The gift of death : the meeting place between humanistic resistance and transcendental acceptance

Abstract

The inquiry of this dissertation is the 'Being' question of the human person at the threshold of death. Through the contribution of Martin Heidegger and Hans Urs von Balthasar respectively, I will illustrate that ende is not "wholly-singularized" but relational in its directedness. The exposition will focus on: (i) Heidegger's dramatic "can be" at the limit of the nothingness of death; (ii) Balthasar' s miracle of Being at the final manifestation of the non-word on the cross as translucid affiliation; (iii) The minister as the explicit being whose call couples "his death" and "our death" in his own person. These three nodes will show death to be the dramatic crossroad where human life is traversed by the gift of divine life.