on the border of phenomenology and theologyexistence amounts, at most, to a blasphemy.”^26 How theologians of
the neothomistic brand reacted to such opinions becomes perceptible
if one reads Roger Verneaux’s polemical writing on Marion’s Dieu
sans l’être.^27 However, Marion is convinced that the fight against onto-
theol ogy has to be carried on in the scientia sacra, as well as in
philosophy, because theology has been subjected to the overwhelming
impact of metaphysics. Marion even attempts to determine the very
moment in which this impact becomes perceptible for the first time.
He connects this moment with a decision taken by Thomas Aquinas
to characterize “Being” [ens], in opposition to the position of Ps.-
Dionysius Areopagita, as the first among all “divine names.”^28 It is a
well-known fact that Ps.-Dionysius Areopagita stands in the Platonic
tradition which situates the Good or, as it is generally referred to in
the epoch of Neoplatonism, the One, on the basis of a passage in
Plato’s Politeia (509 b), “beyond Being” (ἐπέκεινα τῆς οὐσίας). Indeed,
we are told in Ps.-Dionysius Areopagita’s writing “On Divine Names”:
“The designation of God as ‘the Good’ alludes to [.. .] all manifestations
of the cause of all things^29 and encompasses everything which is and
which is not, transcending all being and not-being. On the contrary,
the name ‘the Being’ encompasses [only] everything which is,
- Martin Heidegger,. Martin Heidegger, Nietzsche, Pfullingen: Neske, 1961, Vol. I, 366 (= Nietzsche
I, in: Gesamtausgabe, Vol. 6.1, ed. B. Schillbach, Frankfurt am Main: V. Kloster-
mann, 1996, 327): “[...] dass ein Gott, der sich seine Existenz erst beweisen lassen
muß, am Ende ein sehr ungöttlicher Gott ist und das Beweisen seiner Existenz
höchstens auf eine Blasphemie hinauskommt.” - Roger Verneaux,. Roger Verneaux, Étude critique du livre Dieu sans l’être, Paris: Téqui, 1986, 11f:
“Et si les preuves de l’existence de Dieu sont des blasphèmes, saint Thomas est un
blasphémateur et l’Église a eu grand tort de le canoniser.” Verneaux quotes some
decrees of councils in order to show the incompatibility of Marion’s opinions with
the Catholic faith. - Marion,. Marion, Dieu sans l’être, 110.
- As early as in. As early as in L’idole et la distance, published in 1977, Marion attempts to show
that, in Ps.-Dionysius Areopagita, the expression ὁ πάντων αἴτιος (cause of every-
thing) does not refer to a first cause, but to that which is searched for, and strived
for, by everything [le Réquisit]. Thus, it refers to God, insofar He is the aim of all
striving and the addressee of all demands and prayers.