James K. A. Smith Liberating religion from theology.pdf

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International Journal for Philosophy of Religion
46:
17–33, 1999.
© 1999
Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.
17
Liberating religion from theology: Marion and Heidegger
on the possibility of a phenomenology of religion
JAMES K.A. SMITH
Villanova University, Pennsylvania, USA
Problematics: The impossibility of a phenomenology of religion
“The field of religion,” Jean-Luc Marion suggests, “could simply be defined
as what philosophy excludes or, in the best case, subjugates.”
1
But this state of
affairs, of course, puts the ‘philosophy of religion’ (if there were such a thing)
face-to-face with an impossibility, viz., the task of constituting and objec-
tifying that which can neither be constituted nor objectified. (And this, St
Thomas reminds us, we call ‘God.’) This impossibility places the ‘philosophy
of religion’ in a double-bind in which “it would then find itself confronted
with a disastrous alternative: either it would be a question of phenomena that
are objectively definable but lose their religious specificity, or it would be a
question of phenomena that are specifically religious but cannot be described
objectively” (SP 79/103). The religious phenomenon, then, is an impossible
phenomenon, thus making a phenomenology of religion an impossibility.
Despite its impossibility, however, the phenomenology of religion has
developed quite an illustrious history, from its origins in the work of Otto
and Scheler, through its developments by van der Leeuw and Eliade, to its
revisioning in the work of Ricœur and Westphal.
2
In fact, with the gradual
establishment of ‘religious studies’ as a field of investigation distinct from
theology – and the correlative establishment of departments of religion at
‘secular’ or state institutions, phenomenology has been the methodology of
choice in, at least, North American research.
3
The very
possibility
of religious
studies as a discipline is generally traced to movements in Germany in the first
part of this century – and in particular to the work of Rudolf Otto.
4
And in the
same year that Marion sketched the impossibility of a phenomenology of reli-
gion, Louis Dupré was proclaiming a time of revival: “For various reasons,”
he remarked, “the time appears ripe for a reconsideration of the phenomen-
ology of religion.”
5
What is required in this reconsideration is precisely a
rethinking of the very possibility of a phenomenology of religion.
18
JAMES K.A. SMITH
Given this history of the phenomenology of religion and its impact on the
field of religious studies, why is it that Marion thinks it to be impossible?
His answer, of course, is that the “religious phenomenon” is impossible: “A
phenomenon that is religious in the strict sense – belonging to the domain
of a ‘philosophy of religion’ distinct from the sociology, the history, and the
psychology of religion – would have to render visible what nevertheless could
not be objectivized. The religious phenomenon thus amounts to an impossible
phenomenon” (SP 79/103). But what
is
the religious phenomenon? What
differentiates the
religious
phenomenon (Is there only one?) from other
phenomena? And what would that tell us about the phenomenology of
religion and its im/possibility? What will become evident as these ques-
tions are explored is that Marion’s religious phenonemon is utterly singular,
without rival, the phenomenon above all phenomena. As I will attempt
to argue, Marion’s ‘religious phenomenon’ is collapsed into a
theological
phenomenon; correlatively, his (albeit impossible) phenomenology of reli-
gion slides towards a very possible, and very particular, theology. The result is
both a
reduction
of religion to theology, and also
particularization
of religion
as Catholic or at least Christian – which, of course, is also a kind of reduction,
a reduction which reduces the size of the kingdom and bars the entrance to
any who are different. Part of my project will be to locate the
ethical
issues
behind these apparently benign discussions of method, suggesting that behind
Marion’s understanding of the phenomenology of religion lies a certain kind
of
injustice.
6
But what if we were to delineate religious phenomena
differently,
in the
plural? My goal is to argue that just such a space for difference is opened
in the work of the young Heidegger, particularly in his lecture ‘Phenome-
nology and Theology’ (1927) and the earlier lectures from 1920/21, recently
published as
Einleitung in die Phänomenologie der Religion.
Raising the
question of the relation between sciences in the 1927 lecture, Heidegger
carefully distinguishes the ontological “field” of phenomenology, the regional
“field” of a phenomenology of religion, and the “field” or
Sache
of theology
– a helpful corrective to Marion’s philosophy/phenomenology of religion
which collapses these fields. Heidegger wants to ‘recover’ or ‘liberate’
(relèver) religion, as a pretheoretical mode of existence,
from
its theoretical
sedimentation as a ‘science of God’ in theology. The phenomenology of reli-
gion, as a
Religionswissenschaft
distinct from theology, ‘brackets’ committed
participation in a faith community and analyzes the intentions or ‘mean-
ings’ of a religious community or tradition. As such, it stands in contrast to
theology, which investigates religious existence
from within
the commitments
of the community; but is also stands in contrast to a traditional ‘philosophy
of religion’ (if there is one) which generally becomes linked to a partic-
LIBERATING RELIGION FROM THEOLOGY
19
ular theism.
7
Heidegger’s phenomenology of religion does not consider its
“field” to be God but rather the experience and constructions of meaning
within religious communities, opening space for a more pluralist field with
space for difference. Thus, Heidegger’s attention to the distinctions between
phenomenology and theology in fact opens the space for a distinct science
of religion or ‘religious studies’ (Religionswissenschaft) – which would be
precisely a phenomenology of religion distinct from both phenomenology
(as ontology) and theology. This is a space for the study of religion for which
Marion provides no account.
The project of this paper will be to first unpack Marion’s (rather
Scholastic) understanding of the relationship between philosophy and
theology, as well as the latent imperialism in his corresponding notion of
a ‘phenomenology of religion’ (Section 1). Section 2 will sketch Heidegger’s
proposal as outlined in “Phenomenology and Theology,” paying close atten-
tion to his very different construction of the “field” in order to explore the
“space” provided by his model. The final portion of the paper will then raise
the question of the ‘ethics of method’ and the space for difference in a more
‘just’ phenomenology of religion – what we might describe, following a
certain Lyotard, as a
pagan
phenomenology of religion.
8
1. Marion’s piety: The construction and reduction of a “field”
The God of phenomenology: A saturated phenomenon
At least since Kant, the phenomenon, in order to appear, has had to measure
up to certain standards or criteria of phenomenality; that is, its right to appear
has been established by conditions or laws which govern appearance. In Kant,
for instance, the possibility of the phenomenon’s appearance is determined
in advance by “formal conditions,” viz., the coupling of intuition and the
concept. In Leibniz, the law is Sufficient Reason, or rather Sufficient Reason
is the law which governs phenomena. In both, there are appearances which
would be impossible, realities which cannot measure up to this standard of
phenomenality and thus are denied the rights of phenomena (SP 80–83/103–
104). Subject to the law of the finite ego, Marion suggests, these phenomena
fail to ‘show up,’ are barred from making an appearance.
In Husserl, Marion sees a missed opportunity to overturn these conditions:
the first trait of the “principle of all principles” (Ideen
I,
§24) marks a shift
in which the phenomenon
itself
sets the rules for appearance, rather than the
perceiving ego. Here, the phenomenon appears on its own terms, “on the basis
of itself [à
partir de soi-même]
as a pure and perfect appearance of itself, and
not on the basis of another than itself which would not appear (a reason)” (SP
20
JAMES K.A. SMITH
84/105). However, according to Marion, in the second and third traits of the
principle of intuition, this unconditional donation is once again submitted to
the conditions of the finite, constituting ego.
9
As such, the traits of horizon-
ality and reduction undo the principle of donation as unconditioned, such
that the appearance of an absolute, autonomous, irreducible phenomenon
becomes, by right, impossible. Such a phenomenon could never appear, lying
beyond the horizon of possibility and resisting reduction to the
I.
The problem with that, on Marion’s accounting, is that God would never
show up, would never show his [sic] face in phenomenology, could never
appear. For if there is a God (not that this is a question for Marion), he
is certainly absolute, unconditioned, and irreducible. A God that could be
reduced to the perception of the ego or encompassed by the horizon of a
creature or constituted by the
I
would be no God at all for it would not be
wholly other (tout
autre).
If intuition limits the giving of the phenomenon by
a horizon of possibility and reduction to the ego, such that phenomena cannot
be purely given and always fall short by reason of a “logic of shortage” (SP
85/105), then God would fail to appear as a phenomenon precisely because he
exceeds
the limits of a horizon and refuses to be reduced to the ego’s consti-
tuting glance. While phenomena, for Husserl, always appear inadequately,
in the sense that they cannot fulfill intentional meaning and thus admit of
infinities of experience, Marion wants to consider another possibility:
what would occur, as concerns phenomenality, if an intuitive donation
were accomplished that was absolutely unconditioned (without the limits
of a horizon) and absolutely irreducible (to a constituting
I)?
Can we not
envisage a type of phenomenon that would reverse the condition of a
horizon (by surpassing it, instead of being inscribed within it) and that
would reverse the reduction (by leading the
I
back to itself, instead of
being reduced to the
I)?
(SP 89/107)
Such a phenomenon would be given excessively, more than adequately,
exceeding meaning, overflowing the intention of the ego leaving, instead of
an excess of meaning, an overabundance of donation; in short, it would be
a “phenomenon par excellence” (SP 90/107). If complete or adequate fulfill-
ment is the regulative ideal for the phenomenon’s donation in Husserl, then
such a giving without reserve, which saturates and overflows intentionality,
would signify the most excessive phenomenon – a
religious
phenomenon.
A Parisian scholastics: The colonization of religion
The religious phenomenon is an impossible phenomenon, for Marion, not
because it fails to measure up to the “criteria of phenomenality,” but because
LIBERATING RELIGION FROM THEOLOGY
21
it
overwhelms
those conditions – it exceeds them, bedazzles them,
satur-
ates
them with a donation which far exceeds the intention. However, this
impossibility can be overcome; if one has the faith to believe it, the saturated
phenomenon will be recognized as ‘God,’ the “being-given par excellence”
who “gives himself and allows to be given more than any other being-given.”
That he is the given par excellence implies that “God” is given without
restriction, without reserve, without restraint. “God” is given not at all
partially, following this or that outline, like a constituted object that never-
theless offers to the intentional gaze only a specific side of its sensible
visibility, leaving to appresentation the duty of giving further that which
does not give itself, but absolutely, without the reserve of any outline,
with every side open.
10
God’s donation is precisely that giving which challenges the second and third
traits of the “principle of all principles,” viz., the enframing of a horizon
and the reduction to the ego’s intention. God, indeed, is a cheerful giver
who happily gives himself, diffuses himself, and thereby gives himself all
the more, to the point that he risks abandonment and makes himself vulner-
able to the possibility of not appearing. “The phenomenon par excellence,”
Marion suggests, “exposes itself, for that very excellence, to not appearing
– to remaining in a state of adandon” (MP 589). The saturated phenomenon
would not fail to appear because of lack of givenness, but because of an excess
which bedazzles the intentional aim; in short, it would be “a phenomenon
saturated to the point that the world could not accept it. Having come among
its own, they did not recognize it – having come into phenomenality, the
absolutely saturated phenomenon could find no room there for its display”
(SP 118/118).
11
It is now at this juncture that Marion’s conception of a phenomenology of
religion makes its appearance. We must distinguish, he suggests, two types
of saturated phenomena: (1) “pure historical events” and (2) “the phenom-
ena of revelation” (SP 126–127/121). Further, phenomena of revelation (in
a strictly phenomenological sense of “an appearance that is purely of itself
and starting from itself, which does not subject its possibility to any prelim-
inary determination”) occur in three domains: the aesthetic spectacle (idol),
the beloved face (icon), and finally, in
theophany.
“And it is here” – in the
domain of theophanic revelation – “that the question of the possibility of a
phenomenology of religion would be posed in terms that are not new . . . but
simple” (SP 127/121–122). The ‘object’ or topic (Sache) – the “field” – of a
phenomenology of religion is thus linked to a (particular) theophanic revela-
tion: “The being-given par excellence in fact bears the characteristics of a
very
precise
type of manifestation – that of the saturated phenomenon or, more

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