Edith Stein, a Philosopher, and a Saint: A Journey from God as a Being in the Consciousness to the God as a Real Being

Abstract

St. Edith Stein or Sr. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross is a Philosopher and a Saint. She was a dedicated student and assistant of Edmund Husserl. This paper aims to present the journey of Edith Stein’s conversion from philosophy to Christianity while remaining a scholar of phenomenology. What Phenomenology pointed out to her was made concrete by Christian Philosophy, especially by her faith and love for the Cross of Jesus Christ. In 1921 after reading the “Book of Her Life” by St. Teresa of Avila, she then confessed that “This is the Truth”. The religious crisis of Edith Stein has allowed her to search for Truth, that is, the Truth of Faith. Her “Finite and Eternal Being: An attempt and an Ascent to the Meaning Being” which she wrote during her Novitiate year as a Discalced Carmelite and together with her works on the relation between Husserlian Phenomenology and the Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas were the indications of the journey of her conversion. The science of phenomenology, the science of the saints and the science of the cross summarize the whole journey of the conversion of Edith Stein.