The Revelation of the Phenomena and the Phenomenon of Revelation: An Apology for Dionysius’s Phenomenological Appropriation (original) (raw)
Related papers
2016
This text analyses the reception of St Dionysius the Areopagite s apophaticism in ean-Luc Marion s thought. After a dispute with ac ues Derrida, who claimed that negative theology returns to affirmations after having passed through negations, Marion reads Dionysius apophaticism in the same way the Tradition of the Church did. Hence, he asserts that apophaticism is a third way, beyond affirmations and negations. As Marion s apology evolves, Dionysius influences on his thought appear in concepts such as God without being, distance, and saturated phenomenon. Furthermore, this study argues the role of the human being in apophatic theology. Because of his radical phenomenology of donation, Marion reverses intentionality in counter-intentionality, experience in counter-experience, and subject in adonné. From this point on, the subject/l’adonné seems to have no determinative role for apophatic gnoseology, although Church Tradition always affirmed the importance of faith and virtues for spi...
STJ | Stellenbosch Theological Journal
This article is an attempt to establish the phenomenological and theological value of the concept of Revelation in the work of the French philosopher Jean-Luc Marion in a post-modern cultural and intellectual context. Is it possible to speak of revelation in a phenomenological sense and more radically, about the Revelation of God, after the critique of metaphysics and phenomenology by Derrida, Caputo and others? Marion argues that by overcoming metaphysics and broadening the limits of traditional phenomenology to include phenomena of Revelation, the Revelation of Christ is a phenomenological impossible impossibility. Using Marion’s reinterpretation of Husserl and Heidegger`s understanding of “givenness”, “the given” and the “gift” and his concept of Revelation as a saturated phenomenon, I want to critically illuminate his contribution to the concept of r/Revelation as a post-metaphysical and theological possibility.
2016
Reprezentant de seamă al "turnurii teologice a fenomenologiei franceze", Jean-Luc Marion rămâne unul dintre cei mai fascinanți gânditori ai timpului nostru, prin originalitatea fenomenologiei donației și prin deschiderea unor noi direcții de dialog cu teologia. Din punct de vedere teologic, el practică o apologie postmetafizică, în care temele credinței creștine se regăsesc cu naturalețe alături de concepte fenomenologice precum icoana, fenomenul saturat, contra-experiența, darul, revelația, reducția erotică și adonatul. Separând riguros teologia și filosofia, el dovedește încă o dată că, după o modernitate antireligioasă și într-o postmodernitate nihilistă, a crede și a gândi pot merge încă împreună, chiar dacă numai până la un punct, dincolo de care gândirea filosofică lasă cuvântul teologiei revelate, singura în măsură să rostească adecvat în istorie chemarea Dumnezeului celui viu.
DIONYSIUS IN HANS URS VON BALTHASAR AND JEAN-LUC MARION
Modern Theology, 2008
Amidst the debate surrounding the incontestable "turn to religion" in recent French philosophy, negative theology is, in the words of Arthur Bradley, "one of the key sites of engagement-in the double sense of both commitment and confrontation". 1 The engagement with this tradition usually gets further refined into a debate over different readings of the "negative theology" of Dionysius in relation to various understandings of the "deconstruction" of Jacques Derrida. Much ink has been spilled in this confrontation: is deconstruction simply the latest incarnation of negative theology and Dionysius an early sixth-century "Derridean," 2 or must a stark line be drawn between the two in order to safeguard the originality of the postmodern shibboleth? 3 Despite the wealth of writing on the subject, this debate remains curiously stunted. Concerns about "ontotheology" and "metaphysics of presence" operate as the arbitrating standards by which Dionysius must be evaluated. In other words, advocates from either side start from the same set of premises, those of Derrida. Consequently, the retrieval of Dionysius functions rhetorically as a whetstone against which Derridean deconstruction can sharpen itself while analysis of the pseudonymous texts is inevitably dulled. Jean-Luc Marion casts a broader net, retrieving more than merely the linguistic or epistemological implications of Dionysius' thought. He draws upon several central themes in the CD: the simultaneity of divine "manifestation and concealment"; the notion of "distance" as that which is sustaining of, and sustained in, the relationship between God and creation; and the eros which drives this relationship. Further, Marion properly situates Dionysius within a liturgical context and clarifies the anthropological implications of his apophaticism in order to emphasize that it entails an existential stance of the human person vis-à-vis the divine.
Forum Philosophicum, 2022
In this article, we analyse the relation of philosophy and theology in the work of Jean‑Luc Marion in order to be able to see not only how the phenomenology of givenness can serve as a “new apologetics” for theology, but also how Marion’s phenomenology itself, in its historical development and in its core principle and method, is influenced and changed by theological phenomena. We present three ways of describing the relation, tension, mutual influence and separation of philosophy and theology: firstly, in line with Pascal’s distinction between the orders of reason and of the heart; secondly, in phenomenology, in terms of indications to the effect that there can be a phenomenon of revelation in the mode of possibility that is distinguished from the phenomenon of Revelation in theology in the mode of historicity; and thirdly, by analogy with Christian apologetics. In particular, we analyse this third dimension, putting forward the thesis that Marion’s phenomenology itself has some characteristics of the Christian apologetics he describes. We try to demonstrate this interpretation of his phenomenology in its key dimensions, such as the counter-method and descriptions of the phenomena of love and revelation, which constitute the culmination of the phenomenology of givenness, although at the same time, as it were, its limit, crossing over into the theological order.
The accounts of revelation offered by Karl Barth and Jean-Luc Marion have ambiguous attitudes towards phenomenology. Phenomenology is examined directly by both, most notably, with the work of Martin Heidegger. However the extent their individual engagements with phenomenology differ. Barth is a theologian and only examines Heidegger as a clarification of his theology of revelation. However, this essay will also consider the phenomenological implications of his theory of revelation when he is not explicitly dealing with phenomenology. In particular, it will be argued that in his debate with Emil Brunner, he shows that he is actually closer to Heidegger’s account of the Nothing in ‘What is Metaphysics’ than Barth admits himself. Unlike Barth, Marion is has done several extensive studies on phenomenology and as such has wider recognition within the school of phenomenology. Recently, John McNassor has compared Barth and Marion based on their theological method. He argues that Marion’s account of revelation is more complete than Barth’s because he presupposes the importance of the immediacy of experience, whereas he thinks that Barth’s resistance to the value of human experience means that he tends towards devaluing creation. Marion, like Barth, also advocates the development of theology that is not determined by human ideas, which leads him to develop the notion of saturated phenomena. Marion claims that phenomenology, as it was concieved by Husserl, did not grasp the richness of experience because he limited experience to what can be grasped through concepts. Against Husserl, Marion argues that there is a more basic form of experience which is unmediated by human concepts, which he describes as pure givenness. Pure givenness is the state of experience that is prior to our application of concepts to this experience and thus is pure content or intuition without being affected by human understanding (or intentionality). Marion argues that there are special cases of phenomena can reveal the pure givenness, which he labels saturated phenomena. These are cases where the experience exceeds our capacity to find concepts to understand it. The difference between pure givenness and saturated phenomena is that while pure givenness can only occur before conceptualisation, saturated phenomena can appear after conceptualisation. The limitation of conceptualisation in saturated phenomena is thus an account of revelation because it cannot be established by human reason (as in natural theology). Marion claims that the effect of saturated phenomena is that it negates conceptualisation so that its distinctive character is in pure givenness. However, it will be argued that Marion’s account of saturated phenomena displays ambiguity that on one side is restrictive about the accessibility of pure givenness but on the other side suggests that pure givenness is universally accessible. The former aspect is closer to Barth’s suspicion of natural theology and more distanced to phenomenology. Yet the more universal accessibility of givenness leans more towards phenomenology than revelation. Barth and Marion share in common an ambiguous relationship to phenomenology because they both dismiss phenomenology in the face of a theology of revelation they also display closer affinity to phenomenology than their sometimes admit.
Archa Verbi 14, 2017
This essay revisits the oft-posed question of Dionysius’ reception in the middle ages, but with an eye toward a lesser known heir, Thomas Gallus. A Victorine abbot who left Paris for an outpost in Vercelli, Italy, Gallus was steeped in the thought of his forebears—viz., Hugh and Richard—and serves as an interesting representative of one reception tradition. Some aspects of this medieval Dionysianism have received scholarly attention, especially in regard to the medieval bifurcation between 'affective' and 'intellective' receptions of the Dionysian corpus. Gallus is regularly lined up alongside other twelfth and thirteenth century figures (usually Victorines and Franciscans) and, at times, their affective Dionysianism is set over against the intellective reading associated with Dominicans such as Albert and Thomas. In this essay, I revisit the question of this bifurcation by giving a more sustained look at the anthropological and metaphysical underpinnings of the affective interpretation. That is, Gallus’ treatment of mystical union is interpreted in light of his understanding of the human person as a knowing and loving subject and his understanding of the broader metaphysical relationship between God and creation. This approach to reading Gallus makes it possible to see that in positing loving ecstasy as the mode of union with the Divine 'above mind,' the affective tradition is not necessarily engaging in what has recently been called a "major transformation" of the Dionysian tradition. Rather, by showing how similar concerns appear within the original texts of Dionysius (and not merely in aberrant Latin translations thereof), I suggest concerns about apophasis and ecstatic, immediate, and erotic union which transcends intellection are not unique to Gallus.
"Filled with the Visible Theophany of the Lord: Reading Dionysius East and West"
Logos: A Journal of Eastern Christian Studies, 2012
This article is the latest in a series of papers in which the author has explored how the Divine Names and Mystical Theology of Dionysius the Areopagite have been read in terms of three 'frameworks': Neoplatonic, Greek patristic/ Orthodox Christian, and Medieval Latin scholastic. In this article, the author focuses on Dionsyius's reference to the Transfiguration of the Lord (DN 1.4, 592B-C) and the sort of embodied knowledge we can have of God in theophanic experiences. This text provides a very good example for contrasting the Latin scholastic and Orthodox/Greek patristic interpretations of Dionysius. It also provides an excellent example of a text that cannot be accommodated within a strictly Neoplatonic interpretation of the Divine Names. The author spends most of the article examining the quite different frameworks in which St. Gregory Palamas, on the one hand, and Sts. Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas, on the other hand, interpret this text. In the end the author shows that these different frameworks for interpreting Dionysius's reference to the Transfiguration rest on quite different epistemologies.
Jean-Luc Marion's Reading of Dionysius the Areopagite: Hermeneutics and Reception History
Reading the Church Fathers, eds. M. Ludlow, S. Douglass, 2011
This text discussed Jean-Luc Marion's reading of the ps.-Dionysius in the context of his reception history. The text begins with some reflections on the ambiguity of modern reading and from the goes on to consider the specific case of Marion's engagement with the texts of the late ancient author. This approach permits an appreciation of this engagement despite its many problems.