Abstract

The purpose of the study is to lay a philosophical foundation for a theological anthropology of death. This study should be understood not as a straightforward constructive theology but as a philosophical endeavor for theological studies or as a philosophico-theological anthropology. This study devotes itself to the elaboration of an authentic interpretation of death on the basis of the reconstruction of the being-freedom relation. For if death, in a general analysis, designates not only an objective-external fact but also a subjective-interior event, the two dimensions of death should refer to the two kernels of existence, namely, being and freedom. Thus, the manner of constructing the being-freedom relation is the decisive point of departure and underlying methodological framework for an analysis of existence and, consequently, for an interpretation of death. ;If priority is given to one over the other of the two, a structural distortion must be the result: if primacy is given to being as the fundamental over freedom as a derivative, existence cannot but be described as fateful estrangement by deterministic vision, and death is viewed fatalistically as the moment of destruction of being by nonbeing, as illustrated by Paul Tillich. By contrast, if supremacy is ascribed to freedom as the fundamental over being as a derivative, existence appears as the subject of freedom over against necessity, thereby lifting up to a libertarian outlook. Death in this framework is viewed romantistically as the moment of liberation from the bondage of being towards the original freedom, as presented by Nicolas Berdyaev. Thus, both the "ontologist" reductionism and "existentialist" one are to be critically refuted as the inadequate frameworks for an authentic interpretation of death. ;In conformity with the demand for a proper balance between the two conflicting approaches, Martin Heidegger appears to suggest the integration of being and freedom in "existential-ontological" framework such that existence is now viewed as the incorporation of finitude and transcendence. Death in this integralist framework is interpreted in an inclusivist manner as the fundamental structure of existence. With a view to constructing a renewed philosophical paradigm for a genuine theological anthropology of death, the Heideggerian integrality is elaborated further on the basis of the paradoxical unity of fullness and emptiness towards a radical unity, thereby producing the more holistic constitution of existence so as to arrive at the paradoxical unity of death and life. Our final contention in this regard is that the paradoxical unity of death and life entails the neutrality of human mortality in such a way that death is not so much the consequence of human fallenness as the event and act of human creatureliness