To Be or Not to Be: Christian "Non‑Being" in Postmodernity

May 20, 2025

To Be or Not to Be: Christian "Non‑Being" in Postmodernity

Essay written for the Master Degree's Class: “The Literary Environment of the New Testament”, Prof. Dr. Donaldo Schuler, August 2010

SUMMARY

Introduction

“Just as Parmenides debated being and non‑being in ancient Greece, and Shakespeare’s Hamlet asked ‘To be or not to be,’ today Christians must ask, ‘How do we become non‑being in a postmodern world that demands we be everything at once?’”

In Greek philosophy, Parmenides taught that Being is—unchanging, eternal—and that any movement or change belongs to non‑being. Centuries later, post-modernity insists on the fluidity of truth: there are no absolutes, only ever‑shifting perspectives. Into this whirlwind steps the Christian claim: in Jesus Christ alone stands one unique, unchangeable truth. Can the Christian non‑being—the counter‑cultural stance of “not of this world”—dialogue with a culture that celebrates being everything at once? To answer, we’ll trace key moments in Western thought—from Greek unity, through Augustine’s withdrawal, the rise of modern science, to Derrida’s deconstruction—then return to our central question: how does Christian non‑being bridge to postmodern being?

1. Greek Thought: The First Collision

Signpost: Thus the Christian non‑being of the Logos first collided with the Greek One—an early rehearsal of our postmodern dilemma.

Creator vs. Creature: Greek theogony (Hesiod) knew no Creator‑creature divide: gods and humans sprang equally from primordial Gaia. Philosophy sought the One (Tó Hen)—water, earth, atoms—reducing all to a single divine unity.
Logos Enters: Philo of Alexandria first posited the Logos alongside God; John’s Gospel radicalized it: “In the beginning was the Word… and the Word was God.” This Logos is non‑being to the Greek One—moving, creating, transcendent.
Sophists & Plato: Gorgias claimed “words limit access to reality,” while Plato sought an unchanging realm of forms. Christian faith in the unseen world of God’s revelation stood against both.

2. Augustine & the Medieval Turn

Signpost: Augustine’s monastic non‑being deepened the Christian divide from worldly being—but planted seeds for re‑entry.

Speaking to God: Augustine made time subjective—no past or future, only the soul before God. The senses seduce; true being lies in God’s presence.
Pure Act: Influenced by Aristotle, Augustine and later Aquinas taught God as Pure Act—unmoved yet the source of all movement. Human synergy with God’s movement prefigured Protestant calls to active faith in the world.
Monastic Withdrawal: Art and music turned inward—Gregorian chant as “other‑worldly” music. Christ’s suffering and divine contemplation overshadowed incarnational engagement.

3. Rationalism to Existentialism

Signpost: Modernity’s quest for clarity and freedom both challenged and re‑affirmed Christian non‑being.

Spinoza’s Pantheism: Science as the new authority; Scripture must confirm what is clear and evident. God becomes identical with nature, erasing Creator‑creature distinction.
Nietzsche’s Death of God: “God is dead”—not in heaven, but within lifeless churches. The idol of an oppressive deity must die for a true God of grace.
Sartre’s Radical Freedom: Existence precedes essence; we are “condemned to be free.” Even if God existed, He would not interfere—humanity alone creates meaning.

4. Postmodernity & Deconstruction

Signpost: With Derrida, all truths are seen as constructed—seemingly erasing any stable ground for Christian non‑being.

End of Dialectic: No thesis or antithesis—only infinite plausible positions.
Signifier Over Signified: Derrida reverses Saussure: language generates meaning, not the other way around. Truths are built on shifting signifiers.
Relativity & Pluralism: Every community constructs its own truths; universal claims appear oppressive.

5. Christian Non‑Being in Postmodern Dialogue

Here we return to Hamlet’s question: “To be or not to be?” For Christians, the issue is not existence itself but where our being is grounded—postmodern flux or the steadfast non‑being of the cross.

Finding Common Ground: Derrida makes matter first cause—but what moves matter? The Triune Logos, image of the Creator, shapes and animates all. If all truths are constructed, so is deconstruction itself. We can grant that Derrida’s view is a hypothesis, one among many.
Beyond Intellectual Persuasion: Apologetics alone cannot change hearts. The Church’s task is to lead hearts to Christ through the living Word. Faith is invited, not imposed.
Building Bridges of Love: Like Paul at the Areopagus, Christians today must “become all things to all people,” entering the postmodern conversation from within, so that many will hear the gospel’s call to non‑being to the world and yet find true being in the Father’s love.
Conclusion

Hamlet’s “To be or not to be?” echoes across two millennia of thought—from Parmenides to Derrida. Yet Christians answer it not by choosing mere existence, but by embracing the paradox of non‑being: the cruciform life that withdraws from the world’s absolute claims only to re‑enter it in love. We remain “in the world, but not of it,” guided by the Logos who is both Word and God‑man, leading us toward our heavenly home. In every age, our mission endures: to build bridges of God’s love, so that many may receive the gospel that makes them non‑being to the world but fully alive in Christ.

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LONG VERSION

Introduction

Parmenides, a Greek figure who was Gorgias’s teacher, distinguished being from non‑being. Gorgias, his disciple, then formulated it this way: Being never came into existence, it will never end, and there is no movement from being into non‑being. Being is. We cannot reason outside of “is.” Everything is. Thus, non‑being must also be included within being. Everything that moves is not. In other words, non‑being is that which moves and passes. In Greek thought, everything happens within the One. Within that One there is no movement. Anything that moves, therefore, becomes non‑being.

Bringing this reflection into post-modernity, we want to think about the Christian non‑being in face of postmodern being. In post-modernity, the critical stance, the dialectic, has disappeared. We no longer criticize anyone—everything goes. What is there to reject? To pick a date, let’s say 1989, when the Berlin Wall fell, separating capitalism and communism. Today, you can be both at the same time without problem. We are all on the fence; we can be everything and we are nothing.

In other words, being in post-modernity is not having an absolute truth. We can be everything at once, reconcile the most opposite ideas and views, and still be within our time. The Christian non‑being, however, stands against this mentality, saying that in Jesus Christ there is one unique, matchless truth that remains forever. Since in post-modernity being is relative, ambiguous, the Christian begins to move toward non‑being.

Non-Being (for the Christian) is the deliberate refusal to let the world’s shifting categories—social status, consumer identity, even well-meaning cultural labels—dictate who we are. Instead, we choose to “lose” our constructed selves so that Christ’s unchanging identity may shape us. In practice, a Christian “non-being” might choose a vocation that seems counter-cultural (e.g. turning down a high-paying corporate job for nonprofit service), or cling to a sacred rhythm (Sabbath rest) that the marketplace tells us is outdated. These small acts of “un-selfing” point us back to the true Self in whom we live and move.

Is it possible? To explore this, let us briefly look at some ideas throughout history—well observed by Prof. Dr. Donaldo Schuler—and, at the end, bring a Christian reflection on non‑being and movement in face of postmodern being.

1. Greek Thought

Creator vs. Creature – This relationship is exclusive to Christianity, Judaism (and Islam). It was a novelty brought by Christians into a Greek‑dominated culture, where the One reigned and there was no distinction between Creator and creature. Hesiod’s Theogony (c. 800 B.C.), for example, states that in the beginning there was the primal earth, Gaia. It was unlike the earth we know now. There was no separation between heaven and earth (unlike Genesis 1:1). Gaia splits into two, and from this division come Ouranos and Gaia as we know them. Ouranos is male; Gaia is female. Ouranos is the child of primordial Gaia, marking the first sexual division—male and female. From that, all other sexualities in nature arise.

Greek philosophers sought to unite all that exists into one primal unity. Thales of Miletus (c. 600 B.C.) believed that unity was water; others named earth, fire, air, etc. Later the pluralists, like Democritus, posited tiny elements—atoms—that formed the whole. But to the philosophers, totality was reduced to the One (Tó Hen). Totality meant the divine and the human—“all is divine.” This theogony prevailed in New Testament–era Greek thought. There was no Creator‑creature distinction. Earth always existed; life and its developments were within earth itself. The Greek world was entirely visible; images embodied the divine itself. In the Old Testament, God is invisible and forbids images to distinguish Himself from surrounding cultures.

For Greeks, all gods are born of earth. The difference between gods and humans is only degree—gods are greater, stronger—but both share the same origin: earth. The Bible “de‑divinizes” heaven and earth. Greek gods always represent something concrete—Eros, Thanatos, Aphrodite, Ares. All Greek thought centres on earth. There is no revelation (Scripture). Everything reduces to the One, which must be thoroughly probed.

Greek thought is also fully anthropocentric. Tnetós—mortal; Atanatos—immortal. Regarding soul (psykhê, “breath”), Greeks did not conceive of a soul as we do. Psykhê, in the abstract, is the whole in which I participate. Physically, when I die, nothing happens; I entered this world and leave without taking anything—being “reintegrated” into Psykhê.

Aristotle’s two definitions of man:

Zôon politikón: a being of the polis (state). Outside the polis, one is either animal or god.
Zôon lógon ekhôn: one who possesses discourse. Women and slaves, lacking logos, could not participate in the polis.

A biblical example of Christian‑Greek interaction is Paul at the Areopagus. He quotes no Scripture—too exotic—and when he mentions resurrection, they ask him to return another time. His deliberate strategy shows “becoming all things to all people.” In chaplaincy, campus ministries, we build “bridges” to the postmodern world, so Christian thought can cross and meet each person’s reality.

A. The Sophists

Later, the Sophists arise, notably Gorgias. They claimed “words are a limit that prevents me from reaching nature.” For them, logos is movement; “the meaning of discourse is its efficacy” (Gorgias).

The Creator‑creature divide is fundamental to Christianity. Without it, Christianity does not exist. The issue with Darwinism is not God’s existence—Darwin assumed a Creator—but whether we accept that Creator.

Plato wanted philosophy like mathematics: pure, unchanging—being. How study what moves—non‑being? This contrasts with Sophists, who used discourse, logos (non‑being).

Faith in the unseen is unique to Christianity. Greeks dealt only with visible, objective things; the world of ideas was a mere copy.

Élpis: In Greek thought, there is no other world, no afterlife, no hope. Christianity introduced hope. Core Christian concepts—faith (pistis), hope (élpis), and love (agape)—are foreign to Greek thought.

Heraclitus (c. 500 B.C.) said, “Conflict is the father of all and king of all.” Repression and conflict generate change; difficulty spurs desire for movement. He envisioned a Father who is agape and a kingdom of heaven, replacing the oppressive Greek sky‑father.

Athens’s Areopagus—the court of Orestes, Socrates, and Paul—embodies this encounter.

Epicurus (341–270 B.C.) posited atoms and void; all events are physical, without divine interference. His hedonistic ethic sought serene pleasure by knowing nature’s order. This contemplative universe made Christianity’s scandalous cross message even more foreign. Hence, Jesus and the disciples performed signs and miracles to show another world interfering with the Greek One.

Philo of Alexandria first placed the logos alongside God: the world was created by logos. But John’s Gospel declaring logos as God challenged Jewish unity of God, requiring centuries until Nicaea’s “begotten, not made” creed to articulate the Trinity.

Thus early Christianity introduced a Christian non‑being into Greek being: logos, co‑eternal with the Father, moving into the world—non‑being that shattered Greek philosophy. No wonder Paul called Christ’s message “foolishness to those perishing.”

2. The Middle Ages

Augustine (354–430)

After the early Church’s conflict with Greek thought and the introduction of Christian non‑being, Augustine introduced a new literature: talking to God. He subjectivized time—there is no past or future; the present is fleeting. Time is not marked by sun or moon but by “me in God’s presence.” In Greece, this concept was unknown. It “nullifies the world.” Man escapes the world to stand before God. The senses become seductions; attention to them distracts from God. Augustine “demonizes” the world. Medieval monasticism followed this line: the moving, seductive body is hidden in art; music is restricted. Augustine even limited singing—ears can be channels of seduction—so Gregorian chant arose as “other‑worldly” music to lead to God.

In Augustine, Christ’s centrality shifts toward the suffering Christ and contemplation of God. He aligns with Platonism, saying the world existed as an idea in God’s mind before creation. The Word (logos) contemplates these divine ideas and forms the world—logos to Creator. Plato called God the “unmoved mover,” but movement exists through logos. Any desire to move toward God comes from God via logos, since logos is the sole source of movement. All ideas are in God.

Thus Christian being in the world becomes contemplative withdrawal into divine thought. The world seduces and leads to perdition. For over a millennium, Western thought held this contemplative, punitive, inaccessible God, suppressing other ideas.

Aristotle’s Pure Act influenced Augustine and later Thomas Aquinas. For Greeks, everything is potential (seed) and act (full tree). Pure Act moves the universe but cannot move toward the world—else it becomes impure. Pure Act moves in itself, distant from the world—called Theos, the “Unmoved Mover.” Movement in creation is like a lovesick youth moved by an unseen beloved—erotic movement toward Pure Act. Here synergy originates: Thomas merges Aristotle’s Pure Act with Christian doctrine, positing human movement toward God.

Only Luther later reintroduced living in the world. Virtue is practiced within, not apart from, the world. Protestant non‑being clashes with medieval being, bringing a fresh way of thinking. Protestants replaced sacred art with everyday scenes; Luther developed congregational music, expanded by Bach. They replaced images with word and writing. Calvinists followed Augustine’s austerity, denying body and senses. Political, economic, and social shifts favored Protestant non‑being entering Western society, forever transforming it.

Augustine’s inward turn laid the groundwork for a faith deeply rooted in the human heart—but as Europe emerged from the medieval order, reason itself would unseat even religious certainties.

3. Rationalism

Spinoza (1632–1677)

The Middle Ages were the age of the Sacred Book; all thought was founded on it. Spinoza, unable to understand Scripture alone, sought truths demonstrable in nature. Once verified, Scripture must confirm them. Thus science deals with clear, evident things; Scripture is obscure. Science becomes the basis for interpreting Scripture. Spinoza erases Creator‑creature distinction, returning to Greek pantheism: God is cause of Himself and all; “to look at the world is to look at God.” We must guard against letting science “illuminate” Scripture; they are distinct realms.

By the late eighteenth century, rationalism’s confidence in human progress began to crack—opening the door for existentialists like Nietzsche and Sartre to insist that, absent God, meaning must be forged anew by each individual.

Nietzsche (1844–1900)

Nietzsche declared “God is dead”—not a cosmic event but God’s death within people and churches that become tombs of God. He opposed the oppressive Puritan deity, an idol, contrasting the Bible’s God of grace and love.

Jean‑Paul Sartre (1905–1980)

Sartre’s atheism is not about God’s existence; even if God existed, humans remain abandoned. God, if real, would not interfere—free will must be total for responsibility. Life’s meaning is self‑determined; future is neutral; we choose acceptance or revolt against birth and death. Ethically, our choices must be universalizable—if I hold robbing a bank right, I universalize it. He rejects Kant’s categorical imperative in favor of absolute freedom: “We are condemned to be free.” Each person becomes a god of their own destiny—Spinoza’s cause sui—echoing Greek thought. For Sartre, debating God’s existence is irrelevant. “Hell is other people,” because others limit my freedom. Existentialism posits existence precedes essence; we define ourselves. Christian existentialism (Luther, then Kierkegaard) re‑centers Christ and human existence before God. Existentialism’s radical freedom, however, ultimately collided with its own contradictions, setting the stage for postmodern voices who would go further still in deconstructing every claim to fixed truth.

4. Post modernity

From the late 20th into the 21st century, Western thought lives in post modernity. Modernity began in the 12th century with universities and critical thinking, spawning successive modernisms. Einstein’s relativity entrenched relativity of truth; Derrida inverted signifier and signified, making all truth constructed by language.

Postmodernism deconstructs our imaginary maps of the world. Old imperial maps are lost or reordered (Young 1990). Marxist and post‑structuralist approaches spawned post‑colonial theory, multiculturalism in arts and academia, and critiques of central Western narratives.

Derrida showed that writing extends beyond alphabetic script to all human signs—body, dress, gestures. Writing underpins every form of communication, for signifiers generate meanings. He inverted Saussure’s model: instead of the signified determining the signifier, it’s the signifier that produces the signified. With this, logocentrism collapses—all “truths” become constructions of language.

In post-modernity the critical stance vanishes—everything goes. No dialectic—no antitheses—only endless plausible theses. Meanings are built by interpretive communities in time and space. Truths are relative, constructed, without absolutes.

Thus Christianity becomes non‑being in this world, holding absolute theses and truths. It must dialogue with postmodern being, inserting its gospel message into the context of relative, constructed meanings.

5. Christian Non‑Being in Post-modernity

At this point we arrive at the central question: How can Christian non‑being engage postmodern being when the gospel is, in Pauline terms, “foolishness”? Our starting point resembles the Christian encounter with Marxism. Derrida elevates matter as the first cause of everything—but what animates matter? There must be a principle prior to matter that moves it. That principle is the Logos of God—the image of the Triune God, the source of all. Matter by itself neither moves nor generates; the Logos is the animating force that shapes and sustains it.

Confronting Socrates: Derrida deconstructs truth, showing that all truth claims are constructed and that “falsehoods” abound. Yet how can we denounce falsehood without appealing to some objective standard? Here lies our opening: if all truth is constructed, then Derrida’s own theory is also a construction. We must concede it could be mistaken, and that an alternative hypothesis—namely, the logocentric view—might hold.

It’s important to note that, at times, the Church focuses its apologetics on intellectual persuasion. But have hearts been transformed, or merely minds? The Church’s primary task is to lead hearts to Christ. Faith cannot be imposed; it is communicated through the living Word.

Conclusion

Christians—as the non‑being of the postmodern world—continue the same difficult yet glorious mission of Paul and the early believers, who were also non‑being before Greek culture: building bridges of God’s love to human hearts. In a way, this will always be the Christian mission, for “we are in the world, but not of it.” We know we are movement; the Logos—which is both discourse and God‑man—leads us toward our heavenly home. Therefore, in every age, our mission endures: to build bridges of God’s love, so that many may receive the gospel that makes them non‑being to the world but fully alive in Christ.

References:

Prysthon, Angela. “Previsivelmente Pós-moderno.” Intercom – Revista Brasileira de Ciências da Comunicação 30, no. 1 (January–June 2007): 245–49. São Paulo. revistas.intercom.org.br

Young, Robert. White Mythologies: Writing History and the West. London and New York: Routledge, 1990. revistas.intercom.org.br

Grenz, Stanley J. A Primer on Postmodernism: A Guide to Understanding the Philosophy of Our Time. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1996.

Arendt, Hannah. The Human Condition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958.

Sartre, Jean-Paul. Huis clos. Paris: Gallimard, 1947.

Derrida, Jacques. Of Grammatology. Translated by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1976.

Lecture notes from Prof. Dr. Donaldo Schuler

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