Haase_UZ_x007E_DTh (2).pdf - South African Theological Seminary

depends upon our decision makes our freedom
a source of anguish, for we cannot know with
any certainty what will become of us (Acton,
in Brown, 1968:182).
The existentialist suggests that man is the only creature who can define, or redefine
himself. A cow, for example, cannot define who it is -- it is simply a cow. According to
the existentialists, individuals define themselves according to the choices they make.
Jean-Paul Sartre said we are nothing; later we become something and we alone make
ourselves. Heidegger suggested that we are thrown [geworfenheit] into this world, having
no explanation of our purpose. This creates concern, or angst (Ger., anxiety, or fear), and
besorgen (Ger., provide). We spend our lives searching for meaning and purpose, but as
Sartre argues, life is full of misery and hopelessness, and the despair of trying to find
value outside of ourselves. Francis Schaeffer concluded in 1982 that “positivism is dead,
and what is left is cynicism, or some mystical leap as to knowing. That is where modern
man is, whether the individual man knows it or not” (Schaeffer, 1990:316). This angst is
partly captured by Camus who says in The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays:
When images of the earth cling too tightly to
memory, when the call of happiness becomes
too insistent, it happens that melancholy rises
in man’s heart: this is the rock’s victory, this
is the rock itself. The boundless grief is too
heavy to bear. These are our nights in
Gethsemane. But crushing truths perish from
being acknowledged. Sisyphus, proletarian
of the gods, powerless and rebellious, knows
the whole extent of his wretched condition: it
is what he thinks of during his descent. The
lucidity that was to constitute his torture at
the same time crowns his victory. There is
no fate that cannot be surmounted by scorn
(Camus, 1955:90).
Foucault considered Heidegger the father of German existentialism (Grenz, 1996:103);
Heidegger rejected the existentialist label, describing his philosophy as an investigation
that begins with human existence. Sartre was the only self-proclaimed existentialist
among the major thinkers. He claimed, again, that existence precedes essence. For him,
no God exists and human nature is not fixed. Each person is free to do, as they will, yet
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University of Zululand, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa