Abstract

The recent translation into English of Jean-Luc Marion’s essay “Saint Thomas Aquinas and Onto-Theo-Logy” provides an opportunity to re-examine the significance of Marion’s earlier criticisms of Aquinas in the light of his most current position on Aquinas. Toward this end, I discuss the role that the doctrine of analogy plays in Marion’s reassessment, and partial retraction, of the controversial indictment of Aquinas that was presented in God without Being. Marion’s claim that the Thomistic conception of God as ipsum esse should be understood by “starting from the distance of God” is highlighted in order to elucidate how, for Aquinas, the doctrine of analogy functions phenomenologically, as do the divine names generally, to manifest the character of God as infinite goodness and excessive givenness.