The Ontology of the Earthquake: Present-Absent in the Interval

AI-assisted translation from the Greek. Greek original

An earthquake is not merely a natural phenomenon. It is not only the shaking of the ground, the movement of lithospheric plates, the release of stresses accumulated deep within the earth. It is also — and above all — a revelation. Violently and inescapably, it reveals that what we regard as the most self-evident foundation of our lives, the earth that holds us, is never entirely safe, never unshakable. The earthquake is the moment when the foundation ceases to be taken for granted, when our presence becomes visible as something held in suspense.

This experience is not new to humanity. Since ancient times, earthquakes have been regarded as signs from the gods, punishments or warnings. In the Bible, earthquakes often accompany the great theophanies — at Sinai, at the Crucifixion, at the Resurrection. In mythologies, the earthquake is the wrath of the Titans or the unrest of subterranean forces. Even in the modern age, when earthquakes are explained scientifically, they remain an experience that exceeds a simple physical description. Why? Because they touch the very ontology of existence.

An earthquake frightens us not because buildings move, but because it reveals something deeper: that our very presence is never fully grounded. That we always live in a state of suspense, as if inhabiting a world that could disappear at any moment. The earthquake is not merely a “physical tremor”; it is the symbol and testimony that existence is “born absent-present” — present, yet always under the shadow of absence.

The earthquake as an interval

To put it in philosophical terms, the earthquake reveals the interval between being and non-being. Traditionally, thinkers have stood on one side or the other. Parmenides prohibited all thought of non-being: “what is not can neither be thought nor spoken”. Plato transformed it into “the other”, otherness, so that it would not remain wholly outside meaning. Aristotle confined it to the notion of “potentiality”, a possibility awaiting actualisation. For the Church Fathers, nothingness became the background of creation “out of nothing”, but only so that God's creative power might shine more brightly. In modern philosophy, Heidegger brought “nothingness” to the fore as an element of dread and as the horizon of Being-towards-death. Sartre saw it as the negativity that grounds freedom.

Yet in all these approaches, non-being remains either negation or threat, or a starting point left behind. It does not become a place of reception; it is not recognised as a condition that can be borne. Here lies the earthquake's surprise: it shows that the foundation of presence is not stable, but an endurance of non-being. The earth does not cease to exist when it shakes; rather, it reveals that its stability is always in suspense. So too with existence: it does not cease when tested, but reveals that its presence cohabits with the possibility of absence.

The experience of being born “absent-present”

Here we encounter the deepest existential experience: to live means to live within the possibility of your life not being realised. We do not live only with the fear of death in the future; we also live with the trace of “I might never have existed”. Our existence carries the shadow of non-being towards both past and future.

This becomes especially apparent in the experience of adoption. The child born without acceptance being assured carries within them the sense that their presence is already wounded by absence. This is not merely a psychological matter, but an ontological one: existence is experienced from the outset as “present-absent”. And the whole of life becomes a continual negotiation of this suspended condition: how to stand in a world that holds and rejects you at the same time.

The earthquake reveals to everyone what the adopted child knows existentially: that presence cannot be taken for granted. For a few seconds, everyone lives the same experience: “we might not exist”. This shared experience gives rise to a sense of “together” that is not a social convention, but an existential kinship.

A theological reading

The theology of the Fathers spoke of creation “out of nothing”. God brought the world into existence not from some pre-existing matter, but from nothingness. This truth preserves creation's absolute dependence on the Creator. Yet tradition often thought of nothingness only as a past that had been overcome: once there was no world, God created, and now it exists.

The earthquake forces us to see differently: nothingness is not merely yesterday; it is now. Creation always remains created, which means always held in suspense before nothingness. The fact that the earth shakes shows that creation is not a given, but a continual endurance of non-being. Thus God appears not only as a Creator who acted once, but as the One who continually bears our non-being so that we may exist.

This transforms the very concept of God. He is not only the God of power, cause and creation. He is also the God of patience — the One who “bears with” our non-presence, who does not annihilate us, who keeps existence open.

The philosophical dimension

Viewed philosophically, the earthquake dissolves the certainty of the foundation. Parmenides wanted to establish being as immovable. The earthquake demonstrates that there is no such immovability. The ground, the very embodiment of stability, becomes fluid. Being, therefore, is founded not on stability but on continual suspense.

Heidegger spoke of Dasein as “Being-towards-death”. But the earthquake shows that the suspended condition of existence concerns not only death in the future; it also concerns the present, even the past. We do not merely live towards death; we always live at the boundary where our existence might never have existed. This threefold dimension — past, present, future — constitutes the ontology of suspense.

Sartre saw nothingness as a negation that grounds freedom. Here, however, this is not a negation uttered by the subject, but the very structure of the world: the ground, the earth, the presence of others, all testify that being is always precarious.

The anthropological dimension

Anthropology knows that natural disasters give birth to communities. After earthquakes or floods, people often show greater solidarity. They share fears, help one another, rebuild. But something deeper is at work here: this community is not only a social phenomenon; it bears witness to a shared ontological condition. We are all born “absent-present”. The earthquake simply reveals this universally, if only for a few moments.

By contrast, social celebrations such as weddings try to create “togetherness” founded on presence taken for granted. People dance, sing, affirm the community. But whoever looks deeper sees that behind the dance lies each person's secret solitude, a solitude so pure that if you speak of it to another, they are frightened. In an earthquake, by contrast, this solitude is openly revealed: everyone alone, everyone together.

The absolute experience

Here we reach the question: do we thereby live the absolute experience? The answer is yes, insofar as “absolute experience” means inhabiting the very structure of existence. Not merely having experiences — joys, sorrows, events — but realising that your experience happens in suspense before the possibility of nothing at all. When you inhabit this fissure, experience ceases to be a mere succession of events and becomes testimony to existence itself.

This testimony is rare, because most people live “being” as something stable. Society builds institutions and celebrations in order to forget this suspense. The earthquake, however, reveals it. And whoever has the courage to remain there, to inhabit it, knows the absolute experience: living while knowing that you might never have lived at all.