Revelation Comes from Elsewhere

by Jean-Luc Marion

Jean-Luc Marion has long endeavored to broaden our view of truth. In this illuminating new book―his deepest engagement with theology to date―Marion proposes a rigorous new understanding of human and divine revelation in a deeply phenomenological key. Although today considered the central theme of theology, the concept of Revelation was almost entirely unknown to the first millennium of Christian thought. In a penetrating historical deconstruction Marion traces the development of this term to the rise of metaphysics from Aquinas through Descartes, Suárez, and Kant; formalized into an epistemological framework, this understanding of Revelation has restricted philosophical and theological thinking ever since. To break free from these limits, Marion takes hints from theologians including Balthasar and Barth while mobilizing the phenomenology of givenness to provide a rigorous new understanding of revelation as a mode of uncovering. His extensive study of the Jewish and Christian Scriptures unfolds a logic of Trinitarian phenomenality, worked out in conversation with Augustine, Basil, Hegel, Schelling, and others, that ultimately transforms our very notions of being and time. The result is precisely what we have come to expect from this acclaimed masterful historical scholarship working in tandem with daring originality.

532 pages, Hardcover

Published August 20, 2024

About the author

Jean-Luc Marion is a French philosopher and Catholic theologian whose work bridges phenomenology, modern philosophy, and theology. A former student of Jacques Derrida, he studied at the University of Nanterre, the Sorbonne, and the École normale supérieure under Derrida, Louis Althusser, and Gilles Deleuze, while privately exploring theology with figures such as Louis Bouyer, Jean Daniélou, Henri de Lubac, and Hans Urs von Balthasar. His early academic career included assistant lectureships at the Sorbonne and a doctorate completed in 1980, after which he taught at the University of Poitiers and later directed philosophy programs at the University Paris X – Nanterre and the University of Paris IV (Sorbonne). Marion has also held visiting and endowed professorships at the University of Chicago Divinity School, where he served as John Nuveen Professor and later as Andrew Thomas and Grace McNichols Greeley Professor of Catholic Studies, retiring in 2022. Elected to the Académie Française in 2008, he delivered the 2014 Gifford Lectures at the University of Glasgow and has received numerous honors including the Premio Joseph Ratzinger, the Karl Jaspers Prize, and the Grand Prix de philosophie de l’Académie française. Marion’s philosophical contributions focus on the concept of givenness, radicalizing phenomenology to explore the “saturated phenomenon,” which exceeds the capacities of cognition, and examining love through intentionality, inspired by Emmanuel Levinas. His major works include God Without Being, Réduction et donation, Étant donné, and Du surcroît, addressing idolatry, love, the gift, and the limits of perception. Marion’s thought has deeply influenced contemporary debates in philosophy of religion, phenomenology, and theology, emphasizing how phenomena show themselves prior to consciousness, how love implicates the invisible other, and how the gift and givenness constitute the foundational conditions for understanding being, knowledge, and relationality.

Reviews

[Yeast · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well crafted but slightly long - the core ideas can be expressed without the phenomenological lexicon. Simply drawing from scripture and theology would suffice. Perhaps Marion is the Evengalist sent to French philosophy students.