Phenomenology and Religion: New Frontiers

God — Love — Revelation

God as Saturated Phenomenon in Jean-Luc

Marion’s Phenomenology of Givenness

rosa maria lupo

Aimer surpasse l’être d’un excès sans aucune mesure avec lui, parce qu’il

ne se reconnaît aucun contraire, ni aucun envers. [... ] Aimer sans

l’être — cela définit l’amour sans l’être. La simple définition formelle

d’aimer inclut sa victoire sur le rien, donc sur la mort. L’amour res-

suscite — il faut l’entendre comme une proposition analytique.

Jean-Luc Marion, Le phénomène érotique, 118

1. God as frontier-space between

philosophy and theology

With respect to the present research in its aim of investigating new
possibilities of a relationship between philosophy and religion, I will
try to focus on Jean-Luc Marion’s position from a very particular
point of view. I will discuss Marion’s conception of God — and the
related phenomenon of His Revelation — as a case of a saturated phe-
nomenon (phénomène saturé), and in particular as the saturated phenom-
enon par excellence in His way of being an erotic phenomenon. In doing
so, I will attempt to show how Marion’s position opens up a possibil-
ity that phenomenology might rethink its relationship to the experi-
ence of faith, and therefore to religion. In this context, it is my inten-
tion to examine neither the implications for phenomenology of Mar-
ion’s radical proposal of a phenomenology without ontology — his
phenomenology of givenness — nor to present his phenomenological per-
spectives and operations if they are not specifically relevant for the
investigation.
In the context of this research, the specific theme of God as phénomène