Infinite in Relation to the Finite

Kari Martin: Outside Reading
September 27, 2016

In Martin Heidegger's essay, "What is Metaphysics?" he discusses the necessity of irruption, particularly anxiety as a form of irruption. He first distinguishes fear from anxiety. Fear or stress is in relationships to something, namely circumstances. But anxiety displays itself in a calm, "one feels ill at ease," the realization that we have no control over the world around us, and the world, existence, everything we know to be true could simply fade away or intensify or drift and we have no say over any of it. Heidegger write that anxiety "robs us of speech...the nothing crowds round" (101). Anxiety is what reveals what is nothing and, through nothing, transcendence. Thus, anxiety is key to this transcendence.

Heidegger's explanation of anxiety seems to be the natural reaction to a finite being coming into contact with an infinite being. As long as man (as a finite being) stays within the finite world, comparing himself to other finite beings, he can never experience this anxiety - and perhaps he does not want to. But when man attempts to grasp the infinite, he understands the nothingness of the finite world around him. It shakes the very foundation of understanding, turns everything solid into crumbling ground. And yet, it is this very understanding of anxiety that man can transcend.

As Lewis uses the Chronicles of Narnia to develop this character of Aslan, a tangible, visible image of the infinite, he creates situations in which the infinite and the finite come into contact each other. Each character understands him differently and at different time they experience different facets of him. Even those who claim to not believe in him, are "ill at ease" by his the idea of his presence. They are scared of the sea where he said to have come, scared of the woods his followers used to rule in. And at many times this anxiety shakes us out of stupor and into being.