Stephen Scheidell | 75629 | CPO W143

Dr. Benson
PHIL 280
Word count: 1017
How to Theologize with a Hammer
"The idol always moves, at least potentially, towards its own twilight, since already in its
dawn the idol gathers only a foreign brilliance." Jean-Luc Marion, God Without Being.

In Chapter 1 of God Without Being, "The Idol and the Icon," Jean-Luc Marion
argues that the fundamental difference between the idol and the icon lies in the different
ways each one is venerated: the idol freezes the gaze of its beholder, the icon directs the
gaze upwards. I will focus on illuminating the movement from the status of idol to that
of icon, and argue how this movement affects Scriptural interpretation. Nevertheless,
while I see the strength in distancing God from our concepts, one might ask whether
Marion's criteria for the conceptual icon require a problematic level of restrictions.
"The black sun of nihilism" traverses the sky, and as it shines down from high
noon to expose the earth beneath, the worshipper finally sees the idol as only a disguised
mirror. The worshipper seems delivered, or simply deprived, "of Ideas, of Idols and of
their priests'" (17). The idol presents a mere low-water mark of the divine that the human
gaze first experienced: the First Visible; it dazzled his gaze, and the religious man, as an
artist, tries to bring the First Visible out in his material (14). However, once exposed, the
idol allows for the movement toward its twilight and toward the dawn of the icon. When
the idol stands emptied of its borrowed radiance, the gaze of the worshipper unfreezes to
follow the radiance back to its origin. The idol thus takes on a new function; hollowed

and laid bare as mere reflection, it offers a new revelation, that of the foreign brilliance
itself, that "offers an abyss that the eyes of men never finish probing" (21). The idol loses
its characteristic as gatherer and collector of that brilliance, and now acts as the point of
reference for the worshipper's gaze toward the infinite depth, that which cannot be
grasped by the human horizon the invisableI (21), which comes from "elsewhere whose
invisible strangeness saturates the visibility of the face with meaning" (21). Thus, the idol
passes through its twilight to allow the dawn of the icon. The icon shows, from itself,
nothing; it teaches the gaze that it cannot rest or settle in order to go back up the infinite
stream of the invisible. In this sense, the icon makes visible only by giving rise to an
infinite gaze" (18); "the gaze no longer belongs here to the man who aims so far as the
First Visible," this gaze now belongs to the icon itself "opens in a face" (19). "The
invisible summons us, 'face to face, person to person' (1 Cor. 13:12)" (22). Contemplating
the icon, therefore, exchanges our gaze for the gaze that envisages us (21). The icon
"could not but subvert the idol" (24). The idol is not replaced or destroyed by the icon,
because "certain beings can pass from the idol to the icon, or from the icon to the idol,
only changing thus in status when venerated" (8).
Our concern, however, lies not only in the structure that draws the aim of the
worshipper. The philosophical or theological concept constructed, not given captures
what the mind first understood of the divine; the worshipper comes to see that concept as
a name, which he then attributes to God thus reducing the excessive amplitude of such
infinite depth to the meager measure of human capacity (16). Nevertheless, this
inappropriate reduction can leave the worshipper taken aback struck, stunned, and
startled. He begins thinking anew. With attention now drawn and aim gazing once more
I

Marion coins this word to differentiate the merely invisible and the aim of intention that cannot be
understood within human capacity.

into the abyss, the worshipper abandons the constructed name. The gaze, again unfrozen,
aims at the invisable, which the intuition cannot contain and leaves unnamed. All
categories belittle it; all titles betray it. In fact, no single understanding fathoms the depth
of the Immeasurable. "Every pretension to absolute knowledge therefore belongs to the
domain of the idol" (23). The hermeneutic cycle rolls ever on; the worshipper gazes and
pierces the icon to see the abyss and the invisable gazing back, transforming the
worshipper according to its own glory.
Any understanding of the divine, and thus Scriptural understanding, therefore
finds itself simultaneously liberated and problematized. All denominations and traditions
boldly proclaim their understanding of God complimented and critiqued by every other
voice each at best capturing only a glimmer of the invisable glory. None have a final
authority; none freezes the gaze. As there will never be a "perfect" or final translation of a
text from one language into another, there will never stand a final interpretation only a
hermeneutic circle never stopping the gaze.
What, then, remains to serve as conceptual icon? Marion argues that the only
fitting concept must at once unite the visible and invisable, but differentiate the two (23).
As the physical icon provides the visible to the intuition, it nonetheless guides the gaze
toward the infinite. What concept provides for the mind, but still distances from it?
Marion later in the book offers agape an infinite, unconditional, and self-giving love.
Yet, even this raises the possibility for idolatry. Cannot concepts of God exceed
even agape? How neatly would "The Lord is a warrior" (Exodus 15:3) fit into Marion's
agape? While agape provides for us a strong infinite presence, it cannot be established as
the only one; other voices must still be permitted to humbly proclaim.

Perhaps, one might be tempted to stray from speaking at all. This may actually be
a very plausible, but not exclusive, alternative. Rather than expressing knowledge of God
conceptually, we might focus on expressing the agape of God, but embodying the agape
of God. "With face unveiled and revealed, serving as optical mirror to reflect the glory of
the Lord, we are transformed in and according to his icon" (2 Cor. 3:18). We, as
worshippers, move and act as icons embodying eternal agape. Here, the Infinite appears
in time.