superabundance is not a supermarket with countless products from which one can choose at any time; it is not ready-made but continuously enacted, realized, and extended by hopeful co-existence. In this sense, it is a life in continuous realization that always leads to more possibilities of life. Moreover, life in superabundance is not a final state that rests in peace but includes the possibility of going back to the creative moment of emergence. This is not a single moment in which all the possible meanings and lives are condensed, but the continual renewal that allows life to grow along the way. So understood, life in superabundance is precisely our dynamic hopeful co-existence in communal love, which constitutes a

33 Robert W. Jenson, Systematic Theology, Vol. 2: The Works of God (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), 321. 34 Bernhard Waldenfels, The Question of the Other (Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 2007), 10f.

107

108

Fundamental Hope Revisited

fertile ground that ceaselessly accommodates and assists more meanings and life to be born and to grow. Therefore, hopeful co-existence implies a life that is conceived and lived as a life in superabundance. In such a life, we are steeped in and enwrapped by the pulsation of life and become part of it by growing into its texture. Building on the content of previous sections, it can be said that hopeful co-existence is our ceaseless joyous living/wayfaring in love and towards life.

5.6

Hopeful Co-existence as Virtue

In this section, this thesis argues that hopeful co-existence is a virtue – not merely one of the moral virtues understood in a narrow sense, but a virtue that concerns the whole of humanity. It is a good way of co-existence that points to the possibility of the good and reveals the beauty of humanity. From this adverbial modality, several moral directions can be given concerning the common reality, alienness, and the self. 5.6.1 Hopeful Co-existence as a Good Way of Co-existence Understood as a joyous living/wayfaring together in love and towards life, hopeful co-existence is a good way of existence that concerns not merely one single dimension of human being but the whole of humanity. As already claimed in Chapter 1, fundamental hope is what makes human life humane; it is not a scientific description of what human being is but an anthropological exploration of how we desire to (wollen) and should (sollen) live humanely.35 Since hopeful co-existence is an adverbial modality of in-betweenness, it explores what is humane in-between. As Dalferth points out, “it is an indicator of humanity in the human community.”36 In hopeful co-existence, humanity is not understood from any substance or fixed principle but from the activity and possibility of resonance. In this context, humanity is what develops into concrete forms and is transformed through resonance. Therefore, the internal participants do not have a fixed humanity that is already programmed into their being at the time of their birth. Instead, humanity in hopeful co-existence is in becoming, growth, renewal, and transformation. In Mühling’s

35 See Ingolf U. Dalferth, Selbstlose Leidenschaften: Christlicher Glaube und menschliche Passionen (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013), 266f. 36 See Dalferth, Selbstlose Leidenschaften, 271.

Hopeful Co-existence as Virtue

words, human beings undergo a humanifying adventure.37 In this sense, what is humane in hopeful co-existence does not have a fixed answer but always becomes and is transformed in hopeful co-existence; in it lies the possibility of the good rather than a good we already know. Moreover, in hopeful co-existence, the possibility of good lies in-between, that is, in the void spheres of atmospheric co-existence. Humanity on this basis is revealed only in-between; it is rooted in-between and grows in-between. In this sense, humanity in hopeful co-existence is better understood as co-humanity, that is to say, it is not the product of any individual moral agent but a co-creation and a fruit of in-betweenness. Therefore, the goodness of hopeful co-existence is not a question of the moral judgments and decisions of agent but a question of co-existence – a question of what the high-quality life in-between is. To be specific, the high-quality life that hopeful co-existence reveals is the music we create together out of our daily life in-between. As already explained, hopeful co-existence does not refer to some primitive symbiosis or to particular parts of life; these forms of intercorporeality are the factical situation we are thrown into. In contrast, hopeful co-existence needs our creative and conscious participation. Cohumanity in hopeful co-existence is not a passive development of life in-between but the artwork we creatively make together. In this sense, hopeful co-existence can be sharply contrasted with a life that is lived in the monotony of everydayness in society.38 Understood as the music we make creatively and consciously, the goodness of hopeful co-existence is not primarily a moral goodness but implies the beauty of co-humanity. Therefore, defining hope as a virtue in this context means that hopeful coexistence is a good way of co-existence enacted creatively and consciously inbetween. It is a humanifying adventure from daily life in-between into the possibility of the good, which reveals the beauty of co-humanity. 5.6.2 Hopeful Co-existence as Moral Directions Hopeful co-existence can also give us concrete moral directions for daily life. Again, these directions are not for a moral agent but for participants in a common atmospheric reality.

37 Markus Mühling, “The Humanifying Adventure,” in Verbs, Bones, and Brains: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Human Nature, ed. Agustín Fuentes and Aku Visala (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2017), 104–113. 38 Such existential possibility is expressed by Heidegger as the everyday averageness of anyone (das Man). See Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, § 27. For Heidegger, such possibility belongs to a Dasein. However, extending the argument made in Chapter 4, this thesis argues that such a possibility is a social one and should better be weighed on the scale of in-betweenness.

109

110

Fundamental Hope Revisited

First, according to hopeful co-existence, we are responsible for a common reality. In this context, to act morally means to keep the irreducibility of resonance. Common reality is neither built on commonality nor takes commonality as a final aim; it is an on-going process of resonance – a reality in realization without ossification. Understood in terms of resonance, the common reality and the coherence of living with others does not lie in a fixed common ground and common goal. In hopeful co-existence, we do not live together due to our being made of the same substance or our following of a common principle, but only in resonance. That is to say, for everyone who wants to live with others in a common reality, consensus is neither the foundation nor the ultimate hope, but something that is achieved and transformed in the process. Moreover, what is made out of hopeful co-existence is neither a solid ground on which we find our place to stand nor a common consensus according to which we regulate our behavior, but the music of togetherness. Common reality can only be understood in this musical sense in hopeful co-existence. Moreover, to act morally for a common reality means that we should keep it as a breathable and living reality. In this sense, to act morally means to pay attention to the void spheres in our common reality and to ensure they are always open. The aim of this common reality is to create a breathable common lifeworld, which accommodates both commonality and alienness, allows every participant inside to grow freely and creatively, and invites more others to participate. Furthermore, to make our common reality alive also means to make it a fertile ground and womb of new meanings and values. This can be done for example, by the creative friendship described by Wu. For Wu, the creative friendship is “the reciprocal, respectful and responsible cocreation of values.”39 Moreover, values can be “measured,” accepted, or rejected according to creative friendship, namely, “those values are best when they best exalt the creative friendship.”40 Second, according to hopeful co-existence, we are responsible for alienness, multiplicity, and diversity. To act morally in this sense means that I must first acknowledge that others are fellow co-walkers and the co-creators of my own identity; they are neither something outside my own existence nor my instruments or possessions. However, the participation of others is not achieved through coercion but by invitation. I can evoke and stimulate others, but I cannot force them to follow any “rule of resonance,” because resonance never has a fixed rule. Furthermore, to act morally concerning our responsibility for others means to keep the irreducibility of their alienness. As Waldenfels emphasizes, true alienness is

39 Kuang-Ming Wu, “Are Persons Replaceable?,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 29, no. 2 (1968): 245–256, 255f. 40 Wu, Are Persons Replaceable, 254.

Hopeful Co-existence as Virtue

radically irreducible; it is “beyond meaning and rule.”41 This does not mean that the alienness is inaccessible. In hopeful co-existence, the most appropriate way to approach others is in resonant relation, rather than by representation or established theories. In resonance, the alien is attended and responded to. In this process, others are not something completely hidden and inaccessible but appear concretely in resonance; it is concrete yet not fully grasped by any rules or subjective abilities. Therefore, the responsibility for others means resisting the temptation of refusing to invite others to co-create my own identity, while also resisting the temptation of controlling and manipulating others. Third, according to hopeful co-existence, we are responsible for our own identity. To act morally in this sense means to acknowledge that self-identity is only created, nourished, and transformed in the common reality. The self is not primarily an absolute center that should be preserved and made integral; instead, it is primarily a creative internal participant of hopeful co-existence which receives its own identity as a gift of co-creation. In this sense, self-identity is a gift of hopeful co-existence rather than something that is completely created on one’s own. In this sense, Dalferth defines philosophical hope as “our sense for the gift of the possibility of the good.”42 Moreover, to receive the gift, we should live our life as an open line rather than a closed circle. As the metaphor of meshwork depicts, in atmospheric reality, we are originally not circles that can be opened and closed up but open lines that can be closed up to form closed circles thereafter. Thus, to act morally in this context means to keep oneself constantly open and resist the temptation of living life as a closed circle. Life as a circle may offer a sense of security, but it comes at the price of sacrificing the possibility of true identity in resonance. Finally, self-identity in hopeful co-existence is also a long and difficult ontological task43 that requires practice. As already argued, communal love as the ground and guarantee of hopeful co-existence is not something written in our genes. It can only be learned and practiced along the way. Only through learning and practicing can communal love mold our identity in a more and more profound way, and can this identity become our undisputed essence.

41 Bernhard Waldenfels, “From Intentionality to Responsivity,” in Phenomenology Today: The Schuwer Spep Lectures, 1998–2002, ed. Rudolf Bernet and Daniel J. Martino (Pittsburgh: Simon Silverman Phenomenology Center, Duquesne University, 2003), 30. 42 See Ingolf U. Dalferth, “Gemeinsam hoffen. Grundlinien einer menschlichen Orientierungsweise,” in Die Kunst des Hoffens: Kranksein zwischen Erschütterung und Neuorientierung (Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 2016), 116–154, 117. Emphasis added. 43 See Kuang-Ming Wu, On the “Logic” of Togetherness: A Cultural Hermeneutic (Leiden: Brill, 1998), 130.

111

112

Fundamental Hope Revisited

5.6.3 The Desperate Ways of Existence Finally, in contrast to hopeful co-existence, this thesis enumerates several unhopeful ways of existence. Some of these are clearly felt as desperate, while others are a result of our daily living without a firm devotion to life in-between. a) Situating fundamental hope in self-centered existentiality Hope in this context is understood as the virtue, ability, activity, quality, or mental state that belongs to an individual subject, a moral agent, a biological organism, or a neural network. So understood, hope loses its ground and guarantee and is in danger of becoming false. For example, as a wishful fantasy or a blind consolation. Furthermore, such an understanding only presents a shortened version of hope, since in a hopeful co-existence, hope is both the adverbial modality of a living intercorporeality and of its internal participants; it is the possibility that makes both alive. In contrast, hope on an individual basis can only make alive the individual itself. b) Un-in-between possibilities Just as there are both inauthentic and authentic possibilities in a self-centered existentiality, in existentiality of in-betweenness there are possibilities that are more in-between and possibilities that are un-in-between. To name a few un-in-between possibilities: 1. Being prisoned in the self and refusing to be engaged in relations with others. In this case, open and growing lines of life are lived as closed boundaries, forming various internal spaces that block the breathing activities of resonance and interpenetration. 2. Indulging in external relations, for example, the relations of Having described by Marcel in Chapter 2. 3. Engaging in relations led by a pre-existing and fixed principle. Persons who are engaged in such relations are dominated by social conventions and prejudices, for example, those who cling stubbornly to the Confucian dogma of filial piety. This relation can also be described in Heidegger’s terminology of anyone (das Man) who mingles in the masses without truly resonating with others. 4. Being prisoned in internal relations. For example, the intimate relations protected by walls and communicated through a secret language. In this situation, the open and growing meshwork is lived as a closed-up sphere that is solely for preservation, and internal relation is therefore not shared or extended. When this happens, internal relations become suffocating, the enjoyment of inter-

Hopeful Co-existence as Virtue

nal relations becomes an indulgence, and finally, the living intercorporeality becomes a dead body. 5. Dissonant internal relations such as envy, hostility, enmity, and hatred. As Wu suggests, hostility and enmity are not the kind of external relations found in Buber’s I-it but are internal relations in their dissonant forms.44 In this case, the participants allow themselves to be defined by dissonance rather than resonance. c) The ambiguity of human hope As mentioned many times in this thesis, hopeful co-existence is a devoted life that is unambiguously rooted in-between; it is a life project rather than some flickering moments of life. However, as human beings, we do not always live in this unambiguous manner; we constantly change our existential coordination without noticing it. That is to say, sometimes we care about ourselves, sometimes we are altruistic and care about the lives of others, and sometimes we live in-between, without taking root in any of these orientations. Therefore, humans hope in different ways, from different positions, and out of different considerations. These different ways are often mixed together, and in this sense, human hope is almost always ambiguous.

44 Regarding this point, Wu argues that “strangely, it is our humanity which enables enmity to manifest itself; enmity obtains only between the human I and the personal you, and has nothing to do with Martin Buber’s I-It relation, which has no room for personal hostility.” Wu, The Other Is My Hell; The Other Is My Home.

113

6.

Resonating with Confucian and Christian Traditions

In this chapter, the central doctrine of Confucianism – co-humanity (ren 仁) is introduced as a concrete way of hopeful co-existence, which is a response to the widespread belief that the topic of hope is more or less absent from Confucian tradition. Furthermore, with the introduction of hopeful co-existence in the vocabulary of atmosphere, Christian theological hope can also be reformulated as the entanglement of divine way of hopeful co-existence within and out of trinity, and as human way of hopeful co-existence within and towards God.

6.1

The Confucian Way of Hopeful Co-existence

In the history of Chinese thought, there appears to be little trace of the theme of hope. Current discussions of hope among Chinese academics are restricted to Western frameworks and are expounded either as a philosophical version of the expectation of future good or as a literal translation of Christian theological hope. It seems that traditional Chinese thought, and Confucianism in particular, care more about tradition than about the future. It therefore seems doubtful that hope can find any theoretical foundation, support, and proof in Confucianism. In this section, this thesis will argue that understood in the framework of eschatology (regardless of whether it is a Christian eschatology or philosophical derivatives from the Christian eschatology), hope appears to be a foreign concept in Confucianism. However, understood as hopeful co-existence, fundamental hope has not been neglected or marginalized in Confucian tradition at all. Instead, it belongs to the most central theme of Confucianism, the doctrine of co-humanity (ren 仁). This section is a brief reformulation of Confucian doctrine of co-humanity (ren 仁) as a way of hopeful co-existence. 6.1.1 Ren (仁) as Co-humanity Anglo-American academics generally translate the Confucian concept of ren (仁) as love, benevolence, or human-heartedness.1 As the most foundational concept and central theme of Confucianism, ren has many layers of meaning and can be roughly summarized in three points. First, ren can be understood as the feeling of

1 For alternative translations see Huaiyu Wang, “Ren and Gantong: Openness of Heart and the Root of Confucianism,” Philosophy East and West 62, no. 4 (November 2, 2012): 463–504.

116

Resonating with Confucian and Christian Traditions

affection and compassion. Second, ren refers to human virtue – not merely a moral virtue of love but the virtue of all virtues that makes human life humane. Third, through the efforts of Neo-Confucian scholars in the Song and Ming Dynasties, ren became an ontological concept. As an ontological concept, it reveals a cosmological and ontological unity of the universal body, which is demonstrated in the doctrine of “being one body with the universe (wanwu yiti万物一体).” Etymologically speaking, the Chinese graphic structure of ren (仁) consists of two parts; human (亻) and two (二). As Peter Boodberg points out, the translations of benevolence or human-heartedness ignore the “dual-plural overtone” in this concept, and according to its constitution of “two” and “human,” he suggests translating ren as “co-humanity,” “co-human,” and “co-humanize [oneself].”2 In this sense, ren, whether as a feeling, a virtue or an ontological unity, should be understood in a social and relational context.3 Firstly in this sense, ren as co-humanity refers to inter-human affection and compassion, not in a psychological sense but in an atmospheric sense, as inner touch and resonance.4 As will be discussed, Mencius’ understanding of compassion as the sprout of ren opens up a primordial sphere of resonance and interpenetration from which a way grows. Second, the virtue of ren is a virtue of co-humanity that constitutes the essence of what it means to be human.5 That is to say, co-humanity is not merely a specific

2 See Peter A. Boodberg, “The Semasiology of Some Primary Confucian Concepts,” Philosophy East and West 2, no. 4 (1953): 317–332. 330. Thaddeus Hang also explains that the original meaning of this word is “affection held between two persons,” and “its most fundamental meaning is the earliest experience of interpersonal relationship.” Therefore, translations such as humanity and benevolence are therefore inadequate to convey this meaning. He recommends translating ren as “dianthropy” or “interpersonality.” See Thaddeus T’ui-chieh Hang, “Jen Experience and Jen Philosophy,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 42, no. 1 (1974): 53–65, 56. 3 Regarding this point, Wing-Tsit Chan argues that “jen [ren] becomes meaningless unless it is involved in actual human relationships.” Wing-Tsit Chan, “The Evolution of the Confucian Concept Jen,” Philosophy East and West 4, no. 4 (1955): 295–319, 311. 4 Fingarette points out that there is a tendency to “psychologize” ren as the attitudes, feelings, wishes, and will of an individual subject. He regards this tendency as misleading, arguing that “the metaphor of an inner psychic life, in all of its ramifications so familiar to us, simply isn’t present in the Analects, not even as a rejected possibility.” Herbert Fingarette, Confucius: The Secular as Sacred (Long Grove: Waveland, 1998), 45. 5 It is manifest in the fact that human (人) is inherent in the graphic structure of ren (仁), and both have the same pronunciation. This point is also clearly expressed by Mencius (372–289 BC), a prominent disciple and saint of Confucianism, as the formula of “ren is human (仁也者,人也).” See Mencius, Mencius, Book VII, Part B, 16. The Chinese text see Zhu Xi 朱熹. Sishu Zhangju Jizhu四书章句集 注 [Collected Commentaries on the Four Books]. (Beijing: zhonghua shuju, 2010) and the English translation see Mencius, Mencius, trans. D. C. Lau (London: Penguin, 2005). The modern Confucian scholar Hwa Yol Jung also argues that ren as co-humanity “is a constitutive element or ontological

The Confucian Way of Hopeful Co-existence

virtue that a particular moral agent has, but concerns “what is quintessentially human” and “the human quality of man.”6 Moreover, as Hwa Yol Jung points out, “to say that jen [ren] is the essence of human existence is to insist that ‘existence is coexistence.’”7 So understood, ren as a virtue refers to what is the best possible out of our co-existence. Third, in terms of co-humanity, the universal body of ren is neither a spiritual state nor a metaphysical claim deduced from a moral order, but a living intercorporeality and a way of co-humanity in its concrete growth and extension. In this sense, ren can be seen as a description of a concrete way of hopeful co-existence. 6.1.2 Compassion as the Concrete Beginning of Co-humanity (Ren) The concrete beginning, or more vividly the sprout of co-humanity (ren),8 is described by the great Confucian scholar Mencius (372–289 BC) as compassion (ceyin zhixin 恻隐之心); in his words, “a heart sensitive to the suffering of others.”9 For Mencius, this heart of compassion is demonstrated in a scene in which a man suddenly sees a young child about to fall into a well. Mencius says in this case that “he would certainly be moved to compassion” regardless of his own benefits and reflection.10 According to François Jullien, in Confucian context, compassion is not understood as a question of mental representation or projection; such understandings are built on the assumption of an isolated individual.11 In Jullien’s words, compassion is understood in terms of trans-individuality and trans-emotionality.12 Understood in this way, the emotion of compassion becomes an e-motion that penetrates the heart of the man in Mencius’ story and motivates him to react. Penetrated and motivated, the man feels himself being thrown out of himself before he comes back to himself; that is to say, before he can calculate his own benefits and reflect what the child feels.13 The man in the story becomes a de-centered existence in-between

structure of man, i.e., being human.” Hwa Yol Jung, “Jen: An Existential and Phenomenological Problem of Intersubjectivity,” Philosophy East and West 16, no. 3/4 (1966): 169–188. 6 Jung, Jen: An Existential and Phenomenological Problem of Intersubjectivity. 7 Jung, Jen: An Existential and Phenomenological Problem of Intersubjectivity. 8 From this point on, ren will be translated as co-humanity. 9 See Mencius, Mencius, Book II, Part A, 6. 10 See Mencius, Mencius, Book II, Part A, 6. 11 This Western approach to compassion is described by Jullien in François Jullien, Dialog über die Moral: Menzius und die Philosophie der Aufklärung, trans. Ronald Voullié (Berlin: Merve, 2003), 33–38. 12 See Jullien, Dialog über die Moral, 42. 13 See Jullien, Dialog über die Moral, 42.

117

118

Resonating with Confucian and Christian Traditions

who perceives the whole situation neither within himself nor in some mystical way within that child, but, in Ingold’s words, in the air. Moreover, according to Lisheng Chen, this experience of being thrown out of oneself opens up a primordial “sphere of resonance and interpenetration (gantong chang感通场),” in which one is co-present with others and all things among heaven and earth. In this field, lives are interpenetrated, and thus, one is bound to be affected and motivated by others. Therefore, in this sphere, lives are engaged in the activity of resonance and are interpenetrated.14 In this case, it is neither the activity of representation and projection, nor the same feeling, but the resonant activity that brings the man and the child into a coherent communicative unity. In such sphere, we are no longer defined by our consciousness and ability but become breathing beings that are steeped in by this resonant and interpenetrated co-existence. As Jullien formulates it, “what connects us is our participation together in existence – in this life-stream that passes through us and trembles us.”15 Therefore, in the Confucian context, the phenomenon of compassion is not a feeling shared through representation or projection but a resonant activity that throws one out of oneself and forms a common living sphere. In this way, it reveals the basic existential possibility of co-existence. So understood, compassion is also possible between humans and animals.16 To give an example from a Chinese television show, a man called Qingshan tells the audience a story about how he became a wildlife protector in the African savanna. Qingshan formerly worked as a diplomat in Tanzania and had a passion for wildlife photography. During one tour, he saw a weak lioness with a broken spine lying behind the bush, next to the lioness sat her starving cub. When Qingshan saw the eyes of the lioness, he immediately understood that she was requesting help from him. However, according to the rules of the savanna, only wild animals that have been injured by human attack can be rescued by human. Unfortunately, it was inferred that this lioness had been injured in a buffalo hunt. After struggling with himself on what to do, Qingshan returned to the campsite without trying to help the lioness and her cub. However, the lioness’ gaze was burning in his mind. Very early the next day, Qingshan could not resist driving back to the place where he had seen the lioness, only to find that she and her baby already dead. Ever since

14 See Lisheng Chen陈立胜. “Ceyin zhixin: ‘tonggan,’ ‘tongqing’ yu ‘zaishijidiao’” 恻隐之心: ‘同感 ,’ ‘同情’ 与 ‘在世基调’ [“Heart of Compassion: empathy, sympathy and Befindlichkeit”]. Zhexue yanjiu哲学研究 12 (2011): 19–27. Jullien also expresses a similar idea, see Jullien, Dialog über die Moral, 43. 15 See Jullien, Dialog über die Moral, 43. 16 Mencius also gives an example of a king who sets free an ox destined for a sacrificial ceremony, because he “cannot bear to see it shrinking with fear.” See Mencius, Mencius, Book I. Part A, 7.

The Confucian Way of Hopeful Co-existence

then, he felt the constant stabbing of the lioness’ gaze, and eventually gave up his job as a diplomat to begin a career in wildlife conservation. During this encounter, on one side is a male human, and on the other a female animal. It could be argued that Qingshan wanted to save the lioness because every human understands the pain of losing one’s own child more or less. However, what Qingshan clearly felt at that moment was not the pain as if he loses his own child, but the stabbing of the lioness’s gaze, which motivated him to return later in order to help. Moreover, this look in the eye did not disappear with the death of the lioness; it still penetrates him and stimulates him whenever he does his job as a wildlife protector and is there as he lives his life. Although this encounter between Qingshan and the lioness lasted for only a short moment, this gaze transcended the situation, called him incessantly, and stimulated him to commit his life to wildlife conservation. Understood in this way, this story between Qingshan and the lioness can be seen as an example of the immortality of the beloved one. Finally, it should be emphasized that compassion in a Confucian context is not served as an objective proof of a universal co-existence, as if after experiencing compassion, we do not need to do anything further and merely take oneself and the world as a universal unity from then on. In the Confucian context, compassion as the sprout of co-humanity (ren) marks the beginning of the possibility of “being one body with the universe.” As will be shown in the next section, this possibility of a universal body is not merely a metaphor or spiritual state but a long extending way of co-humanity (ren).17 6.1.3 One Body with the Universe According to the doctrine of co-humanity (ren) developed by Neo-Confucian scholars, a man of co-humanity (renzhe仁者) has the possibility of “being one body with the universe (wanwu yiti万物一体).”18 In this context, the concept of qi is fundamental to the coherence of this universal body. The basic argument is that a man or woman of co-humanity (renzhe) can regard “heaven and earth and all things as one body,” the unity and coherence of which is achieved by the function of

17 For Mencius, compassion as the sprout of co-humanity (ren) must be continually nourished and extended. See Mencius, Mencius, Book II, Part A, 6. If co-humanity (ren) is not nourished, it will not grow but wither away. See Mencius, Mencius, Book VI, Part A, 8. “Given the right nourishment there is nothing that will not grow, and deprived of it there is nothing that will not wither away.” 18 Zhang Zai expounds this doctrine in his famous argument of “minbao wuyu (民胞物与),” that is, “all people are my brothers and sisters, and all things are my companions.” This initiative was adopted by most of the later Neo-Confucians and eventually developed into the famous “formula” of “one body with the universe.” See Lai Chen陈来. Renxue bentilun仁学本体论 [Ontology of Ren]. (Beijing: shanlian shudian, 2014), 282.

119

120

Resonating with Confucian and Christian Traditions

qi flowing through them. This relation is expressed by the Neo-Confucian scholar Cheng Hao (程颢1032–1085) as follows: A book on medicine describes paralysis of the four limbs as absence of ren. This is an excellent description. The man of co-humanity (ren) regards heaven and earth and all things as one body. To him there is nothing that is not himself. Since he has recognized all things as himself, can there be any limit to his humanity? If things are not part of the self, naturally they have nothing to do with it. As in the case of paralysis of the four limbs, qi no longer penetrates them, and therefore they are no longer parts of the self.19

In this text, “one body with the universe (heaven, earth, and all things)” can be seen as a “great body,” which is analogous to our own “small body.”20 Using this basic analogy, Cheng Hao explains that the absence of ren in Chinese means both the “paralysis of four limbs” in medical terms and the absence of the virtue of co-humanity. When one’s limbs are paralyzed, one loses the ability to feel the pain due to the blocking of qi; correspondingly, when one does not feel others as a part of oneself, then it is as if the great body is paralyzed. Following the predominant understanding of qi in terms of substantial ontology, the relation between qi and co-humanity (ren) as “great body” can be explained as that of the substantial basis for a spiritual state. In many Neo-Confucian texts, “one body with the universe” is often described as the “achieved state (jingjie境界)” of a sage.21 For Chen, this achieved state is no more than a spiritual state that belongs to the inner soul of a subject. On this basis, he argues that the spiritual state of “being one body with the universe” must be substantialized by the concept of qi.22 In other words, the great body of co-humanity (ren) is a subjective state, and qi is objective proof that confirms it as an ontological reality of a great body of universe. However, as already argued, qi as the ontological foundation in Zhang Zai’s context should not be understood in terms of substantial ontology. Qi as a concrete

19 “医书言手足痿痹为不仁,此言最善名状。仁者,以天地万物为一体,莫非己也。认得为己, 何 所不至? 若不有诸己,自不与己相干。如手足不仁,气已不贯,皆不属己。人之一肢病,不知痛 痒谓之不仁,人之不仁亦犹是也.” Original text see Cheng Hao 程颢, Cheng Yi 程颐. Ercheng ji二 程集 [The Collected Works of Cheng Hao and Cheng Yi] (Beijing: zhonghua shuju, 1981). Translation see Wing-Tsit Chan, trans., A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969), 530. Translation modified. 20 This distinction between “great body” and “small body” also belongs to the core of Confucian discourse. See Mencius, Mencius, Book VI, Part A, 15. “He who is guided by the great body is a great man; he who is guided by the small body is a small man (从其大体为大人,从其小体为小人 ).” Translation here is mine. 21 See Lai Chen, Ontology of Ren, 262–265. 22 Chen argues that “the concept of qi makes the substantializing of ren as one body with the universe possible (气的概念使万物一体的仁的实体化成为可能).” Lai Chen, Ontology of Ren, 301.

The Confucian Way of Hopeful Co-existence

activity and possibility of resonance is not a metaphysical substance or principle that connects the individual with the universal whole; instead, this universal unity is created through concrete resonant relations. Thus, co-humanity (ren) as a great body is achieved through a process of “forming one body with the universe,” specifically, through the concrete resonant relations and their extension, which is mentioned as the function of qi in Zhang Zai’s philosophy. In this sense, the “achieved state” of “one body with the universe” is not an inner spiritual one, but a refreshing and roomy sphere of co-existence that is opened up and extended by resonance. Therefore, the ontological claim of “being one body with the universe” in the doctrine of co-humanity (ren) should be understood from the perspective of Way (Dao道). In this perspective, the great universal body of co-humanity (ren) is neither a spiritual state nor an abstract universal whole based on a substance; instead, it is a concrete way of co-humanity (ren) that extends into a universal great body and thus an atmospheric reality in realization. 6.1.4 The Confucian Way of Hopeful Co-existence To summarize the discussion of the former two sections, from the phenomenon of compassion, the beginning of co-humanity (ren) is manifest in a de-centered form of existence and a primordial sphere of resonance and interpenetration; and from the ontological claim of “being one body with the universe,” co-humanity (ren) becomes an extending way that opens up a refreshing and roomy sphere of co-existence. Taking these two aspects together, this thesis describes Confucian co-humanity (ren) as the Way (Dao) of humans that begins from compassion and extends into a great universal body, which, according to this thesis, is a way of hopeful co-existence. Treading on this Way, a co-human and a living intercorporeality come to life. First, compassion describes a situation in which a co-human is born. In Confucian tradition, this co-human is usually called the “great person (daren大人)”, “the exemplary person (junzi君子),” or, as already mentioned, “the man of co-humanity (renzhe仁者).” A man of co-humanity (renzhe) in Confucian context is not a man with an additional virtue of love, but the man who understands his or her being as co-humanity. In this sense, such man can be called a co-human. In compassion, one has the possibility of transforming from a small person (xiaoren 小人) “with his disintegrative preoccupations with selfish advantage” into a co-human who exists in-between and understands his or her own being as cohumanity.23 This transformation is exemplarily shown in the story of Qingshan. In

23 See David L. Hall and Roger T. Ames, Thinking Through Confucius (Albany: SUNY Press, 1987), 115.

121

122

Resonating with Confucian and Christian Traditions

this story, he transforms into a co-human, who exists in the meshwork of his life and the life of the lioness through his compassionate encounter with the lioness. Moreover, in Confucian texts, compassion is not the only situation in which such a co-human can be born. Besides compassion, the family life is often seen as the cradle of the co-human and the beginning of the Way of co-humanity.24 In this sense, co-humans can also be born into the everyday family life between husband and wife, parents and children, and brothers and sisters. Second, in the process of “forming one body with the universe,” co-humanity grows into a living intercorporeality. With the birth and growth of a co-human, a way also comes into form. As Confucius said, “once the roots are established, the Way [Dao] will grow therefrom.”25 As already made clear in Chapter 5, “way” in this case does not refer to the sediment of traces and fixed tracks or what is constructed according to the blueprint; it is a living and breathing meshwork, which is described as the extension of a great body in the Confucian context. In this sense, the extending way of co-humanity describes the life of a living intercorporeality, which can also be exemplarily shown in Qingshan’s story. In this story, the coherent unity of Qingshan and the lioness is not just a flickering moment of his life. It marks the birth of a living intercorporeality and its extension into a great body, that is, a career in wildlife conservation. Qingshan’s new career is the growing process of the living bond between him and the lioness as well as a process that assists more lives. Therefore, the Confucian way of hopeful co-existence is both a process of person making26 and a process of unity; it nourishes both the growth of a co-human and the extension of a great body. First, in this process, a co-human is born from the primordial sphere of co-humanity, takes root in co-humanity, makes its wayfaring on this basis, and always keeps its track in the center, freely and easily.27 Second, cohumanity is extended into a great body along the way. According to the Confucian

24 For example, in Zhongyong (中庸), the family life between men and women is seen as the beginning of the proper way of an exemplary person. “The proper way of exemplary persons has at its start in the simple lives of ordinary men and women, and at its furthest limits sheds light upon the entire world (君子之道,造端乎夫妇；及其至也,察乎天地).” Chinese text see Zhu Xi, Collected commentaries on the Four Books, and translation see Roger T. Ames and David L. Hall, Focusing the Familiar: A Translation and Philosophical Interpretation of the Zhongyong (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2001), 93. Confucius says that life as a son and younger brother is the root of human being. “Being good as a son and obedient as a young man is, perhaps, the root of a man’s character (孝悌也者 ,其为仁之本与).” Confucius, Analects, I, 2. Chinese text see Zhu Xi, Collected commentaries on the Four Books, and the translation see Confucius, The Analects, trans. D. C. Lau (London: Penguin, 1979). 25 Confucius, Analects, I, 2. 26 For co-humanity (ren) and person making see Hall and Ames, Thinking through Confucius, 114ff. 27 See the Zhongyong text, “freely and easily traveling the center of the way – this is the sage (从容中 道,圣人也).” Translation see Ames, Focusing the Familiar, 104.

The Confucian Way of Hopeful Co-existence

classic Great Learning (daxue 大学), this process can also be called the “family-izing of the community,”28 through which the world becomes a great home. Finally, this Confucian way of hopeful co-existence can extend into the profundity and extensiveness of heaven and earth.29 The greatness and vastness of this way is described poetically in many Confucian texts. To quote just two of them from the Confucian classic Zhongyong (中庸), Great indeed is the sage’s proper path. So vast and expansive, it propagates and nurtures all things; so towering, it reaches up to the skies.30 The way of heaven and earth is broad, is thick, is high, is brilliant, is far-reaching, is enduring.31

To conclude therefore, in the Confucian way of hopeful co-existence, hope lies in the possibility of becoming a co-human, in the possibility of extending the way into a great body and a great family, and in the possibility of reaching the profundity and extensiveness of heaven and earth. 6.1.5 Singing Together in the Spring Breeze After a journey from the small beginning of compassion to the great universal body, this section ends with an image of hopeful co-existence in an excerpt from the Confucian classics Analects. In this text, the concrete depiction of “singing together in the spring breeze” is endorsed by Confucius as the highest political ideal, rather than many other grand political ambitions. In this thesis, this picture of “singing together in the spring breeze” is seen as a vivid example of Confucian hopeful co-existence. The story goes like this. One day, Zilu, Zengxi, Ranyou, Gongxi hua, the four disciples of Confucius, stated how they would achieve their own political ideal before their master Confucius. Zilu promptly answered, ‘If I were to administer a state of a thousand chariots, situated between powerful neighbors, troubled by armed invasions and by repeated famines, I could, within three years, give the people courage and a sense of direction.’

28 Kuang-Ming Wu, On the “Logic” of Togetherness, 299. 29 This implies the transcendent aspect of Confucian co-humanity. As already said in Chapter 4, in Chinese, extension always contains something divine. 30 “大哉圣人之道,洋洋乎发育万物,峻极于天。” Translation see Ames, Focusing the Familiar, 108. 31 “天地之道,博也,厚也,高也,明也,悠也,久也。” Translation see Ames, Focusing the Familiar, 106.

123

124

Resonating with Confucian and Christian Traditions

Then Ranyou said, ‘If I were to administer an area measuring sixty or seventy li square, or even fifty or sixty li square, I could, within three years, bring the size of the population up to an adequate level. As to the rites and music, I would leave that to abler gentlemen.’ Gongxi Hua said, ‘I do not say that I already have the ability, but I am ready to learn. On ceremonial occasions in the ancestral temple or in diplomatic gatherings, I should like to assist as a minor official in charge of protocol, properly dressed in my ceremonial cap and robes.’ When it came to Zengxi, he was in the middle of making music with his lute. After a few dying notes came the final chords, and then he stood up from his lute and made his speech. ‘In late spring, after the spring clothes have been newly made, I should like, together with five or six adults and six or seven boys, to go bathing in the River Yi and enjoy the breeze on the Rain Altar, and then to go home chanting poetry.’ The Master sighed and said, ‘I am all in favor of Zengxi.’32

6.2

The Christian Way of Hopeful Co-existence

In this section, it will be shown that Christian theological hope can also find its expression in hopeful co-existence. First, understood in terms of hopeful coexistence, the Christian triune God is not only the basis of hope but is Godself a hopeful co-existence. Second, the main loci of human hope in this context are the church as the living intercorporeality and the human person in the image of God. Third, the God-human relation is the entanglement of two pieces of meshwork; accordingly, the spes quae of deification can be described as a way and a refreshing roomy sphere of hopeful co-existence, which is constituted by the God-human meshwork. 6.2.1 The Triune God as Hopeful Co-existence Combining the language of atmosphere and the relational ontology that the Christian triune God reveals, God can be rephrased as a bundle of three resonant lines

32 “子路、曾皙、冉有、公西华侍坐。子曰：‘以吾一日长乎尔,毋吾以也。居则曰：不吾知也 。如或知尔,则何以哉？’子路率尔而对曰：‘千乘之国,摄乎大国之间,加之以师旅,因之以饥 馑；由也为之,比及三年,可使有勇,且知方也。’ 夫子哂之。‘求,尔何如？’ 对曰：‘方六七十 ,如五六十,求也为之,比及三年,可使足民。如其礼乐,以俟君子。’ ‘赤,尔何如？’ 对曰：‘非曰 能之,愿学焉。宗庙之事,如会同,端章甫,愿为小相焉。’ ‘点,尔何如？’ 鼓瑟希,铿尔,舍瑟而作 ,对曰：‘异乎三子者之撰。’ 子曰：‘何伤乎？亦各言其志也！’ 曰：‘莫春者,春服既成,冠者 五六人,童子六七人,浴乎沂,风乎舞雩,咏而归。’ 夫子喟然叹曰：‘吾与点也。’” Confucius, Analects, Book XI, 26. Translation modified.

The Christian Way of Hopeful Co-existence

of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. In this sense, the triune God is an eternal living intercorporeality that breathes and grows ceaselessly in communal and perichoretic love. Therefore, in resonance with Greshake’s words that God is not one immutable Monad, at this point, this thesis proposes that the Christian triune God should not be understood as a solid sphere in which no activity of breathing is possible, but a breathable living meshwork formed by the most exuberant activities of resonance. So understood, the divine persons do not have a self-center and a private sphere called mine, but originally open lines that take love as their center. Love as the essence of the divine intercorporeality is not an ultimate principle or substance above or behind three persons but is in-between, that is, in the void spheres of three entangled lines. In this meshwork of love, each person exists along their own lines, participates fully in the lines of the other two, and moves in and out of the void spheres in-between. This rhythmic in-and-out constitutes both a home and a way. As already made clear in Chapter 5, home/living and way/wayfaring are not two separate spheres and activities but are intrinsically one. In this sense, the Christian triune God also hopes, since God enacts a life of hopeful co-existence both in love and out of love. God’s hopeful co-existence is an eternal smooth and vital circulation of love and life among three concrete divine persons, between unity and particularity/diversity/multiplicity, and between void and concretion. As the basis of human hopeful co-existence in the Christian context, the triune God lives the hopeful structure in a fulfilled way. While human hope is almost always a mixture of hope out of lack and hope out of love, and human love is not yet fully communal and perichoretic, the Christian triune God enacts the hopeful co-existence only in and out of love. Therefore, the triune God is a living intercorporeality that enacts the hopeful co-existence without ambiguity. 6.2.2 The Human Person and the Church as the Concrete Loci of Christian Human Hopeful Co-existence While everyday relations in family are emphasized as the beginning and primary loci of hopeful co-existence in Confucian tradition, in the Christian context, relational personhood and the church as a community of brothers and sisters are seen as the place where Christian human hopeful co-existence is enacted. As already introduced in Chapter 3, the concept of person in a Christian context should be distinguished from the concept of the individual and understood relationally. In this sense, human persons are defined by what Dalferth calls “co-humanity

125

126

Resonating with Confucian and Christian Traditions

(Mitmenschlichkeit).”33 To express this in atmospheric terms, the existential center of the Christian human person is not primarily within one’s self but lies in-between – both in the sphere in-between of human community and in that of the divine community. Only when a human being ceases to be a self-centered Dasein and becomes a person does this human being have the possibility to live in the adverbial modality of hopeful co-existence in a Christian sense. Understood unambiguously as a person, a human being becomes an internal participant of the human community of love, that is, the church in the Christian context. As the body of Christ, the Christian church can be understood as a living intercorporeality. It is first of all clear that the Christian church is not a collection of individuals. As Zizioulas explains, “the Church is by definition incompatible with individualism; her fabric is communion and personal relatedness.”34 To express it in atmospheric terms, the Christian church is a living meshwork constituted by resonant relations, which contains void within so that breathing and the exchange of life is possible. Second, the Christian church is not merely a means for the salvation of every person respectively. It is itself a living intercorporeality that requires participation and shares the life of Christ. Beyond this horizontal way, there is no direct vertical relationship between a human person and the Christian triune God. In this context, humans are saved not as an individual, nor as a lived body, but as a unity of a living intercorporeality. This point is clearly stated by Zizioulas in the following words. “An ecclesiology of communion would mean that no Christian can exist as an individual exercising a direct communion with God. ‘Unus christianus nullus christianus.’… The way to God passes through the ‘neighbour,’ who in this case is the fellow-member of the community.”35 Third, the Christian church as a living intercorporeality is not a fixed sphere but a life that breathes and grows and thus can be seen as a concrete way of hopeful co-existence towards God.36 This process is described as becoming-communio by Greshake, which is an ever increasing extension.37 So understood, the Christian church has an embryonic beginning, grows along the way, and becomes more and

33 Ingolf U. Dalferth, Selbstlose Leidenschaften: Christlicher Glaube und menschliche Passionen (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013), 354. 34 John D. Zizioulas, The One and the Many: Studies on God, Man, the Church, and the World Today, ed. Fr Gregory Edwards (Alhambra: Sebastian Press, 2010), 53. 35 Zizioulas, The One and the Many, 53. 36 Schwöbel also argues that church itself is determined by being-on-the-way and must undergo a learning process. See Christoph Schwöbel, Gott in Beziehung: Studien zur Dogmatik (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2002), 434f. 37 See Gisbert Greshake, Hinführung zum Glauben an den drei-einen Gott (Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 2016), 56.

The Christian Way of Hopeful Co-existence

more the body of Christ.38 Furthermore, the growth of the body of Christ in this context is a paragon of communal love, which is educational to the world and is an open invitation for others outside this intercorporeality. In this sense, the growth of this body of Christ can be described as the “trinitarization of the world,”39 which can be compared with the Confucian project of “family-izing of the community.” 6.2.3 Deification as Way of hopeful co-existence between God and Human In terms of atmosphere, the God-human relation in the Christian context can be described as the entanglement of two pieces of meshwork.40 Importantly, the human meshwork created in the image of God does not imply an isomorphic relation between God and the human. As Mühling argues, “being made in the image of God does not mean a representational relationship, but a resonating one.”41 Therefore, being made in the image of God means that human persons and their communities have the essential possibility of resonance with God. Moreover, it also means that the nature or essence of love is not a fixed principle or structure that can be applied both to God and human; it is and will always be the spontaneous and creative activity of resonance. On this basis, the spes quae of deification describes the ultimate perichoretic entanglement of the divine meshwork with the created human meshwork through God’s grace. In deification, the human way of hopeful co-existence as the community of love both weaves itself into and is woven into the divine way of hopeful co-existence. In this sense, deification is both an interweaving activity and an interwoven reality. Moreover, hopeful co-existence in this sense becomes a common project between God and the human; this “eschatical reality is not merely a hope for the world, but also for God.”42

38 See Gisbert Greshake, Leben – stärker als der Tod (Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 2008), 172. 39 Gisbert Greshake, Der dreieine Gott: eine trinitarische Theologie (Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 1998), 431. 40 Mühling describes this relation as an entanglement of four stories, which suggests a more complicated model. “One can therefore describe Christian experience as perceiving the world in the framework of an entanglement of four stories that are decisive factors in the formation of the narrative identity of a person: (1) the story of the gospel, (2) the story of the communities, i.e. the social niches we live in, and (3) the story of nature, i.e. the natural niches we inhabit, and (4) the story of our fragmentary and process-like autobiographical consciousness based on the basic self.” Markus Mühling, Resonances: Neurobiology, Evolution and Theology: Evolutionary Niche-Construction, the Ecological Brain and Relational-Narrative Theology (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2014), 130. 41 Mühling, Resonances, 219. 42 See Markus Mühling, T&T Clark Handbook of Christian Eschatology, trans. Jennifer AdamsMassmann and David A. Gilland (London: T&T Clark, 2015), 360.

127

128

Resonating with Confucian and Christian Traditions

As already explained, deification comes from the Christian God and takes Christ as its basis. In this context, Christ is understood as a person in the fullest sense of the word, he exists and understands his being at every moment and in every possible way as a co-existence in and out of love. He is both a co-God and co-human, who lives in both the divine and human meshwork, and finally, in the God-human meshwork as the mediator of salvation. In him, a sphere of resonance and interpenetration between humanity and divinity and a smooth way from divinity to humanity (and vice versa) are revealed. Therefore, Christ is both the mediator (Heilsmittler) and the space of salvation (Heilsraum), both the way Christian human persons are going by and the homeland they are going to.43 On this basis, hopeful co-existence between the Christian God and human being is firstly a way by which God comes to and into human being. The divine meshwork as the eschatoi interpenetrates the history and present of human being, and the void spheres in human meshwork constitute the space in which God intervenes; it is where human being accommodates God. Since human meshwork can only be kept open through love, human beings must become communal in order to be smoothly interpenetrated by God.44 Furthermore, hopeful co-existence between the Christian God and human is also a way through which human beings are woven into the divine meshwork and become divine. The void spheres in the divine meshwork constitute the space into which the Christian human hopeful co-existence can be woven; there is an open invitation for human beings (and also other creatures) to live in this space.45 Such an invitation can only be responded to through love. That is to say, Christian human persons do not accept the invitation alone but always as human hopeful co-existence. Human hopeful co-existence, rather than mystical spiritual practice, constitutes the most basic way towards the Christian God; it is a ceaseless wayfaring together with others into the profound, extensive, and exalted mystery and superabundance of the Christian God. To conclude, hopeful co-existence between the Christian God and human being is a way of going and coming, weaving and being woven into. Through this form of wayfaring together, a full interpenetration between God’s hopeful co-existence and human hopeful co-existence occurs, in which the ultimate destiny of Christians

43 See Emmanuel L. Rehfeld, “Seinskonstitutive Christusbezogenheit. Relational-ontologische Denkstrukturen und ‘In-Christus-Sein’ bei Paulus,” in Relationale Erkenntnishorizonte in Exegese und systematischer Theologie (Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 2018), 69–90, 81. 44 Regarding this point, Greshake argues that “only when man has become communal can he ‘join in (mitspielen)’ the life of the communal God. Otherwise he would be a kind of alien body (Fremdkörper) in the divine life promised to him. That is why becoming-communio is the central task of man.” Greshake, Hinführung zum Glauben an den drei-einen Gott, 54. 45 As Christ says in the Bible, “my Father’s house has many rooms.” John 14:2. (NIV)

Fundamental Hope and Ultimate Hope

is fully interwoven into the loving event of the Christian triune God. It is not an intermingling but an enrichment of texture of the Christian divine hopeful co-existence. 6.2.4 The End is Music In resonance with the Confucian description of fulfillment as singing together in the spring breeze, this thesis also presents a fulfillment in the form of music in the Christian context, as described by Jenson. For Jenson, fulfillment means the perfect harmony between the music of the redeemed and music of the triune God. To quote Jenson at length, The last word to be said about God’s triune being is that he ‘is a great fugue.’ Therefore the last word to be said about the redeemed is Jonathan Edwards’s beautiful saying, cited at the end of the first volume to the converse point: ‘When I would form an idea of a society in the highest degree happy, I think of them . . . sweetly singing to each other.’ The point of identity, infinitely approachable and infinitely to be approached, the enlivening telos of the Kingdom’s own life, is perfect harmony between the conversation of the redeemed and the conversation that God is. In the conversation God is, meaning and melody are one. The end is music.46

6.3

Fundamental Hope and Ultimate Hope

As two concrete ways of hopeful co-existence, Confucian co-humanity (ren) and Christian hope share the basic characteristic of in-betweenness. Both Confucian co-humanity (ren) and Christian hope agree that the primordial sphere of hopeful co-existence does not exist within an individual subject, a moral agent, or a lived body, but within the sphere of family and community. In an anthropological sense, these two ways of hopeful co-existence both concern an extension of a primordial sphere from a humble beginning. However, as already mentioned, Christian hope is a theocentric hope that cannot be reduced to a form of human existence; it is not only a human way of hopeful coexistence but primarily a divine way of hopeful co-existence that takes the human way into it. In this way, Christian hope is not only a fundamental hope that makes human life humane, but also an “ultimate hope” that has an ultimate basis and center

46 Robert W. Jenson, Systematic Theology, Vol. 2: The Works of God (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), 369.

129

130

Resonating with Confucian and Christian Traditions

in the Christian triune God. Therefore, the Christian way of hopeful co-existence is not merely an adverbial modality of in-betweenness but an adverbial modality from and through the Christian God. Confucian hope (as a representative of fundamental human hope) and Christian hope therefore have essential distinctions. While Christian hopeful co-existence has an unambiguous and ultimate basis, center, and end in the triune God, the Confucian way of hopeful co-existence has nothing ultimate within it. In Confucian hope (or other concrete human ways of hopeful co-existence), the existential center is somewhere in the air and in the void spheres in-between. Every activity of resonance in this context is tentative, self-correcting, and has a loose end. Since these activities always leads to more extensiveness and profundity, human beings do not know where this process of resonance ultimately “ends.” In this sense, the spes quae takes the form of “more” and the superabundance of life. In comparison, Christian hope has a clear center, which is not a fixed foothold but consists of the most dynamic, profound, and extensive triune meshwork. Moreover, it has a clear end, which “is not programmed or fixed but, theologically speaking, promised.”47 Therefore, this thesis proposes that Confucian co-humanity (ren) as a fundamental hope is a hopeful co-existence in-between without a fixed center and end, and that Christian hope as an ultimate hope is a hopeful co-existence with the basis, center, and promised end in the Christian triune God. Finally, it should be emphasized that Confucian co-humanity (ren) as a fundamental hope and Christian ultimate hope are not two contradictory ways of hopeful co-existence but are potentially compatible.48 First, Confucian fundamental hope can be seen as a potential meshwork that is opened up to the intervention of the Christian God. Support for the potential compatibility of these two forms of hope can be found in Pannenberg’s anthropology. He writes that

47 Markus Mühling, “The Humanifying Adventure,” in Verbs, Bones, and Brains: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Human Nature, ed. Agustín Fuentes and Aku Visala (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2017), 104–113, 105. 48 Regarding the history of the Confucian-Christian encounter, there has been a long-term dispute in Catholic Church regarding the ceremonial practice of honoring Confucius and family ancestors in China. This is known as the “Chinese rites controversy (liyi zhizheng礼仪之争).” In this controversy, the honoring of the saints and family ancestors in Confucianism has been viewed as incompatible with the Catholic faith in God. See Ray R. Noll, ed., 100 Roman Documents Concerning the Chinese Rites Controversy (1645-1941), trans. Donald F. St. Sure (San Francisco: Ricci Institute for ChineseWestern Cultural History, 1992). However, as this thesis shows, the Confucian emphasis on family life and values is not necessarily incompatible with Christian doctrines. Understood as two ways of hopeful co-existence, they contain the potential for interpenetration as well as becoming a coherent resonant discourse.

Fundamental Hope and Ultimate Hope

this unending movement into the open is directed towards God, beyond everything that confronts man in the world. Therefore openness to the world essentially means open to God. Man’s very nature is this movement through the world toward God. In this movement he is on the path toward his destiny, which is community with God.49

Moreover, Christian ultimate hope could exercise a critical function for fundamental human hope. Since human life is not always enacted in-between, human hopeful coexistence is in constant danger of becoming a system of enclosures, fixed rules, and dead intercorporealities. In this respect, the concept of the Christian ultimate hope reminds human hopeful co-existence that it needs to always remain in-between, open, breathable, and alive.50

49 Wolfhart Pannenberg, What Is Man?: Contemporary Anthropology in Theological Perspective, trans. Duane A. Priebe (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1970), 54f. 50 For Pannenberg, eschatology has a critical function regarding secular hope. He argues that “in declaring the consummation of human existence to be a matter of hope beyond death, religious eschatology denounces the illusions of secular belief in the attainability of a perfect and unambiguous happiness in this world, … “the real significance of the otherworldliness of eschatology lies in its critical function.” Wolfhart Pannenberg, “Constructive and Critical Functions of Christian Eschatology,” The Harvard Theological Review 77, no. 2 (1984): 119–139, 124.

131

Conclusion

In this long journey through Western philosophical and Christian understandings of hope, the philosophy of atmosphere and qi, and the Christian trinitarian theology and Confucian way of co-humanity (ren), the phenomenon of hope finds its expression both philosophically in the language of atmosphere and concretely in the living tradition of Christianity and Confucianism. To give a brief recount of the flow of this thesis, in Chapter 1, this thesis focused on fundamental hope as its subject and how it might be understood in terms of adverbial modality. In this sense, fundamental hope is an existential mode of living hopefully that finds its orientation in the realm of the possibility of the good and in the horizon of a bearing reality. Moreover, as a fundamental adverbial modality, it makes human life humane instead of making it possible. In Chapter 2, this thesis argued that fundamental hope becomes either inauthentic and incomprehensible in Heidegger’s self-centered existentiality, and that it can only be properly understood in Marcel’s intersubjective ontology. In Chapter 3, Christian hope was presented as an unambiguous, theocentric and concrete hope-in-God – a distinct adverbial modality that is given by the Christian God and finds orientation unambiguously in God. The Christian God as the eschatical basis of hope should be understood in a trinitarian way, that is, as a living and extending process of communio and perichoresis of the three divine persons. Accordingly, Christian human existence is also rooted in this divine image and revealed in a relational structure. This relational structure has the possibility of being fully taken into the divine community of love and being deified. In Chapter 4, Ingold’s concept of atmosphere was introduced as a methodological device for describing the relational structure of hope. In his concept of air-centered atmosphere, human existence is understood as a de-centered dynamic co-existence that happens in the form of sentient and creative inner touch. Together with the concepts of resonance, Great Void and Way of Great Harmony offered by Zhang Zai’s philosophy of qi, this thesis presents an existentiality of in-betweenness as an alternative to Heidegger’s self-centered existentiality. Specifically, an existentiality of in-betweenness focuses not only on the I-related living lines but concerns primarily the entangled lines of mine and others and the void spheres in-between, which reveal a breathable reality. These void spheres constitute the womb of possibilities and thus the possible realm of hope in human life. In Chapter 5, fundamental hope was rephrased as the adverbial modality of hopeful co-existence that finds orientation in an atmospheric reality of in-betweenness and explores our humanity in its in-betweenness. Concretely speaking, hopeful

134

Conclusion

co-existence is a joyous living/wayfaring together in love and towards life. This process constitutes a refreshing and roomy sphere in which we grow and renew our humanity together and make our humanity into music together. Moreover, this adverbial modality not only belongs to every participant but also to us as a living intercorporeality. In hopeful co-existence, human community becomes a living body, which implies a new birth of humanity as co-humanity. Finally, in Chapter 6, the Confucian doctrine of co-humanity (ren) and Christian hope were seen as two concrete ways of hopeful co-existence. The Confucian way begins from a daily setting of compassion or family life and extends into a universal unity of “one body with the universe.” In comparison, the Christian way begins from the Christian triune God, who is a hopeful co-existence Godself, and on this basis, the hopeful co-existence between God and human being is primarily God’s project of weaving the Christian human persons into God’s own trinitarian structure. Within this structure, the human way of hopeful co-existence is a trinitarization of the world. At the end of this thesis, it is worth noting that this theory of hopeful co-existence is itself a fruit of hopeful co-existence. Fundamental hope conceived as hopeful coexistence is not the result of pure philosophical deduction and formal construction, while the concrete contents of Christian and Confucian traditions serve as examples of this logic. It is precisely the other way around. The major arguments of this thesis are the fruits of communication and cooperation between the existentialphenomenological, Christian, and Confucian traditions. In this way, this thesis is an attempt to find the possibilities of resonance and growth in-between in these texts and traditions and to weave them into a piece of living meshwork. As Wu says, “I have practiced what I preached.”1 In this sense, another concrete beginning of hopeful co-existence is found in theoretical communication. By presenting a humble beginning in this thesis, the author hopes that further theories will be developed that contribute to a more refreshing and roomy hopeful co-existence on the topic of hope.

1 Kuang-Ming Wu, On the “Logic” of Togetherness: A Cultural Hermeneutic (Leiden: Brill, 1998), 303.

Bibliography

Ames, Roger T., and David L. Hall. Focusing the Familiar: A Translation and Philosophical Interpretation of the Zhongyong. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2001. Andermann, Kerstin, and Undine Eberlein, eds. Gefühle als Atmosphären: neue Phänomenologie und philosophische Emotionstheorie. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2011. Barth, Roderich, and Christopher Zarnow, eds. Theologie der Gefühle. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2015. Betz, Hans Dieter, ed. Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart [RGG]; Handwörterbuch für Theologie und Religionswissenschaft. 4., völlig neu bearb. Aufl. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1998. Bloch, Ernst. Das Prinzip Hoffnung – 3 Bände. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1985. —. Philosophische Grundfragen. 1. Zur Ontologie des Noch-Nicht-Seins. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1961. Bloch, Ernst, and Gabriel Marcel. “Gespräch über die Hoffnung.” In Bloch-Almanach. 1, 117–128. Baden-Baden: Nomos, 1981. Böhme, Gernot. Atmosphäre: Essays zur neuen Ästhetik. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1995. —. “Brief an einen japanischen Freund über das Zwischen.” In Interkulturelle Philosophie und Phänomenologie in Japan: Beiträge zum Gespräch über Grenzen hinweg, edited by Tadashi Ogawa, Michael Lazarin, and Guido Rappe, 233–239. München: Iuridicum, 1998. —. “Das Wetter und die Gefühle: für eine Phänomenologie des Wetters.” In Gefühle als Atmosphären: neue Phänomenologie und philosophische Emotionstheorie, edited by Kerstin Andermann and Undine Eberlein, 153–166. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2011. —. Gut Mensch sein: Anthropologie als Proto-Ethik. Dietzenbach: Graue Edition, 2016. —. Philosophieren mit Kant: zur Rekonstruktion der kantischen Erkenntnis- Und Wissenschaftstheorie. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1986. —. The Aesthetics of Atmospheres. Edited by Jean-Paul Thibaud. London: Routledge, 2017. —. “The Space of Bodily Presence and Space as a Medium of Representation.” In Transforming Spaces. The Topological Turn in Technology Studies., edited by Mikael Hård, Andreas Lösch, and Dirk Verdicchio, 2003. —. Zeit als Medium von Darstellungen und Zeit als Form lebendiger Existenz. Edited by Michael Großheim. Rostocker Phänomenologische Manuskripte 5. Rostock: Univ. Inst. für Philosophie, 2009. Bollnow, Otto F. Das Wesen der Stimmungen. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2009. —. Neue Geborgenheit: das Problem einer Überwindung des Existentialismus. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2011.

136

Bibliography

Boodberg, Peter A. “The Semasiology of Some Primary Confucian Concepts.” Philosophy East and West 2, no. 4 (1953): 317–332. Boros, Ladislaus. Aus der Hoffnung leben. Freiburg im Breisgau: Walter, 1968. Braaten, Carl E., and Robert W. Jenson, eds. The Last Things: Biblical and Theological Perspectives on Eschatology. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002. —, eds. Union with Christ: The New Finnish Interpretation of Luther. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998. Buchberger, Michael, and Walter Kasper, eds. Lexikon Für Theologie Und Kirche. 3., völlig neu bearb. Aufl. Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 1993. Chan, Wing-Tsit, trans. A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969. Chan, Wing-Tsit. “The Evolution of the Confucian Concept Jên.” Philosophy East and West 4, no. 4 (1955): 295–319. Chen, Lai. Renxue Bentilun 仁学本体论. Beijing: sanlian shudian, 2014. Chen, Lisheng. “Ceyin Zhixin: ‘Tonggan,’ ‘Tongqing’ Yu ‘Zaishijidiao’ 恻隐之心: ‘同感,’ ‘同 情’ 与 ‘在世基调.’” Zhexue Yanjiu 哲学研究 12 (2011): 19–21. Cheng, Chung-ying. “On the Metaphysical Significance of Ti (Body-Embodiment) In Chinese Philosophy: Benti (Origin-Substance) and Ti-Yong (Substance and Function).” Journal of Chinese Philosophy 29, no. 2 (June 2002): 145–161. Cheng, Yi, and Cheng, Hao. Ercheng Ji 二程集. Beijing: zhonghua shuju, 1981. Confucius. The Analects. Translated by D. C. Lau. London: Penguin, 1979. Dalferth, Ingolf U. Existenz Gottes und christlicher Glaube: Skizzen zu einer eschatologischen Ontologie. München: Kaiser, 1984. —. “Gemeinsam hoffen. Grundlinien einer menschlichen Orientierungsweise.” In Die Kunst des Hoffens: Kranksein zwischen Erschütterung und Neuorientierung, 116–154. Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 2016. —. Hoffnung. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2016. —. Selbstlose Leidenschaften: christlicher Glaube und menschliche Passionen. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013. Dalferth, Ingolf U., and Marlene A. Block, eds. Hope: Claremont Studies in the Philosophy of Religion, Conference 2014. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2016. Damascus, John of. Writings. Translated by Frederic H. Chase Jr. Washington: The Catholic University of America Press, 1999. Deroo, Neal, and John P. Manoussakis, eds. Phenomenology and Eschatology: Not Yet in the Now. London: Routledge, 2016. Descartes, René. “The Passions of the Soul.” In The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, Vol I, translated by J. Cottingham, R. Stoothoff, and D. Murdoch, 325–405. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985. —. The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, Vol I. Translated by J. Cottingham, R. Stoothoff, and D. Murdoch. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985.

Bibliography

Dettloff, Werner. “Licht und Erleuchtung in der christlichen Theologie, besonders bei Bonaventura.” Wissenschaft und Weisheit 49 (1986): 140–149. DeWoskin, Kenneth. A Song for One or Two: Music and the Concept of Art in Early China. Ann Arbor: Center for Chinese Studies, 1982. Döring, Sabine A. “Was darf ich hoffen?” In Theologie der Gefühle, edited by Roderich Barth and Christopher Zarnow, 61–75. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2015. Doyle, Dominic. “SPE Salvi on Eschatological and Secular Hope: A Thomistic Critique of an Augustinian Encyclical.” Theological Studies 71, no. 2 (May 1, 2010): 350–379. Edmaier, Alois. Horizonte der Hoffnung. Regensburg: Pustet, 1968. Fergusson, David, and Marcel Sarot, eds. The Future as God’s Gift: Explorations in Christian Eschatology. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2000. Fingarette, Herbert. Confucius: The Secular as Sacred. Long Grove: Waveland, 1998. Finlan, Stephen, and Vladimir Kharlamov, eds. Theosis: Deification in Christian Theology, Volume One. Eugene: Pickwick, 2006. Fuchs, Thomas. Ecology of the Brain: The Phenomenology and Biology of the Embodied Mind. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018. —. Leib, Raum, Person: Entwurf einer phänomenologischen Anthropologie. Stuttgart: KlettCotta, 2000. —. “The Phenomenology of Affectivity.” In The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy and Psychiatry, 612–631. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013. Fuentes, Agustín, and Aku Visala, eds. Verbs, Bones, and Brains: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Human Nature. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2017. Fulford, K. W. M., Martin Davies, Richard Gipps, George Graham, John Sadler, Giovanni Stanghellini, and Tim Thornton, eds. The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy and Psychiatry. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013. Gao, Heng. Zhouyi Dazhuan Jinzhu 周易大传今注. Shandong: qilu shushe, 2009. Godfrey, Joseph J. A Philosophy of Human Hope. Dordrecht: Nijhoff, 1987. Greshake, Gisbert. Der dreieine Gott: eine trinitarische Theologie. Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 1998. —. Hinführung zum Glauben an den drei-einen Gott. Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 2016. —. Leben – stärker als der Tod. Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 2008. —. “Trinity as ‘Communio.’” In Rethinking Trinitarian Theology: Disputed Questions And Contemporary Issues in Trinitarian Theology, edited by Giulio Maspero and Robert Wozniak, 331–345. London: T&T Clark, 2012. Griffero, Tonino. Atmospheres: Aesthetics of Emotional Spaces. Translated by Sarah De Sanctis. London: Routledge, 2014. —. Quasi-Things: The Paradigm of Atmospheres. Translated by Sarah De Sanctis. Albany: SUNY Press, 2017. Großheim, Michael. Kollektive Lebensgefühle: zur Phänomenologie von Gemeinschaften. Rostock: Univ. Inst. für Philosophie, 2015. Hall, David L., and Roger T. Ames. Thinking Through Confucius. Albany: SUNY Press, 1987.

137

138

Bibliography

Hang, Thaddeus T’ui-chieh. “Jen Experience and Jen Philosophy.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 42, no. 1 (1974): 53–65. Heidegger, Martin. Being and Time: A Translation of Sein und Zeit. Translated by Joan Stambaugh. Albany: SUNY Press, 1996. —. Cunzai Yu Shijian 存在与时间. Translated by Jiaying Chen and Qingjie Wang. Beijing: shangwu yinshuguan, 2016. —. Sein und Zeit. 17th ed. Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1993. —. The Phenomenology of Religious Life. Translated by Matthias Fritsch and Jennifer Anna Gosetti-Ferencei. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2010. Hisayama, Yuho. Erfahrungen des Ki – Leibessphäre, Atmosphäre, Pansphäre. Freiburg: Karl Alber, 2014. Ingold, Tim. Anthropology and/as Education. London: Routledge, 2018. —. Being Alive: Essays on Movement, Knowledge and Description. London: Routledge, 2011. —. “Bindings against Boundaries: Entanglements of Life in an Open World.” Environment and Planning A 40, no. 8 (August 2008): 1796–1810. —. Lines: A Brief History. London: Routledge, 2007. —. The Life of Lines. London: Routledge, 2015. Jaspers, Karl. “Die Kraft der Hoffnung.” In Die Hoffnungen unserer Zeit: zehn Beiträge, 9–23. München: Piper, 1963. Jaspers, Karl, and Johannes Schlemmer. Die Hoffnungen unserer Zeit: zehn Beiträge. München: Piper, 1963. Jenson, Robert W. Systematic Theology, Vol. 2: The Works of God. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. —. “The Great Transformation.” In The Last Things: Biblical and Theological Perspectives on Eschatology, edited by Carl E. Braaten and Robert W. Jenson, 33–42. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002. Jullien, François. Dialog über die Moral: Menzius und die Philosophie der Aufklärung. Translated by Ronald Voullié. Berlin: Merve, 2003. Jung, Hwa Yol. “Jen: An Existential and Phenomenological Problem of Intersubjectivity.” Philosophy East and West 16, no. 3/4 (1966): 169–188. Jüngel, Eberhard. God’s Being Is in Becoming: The Trinitarian Being of God in the Theology of Karl Barth. Translated by John Webster. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2001. Kim, Heup Young. A Theology of Dao. Maryknoll: Orbis, 2017. Kim, Jung-Yeup. Zhang Zai’s Philosophy of Qi: A Practical Understanding. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2015. Knight, Douglas H. “John Zizioulas on the Eschatology of the Person.” In The Future as God’s Gift: Explorations in Christian Eschatology, edited by David Fergusson and Robert Wozniak, 189–197. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2000. Lehmann, Karl. “Gegen Hoffnung in Hoffnung. Ihre anthropologischen und theologischen Grundlagen.” In Die Kunst des Hoffens: Kranksein zwischen Erschütterung und Neuorientierung, edited by Giovanni Maio, 7–37. Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 2016.

Bibliography

Levinas, Emmanuel. Entre Nous. Translated by Michael B. Smith and Barbara Harshav. New York: Columbia University Press, 2000. Llull, Ramon. Selected Works of Ramon Llull. Translated by Anthony Bonner. Vol. I. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985. Maio, Giovanni, ed. Die Kunst des Hoffens: Kranksein zwischen Erschütterung und Neuorientierung. Freiburg im Breisgau: Verlag Herder, 2016. Makeham, John, ed. Dao Companion to Neo-Confucian Philosophy. Dordrecht: Springer, 2010. Mannermaa, Tuomo. “Why Is Luther so Fascinating? Modern Finnish Luther Research.” In Union with Christ: The New Finnish Interpretation of Luther, edited by Carl E. Braaten and Robert W. Jenson, 1–20. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998. Marcel, Gabriel. Being and Having. Translated by Katharine Farrer. Glasgow: The University Press, 1949. —. Creative Fidelity. Translated by Robert Rosthal. New York: Fordham University Press, 2002. —. Homo Viator. Paris: Aubier-Montaigne, 1944. —. Homo Viator: Introduction to a Metaphysic of Hope. Translated by Emma Craufurd. Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1951. —. Homo Viator: Philosophie Der Hoffnung. Düsseldorf: Bastion-Verlag, 1949. —. Presence and Immortality. Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1967. —. “Sketch of Phenomenology and the Metaphysics of Hope.” In Homo Viator: Introduction to a Metaphysic of Hope, translated by Emma Craufurd, 29–67. Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1965. —. The Mystery of Being, Volume I: Reflection and Mystery. Translated by G. S. Fraser. South Bend: St. Augustine’s Press, 2001. —. The Mystery Of Being, Volume II: Faith & Reality. Translated by Rene Hague. South Bend: St. Augustine’s Press, 2001. —. Tragic Wisdom and Beyond. Translated by Stephen Jolin and Peter McCormick. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1980. Marcuse, Herbert. One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society. London: Routledge, 2002. Maspero, Giulio, and Robert Wozniak, eds. Rethinking Trinitarian Theology: Disputed Questions and Contemporary Issues in Trinitarian Theology. London: T&T Clark, 2012. Meirav, Ariel. “The Nature of Hope.” Ratio 22, no. 2 (June 2009): 216–233. Mencius. Mencius. Translated by D. C. Lau. London: Penguin, 2005. Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. Signs. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1964. Meyendorff, John. “Humanity: ‘Old’ and ‘New’ – Anthropological Considerations.” In Salvation in Christ: A Lutheran-Orthodox Dialogue, 59–66. Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1992. Meyendorff, John, and Robert Tobias, eds. Salvation in Christ: A Lutheran-Orthodox Dialogue. Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress Pub, 1992.

139

140

Bibliography

Meyer zu Hörste-Bührer, Raphaela J., and Walter Bührer, eds. Relationale Erkenntnishorizonte in Exegese und systematischer Theologie. Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 2018. Moltmann, Jürgen. Theologie der Hoffnung: Untersuchungen zur Begründung u. zu d. Konsequenzen e. christlichen Eschatologie. München: Kaiser, 1977. —. Worauf wir hoffen: das Kommen Gottes und der Weg Jesu Christi. Gütersloh: Kaiser, 1997. Mühling, Markus. Liebesgeschichte Gott: systematische Theologie im Konzept. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2013. —. Resonances: Neurobiology, Evolution and Theology: Evolutionary Niche-Construction, the Ecological Brain and Relational-Narrative Theology. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2014. —. “The Humanifying Adventure.” In Verbs, Bones, and Brains: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Human Nature, edited by Agustín Fuentes and Aku Visala, 104–113. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2017. —. T&T Clark Handbook of Christian Eschatology. Translated by Jennifer Adams-Massmann and David A. Gilland. London: T&T Clark, 2015. Noll, Ray R., ed. 100 Roman Documents Concerning the Chinese Rites Controversy (16451941). Translated by Donald F. St. Sure. San Francisco: Ricci Institute for Chinese-Western Cultural History, 1992. Nowotny, Joan. “Gabriel Marcel’s Philosophy of Hope.” Ph.D. dissertation, University of Toronto, 1974. Ogawa, Tadashi, Michael Lazarin, and Guido Rappe, eds. Interkulturelle Philosophie und Phänomenologie in Japan: Beiträge zum Gespräch über Grenzen hinweg. München: Iudicium, 1998. Ōhashi, Ryōsuke. “Inwieweit ist der ‘Wind’ ein Morphom? Eine Figurationsdynamik der Kultur in Japan.” Morphomata, January 1, 2007, 287–306. Olson, Roger E. “Deification in Contemporary Theology.” Theology Today 64, no. 2 (July 2007): 186–200. Pannenberg, Wolfhart. “Constructive and Critical Functions of Christian Eschatology.” The Harvard Theological Review 77, no. 2 (1984): 119–139. —. What Is Man?: Contemporary Anthropology in Theological Perspective. Translated by Duane A. Priebe. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1970. Pax, Clyde. An Existential Approach to God: A Study of Gabriel Marcel. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1972. Pecknold, C. C., and Tarmo Toom, eds. The T&T Clark Companion to Augustine and Modern Theology. London: T&T Clark, 2016. Peguy, Charles. The Portal of the Mystery of Hope. Translated by David Louis Schindler Jr. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005. Pettit, Philip. “Hope and Its Place in Mind.” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 592 (2004): 152–165. Plügge, Herbert. Wohlbefinden und Missbefinden: Beiträge zu einer medizinischen Anthropologie. Berlin: De Gruyter, 1962.

Bibliography

Polkinghorne, John C., ed. The Trinity and an Entangled World: Relationality in Physical Science and Theology. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010. Randall, Albert B. The Mystery of Hope in the Philosophy of Gabriel Marcel, 1888–1973): Hope and Homo Viator. Lewiston: E. Mellen Press, 1992. Ratcliffe, Matthew. “What Is It to Lose Hope?” Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 12, no. 4 (December 2013): 597–614. Redmond, Geoffrey, trans. The I Ching (Book of Changes): A Critical Translation of the Ancient Text. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2017. Rehfeld, Emmanuel L. Relationale Ontologie bei Paulus: die ontische Wirksamkeit der Christusbezogenheit im Denken des Heidenapostels. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2012. —. “Seinskonstitutive Christusbezogenheit. Relational-ontologische Denkstrukturen und ‘InChristus-Sein’ bei Paulus.” In Relationale Erkenntnishorizonte in Exegese und systematischer Theologie, 69–90. Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 2018. Ricoeur, Paul. Figuring the Sacred: Religion, Narrative and Imagination. Edited by Mark I. Wallace. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995. —. “Hope and the Structure of Philosophical Systems.” In Figuring the Sacred: Religion, Narrative and Imagination, edited by Mark I. Wallace, 203–216. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995. Rombs, Ronnie. “Augustine on Christ.” In T&T Clark Companion to Augustine and Modern Theology, edited by C. C. Pecknold and Tarmo Toom, 36–53. London: T&T Clark, 2016. Ruelius, Peter-Felix. Mysterium Spes: Gabriel Marcels Philosophie der Hoffnung und ihre Relevanz für die Eschatologie. Würzburg: Echter, 1995. Schmitz, Hermann. Atmosphären. Freiburg: Verlag Karl Alber, 2014. —. Der Gefühlsraum. Bonn: Bouvier, 1969. —. “Entseelung der Gefühle.” In Gefühle als Atmosphären: neue Phänomenologie und philosophische Emotionstheorie, edited by Kerstin Andermann and Undine Eberlein, 21–34. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2011. Schmitz, Hermann, Rudolf Owen Müllan, and Jan Slaby. “Emotions Outside the Box – the New Phenomenology of Feeling and Corporeality.” Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 10, no. 2 (June 1, 2011): 241–259. Schumacher, Bernard N. A Philosophy of Hope: Josef Pieper and the Contemporary Debate on Hope. New York: Fordham University Press, 2003. Schwöbel, Christoph. Gott in Beziehung: Studien zur Dogmatik. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2002. —. “Human Being as Relational Being: Twelve Theses for a Christian Anthropology.” In Persons, Divine, and Human: King’s College Essays in Theological Anthropology, edited by Christoph Schwöbel, 141–165. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1999. —. “Last Things First? The Century of Eschatology in Retrospect.” In The Future as God’s Gift: Explorations in Christian Eschatology, edited by David Fergusson and Marcel Sarot, 217–241. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2000.

141

142

Bibliography

—, ed. Persons, Divine, and Human: King’s College Essays in Theological Anthropology. Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1999. Spinoza, Baruch. The Collected Works of Spinoza, Volume 1. Edited and translated by Edwin Curley. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985. Stein, Edith. Welt und Person: Beitrag zum Christlichen Wahrheitsstreben. Louvain/Freiburg: E. Nauwelaerts/Herder, 1962. Tang, Chün-i. “Chang Tsai’s Theory of Mind and Its Metaphysical Basis.” Philosophy East and West 6, no. 2 (1956): 113–136. Thompson, Peter, and Slavoj Žižek, eds. The Privatization of Hope. Durham: Duke University Press, 2013. Tonning, Judith E. “‘Hineingehalten in die Nacht’: Heidegger’s Early Appropriation of Christian Eschatology.” In Phenomenology and Eschatology: Not Yet in the Now, edited by Neal Deroo and John P. Manoussakis. London: Routledge, 2016. Viale, Tyler. “Gabriel Marcel: Hope and Love in Time of Death.” In Hope: Claremont Studies in the Philosophy of Religion, Conference 2014, edited by Ingolf U. Dalferth and Marlene A. Block, 159–172. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2016. Waldenfels, Bernhard. “From Intentionality to Responsivity.” In Phenomenology Today: The Schuwer Spep Lectures, 1998–2002, edited by Rudolf Bernet and Daniel J. Martino. Pittsburgh: Simon Silverman Phenomenology Center, Duquesne University, 2003. —. The Question of the Other. Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 2007. —. Topographie des Fremden. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1997. Wang, Huaiyu. “Ren and Gantong: Openness of Heart and the Root of Confucianism.” Philosophy East and West 62, no. 4 (November 2, 2012): 463–504. Wang, Mengou. Liji Jinzhu Jinyi 礼记今注今译. Tianjin: tianjin guji chubanshe, 1987. Wang, Robin R., and Weixiang Ding. “Zhang Zai’s Theory of Vital Energy.” In Dao Companion to Neo-Confucian Philosophy, edited by John Makeham, 39–57. Dordrecht: Springer, 2010. Ware, Kallistos. “The Holy Trinity: Model for Personhood-in-Relation.” In The Trinity and an Entangled World: Relationality in Physical Science and Theology, edited by John C. Polkinghorne, 107–129. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010. Watsuji, Tetsuro. Climate and Culture: A Philosophical Study. Translated by Geoffrey Bownas. New York: Greenwood, 1961. —. Fūdo – Wind und Erde: der Zusammenhang zwischen Klima und Kultur. Translated by Dora Fischer-Barnicol and Okochi Ryogi. Darmstadt: Wiss. Buchges., 1992. Weigand, Karlheinz, ed. Bloch-Almanach. 1. Baden-Baden: Nomos, 1981. Wilhelm, Richard, and Cary F. Baynes, trans. The I Ching Or Book of Changes: The Richard Wilhelm Translation Rendered into English by Cary F. Baynes. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1977. Wolfe, Judith. Heidegger’s Eschatology: Theological Horizons in Martin Heidegger’s Early Work. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013. Woschitz, Karl M. Elpis, Hoffnung: Geschichte, Philosophie, Exegese, Theologie eines Schlüsselbegriffs. Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 1979.

Bibliography

Wu, Kuang-Ming. “Are Persons Replaceable?” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 29, no. 2 (1968): 245–256. —. On the “Logic” of Togetherness: A Cultural Hermeneutic. Leiden: Brill, 1998. —. Story-Thinking: Cultural Meditations. New York: Nova Science, 2010. —. The Butterfly as Companion: Meditations on the First Three Chapters of the Chuang Tzu. Albany: SUNY Press, 1990. —. “The Other Is My Hell; The Other Is My Home.” Human Studies 16, no. 1/2 (1993): 193–202. Zhang, Zai. Zhang Zai Ji 张载集. Beijing: zhonghua shuju, 1978. Zhu, Xi. Sishu Zhangju Jizhu 四书章句集注. Beijing: zhonghua shuju, 2010. Žižek, Slavoj. “Preface: Bloch’s Ontology of Not-yet-Being.” In The Privatization of Hope: Ernst Bloch and the Future of Utopia, edited by Peter Thompson and Slavoj Žižek, 1–20. Durham: Duke University Press, 2013. Zizioulas, John D. Being as Communion: Studies in Personhood and the Church. London: Darton Longman & Todd, 2004. —. “On Being a Person: Towards an Ontology of Personhood.” In Persons, Divine, and Human: King’s College Essays in Theological Anthropology, edited by Christoph Schwöbel, 33–46. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1999. —. “Relational Ontology: Insights from Patristic Thought.” In The Trinity and an Entangled World: Relationality in Physical Science and Theology, edited by John C. Polkinghorne, 146–156. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010. —. The Eucharistic Communion and the World. Edited by Luke Ben Tallon. London: T&T Clark, 2011. —. The One and the Many: Studies on God, Man, the Church, and the World Today. Edited by Fr Gregory Edwards. Alhambra: Sebastian Press, 2010. “‘气’的字源字形 | 漢典.” Accessed March 25, 2022. //www.zdic.net/zd/zx/說文小篆/气. “‘氣’字的解释 | 汉典.” Accessed March 25, 2022. //www.zdic.net/hans/氣.

143

Index

A adverbial modality s. a. Existential, 28, 30, 31, 35, 38, 49, 51, 64, 91, 92, 104, 106, 108, 112, 126, 130, 133, 134 air 49, 67, 68, 72–77, 84, 86, 92, 95, 97, 118, 130 – aerial medium 68, 73–75 – being-in-the-air 74–76 always-being-mine s. a. mineness, 15, 16, 38, 39, 42, 60, 71, 84, 86, 88 Angst 19, 30, 39–41, 102 atmosphere 13, 16, 17, 25, 30, 49, 67–74, 76, 84, 91, 94–96, 101, 102, 115, 124, 127, 133 – air-centered 16, 76, 133 – atmospheric affectivity 69 – atmospheric feeling 74 – atmospheric perception 75 – atmospheric reality 14–16, 67, 91, 92, 94, 109, 111, 121, 133 atmospheric co-existence s. a. hopeful co-existence, 13, 14–17, 27, 49, 67, 76, 83–86, 88, 91–96, 109 attunement 25, 69 – basic 25, 91, 101, 103 authenticity 41, 42 – authentic 38–41, 44, 59, 84, 86, 88, 92, 112 – inauthentic 37–39, 41, 42, 60, 67, 112, 133 B bearing reality 14, 25, 33, 37, 60, 61, 64, 133 becoming 61, 73–75, 82, 83, 108 – co-becoming 75, 76

Being 14, 19, 22, 29, 35, 42–47, 49, 57, 73, 78, 83, 88, 94 being-towards-life 88, 106, 107 being-with 39, 42, 75, 84, 86, 87 birth 61, 80, 93, 98, 101, 122, 134 Bloch, Ernst 21, 24, 26 body 16, 68, 74, 87 – bodily 25, 67–75, 84 – dead 106, 113 – great 79, 120–123 – lived 71, 76, 126, 129 – living 76, 93, 101, 134 – small 79, 120 – universal 116, 117, 119, 121, 123 Böhme, Gernot 34, 67–72, 74, 87 – phenomenology of weather 70, 74 Bollnow, Otto 21, 24, 30, 42 bond 44, 47, 92, 93, 105–107, 122 – dead 58 – indestructible living 47–49, 104, 106, 107 breathing 49, 74, 88, 94–98, 100, 102, 103, 107, 112, 118, 122, 125, 126 Buber, Martin 101, 113 C captivity 32, 33, 45, 46, 48, 49 Christ 53, 54, 61–63, 126, 128 – body of 126, 127 Christian church 101, 125, 126 co-humanity s. a. ren, Confucian doctrine of, 13, 16, 17, 32, 63, 91, 109, 115–117, 119–122, 125, 129, 130, 133, 134 – co-human 116, 121–123, 128 – man of 119–121 – the sprout of 117

146

Index

communio 53, 56–58, 63, 64, 79, 104, 126, 133 communion 23, 37, 44–48, 56, 63–65, 126 community 44, 56–60, 62–64, 93, 108, 123, 125–127, 129, 131, 133, 134 compassion 16, 116–119, 121, 123, 134 composure 98, 102 Confucianism 115, 133 – Confucian 13, 17, 101, 112, 115–119, 121–123, 125, 127, 129, 130, 133, 134 – Confucius 122, 123 – Mencius 116, 117 D Dalferth, Ingolf 20, 23, 25–28, 30, 31, 33, 42, 53, 63, 64, 92, 108, 111, 125 Dasein 14–16, 31, 37–43, 53, 60, 70, 84, 87, 88, 92, 96, 97, 102, 126 death 31, 39–41, 43, 47, 48, 60, 61, 82, 94, 105, 106, 119 deification 51, 54, 60–64, 67, 89, 93, 124, 127, 128 despair 19, 30, 45–48, 94 E eschatology 14, 51, 53, 115 – eschatical reality 54, 61, 63, 127 – eschatoi 51, 54, 61, 128 – eschatological existence 41 – eschatos 51, 53, 54 existentiality 15, 37, 39, 41, 42, 51, 60, 71, 84, 99 – existential s. a. adverbial modality, 19, 28, 30, 31, 37, 38, 51 – of in-betweenness 16, 67, 86, 88, 89, 91, 92, 112, 133 – self-centered 15, 16, 37, 41, 49, 52, 67, 88, 89, 112, 133 existential-phenomenological 13–15, 134 extension 58, 81–83, 85, 92, 95, 96, 99, 104, 106, 117, 121, 122, 126, 129

F family 93, 101, 122, 123, 125, 129, 134 future 20, 21, 24, 32–34, 38, 41, 51, 53, 54, 115 G gift 15, 19, 21, 33, 35, 41, 51, 58, 64, 94, 106, 111 God 40, 52, 53, 60–64, 94, 115, 126–129 – Christian 52–55, 57, 62, 128, 130, 133 – triune 14, 16, 51, 54–59, 61, 63, 64, 124–126, 129, 130, 134 good 20–22, 28, 92, 94, 109 – goodness 21, 91, 109 – possibility of the 15, 22, 26–29, 31, 42, 108, 109, 111, 133 Greshake, Gisbert 56, 63, 79, 125, 126 growth 33, 58, 64, 74, 75, 88, 93, 98, 99, 101, 103, 107, 108, 117, 122, 127, 134 H Heidegger, Martin 15, 16, 31, 37–42, 49, 59, 60, 67, 70, 71, 84, 87–89, 97, 99, 112, 133 – Being and Time 15, 37, 38, 40, 41 – being-towards-death 31, 39, 41, 61, 88, 106 – Phenomenology of Religious Life 40 home 34, 91, 97–99, 101, 107, 123, 125 hope 13 – absolute 43, 45, 46, 48, 49 – Christian theological 13, 16, 51–54, 58, 61, 64, 65, 67, 89, 94, 115, 124, 129, 130, 133, 134 – communal 23, 27, 33, 34, 46, 47 – Confucian 130 – fundamental 13–17, 19, 28–32, 35, 37, 38, 41, 43, 49, 58, 61, 67, 89, 91–96, 99, 102, 115, 130, 133 – hopefully 28, 30, 31, 33, 49, 92, 133

Index

– – – – – –

human 13, 28, 51, 104, 113, 131 ordinary 14, 19, 29–31, 43, 102, 107 personal 23, 27 philosophical 14, 19, 111 spes qua 24, 31, 32 spes quae 20–23, 26–29, 31–34, 51, 54, 61, 64, 95, 96, 102, 107, 124, 127, 130 – ultimate 130, 131 hopeful co-existence s. a. atmospheric coexistence, 13, 14, 16, 17, 27, 32, 35, 91–93, 96, 97, 99–113, 115, 123–126, 129–131, 134 – between God and human 128, 134 – Christian way of 126, 130, 134 – Confucian way of 115, 117, 121–123, 130, 134 – divine way of 16, 115, 127, 129 – human way of 16, 115, 127, 129, 134 human existence 14–17, 19, 28–31, 41–43, 49, 52, 64, 74, 76, 84, 87–89, 92, 94, 96, 97, 117, 129, 133 humanity 28, 31, 32, 34, 59–63, 108, 109, 120, 128, 133, 134 – humane 19, 28, 30–32, 64, 108, 109, 116, 129, 133 I in-between s. a. in-betweenness, 13, 14, 16, 32, 33, 43, 49, 68, 71, 85, 88, 89, 91, 92, 96, 99, 101, 103, 104, 108, 109, 112, 113, 117, 121, 125, 126, 130, 131, 134 – void spheres 85, 86, 95, 125, 130, 133 in-betweenness s. a. in-between, 13, 14, 15, 16, 32, 35, 67, 70, 71, 86–89, 91, 92, 108, 109, 129, 130, 133 Ingold, Tim 13, 16, 67, 68, 72–77, 84–86, 91, 93, 95, 96, 99, 100, 118, 133 inner touch 13, 75, 80, 95, 116 – sentient and creative 16, 67, 75–77, 133

intercorporeality 76, 91–93, 95, 96, 99, 101, 106, 107, 109, 112, 113, 117, 121, 122, 124–126, 131, 134 inter-cultural 15, 16 interpenetration 16, 56, 57, 63, 65, 80, 95, 98, 103, 112, 128 intersubjectivity 15, 16, 49 J Jenson, Robert 107, 129 joy 40, 41, 63, 91, 101–104 joyous living/wayfaring in love and towards life 91, 108, 134 Jullien, François 117, 118 L light 17, 30, 33, 45, 46, 49, 91, 94–96 love 14, 26, 33, 37, 43, 45–49, 51, 57–64, 104, 105, 107, 115, 121, 125–128, 133 – communal 91, 105–107, 111, 125 – divine 57, 58, 106 – ontology of 33 – shared 57, 59, 61 M Marcel, Gabriel 16, 23, 25, 26, 29, 34, 37, 43–49, 67, 89, 92–94, 96, 104, 105, 112, 133 – immortality 37, 47, 48, 105, 119 – intersubjective ontology 16, 23, 37, 43–48, 67, 89, 92, 133 – phenomenology of hope 16, 25, 37, 43, 104 Merleau-Ponty, Maurice 75, 76 meshwork 13, 16, 67, 76, 84–86, 88, 91–96, 100, 101, 103, 106, 111, 112, 122, 124–128, 130, 134 mineness s. a. always-being-mine, 15, 16, 39, 41–43, 59, 84, 86–89 Moltmann, Jürgen 54 Mühling, Markus 54, 61, 62, 108, 127

147

148

Index

music 94, 95, 101, 103, 104, 109, 110, 124, 129, 134 mystery 42–44, 46, 49, 63, 128 P Pannenberg, Wolfhart 60, 130 particularity 55–57, 59, 63, 77, 79, 83, 88, 103, 104, 125 patience 26, 34 perichoresis 53, 56–58, 62–64, 104, 133 – perichoretic relation 62, 64 person s. a. personhood, 23, 26, 44, 51, 53, 55, 56, 59, 61–64, 98, 112, 122, 126, 128 – divine 54–58, 60, 104, 125, 133 – exemplary 121 – great 121 – human 59, 124–128, 134 – small 121 personhood s. a. person, 23, 55, 56, 57, 125 possibility 15, 34, 39–41, 45, 60–62, 82–85, 88, 91–93, 95, 107, 108, 112, 119, 121, 123, 126, 127, 133 – existential 23, 38, 84, 86, 118 Q qi 16, 17, 67, 77–79, 83, 85, 92, 99, 119, 120, 133 R relation 55, 59, 91, 93, 106, 112, 125 – God-human 59, 64, 124, 127 – internal 33, 34, 55, 57, 61, 83, 105, 112, 113 – relational existence 60 – relational ontology 51, 57, 124 – relational structure 15, 16, 57, 62, 67, 133 – relationality 60 – resonant 85, 88, 97, 99, 111, 121, 126 ren 13

– Confucian doctrine of s. a. cohumanity, 13, 16, 116 – one body with the universe 116, 119–122, 134 renewal 34, 58, 62, 93, 106–108 resonance s. a. inner touch, 13, 16, 67, 77, 79–86, 91, 92, 95, 97, 99, 101, 103–106, 108, 110–113, 116, 121, 125, 127, 130, 133, 134 Ricoeur, Paul 14, 33 S Schmitz, Hermann 67–69, 72, 87 Schwöbel, Christoph 54, 59 sphere of resonance and interpenetration 116, 118, 121, 128 substance 15, 28, 30, 37, 38, 55, 56, 58, 59, 62, 73, 78, 79, 81, 92, 96, 108, 110, 121, 125 – substantial ontology 51, 55, 73, 78, 79, 120 suffering 33, 99, 102, 104 superabundance 19, 22, 29, 33, 35, 42, 61, 94, 107, 108, 128, 130 T temporality 15, 19, 21, 32–35, 38, 51, 53, 73, 76, 96 transcendence 23, 40, 47, 53 transformation 23, 63, 76, 77, 79, 82, 83, 86, 92, 93, 98, 99, 106, 108, 121 trinity 56, 62, 115 – trinitarian 17, 51, 55, 58, 62, 67, 133, 134 – trinitarization 127, 134 U uncertainty 20–22 unity 34, 55–57, 60, 62, 63, 77, 79–83, 88, 103, 104, 116, 118, 119, 121, 122, 125, 126, 134 – relational 55, 57

Index

V virtue 14, 23, 91, 94, 108, 109, 112, 116, 117, 120, 121 void 13, 81–83, 85, 87, 96–98, 100, 101, 106, 125, 126 W Waldenfels, Bernhard 95, 107, 110 Watsuji, Tetsuro 87–89, 106 way s. a. wayfaring, 34, 82–84, 88, 91, 92, 100, 101, 116, 119, 121–126, 128

wayfaring s. a. way, 34, 91, 99–101, 103, 104, 106, 122, 125, 128 Wu, Kuang-Ming 98, 100, 102, 110, 113, 134 Z Zhang, Zai 13, 67, 77, 79, 81, 82, 133 – Great Void 16, 67, 77, 79, 81, 82, 133 – philosophy of qi 13, 16, 67, 79–81, 83, 84, 91, 120, 121, 133 – Way of Great Harmony 16, 67, 77, 82, 83, 133 Zizioulas, John 55, 59, 126

149