Jie Romen Lim August 14,

2021
Modern and Post-Modern Philosophy Mr. Garry Gulay,
MA.

Naming the Unnamable God: Levinas, Derrida, and Marion

Article Review

“God” – this word became a problem during the postmodern period where

thinkers such as Levinas, Derrida, and Marion are all trying to understand what that

word might mean in the contemporary world once that which was understood by this

term previously has been proclaimed dead. Indeed, it appears that the dead God has

been resurrected in what has been dubbed the "theological turn of French

phenomenology." Those three philosophers mentioned above then attempted to think of

God as anything different than the “God” of ontotheology.

Based on my readings, the similarity of these three French philosophers is they

disregard the idea of relating God to human beings. Let us first discuss Levinas’

approach. For Levinas, in order to escape from ontotheology is to use ethics as a way

out. Well, I agree with Levinas. To agree with him, I have this question in my mind

where I found it useful in explaining Levinas’ approach to God. How can one resist

viewing oneself as a subject aiming at the other (as an object) to see what use he may

make of this other? or the other way around? For Levinas, “God is not merely the first

other, but rather the other than the other, the other otherwise, the other with an alterity

antecedent to the alterity of the other person, prior to the ethical compulsion to the

neighbor”.(Levinas, 2000) God is “transcendent to the point of absence, to the point of

confusion in which the replacement for the neighbor rises in grandeur and the
transcendence of the infinite is exalted to its glory,” not an object. We cannot predicate

ontotheological labels on this God who is "other else." We can only speak to him as a

"he," whose infinite can only be attested to by the infinity of human responsibility.(Min,

2006)

What does Levinas want to tell us? He simply says that the subject cannot be

understood in relation to an object, and human beings cannot be understood in relation

to God. Rather, in order to understand the relationship of human beings to God, one

must first interpret human beings as human beings, that is, as beings who stand on their

own, sufficient to themselves, and who do not require God to know what it is to be

human and finite.(Schrijvers, 2011) As a result, Levinas claims that humans must be

“atheist-capable”(Lévinas, 1965). The finite does not point to the infinite as its

fulfillment, nor does the infinite satisfy the alleged lesser finite creature's longing.

Also, speaking of relation, his idea of “relation without relation” rejects the

explanation of the creature as a reduction of the transcendent creator. An explanation

like this is the outcome of a theoretical approach to transcendence. But, according to

Levinas, transcendence is more than just a theoretical concept. God is not the solution to

the difficulties that finitude creates. If God were the solution to the difficulties of

finitude, then God would be both the term and the end of the connection. A theoretical

approach to transcendence, according to Levinas oversees the positive role of the

creature in relation to the creator. In Levinas' terms, the creature's atheism is a source of

great pride for the creator. This merely indicates that we may be able to speak of God

anew via the face of the other. According to Levinas, what does the other mean? This is

the one thing that cannot be hypothesized, since he is more or less than what I can

portray of him. The other does not deprive me of my power and knowledge; rather, he

uses my power and knowledge to change their perspective. “I do not need them for my

own sake, but for the benefit of the other,” Levinas would remark.
 The word god, on the other hand, is only a language for Levinas. Language is

only capable of repeating what has previously been stated. Because it is not a message,

the face of the Other – God – gives us no hints. Language is based on signs, and it is

used to communicate about objects or concepts. Levinas, on the other hand, wants us to

remember that the Face communicates to us before words. As a result, rather than

language, it is referred regarded as a trace from the Face. A trace is so named because it

is a non-representation of something that does not exist. As a result, it is considered a

mystery.

As a result, since God is at the center of the discussion, faith is greatly influenced.

Religion, according to Levinas, is not the same as believing in one entity or the other.

The lure of the other is what religion is all about. Furthermore, religion does not include

theology because God cannot be reduced to a philosophy or an idea. With this,

everybody in the world was tempted in the sense that the desire to see the Other's face

would lead us into the pit of another temptation, idolatry. To know is always to want to

know, a curiosity that, in the end, wants to know itself. In other words, we created our

own god.

Now let us talk about Derrida’s approach to God where it is totally different

from Levinas’. Derrida shares Levinas’s rejection of ontotheology but approaches the

question of naming the unnamable God by focusing more explicitly on the potential of

negative theology as such.(Min, 2006) Derrida is well-known in his idea of

deconstruction. Deconstruction is a type of criticism. As such, it requires an object: its

process is described not in the abstract but in relation to the discourses of Western

traditions. Nonetheless, some deconstruction stratagems may be identified.(Barker,

1996)

In relation to God, I would like to focus on the part where it is mentioned in the

article that negative theology is possible only as an event and takes place in the course
of prayer. What Derrida means is that even in prayer, God is still reduced though some

prayers can be done without using words intended for God. Why is that? It is because

our purpose of why we pray, how we pray and what we prayer for is to connect with

God. Every prayer is intended to God. The words of prayer “are carried, both exported

and deported, by a movement of ference (transference, reference, difference) toward

God. They name God, speak of him, speak him, speak to him, let him speak in them, let

themselves be carried by him, make (themselves) a reference to just what the name

supposes to name beyond itself, the nameable beyond the name, the unnameable

nameable”.(Derrida, 1995)

Thus, for Derrida, the naming of God, who cannot be named either positively or

negatively at the level of predication, is possible only as negative theology in its self-

transcending, self-negating movement as prayer to another whose name remains

forever unspecified, or as pure reference without a referent and only as a movement of

referential transcendence inherent in all human struggles for authenticity and justice.

The third philosopher who tried to come up with different approach to God is

Jean-Luc Marion. Marion is best known with this concept of Givenness. Marion believes

that thinking of God in terms of the conventional category "Being" lowers God to an all-

too-human idea he labels "Dieu." In a way, we are doing injury to God and our idea of

God by significantly limiting what is inherently indeterminable.

Marion believes that God must be considered outside of the ontological

distinction and outside of the question of Being itself. By doing so, we liberate ourselves

from an idolatry in which we reduce God to our own all-too-limited mental

conceptions.(Leask & Cassidy, 2005) Marion encourages us to consider God in light of

St. John's proclamation that "God is love" (1 Jn 4,8). He feels that love has not been

adequately considered in the metaphysical tradition. Thinking about love will bring the

philosopher to a more accurate picture of God as an infinite giver/gift.

 What is fascinating about Marion's study is his understanding of the nature of

the human mind and its relationship to the existence of God. When we think about

things and try to comprehend what they are, our minds have a propensity to categorize

them in such a manner that it is sometimes difficult for things, people, and God "in

itself" to break through our own notion of things. Marion cites philosophers' proclivity

to talk about God's Being in terms of evidence. When we reduce God to conceptual

evidence of existence or non-existence, we categorize or identify God in ways that are

fundamentally limited to our conceptual knowledge.

Marion even charges Thomas of performing the same thing in his viae, where

Thomas refers to God as "id quod omnes nominunt" frequently. Thomas is accused of

mentioning God conceptually and idolatrously in his proofs.(Marion, 2008) Thus, our

mental knowledge of objects, people, and God determines them. In certain ways, we

cannot help but do it. In another sense, we must be willing to accept that things,

including God, are not inevitably and completely defined by our mental knowledge of

them. Things are given to us before we can comprehend them theoretically. Their being

is originally unconditioned by our knowledge of them. They have an original being

unto themselves distinct but somehow knowable by us—a givenness.

In conclusion, all these philosophers have presented their different ways to

approach God in a non-ontotheological way. They tried their best to explain the

transcendence of God as experienced in the infinite responsibility to a human other, in

the excess of intuition, or in its emptiness where it is simply not identical with divine

transcendence in its full reality. Even lived human experience cannot provide adequate

evidence to explain God’s transcendence.

References:
1. Barker, V. (1996). Derrida’s god. 153–160.

2. Derrida, J. (1995). On the Name. Stanford University Press.

3. Leask, I., & Cassidy, E. (2005). Givenness and God: Questions of Jean-Luc

Marion. In Givenness and God: Questions of Jean-Luc Marion.

4. Levinas, E. (2000). God, death, and time. Stanford University Press.

5. Lévinas, E. (1965). Totalité et infini : Essai sur l’extériorité. Phaenomenologica, 8,

XVIII-284 p.

6. Marion, J. L. (2008). The Visible and the Revealed. In The Visible and the Revealed.

https://doi.org/10.5860/choice.46-3769

7. Min, A. K. (2006). Naming the unnameable god: Levinas, Derrida, and Marion.

International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, 60(1–3), 99–116.

https://doi.org/10.1007/s11153-006-0010-9

8. Schrijvers, J. (2011). Ontotheological turnings? In SUNY series in theology and

continental thought.