Abstract

For Husserl excess is a part of any phenomenon. For Heidegger the horizon of the phenomenon is also excessive. Levinas and Marion ask us to think about what exceeds the horizon. I focus on Marion’s fifth kind of saturated (transcendent) phenomenon, revelation. How are we to understand it? Marion says he argues only for the possibility of revelation, but only Jesus could be the revelation for which he argues. The excess of the divine cannot remain merely a metaphysical beyond. It must reveal itself in the world as a possible phenomenon, as Flesh, for there is no excess without flesh, and no flesh without being. Excess is either enfleshed or thingly excess. For the Christian this being-together of flesh and word in God means the same being-together in us: Christian life is fully incarnate life, life as enspirited flesh rather than as dead body. Thus the being-together of flesh and word is “in the accusative”. Christian life is, prior to action, a life of submission. That, however, explicitly puts Christian belief and practice at odds with any unrecuperated, merely metaphysical metaphysics which undercuts not only the Christian dogma of Christ’s incarnation and incarnate resurrection, but also the Christian message that the divine life is found only in the life that bends its knee and seeks to bring about justice: dikaiosunae.