Dear Prof. Kearney,
As I understand your objection to Marion, you feel that saturated phenomena do suggest a course of action, but also leave open the space for interpretation ('one can have both a passive and an active response'). I can certainly see how it could at least appear to a person that there is a passive & active component. However, to really have a truly active component, it would seem that you would have to preserve at least a part of the subject apart from the phenomenon. That is, there would have to be a part of the subject which is not constituted by the phenomenon to which it responds. Maybe you can correct me (& I'm definitely open to correction!) but this seems to be denied by Marion. I'm reading here especially §22 of Being Given, under the heading 'The Paradox and the Witness' ('Far from being able to constitute this phenomenon, the I experiences itself as constituted by it.'). By preserving a part of the I, isn't the saturated-ness of the phenomenon undermined?
I'm also thinking loads about the possibility of saying 'no' as well as 'yes' to the phenomenon. While it would seem that a 'no' may be possible, it also seems that a 'yes' is the only real option - the only answer which would be authentically addressing the phenomenon (authentically addressing oneself to the phenomenon). For example, if you set a cup of Earl Grey in front of me, in theory I can refuse it, but that is not really an option for all practical purposes. Slightly less facetiously, I'm reminded of St Paul's discussions on attaining freedom by submitting to slavery - by becoming a slave to Christ I am set free. My ability to address the world properly (through the Logos) is dependent upon my renunciation of my ability to say 'no' to Christ.
Discernment may well have a place here ('discerning the Spirit' etc.), but to bring it down to a solid situation: you dislike discussion that speaks of '"when" Mary receives the Word, never "if" she agrees to receive it.' But isn't that somehow correct? Without this 'when, never if', is the phenomenon really saturating? Wouldn't some part of Mary have to be kept apart from the phenomenon, arbitrary, higher than God? And wouldn't introduction of the arbitrary ruin the phenomenon or at least the response to it, whichever response it is? As a final point, it seems that God/grace/the saturate phenomenon is much more pervasive and invasive than an either/or situation allows. Don't the stories of the disciples on the road to Emmaus, Paul on the road to Damascus, and (perhaps the most telling) Jonah on the road to Nineveh show of situations where 'a simple no' is not really an option for the travelers?
-GA
Dear G-
1) In depriving the self of the power to say no to the saturating phenomenon, Marion is denying human freedom. Here he follows Levinas's notion of a 'passivity beyond all passivity' which, in my view, is a recipe for masochistic passivism. Indeed when Levinas says that the most ethical subject is the most hostaged and persecuted - depriving the subject of choice, will, freedom - I think he is anticipating Marion's notion of the witness as 'interloqué' - the interlocuted (almost electrocuted!) self: speechless, powerless, invaded, overwhelmed by the saturating tsunami of the incoming Other.
It is no accident, moreover, that Marion's other favorite word for the saturated witness is 'l'adonné' - an ambiguous term in french meaning both the 'gifted' one (one involuntarily in receipt of a saturating gift - like Heidegger's Es Gibt?) and the 'addicted' one. As AA teaches, the addict is one who is 'powerless' over his/her condition. I have a real problem with the Marionesque claim that we have no freedom to say yes or no - a criticism spelled out on pages 198-199 of 'Anatheism', as discussed in class. It champions divinity by compromising humanity.
2) You give the example of not being able to say no to a cup of Earl Grey? Really? If someone puts a cup of cold, syrupy, malodorous liquid in front of me (as you can gather I don't like Earl Grey), why can't I say, 'thanks but no thanks'? I don't agree at all with Paul's claim - if it is true - that one has no freedom to say no to Christ? What about half the religions in the world? What about agnostics and atheists? Or many Christians who believe they 'do' have freedom to believe or not believe? Did not Christ say we were 'friends not slaves'? Did he not say he came 'to serve not be served'? Did he not identify himself as a starving stranger in the street rather than a Lord of Power and Glory' (see Matt 25 and Dostoyevsky's 'Grand Inquisitor'). Otherwise is not the washing of the disciples feet a charade?
The reason I quoted the three poets of the Annunciation scene - Levertov, Hudgins and Semonovitch - in second seminar (and first chapter of Anatheism) is precisely because they emphasize the radical freedom of Mary to say yes or no. As Denise Levertov writes: 'She was free to accept or to refuse/ choice integral to humanness'. One does not have to espouse these poets' feminist' readings (though I do) to resist the notion of divine rape, which is surely the only interpretation of the Word as 'invasive' rather than 'persuasive', as imposition rather than invitation, as coercion rather than call.
You call this freedom 'arbitrary' but I do not agree. It is 'motivated' as Husserl or Merleau-Ponty would say, but not determined or predetermined, it is inspired and solicited by incoming Word but without compromising human freedom in any way. That is why I argue in 'Anatheism' for reading of sacred stranger as grace rather than fear, as a free 'if' rather than an ineluctable 'when' (to return to my rejection of Marion's reading of annunciation).
If I had to choose I would prefer humanity to have power and divinity to have none. The Omni-God of a certain metaphysics - omnipotent and omniscient - is a pretty tyrannical god in my opinion who has done countless damage to human beings for millennia. I prefer the powerless god who knocks at the door and waits for the human host to open or refuse to open (as so beautifully captured in Rilke's poem, and in Revelation). The alternative is an Invincible Superintendent of the Universe. In other words, if I had to chose between host and guest in this matter, I would prefer to think of humanity as host and divinity as guest. The contrary, it seems to me, is inhuman and very undivine.
Hope that helps?
keep those great questions coming
yours in prolixity,
Prof Kearney
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