Abstract

The kairos is the decisive moment in the course of an event; often a disease or battle. Prior to the kairos different forces interact or fight with each other in changing constellations and with changing fortunes. The kairos, however, is the moment of final decision. If, in the case of a disease, at that moment the “powers of life” prevail, the patient will survive and recover. If, to the contrary, the “powers of death” predominate, the patient will die. The art of medicine consists in recognizing the kairos and supporting the powers of life. In a way, it is only in the kairos that humans have responsibility. They can, and must, influence the course of events. In a strict sense, they cannot but have responsibility, for there is no neutrality in the kairos. The physician must be faithful to his commitment to the powers of life and must not defect to the powers of death. To do nothing is already defection, for it strengthens the powers of death by not supporting and thus weakening the powers of life. It also happens that, in paying heed to the demands of the powers of life in the kairos, some realize that they have been on the wrong side and return to the powers of life. In the kairos, a mixture is cleansed and is reduced to an either-or; either life or death, either socialism or fascism. No longer is there the possibility for a neither-nor, in-between, or balance of the opposites. Several authors experienced the 1920s in Germany as a kairos situation and called upon individuals to take their stand in the either-or. Others recognized that it was precisely the call for the either-or that destroyed life, and they called for a balance of the opposites. One of them was the late Max Scheler, after he himself had propagated the politics of either-or, the politics of decision. Another one was Scheler’s successor in Frankfurt, Paul Tillich.