Ernst Jünger, DIE SCHERE #18: Text
Inzwischen haben wir eine Station erreicht, in der auch die Physik
Gleichnisse anbietet. Das hängt damit zusammen, daß sie in die Lücke
eindringt, die der Rückzug der Götter hinterlassen hat. Dazu verfügt sie
über Vorweisungen, die alles überbieten, was einst als Wunder galt.
Freilich ist anzumerken, daß auch die Wunder der Bibel nur Gleichnisse
sind, also mehr als Tatsachen.
Daß Lazarus als Individuum auferweckt wird, ist unbedeutend, vielleicht
auch ärgerlich. Dagegen steht der Hinweis auf eine Hoffnung, die jeden
angeht, und ihre Erfüllung durch ein Einzelschicksal auf einem anderen
Blatt— als Ansporn zu einem Sprunge, der über Berg und Tal hinweghebt,
als Ausblick durch die Kerkerwand.
Nebensächlich bleibt dabei die Frage, ob jene Erweckung auch
stattgefunden hat.
Ernst Jünger, DIE SCHERE #18: Walter's Translation
Meanwhile we have arrived at a station where the science of physics is also
offering parables. It is because it is intruding into the gap left open by the
retreat of the gods. It performs demonstrations, which beat traditional
wonders by lengths. Of course one has to keep in mind that the wonders of the
Bible are only parables, and therefore more than facts.
The awakening of Lazarus as an individual is meaningless, maybe even annoying.
But its pointing at a hope which is everyone's concern and its fullfillment in
an individual fate are something different - a spur to a leap over mountain
and valley, an outlook through the prison wall. With this, the question
whether the awakening actually happened remains of minor importance.
Ernst Jünger, DIE SCHERE #18: Notes
Like Hölderlin and Heidegger EJ uses the myth of the retreat of the gods from the
world of humans as a basis of his diagnosis of our present situation. Here he
links this myth to the development that the science of physics is leaving behind
the realm of mathematics and abstractions and now offers similes or parables when
explaining its findings. EJ does not give any examples of such similes. (Surely
he himself tends to use them in such contexts, for example when he sees the
omnipresent and ever-increasing use of electromagnetic waves as a
spiritualization of our world ("Vergeistigung des Planeten").
He calls those parables by a word which is a coinage of his own and which has a
double meaning: "Vorweisungen" can mean both "demonstrations" and "intimations of
things to come". And such "Vorweisungen" of modern physics are in his eyes more
miraculous than anything that was regarded as a miracle in former times.
At this point, like in #17, the main argument is interrupted (to be taken up
again at the beginning of #19) for the sake of a definition, here of the term
"miracle". The example chosen is from St. John, ch. 11, the story of Christ
raising Lazarus to life. EJ emphasizes the character of the biblical miracles as
being parables and he downplays their factual aspects. So, as Richard in his
posting pointed out before, the essence of the Lazarus story is not the claim
that there happened indeed a return from the dead or that the dead man was raised
as the very individual he had been before.
As usually in such matters EJ is very cautious here: "Hinweis" and "steht auf
einem anderen Blatt" are expressions which serve the writer's intention to
refrain from emphatic statements but instead to merely give hints. But these
hints imply an astounding message. For EJ says here that in the biblical miracles
as well as in the "Vorweisungen" of modern physics "hope" is extended to every
human being. What hope? The miracle story of Lazarus, be it fact or fiction, is
essentially a "Vorweisung", a glimpse through a chink in the prison wall of time.
The definition of a miracle - and the parables of modern physics are for EJ even
more miraculous than those of the bible - is that it is an encouragement to face
boldly the threshold of death.
EJ, the nonagenarian, turns again and again to the questions of death and life
after death. Here is one of his many answers. It is spoken sotto voce, far from
the arrogantly self-confident tone of DER ARBEITER. Nevertheless this is a voice
of ardent hope and a firm belief. But this is not church christianity. There is
no such thing implied as a resurrection of the flesh, i.e. the preservation of
the individual. What is indicated in these terse lines seems closer to
Schopenhauer's vision of the meaning of death. (2)
(1) My knowledge of modern physics is too scanty as to enable me to supply
examples here. EJ surely does not have the Big Bang in mind, I think. Maybe some
List member can help? But I cannot help mentioning here a delightful book by an
astrophysicist which indeed explains some aspects of the Theory of Relativity in
a charmingly poetic manner: Alan Lighthead, EINSTEIN'S DREAMS, Pantheon Books,
New York, 1993.
(2) In that unforgettable chapter, "Über den Tod und sein Verhältniß zur
Unzerstörbarkeit unsers Wesens an sich", DIE WELT ALS WILLE UND VORSTELLUNG,
Zweiter Band, Viertes Buch, Kapitel 41
Günter Rebing
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