Transcendence in Jean-Luc Marion: Negotiating Theology and Phenomenology

Abstract

This article proposes a reading of Marion’s phenomenology from an early text, arguing that the various phenomenological innovations which are introduced in this work are subordinated to the central concept of transcendence. This concept in Marion’s work names the relation between revelation and experience and makes possible the disclosure of a revelatory phenomenon of radical alterity and asymmetry. Reliant on this concept, Marion’s phenomenology dramatically reconfigures the transcendental subject, the phenomenal object, and the horizon as well as their relation to certain phenomena. While Marion’s early text undergoes numerous revisions and reappears in different versions at several junctures in the development of his intervention in phenomenology, this article maintains that his central concept of transcendence retains its primacy in the structural arrangement of his other phenomenological innovations. Additionally, it will be argued that while the concept of transcendence in Marion has often been treated with suspicion by interpreters as obliquely allowing for a theological incursion into Marion’s phenomenology, such discussions generally miss how Marion’s particular construal of transcendence, as the relation between revelation and experience, necessarily allows for an a priori best explained as a theological judgement. Lastly, several questions attendant to this argument will be suggested for further development and investigation.

1. Introduction

This article proposes a reading of Marion’s phenomenology from an early text, arguing that the various concepts which are employed in this work are subordinated to a central concept, namely that of transcendence. This concept in Marion’s text functions as an organizing principle and names the relation between revelation and experience, characterizing the former by a radical alterity and asymmetry. This article will proceed first by offering a reading of Marion’s early programmatic text, followed by an argument about how Marion’s notion of revelation, and its mode of relation as transcendence, governs and subordinates his other phenomenological innovations. Furthermore, this article will discuss how, although this reoccurring concept in Marion has often been the subject of critique, such critique generally misses how, more fundamentally, Marion’s notion of transcendence retains an a priori best explained as a theological judgement. A significant portion of the secondary literature on Marion’s phenomenology is concerned with the question of whether Marion’s work is a form of theology. Though the various arguments made for and against this claim cannot be thoroughly engaged in this article, it is notable that these arguments, almost without exception, answer this question primarily on the basis of the status which God has in Marion’s phenomenology. The argument in this article, however, approaches this question on the basis of whether or not Marion’s phenomenology is structured around an a priori best explained as a theological judgement. That is, the question about the status of theology in Marion’s phenomenology is not answered on the basis of whether or not God is granted entry into Marion’s phenomenology, but rather on the basis of whether or not his phenomenology is structured around an a priori which reflects a judgement about God, or more precisely, divine disclosure as revelation, which is no less a theological matter. By way of its conclusions, this article does not make a normative claim about whether Marion’s phenomenology, since it concerns itself with theological matters, operates in an illegitimate manner. As such, this study differentiates itself from the numerous readings of Marion’s phenomenology which remark on its incursions into theology. While this article does concern itself with how the boundaries of phenomenology and theology are negotiated, it does not make a normative claim about whether boundaries should be drawn or what sorts of crossings between the two, if any, are legitimate. Engaging with the relevant substance of these arguments while deferring on judgements concerning the validity of such an intervention, this article offers a reading of Marion’s text as a set of conceptual strategies in phenomenology intended to accommodate a conception of the relation between revelation and experience as a governing principle.1

2. “The Possible and Revelation”

In an early text, “The Possible and Revelation”, Marion argues in broad strokes for the principal trajectories which would end up defining his intervention in phenomenology. Though the text is primarily known for introducing one of Marion’s most well-known coinages, the “saturated phenomenon”, the development of the argument which leads to the introduction of this concept provides a programmatic outline of the themes and concepts which will occupy most of the major texts Marion would produce in the coming years. While the central concepts and themes included in this text are expanded upon and developed in Marion’s later work, none are abandoned, and the structure of Marion’s intervention in phenomenology developed here is likewise maintained. That is, the contention that phenomenology overcomes metaphysics, the disclosure of the inapparent (which becomes the disclosure of givenness), the inversion of the subject (initially as l’interloqé and then as l’adonné), and the saturated phenomena as the possibility of transgressing the constraints of the phenomenological horizon—all of these conceptual innovations of the phenomenological field are found initially in the present text. This remains the case even though Marion does not describe his phenomenology as a “phenomenology of religion” in later texts. Furthermore, though Marion expresses his disavowal of what he calls “an early stage in…[his] understanding of the saturated phenomenon and its schema”, his subsequent work only distinguishes between different gradations of the saturated phenomenon, but it does not depart from the logic which structures it according to his notion of transcendence. That is to say, the saturated phenomenon was but one component of a larger set of phenomenological innovations developed under the governance of a particular notion of transcendence which negotiates the proper relation between revelation and experience.2 That structure is not abandoned in Marion’s subsequent work, and neither are the various phenomenological innovations he introduces in its service.

Marion begins the essay by inquiring as to whether phenomenology can offer something “to the development of a ‘philosophy of religion’”, and if so, what would be required of such an enterprise (Marion 2008, p. 1). Already at this point Marion offers a crucial definition which will orient his entire project. He begins by claiming that a phenomenology of religion would have to secure “the possibility of acknowledging a concept of revelation” (Marion 2008, p. 2). Such a concept, Marion claims, is the “highest figure of religion” and is defined by “an authority that is transcendent to experience [which] nevertheless manifests itself experientially” (Ibid., p. 2). According to Marion, the challenge for phenomenology is immediately clear, since it is faced with the troubling inheritance of metaphysics from philosophy—a mode of thought which extends the principle of sufficient reason universally to the degree that all being must fall under both cause and concept (Ibid., p. 2). In such an account of matters, religion must renounce revelation if phenomenology is to be its method because, according to Marion, revelation is essentially defined as that which does not accommodate to the principle of sufficient reason. Marion at this point appeals to the philosophical tradition, arguing that this dilemma is evident in modern philosophy:

Revelation escapes being disqualified by metaphysics when it limits itself strictly to what admits of reason (Kant) or identifies itself simply with the work of the concept (Hegel). In both cases, it must renounce its specificity: announcing an event, explicating a word that surpasses the conditions of the possibility of experience and submitting to the requirements of the principle of reason.

(Ibid., p. 3)

Thus, Marion has set for himself the problem which must be solved if phenomenology is to become an appropriate method for religion in this highest form, that is, for revelation.

The first step to the resolution, claims Marion, is found in phenomenology itself, which does not necessarily require a commitment to the prohibition instituted by sufficient reason. In his reading of Husserl, Marion finds a circumvention of this principle by recourse directly to phenomena, which present as intuition to the intention of consciousness, prior to any constitution (Ibid., p. 5). This, of course, does not solve all the potential problems which would be associated with the phenomenality of such phenomena in experience, but it accomplishes the crucial step of making them possible for phenomenology in a way which philosophy in the modern period had hitherto foreclosed. The second step for Marion is to address another frequent objection “posed by metaphysics to the possibility of revelation” which must be overcome if phenomenology is to truly be able to open itself up to this phenomenon (Ibid., p. 7). Specifically, in the event of religious experience, and more precisely, the experience of revelation, intention is aimed “at an invisible object of the sort that could never be given directly” (Ibid., p. 7). Marion calls Heidegger to his aide to neutralize this objection by claiming that through his radicalization of Husserl, he makes possible a phenomenology which is able to concern itself with that which does not manifest itself at all—Being.3 Therefore, Heidegger legitimates, for Marion, the possibility of a phenomenology of the inapparent in general.

It is worth pausing at this point to take stock of what Marion has accomplished thus far in his attempt to secure a phenomenology of revelation. By arguing for a divergence between metaphysics and phenomenology, he has made possible the disclosure of phenomena which lie beyond the auspices of sufficient reason, specifically phenomena of revelation, and by broadening intuition to include the inapparent, he has established the transcendent character of such phenomena, since what is given in experience is joined to that which can only be given indirectly.4 This latter move effectively provides a different logic of operation for the phenomena of revelation, not of sufficient reason, but of a transcendent authority. As such:

What philosophy of religion tends to close, phenomenology of religion could open. Phenomenology offers a method not only to ontology (Heidegger), but to any region of phenomena not directly visible and hence immediately invisible—hence exceedingly to religion inasmuch as it concerns revelation. In short, phenomenology would be the method par excellence for the manifestation of the invisible through the phenomena that indicate it—hence also the method for theology.

(Marion 2008, pp. 7–8)

Having established this step of the argument, Marion is concerned with the opposing pole of phenomena in phenomenology. That is, while Marion has effectively released revelation for intuition, it is unclear whether it has been released with respect to intention. In this regard, the phenomenological concepts of the transcendental subject and the horizon threaten to undo the release secured from phenomenal constitution. Primarily, the challenge even for the liberated phenomena of revelation is the constituting I “since it always precedes all phenomena as their condition of possibility regarding lived experience”. Here, Marion interjects with another definition to press the problem which revelation poses to phenomenology. Namely, in order to be revelation, such phenomena must surprise “any anticipation of perception and surpass any analogy to perception”. Marion remains dissatisfied with Heidegger’s account of “faith…as a tonality of Dasein”, which he argues collapses the lived experience of revelation (faith) with revelation itself (Marion 2008, p. 9). Nor is Marion satisfied with Bultmann’s account of how revelation might be disclosed in experience:

The phenomenological method here is applied to theology only by reducing the revealed to the lived experience of the revealed, hence obscuring the revealed revealing itself. The phenomenological reduction provokes demythologization, and sola fides reduces revelatory transcendence to real immanence in consciousness. Although it believes, consciousness does not reach any transcendent (thus revealed) object but is nourished by the immanent lived experience of its solitary faith.

(Ibid., p. 9)

For phenomenology to remain open to revelation itself, it must be released from the constituting powers of the I. A very similar argument is made with respect to the concept of the horizon. Here, Marion’s definition of transcendence once again guides his argument. If one assumes that the most expansive opening of the horizon is only that of Being (Heidegger), one has betrayed the possibility of revelation in phenomenology, since transcendence here requires the transcendence of Being, as an a priori delineation of the conditions of possibility for phenomena: “Container [Écrin] of any being, Being plays, in the case of God, the function of a screen [écran]. It precedes the very initiative of revealing, it fixes the frame of revelation, and it imposes the conditions of reception on the revealed gift” (Marion 2008, p. 11). As long as the transcendental subject and the horizon function in this way, “Phenomenology cannot give its status to theology, because the conditions of manifestation contradict or at least are different from the free possibility of revelation”.5

Within the constraints above, Marion’s resolution must negotiate an innovation of phenomenology’s methods which is keyed to the requirements of theology. As a result, phenomenology must reformulate the impositions enforced by “two limits on possibility in general: the I and the horizon” (Ibid., p. 13). Upon interrogation, Marion finds the former to be lacking phenomenological legitimacy. That is, Marion finds cause to argue that the transcendental subject as the I has a derived rather than an original, and thus originating, status. As a result, there is an inversion of the subject which results in the I being established in its phenomenological status “from a prior givenness which cannot be constituted, cannot be objectified and is prior to it—revelation being one such a possibility” (Ibid., p. 14). Having addressed the question of the subject, Marion asks what kind of horizon is appropriate for a phenomenology suited to revelation as a phenomenon (Ibid., p. 19). That more than one horizon is possible, Marion thinks is evident from the fact that phenomenology has entertained several: “The horizon can vary: objectivity (Husserl), Being (Heidegger), ethics (Levinas), the body of the flesh (Merleau-Ponty), etc. The principle of horizon always remains” (Ibid., p. 14). The demands of revelation almost lead him to the exclusion of any horizon, a possibility he quickly dismisses, as this would preclude the possibility of any phenomenality.6 In order to settle two opposing requirements, that revelation is both a “condescension” which gives itself in experience, but that it can only do so without any a priori conditions of possibility, Marion introduces the notion of “saturated phenomena” (Marion 2008, p. 15). That is, revelation appears within a horizon but only by exceeding and disrupting its boundaries, appearing as a paradox. In Husserlian terms, “revelation gives objects where intuition surpasses the intentional aim” (Ibid., 16). Summarily, overcoming the obstacles associated with the second pole in phenomenology with respect to revelation requires that “…the I admit its nonoriginal character and think it all the way to an inherent givenness; (b) that the horizon allow itself to be saturated by givenness instead of insisting on determining it a priori, and that truth accordingly change from the evidence of [doxa] to the [paradoxan] of the revealed” (Ibid., 16). Signaling his intentions, Marion closes the essay by saying that “A definitive response to these two conditions could only be possible after long and difficult investigations, which are to a great extent still to come” (Marion 2008, p. 16).

3. Subordinated to Transcendence

From the very beginning of the text, Marion makes clear the problem he perceives for the possibility of a phenomenology of religion and the way this problem is framed orients his reading of the philosophical and phenomenological tradition and the kinds of solutions he finds agreeable. Although the question is initially whether phenomenology can be a suitable method for a philosophy of religion, Marion quickly specifies that by this, he means whether phenomenology can make possible the disclosure of revelation itself. By revelation, Marion clarifies this refers to an “authority that, while transcendent to experience, nevertheless manifests itself experientially”.7 Thus, Marion not only specifies precisely what he seeks to accommodate in a phenomenology of religion (that is, revelation), but more specifically how this entity, revelation, must relate to experience. This specific mode of relation will simply be referred to as transcendence.8 Marion then proceeds to delineate numerous interventions in the phenomenological tradition which would be necessary to accommodate the disclosure of revelation, given this specific mode of relation.

This entire enterprise is in fact governed by, and dependent on, how Marion conceives of the relation between revelation and experience as transcendence. More specifically, the intervention is governed by the specific mode of relation Marion requires for revelation. The governing principle according to which Marion orients the phenomenological concepts he introduces is precisely this mode of relation as transcendence. By stating that this mode of relation operates as a governing principle, the claim is that none of the other relevant concepts Marion employs require this mode of relation as transcendence, but that the reverse is true. That is, Marion’s notion of transcendence requires that his other concepts have their attendant characteristics. This dependence is evident from how Marion develops his argument in the text. Starting from a definition of revelation with such a mode of relation to experience means that revelation is defined by an asymmetry of power, that is, characterized by an absolute sovereignty, and an alterity of kind, which is to say, characterized by an absolute otherness.9 In this way, Marion has then set the terms for what a phenomenology of revelation must entail. Stated otherwise, the structure and features which Marion’s phenomenological innovations bear are neither accidental nor arbitrary—they are thus precisely because they must accommodate a concept of revelation that bears a very particular relation to experience.

As discussed above, by arguing for a divergence between metaphysics and phenomenology, Marion makes possible the disclosure of phenomena which lie beyond the auspices of sufficient reason, and by broadening intuition to include the inapparent, he establishes the possibility of a disclosure in experience that is given only indirectly. This reworking of such aspects of phenomenological intuition satisfies the requirements of an asymmetry of power and an alterity of kind which transcendenhce requires. Specifically, the denial of sufficient reason denies and inverts its sovereignty over phenomena as constituting force, attributing the hierarchical position to phenomena. Likewise, by establishing the legitimacy of the inapparent, the criteria of alterity is satisfied, making it possible for phenomena to appear which are utterly unlike phenomena susceptible to direct perception, such as the object. Subsequently, by establishing an inverted notion of the subject and the possibility of a saturated horizon, Marion again secures the same two criteria which transcendence requires: the inversion of the subject corresponding to the criteria of an asymmetry of power, and the saturation of the horizon to the criteria of an alterity of kind.10 The subject is denied the sovereignty of constitution over phenomena, the status being secured for the latter as that which constitutes. Additionally, the disruption or saturation of the horizon secures the criteria of alterity by permitting the disclosure of that which is utterly unlike all other phenomena which appear within a horizon.

This text is the first time Marion introduces the “saturating/saturated phenomena”, as the text is first published in German in 1988.11 As Marion specifies in a footnote to this text, the theses he puts forth here reappear again in several other texts.12 The development between these texts is primarily with regard to the point of departure from which Marion argues for what have become his most recognized phenomenological innovations: a philosophy beyond metaphysics which is able to disclose the inapparent (givenness) and which does not constrain phenomena according to the reductive powers of the I (l’adonné) or the horizon (saturation). While “Nothing is Impossible for God” sets the task of discovering a mode of thinking which can accommodate the possibility of the impossibility of miracles, “The Impossible for Man-God” also begins with the question of how to accommodate transcendence, the sense of the God–experience relation. “The Impossible, or What is Proper to God”, accounts for the problem as a question of finding a mode of thinking which can conceive of God properly. As such, the constituent logic of the initial text survives in the later editions. That is, in each subsequent text, Marion is seeking a philosophical method which is amenable to divine disclosure in experience, and in each case, this revelation is characterized in a manner that is consistent with his initial definition of transcendence, characterized by an asymmetry of power and an alterity of kind.

In summary, it is the particular way Marion understands revelation to relate to experience, through the mode of transcendence, which governs and determines his reconstitution of the phenomenological tradition. Though this series of conceptual strategies undergoes development in the course of Marion’s intervention into phenomenology, the organization of its structure demonstrates permeance. Taking stock of Marion’s phenomenology, Tóth makes a related observation:

…Marion’s entire oeuvre may be seen as being directed towards the realisation of such a task, namely, the laborious construction work of developing new conceptual tools and opening a novel imaginative space for the phenomenological analysis of the par excellence phenomenon: revelation in general and Christian revelation in particular…To include revelation in the phenomenal field, he must modify earlier conceptions concerning the nature of phenomena, phenomenality and selfhood and his innovative (and by now well-known) notions of ‘saturated phenomena’, the ‘adonne’ (as self), ‘paradox’ and ‘counter-experience’ all serve the purpose of expanding the field of phenomenality and of redefining the scope of the possible.13

The present argument insists upon how Marion’s operation of “opening a novel imaginative space” for a certain kind of phenomena is evident in the structuring of his phenomenology in subordination to a particular notion of transcendence from a very early stage, and how there exists a logical dependence between his phenomenological innovations and his notion of revelation as characterized by a specific understanding of transcendence. As Tóth exemplifies, there is no shortage of discussion among Marion’s readers about his intervention in phenomenology, the innovations he introduces, and how his more conspicuous theological elements are to be understood in relation to phenomenology.

4. Transcendence and Theology

Given the wide scope of discourse on Marion’s work with which this section must engage, it is perhaps necessary to be precise about the claim being made from the onset. In a published introduction to Marion’s Being Given which Kosky initially gave as an oral presentation, he discloses Marion’s response to his initial presentation:

…Marion said in response to my oral presentation of this paper that givenness first appeared to him in the theological realm, particularly the realm of liturgical life, but that it was then discovered in other regions…

(Kosky 2004, p. 646)

Whether there are other explanations for the possibility of Marion’s phenomenology of givenness being able to account for both theological and other phenomena, it is at least due to Marion’s own transposition of his phenomenological innovations from the theological to a larger field of phenomena.14 Marion’s phenomenology demonstrates, following “The Possible and Revelation” as discussed above, in Being Given and beyond, the universalization of the phenomenon of revelation in the mode of transcendence to a great deal of other phenomena, all belonging to Marion’s classification of the saturated phenomenon.15 As Kosky says, this expansion has produced a great deal of debate among Marion’s interpreters as to the status of theology in his phenomenology, and on fewer occasions, an identification of Marion’s specific notion of transcendence as the primary conduit for an illegitimate contamination between the disciplines (Kosky 2004, pp. 641–43).

The argument in this final section is that, as noted above, there is both a hierarchy among Marion’s phenomenological innovations which privileges a certain kind of relation, named transcendence, and that this relation makes a judgement about the nature of the interaction between the saturated phenomena of revelation and experience that grants the former a unilateral position of power and a nearly unapproachable status of alterity in a competitive, zero-sum relation to Marion’s other phenomenological elements. It also argues that this arrangement, as a whole, represents an a priori bearing conspicuous similarity to a certain noncorrelational theology of God. Summarily, there is both an intentional construction and ordering within Marion’s phenomenology and a structure of relation which is more easily explained as a theological a priori rather than a derivation of phenomenological experience.16 As Leung has argued, the separate insights of phenomenological givenness, counter-experience, and excess do not require a theological orientation (Leung 2022). Yet, as was maintained in the previous section, Marion’s combined arrangement of these various phenomenological innovations under subordination to transcendence was intended precisely to make possible a kind of phenomenological disclosure which was both unique in kind and which could exercise a unilateral authority over the entire phenomenological field—it was intended to make possible the disclosure of a certain kind of divinity. Marion’s defense of givenness against a metaphysical or theological transcendence in Being Given does not refute this claim.17 He is, of course, correct to object that givenness as such is not a revival of theological transcendence, since it is but one component in the structure of his phenomenology, and not directly related to the question of transcendence (Marion 2002, pp. 71–74). Yet, Marion’s phenomenology contains a “revival” of transcendence in a theological sense because it is a stipulation about the manner in which revelation must relate to experience, uniquely and unilaterally, if revelation is to be properly disclosive of the divine, a stipulation which in turn governs and structures Marion’s other phenomenological innovations, givenness being one among them. While it defers on the actuality of revelation, it provides a phenomenological structure for the disclosure of the divine that necessarily makes a judgement about the nature of such a disclosure—revelation in the mode of transcendence. A claim about the nature of divine disclosure within a phenomenological field, even as simply a possibility, is not a phenomenological judgment but a theological judgement, even if other saturated phenomena may share a derived revelatory character. The discussion which follows will differentiate this claim from several of Marion’s interpreters who have levelled critical appraisals of his use of transcendence as a questionable, and often illegitimate, theological intervention into phenomenology.

Contentions about Marion’s deployment of transcendence in his phenomenology are a subset of a larger and frequent argument which states that Marion’s phenomenology is inherently theological, a dispute attributed most often as initiated by Janicaud.18 Often, this charge of theological contamination is articulated as a suspicion about what is at stake in Marion’s phenomenology. Caputo, for example, states “I think that we can also see that what is—dare I say ultimately?—at stake for Marion is a theological issue, nothing less than a noncorrelational theology such as one finds in Barth and von Balthasar, where God is allowed to be God on God’s own terms, without submitting God to prior conditions of possibility, where theology is confessed to be God’s word about God, not our word (theology) (emphasis in original)” (Caputo 2007, pp. 77–79). Caputo also presses the fact that Marion insists on “Revelation” appearing in a manner consistent with noncorrelational theology, as opposed to the correlational theologies of Rahner and Bultmann. As Tóth notes, there are significant resonances between this account of revelation and transcendence and the theology of Hans Urs von Balthasar (Tóth 2024, pp. 2–3). Marion seems to confirm this in an interview:

Should Christian theology rely on a metaphysical fore-understanding, on logical conditions of possibility or impossibility? The transcendental Thomist, whose supreme heir Rahner remains, presupposes that there is in some way continuity between metaphysics, the question of being, even the transcendental subject, that is to say, the conditions of possibility for religious experience, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, Christ or God. In other words, the conditions of experience finally define Revelation itself. Balthasar’s argument, to the contrary, states that Revelation has no conditions of possibility except itself. That is why he begins with the doctrine of the figure (Gestalt) of Revelation, which, according to him, provides its own norms. This intuition obviously agrees with Barth’s starting point. God reveals himself that means the self-manifestation of God from himself and according to his own rules. Balthasar is obviously right.

(Marion and Arbib 2017, p. 26)

Marion goes on to say how decisive Balthasar’s The Glory of the Cross was for his early theological, and arguably, philosophical development. In agreement with Fritz, Marion’s development never departs from this critical insight which he seems to acquire from Balthasar—that revelation discloses itself from itself with no conditions of possibility apart from its own (Fritz 2012). Though it is agreed with Caputo that Marion decides in favor of a certain type of theological construal of God as divine revelation in his phenomenology, Caputo locates his suspicion in the privilege Marion establishes for givenness, not transcendence, and his argument is about the (ultimate) stakes in Marion’s phenomenology, but he does not identify givenness as unambiguously theological, acknowledging the validity of the saturated phenomenon and its corollaries in the work of other philosophers.19 Claims such as this, articulated as suspicions, generally locate a theological element in Marion’s phenomenology, but fail to demonstrate a more pervasive relation of such elements to his phenomenology. Marion’s preference for a noncorrelational theology is not primarily located in givenness, but in his negotiation of transcendence and in the preeminent position it occupies in relation to his other phenomenological concepts. It is also exemplified in the relation which revelation, as transcendence bears to his other phenomenological innovations—establishing revelation as unique (alterity of kind) and unilateral (asymmetry of power).

Other criticisms directed at Marion’s notion of transcendence find fault in its association with a certain absoluteness.20 Zarader argues along these lines, stating that “To want the phenomenon to appear absolutely, without reference to any instance that can guarantee its appearing, is to condemn oneself to losing it as phenomenon; and to deprive oneself, as a result, of all justification by phenomenality”.21 In this way, Zarader locates this absoluteness primarily in the severe diminution of the subject and, to a lesser degree, the phenomenon unrestrained by any constituting element. Setting aside the question of whether Zarader’s criticism of Marion is compelling, the elements identified are indeed partially those which Marion has extracted from the phenomenological tradition in order to secure for revelation a relation of transcendence to experience which grants it a unique and unilateral status over the phenomenological field.22 Yet, Zarader does not seem to regard as equally noteworthy that Marion’s notion of revelation derives its absolute status not merely by the diminution of the subject and the irreducibility of the phenomenon to the object, but by the disruption of the horizon and the invisibility of the phenomenon. Furthermore, Zarader regards transcendence as a nominative, that is, it identifies that which appears absolutely.23 As such, for Zarader the illegitimacy of transcendence in Marion is the insistence on a phenomenality which must erase the very constituents which make it achievable: transcendence is too absolute to be phenomenologically possible. This conclusion is not dissimilar from that of Han, who argues that Marion’s phenomenology transgresses the incommensurability between an “unconditioned existence” and an “unconditioned manifestation”, identifying the former with God and the latter with revelation as the disclosure of Godself (Han 2003, pp. 136–37). The impossibility, for Han, is that transcendence would require a surpassing of the very conditions which make phenomenality possible. For Han, this is precisely what names transcendence, and what makes it theological—it is an absolute disclosure. Such a conclusion shares with Marion the preconception that divine disclosure, as revelation, must possess a relation to experience which establishes it as unique with respect to its alterity and asymmetry in power. In this way, it does not recognize that prior to any debate about whether such a relation renders phenomenality impossible, a judgement has been made about the necessary relation between divine revelation and experience, which is not phenomenologically self-evident. Nevertheless, not every reference to the absolute should be regarded as necessarily theological. Cassidy-Deketelaere makes an argument which is sensitive to this distinction when he maintains that “talk of the unconditional or absolute is not, in itself, talk of God (emphasis in original)” (Cassidy-Deketelaere 2024, p. 230). Cassidy-Deketelaere traces Marion’s undisclosed theology to the insistence of always seeing the theophanic in the unconditioned. Conversely, in the present argument, Marion’s undisclosed theology is found in the insistence about how the theophanic (revelation) must be disclosed, necessarily, as the unconditioned.

On occasion, the argument is made that the use of such concepts like transcendence, though freighted with theological meaning, should not be understood as a theological intrusion within phenomenology but as a reappropriation of theological terms into a quasi-phenomenological key.24 The “reconstructive” position within Simmons’ taxonomy assumes that certain concepts can be readily reappropriated by phenomenology from theology in a way that decouples them from the religious traditions in which they originated and apart from the context from which they derive their meaning. Though nuanced to the way certain theological terms seem to be transposed into phenomenology in general, this movement risks at least two ambiguities which equivocate on the meaning of the concepts and terms in view. First, as with Marion’s term of transcendence, it is evident that the concept continues to rely heavily on its use within traditional Christian doctrines of God which posit a strong distinction between God and the world. This is evident in the way revelation, bearing the relation to experience as transcendence, occupies a unique and unilateral position with respect to the phenomenal field. As such, the term has largely been transposed into phenomenology without significant modification or concession. Second, some terms may undergo such a significant degree of modification that they become functionally unrecognizable in the context of the originating religious tradition. Although Simmons’ taxonomy is helpful for navigating other instances of cross-pollination between the two disciplines, in this case, whether it is judged an intrusion or not, transcendence in the manner used and alluded to by Marion throughout his work does not seem to escape the charge of being more closely a theological transposition into phenomenology as opposed to a reappropriation.

Fundamentally, Marion’s notion of transcendence is an ordering principle for his phenomenological innovations and a claim about the relation which revelation, by necessity, must have to experience.25 That revelation is characterized by transcendence, a relation that stipulates an asymmetry of power (unilateral) and alterity of kind (unique) for a disclosive phenomenon, is a theological judgement, in the sense that it articulates a precise claim about how revelation relates to the world of experience in order to ensure the possibility of a noncorrelational divine disclosure. How could phenomenology, which does not operate with presuppositions concerning the nature of revelation, arrive at such a conclusion?26 That is to say, on the basis of what authority can it be determined that revelation must be disclosed in the manner of transcendence in experience?27 That revelation, as an unconditioned event, can only disclose itself in this manner of transcendence, as described above, is a precise judgement which establishes a condition for the phenomenological appearance of the divine, a construction which is rightly named theological.

There are several observations attendant to the foregoing conclusion which though beyond the scope of this article, merit mention for further investigation. The first is that there are certain reverberations of this relation between revelation and experience throughout Marion’s work which have received a significant amount of attention from commentators, yet under different themes. These result from the fact that, transcendence, in the manner negotiated by Marion, yields several competing, zero-sum relations between other elements in his phenomenology. The oft-discussed problem of hermeneutics in Marion’s phenomenology can be understood as such an instance. As other readers of Marion have identified, the fundamental problem in Marion’s negotiation of a phenomenology of givenness and hermeneutics remains a certain tension with respect to the final privileged position of interpretation and whether it belongs to l’adonné or the saturated phenomenon of revelation.28 This is arguably a symptom of having negotiated the relation between revelation and experience in the manner of transcendence. Similarly, the numerous questions concerning the passivity of the subject in Marion, and the question of the validity of the horizon itself, all issue primarily from having been posited within a competitive structure of relation to the saturated phenomenon of revelation. A programmatic rereading of Marion with this framing of the issues in view would perhaps inquire if Marion’s phenomenology of revelation requires this notion of transcendence and a competitive, zero-sum relation between its constitutive elements, and what it may mean to reconstitute this relation. Lastly, the question of the phenomenological reduction becomes relevant as well. Namely, has the reduction to givenness been fully executed if a preconception concerning the relation between the saturated phenomenon of revelation and experience must be retained? Laying aside the debated question of whether the phenomenological reduction suspends the disclosure of the divine as a possibility, the question is whether certain necessary accounts about the nature of such a disclosure can legitimately circumvent the phenomenological reduction.29 That is to say, if the saturated phenomenon of revelation entails a particular account about the relation which this has to experience, under the name of transcendence as a principle prior to experience, one wonders if the phenomenological reduction has been fully carried out. This being the case not necessarily because it has not excluded the possible existence of God, but because it has not excluded an operative presupposition about the nature of the saturated phenomenon of revelation. These questions would be part of a fuller investigation into the governing role and function which transcendence, in the sense described in this article, occupies in Marion’s phenomenology and his particular negotiation of theology and phenomenology.