Joshua Roe

Phenomenology of Revelation: The disclosure of revelation in

Karl Barths theology and Jean-Luc Marions topology of
phenomena
Introduction
The accounts of revelation offered by Karl Barth and Jean-Luc Marion have ambiguous
attitudes towards phenomenology. Phenomenology is examined directly by both, most
notably, with the work of Martin Heidegger. However the extent their individual engagements
with phenomenology differ. Barth is a theologian and only examines Heidegger as a
clarification of his theology of revelation. However, this essay will also consider the
phenomenological implications of his theory of revelation when he is not explicitly dealing
with phenomenology. In particular, it will be argued that in his debate with Emil Brunner, he
shows that he is actually closer to Heideggers account of the Nothing in What is Metaphysics
than Barth admits himself. Unlike Barth, Marion is has done several extensive studies on
phenomenology and as such has wider recognition within the school of phenomenology.
Recently, John McNassor has compared Barth and Marion based on their theological method.1
He argues that Marions account of revelation is more complete than Barths because he
presupposes the importance of the immediacy of experience, whereas he thinks that Barths
resistance to the value of human experience means that he tends towards devaluing creation.
Marion, like Barth, also advocates the development of theology that is not determined by
human ideas, which leads him to develop the notion of saturated phenomena. Marion claims
that phenomenology, as it was concieved by Husserl, did not grasp the richness of experience
because he limited experience to what can be grasped through concepts. Against Husserl,
1

John H McNassor, Revelation and Phenomenology in the Christologies of Karl Barth and Jean-Luc
Marion: A Case Study in Theological Method (Ann Arbor, MI: Proquest, Umi Dissertation Publishing,
2011).

Joshua Roe - Phenomenology of Revelation

Marion argues that there is a more basic form of experience which is unmediated by human
concepts, which he describes as pure givenness. Pure givenness is the state of experience that
is prior to our application of concepts to this experience and thus is pure content or intuition
without being affected by human understanding (or intentionality). Marion argues that there
are special cases of phenomena can reveal the pure givenness, which he labels saturated
phenomena. These are cases where the experience exceeds our capacity to find concepts to
understand it. The difference between pure givenness and saturated phenomena is that while
pure givenness can only occur before conceptualisation, saturated phenomena can appear
after conceptualisation. The limitation of conceptualisation in saturated phenomena is thus an
account of revelation because it cannot be established by human reason (as in natural
theology).

Marion claims that the effect of saturated phenomena is that it negates

conceptualisation so that its distinctive character is in pure givenness. However, it will be

argued that Marions account of saturated phenomena displays ambiguity that on one side is
restrictive about the accessibility of pure givenness but on the other side suggests that pure
givenness is universally accessible. The former aspect is closer to Barths suspicion of natural
theology and more distanced to phenomenology. Yet the more universal accessibility of
givenness leans more towards phenomenology than revelation. Barth and Marion share in
common an ambiguous relationship to phenomenology because they both dismiss
phenomenology in the face of a theology of revelation they also display closer affinity to
phenomenology than their sometimes admit.

Barth and Revelation

Karl Barths (1886-1968) theological method begins with the revelation of Christ and then
examines the world from this revelation. He begins with the particularity of Christian
revelation and then uses this as a framework to order the rest of the (secular) world. This is
based on a strong notion of original sin, whereby the human person is in no position to be able

Joshua Roe - Phenomenology of Revelation

to judge the truth of Scripture by their own means. For example, in Church Dogmatics he
writes: It can only be that the Bible gives itself to be understood by us, so that we come to
hear the Bible as Gods Word.2 He claims that this does not mean that revelation is completely
separated from the secular world but asserts that revelation presupposes the secular.3 The
difference is not between the secular and the Christian, but between the attitudes of the
world and the Christian attitude. Without Gods revelation, we would experience not be able
to understand the purpose of the world as part of Gods creation.4 The purpose of revelation in
Barths theology is to show how the secular is part of Gods creation and so the immediate, like
the particular, is only really recognised through the theological.
Despite rejecting the priority of the particular, which is the distinguishing feature of
phenomenology, John McNassor argues that Barth displays sensitivity towards his
contemporaneous philosophical developments. He bases this argument on the later work of
Barth, in particular his Introduction to Evangelical Theology. Here Barth states that theology
can indeed use philosophy just so long as theology is not made subordinate to philosophy.5
However, in this section Barth makes reference to particular philosophies only in passing when
he writes, It makes no difference whether this regulation is proclaimed in the name of
Aristotle, Descartes, Kant, Hegel, or Heidegger.6 However, this is not sufficient to support
McNassors argument that Barth, like Marion, actively engages with contemporary philosophy.
In fact, the brevity of this section indicates the opposite, that he is not concerned with
philosophical engagement, except in the most minimal sense. To further examine this
indication we will have to examine Barths more extensive engagement with philosophy.

Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, Study ed. (London: T & T Clark, 2009), I.1, p. 116.
Barth, I.1, pp. 1689.
4
Barth, I.1, p. 155.
5
McNassor, p. 6.
6
Karl Barth, Evangelical Theology: An Introduction (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1963), p. 91.
3

Joshua Roe - Phenomenology of Revelation

Barths reading of Heidegger

In Church Dogmatics, Barth examines the interaction between philosophy and theology more
closely. His engagements with Martin Heidegger are most significant here because they
provide a grounding point for comparison with Marion, who developed his account of
givenness through a close examination of Heidegger. The most significant dealing Barth has in
Church Dogmatics with Heidegger is in 50 entitled God and Nothingness. His engagement
with Heidegger is not for theological reasons but to establish the difference between secular
philosophy and theology.
Overall, the purpose of the section is to distinguish the negative aspects of Gods creation to
nothingness as equivalent to sin.7 Barth distinguishes between the negation (nicht) and
nothingness (das Nichtige). The meaning of nothingness is ascribed to value rather than in
terms of quantity, as Barth states Nothingness is not nothing.8 Nothingness is then creaturely
activity that cannot be attributed to Gods nature; it is the creatures movement away from
God. This is to be distinguished from mere negativity, which is part of Gods creation.
Barths engages with his contemporary philosophers by first addressing Sartres notion of
nothingness and then Heideggers dealing with the nothing (das Nichts). Since Marion does not
deal in any great length with Sartre, for the purposes of comparison this study will only
examine Barths engagement with Heidegger. Barth focuses on Heideggers essay What is
Metaphysics? First of all, Barth makes it clear that Heideggers appeal for recognition of the
nothing does not make him a nihilist. This remark is made in response to Heideggers emphasis
on the importance of angst, which Barth thinks was intended to bring out a positive basis for
science and metaphysics. Barth thinks that Heidegger conceals the place of God with the

7
8

Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, Study ed. (London: T & T Clark, 2009), III.3, p. 307.
Das Nichtige ist nicht das Nichts Barth, III.3, p. 349.

Joshua Roe - Phenomenology of Revelation

nothing. This is a purely negative replacing of God, in which the nothing completely and
irreversibly replaced the role of God.9
Barths reading of Heidegger shows an ambiguous relationship to philosophy. On the one
hand, Barth makes a careful and close reading of Heideggers What is Metaphysics? On the
other hand he rejects the validity of Heideggers conclusions for his own project. Barth
concludes:
But one conclusion is inevitable. The nothing of Heidegger, which may also be called
being and under either title arrogates the function of God, can never be identified with
nothingness in the Christian sense.10
Barth asserts that the basis for this rejection is that the nothing arrogates the function of
God, this was shown to be an inaccurate understanding of Heideggers thought. Here, Barth is
arguing from a strong revelatory perspective that makes a sharp distinction between the
natural world and the Christian meaning of salvation. However, Barths view of Heidegger is
probably influenced by his perception of Heidegger as entirely uninterested in revelation.
When Barth was informed of Heideggers work in 1924 by Thurneysen, Heideggers
relationship to Christianity was unclear. Thurneysen had stated that he was not clear about
Heideggers own position.11 Elsewhere, Barth writes that Heidegger has nothing to say on
theology.12 Given Barths conviction about the distinctiveness of Christianity and he perception
of Heideggers relationship to theology, it would have been natural for Barth to have
accentuated the differences between his own and Heideggers thinking. In order to mediate
between Heidegger and Barth it will now be argued that elsewhere Barth does display an
attitude that is compatible with Heideggers account of nothingness.
9

Barth, III.3, p. 343.

Barth, III.3, p. 348.
11
Kenneth Oakes, Karl Barth on Theology and Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), p. 85;
Karl Barth, Karl Barth - Eduard Thurneysen Briefwechsel: 1921-1930, ed. by Hinrich Stoevesandt, Karl
Barth Gesamtausgabe, 5 (Zrich: Theolog. Verl., 1974), pp. 22830.
12
Karl Barth, Karl Barth - Rudolf Bultmann Briefwechsel: 1911-1966, ed. by Hinrich Stoevesandt, Karl
Barth Gesamtausgabe, 1 (Zrich: Theolog. Verl., 1981), p. 127.
10

Joshua Roe - Phenomenology of Revelation

In his debate with Brunner, Barth makes an important objection to natural theology by
introducing the problem of capacity.13 Barth argues that the job of the preacher should not be
to try to improve the audiences capacity for recognising revelation because this does not
appreciate the detrimental effect of sin.14 Instead, Barth argues that the role of the preacher is
to meet their audience in their own existing rejection of the Gospel.15 Revelation is purely the
work of the Holy Spirit and cannot be altered by human means. The effect of this critique of
the capacity of revelation made by Barth is an affirmation of the contingency of the human
capacity for knowledge (in particular, natural knowledge of God). It is implicitly opposed to the
anthropology that proposes a universal capacity of understanding for all human beings: And
this impotency might be the tribulation and affliction of those who, as far as human reason can
see, possess neither reason, responsibility nor ability to make decisions: new-born children
and idiots [sic].16 The anthropology that accepts the capacity for the natural knowledge of God
does not contemplate the absence of such human capacities and thus does not consider the
possibility that the incapacitated may have an impact on our understanding of capacity. Barth
extends this principle further to argue that there is no pristine capacity for natural knowledge
of God that is unaffected by the incapacitating effects of sin.
The comparison of Barths argument against Brunners natural theology with Heideggers
account of nothingness shows that Barth is closer to Heidegger than he actually admits. In
What is Metaphysics?, Heidegger argues that the concept of the nothing is not properly
grasped in science because science is concerned only with beings and wishes to know
nothing of the nothing.17 The objection is that science only considers presence and not the
13

Andrew Moore, Theological Critiques of Natural Theology, in The Oxford Handbook of Natural
Theology, ed. by Russell Re Manning, John Hedley Brooke, and Fraser Watts (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2013). I would also like to acknowledge this point to a conversation with Andrew Moore.
14
Karl Barth, No! Answer to Karl Brunner, in Natural theology: comprising Nature and Grace, by Emil
Brunner and Karl Barth (London: Geoffrey Bles, The Centenary Press, 1946), pp. 1256.
15
Barth, No! Answer to Karl Brunner, pp. 1278.
16
Barth, No! Answer to Karl Brunner, pp. 889.
17
Martin Heidegger, What Is Metaphysics?, in Basic writings from Being and time (1927) to The task of
thinking (1964), ed. by David Farrell Krell, Rev. and expanded ed. (London: Routledge, 1993), p. 96.

Joshua Roe - Phenomenology of Revelation

possibility that this presence is affected by its absence. The scientific approach is one in which
deficiencies in beings are considered as exceptions that do not affect normal cases. In contrast,
nothingness and its relationship to being inverts this structure. For example, when he states:
Da-sein means: being held out into the nothing, he is proposing that Da-sein as the normal
case is maintained by resisting the exceptional cases.18 The nothing represents the ultimate
failure of all the human capacities, including existence and knowledge, and that normality can
be maintained only temporarily. The strength of human knowledge is thus an illusion because
it has to hide its own vulnerability.
Similarly, Barths criticism against natural theology is that natural knowledge of God selfdeceives by supposing a greater capacity for knowledge than is permitted by our sinful state.
Instead he claims that the more dominant human condition is one in which human beings do
not have the capacity to know God. Both Barth and Heidegger share the principle that positive
human knowledge is affected by its weakness. When Barth argued that Heidegger uses
nothingness as the positive basis of science, he did not grasp implications of its epistemological
limitations. Therefore he overlooks their common attitude towards the incapacity of human
knowledge.
McNassor describes Barth as engaging in respectful conversation with philosophy.19 This may
be a true assessment of his intention but does not take into account the content of Barths
engagement. When Barth makes explicit engagement with Heidegger he is unable to grasp its
similarity to his own thinking. The weakness in Barths account of revelation is that by outright
rejecting the influence of philosophy in theology, he does not recognise his own implicit
agreement with secular philosophies. The revelation of Christ is not as distinct from the
phenomenology of Heidegger as Barth would like to have it. Implicitly this suggests that
phenomenology could provide a basis for understanding revelation. However, Barths
18
19

Heidegger, p. 103.
McNassor, p. 6.

Joshua Roe - Phenomenology of Revelation

resistance to secular philosophies means that he has not developed this possibility. In contrast,
Marions account of saturated phenomena has a more explicit engagement of the relationship
between phenomenology and revelation. Thus Marions account of revelation and
phenomenology provides a clearer foundation for assessing the phenomenological basis of a
theology of revelation.

Marion and Saturated Phenomena

Jean-Luc Marion (1946-) has developed a special case of phenomena that he calls saturated
phenomena, which are distinguished from common phenomena. Saturated phenomena
provide the basis for Marions account of revelation because these have special access to
content that cannot be dominated by human cognitive capacity. Underlying Marions
conception of saturated phenomena is the pure givenness of phenomena. He argues that the
most basic element in all phenomena is the fact that it was given prior to being understood by
humans, or in phenomenological terms, intentionality. Saturated phenomena are the special
cases that show this pure givenness of phenomena.
He argues that the special case of saturated phenomena has been neglected in
phenomenology. The given, Marion claims, is part of experience that cannot be fully disclosed
within our human capacity to construct an order of the world. He expresses this point through
Kants terminology, in which the givenness of phenomena exceeds intuition and concept.
However he does not think that all phenomena overflow intuition and concept as he makes a
distinction between saturated and poor phenomena. Kant had focused on poor phenomena
because he was restricted by the limited set of cases that he considers.20 Marion defines poor
phenomena as that which is lacking in intuition. For example mathematics or the natural
sciences are poor in givenness because they restrict the content of experience to what can be
grasped through intentionality.
20

Jean-Luc Marion, Being given: Toward a Phenomenology of Givenness, trans. by Jeffrey Kosky
(Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2002), p. 203.

Joshua Roe - Phenomenology of Revelation

In saturated phenomena, intuition is not restricted by concept and they are not bounded by
intention. This explained through the significance of the flesh for Marion. The flesh is a
saturated phenomenon because it is not reducible to the interaction with an inanimate object.
He distinguishes between the flesh and the object because the flesh offers no resistance
whereas an object resists.21 This means, to put it into Heideggerian terms, that an object
maintains its being even when Being withdraws. The non-resistance of the other flesh means
that the flesh easy disappears, by which Marion means it becomes an object again.22 This
means that the flesh belongs in the body in such a way that it withdraws into the body.
However, this body is unlike an object because it is not made to appear by the withdrawing of
the flesh. This process of withdrawing shows how the flesh does not offer resistance; the flesh
disappears into the body. Therefore when someone recognises the flesh, they recognise
something that in its vulnerability, they have no control over because the only thing that can
be controlled is the body.
In other words, when I encounter the other, their vulnerability shows the weakness of my
intention. My intention can only act on the other by making it into an object but this restricts
intuition. The flesh is based in intuition because it appears. It is based on concept insofar as
the body can also appear as an object (for example in a medical examination). The body is
saturated insofar as the flesh makes it appear. Thus saturation is recognised when the body is
not regarded for itself but as given by the flesh. The significance of the flesh as saturated is
that could never be accounted for in bodily terms. In Marions account of the flesh he seems to
suggest a sharp division between the saturated phenomenon (flesh) and the poor
phenomenon (body). This leads to the objection that has been made against Marion by Bruce
Ellis Benson and Graham Ward that the notion of saturated phenomena is too pure to be
useful for the engagement between the world and revelation.
21

Jean-Luc Marion, The Erotic Phenomenon (Chicago; London: University of Chicago Press, 2007), p. 118.
Jean-Luc Marion, In Excess: Studies of Saturated Phenomena, trans. by Robyn Horner and Vincent
Berraud (New York: Fordham University Press, 2004), pp. 889.
22

Joshua Roe - Phenomenology of Revelation

The Purity of Revelation in Saturated Phenomena

Bruce Ellis Benson argues that Marion performs a double move when he focuses on the
Eucharist for his explication of saturated phenomena. He intends to overcome the tradition of
philosophy, which is bound to common phenomena and thus restricts divine revelation. Yet
his appeal to the Eucharist, Benson claims, depends on the Aristotelian distinction between
substances and accidents.23 The problem is that the meaning of the Eucharist depends upon
both the upholding and suspension of what Benson describes as the human logos. The bread
and wine in the Eucharist must still be understood as bread and wine in one sense, but in
another sense they are not because not all bread and wine have the presence of the divine. In
the Eucharist they are different, but not totally different, because they could not be
interchanged with anything. Benson claims that Marion attempts to overcome this paradox by
appealing to a third way, which is an apophatic theology that proceeds by negating the
negation.24 The purpose of the third way is to resist both an immediate affirmation and an
immediate negation; on the grounds that these do not go far enough to properly grasp the
nature of God. Hence, Benson characterises Marions third way as insisting on a pure call.25
There are two potential problems with this notion of the pure call. One of these, which Benson
attributes to Derrida, is that the pure call actually may not be possible. However, this concern
is outside of the scope of this essay. The other is that the notion of the pure call makes an
implicit statement about common phenomena. Marions account of the third way is built on
an opposition between praise and predication, in which he argues that praise is fundamentally
different from predication.26 Benson objects that praise does in fact take the form of
predication, but that it can do so without completely destroying the meaning within

23

Bruce Ellis Benson, Graven Ideologies: Nietzsche, Derrida & Marion on Modern Idolatry (Inter-Varsity
Press,US, 2002), pp. 199200.
24
Benson, pp. 2067.
25
Benson, p. 208.
26
Jean-Luc Marion, In the Name: How to Avoid Speaking of Negative Theology, in God, the gift, and
postmodernism, ed. by John D. Caputo and Michael J. Scanlon (Bloomington, Ind: Indiana University
Press, 1999), pp. 2053 (pp. 2930).

10

Joshua Roe - Phenomenology of Revelation

revelation.27 Similarly, Graham Ward argues that Marion has too much of an exclusive
distinction between the gift and the economy of exchange; as Ward claims that it is only
possible for us to understand the gift through the economy of exchange. Ward also raises an
objection against Marion regarding the place of Biblical revelation in his thought. Ward argues
that, for Marion, Biblical revelation remains outside of Heideggers notion of ontological
difference, he writes; biblical revelation is the hermeneutical key itself here God is declared
to be indifferent to ontological difference.28 This is a similar objection to Bensons as it raises
the objection that a pure understanding of revelation might not be possible. The common
objection of Benson and Ward concerns how Marion divides between common phenomena
and saturated phenomena. This problem is evident in Marions work The Erotic Phenomenon,
which represents an application of the theory of saturated phenomenon that he had already
developed.
The problem that concerns Marion in the phenomenology of Heidegger is that it does not
consider the other. He asks rhetorically: How are we to reconcile the difference between two
beings with the difference between Being and a being?29 Marions objection to Heideggers
ontological difference between Being and beings draws on the criticism of Heidegger made by
Emmanuel Lvinas (1906-95).
In Totality and Infinity, Lvinas argues that Heidegger subordinates the other to Being.
Heideggers concern with Being means that all relations come under this priority, which is also
a subjective orientation. The other has no special demands different to any other objects
within the world, hence Lvinas writes that the Heideggerian ontology affirms the primacy of

27

Benson, pp. 2213.

Graham Ward, The Theological Project of Jean-Luc Marion, in Post-secular philosophy (London:
Routledge, 1998), pp. 22939 (p. 235).
29
Jean-Luc Marion, Reduction and Givenness: Investigations of Husserl, Heidegger, and Phenomenology
(Evanston, Ill: Northwestern University Press, 1998), p. 127.
28

11

Joshua Roe - Phenomenology of Revelation

freedom over ethics.30 Heideggers account of beings and Being is primarily oriented at objects
in the world, which means that they are not valued as other subjects. The only subject that is
present is the first person, which Lvinas thinks distorts the ethical relationship between
people. Against this, he argues that the ethical relationship to the other precedes its
ontological status. In other words, Lvinas proposes that recognising the other should be ones
ultimate concern rather than conceiving of the other as one among many beings in the world.
Following Lvinas, Marion argues that Heideggers resolution only concerns two different ways
of Being for beings. One of these concerns Dasein belonging in existence, and the other
concerns the thing in the world. Similarly, the ontological difference between beings and Being
does not recognise the other as having concerns different from ordinary objects in the world.
In Totality and Infinity, Lvinas does not deny that the other can be both a being and
participate as a being in Being. The ethical relation to the other disrupts the
comprehensiveness, which Heidegger claims for the question of being: in entering into
relation with something other, this relation does not take form on the plane of pure being.31
Thus he merely makes the claim that the question of Being should not be the primary concern
when considering the other.
In contrast to Lvinas, Marion claims that the call of the other, that arises before the question
of Being, effaces all conceptualisation, including the question of Being. Thus, with respect to
the erotic relation, he states: The search for a concept must therefore describe the erotic
phenomenon in its own proper horizonthat of a love without being.32 In Being Given, there
is a more extensive discussion of the argument against the priority of being. Pure givenness
within saturated phenomena is not immediately given as already an object or, in other words,
it is given without being. He argues this from the example of the painting, which, when it is
30

Emmanuel Lvinas, Totality and Infinity: An Essay on Exteriority, trans. by Alphonso Lingis (Pittsburgh:
Duquesne University Press, 2007), p. 45.
31
Italics in original. Lvinas, pp. 1123.
32
Italics in original. Marion, The Erotic Phenomenon, p. 6.

12

Joshua Roe - Phenomenology of Revelation

completed by the painter, is recognised as greater than the artists intention. There appears to
be something excessive to the painting than the totality of its parts, the painting as an object
of the artists intention and so forth.33 It is this extra element that does not seem to be
contained within our conception of what a painting is that Marion describes as its pure
givenness.
Marions account of givenness is pure without the presence of objects but saturated
phenomena are both based in common phenomena and revealing of givenness. It is only
givenness that distinguishes saturated phenomena from common phenomena. However,
Marion posits givenness as the universal condition of all phenomena, both unsaturated and
saturated. Benson summarises the object: all phenomena are saturated phenomena in that
they cannot be fully experienced, comprehended or classified.34 Effectively, the universal
givenness of phenomena means that even poor phenomena could be grasped as having
intuition exceeding concepts. Applied to revelation, it presents a natural theology in which
everything has the capacity for natural knowledge of God and in the style of Brunner, the task
of the phenomenologist is simply to raise the capacity of people to recognise the excess
intuition within phenomena. The other effect is that saturated phenomena could no longer be
considered as a special category because any phenomenon could be elevated to the level of
saturation.
However, it can be responded that the universal givenness of phenomena does not create
universal revelation because of the distinction between hiding and disclosure. The distinction
between saturated phenomena and poor phenomena is not so much the amount of content
within the phenomenon but the way in which content can be revealed as higher than
concepts. Marion gives two reasons why we do not commonly notice the limited nature of
poor phenomena. Firstly, in the majority of cases we consider the lack of intuition is not
33
34

Marion, Being given, pp. 512.

Benson, p. 220.

13

Joshua Roe - Phenomenology of Revelation

noticeable. Part of this evasion occurs through the deferral in the sciences that unexplained
phenomena will eventually be explained.35 Secondly, Marion claims it is difficult to recognise
saturated phenomena because most of our culture requires the minimum of intuition, which
means that intuition could never undermine the authority of concept.36 These resistances to
saturated phenomena mean that we cannot derive saturated phenomena by beginning with
poor phenomena. We can only have a complete understanding of poor phenomena if we
appreciate the pure givenness of phenomena, which consequently directs us through the
analysis of saturated phenomena. The resistances to recognising saturated phenomena mean
that the purity of givenness within saturated phenomena becomes a superfluous hypothesis.
The givenness within saturated phenomena need not be uncontaminated by poor phenomena
but only needs to be greater than the resistance in the use of concepts. Therefore a saturated
phenomenon does not need to be a pure phenomenon.
.

Conclusion: the Phenomenological Basis of Revelation

The issue of purity in Marions notion of saturated phenomena is applicable to Barths account
of revelation. The problem with Barths reading of Heidegger was that he could not conceive
how phenomenology could be related to revelation. By giving up on the purity of saturated
phenomena it became evident that the problem with poor phenomena did not lie in its limited
content but in the domination of this content through conceptualisation. The problem with
Heideggers conception of the nothing was not, as Barth claimed, that it had no relation to
Christian revelation but that it did not contain enough for Christian revelation. The difference
is that Heideggers argument could contain much of what is in Christian revelation rather than
having to be completely irrelevant to it. Similarly common phenomena do have the content of
saturated phenomena without overcoming the domination of concepts. Marion has shown
35
36

Marion, Being given, pp. 2223.

Marion, Being given, p. 223.

14

Joshua Roe - Phenomenology of Revelation

that revelation can have a basis in some types of phenomena without having to concede that
all phenomena can reveal the created order. In contrast, Barths account of revelation is more
restrictive and does not allow for any significant non-Christian input in revelation. The problem
with this latter approach was revealed in his engagement with Heidegger, which although
explicitly strongly opposed to the theological significance of Heideggers thought, it was
implicitly shown to be closer than Barth had envisaged. Marions notion of saturated
phenomena can account for this case on the grounds that there is some givenness in
Heidegger that can be used in revelation but it is not sufficient to produce revelation.

15

Joshua Roe - Phenomenology of Revelation

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