“a mortal can only start from here, from his mortality.  His possible belief in immortality, his irresistible interest in the beyond, in gods and spirits, what makes survival structure every instant in a kind of irreducible torsion, the torsion of a retrospective anticipation that introduces the untimely moment and the posthumous in the most alive of the present living thing, the rearview mirror of a waiting for death at every moment, and the future anterior that precedes even the present , which it only seems to modify, all this stems first from his mortality (Derrida, Awaiting, 55).” 

If you are intellectually impatient like me, here’s the gist:

Heidegger addresses the apostle Paul in his 1920–1921 Freiburg lectures, which were later compiled and published as The Phenomenology of Religious Life. In those lectures, Heidegger engages extensively with Paul’s epistles (particularly Galatians and Thessalonians) as part of his phenomenological analysis of primordial Christian life-experience, facticity, and temporality. This interpretation served as a key stepping stone in developing concepts like anxiety, historicity, and enactment that would inform his later ontology, such as in Being and Time (1927).

Heidegger’s analysis of death in Being and Time (1927) is central to his existential ontology, particularly in Division II, where he explores the temporality and authenticity of Dasein (his term for human being-in-the-world). Death is not treated as a biological or empirical event but as an existential phenomenon that reveals the structure of human existence. Below is a structured summary of his key ideas:

1. Death as Dasein’s Ownmost Possibility

• Heidegger defines death as “the possibility of the impossibility of any existence at all.” It is not something that “happens” at the end of life like an event (e.g., a medical fact) but an ever-present possibility inherent to Dasein.
• Unlike other possibilities (e.g., career choices), death is non-relational—it cannot be shared, outsourced, or experienced vicariously. No one can die in another’s place.
• It is ownmost (eigenst), meaning it radically individualizes Dasein, pulling it out of anonymous, everyday conformity to “the they” (das Man), where people evade personal responsibility.

2. Inauthentic vs. Authentic Attitudes Toward Death

• Inauthentic (Uneigentlich) Understanding: In everyday life, Dasein flees from death through “idle talk” and public discourse. Death is viewed as something distant that happens to “others” or “one” (e.g., “people die, but not me right now”). This evasion manifests in tranquilizing attitudes, like treating death as a manageable event (e.g., via insurance or medical planning), which covers up its true uncanniness.
• Authentic (Eigentlich) Understanding: Authenticity arises through anticipation (Vorlaufen) of death. By resolutely facing death as one’s own finite possibility, Dasein experiences anxiety (Angst)—not fear of a specific threat, but a profound unease that discloses the groundlessness of existence. This anxiety strips away illusions, revealing Dasein’s thrownness into a finite, temporal world.

3. Being-Towards-Death (Sein-zum-Tode)

• Dasein is fundamentally “being-towards-death,” meaning its existence is oriented toward this ultimate possibility from the start. Life is not a linear progression toward an end but a stretched-out temporality where the future (death) shapes the present and past.
• Death highlights Dasein’s finitude: Existence is not infinite or eternal but bounded, making choices meaningful. Without death, life would lack urgency or authenticity.
• Anticipating death enables resoluteness (Entschlossenheit), where Dasein takes ownership of its possibilities, leading to a more authentic mode of being. This is not morbid obsession but a call to live fully in the face of finitude.

4. Implications for Existence and Time

• Death serves as the “consummation” of Dasein, unifying its temporal structure (past as thrownness, present as fallenness, future as projection). It underscores that authentic existence involves embracing guilt (as finite indebtedness to one’s being) and conscience (the silent call to authenticity).
• Heidegger contrasts this with biological or theological views of death, emphasizing its role in ontological inquiry: Understanding death is key to grasping Being itself.

Overall, Heidegger’s analysis transforms death from a mere endpoint into a lens for authentic living, critiquing modern society’s tendency to “flee” from it. This theme influences his broader project of overcoming metaphysics by rooting philosophy in lived, temporal existence

Of course, most people live their lives “as though” the next moment won’t be denied, though it could be.  Every time I reach for my glass or leave for work I’m doing so “as though” the activity will be completed, as though the next moment won’t be denied, though it could. The most helpful example of Philosophy and Death I can think of is the spectrum of stances toward death one might take embodied in the ancient notions of Carpe Diem at one pole, and Memento Mori at the other pole. In ancient Greco-Roman philosophy, “carpe diem” (“seize the day”), originating from Horace’s Odes around 23 BCE, represents a stance toward death that emphasizes embracing life’s fleeting pleasures and living fully in the present, given mortality’s inevitability and the uncertainty of tomorrow. This approach aligns with Epicurean influences, urging one to pluck the ripe moments of existence without excessive worry about the future.  The full “carpe diem” quote from Horace, from his Odes (Book 1, Ode 11), is “carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero.” This is commonly translated as “seize the day, trusting as little as possible in the future” (or “tomorrow”). Some interpretations render “carpe” more literally as “pluck” or “harvest” the day, emphasizing enjoyment of the present without over-relying on what comes next – as tomorrow is never guaranteed and life is short.

By contrast, “memento mori” (“remember that you must die”) embodies an opposing perspective, rooted in Stoic thinkers like Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius, as well as earlier philosophers such as Plato, who viewed philosophy itself as a preparation for death.  This stance uses the constant awareness of death not to indulge in earthly allure but to cultivate virtue, humility, introspection, and restraint—curbing excesses, focusing on moral living, and sometimes preparing for an afterlife or judgment, as seen in Roman triumphal traditions where a servant reminded victorious generals of their mortality to temper hubris. 

While the two concepts can overlap or complement each other in motivating purposeful action, they are frequently framed as antithetical: “carpe diem” as empowering and savoring, versus “memento mori” as humbling and resistant to life’s temptations.  This forms a spectrum of possibilities of stances toward death from the extreme left pole of hedonism which mellows out into tranquil carpe diem and epicureanism of the simple pleasure of meals and friends, through the middle to momento mori and stoicism on the right, and to the far-right pole of rigid asceticism. For example, as a secular activist I write on Historical Christianity and so with the apostle Paul we get the idea that if the dead are not raised we might as well be gluttons and drunks for tomorrow we die (1 Corinthians 15:32), Paul coming from Tarsus, the birthplace of the stoic enlightenment.

Derrida notes Heidegger’s analysis of death in Being and Time depends on the Christian interpretation of Death (Derrida, Aporias, 55; 80).  It makes little sense on an early Greek or Jewish conception that did not see a blessed life as one’s hoped for end.  As I mentioned before, Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15:32: “If the dead are not raised, ‘Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.’”  This idea suggests that if the dead are not raised, we might as well be gluttons and drunks.  Of course, Paul believed in the resurrection, and so he writes in 1 Corinthians 10:31: “So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.”  This was intimately woven for Paul with having the resurrected Jesus inside you to combat the power of the demonic entity Sin, and so the Apostle Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15:16–17: “For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins.” Paul was convinced the dead were raised because he thinks he saw the risen Jesus.  He writes in 1 Corinthians 15:20: “But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.” The surrounding verses (21–23) connect this to the general resurrection of believers at Christ’s coming, which is Paul’s understanding that he was living during the eschaton, Paul’s interpretation of the general end-time resurrection taught by the pharisees.  This formed a base for Paul’s principle of living as crucifying the flesh/worldly.  This is Paul’s whole life being lived according to his self-placement on the spectrum of being-toward-death (the finite spectrum from hedonism at the left pole, mellowing into tranquil carpe diem and epicureanism of a good meal and friends, past the middle to memento mori and stoicism on the right, and ultimately at the far-right pole rigid asceticism), Paul being from Tarsus, the birthplace of the Stoic enlightenment.  Derrida gives the example in Oedipus the King that true happiness is only attained when death releases you from suffering.

In Friedrich Nietzsche’s The Antichrist, section 42, he critiques the Apostle Paul for distorting the original message of Jesus by inventing doctrines centered on the afterlife, including the resurrection / and emphasizing belief (“If righteousness comes through the law Christ died for nothing”). The Corinthian Creed, if it is pre-Pauline, suggests as Ehrman notes that shortly after Jesus’s death the doctrine of the atonement and the other-worldly elements became central, the historical Jesus on the contrary preaching good works and repentance so God can forgive. As I said, for Paul this was thoroughly grounded in the evidence of the resurrection. However, Stoic philosophy, which is foundational for interpreting Paul strongly emphasized rationalism, skepticism toward superstitions, and the idea that many perceived phenomena could stem from faulty impressions or fears rather than reality. This aligns with Nietzsche’s implication in The Antichrist that, in the context of “Stoical enlightenment,” visions like Paul’s alleged hallucination of the risen Christ would be dismissed as non-veridical rather than taken as proof. For example, the appearance to the 500 Paul relates may just have been hallucination like the Fatima sky miracle.

Today, as average Christians don’t usually have full blown Pauline “appearances” of Jesus to base their faith on, anxiety undergirds faith because you are basing your life on something lacking in evidence. For example, the Gospel of John says the disciples believed because of the Cana wine miracle (John 2:1-11) and the miracles were related so people would believe (John, chapter 20, verses 30-31. The disciples believed because they saw it all happen – but as for everyone else blessed are those who have not seen but still believe (Gospel of John, chapter 20, verse 29).

Christians today base their whole lives around the bible, but most haven’t had a full-on experience of the risen Jesus like Paul and have to believe without seeing as described in the Gospel of John.

Kierkegaard’s exploration of anxiety—particularly the existential tension from desiring a truth (like the reality of Christ’s resurrection) while grappling with inherent unknowability—directly parallels the situation of modern Christians who commit their lives to biblical teachings without a direct, visionary encounter like Paul’s on the road to Damascus (Acts 9). This mirrors the Gospel of John’s emphasis on believing without seeing (John 20:29), where faith is portrayed not as empirical certainty but as a blessed act amid absence of proof.

The Leap of Faith Amid Uncertainty: Kierkegaard, under the pseudonym Johannes Climacus in Concluding Unscientific Postscript (1846), argues that Christianity isn’t grounded in objective evidence or historical proofs (like miracles witnessed firsthand). Instead, it’s a “paradox” that demands a passionate, subjective “leap” into belief, despite the “objective uncertainty” of eternal truths. For contemporary believers, the Bible serves as the written testimony (as in John 20:30-31, where signs are recorded “so that you may believe”), but without personal sightings of the risen Christ, this creates a forward-living anxiety: you want the resurrection’s promise of eternal life to be true, yet you can’t “know” it backward through direct experience. This dissonance fuels what he calls the “dread” of possibility, where faith emerges not from security but from risking everything on an unprovable conviction. Kierkegaard’s pseudonyms show this: do we follow Mark’s atoning Jesus or Luke’s moral influence Jesus, or both in Paul’s Romans, etc.

Anxiety as the Dizziness of Freedom: In The Concept of Anxiety (1844), Kierkegaard (as Vigilius Haufniensis) describes anxiety as arising from the “possibility of possibility”—the human confrontation with infinite choices and unknowns, including spiritual ones. Modern Christians, basing life on scripture’s claims (e.g., the Corinthian Creed’s resurrection assertions in 1 Corinthians 15:3-7), often experience this as a profound longing for confirmation (like Paul’s hallucinatory vision, critiqued by Nietzsche as a power-driven invention). Yet, as John 20:29 blesses those who believe without seeing, Kierkegaard sees this as the authentic Christian posture: anxiety isn’t a flaw but a catalyst for genuine faith, pushing one beyond rational proofs into relational commitment to God. For Kierkegaard, wanting the biblical narrative to be “true” (salvation, purpose) while navigating life’s uncertainties without a “full-on experience” embodies this—it’s not blind faith but a deliberate embrace of the absurd, where doubt and desire coexist. This is exemplified by Abraham’s faith in a contradictory God.

Contrast with Paul’s “Certainty”: Kierkegaard implicitly critiques figures like Paul, whose faith stems from a dramatic revelation (a “seen” event). For Kierkegaard, true Christianity involves the “teleological suspension of the ethical” (from Fear and Trembling, 1843), where believers like Abraham act on divine commands without evidential guarantees. Today’s Christians, lacking Paul’s epiphany, must embody this more radically: their anxiety from unknowing heightens the authenticity of faith, making it a lived paradox rather than a historical artifact.  Modern critical New Testament scholarship has decimated the Christianity of certainty and inerrancy of many conservative evangelicals.

In essence, Kierkegaard would view this modern dynamic not as a deficiency but as the essence of Christian existence—faith thrives in the anxiety of desiring truth without empirical closure, aligning with John’s call to believe unseen. This fosters deeper inwardness, turning scripture from mere doctrine into a personal, risky venture.