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The thought of Martin Heidegger is strange not only in its language, but in its effect upon philosophers of the most diverse orientations. As is well known, he has caused reactions ranging from virulence to adulation. But within scholastic circles both philosophical and theological, as well as among Protestant intellectuals, his writings seem more than anything else to have created a ferment and stirring of ideas that have already borne rich fruit through influences felt in the writings, among others, of Rahner, Bultmann, and a number of fine scholars of Louvain. This sphere of influence within scholasticism particularly, already provides some important clues as to the nature of Heidegger's Denken des Seins. Dondeyne, Rahner, De Waelhens, and the centers of thought they represent — all were profoundly influenced by the scholasticism of Joseph Maréchal in its overriding concern with the history and theory of the problem of knowledge.¹ In these currents of Maréchalian scholasticism Heidegger's notion of Being has remained, as elsewhere, disconcertingly enigmatic, hut with this difference: the notion has somehow, as though by a secret affinity, seemed to match the mood and share the spirit of that thought which first brought scholasticism into confrontation with the full complexity and radical concerns of the epistemological problematic. It is by no means incidental to note that the deepest influence of Heidegger has been in this circle of scholasticism.

DOI: 10.1007/978-94-010-3025-0_2

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