God – A phenomenon?

Abstract

Phenomenology describes everything that appears to consciousness in the how of its experiential givenness, that is, as a phenomenon. But is it adequate to describe the presence of the transcendent God as a phenomenon? This is the guiding question of my exploration. It proceeds in three steps: First, Husserl's reasons for excluding divine transcendence from the field of phenomenological research and Heidegger's criticism of so-called “onto-theology” and “metaphysics of presence” come into focus as background for the debates on the (im)possible gift and the “theological turn” in French phenomenology. Second, Marion's description of God's presence as givenness of a self-giving “saturated” phenomenon is discussed in confrontation with the counterarguments by Lévinas, Derrida, Husserl and Heidegger. Third, as a conclusion of these discussions, a model of theology as semiotic “phenomenology of the Invisible” is outlined, taking into account that God's transcendence can become phenomenal either in or in contrast to the ambiguity of appearances.

Notes

1. In his essay Le tournant théologique de la phénoménologie française (Combas: l’Éclat, 1991), Dominique Janicaud puts several French philosophers on trial, criticizing what he takes to be perversions of the phenomenological method for theological ends. His book has opened a far-reaching debate.

2. Cf. E. Husserl, Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und phänomenologischen Philosophie: Erstes Buch: Allgemeine Einführung in die reine Phänomenologie (ed. K. Schuhmann; 2 vols.; The Hague: Nijhoff, 1976), (=Hua 3), §58, 125.

3. E. Husserl, Erste Philosophie (1923/24): Zweiter Teil: Theorie der phänomenologischen Reduktion (ed. R. Boehm; The Hague: Nijhoff, 1959), (=Hua 8), 148.

4. Therefore I do not agree with S. W. Laycock, “The Intersubjective Dimension of Husserl's Theology”, in Essays in Phenomenological Theology (ed. S. W. Laycock and J. G. Hart; Albany: State University of New York Press, 1986), 169–86, who argues that Husserl develops a phenomenology of God that culminates in the disclosure of the God-phenomenon: God precisely as and only as given to us in experience (cf. ibid., 169–172).

5. Translated into English, the text of this manuscript at the Husserl archive in Leuven (=Ms., E III 4, 60f) runs as follows: “This ideal pole-idea is of an absolute in a new transworldly, transhuman, supra-transcendental-subjective sense. It is the absolute logos, the absolute truth in the complete and full sense, as the unum, verum and bonum toward which each being is bound, and toward which all transcendental subjective life […] tends. This idea is borne by every transcendental I, and in a socialized way by every transcendental We, in its transcendental personality as an ideal norm for all relative norms. […] The idea stands over all development toward it as a pole which lies infinitely removed. This pole-idea is the idea of an absolutely perfect transcendental universal community.”

6. Cf. J. B. Brough, “Husserl and the Deconstruction of Time”, Review of Metaphysics 46 (1993): 503–36, and D. Zahavi, Husserl's Phenomenology (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003), 93–98.

7. M. Heidegger, Sein und Zeit (17th ed.; Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1993), §69, 363.

8. Cf. M. Heidegger, Holzwege, (6th ed.; ed. F.-W. von Herrmann; Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann, 1980), (=GA 5), 185: “Die essentia des ens in seinem esse ist die Präsenz. Aber die Präsenz west in der Weise der Präsentation.”

9. Cf. Hua 3, §24, 52. Husserl's principle posits that every originarily donating intuition [selbstgebende Anschauung] is a source of right [Rechtsquelle] for cognition and that everything that offers itself to us originarily in “intuition” [“Intuition”] is to be taken quite simply as it gives itself out to be, but also only within the limits in which it is given there.

10. M. Heidegger, Zur Sache des Denkens (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1969), 68f, 73f, 77.

11. Cf. E. Levinas, Basic Philosophical Writings (ed. A.T. Peperzak, S. Critchley, and R. Bernasconi; Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1996), 66, 75, 77.

12. Levinas, Writings, 67.

13. Levinas, Writings, 141; cf. E. Levinas, God, Death and Time (trans. B. Bergo; Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000), 223f.

14. Levinas, God, 203.

15. Levinas, Writings, 141.

16. Levinas, God, 203, cf. Levinas, Writings, 146.

17. Levinas, God, 197.

18. Cf. Levinas, God, 198–200.

19. Levinas, Writings, 64.

20. Cf. Levinas, Writings, 81f, 124.

21. J.-L. Marion, “The Saturated Phenomenon”, in Phenomenology and the “Theological Turn”: The French Debate (ed. D. Janicaud et al.; New York: Fordham University Press, 2000), 176–216. The essay appears again in Marion's recent book Le visible et le révélé (Paris: Cerf, 2005).

22. Cf. Marion, “Phenomenon”, 195f.

23. Cf. Marion, “Phenomenon”, 198–211.

24. Marion, “Phenomenon”, 210.

25. Cf. J.-L. Marion, “In the Name: How to Avoid Speaking of ‘Negative Theology’”, in God, the Gift, and Postmodernism (ed. J. D. Caputo and M. J. Scanlon; Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999), 20–53, 37.

26. Marion, “In the Name”, 30.

27. See M. Laird, “‘Whereof we speak’: Gregory of Nyssa, Jean-Luc Marion and the Current Apophatic Rage”, HeyJ 42 (2001): 1–12, 9.

28. See J. Derrida, Given Time: I. Counterfeit Money (trans. Peggy Kamuf; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), 14f, 29.

29. Cf. Derrida, Time, 2–4, 28.

30. Cf. Derrida, Time, 137.

31. Cf. Derrida, Time, 27. Cf. R. Horner, Rethinking God as Gift: Marion, Derrida, and the Limits of Phenomenology (New York: Fordham University Press, 2001), passim.

32. Cf. Derrida, Time, 12.

33. Cf. Derrida, Time, 142.

34. Cf. Derrida, Time, 13, 23.

35. Cf. Derrida, Time, 90.

36. Cf. Derrida, Time, 81.

37. Cf. Derrida, Time, 48, 55.

38. Cf. Derrida, Time, 52f.

39. J.-L. Marion, “The Gift of a Presence”, in Prolegomena to Charity (trans. S. E. Lewis; New York: Fordham University Press, 2000), 124–52.

40. Cf. J. D. Caputo and M. J. Scanlon, “Introduction: Apology for the Impossible: Religion and Postmodernism”, in God (ed. Caputo and Scanlon), 1-19; “On the Gift: A Discussion between Jacques Derrida and Jean-Luc Marion, Moderated by Richard Kearney”, in God (ed. Caputo and Scanlon), 54–78; J. D. Caputo, “Apostles of the Impossible: On God and the Gift in Derrida and Marion”, in God (ed. Caputo and Scanlon), 185–222.

41. Cf. Marion, “Gift,” 143.

42. Marion, “Gift”, 150.

43. Marion, “Gift”, 129.

44. Marion, “Gift”, 144.

45. Cf. J.-L. Marion, “La raison du don”, Bijdr 65 (2004): 5–37, where he holds that reducing a gift to pure giving makes it possible to retrieve a pure gift, which does not deliver itself to the reason of economy, and that this can be done by alternately placing between parentheses the terms of exchange.

46. Caputo and Scanlon, “On the Gift”, 70, cf. 71.

47. Cf. J.-L. Marion, Étant donné: Essai d'une phénoménologie de la donation (2d ed.; Paris: Presses Univ. de France, 1997), 264.

48. See J.-L. Marion, “They Recognized Him; and He became Invisible to Them”, Modern Theology 18 (2002): 145–52, 150: “Faith does not compensate, either here or anywhere else, for a defect of visibility […] it alone renders the gaze apt to see the excess of the pre-eminent saturated phenomenon, the Revelation.” Cf. also the Villanova discussion, where Marion states that “the difficulty is not that we lack intuitions concerning God” (Caputo and Scanlon, “On the Gift”, 68), but “that we lack concepts fitting God”; in theology, “we receive an amount of experiences through prayer, liturgy, life in the community, fraternity, etc.” (ibid., 69).

49. Whereas Husserl reduces (leads back) all appearances to a subject to whom they appear, Marion seems to end up in a reduction (annulment) of the constituting subject, cf. J.-L. Marion, Reduction and Givenness: Investigations of Husserl, Heidegger, and Phenomenology (trans. T. Carlson; Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 1998), 203.

50. Cf. Caputo, “Apostles”, 202.

51. Cf. Marion, “Gift”, 129, 131.

52. Cf. also J.-L. Marion, “Réaliser la présence réelle”, La Maison-Dieu 225 (2001): 19–28, where he refers to the gift of Eucharistic presence and states that it is “en soi totalement accompli, mais ne l'est pas pour nous” (ibid., 21), that there remains “un écart entre le don eucharistique et la réception que nous en faisons” (ibid., 22).

53. Marion, “Gift”, 133.

54. Marion, “Gift”, 136.

55. See his 1927 article “Phänomenologie und Theologie”, in Wegmarken (Frankfurt: Klostermann, 1978), 66.

56. Cf. Marion, Étant donné, 336.

57. Cf. J.-L. Marion, “‘Eine andere Erste Philosophie’ und die Frage der Gegebenheit”, in Ruf und Gabe: Zum Verhältnis von Phänomenologie und Theologie (ed. J.-L. Marion and J. Wohlmuth; Bonn: Borengässer, 2000), 53–55, 20.

58. In the Villanova discussion, Marion states that any kind of revelation “can require phenomenological status and match other kinds of phenomena”. In that precise sense, the distinction between the field of phenomenology and the field of theology could be bridged to some extent. See Caputo and Scanlon, “On the Gift”, 63.

59. Cf. ibid., 63.

60. Cf. Marion, Étant donné, 329 n.1.

61. This became explicit, e.g., in Marion's lecture on “Phenomenality and Revelation”, in Copenhagen (26 February 2005, organized by the Center for Subjectivity Research together with other institutes of the University of Copenhagen).

62. Cf. S. van den Bossche, “A Possible Present for Theology: Theological Implications of Jean-Luc Marion's Phenomenology of Givenness”, Bijdr 65 (2004): 55–78, who tries a “maximal apology, retrieving the teaching on a rational knowledge of God of Vatican I” (ibid., 68) and wants phenomenology to grant the ontological possibility of theological contents (cf. ibid., 59).

63. J.-L. Marion, “La raison du don”, 37.

64. Cf. R. Kearney, “Philosophizing the Gift: A Discussion Between Richard Kearney and Mark Manolopulos”, in The Hermeneutics of Charity: Interpretation, Selfhood, and Postmodern Faith (ed. J. K. A. Smith and H. I. Venema; Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2004), 52–72, 53.

65. Cf. B. G. Prusak's introduction in Phenomenology (ed. Janicaud et al.), 5–13, as well as J. L. Kosky's preface in ibid., 107–20.

66. Cf. Marion's dictum: “the alternative between a shortage and a saturation of intuition becomes undecidable” (Being Given (trans. J. L. Kosky; Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2002), 245).

67. Caputo and Scanlon, “On the Gift”, 65.

68. Marion quotes Husserl's “principle of all principles” and, on the one hand, praises this principle because intuition is attested through itself, without the background of a reason that is yet to be given; on the other hand, he criticizes that the intuition still remains framed by two conditions of possibility. First, there is the factual restriction that not everything is capable of being given perfectly, and the de jure restriction that any intuition must first be inscribed within the limits of a horizon. Second, the phenomenon shows itself only by allowing itself to be led back, to be reduced to the constituting I that is the witness and judge of the given appearance (cf. Marion, “Phenomenon”, 180–84). Marion concludes that the saturated phenomenon contradicts Husserl's “principle of all principles” and maintains that the manifestation of God must neither be manipulated by subjective constitution nor by an a priori determined horizon (cf. Marion, Le visible, 28–34).

69. Cf. his statement at the roundtable discussion about “an event that we cannot comprehend but nevertheless we have to see” with the examples of death, birth, and love (Caputo and Scanlon, “On the Gift”, 75), while holding that a saturated phenomenon can neither be seen nor known because of its superabundance (see above). Yet, at other places one can read that “God remains incomprehensible, not imperceptible – without adequate concept, not without giving intuition” (Marion, “In the Name”, 40).

70. For a more detailed description of the difference between idol and icon, cf. J.-L. Marion, The Idol and Distance: Five Studies (trans. T. A. Carlson; New York: Fordham University Press, 2001), Introduction and §1; J.-L. Marion, God Without Being (trans. T. A. Carlson; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991), chapters 1–3. Cf. R. Horner, “The Face as Icon: A Phenomenology of the Invisible”, ACR 82 (2005): 19–28, especially 20–24, 28; R. Sneller, “Incarnation as a Prerequisite: Marion and Derrida,” Bijdr 65 (2004): 38–54, 42 and 52; H. V. Frandsen, “Distance as Abundance: The Thought of Jean-Luc Marion”, STK 79 (2003): 177–86, 184f. M. Westphal, Overcoming Onto-Theology: Toward a Postmodern Christian Faith (New York: Fordham University Press, 2001), 267–270, holds that what distinguishes an icon from an idol is the “how” rather than the “what” of perception: a given visible can function either as idol or icon. Idolatry means that the human gaze has become the measure of the divine, whereas the iconic gaze refuses to make its own capacity the measure of what it intends.

71. Cf. R. Horner, “Aporia or Excess? Two Strategies for Thinking r/Revelation”, in Derrida and Religion. Other Testaments (ed. Y. Sherwood and K. Hart; New York: Routledge, 2005), 325–36, 331–33.

72. Cf. Marion, Étant donné, 106 and 336.

73. I have shown elsewhere that Kierkegaard's theological and ethical phenomenology of love in Kjerlighedens Gjerninger (1847) exemplifies this model. Cf. C. Welz, “Present within or without Appearances? Kierkegaard's Phenomenology of the Invisible: Between Hegel and Levinas,” Kierkegaard Studies. Yearbook (2007): 470–513. For further considerations concerning the hermeneutical problem of interpreting God's transcendence, see my article “The Presence of the Transcendent – Transcending the Present: Kierkegaard and Levinas on Subjectivity and the Ambiguity of God's Transcendence”, in Subjectivity and Transcendence (ed. A. Gr⊘n, I. Damgaard and S. Overgaard; Religion in Philosophy and Theology 25; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2007), 149–176, and my dissertation on Love's Transcendence and the Problem of Theodicy (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008).

74. Cf. Janicaud et al., Phenomenology, 103, who recalls an allegedly insurmountable difference, quoting Luther on the one hand (“Faith consists in giving oneself over to the hold of things we do not see”) and Goethe on the other hand (“There is nothing to look for behind the phenomena; they are themselves the doctrine”).

75. I admit that Kant is right in rejecting all attempted proofs of God's reality; even if God is defined as “the most real being”, this ontological notion of God can not guarantee that he who is thought to be real is really present at times when he is not thought of (cf. Kritik der reinen Vernunft, A 600f; B 628f). However, if we would think of God as being an imagination without extra-mental reality, then we would not think of God at all. Thinking of God, we refer to a reality that is to be thought as being real – in, despite and apart from our thinking. If it is true that we could not even think of God if his presence was not real, for without God we would not live at all, it is true no matter if we believe in God's reality or deny or ignore it.

76. See B. Waldenfels, “Phänomenologie der Erfahrung und das Dilemma einer Religionsphänomenologie”, in Religion als Phänomen. Sozialwissenschaftliche, theologische und philosophische Erkundungen in der Lebenswelt (ed. W.-E. Failing, H.-G. Heimbrock and T. A. Lotz; Berlin: de Gruyter, 2001), 63–84, especially 76–82.