gain itself in its authenticity and not be exclusively or primarily lost in its world, existence needs to have already lost itself in order to gain itself—lost itself in the sense that it is always able to give itself over to worldly production and acquisition.

In Christianity and its interpretation of existence this particular matrix of being that obtains between existence’s authentic being and fallen concern has undergone a specific conceptualization. But we should not understand this structure as if it were specific to a Christian awareness of existence. Just the reverse. Only because existence has this structure in itself qua care can there be a specifically Christian conception of existence. And because of that (although we can’t go into it here), these structures can be worked out in complete isolation from any orientation to whatever kind of [theological] dogmatics. You can see the difference from two things: (1) What is at stake in our determinations is an analysis of structures and categorial determi nations. (2) A concretion of the interpretation of existence need not necessarily be a Christian one. In fact, any philosophy—which, as philosophy, must stand outside [233] of faith—not only may not, but absolutely cannot be a Christian interpretation. On the other hand, we should not forget that this Christian understanding of existence (which for its part has changed multiple times in the course of history) is not a monolith at all, and has itself opened a specific area of existence for philosophical consideration and inquiry. This problematic pertains not just to the Middle Ages. All modern philosophy is incomprehensible without the doctrines of Christian dogmatics. On the other side, the doctrines of Christian dogmatics are entirely determined, both in conceptuality and scientific character, by the philosophy of its day.

Let me emphasize: these connections that we can uncover between care as authentic being and fallen concern, are contained in the very idea of care as the meaning of the being of existence. The kind of concern in which existence has lost itself in its world arises from the fact that existence itself, insofar as it is in a world, is essentially referred to this world in which it is. Existence is factically fallen into its world. Or: this fallenness into its world belongs to the facticity of existence. By “facticity” we understand a specific determination of the being of existence. The term does not have an indifferent meaning that would be the same as the factuality of something merely there. Nonetheless, it is, in a specific sense, a factum and we designate this specificity as facticity and will determine it more precisely later. Being essentially referred to the world already entails fallenness and fallen concern.

With this we have a determination of the structure of existence that is adequate for our purposes. We can now see the horizon within which any statement about the world, as a comportment of existence, is located. In particular we see what we established by taking our