THE HUMAN BEING AS A

BEING UNTO DEATH

DEATH AND THE MEANING OF LIFE
 The task of philosophy is not to provide another
answer to the question of what happens after
death, but to ask the question what is the meaning
of our lives in the face of uncertainty of what
happens after death
 Martin Heidegger- first philosopher in
history who have “brought human mortality
to the center stage of philosophy.” He
pushed reflection on death farther.

 If we do not reflect on deaths, chances are,

we are not living an authentic life.
 Angst – the feeling of dread because of “not
knowing”
 Those who do not have the “courage to be” as
Paul Tillich put it, meaning those who do not
have the courage to face death, end up living the
inauthentic life of denial manifested by their ‘idle
talk’, ‘curiosity’, and ‘ambiguity’
 Those who have the courage to face the fact of
inevitable death live an authentic existence, a life
of achieving meaningful visions before death
takes them, going through the “miles to go before
I sleep”.
 Inauthentic existence – according to heidegger, a
form of running away from the face of death, from
the reality of one’s finitude, from one’s fallenness.
 THE HUMAN PERSON IS A BEING IN
NEED OF GOD AND A BEING-TOWARDS
GOD
THE HUMAN PERSON AND THE FUNDAMENTAL
LONGING FOR SOMETHING MORE

 Human being is God-oriented, a being towards

God.
 The Upanishad’s embodied Atman ultimately
needs to be united with Brahman (Hinduism)
 In Old Testament, the psalmist thirsts and yearns
for God “like the deer that yearns for running
streams, so my soul is thirsting for you my God!”
(Psalm 42:1)
 Among the Greeks, the Platonic man is drawn
toward the Prototype of his being; the
Aristotelian’s Actus Purus, the Pure Act, draws all
things (including man) towards itself.
 St. Augustine was a “restless flame” who would
only find rest in God.
 For St. Thomas, the ultimate aim of man’s
pursuits is happiness, the fullness of which
cannot be realized on earth but rather in the
after-life when on attains a vision of God, a
‘beatific vision’
WHO IS GOD?
 God is the eternal You, eternal presence,
always available to man even when man is
very often not available for Him.
 For Rudolf Otto, God is felt, experienced,
and touched as a phenomenon of the
“mysterium tremendum et fascinans”, by
which we are fascinated and before whom
we bow our headsin state of awe, fear or
reverence.
 While it is true that we experience
satisfaction and meaning through our
communion with others, or through the
fulfillment of our projects and endeavors in
caring for others, we often find ourselves
still searching for that ultimate happiness.
(Ex. Newly married couples after
honeymoon stage)
 The reason why many people never seem to
find this ultimate happiness is because they
have been looking for it in the wrong places.
For philosophers who reflected on this
fundamental longing, one that we all
experience, this deep desire is really a
longing for God.
 The end of our honeymoon stage, blissful
moment with our beloved, does not mean
the end of our relationship. It only means
that our relationship is in need of someone/
something beyond each other. It is a
relationship in need of God.
 Rudy Visker explains (Visker, 1966:177-181)
“on the one hand…communication with
fellowmen…is an ontological need, that is to say,
a need that affects me in my existence as a value
to be realized…On the other hand it is there…
pointing beyond the inter-human dimension.” This
higher source of value and meaning “is a Thou, a
Being that can be spoken to, an “Absolute
Subjectivity”, addressed by St. Augustine as
“Thou” “deeper within me than my innermost
depths, and higher than my highest parts.”
 Part of our being human is to be oriented
towards God, to be yearning and longing for
the Greatest Being, to have a taste of the
Good, the Beautiful, and the Truth. The
capitalization of the last few words in the
preceding sentence signifies are longing for
the highest degree of our experiences - the
highest good, the most beautiful, the
clearest of truths.
FEAR OF DEATH VS. THE LONGING OF
SOMETHING MORE
 Those who are ruled by fear of death cannot hear
the deepest longing of their hearts. They are too
busy trying to numb themselves from the reality
of death.
 Those who embrace their longing for God,
however, would find that death is not something
that we need to be afraid of. The fear of death
loses its sting.
 The longing for God does not mean,
however, that we will no longer need others
in our lives. On the contrary, when we
embrace this longing for God, we are able to
love other people more fully and
unconditionally.
 Despite the uncertainty, however,
philosophy does well in convincing us to
take the direction of hope rather than
absolute cynicism. Hope is what conditions
our questioning, our reflecting. Hope is
what gives us courage to direct our lives
more deliberately, more meaningfully.
 “Hope anchors the soul” (Hebrews 6:19)
 Without hope, the fact of death renders
everything else in our lives as absurd.
 Life can be meaningful because of our
capacity to hope.