[178] can completely escape philosophizing, or asking the question of human existence and its meaning. Now since this is so, we can say: although it is comparatively simple to say "The philosopher asks the question of the ultimate in terms of the structure of being;^a the theologian asks the same question in terms of our ultimate concern---this is the difference"---although it is easy to make this distinction and to say the first is a detached question^b, the other is an involved question, ^cACTUALLY this difference never occurs in the LIFE of the philosopher or in the LIFE of the theologian. As human beings, staying in existence, both ask both questions, and the influence of the one question on the other, and the one answer on the other, is always visible. An analysis of every philosophical system, or essay, or fragment shows that in the direction in which the philosopher asks his questions, and in the PREFERENCE he gives to special answers, not only is cognitive material elaborated, but also ultimate concern is directing. Give me ANY philosopher, and l will show you how his religious tradition, how his personal anxiety, how the situation of his period, with the decisive questions and problems of ex=stential [sic.] character, determines both the directions of his questions and the color of his answers. It is EASY to show this, in most cases; more difficult in other cases. The philosopher is driven by a passion which is both passion for knowledge, but also passion to get an answer to the question of HIS life, of HIS existence. And the amalgamation of these two passions makes the great philosopher. ALL great philosophers have these two elements in their philosophical passion. The Aristotelian^d astonishment about our being is always an astonishment