Per Caritatem

From the point of view of non-Christian philosophers and thinkers, the Christian doctrine of the Trinity is the greatest insult to the human intellect ever devised. St. Augustine, however, thinks otherwise and demonstrates how a Christian doctrine can be used to further philosophy. Below are various reflections/thoughts that I am working through (that is, these contemplations are very much “in progress” and “unfinished”) in relation to philosophy and theology, faith and reason, what is rationality, what (metaphysically) is and what role does the principle of contradiction play in relation to Christian faith etc.? I would love to hear from both theologians (Catholic, Protestant and Eastern Orthodox) and philosophers (continental and analytic) and anyone else who would fruitfully further the conversation. [My apologies for the length of this post].

According to one of my professors (who is also a Catholic priest [CP]* and is quite knowledgeable of St. Thomas and the medieval tradition), for Augustine, Scripture can occasion a kind of reflection that stands on its own philosophically. For example, in De Trinitate, Augustine wants to address the issue of how we understand the Trinity as three and One such that it is not contradictory. Augustine espouses the traditional, orthodox view of the Trinity—we have three fully co-divine persons who are one in being. However, because the unbeleiving philosophers regularly point out that this doctrine seems to violate the principle of non-contradiction, Augustine wants to show that this is not the case and thus must “turn inward” and come up with a philosophical argument that is independent of Scripture (yet no doubt finds its source in Scripture). Considering what Scripture says about these things, Augustine concludes that there is no physical analogy for the Trinity, yet Scripture also does state that human beings are made in the image and likeness of God. Since this is not speaking of any physical similarity, Augustine considers how our minds might be a reflection of this non-contradicatory Triunity and thus in this way we are God’s image and likeness. Here CP emphasizes that by turning to our own minds, we can reason and arrive at something that will enable us to understand how God could be Triunity and not violate the unity, simplicity and incorporeity of God. As CP explains, the occasion is Scripture, but the reflection is purely philosophical. Augustine makes no appeal to Scripture, rather he focuses his own mental actsto try and understand his mind, and this will be a crucial contribution to the philosophic world. Turning to his own mind, Augustine then attempts to understand it, and gives substance to the notion of personality. Recall, for example, Plato and Aristotle—for them, there is only one mind, and we are joined to it through the passive imagination. Augustine says that this is not true to human experience because I know that 2+2 =4 and so do you—the fact that we both know it doesn’t prove that there is only one mind, but that there are multiple minds that know the same one truth. As there are many eyes that can see one and the same color, so many minds see the same truth. Augustine says, I am aware that I know—not some agent or material intellect above and outside of me. This is an incorrigible experience—I experience it to be the case, and it is indubitable. So I have my own mind and own personality—(St. Augustine gives the first real formulation of the notion of personality, that is, that each of us is our own persona). “Persona” translates the Greek prosopon means “to sound through” (recall the Greek masks that the actors used). Because intellect is our own individual intellect (and not one Mind), we experience ourselves as knowing things and as making free choices. Augustine takes these facts and tries to understand the human personality—it is no longer a “mask” that you “sound through,” rather, human personality is the core of your personal identity. Augustine then says he an incorrigible experience that he cannot deny, viz., that he experiences himself just as you experience yourself as having three things: memory, intellect, will. St. Augustine then inquires as to the relationship between these three. My intellect produces a mental word that I may vocalize and write down in different languages. Because I understand what things are—e.g., a dog, cat etc.—I have the power to produce this internal word, “cat,” “dog,” which can be externalized in languages. Hence, my intellect understands different things and I cannot deny that. It is also true that I know that I have learned what it is to be a cat, dog etc. I remember doing this. I have stored in my memory the things I have learned. We all know things and store them in our memory. What you know with your mind, you remember in your memory. What is in your mind as knowledge is in you also as memory, viz., that which you recall. So I remember what I know. Then Augustine turns to consider the will. I can will to remember what I know. E.g., I can will to remember where I placed my keys. Augustine’s point it that everything that is in the memory, I can know, and I can will (e.g., will to remember it, to learn it). Everything in the mind, I can remember and will. I not only remember what I know and know what I remember, but I can will it (to love it or hate it) and love to recall what I know, or will to know what I remember. Concretely this means that everything that I remember is in my mind/intellect/understanding and is an object of love or lack of love in my will—the desire to call up what I know. Everything in my intellect that I know is in my memory and is also in my will. This means that these are one and the same ideas—the memory completely contains the intellect and the will. The intellect knows what the will loves. The intellect contains what the memory retains and what the will chooses. The will completely contains what the memory remembers and what the intellect knows. [Are you dizzy yet?] Accordingly, each completely contains the other two, and this is possible with an immaterial faculty, not with a physical faculty—the three are one and the one are three. Thus, from his refelction on Scripture, where we read that the Father contains the Son and Spirit, and the Son the Father and Spirit, and the Spirit the Father and Son, Augustine is inspired and then rationally reflects on an analogous situation in the human person (will, intellect, memory—as all containing each aspect and yet one mind). Moreover, according to Augustine, the Holy Spirit is like the will, the Son is like the intellect, and the Father like the memory. The three are one and simple, not separate. Thus, we have a way to speak of the Trinity such that it is neither contradictory, nor an insult to the human intelligence that it is alleged to be by the philosophers. In sum, the Christian doctrine of the Trinity was the occasion for Augustine to philosophize and to penetrate his own mind and will—his own personality and to try and understand it.

Augustine developed for the first time in the Western tradition the notion of the personality. In Book X of De Trinitate after going through many Scriptural texts, Augustine attempts understand the human person and as a result of his findings, a philosophical change takes place in the tradition (his discovery goes beyond both Plato’s tripartite soul and Aristotle’s potential and agent intellect and his teaching that the soul is the act of body). With Augustine we have a new anthropology and psychology because he was not afraid to face the philosophical questions and was willing to do so using divine revelation as his “source” or “inspiration.” This will have tremendous impact both philosophically and theologically. The philosophic impact of discovering the memory, intellect and will eventually becomes connected with the dignity of the human person. Before this, how could you talk about human dignity? According to the account given by the philosophers, there are only a few wise individuals (i.e., of course the philosophers) and the many are as CP puts it, “calculating cattle.” Augustine undercuts this distinction and says that we are all persons. Here Augustine is again reflecting on and inspired by St. Paul’s thoughts in Galatians 3—there is no longer any Jew or Greek, nor male and female etc,—i.e., these distinctions are relativized. Everyone (because he/she is a person whether wise or unwise) is a person made in the image of God and thus manifests his/her own memory, intellect, and will that can be realized on the basis of (merely rationally) reflecting on the human mind. According to CP, the “source” or “inspiration” of Augustine’s notion of the human person is indeed dependent on divine revelation, however, the argument is not. Hence, Christian revelation was the occasion of philosophic questions and insight, yet it is not dependent upon it. From Augustine’s point of view, if human personality is implicit in Christian revelation, then we can utilize revelation as a “source” that inspires philosophic reflection, but which nonetheless stands independent from the thing that occasions it.

Clearly for Augustine, faith and philosophy are not totally separated, as CP notes, revelation is the “source” or “occasion” for his philosophizing.

(Questions: Is this account satisfactory? If so, why? If not, why?).

Turning briefly to St. Thomas Aquinas, we continue our “conversation.” According to St. Thomas, there are certain truths asserted by faith and also known by reason (philosophical, demonstrative reason). Moreover, Aquinas says that the knowledge that God is the Creator, creation ex nihilo, and that God providentially knows and directs all things—all three of these claims are not only professed by faith but may be known philosophically (i.e., either demonstrably or probably). Regarding the truths of salvation, Thomas says that these truths surpass the grasp of reason—(e.g., the Trinity, the Incarnation, things of grace, the resurrection of the dead etc.—here we go beyond the abilities of reason and cannot demonstrate these philosophically. However, we can show that none of these doctrines contradict what reason knows for itself. In other words, they are reasonable, but reason doesn’t know that they are true—you must have an act of faith to get there. Thomas claims that an act of (credible) faith is reasonable—we can’t show that it is true, but that it is probably true. As we’ve noted, many cite the Trinity as a contradiction—but Augustine has shown that it is not—it doesn’t go against the (beloved) principle of non-contradiction. Just as was the case for Augustine, so too for St. Thomas, no doctrine of faith can be irrational—certain doctrines are of course supra-rational, these we call the “mysteries” of the faith. According to St.Thomas, the God who authors revelation cannot contradict himself—revelation must be rational.

In differentiation from his predecessors, St. Thomas will offer a new solution to the problematic relationship between revelation/faith and philosophy. E.g., Aquinas criticizes both Maimonides and Bonaventure because the synthesis that they make based on subordination (of revelation to philosophy) confuses what should be keep distinct and changes the one into the other. As CP points out, just as Christ’s human nature is not to be confused or separated, the same should be the case with philosophy and theology. Thus, because we don’t fully separate the two, we can and should say that one “influences” (can inspire be the source of) the other. Thomas’ solution (as CP notes) allows philosophy to operate according to its own principles—no revelation may enter as this would be to beg the question. No Scriptural datum enters into a proper philosophical analysis. Philosophy remains philosophy and revelation remains revelation and the two are not to be confused or divided. They are radically distinct modes of knowledge—they may not be confused with each other nor changed into each other.

Questions: How exactly is “rational” defined here? It that which is rational only that which obeys the principle of non-contradiction? According to St. Thomas’ methodology, we can’t appeal to Scripture to adjudicate what is and what is not rational because that would be begging the question, correct? So what relation does the PNC have to God? What is its metaphysical status? It is created by God to reflect God or does God too have to “bow” down to the PNC? If we can have “mysteries” of the faith that are supra-rational, will it not be the case that these mysteries appear as paradoxical to us, though they are not contradictory in themselves – i.e., they are intelligible to God? Perhaps given our finitude, we will never fully comprehend these mysteries and if that is the case, are we not in error to say that God must always be circumscribed by the PNC? Shouldn’t we take into consideration the “spiritual state” of those who use the PNC? E.g., as we have seen many non-believing philosophers use the PNC to attempt to disprove Christianity? How do we judge who is using the PNC “properly” if we can’t appeal to Scripture?

* The “substance” of this post is based on a few recent lectures given by CP.

Describing the main strength of Cyril of Alexandria’s approach in addressing the Nestorian heresies, Balthasar writes,

“Cyril does not start out from the ‘open’ structure of man’s transcendence’, but from God’s self-abnegation, and the Love that stoops down. For God, the Incarnation is no ‘increase’, but only emptying. No doubt, to Cyril’s mind it changes nothing in the divine form (and so in the glory) of the eternal Logos. Yet in the perspective of pre-existence it is a fully voluntary action whereby the Logos accepts the limits (the word metron recurs frequently), and the adoxia, ‘ingloriousness’, of human nature –which means to say an ‘emptying out of fulness’ and a ‘lowering of what was exalted’. […] And in the same tradition, […] Hilary says of the Incarnation (and not expressly of the Cross): ‘His humiliation is our nobility; his weakness is our honour’. Hilary speaks too of the ‘abasement of his uncircumscribable power, right down to the docile assumption of a body’. […] It was with a stooping down, remarks Augustine, that the Incarnation began” (Mysterium Paschale p. 26).

Balthasar highlights Hilary’s extraordinary efforts to explicate these high Christological truths without “reducing the mystery of the Kenosis” (p. 26). Pointing us no doubt in the right direction, according to Hilary “the whole affair proceeds in the sovereign freedom (and so in the power and majesty) of the God who has the power to ‘empty himself, in obedience, for the (eventful) taking of the form of a servant, and from out of the divine form itself’. And so God, whilst abiding in himself (for everything happens in his sovereign power) can yet leave himself (in his form of glory). Were the two forms (morphai) simply compatible […], then nothing would really have happened in God himself. The Subject, doubtless, remains the same—‘non alius est in forma servi quam in forma Dei est’—but a change in the condition of the Subject is unavoidable” (pp. 26-27). In addition to the self-emptying, which in no way suggests “the loss of that power in its freedom and divinity,” (p. 27) Balthasar wants to add a Trinitarian dimension. In Philippians 2, we of course read that the Son of God, though being in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped—or as Balthasar paraphrases,

“he did not believe it necessary to hold on to that condition as to some possession, precious, inalienable, all his own. Though no doubt the case, further theological reflection points us also to the Father who does not hold on to the Son and even delivers him over. Likewise, the Spirit is understood as the ‘Gift’ of them both (p. 28). Moreover, we see that this Triune God is not primarily a God of “’absolute power,’” but ‘absolute love’, and his sovereignty manifests itself not in holding on to what is its own but in its abandonment—all this in such a way that this sovereignty displays itself in transcending the opposition, known to us from the world, between power and impotence. The exteriorisation of God (in the Incarnation) has its ontic condition of possibility in the external exteriorisation of God—that is, in his tripersonal self-gift. With that departure point, the created person, too, should no longer be described chiefly as subsisting in itself, but more profoundly (supposing that person to be actually created in God’s image and likeness) as a ‘returning ( reflexio completa from exteriority to oneself’ and an ‘emergence from oneself as an interiority that gives itself in self-expression’. The concepts of ‘poverty’ and ‘riches’ become dialectical” (p. 28).

In the history of Western philosophy, it is interesting to note the primacy given to “seeing” as the metaphor for knowing. In a cursory reading of Plato, for example, one encounters this “seeing” metaphor time and again. In the Republic, Plato speaks of “seeing,” “looking to” and “viewing” the Forms. He also describes certain people as having “dim sight” and still others who tend to “look” in the wrong direction, i.e., rather than “looking to” the Forms, they focus on the shadows of the sense world. There are numerous other instances in which the privileged “seeing” metaphor could be cited (in Aristotle, Descartes, Kant etc.). However, I’ve noticed that many postmodern philosophers and theologians have introduced the more “neglected” senses as metaphors in various contexts—taste, touch and hearing (e.g., Jean-Luc Marion, John Milbank, Catherine Pickstock).

Though I’m not focusing so much on metaphors in the context below, this somewhat new turn to the less-privileged senses, reminds me of an experience I had while living in Russia and relatedly, of a few verses from Scripture that speak of the power of “touch.” Over the course of our three years in Moscow, Russia, we had the opportunity to visit various cities, small towns and villages in Russia. One winter we traveled by train to a city called Kirov where we stayed for about two weeks. During this time, we were invited to spend a day at one of the orphanages just outside the city. The memories of that visit are quite vivid, and the time with the children was (though brief) an incredible and life changing experience. When we first arrived, the children (from 4-16 years old) were very shy and stand-off-ish. I noticed immediately a cute little boy, Sasha, who was about 5 years old and who seemed extremely withdrawn. I walked up to Sasha and said, “Привет Саша,” [“hello, Sasha”] (thankfully he did not correct my Russian grammar), but he said nothing—no smile—nothing. As the day progressed, we played games, performed skits, ate and so on. While playing one of the more active games (something like dodge-ball), Sasha and I began to slowly “bond” (e.g., I would catch the ball and give it him and things like that). When it was time to eat, I noticed that he wanted to sit with me (which made me of course extremely happy), so I tried to take his hand, however, he did not want me to touch him and quickly pulled it away—but he still wanted to sit with me. So we sat and ate borsch together and then went off to play more games. As the day was drawing to a close, I was sitting on a bench resting and Sasha walked up to me, sat next to me, and to my surprise (and joy) he let me hold his hand. After that connection, he would not leave my side and even let me hold him in my lap. He actually wanted very much to be held and touched, but he of course was simply “one among many” in the orphanage and was by and large deprived of physical touch. When it was time to leave, he did not want to let go of my hand (nor did I want to let go of his). Then the dreaded time came and we were told that the bus was leaving and we’d better pack up and grab seats. As we drove off, the kids ran behind the bus as long as they could keep up, and we of course cried our eyes out. I often think about Sasha, and hope that he remembers me—more than that, I hope that finds a home and a family that will give him the affection that he longs for and needs.

Not long after our short trip to Kirov, I began studying the book of Leviticus, which among other things describes the law of the leper’s cleansing (chapter 13). For example in Lev. 13:45-46, we read, “As for the leper who has the infection, his clothes shall be torn, and the hair of his head shall be uncovered, and he shall cover his mustache and cry, ‘Unclean! Unclean!’ He shall remain unclean all the days during which he has the infection; he is unclean. He shall live alone; his dwelling shall be outside the camp.” [*The following observations are based on observations made by Dr. S. Lewis Johnson in his series on Leviticus]. The first thing to notice is that “his clothes shall be torn.” Why? In the Old Testament, rending one’s clothes expressed symbolically one’s morning over death. Here, the tearing of the leper’s clothes represents the absolutely hopeless condition of the leper. Perhaps it would be worthwhile for us to pause and meditate on the disease itself. It is doubtful that there is any disease that so completely destroys the human body as the disease of leprosy (e.g., ulcers cover the body, the person’s hair falls out, and he/she experiences extremely slow bodily decay–even to the point of losing limbs, not to mention the mental anguish the person endures). In fact, leprosy has been described as a kind of progressive death in which a person dies inch by inch (certain kinds of leprosy can last from 20-30 years). As Johnson points out, though we are not exactly certain of the kind of leprosy that existed in the time of the OT, we can however readily “see” or better “feel” that this disease illustrates well the nature of sin in the spiritual sphere.

Returning to our passage, we read that the leper must cry, “Unclean, unclean.” When the word “unclean” appears, it is not so much a reference to the physical disease itself as it is to the ceremonial status of the person before the Levitical economy. That is, the individual remains unclean ceremonially until he is pronounced “clean” by the priest when (and if) healing comes. Lastly, we notice verse 46, “He shall live alone; his dwelling shall be outside the camp.” In other words, the leper experiences a separation—he has no fellowship with the people of God, as he is considered to be ceremonially under judgment.

Though we do read in the OT of some lepers who were healed, there are very few illustrations of healing from leprosy until our Lord Jesus came. We could more or less say that as to the “tonal center” of the OT, it was extremely unusual for anyone to be healed of leprosy. Then we read, in Mark’s gospel, “And a leper came to Jesus, beseeching Him and falling on his knees before Him, and saying, ‘Lord, if You are willing, You can make me clean.’ Moved with compassion, Jesus stretched out His hand and touched him, and said to him, ‘I am willing; be cleansed.’ Immediately the leprosy left him and he was cleansed” (Mark 1:40-42, italics added). It continually amazes me when I read this passage that Jesus reached out His hand and touched the leper—the one covered in ulcers, the social outcast, the one dying a slow, painful, and lonely death. Not only did Jesus reveal Himself as the Lord and Healer, but He revealed Himself as a God of compassion and fellowship, for He stretched out His hand of flesh and touched this diseased, leperous man, choosing to show His healing power by means of physical touch. Altering Wesley’s hymn slightly, I could imagine the leper, who had probably not been touched by another human being for many years, singing with heartfelt joy, “Amazing Love, how can it be that Thou My God, would touch me—a poor and wretched leper!” Spiritually speaking, this leper likewise shouts, “what amazing love.”

As Michael Hanby notes, in the Confessions, Augustine teaches that there is a “plenitude of true meanings for a single text” […] The ontological warrant that underlies this insistence throughout the Augustinian corpus derives, in part, from the very nature of truth’s oneness, which defies its circumscription or possession” (Augustine and Modernity, p. 34). For example, in Confessions XII, Augustine writes:

“Having listened to all these divergent opinions and weighed them, I do not wish to bandy words, for that serves no purpose except to ruin those who listen. The law is an excellent thing for building us up provided we use it lawfully, because its object is to promote the charity which springs from a pure heart, a good conscience and unfeigned faith, and I know what were the twin precepts on which our Master made the whole law and prophets depend. If I confess this with burning love, O my God, O secret light of my eyes, what does it matter to me that various interpretations of those words are proffered, as long as they are true? I repeat, what does it matter to me if what I think the author thought is different from what someone else thinks he thought? All of us, his readers, are doing our utmost to search out and understand the writer’s intention, and since we believe him to be truthful, we do not presume to interpret him as making any statement that we either know or suppose to be false. Provided, therefore, that each person tries to ascertain in the holy scriptures the meaning the author intended, what harm is there if a reader holds an opinion which you, the light of all truthful minds, show to be true, even though it is not what was intended by the author, who himself meant something true, but not exactly that?” (Augustine’s Confess. XII.27, pp. 327-328, M. Boulding translation).

Maria Boulding (the translator) adds the following note in regard to the passage above, “Augustine’s recognition that meanings other than those intended by the writer can legitimately be discovered in the sacred text is grounded in his conviction that the God of truth who inspired the writer and guarantees the text abides in the minds of believing readers, and that though God makes use of human words, they are never adequate to fully express his mystery; there is always a ‘plus’ of meaning” (p. 323, note 71).

We definitely have something more than gramatico-historical hermeneutics in place here. (Anachronistically speaking, our apologies to Spinoza and company).

Describing the divine “must” that defines Jesus’ earthly journey, i.e., that He must drink this cup, be baptized with the baptizing fire of the Cross, Balthasar says that all this takes place within and in perfect harmony with His sovereign freedom (p. 18). [As a side note, the fact that Balthasar says that without the slightest tinge of "logical" discomfort is for me a highly attractive aspect of Balthasar, viz., he embraces (true) mystery (i.e., mystery-for-us) and does not wield the principle of non-contradiction as that which should define and be Lord over our Triune God]. Balthasar continues his thoughts with the following beautiful and amazingly devotional words:

“But here the journey and the goal (the latter being passage to the Father in the unity of death and resurrection) are so integrated that Jesus’ Passion (18, 4-8) can be interpreted as the personal consecration of Jesus for the men whom God has given him (17, 19), and as a proof of supreme love for his friends (15, 10). This love asks as its return not only the same ‘laying down of our lives for the brethren’ (1 John 3, 16), but also the joyous self-abandonment whereby the beloved Lord was drawn into that death which brought him back to the Father (John 14, 28). And yet the shadow cast by the Cross is so heavy to bear that Jesus, while on his way, ‘weeps’ and is ‘deeply moved’ (11, 33ff), wishes to flee from this ‘hour’ and yet remains faithful (12, 27-28). ‘Becoming flesh’, since it involves ‘not being received’ (1, 14, 11), is for that reason a crushing of the self (6, 54, 56). It is dying into the earth, disappearing (12, 24), yet being ‘lifted up’ in death-and-resurrection like the serpent in which all poison at once gathered and met its antidote (3, 14). For this is the One who, light of heart, was sacrificed for the multitude—and for more, indeed, than his murderers thought (11, 50ff)—as the bread of life which vanishes in the mouth of the traitor (13, 26), and the light which shines in the darkness that does not comprehend it and therefore cannot extinguish it (1, 5). […] A direct line joins the Prologue to the Footwashing—that gesture which sums up the distinctively Johannine unity of intransigence and tenderness, of total abasement and a purification that exalts” (pp. 18-19).

Because of the recent Marion posts and my growing interest in Marion’s work in general and (in light of my thesis) on Descartes in particular, I thought I’d post a few of my findings over the next few days.

*******

In this section, Marion calls into question Descartes’ use of the principle of causality, claiming that in fact there are instances in which the effect exceeds the cause. For example, Marion writes,

The Cartesian relation compares the reality of the effect to that of the cause and concludes that their equality (=) or the inferiority (<) of the former to the latter. Now, such a quantitative comparison between two terms obviously supposes that they can be arranged together and at the same time in two extremes of an inequality—in short, that they remain stable, contemporaries, both the one and the other in the present. According to the evidence, however, this is a fiction, no doubt one that is epistemologically acceptable by convention, but on that has no phenomenological justification. (i) In the natural attitude, it is proper to the effect to come after the cause; for even if in any given moment (the “shock”) they are contemporaries, it should be conceded that one begins after the other, sometimes when the other ceases. We therefore cannot, with any rigor, compare them in a stable relation, unless by abstracting from temporal succession and the variations it implies. The effect does not follow the cause after a more or less brief encounter—it replaces it as soon as it arises and disqualifies it while confirming it. (ii) From the perspective of the reduction, one sees in addition that the effect is radically given in the causal relation as a phenomenon that begins, arises, shows itself, while the cause at best persists in its appearing, but most often suspends it. The relation therefore cannot be described as if it were deployed spatially (since it flows in time), nor can it be reversed at will to meet the needs of a comparison (since the effect has the peculiar characteristic of arising, the cause of persisting or ceasing). In the relation, the effect therefore shows a massive privilege over the cause; its phenomenality begins with the effect; it continues or finishes its own. Even in the (hypothetical) case of equal “reality” between them, the effect still marks its decisive phenomenological superiority—it alone arrives, comes upon, imposes itself (Being Given, pp. 163-164)

As Balthasar explains, the Cross is the “mid-point of saving history, all the promises are realized in it, every aspect of the Law, with its quality as curse, is dashed to pieces on the Cross. [...] What he [St. Paul] takes it upon himself to announce thereby is not just one historical fact among others, but that complete upheaval, that re-creation of all things, which the Cross and Resurrection brought about. ‘The old has passed away, behold, the new has come!’ (II Corinthians 5, 17). Here, then, in the innermost truth of history. This truth appears to the Jews to be a stumbling block, to the pagans as folly, since it seems to speak of the ‘weakness and foolishness of God.’ Yet it so speaks in such a way that it is endowed with an unconditional power to test, to judge, to discriminate and to separate. In the Cross, then, is manifested the entire ‘power of God’ (I Corinthians 1, 18, 24). This power is so great that, paradoxically, it can, in the very act of falling whereby Israel stumbles over the stumbling-stone (Romans 9, 30 ff), catch and save her (Romans 11, 26). Christian existence is a ‘reflection’ of the form of Christ; as one has died for all so, at the deepest level, all have died (II Corinthians 5, 14). Faith must ratify this truth (Romans 6, 33 ff); life must manifest it (II Corinthians 4, 10). And if this death happened out of love ‘for me’ (Galatians 2, 20), then my response must be a ‘faith’ which consists in total self-gift to this divine destiny. In this way, scandal and persecution become titles of glory for the Christian (Galatians 5, 11; 6, 12-14)” [Mysterium Paschale, pp. 16-17]

In light of Michael D.’s excellent comments relating to the previous post, I thought I’d offer a few additional thoughts defending my take on Augustine (of course I am not alone in my observations—e.g., Michael Hanby, in his book Augustine and Modernity, argues that that Augustine’s theology must not be separated from his philosophy, lest Augustine be completed misunderstood). I would also add that I am certainly not claiming that Augustine’s thought is without tensions or that he did not “grow” in his knowledge in light of his spiritual growth in Christ (his own “Retractions” seem to indicate this). However, I am suggesting that the dialectal tensions in Augustine’s thought do not lead to the kind of “ultimate” irrationality that e.g., result from the dichotomies in Kant’s thought.

*******

Perhaps one might object that I am over-emphasizing Augustine’s theology and Christian faith, as after all, it is common knowledge that Augustine was both well-versed in and influenced by Platonic and Neoplatonic thought. This is no doubt the case, as Augustine himself, e.g., in the Confessions, speaks of his indebtedness to the Platonists for helping him to turn from transient to eternal things. So on the one hand, it is uncontested that he was influenced by Platonism and pillaged the intellectual riches of unbelieving philosophers. Yet, on the other hand, one should not ignore or gloss over the significant theological differences between Augustine and the Platonists [1]. For example, in contrast with Plato, Augustine rejects Plato’s doctrine of the soul’s pre-existence, and consequently, denies that the soul “remembers” what it saw in a pre-existent bodiless state. Instead, Augustine’s epistemology is centered in Christ as Illuminator, the one true Teacher who enlightens all who are enlightened [2]. In addition, regarding Augustine’s “inward turn,” we again see formal similarities with Plato and the Neoplatonists. However, there are fundamental differences that must not be ignored [3]. For Augustine, one seeks truth not by turning first to the sensible world; rather, one first turns her gaze inward where the soul can be quiet before God. One of course doesn’t remain inwardly focused, but instead must turn upward to God. Though Augustine doesn’t begin with the senses, he nonetheless does not eschew the sense world in the way that Plato and the Neolatonists tended to do [4]. After all, Augustine is a strong advocate of God’s creation ex nihilo, which God himself proclaimed to be “good.” Consequently, Augustine’s account must include a deeply positive view of the created order. We might summarize Augustine’s rendition as follows: after turning inward and then upward, one casts her gaze back outward to the sense world. Having understood by God’s grace who God is and who you are, the external world becomes intelligible and valued in a new way. That is, the created world is seen as that which imitates or reflects God in its own way (what Augustine and other medievals call, “participation”) and thus has an aesthetic, symbolic and even iconic significance as it ultimately points us to God [5]. Yet, the created order also has value “on its own terms” because it is a gift of God, created freely and given out of fullness of his love.

[1] For example, though the context has to do with Stephen Menn’s continuity thesis regarding Augustine and Descartes, the passage below illustrates my point rather well, viz., that Augustine’s theology must not be separated from his philosophy, lest superficial or formal similarities become elevated such that the heartbeat of Augustine’s thought becomes dismally faint. Hanby speaks to this concern and points out the theological deficiencies in Menn’s account, “In order to sustain his thesis, he [Menn] must read Confessiones as a whole, treating it simply as an ‘autobiographical report of the process by which [Augustine] came to a true understanding of God.’ This interpretation makes the genre of confession adventitious to its meaning. The latter commitment requires that he overlook what is properly Plotinian in the ‘discipline’ of Confessiones VII.17—that it has been occasioned by ‘the beauty of bodies’—and how this discipline might be consummated christologically beyond Plotinus. Menn’s attempt to clarify this soteriological point magnifies the obscurity by imposing post-Cartesian distinctions onto Augustine’s text which it had been the achievement of Augustine’s Christ to overcome: rigid distinctions between reason and faith, ‘natural theology’ and ‘revealed religion,’ and speculation and practice. Each is underwritten by a hard distinction between via and patria. This not only occludes how Augustine’s Christology and trinitarianism inform his conception of voluntas, but it aids and abets the substitution of a Cartesian voluntarism for the Augustinian notion” (Hanby, Augustine and Modernity, pp. 150-151). Hanby also states in his introduction that this tendency in academia to focus on the “philosophical Augustine” to the exclusion of the “theological Augustine” (a hard and fast distinction that Augustine himself would not make) “reflects the marginal role Christianity now occupies in our culture and its negligible effect in informing our vision and our conception of time, history and what ‘really’ determines them” (p. 1).
[2] On the difference between his teaching and that of Plato, Augustine writes, “Wisdom is the contemplation of those eternal forms or principles of which Plato wrote; though his doctrine that the soul retains a memory of them from a former existence is unsatisfactory. It is better to believe that the mind is enlightened by a spiritual sun, as the eye by the physical” (The Trinity, XII.4, p. 94).
[3] As Hanby observes, for Augustine there is an erotic pull toward the beauty of Wisdom that is manifest both in the soul and in sensibilia, yet it points beyond both and calls us to delight in the beauty and goodness of triniarian love. Moreover, sensiblia for Augustine are likewise revelabilia reflecting God in a replete spectrum of temporal diversity, and crying out in all its many voices that we might recognize our Creator (“Augustine and Descartes,” pp. 469-471).
[4] On this point, one can certainly find passages in Plato that indicate a somewhat positive view of the sense world (e.g., in the Phaedrus, Symposium). However, the overall “feel” of Plato’s view seems to suggest a preference for the world of Forms and in relation to humans, a dis-embodied state. For example in the Phaedrus, Socrates presents a myth that describes the origin of human beings. According to the myth, the soul in its original state is compared to a chariot drawn by two horses, one submissive and the other unruly. The charioteer (reason) drives the chariot and endeavors to guide it properly—i.e., according to reason. In the supra-heavenly realm, the chariot travels through the world of the Forms, which the soul contemplates. The charioteer loses control of the horses and the soul “falls” to the earth, i.e., the soul becomes incarnated. In the dialogue, Phaedo¸ Socrates informs us that goal of the philosophic life (which is said to be the highest life) is to prepare for death. That is, the philosopher is to avoid the trappings of the body and the sense world, only engaging in such lowly things according to necessity. This is in part why the philosopher should not fear death—after all his whole life is spend anticipating a release from this “prison-house” called body in order to contemplate the Forms unhindered. Though one might counter that the sense objects, such as beautiful bodies, serve to draw us to the Forms (e.g., the Form of Beauty) and thus have some positive status, bodies still seem to be relegated to a status of quasi-existence and disembodied existence is certainly to be preferred. Moreover, the notion of resurrected bodies would seem contradictory in light of a Platonist view of reality. For more on the tensions between Platonism and Christianity in relation to embodiment, see James K.A. Smith’s, “Will the Real Plato Stand Up? Participation verses Incarnation,” as found in Radical Orthodoxy and the Reformed Tradition: Creation, Covenant, and Participation, eds., James K.A. Smith and James H. Olthuis. (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2005), pp. 61-72.
[5] Regarding the aesthetic element of the created order, Hanby explains that for Augustine what we have in the created order are a “series of microcosms which manifest the Father’s love for and delight in the beauty of the Son.” Moreover, because of Augustine’s emphasis on the priority of worship, we must understand the beauty reflected in the creatures and even the soul as “penultimate in relation to the full beauty of the created order and somehow a microcosm of that beauty in its fruition. That beauty was the one Christ, Head and Body, in whose unity and sacrifice the love, gift, and delight of the Father are manifest. Creation is finally realized as it manifests this generosity, which is to say that, for Augustine creation is finally realized in and as Christ. Consequently, any account of Augustinian ‘flight from the world’ that neglects this integral role of created beauty in eliciting desire for the Father and manifesting his joy fails to ascend to the Augustinianism of Augustine” (Augustine and Modernity, p. 134).

In marked distinction from the dichotomous divisions found in philosophers such as Descartes and Kant—i.e., rigid divisions between faith and reason, philosophy and theology, divine and human rationality, etc.—with Augustine we encounter mutually influencing harmonies [1] in all areas of Augustine’s thought—whether epistemology, anthropology, metaphysics or aesthetics. Here it might be helpful to consider the extent to which Augustine believed human beings to be dependent upon God. As de Lubac explains, according to Augustine,

man is so made that on any hypothesis to fulfill his destiny he has need of God’s external help. […] Augustine declines to conceive a state in which man would be more self-sufficient, more independent of God; he rejects, even in thought, any system in which God would be less good and also less great [2].

Thus, for Augustine independence from God is not a desired state, which would not only be a sign of rejecting our creaturehood, but it also renders impossible our obtaining a true understanding of ourselves, our fellow human beings, the world in which we live and our eschatological end. In sum, for Augustine, we as human beings created in God’s image are radically dependent upon God in every aspect of our human experience, which of course includes our knowledge acquisition. Time and again we encounter in Augustine’s works statements indicating that human reason is in need of God’s “purifying grace” in order to reason aright. For example in De Trinitate I.2.4, Augustine says that, “the highest good is that which is discerned by the most purified minds, and that for this reason it cannot be discerned or understood by themselves, because the eye of the human mind, being weak, is dazzled in that so transcendent light, unless it be invigorated by the nourishment of the righteousness of faith” [3].

In fact, for Augustine, perhaps the greatest deficiency in regard to unbelieving philosophers was not that he found their teachings false “through and through,” rather, they “philosophized without a Mediator, that is, without the man Christ” [4]. In his Confessions, Augustine seems to major on this point as the crux of what was lacking in the Platonists, notwithstanding their brilliance in regard to other teachings. So on the one hand, Augustine implies that the findings of these philosophers are indeed valuable and should be engaged by believers; yet, because they reject Him in whose image they are made, their knowledge becomes idolatrous [5]. We might illustrate this knowing-but-not-knowing by considering the following musical analogy. Imagine a symphonic piece as it appears on the conductor’s full score. In other words, what we see are all the various instrumental parts (i.e., the linear melodic lines of the flute, violin, cello etc., yet written such that we also see the harmonic or vertical relationships of the parts) all at once. Then imagine that everything except the highest melody line, e.g., the flute, is covered up such that we can only examine and analyze the flute line. One could study the flute melody and arrive at brilliant and insightful observations regarding e.g. its intervallic relations and melodic patterns. One’s findings would no doubt be true; however, given our perspective as an “omniscient” viewer (or hearer) we are inclined to say that the observations, though true, have only scraped the surface. That is, the vertical, harmonic structure is overlooked entirely. Likewise, the “story” of the piece—how each movement interrelates from beginning to end and how the “thick” harmonic layers create consonances and dissonances—goes completely unnoticed. This seems to be what Augustine suggests is the case with brilliant, but unbelieving philosophers. Their “surface” findings are penetrating and true as far as they go, and for this reason (among others) believers can and should learn from their insights. However, the reality, telos and ultimate beauty of the symphonic piece is either absent or so obscured that what sounds becomes a perverted dissonance created in the imago homini.

In sum, we might suggest that with Augustine, (right) reason is neither autonomous, nor abstract, nor de-personalized, but is heteronymous and deeply personal because in order to function properly, one’s reason must be rightly related to God, who for Augustine is ultimate rationality (and of course much more)—i.e., God is the Light in and by whom we are enabled to “see.”

[1] When speaking of the relationship between divine and human rationality, the “mutually influencing” aspect must be modified. The relationship in this case would be more accurately described as human rationality constantly submitting to and being re-shaped and transformed by divine rationality (i.e., by the Triune God) through his appointed means (e.g. prayer, Scripture, sacraments etc.).
[2] De Lubac, Augustinianism and Modern Theology, p. 1.
[3] De Trinitate, I.2.4, p. 29.
[4] De Trinitate, XIX.24, p. 346.
[5] As we noted in a previous post, Augustine says of the philosophers, “for, placed as they were in these lowest things, they could not but seek some media through which they might attain to those lofty things which they had understood; and so they fell upon deceitful spirits, through whom it came to pass, that ‘they changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things.’ For in such forms also they set up or worshipped idols” (De Trinitate, XIX.24, p. 346).

This is my last post on the BG series. It has been great to interact with new theophenomenology friends. Going back through these notes makes me want to read the book again and to continue further study of Marion.

*******

Marion begins book V with a critique of the shortcomings of the modern view of the subject. First, Marion says that Kant’s “I think” fails to accomplish individuation. Kant’s famous distinction is of course between the phenomenal and the noumenal. The “things-in-themselves” are the “source” of the phenomenal realm, but cannot themselves become objects of experience. Consequently, the “I think” is not an object of experience, but in a sense makes itself as an object of experience possible. In other words, I have no knowledge of myself except that I appear to myself as an object. Kant says that there is an “I think” that constitutes the unity of our experience (the “transcendental apperception of the ego”). So the “I think” is something that precedes things like quantity, quality etc. Here the critique is that Kant allows for no individuation as the “I think” is too abstract. [N.b., see Dr. Philipp W. Rosemann’s article in the American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly in which he argues that Kant is an Averroist, i.e., there is one agent intellect for all of humankind; hence, no individuation].
Next we have Marion’s second critique, viz., that all representation in Kant is in the end self-representation—otherwise, it is not an object of my experience. So there is an “I think” that makes everything that I experience have a certain unity. Here we encounter a circularity problem, which in the worse case scenario moves into solipsism. Marion’s third critique (as Rosemann points out) relates to Foucault’s critique of modernity. That is, Kant dichotomizes the subject into a transcendental subject and an empirical subject. On the one hand, “I” am the function that constitutes the unity of my thought (i.e., a transcendental subject), but on the other hand, “I” am an empirical subject. Because the “I think” is outside of experience, we have an essentially divided subject. An additional problem emerges in that we can appear to ourselves only as another object of experience. So subjectivity is reduced to a special kind of thing (an object). Heidegger as we recall speaks of a human being as Dasein—emphasizing that a human being is not an object. Here, Marion seems to suggest that even Heidegger’s critique doesn’t overcome modern problems because he fails to emphasize two crucial themes: personal relationships and love. In passing over personal relationships and love, Heidegger fails to recognize that love is the acknowledgment of one’s need for the Other.

In section 26, Marion discusses his new subject. “My task therefore is only to describe this scene, where what comes after the ‘subject’ is in the end born —that is to say, finally admits its inability, or especially its unobligedness, to constitute itself by the cogitatio sui or causa sui, but receives itself from the given phenomenon and from it alone” (262). That is, the receiver is no longer simply the subject that constitutes the world. Rather, in light of the fact that something is given to me, I emerge as a receiver. No longer is the subject that which presides over the world and filters and orders the flux of sense. The new subject is now constituted by something that is given to it. Here Marion is not doing away with Kantian notions in toto. In other words, Marion does not deny the insight of modernity of the constitutive subject. As Marion explains, “The receiver does not precede what it forms by means of its prism—it results from it” (p. 265). So the receiver is still formative, however, a new metaphor, that of the prism [he also speaks of a “filter”], is introduced. Marion continues, “The filter is deployed first as a screen. Before the not yet phenomenalized given gives itself, no filter awaits it. Only the impact of what gives itself brings about the arising, with one and the same shock, of the flash with which its first visibility bursts and the new screen on which it crashes. Though arises from the pre-phenomenal indistinctness, like a transparent screen is colored by the impact of a ray of light heretofore uncolored in the translucent ether that suddenly explodes on it.” (p. 265). With the prism/filter metaphors, Marion is replacing the Aristotelian conception of human mind understood as a wax tablet on which something is impressed. The new subject is now best described as a screen, filter, or prism. Rosemann points out that a word that Marion uses but is not here employed is “co-constitutionality.” Here we have the gifted on the one hand and the given on the other, and they enter into manifestation. There would be no gifted without a given—i.e. the subject exists only because there is something given to it. On the other hand, the given requires the gifted, which requires a kind of screen allowing the given to appear, to become manifest. The point being that there is still a good deal of Kantianism is in place here. E.g., the Given is a thing-in-itself, the screen is the a priori. Yet, in this construal, neither subject nor object is prior, rather, they are co-constitutionary.

Another “subverting” passage of significance (and of course more than just subverting) is Marion’s discussion of the “summons.” Though lengthy, the passage is well-worth contemplating. First, Marion describes the overwhelming power of a call that compels the subject to surrender to it—“in the double sense of the French s’y render; being displaced and submitting to it. […] The pure and simply shock (Anstoss) of the summons identifies the I only by transforming it without delay into a me ‘to whom.’ The passage from the nominative to the objective cases (accusative, dative) thus inverts the hierarchy of the metaphysical categories. Individualized essence (ousia prōtē) no longer precedes relation (pros ti) and no longer excludes it from its ontic perfection. In contrast, relation here precedes individuality. And again: individuality loses its autarchic essence on account of a relation that is not only more originary than it, but above all half unknown, seeing as it can fix one of the two poles—me —without at first and most of the time delivering the other, the origin of the call (for the call can be exercised without coming into evidence). Individual essence thus undergoes a two-fold relativization: resulting from a relation and from a relation of unknown origin. Whence a primordial paradox: in and through the summons, the gifted is identified, but this identification escapes him straightaway since he receives it without necessarily knowing it. He therefore receives himself from what he thinks neither clearly nor distinctly; he is, despite the failure in him of the ‘I think (myself).’ Subjectivity or subjectness is submitted to an originally altered, called identity” (p. 268). This is an incredibly dense passage—not only do we have a subverting of Aristotelian metaphysics—i.e., a rejection of the primacy of substance over relation, but also a criticism directed at Descartes “clear” and “distinct” ideas. Regarding the idea of relation having priority over substance, if we turn to pre-modern thought—viz., Trinitarian theology—we have the Trinity as a relation of Persons; hence, both postmodern and pre-modern thought have room for the de-throning of substance and giving primacy to relation. In terms of the present work, Marion seems to be saying that we should not think of the gifted as a substance, but instead should think of the relationship between the gifted and the manifestation as coming first.

Though there is significantly more to say concerning book V, I will close with a statement by Marion reminiscent of GWB, viz., the Other is reached in his “unsubstitutable particularity, where he shows himself like no other Other can. This individuation has a name: love” (324).

Personally, I find Marion’s desire to introduce a “new subject” among the most intriguing aspects of his project. Instead of the modern, even idolatrous and all-controlling subject, Marion pursues a sub-ject, i.e., a subject who subjects himself and is thus constituted by the situation. Nonetheless, Marion, as we have seen, does not want to do away with all modern assumptions, nor does he desire to return to a pre-critical realism. However, as with others of the postmodern tradition, he does find modernity lacking in significant ways. Thus, we encounter in Marion both an embracing of and a moving beyond modern assumptions; however, one wonders whether this harmonization can be successfully sustained—perhaps it can in the same way that Augustine suggests—by “plundering the riches of the Egyptians” and leaving behind the dross? Such questions notwithstanding, Marion has undoubtedly given us something beyond a strictly Kantian notion of subjectivity, which in and of itself is quite an accomplishment.

For those of you, who like myself, are new to Balthasar, I wanted to post a few lines written by Aidan Nichols OP in the Introduction to Balthasar’s Mysterium Paschale. As Nichols explains,

“Balthasar presents the beautiful as the ‘forgotten, transcendental’, pulchrum, an aspect of everything and anything as important as verum, ‘the true’, and bonum, ‘the good.’ The beautiful is the radiance which something gives off simply because it is something, because it exists. [...] What corresponds theologically to beauty is God’s glory. The radiance that shows itself through the communicative forms of finite being is what arouses our sense of transcendence, and so ultimately founds our theology. Thus Balthasar hit upon his key theological concept, as vital to him as ens a se to Thomists or ‘radical infinity’ to Scotists. In significant form and its attractive power, the Infinite discloses itself in finite expression, and this is supremely true in the bibilical revelation” (p. 4).

According to Balthasar, for theology to be properly written, it must be Christological through and through. Interestingly, Balthasar, as Nichols notes, “puts Barth’s Christocentricity at the top of the list of the things Catholic theology can learn from the Church Dogmatics” (p. 5). [Perhaps Protestants should return the favor and examine for themselves what Balthasar has to teach us].

In book IV, Marion continues his deconstruction but now focuses on the “privilege of certainty” that metaphysics has given to what he calls “poor phenomena,” i.e., phenomena poor in intuition and which “claim only a formal intuition in mathematics or a categorical intuition in logic” (222). This abstract epistemological certainty is for Marion a radical phenomenological deficit. Instead of privileging such poor phenomena, Marion introduces his “saturated phenomena” and accords it paradigmatic status. “What metaphysics rules out as an exception (the saturated phenomenon), phenomenology here takes for its norm” (227).

So having challenged the traditional concepts of the paradigmatic yet impoverished phenomena, Marion presents the saturated phenomenon—that which fills the expectation and goes beyond it. Marion builds this concept in contradistinction to Kant and analyzes the saturated phenomenon in terms of four categories (quantity, quality, modality, relation), purposing to show that the saturated phenomenon explodes each of these categories. In terms of quantity, the saturated phenomenon is unforeseeable because it cannot be understood as being constituted by means of previous experience. As to quality, the saturated phenomenon is unbearable, i.e., it simply has a super-abundance of quality. Thirdly, in terms of relation the saturated phenomenon is absolute, i.e., it is given as something that does not stand in relation to other phenomena but rather stands on its own. Lastly, with regard to modality, Marion wants to express the idea of the movement from the “I” that constitutes the experience to the “witness.” This leads to the reduction of the subject—i.e., the subject takes on a receptive position in which he/she becomes the screen on which the saturated phenomenon appears.

Next, Marion proceeds to discuss the four types of saturated phenomena: the event, the idol, the flesh and the icon. First, the saturated phenomenon as event or historical phenomenon saturates the category of quantity. Secondly, the saturated phenomenon as idol is manifest in its bedazzlement, thus saturating the Kantian category of quality. As Marion explains, the idol bedazzles the subject to such an extent that she must come back to it again and again. In other words, the idol offers a kind of visibility that overflows the capacity of the subject to take it in. Thirdly, the flesh negates the Kantian category of relation. Here Marion speaks of the immediacy of the flesh in terms of auto-affection. So whether in agony and suffering or love and desire, the flesh always auto-affects itself first in and by itself—”all arise from the flesh and its own immanence” (231). Fourthly, the saturated phenomenon as icon explodes the category of modality as it is irregardable and irreducible. Interestingly, Marion says that the icon gathers together certain characteristics of the previous three types of saturated phenomena in that “it demands a summation of horizons and narrations,” “it opens a teleology,” “it begs to be seen and reseen,” “it exercises an individuation over the gaze that confronts it,” and lastly “it accomplishes this individuation by affecting the I so originally that it loses its function as a transcendental pole,” thus bringing it close to auto-affection (233).

Having discussed the various types of saturated phenomena, we arrive at the saturation of all saturations—the phenomenon of revelation. By concentrating the other four types of saturated phenomena in itself, the phenomenon of revelation takes saturation to its maximum. Here Marion is simply presenting the phenomenon of revelation as a “mere possibility” without presupposing its actuality (235). Though as Marion points out, “phenomenology cannot decide if a revelation can or should give itself,” yet in case it does, phenomenology (and it alone) can determine that “such a phenomenon of revelation should assume the figure of the paradox of paradoxes” (235). Here Marion is attempting to remain within the strict phenomenological bounds, as he describes the phenomenon of revelation in its pure possibility and in the reduced immanence of givenness. Moreover, he makes explicit that in the present work he does not have to “judge its actual manifestation or ontic status, which remain the business proper to revealed theology” (236). Of course, Marion does speak of Christ as the saturated phenomenon par excellence and goes on to speak about the various ways in which Christ explodes the Kantian categories. Though I will not discuss each of these “explosions” individually, I will mention Marion’s discussion of Christ in terms of modality. Here Christ appears as an irregardable and irreducible phenomenon because He transforms the “I” into his witness (240–241). With his concept of “witness”, Marion has moved beyond a strictly Kantian subject.

I want to add two additional “blogs of note.”

Ressourcement: Restoration in Catholic Theology. An excellent blog for those interested in learning more about the ressourcement tradition.

Theophenomenon.com. This excellent new website is dedicated to the promotion of phenomenology and its use in theological studies (created and maintained by Michael Deem and company).

In the preface of his second edition of, Mysterium Paschale, Balthasar comments on the mystery of the Kenosis of the Son–desiring both to take serious the assertions made in Scripture (e.g., those OT passages which address seem to indicate immutability) and to avoid falling into Nestorian or other Christological heresies.

“It seems to me that the only way which might avoid the two opposed and incompatible extremes is that which relates the event of the Kenosis of the Son of God to what one can, by analogy, designate as the eternal ‘event’ of the divine processions. It is from that supra-temporal yet ever actual event that, as Christians, we must approach the mystery of the divine ‘essence’. That essence is forever ‘given’ in the self-gift of the Father, ‘rendered’ in the thanksgiving of the Son, and ‘represented’ in its character as absolute love by the Holy Spirit. According to the great Scholastics, the inner-divine processions are the condition of possibility for a creation. The divine ‘ideas’ for a possible world derive from the everlasting circulation of life, founded as it is on the total and unconditional gift of each hypostasis to the others. [...] We shall never know how to express the abyss-like depths of the Father’s self-giving, that Father, who, in an eternal ’super-Kenosis’, makes himself ‘destitute’ of al that he is and can be so as to bring forth a consubstantial divinity, the Son. Everything that can be thought and imagined where God is concerned is, in advance, included and transcended in this self-destitution which constitutes the person of the Father, and, at the same time, those of the Son and the Spirit. God as the ‘gulf’ (Eckhart: Un-Grund) of absolute Love contains in advance, eternally, all the modalities of love, of compassion, and even of a ’separation’ motivated by love and founded on the infinite distinction between the hypostases–modalities which may manifest themselves in the course of a history of salvation involving sinful humankind. God, then, has no need to ‘change’ when he makes a reality of the wonders of his charity, wonders which include the Incarnation and, more particularly, the Passion of Christ, and, before him, the dramatic history of God with Israel and, no doubt, with humanity as a whole. All the contingent ‘abasements’ of God in the economy of salvation are forever included and outstripped in the eternal event of Love” (pp. viii-ix).

In book III, Marion introduces the essential characteristics of the given phenomenon, each of which describes how the event becomes accessible: anamorphosis, unpredictable landing, incident, event and fait accompli. Here what is significant about these features of the given is that because they are neither metaphysical nor causal, the given is not determined by any transcendental conditions. Though each of these characteristics could be discussed in detail, I have decided on three, the “unpredictable landing,” the “incident,” and the “event,” because each provide examples of the ways in which Marion deconstructs foundational elements of the traditional metaphysical landscape.

With his discussion of the “unpredictable landing,” Marion deconstructs the traditional definition of contingency as the property of what is not necessary, and likewise suggests that metaphysical opposition between contingency and necessity becomes irrelevant in phenomenology. “In fact, it shows itself to be inadequate, indeed erroneous” (131). In this section, Marion interacts with a well-known passage from Aristotle in order to show that Aristotle has to admit that the necessity of event x occurring (or not) remains inscribed within the horizon of possibility. In addition to deconstructing necessity, he also questions whether potentiality must be thought in a lesser way than actuality. Instead Marion says that something arrives to me in a way that I am not determining it, i.e., it contingently imposes itself on me.

Turning to his discussion of the “incident,” Marion deconstructs the traditional understanding of substance and accident. In the tradition, substance has always been given primacy. Marion, however, wants us to think of the incident in terms of accident. According to Marion, even Thomas Aquinas was forced to recognize that substance is an accident of an accident. In other words, Marion is saying that from an historical perspective Aquinas got his idea of being (esse) from Avicenna who claimed that being is an accident of the substance. Thomas, of course, did not say this, but Marion’s point is to show that there is a continuum between Aquinas and Avicenna, and if the act of being is like an accident, then we have a primacy of accident over substance. (N.b., Avicenna claims that essence is sheer possibility. When essence is actualized in reality, then existence is added to it as an attribute/accident). So again we encounter a challenge to the Western tradition of metaphysics with its static presence over dynamism. Substance has been understood as something stable, yet its accidents can of course change. Marion, however, subverts this idea and says that substance “shows itself only as accident of the accident—as second-order incident” (158). This new privileging of accident over substance suits Marion’s project well as accident has the determinations of givenness much more than substance.

Marion’s discussion of the “event” likewise challenges the tradition of the primacy of cause over effect. Here Marion says that the traditional claim that the cause precedes the effect is mistaken; the effect should instead be given primacy. As Marion points out, even Aristotle would say that an effect is first for us, but in itself the cause is first. In our analysis of givenness we must accept that a phenomenon that gives itself gives itself as an effect that cannot be reduced to its causes—it contains more reality than its causes. To illustrate his point, Marion gives the example of World War I, viz., there have been numerous explanations offered concerning the cause of this event. So instead of reducing the effect to the cause, we should allow the effect to be taken seriously—allow the given, to be given. In other words, Marion’s emphasis is that the event is something that resists the reduction to its causes.

With the introduction and explication of these characteristics, we gain insight into Marion’s notion of givenness, yet we also see the ways in which he challenges traditional metaphysics as to their privileging certain primacies. Here one might ask whether Marion’s deconstruction of metaphysics is actually a destroying of metaphysics or whether his desire is more along the lines of subverting the primacy of traditional metaphysics because it prevents givenness from being seen. In other words, is Marion’s aim here more or less to bring to our attention that traditionally construed, metaphysics explains givenness away, or does he have more in mind?

The second book of Being Given is devoted to question of the Gift. In light of the fact that Marion wants to avoid falling into metaphysics, the model will be centered on his idea of the gift and not on a metaphysical model. Here the question becomes, “Can we use existing categories in order to analyze givenness?” The first step in Marion’s analysis of the gift is to address the Derridian critique of the gift. According to Derrida, the gift is impossible because it is self-nullifying, i.e., it deconstructs itself. The reason for this self-deconstruction is that when a gift is given, a reciprocity is necessitated—the one receiving the gift feels indebted. In Derrida’s view, as soon as something is recognized as gift, it can no longer be a gift—it falls into the “economic trap.” In addressing this Derridian critique, Marion says that Derrida has not understood the gift deeply enough because there is a kind of gift (i.e., the reduced gift) that can escape Derrida’s analysis. In short, book II is devoted to a reduction of the gift—a triple bracketing of giver, givee, and gift.

As he interacts in book II with the metaphor of the “circle,” Marion observes that we have the gift and what is not suited to the gift is its circular returning—i.e., the gift is no longer a gift when it returns to the giver (p. 79). Consequently, Marion asks, “What would it look like to give a gift in a non-circular fashion, linear fashion?” The circle means that whatever appears in my field of existence is reduced to my horizon and limits me in that field of existence. I.e., instead of accepting the gift simply as a surprise or joy in itself, I absorb the gift into something that I can digest, that I am expecting. So the circle stands for the inability to allow a challenging. Marion wants move beyond this and to break through this supposedly impenetrable horizon constituted solely by the subject.

We recall that in God Without Being(GWB), Marion distinguishes between an approach to God which lets God be God and an idolatrous approach. The former he explains in terms of the icon and the latter the idol. An idol is a representation of the divine that tries to communicate something about God; however, the representation is idolatrous. With the idol, I do not allow God to challenge, re-construct or even destroy my representation, but instead, I circumscribe God in my own categories. Here we might say that the idol is more or less synonymous with the circle of the gift. In contrast, we have the icon, which is the idea of something coming forth on its own initiative. In other words, I allow myself to be seen by God in the light of God. In contemplating the icon, the subject is subjected to God’s gaze and the attempted circumspecting gaze of the subject is shattered. As we have noted in a previous post, Marion in Being Given (BG) wants to give an account in phenomenological, not theological terms. So in Book II of BG, Marion formulates a phenomenological equivalent to what he did in GWB. In regard to the triple bracketing of the gift, giver and givee, not only does the gift become thinkable, but when I reduce the giver or the givee (e.g. in anonymity), then will I understand properly what the gift is about. An example that Marion employs is giving to charity. In this case, we as givers can give in secret, and we don’t really know who the recipient is—this makes the gift more properly a gift. In giving to the charity, I give anonymously to an anonymous givee.

Summing up, in Marion’s formulation, we have the giver, the gift, the givee, and the initiative now comes from the gift. Likewise, the givability of the gift opens one up to the ability of giving. For example, a person’s vocation—a person’s gift in a sense flows freely and naturally into giving (as Marion says, it “decides” the giver to give it, p. 108). With this understanding, we move away from a modern to a more pre-modern understanding of subjectivity, yet without totally abandoning the modern subject. The gift properly understood is not something that I decide to accept; rather, it intrudes upon me. Thus, Marion has an answer to the Derridian critique. That is, the gift has broken free of the “economic circle” when understood in terms of giveability and acceptability—in terms of givenness.

While reading through a section of Augustine’s De Trinitate this afternoon, I came across a fascinating passage and wanted to share it.

In the passage below, Augustine not only indicates an ethical dimension of knowledge and wisdom in that one cannot obtain adequate or proper understanding apart from divine “cleansing,” but he also points to the complexity of the unbeliever’s knowing-yet-not-knowing. Both Calvin and Van Til stake claims in this Augustinian contemplation on St. Paul’s epistle to the Romans and further develop it. Describing Christ as the μονογενης παρα πατρος , full of grace and truth, Augustine states that “this took place, in order that He Himself in things done for us in time should be the same for whom we are cleansed by the same faith, that we may contemplate Him steadfastly in things eternal. And those distinguished philosophers of the heathen who have been able to understand and discern the invisible things of God by those things which are made, have yet, as is said of them, ‘held down the truth in iniquity;’ because they philosophized without a Mediator, that is, without the man Christ, whom they neither believed to be about to come at the word of the prophets, nor to have come at that of the apostles. For, placed as they were in these lowest things, they could not but seek some media through which they might attain to those lofty things which they had understood; and so they fell upon deceitful spirits, through whom it came to pass, that “they changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things.’ For in such forms also they set up or worshipped idols. Therefore Christ is our knowledge, and the same Christ is also our wisdom. He Himself implants in us faith concerning temporal things, He Himself shows forth the truth concerning eternal things. Through Him we reach on to Himself: we stretch through knowledge to wisdom; yet we do not withdraw from one and the same Christ, ‘in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and of knowledge’” (De Trinitate, XIX.24, p. 346).

Can Van Til and C.S. Lewis be harmonized?

For a fascinating post on C.S. Lewis and Van Til, check out Mike Vendsel’s blog, DoxVendsel.

Faith and Theology.

Ben Myers’ blog, Faith and Theology, is also highly recommended. I particularly like his posts on Barth, his creativity and the “tone” of his blog.

At the end of section 3 (book I), Marion has said that his task is to define givenness on its own terms. Before digging in to Marion’s analysis, it is helpful to review a bit of Heidegger. According to Heidegger, we only have access to Being (Sein) through beings (Seiendes). That is, we have to take a being as our starting point. What does it mean for a human to be, or an animal, or even God? Heidegger says that in the history of Western philosophy the Presocratics “got it right.” However, with Plato and especially Aristotle, philosophy took a wrong turn. E.g., in Aristotle’s Metaphysics, Zeta 1, we are told that our inquiry has no other object than being. According to Heidegger, Aristotle’s question, “What is being?” is the same question as, “What is a substance?” For Heidegger this is where we have gotten off track—this is the forgetfulness of being. When we speak of substance and accidents, we are no longer asking about being. In order to analyze Being, we have to go through beings; however, we should not forget about Being.

In the same way, we might ask, “What is givenness?” That is, when we look at something that is given, we must not forgot about the givenness. With this, Marion begins his analysis of givenness with his discussion of a painting. Marion appeals to art because art escapes the trappings of philosophy in terms of metaphysics. In order to properly understand the painting, we must see it as given—not as a being or an object. This is not to say that the painting is not a being, nor an object, nor ready-to-hand. So first we might ask, “Why is saying that the painting is an object not a sufficient analysis?” Marion answers that an object does not change simply by being placed by the artist and called art (e.g., a urinal is not art, just because the artist calls it a work of art). Second, “Is a painting something that is just a ready-to-hand?” (“Ready-to-hand” is Heidegger’s term and speaks of things that exist and are used in everyday life. E.g., desks in a classroom—they are absorbed in a network of useful things associated with the classroom (books, tables etc.), but when the desk is pointed out, it becomes an object, a ready-to-hand. Third, what are to make of Marion’s claim that the painting is not a being? This does not mean that a painting doesn’t have existence, but rather his point is that if you analyze it simply as a being, you still have not talked about it as a painting. In other words, it is not merely being. What Marion wants to get at is a characteristic that is more fundamental for understanding the painting. It is not just an object, nor merely a being, nor simply a ready-to-hand. So what is it? That is, “What then appears in the phenomenon of the painting if neither its subsistence nor its usefulness or its beingness reach the phenomenality proper to it?” (48)

As Marion explains, the painting has an “effect.” That is, “to different degrees but always, the painting (like every phenomenon) does not show any object nor is it presented as a being; rather, it accomplishes an act—it comes forward into visibility” (49). In other words, what I miss by saying that the painting is a mere being is the act, the coming forward, the dynamic aspect—being does not capture this. As Marion continues to explain the ways in which givenness is other than being, he is also presenting a critique of Western metaphysics, viz., the traditional philosophical “story” has frozen reality instead of understanding it as a dynamism. With Plato, we have “real” reality in the static forms. Likewise, with Aristotle we have forms which make things to be what they are. Thus, in his analysis of givenness, Marion is trying to re-capture the act of coming forward in visibility. Givenness is the effect. Givenness is not an agent who brings the painting forward.

In section 5, we enter into various objections raised against Marion. Here the question is asked as to whether nothing and death are given as well? Keeping with his theme, Marion answers that even death and nothingness are defined by givenness. Recalling Heidegger, Marion says, “nothing is given by means of the fundamental mood of anxiety” (54). Neither can death escape givenness because it gives itself on its own. Thus, “death does not steal from givenness that which (or he who) could receive it; it inscribes it (or him or her) forever within the horizon of givenness” (59). In Section 6, Marion again seeks to emphasize the dynamism in our experience that we tend to gloss over. Speaking of the “fold of givenness” as articulating a process with a given, nonetheless the given cannot give the given as it gives itself (68). In other words, the givenness is not available in person—it is the self-hiding process (recalling Heidegger and his understanding of aleithia or unconcealment) that makes the giving available. In sum, we might say that givenness is not something in addition to the given, nor is it the cause of the given, rather “givenness is […] discerned at the very heart of the given” (64).

In the section entitled, “Preliminary Answers,” Marion makes explicit the dominant theme of his book, “what shows itself first gives itself” (5). Beginning with this theme and developing creative variations, Marion culminates the work with the “saturated phenomenon,” which becomes the paradigm for givenness.

In book I, sections 1-3, Marion enters into dialogue with Husserl and Heidegger. As he engages and deconstructs various past formulations, Marion wants to leave open the possibility of a phenomenon, which is not confined within intuition alone. Before diving in to Marion’s critique, we should say a bit about the difference between phenomenology and science. Phenomenology doesn’t want to be a science so it is not metaphysics, as metaphysics proceeds according to the methodology of science. Phenomenology instead serves as a counter-method. Phenomenology abstracts from, brackets, and focuses on givenness, i.e., the given prior to any theories we might add. In science, the method is to define the parameters from the beginning—before the scientist begins. Thus, the method of science defines rigid horizons. However, phenomenology does not proceed this way. Marion wants to get rid of the rigid horizon and the modern “I”, the modern “ego.” The modern subject is the idolatrous subject that constantly “images” itself, and consequently engages in idolatry (theologically speaking). Marion instead wants us to think of a different subject—the sub-ject, not the subject of modernity. That, is the postmodern sub-ject is one who subjects himself/herself and is constituted by the situation, rather than being the creator and sole constitutor of reality. In other words, we want to find a way to get the modern subject to become a sub-ject, and so we seek a counter-method that undoes the science method. Husserl and Heidegger have already done this to a certain extent in what they call “reduction.” Reduction is a kind of method that does not constitute but allows the things themselves to appear. Heidegger’s candidate for a counter-method is “so much appearing, so much being.” That is, we let things appear and to that extent they are. Then Marion explores other possibilities from Husserl, who said that philosophy should be about the “things themselves.” In his discussion of Husserl’s “principle of principles” (12-14), Marion finds the principle insufficient. According to Husserl, intuition is a process whereby there is still an expectation on the part of the one who has it as to what can be an experience that can measure up to an expectation. In other words, there is still a framework. Marion would say that every intuition, though immanent, transcends its object. That is, “transcends” in the sense that phenomenality is not exhausted by the intuition of an intentional object. For example, a book is intuited as a book, not as a mass of pages. Intentionality is the aspect in which consciousness contributes to the object (in this case seeing it as a book). Likewise, my consciousness intends something distinct from itself. That is, I intuit the book as not being me—thus, “in immanence, transcendence is given.” There is a transcendence in the book that is intuited, because the book is not me. So Marion here speaks of “transcendence” in the sense of going beyond consciousness—i.e., the book is not me. Thus, we have the givenness of transcendence in immanence.

In his critique Marion goes on to ask, “Does fulfilling intuition applied to an objective intentionality define in general all phenomenality or merely a restricted mode of phenomenality? […] In short, does the constitution of an intentional object by an intuition fulfilling ecstasy exhaust every form of appearing? And even more, we must ask if intuition should be restricted to the limits of intentionality and the object’s transcendence, or if it can be understood within the immense possibilities of what shows itself” (13). Here we begin to see “why” Marion criticizes the principle of principles, viz., because he believes that the possibilities of phenomenality exceed intuition. There is a horizon of expectation and there is interplay between intuition and intentionality, but to define phenomenality through intuition means to say that something that gives itself beyond the boundaries of intuition cannot be thought. In other words, Marion wants to make it possible to think about givenness in all of its rich possibilities, and he wants to loosen up the way in which the subject understands himself/herself as constituting experience—viz., the subject himself/herself can be constituted as well. Hence, what we have is a challenging of the absoluteness or rigidness of the a priori horizons, yet Marion does not want to do away with all modern “findings.” For example, Marion does not reject in toto the constitution of the object by the subject, but he does ask why the object is given to the subject. Ultimately, Marion wants to explore whether there are instances in which the object “breaks in” and (re)constitutes the subject.

Summing up Marion’s lengthy discussions of both Heidegger and Husserl, we might say that he concludes that neither allowed givenness its full realization. For Husserl, the full breakthrough of givenness is halted due to an “unquestioned paradigm of objectness” (32). Consequently, by restricting givenness to the object, Husserl does not advance his initial findings. Regarding Heidegger, Marion claims that givenness is abandoned “by assigning beingness to the Ereignis” (38). For Husserl givenness is objectivity and for Heidegger it is reduced to the event, both of which are too narrow for Marion. Though it is legitimate to understand objectness and beingness as limited horizons against the background of givenness, Marion, from this point on, wants to define “givenness in itself and on its own terms” (39).