On the Basis of Love. A Phenomenological Response to Saskia Wendel’s Criticism of Revelation in Connection With Jean-Luc Marion

Abstract

With the thesis that “Revelation” should be treated exclusively as a category of interpretation and not as a reason for faith, Saskia Wendel has initiated an intensive debate in systematic theology. Her position has been confronted with the question of whether it depicts adequately the externality of the revelation event. This essay places Jean-Luc Marion’s phenomenology of revelation in this debate and brings into focus the aesthetical moment of revelation called by Wendel “apparitio”. On the one hand Marion advocates that revelation as an event of unconditional love carries an unavailable alterity and an excess of meaning. On the other hand, his concept urges to distance from the figure of objective evidence shaped by Hans Urs von Balthasar because even “saturated phenomena” such as love and revelation remain related to hermeneutic horizons and at the same time set them in motion. The resulting dynamic relation between subject and phenomena can be deepened with the historical transcendental philosophy of Richard Schaeffler.