Givenness and God: Questions of Jean-Luc Marion

Foreword

Foreword Dermot A. Lane It is a pleasure for me as President of Mater Dei Institute to welcome the publication of this collection of essays celebrating the work of Jean-Luc Marion. Most of the papers were first delivered in the Mater Dei Institute, a college of Dublin City University, in January 2003, at a conference attended by Marion. It was Marion’s first visit to Ireland, and it was most appropriate that a college specializing in religious education should host the occasion: after all, Marion has not only been central in the ‘‘turn toward the theological’’ in recent French phenomenology, but has also generated massive interest within theology itself. What is outstanding about Marion’s writings is the way he provokes his readers to go beyond ontology, beyond onto-theology, beyond ontological difference, so that they can begin to think in a way that is liberated from the confines of traditional metaphysics. In phenomenology , this liberation means thinking ‘‘after the traditional subject ’’ and ‘‘after’’ Heideggerian ontology; beyond both of these, Marion suggests, we have the sheer givenness of phenomena without condition. In theology, this liberation means rethinking God: not as a conceptual ‘‘idol,’’ and not through the heavy metaphysical language of ‘‘Being’’ or substance or essence, but, instead, in terms of phenomena such as love, gift, and excess. Further, from a theological point of view, what is particularly signi ficant about Marion’s multifaceted project is the way it seeks to go xv beyond the dialectics of affirmation and negation, beyond the hyperessentialism of certain forms of analogy, to embrace ‘‘a third way’’ that he calls the way of mystical theology. This way of mystical theology culminates not in concepts or theories but in what Marion calls the pragmatics of prayer and praise. For Marion, all talk about God disrupts, destabilizes, and disestablishes philosophical and theological discourse. How all this happens and what is the basis of this dazzling discourse , how he arrives at this new theological phenomenology, and in what way he connects this original phenomenology with the Catholic heritage—these are some of the questions addressed in this collection . What is surely distinctive and enduring about the contribution of Marion is the way he has safeguarded the academy and the church and religion from the constant temptation toward idolatry. Equally outstanding is the way he always seeks to go beyond current categories , breaking new ground, disturbing philosophical systems, and challenging theological complacencies. For these provocations we are deeply indebted to his immense labor. Toward the end of his landmark God Without Being, Marion writes: ‘‘We are infinitely free in theology: we find all already given, gained, available. It only remains to understand, to say, and to celebrate.’’ It is hoped that the publication of these essays will promote a deeper philosophical and theological understanding of Marion’s work, as well as a celebration of it. Dublin March 2005 xvi Foreword Givenness and God ...