Jean-Luc Marion's phenomenological gift

381 Pages·2017·2.33 MB·English

by  Christine Middleton

T T G U :
HE RINITARIAN IFT NFOLDED
S , R , C
ACRIFICE ESURRECTION OMMUNION

JOHN MARK AINSLEY GRIFFITHS, BSC., MSC., MA

Thesis submitted to the University of Nottingham
for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy

July 2015

Abstract
Contentious unresolved philosophical and anthropological questions beset
contemporary gift theories. What is the gift? Does it expect, or even preclude,
some counter-gift? Should the gift ever be anticipated, celebrated or remembered?
Can giver, gift and recipient appear concurrently? Must the gift involve some
tangible ‘thing’, or is the best gift objectless? Is actual gift-giving so tainted that
the pure gift vaporises into nothing more than a remote ontology, causing
unbridgeable separation between the gift-as-practised and the gift-as-it-ought-to-
be? In short, is the gift even possible?

Such issues pervade scholarly treatments across a wide intellectual landscape,
often generating fertile inter-disciplinary crossovers whilst remaining
philosophically aporetic. Arguing largely against philosophers Jacques Derrida
and Jean-Luc Marion and partially against the empirical gift observations of
anthropologist Marcel Mauss, I contend in this thesis that only a theological –
specifically trinitarian – reading liberates the gift from the stubborn impasses
which non-theological approaches impose.

That much has been argued eloquently by theologians already, most eminently
John Milbank, yet largely with a philosophical slant. I develop the field by
demonstrating that the Scriptures, in dialogue with the wider Christian dogmatic
tradition, enrich discussions of the gift, showing how creation, which emerges ex
nihilo in Christ, finds its completion in him as creatures observe and receive his
own perfect, communicable gift alignment. In the ‘gift-object’ of human flesh,
believers rejoicingly discern Christ receiving-in-order-to-give and giving-in-
order-to-receive, the very reciprocal giftedness that Adamic humanity spurned.
Moreover, the depths of Christ’s crucified self-giving and the heights of
resurrectional glory, culminating in the Spirit’s eternal communion, convey sin-
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bound creatures into the new creation, towards their deified end, through liturgical
mediation which reveals true giftedness. The gift is thus no aporetic
embarrassment but the means of entry into and – more significantly – the very
texture of the new, eucharistic creation.

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Acknowledgements
This doctoral thesis on the divine gift was completed through the generous,
sometimes sacrificial, gifts of numerous individuals. I am indebted to the trustees
of the Isla Johnson Trusts of the Church in Wales for their confidence in the value
of this theological research and their substantial financial support throughout the
period of study. The Rt. Revd. Wyn Evans, Bishop of St. Davids, has provided
consistent support to conclude the research amid the busyness and challenges of
ministry. I can only hope that the academic endeavours enclosed herein prove to
be of value to the Church in its mission and ministry.

My doctoral supervisor, Dr. Simon Oliver, has offered scholarly insight, friendly
encouragement and perspicuous criticism in equal measure from beginning to
completion, with exceptional erudition and clarity. I am grateful to those scholars
who have kindly shared preprints of forthcoming books, namely Professor John
Barclay, the Revd. Dr. Mark Clavier and Professor Karen Kilby. Innumerable
colleagues, past and present, from the Diocese of St. Davids and University of
Wales: Trinity Saint David have, in various ways, sustained me spiritually and
intellectually, alongside the students and staff associated with the university
chaplaincy where I am privileged to minister, together with the faithful of Christ
Church, Carmarthen. Behind all these current influences stand the many
eucharistic communities I have served and within which I have worshipped,
together with those theologians who have taught me and the host of scholars with
whom I have engaged to formulate this thesis. Only now do I appreciate fully the
encouragement to pursue doctoral study given to me many years ago by the late
Revd. Canon Professor Donald Allchin and the late Revd. Dr. Peter Jagger. More
recently, many friends have supported through their prayers, good wishes, humour
and practical support, in particular my Cuddesdon cell group – the Reverends
Peter Babington, Elaine Bielby, Gareth Evans, David Fisher and Liz Griffiths.
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My family have offered ceaseless love and encouragement. My parents, Dewi and
Eilonwy Griffiths, have sustained me in so many ways, not least in allowing me to
pursue many years of study, whilst my brother Elystan Griffiths has offered his
own incisive scholarly insight, albeit from an entirely different academic field.
Saunders and Cynthia Davies, my parents-in-law, have been unfailingly
supportive, whilst my occasional theological conversations with Saunders have
always been illuminating and inspiring. Nevertheless, my most heartfelt thanks
(humanly speaking) must go to those who have lived with the thesis for many
years and reciprocated my absent-minded preoccupation and periods of solitary,
concentrated study with the precious gifts of love, patience and understanding. So
this thesis is dedicated with sincere love and gratitude to my wife, Angharad, and
our children Tomos, Daniel, Gwenfair and Sara: gyda chariad a diolch diffuant i
bob un ohonoch chi.

Cyn llunio’r byd, cyn lledu’r nefoedd wen,
cyn gosod haul na lloer na sêr uwchben,
fe drefnwyd ffordd yng nghyngor Tri yn Un
i achub gwael, golledig, euog ddyn.

Trysorwyd gras, ryw annherfynol stôr,
yn Iesu Grist cyn rhoddi deddf i’r môr;
a rhedeg wnaeth bendithion arfaeth ddrud
fel afon gref, lifeiriol dros y byd.

Pedr Fardd (1775-1845)

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Abbreviations
Journals

Communio Communio: International Catholic Review
IJST International Journal of Systematic Theology
JBL Journal of Biblical Literature
JSNT Journal for the Study of the New Testament
JTS The Journal of Theological Studies
SJT Scottish Journal of Theology

Ancient and medieval works

Conf. Augustine, Confessions
DCD Augustine, De Civitate Dei
DDC Augustine, De Doctrina Christiana
DDI Cusa, De Doctrina Ignorantia
DDPL Cusa, De Dato Patris Luminem
In Ioan Aquinas, Super Evangelium S. Joannis Lectura
In LDC Aquinas, Super Librum de Causis Expositio
In Sent. Aquinas, Scriptum super libros Sententiarum Petri Lombardi
SCG Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles
ST Aquinas, Summa Theologiae
Trin. Augustine, De Trinitate
UEQN Cusa, Ubi est qui natus est Rex Iudaeorum?

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Contents

Introduction ..................................................................................................13
The gift’s theological location .......................................................................... 13
Crucial contentions ........................................................................................... 18
Reconstructing philosophy’s gift through theology .......................................... 21
Methodology and structure ............................................................................... 24

PART I
Locating the Gift ..........................................................................................31

Chapter One
The Contentious Gift ...................................................................................33
Introduction ....................................................................................................... 33
Giving to receive: Marcel Mauss’ observation of agonistic gift exchange....... 36
The embodied, reciprocal gift ................................................................................... 36
A partial fit? .............................................................................................................. 37
Jacques Derrida’s aneconomic amnesia ............................................................ 39
The gift unanticipated, unrecognised, unreturned, unremembered ........................... 39
Christianity’s gift: a tantalising mirage? ................................................................... 41
A new horizon? Jean-Luc Marion’s phenomenological gift ............................. 44
Overcoming onto-theology ....................................................................................... 45
Givenness .................................................................................................................. 47
Bracketing the gift ..................................................................................................... 49
Overwhelming gift: the saturated phenomenon ........................................................ 50
Christianity’s response: three counterclaims ............................................................ 52
Love’s spiralling: John Milbank on gift-exchange ........................................... 57
God’s gift: radically unreturnable, asymmetrically reciprocal .................................. 57
Boundless trinitarian giving ...................................................................................... 60
Sacrifice subverted .................................................................................................... 62
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Being, eternity and mercy: Antonio López on the positivity and permanence of
the gift ............................................................................................................... 64
Originary experience ................................................................................................. 64
The positivity of being .............................................................................................. 66
Merciful self-giving .................................................................................................. 69
Conclusion ........................................................................................................ 73

Chapter Two
The Trinitarian Gift ....................................................................................77
Introduction ....................................................................................................... 77
God as being-itself: giving without receiving? ................................................. 79
Being-in-motion and being-as-such .......................................................................... 80
Perfection and participation ...................................................................................... 82
Separated and connected ........................................................................................... 85
Constituted through giving: creation’s participation in being .......................... 86
No pre-gift ................................................................................................................. 87
Creation’s gifted beginning ....................................................................................... 88
One giver ................................................................................................................... 89
Many recipients ......................................................................................................... 91
Preserving the gift ..................................................................................................... 93
Becoming givers ....................................................................................................... 94
Counter-gift? ............................................................................................................. 95
The gift’s trinitarian paradigm .......................................................................... 96
Processions ................................................................................................................ 97
Relations ................................................................................................................. 101
Persons .................................................................................................................... 102
Reciprocity .............................................................................................................. 103
From procession to mission ............................................................................ 106
Translating the processions ..................................................................................... 106
Balthasar and Urkenosis .......................................................................................... 108
Creation’s return ............................................................................................. 112
From procession to production ............................................................................... 112
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