Marion and Heidegger: God without Being?

In “God Without Being,” Jean Luc Marion conducts a phenomenological study of the theological concepts of the ‘eidolon,’ or idol, and the ‘eikon,’ or icon. While sharing many philosophical correlations with Martin Heidegger’s philosophy in “Being and Time,” Marion provocatively challenges many of the core ideas of Heidegger’s ontological study.

Heidegger’s attempt to create a fundamental ontology deals mainly with ‘being’ in terms of what he calls ‘Dasein.’ Heidegger lays out this rough skeleton of ‘being’ by examining the ways in which Dasein relates to the world. Dasein can be defined as that to which its own being is a matter of concern; an entity capable of questioning its being or that which has an awareness of its being. By stating that Dasein’s ‘being’ is equiprimordial with and always accompanied by its understanding of self-as-being, Heidegger attempts to abolish the commonly held philosophical notion of a mere subject-object relationship between the self which acts upon the external world. The entirety of Dasein’s understanding is directly resulting from its understanding of itself in relation to its experience with the world in terms of being. No experience can exist between subject-object alone. Rather, there is ‘being’ which comes a priori to all experience. When a person talks and looks at another they are, in fact, experiencing themselves in various modes of being such as: ‘being-in-the-world,” “being-with-others” as well as a vast number of other ways.

Despite the fact that our experience is always presupposed by our own being, Heidegger states that we may not always realize or act in accordance with our actual being: we may exist ‘inauthentically.’ Authentic being, according to Heidegger, is primarily defined as the recognition of the self as an individual for whom its own being is a matter of concern. This largely involves recognizing the possibilities of our own being, particularly in our understanding of our own being as it relates to death. Essential to this understanding of self is the realization that one’s existence is accompanied by its constant relationship with the world through the act of intending upon it. Recognition of these intentions is an important aspect of the authentic being of Dasein because it is through this understanding of how the self interacts with the world that we are able to more accurately describe reality in terms of how it appears to us. We are therefore allowed a much more realistic perspective from which to gauge our experiences. Phenomenology, which is at the core of Heidegger’s thought, is primarily this: the study of the appearance of things as they are given to us. Authentic Dasein, instead of merely intending upon the world, step outside of this limiting perspective and examine what the relationship of intentionality between the self and the object consists of. By adding this third dimension to our experience we are able to recognize the self as that which it genuinely is and that which is truly possible within its realm of being.