God and moral responsibility

I will argue in this article that Scheler’s last writings are not necessarily less valuable than his earlier works. First, I will try to prove that Scheler’s Späte Schriften are in concordance with his earlier writings, at least from the perspective of his ethical views, and do not represent such a dramatic rupture as is often claimed. The main part of this article will therefore consist of an analysis of the moral implications that are inherent in Scheler’s renewing concept of God, as it is obvious that Scheler’s concept of Gottwerdung, central in his late metaphysics, does not leave morality untouched. I will stress the fact that these moral implications remarkably coincide with the core of Scheler’s earlier ethical system, as developed in his magnificent Der Formalismus in der Ethik und die Materiale Wertethik (Formalism in Ethics and Non-Formal Ethics of Values). Furthermore, Scheler's Späte Schriften are not only compatible with the essence of his earlier ethics, but there is also a great consistency in them, even though they are often characterized as merely a collection of distinct essays. Scheler’s so-called metanthropology accords with his political, epistemological and ethical views.