In this kind of hope God is almost unnecessary. He may be considered as the guarantee of immortality, but if not, the belief in immortality is not necessarily shaken. For the courage to be as a part of the productive process, immortality is decisive and not God, except that God is understood as the productive process itself as with some theologians. The anxiety of doubt and meaninglessness is potentially as great as the anxiety of fate and death. It is rooted in the nature of finite productivity. Although, as we have seen, the tool as a tool is not important but rather the tool as a result of human productivity, the question: for what? cannot be suppressed completely. It is silenced but always ready to come into the open. Today we are witnessing a rise of this anxiety and a weakening of the courage to take it into itself.
The anxiety of guilt and condemnation is deeply rooted in the American mind, first through the influence of puritanism, then through the impact of the evangelical-pietistic movements. It is strong even if its religious foundation is undermined. But in connection with the predominance of the courage to be as a part in the productive process it has changed its character. Guilt is produced by manifest shortcomings in adjustments to and achievements within the creative activities of society. It is the social group in which one participates productively that judges, forgives, and restores, after the adjustments have been made and the achievements have become visible. This is the reason for the existential insignificance of the experience of justification or forgiveness of sins in comparison with the striving for sanctifi cation and the transformation of one’s own being as well as one’s world. A new beginning is demanded and attempted. This is the way in which the courage to be as a part of the productive process takes the anxiety of guilt into itself.
