Phenomenology and Religion: New Frontiers

rosa maria lupo

Marion moves beyond the metaphysical view of God by thinking God
as a giving act of Love. If we try to see Marion’s speculation from a
retrospective point of view,^30 the continuity of his whole project
becomes much more evident — an ambitious project, with the aim of
redefining phenomenality, the basis of which Marion lays in L’idole et
la distance.
If ontological determinations are, thus, idolatrous representations
of God, it is necessary to find another access to Him. However, at this
point Marion holds that we already have this opportunity of access in
front of us, or rather that we are able to live our experience of God
because this possibility originally opens itself for us. What Marion
grasps is that the opening of God to us and our access to God
correspond exactly to the movement of the phenomenality of the
saturated phenomenon. Therefore, if this kind of phenomenality
becomes understandable for us, it is possible to try to articulate a
comprehension of the relationship “God/human being” — a relation
that is properly phenomenological. In my opinion, this aspect allows
the possibility of understanding why Marion is convinced that
theology can demonstrate the obligation of phenomenology to rethink
its method:

La phénoménologie ne peut donner son statut � la théologie, parce que

les conditions de la manifestation contredisent, ou du moins diffèrent

de la possibilité libre de la révélation. Mais il n’en résulte pas né-

cessairement un divorce, puisqu’une dernière hypothèse reste envisage-

able: la théologie ne peut-elle pas, en vertu de ses exigences propres et

en vue de seulement les formuler, suggérer � la phénoménologie cer-

taines modifications de méthode et d’opérations? En d’autres termes,

ne pourrait-on pas s’enquérir des conditions (inconditionnelles)

auxquelles la méthode phénoménologique devrait souscrire pour

accéder � une pensée de la révélation? Inversement, les exigences de la

théologie pourraient-elles permettre � la phénoménologie de trans-

gresser ses propres limites, pour atteindre enfin la libre possibilité,

qu’elle pretend, dès l’origine, viser?^31

30. This operation is suggested by Marion himself, when he says that Le Phénomène
    érotique can be considered the result of the project that has its beginning with
    L’idole et la distance.


31. J.-L. Marion, Le visible et le révélé, 29–30.