Abstract

The article offers a sympathetic commentary of Hans Jonas's essay, "Philosophische Untersuchungen und metaphysische Vermutungen" (1994). Jonas's main point is that the traditional proofs of God's existence must be considered like corpses that are completely useless for the ethical judgment on the past. In fact, this judgment requires that we maintain alive the distinction between what was and what was not the case. The tragic manipulation of history realized by totalitarianism can be contrasted through an appeal to God, conceived as the source of the ontological memory of what has been, as the origin of the distinction between truth and false. The author argues that Jonas's peculiar appeal to God for this purpose remains problematic.