Chapter II

BEING, NON-BEING AND ANXIETY

The Meaning of Non-Being

For if Being is interpreted in terms of life or process or becoming, non-being is ontologically as basic as being… a consideration of non-being in the very foundation of ontology. 

These philosophical ways of using the concept of non-being can be viewed against the background of the religious experience of the transitoriness of everything created and the power of the “demonic” in the human soul and history.

…being “embraces” itself and non-being. Being as non-being “within” itself as that which is eternally present and eternally overcome in the process of the divine life. The ground of everything that is is not a dead identity without movement and becoming, it is living creativity. Creatively it affirms itself, eternally conquering its own non-being.

Anxiety is the state in which a being is aware of its possible non-being…anxiety is the existential awareness of non-being. “Existential” means that it is not the abstract knowledge of non-being which produces anxiety but the awareness that non-being is a part of one’s own being. 

The Interdependence of Fear and Anxiety

…as long as there is an object of fear, love, in the sense of participation, can conquer fear. But this is not so with anxiety, because anxiety has no object , or rather … its object is the negation of every object. 

Anxiety would be fear of the unknown…which by its very nature cannot be known, because it is non-being. 

Anxiety strives to become fear, because fear can be met by courage. It is impossible for a finite being to stand naked anxiety for more than a flash of time. 

Types of Anxiety

Non-being threatens man’s notice self-affirmation, relatively in terms of fate, absolutely in terms of death. It threatens man’s spiritual self-affirmation, relatively in terms of emptiness, absolutely interns of meaninglessness. It threatens mans’ moral self-affirmation, relatively in terms of guilt, absolutely in terms of condemnation.

The Anxiety of Fate and Death

…the anxiety of death overshadows all concrete anxieties and gives them their ultimate seriousness.

“fate” … stresses … their [anxieties] content character, their unpredictability, the impossibility of showing their meaning and purpose.

Fate is the rule of contingency, and the anxiety about fate is based on the finite being’s awareness of being contingent in every respect..

The threat of non-being to man’s notice self-affirmation is absolute in the threat of death, relative in the threat of fate…Fate would not produce inescapable anxiety without death behind it.

We try to transform the anxiety into fear and to meet courageously the objects in which the treat is embodied. We succeed partly, but somehow we are aware of the fact that it it not these objets with which we struggle that produce the anxiety but the human situation as such.

The Anxiety of Emptiness and Meaninglessness

Spiritual self-affirmation occurs in every moment in which man lives creatively in the spheres of meaning.  Creative has the sense not of original creativity as performed by the genius but of living spontaneously in action and reaction with the contents of one’s cultural life.

The anxiety of meaninglessness is anxiety about the loss of an ultimate concern, of a meaning which gives meaning to all meanings.

The anxiety of emptiness is aroused by the threat of non-being to the special contents of the spiritual life.

The Anxiety of Guilt and Condemnation

Man’s being, notice as well as spiritual, is not only given to him but also demanded of him.

This situation [he against himself as judge] produces the anxiety which in relative terms is the anxiety of guilt; in absolute terms, the anxiety of self-rejection or condemnation.

The awareness of this ambiguity is the feeling of guilt. The judge who is oneself and who stands against oneself, he who “knows with” (conscience) everything we do and are, gives a negative judgement, experienced by us as guilt.

To avoid this extreme situation[complete self-rejection, to the feeling being condemned] man tries to transform the anxiety of guilt into moral action regardless of its imperfect and ambiguity.

The Meaning of Despair

They are fulfilled in the situation of despair … Despair is an ultimate or “boundary -line” situation.

Periods of Anxiety

…at the end of ancient of ancient civilization notice anxiety is predominant, at the end of the Middle Ages moral anxiety, and at the end of the modern period spiritual anxiety.

The anxiety which, in its different forms’ is potentially present in every individual, becomes general if the accustomed structures of meaning, power, belief and order disintegrate.

The individual who participates in the institutions and ways of life of such a system is not liberated from his personal anxieties but he has means of overcoming them with well-known methods.