laszlo tengelyiGood beyond Being.^40 For, in Neoplatonism, the One is at the same
time considered as the Good, precisely because it is the source of a
prodigious effect of surplus: it gives what it does not have.^41 Plotinus
says: “It is not necessary for anybody to have what he gives.”^42 Thus,
the One beyond Being gives being to that which comes after it (in the
first place: to the Intellect), without having it itself. However, such a
prodigious effect of surplus is, as was clearly seen by Lacan, charac-
teristic of love as well.^43 This effect makes of love a creative gift that
engenders, by the very act of giving, that which it gives. As a creative
gift, love is not bound up with Being, because it is not from Being, but
rather from Nothingness that it takes what it gives. Of course, love
could not take place if there were nothing and nobody; but it cannot
be brought about as an existing relationship between existents, either.
That is why Marion emphasizes that love goes beyond everything
(beyond Being, as well as beyond existents).^44 He adds that love does
not necessarily disappear with the decease of the beloved; it follows
from this that “it is not in his or her character as an existent that the
beloved lends him- or herself to be loved.”^45
The expression of these thoughts in Dieu sans l’être initiates a process
of lengthy meditation on love. Even if this process cannot be pursued
in this paper, I still wish to mention, before moving to Henry, that
Marion remains faithful to the tradition founded by Ps.-Dionysius
Areopagita in dedicating these meditations both to love [ἀγάπη] and
to the amorous [ἔρως]. Marion assigns great significance to a
phenomenology of eros for theology, because he takes for granted
what he calls the “univocity of love.”^46 Through this expression, he
wishes to say that “love” in ἀγάπη and “love” in ἔρως are to be taken
- Ps.-Dionysius Areopagita,. Ps.-Dionysius Areopagita, De divinis nominibus, IV 14, 712 C; German transla-
tion: 76. - Plotin,. Plotin, Enn., VI 7, 15, 19: „διδόντος ἐκείνου ἃ μὴ εἶχεν αὐτός“ (the edition quo-
ted is Opera, ed. P. Henry and H.-R. Schwyzer, Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1977). - Plotin,. Plotin, Enn., VI 7, 17, 1–6.
- Jacques Lacan. Jacques Lacan Écrits, Paris: Seuil, 1966, 618.
- Marion,. Marion, Dieu sans l’être, 155.
- Ibid., 193.. Ibid., 193.
- Jean-Luc Marion,. Jean-Luc Marion, Le phénomène érotique, Paris: Grasset & Fasquelle, 2003, 334.