purcell - the prevenience and phenomenality of grace

8/13/2019 Purcell - The Prevenience and Phenomenality of Grace

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THE PREVENIENCE AND PHENOMENALITY OFGRACE, OR, THE ANTERIORITY OF THE

POSTERIORMICHAEL PURCELL

University of Edinburgh, UK

This article argues the possibility of a phenomenology of Grace on the basis of response. Its keyphenomenological interlocutor is Emmanuel Levinas.

The theology of grace might be said to be the fundamental theological doctrine, embracing as it does allother theologies, yet the theology of grace has been a focus of theological debate and dispute throughout

history.This article suggests that Levinas’ ethical metaphysics, when applied to theology, gives theology a new

phenomenological voice in which the theology of grace might be articulated.It begins by arguing the significance of the ordinary and the everyday and the sincerity of intentional

life in the world, and then proceeds to develop the notion of the prevenience of grace ( gratia praeveniens)in terms of Levinas notion of the posteriority of the anterior/anteriority of the posterior. Grace is knownin its effects.

This article intends a further consideration of the theology of grace, but with its principalconcern being the notion of grace as prevenient ( gratia praeveniens). It situates itself in that

often abrasive encounter of strict phenomenology and dogmatic theology in view of amore fundamental meeting point of both phenomenology and theology which is thehuman existential – an existential, the articulation of which is both a phenomenologicaland theological challenge and necessity if either or both phenomenology and theology areto be heedful of the facts as they are given. The point of departure (le point de de part) of any phenomenology or metaphysics or theology cannot be other than in the humanexistential, which, though a starting point, may find itself to be provoked by somethingother which comes first, finds itself posterior to an unknown and unknowable anterior,finds itself to be an effect whose causes are only happened upon lately, though these causescome (logically) first.

A second notion, both phenomenologically and theologically, will be that of thesignificance of the ordinary, and how the seemingly ordinary is often or most oftenoverladen with a significance which contests a strict phenomenology, and often requirestheological re-working.

Thirdly, Levinas is an absent interlocutor. This is not an exegesis of Levinas, nor is it anattempt to mine Levinas’ thought in view of a latent theology; rather, it attempts a possibleencounter with Levinas in view of a theology of grace, from the conviction that the ethicalmetaphysics that Levinas advances offers a new grammar and language in which atheology of grace might be articulated.

But, why a theology of grace as a starting point? The language of responsibility mightseem to sit better with the thrust of Levinas’ ethics. Yet, the theology of grace is perhapsthe key or fundamental theological doctrine to which other theologies relate. It originatesin the sheer gratuity of a divine initiative, originating in a creation culminating inincarnation; the theology of grace is an account of God’s constant and untiring inclination

r The author 2009. Journal compilation r Trustees for Roman Catholic Purposes Registered 2009. Published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 9600Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.

HeyJ L (2009), pp. 966–981



towards his human creation, a constant offer inviting response. It concerns fundamentallythe relation of God to what is other than God (creation), and the relation of creation to itsorigin as its constitutive and sustaining other. A further theological claim, in terms of therelation between Creator and creation, will be that this relation, whose provocation is

always by way of divine initiative, is ongoing, constant, and universal. Hence, the emphasisnot only on grace as prevenient, but also as universal offer of salvation.

GRACE AND PREVENIENCE

Regarding prevenience, let us simply note at the outset two prayers from the RomanMissal :

‘Father in heaven, the hand of your loving kindness powerfully yet gently guides all the moments of our day. Go before us in our pilgrimage of life, anticipate our needs and prevent our falling. Send

your Spirit to unite us in faith, that sharing in your service, we may rejoice in your presence.’ (Tuanos, quaesumus Domine gratia semper et praeveniat et sequatur, ac bonis operibus iugiter praestetesse intentos) (Opening Prayer, Sunday, 27)‘Lord, may everything we do begin with your inspiration, continue with your help, and reachperfection under your guidance’ (actiones nostras quaesumus Domine aspirando praeveni etadiuvando prosequere ut cuncta nostra operatio a te semper incipiat et per te coepta finiatur)(Opening Prayer, Thursday after Ash Wednesday).

GRACE AND UNIVERSAL SALVATION

Regarding a Universal Salvific Will, let us be content for the moment with an extract fromthe Fourth Eucharist Prayer from the Roman Missal, which both emphasises theconstancy of the divine initiative, but also its universal scope. Regarding divine constancy – that initiative that cannot be thwarted – we read:

Father, we acknowledge your greatness:all your actions should your wisdom and love.You formed us in your own likeness, and set us over the whole worldto serve you, our creator.Even when we disobeyed you, and lost your friendship,

you did not abandon us to the power of death,but helped all to seek and find you.Again and again, you offered us a covenant,and through the prophets taught us to hope for salvation.Father, you so, loved the worldthat in the fulness of time you sent your only Son to be our Saviour.’

Regarding a universalism which from which any exclusion is excluded:

‘Remember those who take part in this offering,those here present and all your people,and all who seek you with a sincere heart.

Remember those who have died in the peace of Christand all the dead whose faith is known to you alone.’

The history of grace – a salvation-history, a history of salvation in which events aresignificant precisely in terms of significance – is one of divine initiative inviting responsiveobedience. Is not God’s human creation created precisely as a potentia oboedientalis, anopenness to otherness which expresses itself in response? To give an adequate account of

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grace is the very provocation of theology. How might we incarnate a theology of grace inthe ordinary and the everyday?

Yet, if the theology of grace is a challenge for theology at its most fundamental, it is alsoa phenomenological challenge. From the perspective of a strict phenomenology, grace,

seemingly lacking phenomenality, is a phenomenological transgression. Strictly speaking,there can be no phenomenology of grace. But is this necessarily the case? How far mightphenomenology go without going too far?

GRACE AND THE AVERAGE AND EVERYDAY

Now, related to prevenience and universalism is the significance of the average and theeveryday in the economy of salvation. One might wish to speak of ‘the salvific significanceof secularity, and this too will need some consideration as to its meaning. But let us make a

beginning.

I . THE SALVIFIC SIGNIFICANCE OF SECULARITY (LIFE IS TERRIBLY ORDINARY)

From Lille, Monsieur Louis Dufre ´ ty writes to Monsieur Le Cure ´ de Torcy:

‘Then some strength returned to him, and in a voice one could hardly hear he asked me forabsolution. His face became more at peace, he smiled even. Although I realised I had no right toaccede over hastily to this request, it was quite impossible in the name of humanity and friendship,to refuse him . . . . The priest was still on his way, and finally I was bound to voice my deep regret

that such delay threatened to deprive my comrade of the final consolations of Our Church. He didnot seem to hear me. But a few minutes later he put his hand over mine, and his eyes entreated me todraw closer to him. He then uttered these words almost in my ear. And I am quite sure that I haverecorded them accurately, for his voice, though halting, was strangely distinct.‘Does it matter? Grace is everywhere . . . ’I think he died just then’ (G Bernanos, The Diary of a Country Priest/Le journal d’un cure decampagne).

‘Tout est gra ˆ ce.’ All is grace; grace is everywhere. These words mark the closure of thediary of a country priest (Journal d’un cure de campagne), fictional or otherwise, byGeorges Bernanos. Dying, and in death, the Cure d’Ambricourt, whose life and ministry of service for others can be read as desolation and isolation, finds himself lodged in an atticand, in the face of all that has gone before, utters to the friend who has sought him out hislast words: ‘tout est gra ˆ ce’. Grace is everywhere, and all is grace.

Said otherwise, life is terribly ordinary (La vie est tellement quotidienne). If grace iseverywhere and all is grace, then little can be excluded and the average and the everydaybelong to the economy of salvation. Grace, one might say, is as ordinary and everyday asthe prayer for daily bread ( panem quotidianem) to be given, bread that, in its veryeverydayness, acquires a salvific significance. The ordinary, the average, the everyday:these are the loci of salvation. No longer is grace, the very presence of a God givinghimself, to be found in the high and remote and inaccessible places where God hides hisface. The presence of God in grace is more proximate than remote, even if its closeness

confounds and stretches thought to its limits, and beyond. If, in Exodus, Moses has toclimb to the inaccessible places to receive the Law, but may not look upon God and live(Ex. 33.20), that Law is modified by a second Law, rediscovered in the Temple by Hilkiahduring the (ethical) reforms and renewal of Josiah (2 Kings). Here there is less emphasis ondivine distance and inaccessibility, but proximity and ethical access to the divine bykeeping the commandments. Thus, we read:

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‘Keep them, observe them, and they will demonstrate to the peoples your wisdom andunderstanding. When they come to know of these laws they will exclaim . . . ‘‘What great nationis there that has its gods so near as the Lord our God is to us whenever we call him?’( Deut. 4: 6–8).

Again,

‘For this Law which I am laying down for you today is neither obscure for you nor beyond yourread. It is not in heaven, so that you need to wonder, ‘‘Who will go up to heaven for us and bring itdown to us, so that we an hear and practice it?’’ Nor is it beyond the seas, so that you need towonder, ‘‘Who will cross the seas for us and bring it back to us, so that we can hear and practice it?’’No, the word is very near to you, it is in your mouth and in your heart for you to put intopractice’((Deut. 30:11–14).

The God of Israel – the God of Grace – is not so much to be characterised by remotenessand distance, dwelling in the hills, but rather as one who, in the giving and the keeping of the commandments, draws close. The very paradox of the divine presence – the very

paradox of grace – is the manner in which the majestic and excessive is terribly proximateand ordinary.

The phenomenologico-theological significance of the ordinary and everydayNow, one might muse on the final words of M Louis Dufre ´ ty’s letter to the Cure ´ of Torcy – ‘I think he died just then’ – in a quasi-philosophical Heideggerian way. Life being nowcompleted and the past gathered together in view of this singular sad event, the formerCure ´ d’Ambrimcourt achieves authenticity. Having dissipated himself in life in theordinary, average, and everyday world, death gives a final opportunity for authenticity.

However, what is actually being affirmed in this death – with grace being all and gracebeing everywhere – is the triumph of the ordinary, the average, and the everyday. Thisdeath is the confirmation of the significance of the average and the everyday. La vie esttellement quotidienne.

Levinas has already drawn attention to the significance of the average and the everydayin Existence and Existents (1947), when he speaks of the ‘sincerity of intentions.’1 Existenceand Existents belongs to those early works of Levinas which can be considered morephenomenologically descriptive and observant rather than the implicative and suggestivehorizons developed in the later, so-called ‘mature’ works. For Levinas, not only is life – being in the world – terribly ordinary, it is also terribly sincere. Thus, unlike ‘this German

philosopher’ (Heidegger) for whom ‘being-in-the-world’ has an ‘ontological finality,Levinas draws attention to the ‘essentially secular nature of being in the world and thesincerity of intentions.’2 ‘Life is a sincerity.’3 The relation we have with the world ‘in whichwe live and move and have our being’ – a world in which we find ourselves already andalways incarnate – is ordinary and sincere, and ‘to call it everyday and condemn it asinauthentic is to fail to recognise the sincerity of hunger and thirst.’4 Thus,

‘Nowhere in the phenomenal order does the object of an action refer to the concern for existing; ititself makes up our existence. We breathe for the sake of breathing, eat and drink for the sake of eating and drinking, we take shelter for the sake of taking shelter, we study to satisfy our curiosity,we take a walk for the walk. All that is not for the sake of living; it is living. Life is a sincerity.’ 5

Levinas continues,

‘The world . . . is what we inhabit, were we take walks, lunch and dine, visit, go to school, argue,carry out experiments and investigations, write and read books . . . . It is also the world whereAbraham grazed his flocks, Isaac dug his wells, Jacob set up his household, Epicurus cultivated hisgarden . . . .’6




Now, to see the relation with the world in such seemingly simple sincere and everydayterms is not to return to a pre-phenomenological naivety in which the ‘natural attitude’ isnot subjected to scrutiny. For Levinas, Husserl’s phenomenological reduction – the‘famous epoche’ – ‘becomes meaningful for us again’ for it precisely has to measure itself

and attempt to expose the ‘meaning of the ‘‘natural attitude’’ – that is, of the world’,7

for,

‘the world is what is given to us. This expression is admirably precise: the given does not come fromus, but we do receive it. It already has a side by which it is the terminus of an intention.’8

Again, ‘[t]he fact of being given is the world.’9 The givenness of the world may be Levinas’original phenomenological insight in his studies with and of Husserl and Heidegger, yet itremains a perduring theme in his later works. Both the early and the later works are notwithout theological significance. Writing in the Preface to Of God who comes to mind (second edition), he recognises a theological position.

‘We have been reproached for ignoring theology; and we do not contest the necessity of a recovery,at least, the necessity of choosing an opportunity for a recovery of these themes. We think,however, that theological recuperation comes after the glimpse of holiness, which is primary.’10

In terms of a theology of grace, one might change this slightly by saying; ‘we think,however, that theological recuperation comes after the glimpse of the ordinary and theeveryday, which is primary.’ It is this ‘glimpse’ of what is primary which is of bothphenomenological and theological interest here, for what is primary may be said(theologically) to be prevenient, which is (phenomenologically) to speak of the anteriorityof the posterior, or the paradoxical causality of a cause coming after its effect.

CAN THERE BE A PHENOMENOLOGY OF GRACE? THE PROBLEM OF ‘AS’:

Husserl, one might say, drew attention to the difficulty of ‘as’. Small words such as ‘as’ arealways difficult. They are so integral and operative in everyday speaking and syntax that itis difficult to explain them in other words. How does one explain the meaning of ‘as’ inother words? All one can do is cite examples that bring ‘as’ into the realm of thephenomenal and the existential. Thus, one can only explain ‘as’ in other words whoseexplanation can only begin with an ‘in other words . . . ’ . This is important both for a strictphenomenology, but no less for a possible understanding of grace both phenomenolo-gically and theologically.

A strict phenomenology reminds us that objects appear in consciousness as . . . and ascorrelative to a particular intentionality (thus noema and noesis find themselves together).This is the key insight of Husserl when he speaks of intentionality. Thus, things appearingin consciousness do not appear as such or in themselves (or kath’auto, as Levinas wouldhave it), but appear as . . . . Thus, perceiving, remembering, hoping, desiring are particularapproaches which give access to the object. What needs borne in mind is that ‘as’ is aboutaccess, or adopting a stance, or position.

Yet, here a problem arises, a problem, Kantian in origin, that limits the appearing of anobject to the categories. ‘As’, then, within the Kantian transcendental framework becomes

an operator in terms of access. But is the limitation of ‘as’ to ‘access’ either appropriate oradequate? ‘As’ may be about access, which is phenomenological, but it also confronts astrict phenomenology with the challenge of excess, of which phenomenology must givesome account in terms of method and access, and of which theology must strive to find anadequate phenomenological voice. ‘As’ is not only a phenomenological logical operator interms of access; it also functions and services ‘excess’.

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Now, insofar as ‘as’ is both about ‘access’ and ‘excess’, this relates to thephenomenological difficulty of trying to achieve some adequacy between intention andintuition. For Husserl, intention always looked to intuition for fulfilment, for intuitionmade up the deficit of an intention which may have claimed too much. But, is it the case

that intuition is always inadequate to intention? What if the deficit is on the side of intentionrather than intuition? Could there be a surplus or a surfeit of intuition which confoundsintention?

Jean-Luc Marion draws attention to this tension between intuition and intention whenreflecting on Husserl’s Logical Investigations (VII, yy 40 and 63). The problem whichHusserl addresses in y40 is whether or not there is any ‘ parallelism between meaningfulreference and fulfilling intention’ whereby ‘meaning-intention’ would be matched bycomplete and adequate intuitive fulfilment, which would be a concordance between thesignitive and the intuitive. Marion writes, from the perspective of Husserlianphenomenology:

‘Said otherwise, intention and signification surpass intuition and complete it. ‘‘There remains anexcess in signification (ein U ¨ berschuss in der Bedeutung), a form which finds nothing in thephenomenon itself to confirm it,’’ because, in principle, ‘‘the realm of meaning (signification) is,however, much wider than that of intuition.’’ Intuition remains essentially inadequate,impoverished, needy, indigent.’’’11

Again,

‘Phenomenality is gauged on intuition (‘La phe nomenalite s’indexe sur l’intuition’) (50), but‘intuition, which alone gives, is essentially a lack (‘l’intuition, qui seule donne, manqueessentiellement’ ) (51). Phenomena suffer from a deficit of intuition, and therefore from a penury

of donation’(‘[l]es phe nomPnes souffrent d’un de ficit d’intuition, donc d’une pe nurie de donation’)(53).12

One can approach this intention-intuition relation from either aspect: one the one hand,intentionality as access, if it is to approximate to adequacy, must adequate itself to theobject as it gives itself . Here Husserl’s noetico-noematic correlation is stretched to a limityet to be determined, which translates into the fundamental problem of whether or notthere can be a phenomenology of the non-phenomenal, where ‘non-phenomenal’ is not asimple negation of phenomenality but also points to a phenomenal surplus. This is actuallyrather important, relating not only to the question of whether or not there might be a

phenomenology of grace and whether or not grace might enter into the realm of phenomenality, but also, mutatis mutandis, whether or not there can be a phenomenologyof hope, a phenomenology of death, a phenomenology of art, a phenomenology of prayer,a phenomenology of desire – all of which, apparently have no direct object, or intend noobject which correlates directly to an intention. This is not only a deficit of intuition butalso its surplus. This is not only a privilege of intention, but also intentionality’sinadequacy. And here, the spectre of metaphysics consorting with phenomenology, butother than ontology, attempts an egress from its entombment.

Derrida, tangentially, speaks of this inadequation of intuition and intention in hisIntroduction to Husserl’s Origin of Geometry, where he analyses intentionality in Husserl.

Almost like elephants whose graveyard is unknown, the intentions that Husserl privilegesare accompanied by ‘lost intentions’, that is, those intentions which do not find intuitivefulfilment. Derrida writes,

‘The silence of prehistoric arcana and buried civilisations, the entombment of lost intentions andguarded secrets, and the illegibility of the lapidary inscription disclose the transcendental sense of death as what unites these things to the absolute privilege of intentionality in the very instance of its




essential juridical failure [en ce qui l’unit B l’absolu du droit intentionnel dans l’instance mLme de sone chec].’13

While Husserl emphasises intentionality and the deficit of intuition, Derrida drawsattention to the fact that intentions often to not meet the intended as intended , and perhapsnot solely on account of a deficit of intuition, but also on account of a deficit or inadequacyof intention which can neither meet nor match the given as intuited. These ‘lost intentions,’like an arrow gone astray, ‘miss the mark.’ It is this mis-match of intention and intuitionwhich is the phenomenological problem.

The Excess of Intuition over IntentionHusserlian phenomenology, in short, privileges intention and signification over intuitionwhich is always in deficit. But, what if it were otherwise and that the intentionality of ameaning-bestowing consciousness were to be confronted by a surplus of intuition in which

the thing encountered gave its self not only as but also as such. What if intention (as access)were confronted (in the ordinary and everyday) by intuition (as excess)? For Marion, thissurplus is the excessive or saturated phenomenon, the phenomenon in which the thing givesitself as such, and on its own terms.

In terms of grace, how, then, to speak about excess, particularly in terms of thephenomenality of grace and incarnation, without excising it from the ordinary andeveryday without lapsing into some enlightened gnosis in which the ordinary and theeveryday is of little or no consequence? Some small theological (which is notphenomenologically without significance) hint is offered by Karl Rahner when he remindsus that ‘the possibility of experiencing grace and the possibility of experiencing grace as

grace are not the same thing.’14

Again, there is the phenomenological challenge of ‘as’,insofar as grace is experienced not as such but ‘as . . . ’ .

Further, grace, which certainly comes first theologically, is only experienced in terms of its effects. Grace, which is certainly prevenient, is only appreciated ‘after the event’. It isanterior to its effects, but is known only lately in and through its phenomenal appearing,which is a matter of phenomenality, where the ‘phenomenal’ to be understood in its mostpregnant sense.

The arresting and striking force of the phenomenon (or, Wow! That’s phenomenal’)Now, the ordinary, the average, and the everyday remains our theme, and the immediateforce with which the ordinary strikes us. It is interesting that to be phenomenal (at least inthe English of the average and the everyday) tends to refer to something whosephenomenality is beyond the simple phenomenon. To be ‘phenomenal’ is to be more thanstrictly phenomenal in a strictly phenomenological sense. It is to be in the realm of thephenomenal, certainly, but also, in the phenomenal, to be beyond the phenomenal.Implicit in the ‘phenomenal’ in this pregnant sense is the idea of excess, a phenomenality ina most pregnant sense. To multiply examples thus: children speak about a particularfootballer as ‘phenomenal’ (he is out of the ordinary); or one describes the experience of aride at a fairground when, plummeting to earth in excess of the force of gravity, asexhilarating, breath-taking, and ‘phenomenal’. Or, one hears a voice raised in song and

can only describe the experience as ‘phenomenal’. Or, one watches a ‘phenomenal’thunderstorm and is amazed by the elemental rain and lightning. Or, one encountersanother person, and is so captivated and captured by them, that they can only be said to be‘phenomenal’. The phenomenon of the ordinary and the everyday is already excessive andsaturated. The terribly secular and ordinary can strike and arrest us. The surplus of intuition confounds intention.

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Taking the seemingly or apparently non-phenomenal furtherOne can put a more human face on this, taking a cue from Levinas. The striking orarresting thing about a face is the non-phenomenality of the phenomenon. The face of theother person arrests (arre ˆ t) us, or sentences us, as one is sentenced to death (l’arre ˆ t de mort,

to use Blanchot’s term). But, what arrests or strikes us is what we cannot put a finger upon,not only because it is discrete and hidden, but also because there is an element of theexcessive, an element of what can neither be explained nor commanded. The face bears thetrace of what cannot be commanded but which, rather, arrests and commands. The face,which is certainly in the realm of the phenomenal, bears the inscription of a trace whichabsolves itself from the simple phenomenality of the face and which intentionality asmeaning-bestowing is inadequate. Levinas draws attention to this paradox of theappearing of that which cannot, strictly speaking, appear, when he speaks of a possible‘phenomenology of the face’:

‘I do not know if one can speak of a ‘‘phenomenology of the face’’, since phenomenology describeswhat appears. So, too, I wonder if one can speak of a look turned towards the face, for the look isknowledge, perception. I think rather than access to the face is straightaway ethical. You turnyourself towards the Other as towards an object when you see a nose, eyes, a forehead, a chin, andyou can describe them. The best way of encountering the Other is not even to notice the colour of his eyes! . . . The relation with the face can surely be dominated by perception, but what isspecifically the face cannot be reduced to that.’15

Again, Levinas asks,

‘Do we not respond in the presence of the other person to an ‘‘order’’ whose significance remainsirreversible derangement, absolutely completed past?’

This order is not simply command but is an ethical re-ordering of human reality.

‘The face is precisely the unique opening where the significance of the trans-cendent does not cancelout transcendence to make it enter into an immanent order; on the contrary it is where trans-cendence refuses immanence precisely as ever completed transcendence of the transcendent.’16

In other words, the phenomenon of the face is not reducible to its appearance, anappearance which can be clothed and cloaked in the world; rather, the face bears a withinitself a trace which consciousness can neither recuperate nor reduce.

The notion of trace is important; it is that which is inscribed in the face but which

cannot become a theme. Levinas uses the term illeity, a ‘neologism formed with il andille,’17 for the self-signifying exorbitant phenomenon of the other person. Illeity escapesthe world in its very appearing in the world. Indeed, it is the appearing of the face and theunidentifiable trace sketched in its contours which disturbs time and history, for the facespeaks from itself, a locution before ever there is inter-locution, an ordering before ever itsis ordered, an ethics before ontology. The face interrupts phenomenology (as alsotheology). Levinas writes:

‘If the significance of the trace consists in signifying without making appear, if it establishes arelation with illeity – a relation, personal and ethical, a relation, obligation, that does not unveil – if,

consequently, the trace does not belong to phenomenology, to comprehension of appearance anddissimulation, it could at least be approached by another path, by situating that significance fromthe phenomenology it interrupts.’18

Disturbing phenomena – the facts – are always a challenge to theology andphenomenology. Following these ethical tracks, trails, and traces will be important for atheology of grace.




Now, a theology of grace might be articulated in the language of waking andawakening;19 through a gradual and careful reduction one could make the move fromsubjectivity to intersubjectivity which might bring us to the verge of something whichmight be termed ‘religion’.20 One might say gloria Dei, homo vigilans,21 and chart a move

from the vigil and dawning of subjectivity to the glory of an ethical and religioussubjectivity: from vigilance to consciousness to conscience (or moral consciousness) andthen to religious consciousness as an openness to the possibility of a beyond. Or, one mightequally chart such a move as a move from bare, anonymous existence, through ‘pagan’existence understood as being devoid of any transcendent reference, to an existence which,open to alterity, is properly ethical and religious. Such an approach would obey the rigourwhich phenomenological analysis demands through a careful reduction of subjectivity asresponse and responsibility. This, in turn, requires an acknowledgement that that whichgives itself to consciousness, although latterly or lately discovered by way of a gradualreduction, is actually anterior or prevenient. The cause is know through its effects.

One might also begin to speak of grace in terms of desire, pursuing the notion inAquinas of the subject as desiderium naturale beatificae visionis (‘a natural desire for thebeatific vision’), which Joseph Mare ´ chal draws attention to in Cahier V of Le point dede part de la me taphysique.22 Such an approach would involve a careful analysis of thestructure and the dynamic of a desire which does not find its origin in the self but which israther provoked, excited, or elicited by something other than the self, a desire which doesnot quite know what it intends or how it might be satisfied, a desire which is not so much afunction of subjectivity but which, in fact, is constitutive of subjectivity. The subject existsas desire. Such an approach also has phenomenological merit. It begins with the experienceof desire, and then proceeds by careful analysis to reduce the conditions of that desire,locating its origin elsewhere than the subject.

Both these approaches – the awakening of the ethical or religious subject, and thesubject constituted as desire – share some features. First, intentionality does not fully knowwhat it intends: noesis in its most pregnant sense does not completely coincide with itscorresponding noema, nor is there always perfect adequation of intentionality and itsintuitive fulfilment. Both in awakening and in desiring, an object towards which anintention can be directed is yet to make its appearance, perhaps only makes its appearanceas awakening and as desire.

On Distinguishing the Non-phenomenal on the Basis of ResponseNow, a cause (which logically comes first) is known in its effects (which phenomen-ologically come first). Similarly, grace which is only ever experienced ‘as . . .’ is known inthe effects it produces, or, one might say, in the response which it provokes. In attempting atheology (or even a phenomenology) of grace, the difficulty of the non-phenomenal arises.Can one give an account of the experience of the non-phenomenal, and if so, how? Onepossible way of giving such an account of the appearing of the non-phenomenal (strictlyspeaking, a seemingly phenomenological contradiction) is to chart its appearing in termsof the response which is effected in the subject. This will be important for a theology of grace where the tendency towards the good and its achievement are always dependent onthe initial and continuing free bestowal of grace, (but where the tendency towards evil andthe effects which come in its wake result from human failing.)23 Grace is known in the

response it provokes.Take, for example, the seemingly phenomenological impossibility of distinguishing

between the notions of the il y a and illeity in Levinas. The il y a is anonymous, murmuring,bare being that gives no thing, and is not to be confused with the implicit generosity of Heidegger’s es gibt. Without form or shape, the il y a occupies that interval between duskand dawn, in the hesitation and confusion between disappearing and appearing. The il y a

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hesitates between non-phenomenality and phenomenality. Illeity is also without form orshape; it escapes phenomenality because it is an opening onto infinity and phenomenalexcess. The il y a terrorises; illeity summons towards responsibility. Yet, anyphenomenological distinction between a lack of appearing and an excess of appearing is

difficult to differentiate.Some examples may be helpful:On walking home through the woods at dusk alone, there is a moment when things

disappear and there are no longer any Holzwegen. At this moment, there is the withdrawalof the familiar; silence asserts itself; birds suddenly stop singing; each leaf crumpledunderfoot magnifies its sound; trees becomes shapes; shapes become darkness. The worldas phenomenon disappears. As form disappears, each fading shape becomes a threat.Behind that object that may have been a tree there lurks no thing. There is no thing lookingat me other than the there is (il y a). And so, I quicken my pace nonetheless for fear of theanonymous there is (il y a) which encompasses me. The horror and terror of the night

enfolds me. Of course, this is irrational: trees and bushes do not change shape and form,and I am silly for having not walked confidently through the wood, despite the fear that thedarkness provokes in me.

On returning home in the darkened city, there is a moment when, leaving the company of friends in the darkness of the night, I make my way home through streets I knew but nowwith no name, and past shadowy alleyways with subdued amber lights and which no oneinhabits. No one is there (perhaps), but my footsteps quicken, and the echo behind me tellsme that something else and unidentifiable is there, and perhaps following. This too isirrational. How could one possibly fear the non-phenomenal phantom which does notappear?

On keeping vigil by the bedside, a time comes, when after years of companionship andintimacy, the one closest and dearest escapes into anonymity, through old age or disease,and I cannot identify what I loved or cared for, but which I still care for and love. For,‘even beauty must perish (Auch das Scho ¨ ne mu sterben! ) . . . it must fade and the perfectmust die (da Scho ¨ ne vergeht, da Volkommene stirbt)’ (Schiller). But it was not what Icould command and identify that attracted me; it was something I could not lay hold of,but which, rather, attracted, beckoned, commanded. And so I maintain vigil, moisteninglips which are dry from breathing; and despite threatening darkness and cold, and whenflesh becomes parchment, a trace of the indecipherable remains where illeity competes withthe il y a, and I call to mind the word of the poet R S Thomas:

‘It was not the dark filling my eyesAnd mouth appalled me; not even the dripOf rain like blood from the one treeWeather-tortured. It was the darkSilting the veins of that sick manI left stranded upon the vastAnd lonely shore of his bleak bed.’24

And yet not without indifference . . .And yet, these experiences – whether of the il y a or of illeity – do not leave me indifferent.

The il y a and the illeity of the other person may either not yet have entered or may haveescaped the phenomenal clearing in which a phenomenology might be possible, but both il

y a and illeity are known in the response which they effect in me, whether the terror of thenight, or the compassion for the other who takes their leave. Both terror and compassionbring the non-phenomenal into the realm of phenomenology (and theology) by way of thedistinct affective response which each provokes in me, even though these may be confused.




Does horror not arise at the point where terror and compassion compete and are inconflict? The phenomenological point is that both the lack of being and the excess of being,which are seemingly in themselves indistinguishable, can be distinguished in terms of theresponse which they provoke. Such a response – whether fear or responsibility – is within

the realm of the phenomenal and, as such, phenomenologically accessible. The access toexcess finds its point of departure in the phenomenality of response, of which bothphenomenology and theology must give some account.25 The language of grace is boththeological and phenomenological, and the distance between the two is less distant thanone might think. Simply put, phenomenology attempts an account of access to phenomenain terms of the possibility of revelation; as such, it tends towards being fundamental theology, in distinction from a dogmatic theology which attempts to speak of phenomenalexcess in terms of the actuality and historicity of Revelation. Nonetheless, both access andexcess remain phenomenological and theological challenges.

PREVENIENCE, OR THE ANTERIORITY OF THE POSTERIOR

Grace is known in its effects. We come now to the notion of prevenience and a theology of grace in terms of the anteriority of the posterior.

Now, the notions of awakening, desire, and excess are approaches to a theology of grace, both phenomenologically and theologically, on the basis of provoked response. Iwould like, nonetheless, to suggest a more fundamental consideration of grace in terms of prevenience (theological) or the anteriority of the posterior (phenomenology).26 Thought,which always begins from here, by an ongoing reduction opens on to its conditions of possibility. Transcendental though these may be, such conditions of possibility can bephenomenologically exposed through a reduction which takes its point of departure fromitself. However, beginning from the present here of thought, thought discovers itself tohave a past that cannot quite be wholly recalled. Although come across lately and afterthought, this irrecuperable past whose presence cannot be wholly commanded is not somuch an afterthought but rather is found to be the condition, the possibility, and theprovocation of any thought. What is at once placed in question is thought as absoluteorigin, and its dependency on that which, preveniently, comes first. In theological terms,the prevenience of grace is the provenance of subjectivity. The anteriority of the divineinitiative enables, actualises and sustains the subject. Grace is an absolute necessity, and isthe necessity of the absolute. In grace, the self find itself always and already enabled andactualised and sustained in its orientation towards the good.

Prevenience27

Now, the classic (and ongoing) theological problem of grace might be said to be theproblem of how the divine and the human might be co-operatively reconciled, or how self and other relate. In terms of the divine, there is the requirement of maintaining the divineinitiative in the economy of grace as both absolutely gratuitous on the part of God and asabsolutely necessary on the part of humanity, whether in its original state or its spoiledstate In terms of the human, there is the desire to assert the freedom and responsibilitywhich properly belongs to the human, and account of which one might be worthy of praise

or of blame, while at the same time affirming human dependency. The theologicalargument is well played out in the controversy between Pelagius and Augustine, andsummed up by the Council of Orange in 529. The philosophical issues have also beenplayed out in modernity where individual and enlightened subjectivity is the key player inthe human drama. In short, the theological problem of grace is the problem of the self andthe other. Let us attempt to augment the theological understanding of grace as the

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‘anteriority of the posterior’ with the more phenomenological notion of ‘the posteriority of the anterior’ in Levinas.

Levinas and ‘the posteriority of the anterior’

Levinas speaks of the ‘posteriority of the anteriority’ in Totality and Infinity whenconsidering the notion of separation and discourse. Separation marks the disengagementand withdrawal of the self from the world which it happily enjoys; at the same time,separation is the moment (out of time) in which the self recollects itself, or gathers itself together, as the here of consciousness from which thought proceeds. The nuclear subjectemerges as a point of departure, prior to any awareness of the excoriation or denucleationof the subject that alterity inflicts on this logic of the self as apparent origin.

Levinas proceed by drawing attention Descartes’ Third Meditation in which Descartesspeaks of an idea which exceeds the cogito. This is the idea of infinity. But the discovery of the idea of infinity comes only as ‘a second move’ in the chronology of thought. The paring

away of evidence establishes the cogito as the first and only, but momentary, indubitable.Thus,

‘The present of the cogito, despite the support it discovers for itself after the fact in the absolute thattranscends it, maintains itself all by itself – be it only for an instant, the space of a cogito.’28

For Descartes, thought establishes a here which is a beginning and a point of departure. AsLevinas will note in Existence and Existents, ‘Thought . . . is . . . here.’29 The logical orderwould then progress from this original starting point. However, in Descartes’ Meditation,this origin finds itself thinking a thought of which it cannot be the origin, a thought thatinterrupts the logical order by introducing a chronology of difference. ‘That there could be

a chronological order distinct from the ‘‘logical’’ order, that there could be severalmoments in the progression, that there is a progression’30 – here is the recognition of aprecedence by which the present proceeds.

Levinas introduces a strange and complex chronology in which the notion of a presencewhich regulates the temporal ecstases of past, present, and future is placed in question. Thepresent as the recollection or gathering of the subject into self-presence might seem to bethe logical beginning of temporality, the instant from which time unfolds. The instantmight seem to be the instantiation and inception of the subject and the logical beginning of time which unfolds from the present of self-presence. In such a conception of theexistentiality of time, the future, as time that is yet to come, would be the field of possibility

yet to be determined from the vantage point of the present, and the past would be anarchaeology and genealogy (and possible justification) of the present. In short, time wouldbe a function of the subject.

For Levinas, however, time is not a function of the subject, nor is the present of presenceto be conceived as the bestower or arbiter of meaning of either past or future. Time is giftand given. Time is a function of what is other than the subject, and what is other than thesubject enables the subject to function. Subjectivity emerges into a time which is not itsown, and of which it is neither author or origin. Said otherwise, if, logically, time beginswith awakening, awakening finds itself somewhat lately always and already to have beenawoken. The ‘sheer youthfulness’ of thought which is enjoyment and elemental is yet

‘heedless of its slipping into the past and of its recovered self-possession in the future.’31

What thought discovers is that

‘[e]ven its cause, older than itself, is still to come. The cause of being is thought or known by itseffect as though it were posterior to its effect.’32

But this ‘as though’ is not illusory; neither is it unfounded. Levinas continues,




‘The posteriority of the anterior – an inversion logically absurd – is produced, one would say, onlyby memory or by thought. But the ‘‘improbable’’ phenomenon of memory or of thought mustprecisely be interpreted as a revolution in being.’33

For Levinas, such ‘a revolution in being’ is an ethical revolution which disturbs ontology

and enables a subject that not only is conscious but also has a conscience, and where bothconsciousness and moral consciousness are provoked by what it other than the self. It isthe birth or the emergence of the subject is the time of the other. Theologically, it is thebirth of the subject into a graced creation of which the subject is not the origin. It is thediscovery of paternity in the very awareness of filiality. The provocation of thought effectsa separation which is self-consciousness but also consciousness of the other person who, inmaking consciousness conscious of itself, summons it to ethical response. Inwardness orinteriority thus becomes aware of its origin in an other than itself.

‘Separation is not reflected in thought but produced by it. For in it the After or the Effect conditionsthe Before or the Cause: the Before appears and is only welcomed.’34

Now, this means that subjectivity is not primarily historical or cultural, but, beyond this, isprimarily ethical. The subject is not so much a victim of history, but a hostage to alterity.

‘Interiority is the very possibility of a birth and death that do not derive their meaning from history.Interiority institutes an order different from historical time in which totality is constituted, andorder where everything is pending, where what is no longer possible historically remains alwayspossible.’35

In short, the birth of the subject is ethical and, if this ‘original ethical event would also befirst theology,’36 then it is also a theological event; it is the work of ‘the other-in-me’.

Subjectivity ‘is not, in the last analysis, the ‘‘I think’’ (which it is at first) or the unity of ‘‘transcendental apperception’’ [but] is, as a responsibility for another, a subjection to theother.’37

The Proximity of the other-in-me, or, Proximity and PrevenienceConfronted by another, the self is provoked into consciousness both of self as separatedand of other. The subject is constituted as a moral consciousness, or conscience, and issummoned to respond. Subjectivity is constituted as response and responsibility. Levinasspeak of this in his later major work, Otherwise than Being or Beyond Essence, when heconsiders the self in terms of substitution. Here, the notions of anarchy, diachrony, andanteriority feature.

The proximity of the other person is experienced as a disturbing and arrestingresponsibility which places the self as self-consciousness in question but also effects the self as not ‘for-myself’ but rather as ‘one-for-the-other’. This ‘one-for-the-other has the formof sensibility or vulnerability, pure passivity or susceptibility, passive to the point of becoming an inspiration.’38 For example, to return to the notions of the il y a and illeitywhich are differentiated in the response which they provoke, consider the experience of being taken by surprise and the intake of breath which accompanies that experience. Whilethe il y a provokes the self as horror, the illeity of the other person provokes the self as anexhalation of responsibility. One breathes in the other person and is instantiated as

responsibility. The self is identified as responsibility, and is at the service of the other. ‘Inthe form of responsibility, the psyche in the soul is the other in me, a malady of identity,both accused and self , the same for the other, the same by the other.’ ‘The soul is the otherin me.’39

Now, this rendering of the self as the one-for-the-other of responsibility is not anoperation which has its origin in the self; rather, it is a willing and co-operative response to

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the other-in- me who calls on me to respond. Responsibility, though it is an experienced bythe self, is not a function of the self, it is the other-in-me who establishes me as for-the-other. In terms of the posteriority of the anterior, the proximity of the other is an anarchywhose ‘me-ontological and metalogical structure’ is discovered ‘in a responsibility that is

justified by no prior commitment, in the responsibility for another – in an ethicalsituation.’40 Being instantiated as responsible for the other is not the result of any choosingon my part, but ‘is an assignation of me by another . . . an obligation anachronously priorto any commitment [whose] anteriority is ‘‘older’’ than the a priori.’ It is an obsession,where obsession is to be understood as a ‘relationship with exteriority ‘‘prior’’ to the actthat would effect it.’41 In other words, responsibility is not a matter of efficient but of formal causality, an effecting of the soul as affection for the good of the other. Levinaswrites,

‘The one is hypostasised in another one. It is bound in a knot that cannot be undone in aresponsibility for others . . . . In the exposure to wounds and outrages, in the feeling proper toresponsibility, the oneself is provoked as irreplaceable, as devoted to others, without being able toresign, and thus incarnated in order to offer itself, to suffer and to give. It is thus one and unique, inpassivity from the start, having nothing at its disposal that would enable it not to yield toprovocation.’42

The origin of the self

‘does not begin in the auto-affection of a sovereign ego that would be, after the event,‘‘compassionate’’ for another. Quite the contrary: the uniqueness of the responsible ego is possibleonly in being obsessed by another, in the trauma suffered prior to any auto-identification, in theunrepresentable before. The one affected by the other is an anarchic trauma, or an inspiration of the

one by the other, and not a causality striking mechanically a matter subject to its energy.’43

CONCLUSION

I have sought to argue for a phenomenology and theology of grace on the basis of response, bringing the theological understanding of grace as prevenient into conversationwith Levinas’ notion of the posteriority of the anterior. Theology asserts the prevenienceof grace in all things which intend the good. In Augustine, the Council or Orange, andAquinas, a constant theme is that God does not only give the possibility of being directedtowards the good but also provokes the willing (velle) of the good and its final achievement(esse). This tendency towards the good is integral to human subjectivity. Grace establishesthe subject in its very interiority as a tendency towards the good, or as receptivity andresponse to initiative ( potentia oboedientialis). To state that grace is prevenient is to affirmits anteriority, though, insofar as grace is known in its effects which are consequent, graceas grace is discovered posterior to its effects. The theological affirmation of the ‘anteriorityof the posterior’ becomes the phenomenological affirmation of the ‘posteriority of theanterior’. Starting with the phenomena which are first logically, the prior conditions are

phenomenologically uncovered.Finally, the responses which grace provokes and sustains in the self are not impositions

on the self, but are truly acts of the subject resulting from the work of ‘the-other-in-me’ bywhich the subject can truly become, by grace, ‘for-the-other.’ The prevenient proximity of the other provokes the subject as response, and is the origin of the orientation towards thegood.




Notes

1 E Levinas, Existence and Existents, (The Hague: M Niijhoff, 1947), 45.2 Existence and Existents, 423 Existence and Existents, 44

4 Existence and Existents, 455 Existence and Existents, 446 Existence and Existents, 447 Existence and Existents, 428 Existence and Existents, 399 Existence and Existents, 39

10 E Levinas, Of God who comes to mind , 2nd ed., (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998), ix11 J-L Marion, Le visible et le re vele , 47 12 See Jean-Luc Marion, Le visible et le re ve le , (Paris: E ´ ditions du Cerf, 2005). Marion, reflecting on the relation

between intention and intuition in Husserl (Logical Investigations, VII, yy 40 and 63), notes ‘Autrement dit, l’intention etla signification surpassent l’intuition et le remplissent. ‘‘Il reste un exce dent dans la signification (ein U ¨ berschussin der Bedeutung), une forme qui ne trouve, dans le phe nome `ne lui-me ˆ me, rien qui l’y confirme’’, parce qu’en principe ‘‘ledomain de la signification est, de beaucoup, plus vaste que celui de l’intuition. L’intuition reste essentiallement de faillante,

pauvre, ne cessiteuse, indigent’ (47). Again, ‘La phe nomenalite s’indexe sur l’intuition’ (50), and ‘l’intuition, qui seule

donne, manque essentiellement’ (51), and ‘[l]es phe nome `nes souffrent d’un de ficit d’intuition, donc d’une pe nurie dedonation’ (53).

13 J Derrida, Edmund Husserl’s ‘Origin of Geometry’: An Introduction, (Lincoln & London: University of NebraskaPress, 1989), 88

14 K Rahner, ‘Concerning the relationship between nature and grace’, in Theological Investigations, 1, (London:Darton, Longman, & Todd, 1961), 300.

Similar informs Rahner’s sacramental theology when he reminds us that ‘the sacrament is precisely a ‘‘cause’’ of grace, in so far as it is its ‘‘sign’’ and . . . the grace – seen as coming from God – is the cause of the sign bringing it aboutand making it so present. . . . [S]acramenta gratiam efficiunt, quatenus eam significant – where this significatio is to beunderstood in the strict sense of symbolic reality.’ Again, ‘Sacramenta, significando efficiunt gratiam. . . . Thesacraments, precisely as signs, are causes of grace’ (K Rahner, The Church and the Sacraments, (London: Burns &Oates, 1964), 37 (I emphasise ‘as signs.’ ) In other words, grace is experienced sacramentally where sacrament is to beunderstood in its widest symbolic and most pregnant sense.

Now, although Rahner distinguishes between the experience of grace and the experience of grace as grace, he alsostresses that what appears in the phenomenality of the sign is nothing other than grace as such. What God offers ingrace is nothing other than God’s very self; grace is God’s self-communication.

15 E Levinas, Ethics and Infinity, (Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1997), 85–8616 E Levinas, Humanism of the Other, (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2003), 40. I have deliberately used

‘other person’ as a translation of Autrui rather than ‘Other’.17 E Levinas, Otherwise than Being, or Beyond Essence, (The Hague: M Nijhoff, 1981), 12–13.18 E Levinas, Humanism of the Other, (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2003), 4119 See M Purcell, ‘Gloria Dei, Homo Vigilans: Waking up to Grace in Rahner and Levinas’, in Louvain Studies, 21

(1996), 229–260.20 For more on the reduction to religion, see J Kosky, Levinas and Philosophy of Religion, (Bloomington: Indiana

University Press, 2001).21 The original quote from Irenaeus is gloria Dei autem homo vivens.22 See M Purcell, ‘The Natural Desire for the Beatific Vision: Desiring the Other in Levinas and ‘‘La Nouvelle

The ´ ologie’’’, in Philosophy and Theology (Marquette University), Vol.9, 1–2, (1995), 29–48.23 I deliberately leave to the side the question of sin, which wold also require some phenomenological accounting.24 From R S Thomas’ poem, Evans.25 I place to the side a consideration of the theology of grace in terms of the saturated or excessive phenomenon,

though this is important. It seems to me that Jean-Luc Marion has already made phenomenological and theologicaladvances into this area which would contribute to a theology of grace.

26 See, Fabio Ciaramelli, ‘The Posteriority of the Anterior,’ in Graduate Philosophy Journal , 20, 2–21, 1 (1997),pp.409–425. Ciaramelli notes: ‘The paradoxical temporality by which the originary bursts open and turns out to bealready constituted, in a movement consisting in itself preceding itself, thus lays out the structure and advent of subjectivity’ (411).

27 The theological dimension of the prevenience of grace is found in the Council of Orange. Against Pelagiusexplicity, it asserts that the entire person (Canon 1) and the whole of humanity (Canon 2) is in need of grace on accountof original sin and the consequent weakening of the human will. Grace precedes and enables prayer (Canon 3), and the

working of the Holy Spirit is essential for the will to be moved (Canon 4). Grace not only augments faith but is also itsbeginning and the very condition of any desire for faith (etiam initium fidei ipsumque credulitatis affectum) (Canon 5).Apart from grace, there can be no desiring, nor striving, nor labouring, nor praying, nor watching, nor seeking, norasking, nor knocking’ (sine gratia Dei [non autem] credentibus, volentibus, conantibus, laborantibus, orantibus,vigilantibus, studentibus, petentibus, quarentibus, pulsantibus . . .) (Canon 6). Grace is necessary for perseverence in goodworks (ut ad finem bonum pervenire, vel in bono possint opere perdurare’) (Canon 10); it precedes them and enables themto be done ( gratia, quae non debetur, praecedit, ut fiant) (Canon 18). Even the love with which we love God is the resultof a prior gift (De dilectatione, qua diligimus Deum. Prorsus donum Dei est diligere Deum) (Canon 25). See Denzinger-

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purcell - the prevenience and phenomenality of grace

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