Tomáš Halík, a Czech philosopher, theologian and public intelectual, is already not unknown to the English speaking world, though we may expect that after receiving the Templeton Prize (2014), a recognition of his voice on the international scene may rise rapidly. Msgr. Halík represents a very rare combination of the deep Roman Catholic faith and the very open reception and inspiration from the critics of Christianity like Friedrich Nietzsche or somber philosopher Martin Heidegger. It is much less known that the one of the most important sources of Mr. Halík’s thinking, that is central to his interpretation of the contemporary role of the faith and spirituality, is coming from the “heretical“ philosophy of the history of his teacher Jan Patočka.
Who was Jan Patočka?
Jan Patočka was a leader of the underground university in the communist Czechoslovakia and one of the main spokespersons for the Charter 77 led by Václav Havel that finally contributed to the fall of the communist regime in Czechoslovakia. Patočka, who was not only a teacher but also intellectual and moral authority for Mr. Halík, developed his original position in philosophy and was appreciated by the most authorities of the continental philosophical discourse of the second half of the 20th century including Paul Ricoeur and Jacques Derrida. It is the utmost Patočka’s philosophical legacy summed up in his work Heretical Essays in the History of Philosophy where the “heretical“ relates especially to the Christian tradition. We shall see how Mr. Halík continues in this (in a very special use of the term) “heretical“ tradition of his Czech teacher.
A few words on Patočka’s „heretical“ philosophy
According to Patočka, Christianity is an unfulfilled project but it has its distinctive role in the course of history. History is not simply accumulation of the past, it is not even the sum of facts. Patočka places the beginning of history in its precise meaning in the joint appearance of philosophy and politics in the ancient Greek city-state (polis). There is a sharp distinction between the pre-historical era and history itself. The distinction may be best seen in the mythological interpretations of the world where there are no questions of the meaning of the cosmos, because meaning is pre-established in mythology. The answers are here before questions have ever appeared. The appearance of philosophy and public political space shake the certainties of the mythological age and let the questions of the meaning of human conduct and life in cosmos appear. The movement in which human race is thrown in the openness of its own freedom and needs to search actively for answers about who he or she is, is the history itself. In Patočka’s words, it is the apparition of the problematicity of the being (not the pre-established answers as in mythology) that is the core of the historicity. “History is nothing other than shaken certitude of pre-given meaning,“ writes Patočka.
Now, Christianity enters this space. With the voice of St. Paul, Christian God does not come as a guarantee of the transparent meaning. On the contrary, it is the unknown, unobvious God. St. Paul rejects the philosophical answers based on created cosmos as sufficient but with the same gesture he opens up the space for possible meaning within the transcendent God. It is a new situation for the old question of meaning. The answer is given to those who are able to listen. Rational insight is not enough to understand. Faith is the way in which answers may appear. In its kernel, Christianity is historical thanks to its ability to preserve problematicity and openness in human life. But its greatest spiritual force, i.e. its ability to guarantee the absolute meaning though it is transcendent, became its biggest weakness.
Once the technoscience enthroned reason in the place of God, it endangered the certainty of all values, for values and partial meanings are always related somehow to the absolute meaning. There is still need for the absolute meaning and the answer to this need is a secularization of the Christian history of salvation as we know it from Hegel or Marxism. But all of this, disacknowledgment of the highest values, led the humanity toward the face of nihilism. Patočka rejects both: he is well aware that we cannot simply accept the naive meaning of everyday life as sufficient but at the same time he opposes to dogmatic nihilism that states the meaninglessness as the ultimate fact.
Here is the space for Patočka where he reveals his original position. If we do not want the history to finish as the continuous apparition of meaninglessness of everything, we have to fight for the possibility of meaning within the history. Patočka sees the possibility to carry out the meaningful existence in certain epochal conversion, shaking of naive meaning and the solidarity of the shaken. Conversion brings acceptance of problematic meaning, that the absolute horizon for the meaning is not the fact that it is given but that it is sought. There is no ground, no certainty, no naive transparent meaning, for the human is never enough to give meaning to the being as the whole. Even though there are things which are worth suffering and those are worth living. There is still only finite answer to the absolute question. We have to learn to live in the problematicity of meaning which is absolute in its appeal and finite in its answer. Those who understand this situation and its need are the bases for the solidarity of the shaken that goes across the classes or nations.
It was said that the so called solidarity of the shaken was for Patočka the philosophical picture of the Charter 77. So or so, it was thanks to Jan Patočka, wrote once Václav Havel, that Charter 77 gained the universal appeal and moral depth. And it was certainly the solidarity that led the old professor to enter the political battle that he was not a part before and that costed him his life.
It may be more clear now in what sense are Patočka’s ideas “heretical”. Christianity, according to Patočka, is not able to be the force of this change. It is not able to hold the “God above” as the source of absolute meaning and is unable to pursue the life in problematicity anymore. Still, Patočka uses the theological term “conversion” to describe the spiritual change needed to pertain the history open for the free human existence, but feels that it is necessary to go beyond the heritage of Christianity.
What Halík adopts from Patočka’s philosophy?
Here we came to the point where we can see in what respect Tomáš Halík follows Patočka. We can find many motives in Mr. Halík’s books that are based on the same or similar views to Patočka or more generally the tradition of this kind of philosophy. Namely Halík’s distinction of the competence of the sciences that may explain reality but are unable to be the source of meaning, or his picture of truth that is not transparent and present at hand but rather a book that is never read till the end. But the narrowest relationship of Halík to Patočka is exactly at the core of his understanding of Christian faith.
Patience with God that is the basic motive of Halík’s spirituality is the theological transposition of Patočka’s living in problematicity. Patience means that the answer is never present at hand. God is nor transparent, nor the known source of meaning but appears as a possibility in human existence. The loss of meaning, questioning and dubiety is not the opposite of spirituality but it is the inseparable part of the life of faith. Halík’s affiliation to seekers more than dwellers may be read as the expression of the belief that existence is radically open. Living in problematicity is the life of the seeker, it is the life that raises questions and does not accept the pre-given answers. Halík’s positive reception of the critics such as Nietzsche shows his readiness to be shaken in all his certainties just to get rid of everything that is all-too human, i.e. to be shaken in his existence. For in every crisis opens the space for deeper meaning. Christianity is for him not a set of dogmatic sentences but an adventure of the spirit, certain care for the soul, as Patočka use to call this way of life.
God is for Halík not “the thing above us”. It is rather in depth. Halík radicalizes the life in problematicity as the mystery of faith when he opposes an idea that religion is simply a quick answer to “problems”. “Mystery invites us to try to understand it again and again, to go deeper and deeper,“ said Mr. Halík in his Templeton speech and we should understand his appeal in the sense we already saw in Patočka: there is always the finite answer to the absolute question and this disproportion may not be overcome, it must be accepted. Resignation is not a solution, the solution is taking this as a challenge. Conversion for Halík is definitely not to find the answer, but to loose certainties of the naive meaning and open the space for the absolute.
We not only see the figure of conversion and living in problematicity of meaning in Halík’s ideas that may be traced back to Patočka but we also meet the figure of the solidarity of the shaken. Halík’s rejection of dogmatism of any kind even inside the Catholic church has given rise to many of his critics. But his opposition is inevitable since it is an expression of his proximity to those who are shaken, awaken in the spiritual sense, regardless their origin or denomination. The fact that Mr. Halík’s sympathies are closer to the Dalai Lama than American TV Christian evangelizers should be understood in the context of the solidarity of the shaken.
The reader may have already noticed that Patočka’s heritage is not mechanically taken by Tomáš Halík but it has undergone a significant reconstruction. Even if we find the figures of the conversion, life in problematicity and solidarity of the shaken in Halík’s views, the leading idea of the “heretical” has changed rapidly. Patočka did not see the possibility of the spiritual conversion in Christianity itself that is why he had the need to go beyond the boundaries of the metaphysical tradition. Halík would agree with the idea that we cannot expect this spiritual conversion from the last centuries form of religion, but he is convinced that even the end of traditional religion is not the finish, but a new possibility of the reborn faith.
Universalized message
Tomáš Halík universalizes philosophy of his teacher as a new chance for the spiritual life in the age of uncertainty. While Patočka’s ideas were accessible mostly only to philosophers and his propositions may have been understood as elusive and exclusive, Mr. Halík’s transposition of Patočka’s legacy is universalized to all who live and are sensible, and accessible even to those who do not have deep philosophical preparation. Where Patočka saw the heresy to the Judeo-Christian metaphysical legacy, Tomáš Halík sees the chance for the new form of faith.
Books by Tomáš Halík in English
Tomáš Halík, Patience With God: The story of Zacchaeus continuing in us (New York: Image, 2009). ISBN 978-0-385-52449-0 (European Theological Book of 2009-10)
Tomáš Halík, Night of the Confessor: Christian Faith in an Age of Uncertainty (New York: Image 2012). ISBN 978-0-385-52452-0
Books by Jan Patočka in English
Jan Patočka, Heretical Essays in the History of Philosophy (Chicago: Open Court, 1999). ISBN 978-0812693379
Jan Patočka, Body, Community, Lanuage, World (Chicago: Open Court, 1999). ISBN 978-0812693591
Jan Patočka, Plato and Europe (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2002). ISBN 978-0804738019