Religion in the Black Notebooks: overview and analysis

This paper gathers all significant remarks on Christianity in the Black Notebooks and analyses them in the context of Heidegger's attitude to religion at the time – which we already know from recent research to have been particularly conflicted during this period. The paper then offers a summary of the ways in which references in the Notebooks change our understanding of Heidegger's view of Christianity during the 1930's, and draw conclusions about Heidegger's continuing relevance to theology. In particular, the Notebooks reveal greater continuity between Heidegger and the secularized Christian hopes of the 19th century than Being and Time suggests, and so challenge the confidence with which some theologians have hoped to find a radically new approach to faith and theology in Heidegger's thought.