Why does our generation struggle with faith?
Martin Heidegger once gave this answer: “We are too late for the gods and too early for Being.” What does he mean by that? First, quite simply that less and less people today have faith in the old way. The gods are receding, as any look around the Western world will tell you. But Heidegger has something else in mind too, namely, the reason the gods are receding is that we don’t have the same fears our ancestors once had. Belief in God, he feels, is predicated on a certain fear and astonishment.