¹ Marion, Jean‐Luc, “The Formal Reason for the Infinite,” in The Blackwell Companion to Postmodern Theology, ed. Ward, Graham, trans. Wickens, A. J. (Oxford: Blackwell, 2001), p. 401Google Scholar.

² Ibid.

³ Ibid., pp. 401–402.

⁴ “Incomprehensibility” is the epistemological face, while the “infinite” is the ontological. Ibid., p. 403.

⁵ Parentheses original. Marion, “The Formal Reason for the Infinite,” 402. Marion attributes the definite assigning of disciplines to the Aristotelian tradition which sought to hone various independent space for methods so deserving and suggests that the Cartesian critique reestablished the “homogeneous space” of Mathesis Universalis. This decision was rooted, in the Greek tradition, under the presupposition that knowledge implied the delimitation of that which is known. Ibid., p. 401.

⁶ Ibid., p. 402. In Cartesian Questions, Marion further explicates the arrival of the “infinite” in Descartes’ metaphysics method, though not uncritically. While discussing simple natures and substances, Marion says of the a posteriori proof for God's existence that unlike simple natures, “God” cannot be eminently derived from the ego. What is required is an idea that permits transcendence from simple natures while at the same time being an object of rational thought. In order to meet both requirements, Descartes weds common and special notions of substance in referring to God as substantia infinita (“infinite substance”); thus the logical deduction of simple natures from the ego evinces their inherent comprehensibility; whereas the infinite remains “intelligible” though definitively “incomprehensible.” Jean‐Luc Marion, Cartesian Questions: Method and Metaphysics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999), 61–63. Thus God (with the face of the infinite) extends beyond “measurement,” as one of two universal criteria with “order,” not simply by the unmanageable “task” of measuring it, but because its “immensity” by excess is beyond the realm of extension. Ibid., 65. See also Ward, Graham, “Introducing Jean–Luc Marion,” New Blackfriars 76, no. 895 (1995): p. 4CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁷ Marion, Jean‐Luc, God Without Being: Hors‐Texte (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995), p. 17Google Scholar.

⁸ Ibid.

⁹ Ibid.

¹⁰ Ibid., p. 18.

¹¹ Ibid., pp. 18–19.

¹² Ibid., p. 19.

¹³ Ibid., p. 21.

¹⁴ Ibid., p. 17.

¹⁵ The distance that the icon reclaims is derivative of Balthasar exposition of the intra‐trinitarian distance of filial love, which is the distance required for all love and thereby the “theme” reiterated back into a created world distort with the “distance” of affliction. See Horner, Robyn, Jean‐Luc Marion: A Theo‐Logical Introduction (London: Ashgate, 2013), pp. 51–52Google Scholar. In The Idol and Distance Marion says, “First, distance has a definition. Second, it remains indefinable by definition. Distance can be defined in several equivalent statements; among others, alterity alone allows communion, and nothing of that which distinguishes separates without, by that very fact, uniting all the more. Or again, between God and man, incommensurability alone makes intimacy possible. . . Distance as Di‐stance therefore means: duality alone allows recognition. . . wherein gazes are exchanged.” Marion, Jean‐Luc, The Idol and Distance: Five Studies, trans. Carlson, Thomas A. (New York: Fordham University Press, 2001), p. 198Google Scholar.

¹⁶ Taken primarily from Sauf le nom in Marion, Jean‐Luc, In Excess: Studies of Saturated Phenomena, trans. Horner, Robyn and Berraud, Vincent (New York: Fordham University Press, 2004), pp. 132–33Google Scholar.

¹⁷ Ibid., pp. 132–33. The essay from which this chapter is derived was presented at a conference held at Villanova University in 1997 entitled “Religion and Postmodernism,” and the presentations were published in God, the Gift, and Postmodernism. In response to Marion's citation of Derrida's critique, and his subsequent alternative in Denys’ “third way,” Derrida insists that his book Sauf le nom made no attempt to offer a thesis against specific individuals representative of negative theology; on the contrary, his book was to be a “pragmatic” engagement with rather abstractly labelled “what one calls negative theologies” or “negative theologies.” Derrida suggests that he was sensitive to the “third way” as it appears in Denys, and quoting from his own work he says regarding Denys, “The paragraph I'm going to read has, in addition, the interest of defining a beyond that exceeds the opposition between affirmation and negation. In truth, as Dionysius expressly says, it exceeds the very position (thesis), and not merely curtailment, subtraction. . . But by the same token, it exceeds privation.”Marion, Jean‐Luc, “In The Name: How to Avoid Speaking of ‘Negative Theology,’” in God, the Gift, and Postmodernism, ed. Caputo, John D. and Scanlon, Michael J. (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1999), p. 43Google Scholar. See also Horner, Robyn, Rethinking God as Gift: Marion, Derrida, and the Limits of Phenomenology (New York: Fordham University Press, 2001), p. 245CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹⁸ Divine Names (Parentheses Marion's) quoted in Marion, In Excess, p. 135–36.

¹⁹ De docta ignorantia quoted in Ibid., p. 136.

²⁰ Ibid., p. 138.

²¹ Ibid., p. 158.

²² Ibid., p. 159.

²³ Marion, In Excess, p. 159.

²⁴ Ibid., p. 159.

²⁵ Ibid., p. 160.

²⁶ Ibid., p. 139.

²⁷ Ibid. Derrida adds a note of commentary on the play of Dénomination: “dénomination is untranslatable. In English, “denomination” is a monetary term. Dénomination works wonderfully in French, meaning at the same time to name and to unname.” Marion, “In the Name,” p. 44.

²⁸ Marion, Jean‐Luc, “Metaphysics and Phenomenology: A Relief for Theology,” in Religion: Beyond a Concept, ed. Vries, Hent de, trans. Carlson, Thomas A. and Gschwandtner, Christina M., Third Edition (New York: Fordham University Press, 2008), pp. 292–94Google Scholar.

²⁹ Ibid., p. 294.

³⁰ Ibid.

³¹ Ibid.

³² Ibid., pp. 294–95.

³³ Ibid., p. 295. Concerning the phenomenological “bracketing” of the givee Marion says, “It is a question of bracketing the givee. Can we do so without also suspending the entire process of the gift? Certainly. Not only does the bracketing of the givee not invalidate the givenness of the gift, but it characterizes it intrinsically: without this suspension of the give, the very possibility of giving the gift would become problematic.” Marion, Jean‐Luc, Being Given: Toward a Phenomenology of Givenness (CA: Stanford University Press, 2002), p. 85Google Scholar. Marion continues on to insist that not only can a genuine phenomenological assessment of the gift bracket the givee, but in fact it must do so. As long as the gift is given–even gratuitously–by an ever present giver who precedes the gift, there will always be an economy of efficiency (and even, he argues, misery according to the one who deserves the gift in a vision of “final causes”); moreover, the gift would have a reciprocal relation which instantiates, continually, a realm of commerce. The “giver” does not on the other hand stand over against the gift but “is” gift, and not as the gift of a specific efficient action but as the always already “given” with abandon: of the inability of the gift to be in metaphysics, Marion says, “The receiver of the gift, if he remains visible and accessible, can therefore disqualify all its givenness; his mere presence makes it possible to appoint him as cause and to inscribe the gift within an economy. No doubt it is just a possibility, but this–even without an actual demand for repayment–is enough to set a price, an intention, an exchange value for the so‐called gift. In the gaze of the givee, humiliated or moved, the giver sees his gift disappear in a mere investment with interest, a payment in arrears; he wins recognition–but of a debt. The giver is paid with the indebted recognition of the givee. The gift never took place.” Ibid., p. 86.

³⁴ Marion elaborates on the concern of givenness and says that is has not to do with whether or not something can be regarded as an “unconstituted given” in epistemological philosophy of consciousness; rather, it is to proceed from the conviction that “everything that shows itself must first give itself. . . [which] implies that one is questioning givenness as a mode of phenomenality, as the how or manner (Wie) of the phenomenon.” Marion, Jean‐Luc, The Reason of the Gift, trans. Lewis, Stephen E. (VA: University of Virginia Press, 2011), p. 19.Google Scholar

³⁵ Marion, In Excess, p. 140.

³⁶ Ibid.

³⁷ Ibid., p. 144.

³⁸ Levinas, Entre Nous quoted in Ibid., pp. 144–45. Regarding the liturgical function of language, Derrida agrees with Marion: “As for pragmatics, I agree with Marion. That's one of the points on which I feel very close to him. At some point I spoke of what I called the performative aspect of prayer, of liturgy. We should have a discussion about praise and prayer; it would be a difficult discussion. But this pragmatic aspect is granted a real privilege in the way I address the question.” Marion, “In the Name,” p. 45.

³⁹ Marion, “The Formal Reason for the Infinite,” p. 404.

⁴⁰ Marion, In Excess, p. 155.

⁴¹ Marion, “Metaphysics and Phenomenology: A Relief for Theology,” p. 295.

⁴² See Jordan on loosening the reigns of “Aristotelianism” in Thomas. Jordan, Rewritten theology, p. 60–65. See also White for a reading of sacra doctrina as a properly ecclesial teaching, as opposed to a strict Aristotelian “science.” White, Holy Teaching; The Idea of Theology According to St. Thomas Aquinas, p. 4.

⁴³ Burrell, Knowing the unknowable God, p. 38. Burrell offers a helpful distinction as it pertains to “simplicity” as it is predicated of God: “The best way I know to put this is to remind ourselves that simpleness is not an attribute of God, properly speaking, so much as a ‘formal feature’ of divinity. That is, we do not include ‘simpleness’ in that list of terms we wish to attribute to God – classically, ‘living’, ‘wise’, ‘willing’. It is rather that simpleness defines the manner in which such properties might be attributed to God.” Burrell, Knowing the Unknowable God, p. 46. See also Burrell, Aquinas, p. 26–30.

⁴⁴ This point was insightfully provided by Simon Oliver in conversation.

⁴⁵ Aquinas, Summa Theologiae (ST) 1a.3.7.

⁴⁶ ST 1a.3.3.

⁴⁷ Thus, revelation fulfills (or “perfects”) metaphysics. See Przywara, Analogia Entis, 4.6, 190. Jordan, “Theology and Philosophy,” p. 235.

⁴⁸ This analogy has two aspects within it: the analogia attributionis (the positive–that which is fundamentally shared between two things) and the analogia proportionis (the negative–the categorical distinction and difference). Przywara, Analogia Entis, p. 135; Johnson, Karl Barth and the Analogia Entis, p. 135.

⁴⁹ Jean‐Luc Marion, in rejecting Aquinas’ God‐as‐esse, purports to offer a “third” alternative to univocal and equivocal predication in “mystical (negative) theology.” One can appreciate how near saturated phenomenon is tothe analogia entis; and given that Derrida's own response was to say Marion, by suggesting the “essence” (over) saturated the intuition, departed from pure phenomenology, it is worth pondering whether and how far Marion has stepped towards Thomas. Offering an analogy of the function of “icon” (contra “concept) Marion says, “Achilles is not counted among the gods, but he seems like a god, like the semblance of a god. In him, so to speak, something characteristic of the gods rises to visibility, though precisely no god is thus fixed in the visible.” Marion, God Without Being, p. 17. See also Marion, “The Formal Reason for the Infinite.” For fine treatments of Marion along the lines of the analogy of being see Milbank, “Only Theology Overcomes Metaphysics”; Hart, The Beauty of the Infinite, pp. 237–41.

⁵⁰ David Bentley Hart offers a compelling summary of what is intended by the analogia entis, in the broadest sense: “I use the term ‘analogy of being’ as shorthand for the tradition of Christian metaphysics that, developing from the time of the New Testament through the patristic and medieval periods, succeeded in uniting a metaphysics of participation to the biblical doctrine of creation, within the framework of trinitarian dogma, and in so doing made it possible for the first time in Western thought to contemplate both the utter difference of being from beings and the nature of true transcendence.” Hart, The Beauty of the Infinite, p. 241. One's attempt to deny the transcendence of God's Being for all beings while attempting to appropriate an analogical “principle,” perhaps an analogia relationis or analogia fidei, will face significant difficulties. In so far as God is “analogical” via revelation or encounter, one will continue to depict God as utterly over‐against “being;” and in this way, God is contrasted by his removed “location”–which places God in dialectical relation with finitude in a manner that situates God as “a being” among beings. See Hart, The Beauty of the Infinite, p. 242.

⁵¹ On the evacuation of metaphysics (philosophy) in Thomas see John Milbank, “Only Theology Overcomes Metaphysics,” New Blackfriars 76, no. 895 (July 1, 1995): p. 334. For a treatment of “revelation” in Thomas that delineates its continuity with reason, as opposed to occasionalistically imposed with data, see Montag, John, “Revelation: The False Legacy of Suárez,” in Radical Orthodoxy: A New Theology, ed. Milbank, John, Pickstock, Catherine, and Ward, Graham (London: Routledge, 1998), pp. 42–49Google Scholar.

Marion, though critical, ultimately exempts Thomas from the charge of “onto‐theology.” He then takes it further to think esse in Thomas “without being;” it seems to be that “being” for Marion continues to be determined by prior expectations, or critiques, which orient any reading of being/existence. Marion says, “the Being from which God is liberated in God Without Being is defined in terms of two different domains. On the one hand, we have the metaphysical tradition of the ens commune, then of the objective concept of being, of its abstract univocity. . . but, then, according to so incontestable a Thomist as E. Glison, this ‘Being’ no longer has anything to do with the esse that Saint Thomas assigns to the Christian God.” Marion does however intend to liberate God from the Thomistic esse, nevertheless for the Dionysian prioritization of “the Good” as the first among the divine names. However, he evinces a rather peculiar comprehension of the analogia entis by contrasting the pseudo‐liberated divine esse (uniquely convergent with his essentia) absolutely with the “ens commune” of creatures and “metaphysics.” If the convergence of essence and existence in God is admitted, one would know that it would thereby be impossible to divorce that unique Being from every instance and question of Being as such. Marion, God Without Being, xxii‐xxiii. See alsoMarion, Jean‐Luc, “Thomas Aquinas and Onto‐Theo‐Logy,” in Mystics: Presence and Aporia, ed. Kessler, Michael and Sheppard, Christian, trans. Gendreau, B., Rethy, R., and Sweeney, M. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003), p. 65Google Scholar.

⁵² This phrase is a slight variation of Marion's who said of the God who “loves before being” that he only “is” as he “embodies himself” and in this way, Marion is not concerned with “the possibility of God's attaining Being, but, quite the opposite, the possibility of Being's attaining to God.” Marion, God Without Being, pp. xix–xx.

⁵³ The notion that the infinite would be perceived as the appearing of possibility is owned in Richard Kearney's reading of Marion: “one of the main ways in which the infinite comes to be experienced and imagined by finite minds is as possibility–that is, as the ability to be.” Kearney, Richard, “Hermeneutics of the Possible God,” in Givenness and God: Questions of Jean‐Luc Marion, ed. Leask, Ian and Cassidy, Eoin (New York: Fordham University Press, 2005), p. 220.Google Scholar