Postmodern Theology And Jean-Luc Marion: An(other) Interlude, On Benedictine ‘Caritas’

(Archive of this tediously developing series)

(Since interrupting myself has become the norm in this series, allow me to make one quick announcement before I move forward with, yet another, interruption. I was aware that Marion’s newest book project is a book on Augustine, however, I just found out that his Ph.D. dissertation will be released in English under the title, Descartes’ Grey Ontology this Fall. I find this very exciting because I think it will reveal where I [and others, to be sure] may have mis-interpreted Marion’s somewhat tense relationship to Descartes. From the book description, it basically seems to say that if we read Descartes as a Cartesian—epistemologically, in other words—we miss his project, better understood in ontological terms, as a conversation with Aristotle, albeit lukewarm at best in his [Descartes’] articulation of those terms. You may want to buy it when it comes out in the Fall. Enough. Time to write a bit about Marion and Benedict XVI.)

Once again, I have felt the need to interrupt the anticipated order of this series to address a connection to this general topic that has deeply impacted me as I continue to try and gather my thoughts in order to figure out what I want to say about Marion and theology. In the previous interlude, I focused on the (somewhat) recent ‘theological turn’ in phenomenology and philosophy in general, but today I want to note something even more contemporary and prescient: Benedict’s Caritas in Veritate.

Before I do, I would like to be very clear that I have no knowledge of any connections—academic, personal or otherwise— between the Pope and Jean-Luc Marion. All I can speculate on with any degree of confidence is that, given their shared affection for Augustine and deep reflections on the subject of love, it should come as no surprise that they might offer a similar viewpoint on things. Keeping this modest stance of speculation, I would like to venture into a few passages from Benedict’s recent encyclical and note the striking similarity between his notion of caritas and Marion’s phenom erotique. In particular, the ontological underpinnings that order the epistemological relationship between charity and truth.

Much has been made, and will continue to be made for some time (and for good reason), about the political, economic, and overall social implications of this encyclical—none more fun to play at than the interrogations of “Which American sect will get endorsed or be condemned this time around?”

However, it would be a profound mistake, it seems to me, to ignore the fact that Benedict has been crafting a clear and fresh theology of charity and it is that that holds his entire social thought together. As I wrote in my previous reflection on Caritas in Veritate, Benedict opens by writing: “Charity in truth… is the principal driving force behind the authentic development of every person and of all humanity.” For all the geopolitical insight he gives, putting that insight before his theology of charity is to read and understand him backwards, I think.

In Deus Caritas Est, he brings the eros back into full view without apologies and cites the “mad eros of Christ on the Cross” as the rationale for such a strong return. Eros as the desire of the Son for the Father—love, in other words—becomes a starting point that wipes away the perverted taboos that subsumed eros to the prudish interpretations of agape and filia.

Thankfully, Benedict has not made too much of this point. After all, it is not a matter of finding the best word to use to understand what God-who-is-Love means, and so the emphasis on this or that pet term would render such an analysis trivial. In this encyclical, Benedict returns to the general term: Caritas.

Benedict notes the careful—Marion would likely call this ‘erotic’—relationship, like that of shape and color in Plato’s Meno, between them. In the distinction and unity between Caritas and Veritate, we find a clear statement, cloaked in sacred mystery, on both the ontological order of that relationship, rooted in the fact that God is Love, and the epistemological intelligibility of revelation, rooted in Truth.

I should admit that I find Benedict’s epistemology too rigid and disagree with his seemingly constant penchant for reffering to his now famous boogey-man, “The Dictatorship of Relativism.” I also suspect that Marion’s epistemology is too grey for Benedict’s taste as well, and my own views on the matter may be more extreme than Marion. But that is all beside the point.

What is important, in this interlude, is the strong connection between the ontology of love—an ontology that overcomes the firstness of being—that Marion provides over and against modernity that is echoed (to my ears, at least) in Benedict’s recent encyclical that continues his fascinating theology of charity that he has dedicated himself to recently.

That comparison will follow in my next post, a continuation of this one. Thanks again for reading!

Postmodern Theology and Jean-Luc Marion: An(other) interlude, on Benedictine ‘Caritas’