American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly

Volume 78, Issue 1, Winter 2004

The Phenomenon of God
From Husserl to Marion

This essay is an attempt towards a phenomenology of God. The leading question in our analysis will be whether God could be given to consciousness as a phenomenon. First, we go back to Husserl and to his formulation of the possibility of phenomenality. Then, the discussion proceeds to the innovative reappropriation of Husserlian phenomenology by Jean-Luc Marion and his notion of the saturated phenomenon. Finally, I propose that God can “appear” only through an “inverted intentionality,” such as it is exemplified in certain divine manifestations recorded in Scripture, in the techniques of depicting the divine in icons, and finally, in the human person.