“How Is It with the Nothing?” Ferdinand Ulrich’s Thomistic Response to Heidegger

Rachel M. Coleman examines Heidegger’s notion of das Nichts in What is Metaphysics?, where asking “How is it with the nothing?” serves as the proper occasion for metaphysics. It contrasts Heidegger’s view, in which the nothing nihilates beings and obstructs their disclosure, with Ferdinand Ulrich’s Thomistic response in Homo Abyssus, where created beings, grounded in non-subsisting esse, reveal themselves inexhaustibly. Ulrich recasts nothingness as enabling, rather than obstructing, the encounter with the depth and gift of being.