Robert B. Pippin
or disaster can cause. Indeed, the “event” or the fate of Western history as
a whole is itself at issue. That sort of event character is captured in its mag-
nitude by the famous phrase announced in The Gay Science: “God is dead,”
which Heidegger summarizes in an unusual way: “The Christian God has
lost his power [Macht] over beings [über das Seiende] and over the destiny
[Bestimmung] of man.”6 He puts it this way: