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God and Alterity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2024

Angel F. Mendez OP
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In philosophy the question about God has developed, historically, parallel to and intimately connected with metaphysics. In metaphysics, the onto-theological thought of God arises from its dependence on the ontological difference, the thought of the ‘unthought as such.’ Within this philosophical construct, God is ultimately thought as the ‘ground’ of all that is, the Being of beings, the causa sui. This paper, mostly inspired by the philosophy of Jean-Luc Marion and Emmanuel Levinas, argues in favour of a post-metaphysical way of thinking about God: a thinking which releases God from the onto-theological category of Being, and addresses the radical and irreducible alterity of God; a thinking which critiques thinking, in order to address the dilemma of our discourse of Transcendence to be shared within a community-indialogue.

This work is divided into three major sections. Beginning with Marion’s interpretation of Heidegger’s account of the analytic of the Dasein, the first section will suggest that one starts the question of God from God alone—the gift of Love that precedes Being—rather than from Being. The second section will introduce Emmanuel Levinas’ account of the ethical pre-condition of discourse and reason. For Levinas, discourse starts with, or is preceded by, the gaze of the face of the Other who refuses to be reduced into a category of the same. Subsequently, the questions of language and reason, their limits, necessity, and ethical reach will also be addressed. Finally, this paper will revisit the question of God and reflect on the philosopher’s and theologian’s call to dialogue with, and service to, the community.

Type
Research Article
Information
New Blackfriars , Volume 80 , Issue 946 , December 1999 , pp. 552 - 567
Copyright
Copyright © 1999 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers

References

1 Marion, Jean‐Luc, ‘Metaphysics and Phenomenology: A Summary for Theologians.’The Postmodern God: A Theological Reader. Ed., Ward, Graham (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1997), 281Google Scholar.

2 Ibid., 281.

3 Ibid., 282.

4 Marion, Jean‐Luc, God Without Being. Trans., Carlson, Thomas A.. (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1991), 41Google Scholar.

5 Ibid., 42.

6 Ibid., 36.

7 Although our argument throughout this work is not focused on or ultimately founded upon a particular religion (i.e., Christianity), we find some of Marion's reflections on the God of Christianity as a paradigm of God's radical gift of love displayed in and through Christ. It is important, however, to inform the reader of Marion's (and our own) religious context which inevitably influences and shapes his (our) position. Besides a few examples from Christ and Christianity, most of our arguments remain outside the Christian arena–but not without diminishing or underestimating its relevance for our discussion.

8 Marion, xxi.

9 In Marion's critique of metaphysics, the ‘God’ with quotation marks depicts the ‘God’ of philosophy and metaphysics as founded/grounded on the thought of Being, instead of an experience of God which is anterior to Being.

10 Sells, Michael A., Mystical Languages of Unsaying. (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1994), 10Google Scholar.

11 For a critique of Marion's interpretation or misinterpretation of Heidegger's comments on the relationship between God and Being, see Laurence Hemming's essay, Reading Heidegger: Is God Without Being? Jean‐Luc Marion's Reading of Martin Heidegger in God Without Being.' in New Blackfriars (July/August 1995), 343–350. See also John Caputo's essay entitled ‘How to Avoid Speaking of God: The Violence of Natural Theology.’ from Prospects for Natural Theology. Ed., Hang, Eugene Thomas (CUA Press, 1992), 128–150Google Scholar.

12 God Without Being, 44.

13 For more details on the distinction between idol and icon, see chapter one in God without Being, 7–24.

14 Ibid., 76.

15 Ibid., 72–73. The fact that God has primacy over Being, does not rule out a metaphysical approach to God later.

16 Ibid., 138.

17 Ibid., 74.

18 Marion uses Denys' term the ‘Requisite’(Aitia) to denote that “which defies categorical expression since everything is at once predicated of it and yet it is nothing of all these things'.” Ibid., 216 (footnote 55).

19 Ibid., 75.

20 The word God will not be crossed in the rest of this paper; it is nevertheless implied.

21 ‘Metaphysics and Phenomenology: A Summary for Theologians’, 291.

22 Ibid., 291.

23 Ibid., 292.

24 Ibid., 293.

25 God without Being, xxiv.

26 Ibid., xxv.

27 Levinas seldom makes it explicit that the Other is God, he rather and mostly talks about the other as another human person. For the purposes of our paper, we are using Levinas' analysis of the other as a paradigm of the irreducible alterity of God.

28 Levinas, Emmanuel, Otherwise than Being or Beyond Essence. Trans., Lingis, Alphonso. (Boston: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1981), 15Google Scholar. Italics are mine.

29 ‘Metaphysics and Phenomenology’, 290.

30 Ricoeur, Paul, Oneself as Another. Trans., Blarney, Kathleen. (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1994), 189Google Scholar.

31 Otherwise than Being or Beyond Essence, xi v.

32 In the face of the other the ‘ought’ is already there (whether or not I recognize it). For Levinas equality and reciprocity, as well as norms, come from the level of the ‘third.’ This level of the third is a third party, a viewer that views the I from the vantage of the other. The third is the eyes of humanity (the we) calling to form a community based on equality and justice. This social dimension, however, presupposes (or results from) the asymmetrical relationship given by the face of the other. (For a more detailed description of the third, see Totality and Infinity, 212–214).

33 Robert Gibbs, ‘Emmanuel Levinas (1906–1995): Introduction.’The Postmodern God: A Theological Reader, 50.

34 Levinas, Emmanuel, Totality and Infinity. Trans., Lingis, Alphonso. (Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1994), 76Google Scholar.

35 Otherwise than Being or Beyond Essence, 6.

36 As Adriaan Peperzak comments on Levinas' account of the conceptual pair diachrony‐synchrony, these concepts are borrowed from Saussurean linguistics, ‘where they are used to contrast the diachronic evolution of linguistic elements and the synchronic aspect of their state at a certain moment or period of time.’ Cf. Emmanuel Levinas. Basic Philosophical Writings. EdPeperzak, Adriaan T., Critchley, Simon, and Bernasconi, Robert. (Indiana: Indiana University Press: 1996), 186Google Scholar (footnote 21). It is important to note the time factor implicit in this conceptual pair. The saying relationship subtends the said. I bring the saying into the present of said (synchrony), a new saying is still there (diachrony), but I have just made it a theme, and so forth.

37 This ‘pre‐original’ or an‐archic character of the saying means not having an (ontological) ground or origin or beginning (arche). We will show further the relationship between cognition, consciousness, and present, in contrast with a type of knowledge that is initiated by the pre‐original ‘face’ of the other.

38 Ibid., 6.

39 God Without Being, 170.

40 Otherwise than Being or Beyond Essence, 165.

41 Ibid., 165.

42 Emmanuel Levinas, ‘Transcendence and Intelligibility’, Emmanuel Levinas. Basic Philosophical Writings, 151.

43 Otherwise than Being or Beyond Essence, 165.

44 Ibid., 166.

45 Ibid., 166.

46 Ibid., 167.

47 Totality and Infinity, 80.

48 Ibid., 80.

49 Ibid., 80–81.

50 Ibid., 81.

51 Otherwise than Being or Beyond Essence, 170.

52 Ibid., 20.

53 Habermas, Jü;rgen, ‘Selections from Legitimation Crisis’, Critical Theory. The Essential Readings. Eds. Ingram, David and Simon‐Ingram, Julia (New York: Paragon House, 1992), 205Google Scholar.

54 Ibid., 205.

55 Ricoeur, Paul, ‘Hermeneutics and the Critique of Ideology’, The Hermeneutic Tradition. From Ast to Ricoeur. Eds., Ormiston, Gayle L. and Schrift, Alan D.. (NY: State University of New York Press, 1990), 318Google Scholar.

56 Also called ‘meta‐hermeneutics’, a system for helping to ‘formulate the theory of communicative competence., [and] which comprises the art of understanding, the techniques for overcoming misunderstanding and the explanatory science of distortions.’ Ricoeur, 319.

58 Graham Ward, ‘Introducing Jean‐Luc Marion,’ in New Blackfriars (July/August 1995), 319.

59 See Fergus Kerr's ‘Aquinas After Marion.’ in New Blackfriars (July/August 1995, 354–364) drawing parallels and differences between Marion and Aquinas regarding God's existence.

60 We follow the same conclusive remarks on this dialectical tension as explained by Ferraris, Maurizio, ‘The Meaning of Being as a Determinate Ontic Trace’, Religion. Eds. Derrida, Jacques and Vattimo, Gianni (Oxford. Polity Press, 1998), 170–211Google Scholar.

61 From Robert Gibb's introduction to Levinas' ‘God and Philosophy.’ In The Postmodern Cod. A Theological Reader. Ed., Ward, Graham (Oxford: Black well Publishers, 1997), 51Google Scholar.

62 Ward, Graham, Barth, Derrida and the Language of Theology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 245Google Scholar.

63 John Caputo's critique of Marion's God Without Being is sharp and relevant. He outlines some of the ‘dangers’ that Marion's account encompasses, particularly in regard to the areas of Ecclesial centralized power (see Caputo's section ‘Ecclesiology Without Violence,’ 143–147). Caputo is also right in his Derridarian approach to language and conditionality, reflecting upon the implicit and inevitable ‘violence’ of mediation within every discourse–including Marion's!

64 Ferraris, Ibid., 196.

65 God Without Being, 107.

66 I thank Fr. Michael Barber, SJ, and Fr. Fergus Kerr, OP for criticism and advice throughout the process of writing this essay. I am also grateful to Sally Gunter and Andrew Fbrshaw, OP for proof‐reading my work.