Reducing the gift to givenness: Phenomenological method and theology according to Jean-Luc Marion

Can Marion's phenomenology of givenness be an opportunity to get a deeper understanding of the relationship between philosophy and theology, an understanding that could mend the century-old rift between the two disciplines? This article aims to illustrate the project of the French philosopher - and the objective theological implication of his thought - by analyzing one of his central thesis: the reduction of the gift to givenness. This analysis allows the reconstruction of Marion's theoretical path, which goes along with the theme of fatherhood. The latter represents the privileged exemplum of what a gift reduced to givenness means, since Marion finds in it all the characteristics that the methodological thinking has indicated in a gift reduced to givenness. The examination of the course set by Marion raises, therefore, the opportunity to highlight the (theological and philosophical) need of deepening the understanding of the relationship between experience and reflection that still awaits a satisfactory answer.