4,125 words

A young Martin Heidegger.

Part 6 of 15 (Part 1 begins here)

Creation is the Transfiguration of the Dark

Love, according to Schelling, is a principle of wholeness or harmony, drawing all things together. Out of many, it produces a one, a whole. Here, in the first primal stirrings of divine being, love draws together understanding with the will of the ground (the “yearning,” Sehnsucht). A new will is now coming into being. Recall that the will of the ground’s “yearning to give birth to itself” is incapable of doing so precisely because it is wholly autistic and egocentric. To draw an analogy, it is like a woman who desires children, but who keeps putting off pregnancy indefinitely because she feels she must first “get her life straightened out.” The desire is there, but its object is an other, which the woman can never get around to producing, since she is wholly absorbed in herself.

What love, or the spirit, accomplishes is to draw the ground’s yearning for self-birth together with the understanding – with the Word of the yearning, its self-representation. This self-representation is an other to the yearning; its confrontation with itself. In the process, the autism or egocentrism of the will of the ground is, as it were, sheared away. It is overcome by love. The result is a new and “independent and complete” will which is a will to give birth to itself in an other. This new will, which is the will of understanding or will of existence, is “a freely creating and all-powerful will.”

The proclamation of the Word – the yearning’s first self-representation in an other – will reverberate through multiple layers of becoming. And it shall “build in the initial anarchic nature as in its own element or instrument.” This statement is potentially quite confusing. In this instance, by “nature” (Natur) Schelling does not mean the natural world around us which is the eventual externalization of God. At certain points in the Freiheitsschrift Schelling also uses “nature” to refer to the ground of God’s being – i.e., “the nature of God.” (In this, he may be following Jacob Boehme, who referred to an “eternal nature” or “body of God” mediating between the divine and physical nature.)

Heidegger recognizes that Schelling sometimes employs “nature” in this way (though one wishes that Schelling, like Heidegger, would be more consistent in his use of terminology).[1] And at one point, Schelling clearly states that “It [i.e., the ground] is nature – in God, a being indeed inseparable, yet still distinct, from him.”[2] And later he refers to the being of “primordial nature” as “the eternal ground for the existence of God” containing within itself “although locked up, the essence of God as a resplendent glimpse of life in the darkness of the depths.”[3]

Recall that Schelling identifies the ground and its dark yearning with “anarchy” (das Regellose). The dark will of the ground, with its infantile inward-turning egocentrism, is the primordial chaos or void. Thus, Schelling is telling us that the new, light-will of understanding or existence, infused by spirit or love, will “freely create” somehow using the dark will of the ground as “its own element or instrument.” Recall also that we have seen Schelling comparing the ground to “Plato’s matter,” and that he appears to be alluding to the creation story of the Timaeus, in which the “matter” of things is a kind of void. And recall, finally, that Schelling tells us that “This [the anarchy of the ground] is the incomprehensible base of reality in things, the indivisible remainder . . . . Without this preceding darkness creatures have no reality; darkness is their necessary inheritance.”

Putting all of this together, Schelling is clearly saying that the coming into being of the universe (“nature” in the usual sense of the word) comes about when a “light principle” of full expression, transparency, and intelligibility (“the understanding”) “uses” the “dark principle” of closure and egocentrism in order to produce a multiplicity of embodied beings. “God’s will is to universalize everything,” Schelling writes, “to raise everything up toward unity with the light or keep it there; the will of the ground, however, is to particularize everything or to make it creaturely.”[4]

Expressing matters in Platonic terms (which Schelling so much as invites us to do), the “light principle” on its own would create a world wholly of intelligible form; wholly of the universal or the ideal. A light world with no shadow. Not, our world, in other words. In order to create a multiplicity of embodied beings – beings embodying form – a dark principle is necessary, a shadow principle, one that acts as a principle of individuation, finitude, and “creatureliness.” In other words, it acts as a “material principle.”[5]

What characterizes individual beings, whether living or non-living, is a kind of “will” to “hold themselves together,” to maintain their status as individual existents, and not to be destroyed or absorbed into another. Obviously, living things provide the best example of this, with their continual struggle to maintain life and avoid death. But even a rock “holds itself together,” figuratively speaking, “maintaining itself” in its present form until a stronger force smashes it. Thus, at the very basis of individuated reality itself there is a kind of fundamental selfishness. This selfishness is just the will of the ground – the dark, inward-turned egocentric will.

Schelling characterizes this as the “self-will of creatures” (der Eigenwille der Kreatur). Opposing it, the understanding is “universal will [Universalwille]” which “stands against this self-will of creatures, using and subordinating the latter to itself as a mere instrument.”[6] All creatures shall be built out of these opposing principles: the light of understanding, and the darkness of the ground. Schelling writes that “each being . . . has a dual principle in itself.”[7] All express some universal – some principle, or principles, of intelligibility. And all seek, in one way or another, to propagate this light.

At the same time, however, just insofar as all creatures are distinct, finite individuals, they partake of the dark selfishness of the ground. All created things are a blend of these two fundamental principles. All are a blend of light and darkness, universality and individuality, ideality and fleshliness, form and chaos or entropy, love and hate, expansion (expression; opening out into the light) and contraction (turning inward and closing off). Heidegger comments:

Thus creation is nothing else but the transfiguration of the dark, urging back to the ground, to light. The self-will of the ground striving back to itself is thus in what is created. But this self-craving stands against the will of the understanding which strives for rule and unity, and therein for the bond of everything everywhere to the one. Its will is the universal will. The particular will of the ground is subserviently subordinated to this universal will. Where craving for separation remains guided by the will for the universal, what craves itself determined by this universal will, becomes something particular, separate for itself. The latter does not relinquish self-will – every animal is evidence of this – but it is bound to the universal of the species, again, every animal is evidence of this.[8]

Schelling now gives us some brief and tantalizing indications of how these opposing principles give rise to the whole. And, by the way, it must be kept squarely in mind that “the whole” refers to God, who contains nature. Thus, the principles we are discussing here are the principles (in the sense of “sources”) of both God and nature. Just how these act in the coming into being of nature is only briefly sketched by Schelling: “The first effect of the understanding in nature is the division of forces, since only thus can the understanding unfold the unity that is unconsciously but necessarily immanent in nature as in a seed . . . . [Now] the unity hidden in the ground and containing all raises itself up.”[9]

The Division of Forces

With the idea of the “division of forces” we move into the territory of Schelling’s “philosophy of nature,” which was highly obscure in his earlier writings, and no less so here in the Freiheitsschrift, especially given that in the present text he only alludes to these ideas briefly and tersely. We are being told that the understanding is a catalyst for a division that is fundamental to the coming into being of nature – which is simultaneously the expression of God. Recall that understanding, for Schelling, is ex-pression and ex-sistence – standing out from the ground in actuality (i.e., realized potentiality). But this is only possible as specification, articulation, and division – much like the embryo discussed in part four, which divides within itself and, self-specifying, becomes a fully developed being.

The self-specification of understanding, Schelling tells us, “unfolds the unity” that is “unconsciously but necessarily immanent in nature as in a seed.” What unconscious unity is Schelling referring to, though? We have seen unity arising within the “Godhead,” within the absolute essence of God, as the unity of yearning and understanding. But in the passage just quoted, Schelling goes on to say that “the unity hidden in the ground . . . raises itself up,” and that this hidden unity “contains all.” What he seems to be referring to is a concept we have mentioned before, but which Schelling only names later in the text: Ungrund – “not ground” or “unground” – a term he appropriates directly from Jacob Boehme.

Boehme’s concept of Ungrund appeals to Schelling because he sees it (with some justification) as equivalent to his concept of the “Indifference Point” (Indifferenzpunkt), a blank and indifferent oneness preceding all manifestation. In the Freiheitsschrift, the ground-existence distinction (what Heidegger refers to as the “jointure of being”) is “preceded” by the Ungrund/Indifferenzpunkt. This is not a unity of ground and existence from which these then flow; not, in other words, a unity of opposites. No, it prescinds entirely from differentiation and is contentless. This is the “unity” that is “hidden in the ground.” It is a unity of one only in the sense that it is a one beyond all difference. Thus, it is not a unity of anything. And, as a result, it is, in itself, utterly barren.

But what is bare unity, and not a unity of anything, can be seen as an inchoate potential for a higher, developed unity that is not contentless but contains all content: the unity of all; the whole. The Ungrund is utterly empty and thus wholly inchoate and potential. For this potential to become realized in time and space, this empty space must become full. When Schelling tells us that “the understanding unfolds the unity that is . . . hidden in the ground” and that this unity “raises itself up” he is referring to the process whereby the empty unity of the Ungrund is realized as a one of many. Note that he says that the unity hidden in the ground “contains all.” He means that it contains all potentially, as the plant or animal as a whole is contained “in a seed.”

From the Ungrund emerges, in a fashion utterly mysterious, the distinction in being that Schelling calls ground and existence. (And though we have spoken as if ground “precedes” existence, please keep in mind that this temporal language is figurative; ground precedes existence only in terms of logical or ontological fundamentality.) From the will of the ground emerges the will of understanding – when the ground “doubles itself” or “bends back on itself,” and forms a “representation” of itself.

And the will of understanding utilizes the dark will of the ground – to do what? To generate a multiplicity of beings, the being of each of which is characterized by its dual nature: participating both in the selfish, contracting will of the ground, and the expansive will of understanding or existence. In short, we begin with an utterly blank and primal one, from which emerges two – and so forth. Within the Godhead, as within the nucleus of a cell, division begins: an internal self-articulation or differentiation whereby the one of nothing becomes the one of many; the whole.

Schelling now tells us that,

Since, therefore, the understanding, or the light placed in primordial nature [i.e., in the Godhead], arouses the yearning that is striving back into itself to divide the forces (for the surrender of darkness), while emphasizing precisely in this division the unity closed up within the divided elements—the hidden glimpse of light— something comprehensible and individuated first emerges in this manner and, indeed, not through external representation but rather through genuine impression [Ein-Bildung], since that which arises in nature is impressed [hineingebildet] into her or, still more correctly, through awakening, since the understanding brings to the fore the unity or idea hidden in the divided ground.[10]

The yearning (the will of the ground) is “striving back into itself,” he says. This is to be expected, since, as we have seen, the will of the ground is a contracting, self-absorbed will. But now this will has been “aroused” by the understanding, and it shall be utilized in a productive fashion. Thus, it strives back into itself to “divide the forces” and, furthermore, this takes place “for the surrender of darkness.” Darkness shall surrender in that light shall come into being; this is the first glimmering of ex-sistence, the coming into being of the divine nature, and of the natural world.

We have seen that in order for this coming into being to take place, specification, articulation, and thus division must occur – and this comes about through the interplay of light and darkness. The light, for Schelling, is equivalent to universality or the ideal. Hence, in the light as such there is no individuality, and thus no division. Division arises when the light is penetrated by darkness, which, for Schelling, is equivalent to individuality and “creatureliness” (as I have put it). Or, to dispense with metaphor, division arises when the universal is “particularized” or “individualized” by being blended with a force (the will of the ground) that is the contracting, in-drawing essence of unanalyzable particularity itself.

The surrender of darkness is never total; darkness (the ground) is eternal, and without it a world of particulars could never come into being. The process begins with the cryptic “division of forces,” about which Schelling says little. What he seems to have in mind is that the blend of understanding and the will of the ground produces a proliferation first of individual “forces,” then, through the same process of individuation, myriad forms or universals, then concrete and particular individuals that “particularize” these forms. Schelling writes that “something comprehensible and individuated first emerges in this manner.” Heidegger at one point inserts a drawing into his account of nature’s evolution, according to Schelling. It is not unusual to find diagrams in Heidegger’s texts, but this drawing is quite unusual.

Heidegger does not explicitly draw attention to the drawing in his text, but on the following page he appears to offer an explanation of it: “[In this becoming] there is a continual self-transcendence and a striving outward and upward to ever higher stages. Ground and existence separate further and further, but in such a way that they are ever in unison in the form of an ever higher being. Becoming creates stages in itself. The movement of creating-created nature is thus an urge to life which revolves in itself and, revolving, overflows itself and, overflowing itself, individuates itself and, individuating itself, elevates itself to a higher stage.”[11]

The Resistance of the Yearning is Necessary for Complete Birth

Schelling is careful to note that this process of division and self-articulation in which the will of the ground “strives back into itself,” is not one that occurs “through external representation but rather through genuine impression.” “Impression here translates Ein-Bildung. Schelling both hyphenates and italicizes this word, indicating that he is using it in a special, technical sense, which plays off of the word’s literal meaning. Einbildung means “imagination” – but in the sense of illusion: e.g., “It’s all in your imagination.” Ein– is a common German prefix that has the same sense of English “in-” or “en-” that we find in words like “enchant” or “entomb.” Bildung is derived from Bild, which means “image” or “picture.” Bildung can mean “formation” or “creation,” but can also mean “cultivation” or “education.”

To repeat, Schelling breaks up the word to invoke its literal sense. We may take a guess that he means here something like “in-forming” (in the sense of putting a form “in,” or realizing a form) or “in-picturing” (in the sense of creating an image). However, Schelling has specifically warned us that this process of Ein-Bildung is not “representation” (Vorstellung), so he cannot mean that Ein-Bildung results in a literal image, in the sense of a copy. He says just after this that what “arises in nature is impressed into her or, still more correctly, through awakening, since the understanding brings to the fore the unity or idea hidden in the divided ground.”

“Impressed” is hineingebildet, in which one component of the word is Bild. The prefix hinein– conveys movement into something. For example (from the separable verb hineingehen): “Lass uns hineingehen” (let’s go inside). What we seem to be encountering here is the idea that individual forms arise in nature through a process of impression, in which a multiplicity arises through things spontaneously taking on definite shape or form (again, presumably through the interaction of the yearning and the understanding). The translators, Love and Schmidt, compare this idea to Plato’s wax analogy from the Theaetetus, in which memory is compared to a block of wax that receives impressions.[12]

That there is a kind of spontaneous in-formation here is reinforced by Schelling’s curious insistence that the entire process would be “still more correctly” described as coming about “through awakening.” And this is the case because “the understanding brings to the fore the unity or idea hidden in the divided ground.” It is as if forms spontaneously “awake” or pop into realized existence. It is all very mysterious, but recall that understanding, for Schelling, means expression, externalization, self-revelation. Surely it can be argued that this is equivalent to “awakening.”

Continuing, Schelling goes on to say that “The forces split up (but not fully dispersed) in this division are the material from which the body is subsequently configured; the vital bond which arises in division – thus from the depths of the natural ground, as the center of forces – however, is the soul.”[13] This seems to confirm what we conjectured earlier – that the process of division or individuation, leads to the coming-into-being, of “forces,” as well as forms or universals, then concrete and particular (“bodily”) individuals that “particularize” these forms. But Schelling has now introduced a new term, “the soul” (die Seele). We have already seen him introduce the concept of spirit. What is the soul, for Schelling?

He tells us, again, that soul is “the vital bond which arises in division” and that it comes from “the depths of the natural ground,” but this is very opaque. Schelling goes on to say that “Because the original understanding raises the soul up as something inner [als Inneres] out of a ground that is independent of it, the soul thereby remains independent of the original understanding as a particular and self-sufficient being.”[14] The soul is something inner. It is the interiority that makes an individual an individual. Remember that individuality depends upon the ground: a contracting will that closes within itself.

In this contraction, the ground resists understanding – which is the principle of ideality or universality, the opposite of individuality. Individuality is achieved when a formal nature is particularized by a will that represents the tendency opposite to the understanding: the tendency not to expression, revelation, or expansion outwards in a light world of perfect form and transparency, but the tendency to close up, to form a hard, inner, dark core that resists the light, and resists order. The individual as such is deviant; it is individual just in deviating from understanding/the universal.

In confirmation of this reading, Schelling remarks that “the resistance of the yearning . . . is necessary for any complete birth.” Through this resistance “the innermost bond of forces loosens itself only in a gradually occurring unfolding; and at each point of the division of forces a new being emerges from nature whose soul must be that much more complete the more it contains divided what is not divided in other things.”[15] The will of the ground is the engine of division, of the internal self-specification of the whole. Through the dark will, the forces “loosen” and the whole articulates itself in a “gradually occurring unfolding” – in ever greater emergence of detail, division, particularity, individuality. Each “level” of being that emerges from the “division of forces” is “more complete the more it contains divided what is not divided in other things.” Meaning: each level of emergent being is more internally complex, differentiated, and articulated than the preceding. Full differentiation is achieved, of course, only in the whole.

Schelling writes that “To show how each succeeding process approaches closer to the essence of nature, until the innermost center appears in the highest division of forces, is the task of a comprehensive philosophy of nature.”[16] In other words, in the present text Schelling is only offering us a sketch of the process. As the levels of nature unfold – presumably moving from “lower” to “higher” – we approach closer to the “essence of nature.” But what does this mean?

It is precisely what we have been discussing for some time: the interplay or interpenetration of the yearning (the will of the ground) and understanding; indrawing (contracting) and outgoing (expanding). When Schelling says that “each succeeding process approaches closer to the essence of nature” he means that each somehow more perfectly or completely expresses this essence – “until the innermost center appears in the highest division of forces.” By the “highest division of forces” Schelling seems to mean man.

We will close with some interesting comments by Heidegger on the “philosophy of nature,” as practiced by Schelling and others of his time (including Hegel). His words are worth quoting at length:

We know that darkness and light, night and day, have always appeared as essential powers in man’s reflection on beings, not just as “images.” We know especially that “light” as the condition of seeing in our access to things has become determinative for the interpretation of cognition and knowledge in general [e.g., as in “the natural light of reason”]. Finally, we know that in the last decades of the eighteenth century, in the transition to the nineteenth century, the investigation of nature moved to a more primordial ground and new insights were made in which the fundamental appearances of gravity and light played a special role. However, today we no longer have the eyes to reproduce this insight into nature. This questioning of nature is called “romantic philosophy of nature” and is used with the following in mind: all of that is really nonsense. . . . What today’s physics and chemistry, what modern science, cannot do at all, can never do as such, is to take the perspective, or even provide it, for deciding the question whether that “romantic philosophy of nature” is nonsense or not. That is itself still a question, but we do not want to go into it now. But let us warn against dismissing the perspectives of the philosophy of nature as impossible viewed from the illusory superiority of technological possibilities of change and against falsifying the essential conditions of things into mere “poetic images.”[17]

Notes

[1] Heidegger, Schelling’s Treatise on the Essence of Human Freedom, trans. Joan Stambaugh (Athens, OH: Ohio State University Press, 1985), 110. Henceforth, “ST.”

[2] F.W.J. Schelling, Philosophical Investigations into the Essence of Human Freedom, trans. Jeff Love and Johannes Schmidt (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2006), 27. Italics in original.

[3] Schelling, 30.

[4] Schelling, 47.

[5] Schelling states that “the ground continues to be incessantly active in individuals as well and arouses individuality [Eigenart] and the particular will precisely so that the will of love may appear in contrast.” Schelling, 47.

[6] Schelling, 32.

[7] Schelling, 31.

[8] Heidegger, ST, 140.

[9] The full sentence reads as follows: “The first effect of the understanding in nature is the division of forces, since only thus can the understanding unfold the unity that is unconsciously but necessarily immanent in nature as in a seed, just as in man the light enters into the dark yearning to create something so that in the chaotic jumble of thoughts, all hanging together, but each hindering the other from emerging, thoughts divide themselves from each other, and now the unity hidden in the ground and containing all raises itself up; or as in the plant the dark bond of gravity dissolves only in relation to the unfolding and expansion of forces, and as the unity hidden in divided material is developed.” Schelling, 30.

[10] Schelling, 31.

[11] Heidegger, ST, 137.

[12] See Schelling, 153.

[13] Schelling, 31.

[14] Schelling, 31.

[15] Schelling, 31.

[16] Schelling, 31.

[17] Heidegger, ST, 115.