rosa maria lupofaith can declare what the eye of reason cannot conceive. Perhaps
because of this, Marion leaves to theology the duty of ensuring the
reality of Revelation, while he, as a phenomenologist, illustrates the
ways of possibility for God as saturated phenomenon.
4. From saturated phenomenon to erotic phenomenon:
God as Love
At this point it becomes more and more evident in which way Marion’s
position offers the great privilege of an access to God through a trait
of His that is common to several monotheistic religions: His Revela-
tion.^27 This trait of Revelation allows Marion to inaugurate a “non-
idolatrous” thinking of God, a thinking that wants to be extremely
respectful to God, recognizing His absolute otherness.
It is possible to appreciate Marion’s very distinct position in one of
his first important books: L’idole et la distance. In addition to its
challenge — the removal of God from the idolatrous thinking of
metaphysics and onto-theology — the phenomenological aim is
peculiar in this work. The idol is discussed by Marion as an imitation,
a false image of God, because of its inaptitude to reproduce what it is
structurally impossible to reproduce. The point is not whether the
image is exact or not, similar or not, true or not. The problem is that
only through the traits of another human being (Christ), are humans authorized
to look at God. Only because God makes Himself similar to the human being, is
it possible for the human eye to return God’s gaze. But in spite of this “move-
ment” of God, who takes flesh in Christ, the human does not acknowledge God
in this corporeal condition, and does not understand God’s absolute otherness in
Christ’s bodily presence.
- This possibility is evident in Marion’s way of presenting Revelation — not only
within the specific case of Christianity, but as an element typical of religion itself:
“La religion n’atteint � sa figure la plus achevée qu’en s’établissant par et comme
une révélation, où une instance, transcendante � l’expérience, se manifeste pour-
tant expérimentalement; une telle expérience effective au-del� (ou en deç�) des
conditions de possibilité de l’expérience s’assure non seulement par son constat
en des individus privilégiés ou désignés, mais par des paroles ou des énoncés ac-
cessibles en droit � tous (écritures saintes); la révélation tient sa force de provoca-
tion de ce qu’elle parle universellement, sans que pourtant cette parole puisse se
fonder en raison dans les limites du monde,” J.-L. Marion, Le visible et le révélé, 14.