Théologie explicative

Saint Aubert's technical term — first in his 2008 Archives de philosophie article, then systematized in *Être et chair II* Ch VII § 3d — for the Leibnizian-Thomist theological position Merleau-Ponty targets across his late manuscripts. The théologie explicative is the theology that treats God as the perfectissimum under whose light everything is explicable — a maximum of positive qualities that can be surveyed from above. Its perceptual correlate is the idole (figure- without-fond); its ontological correlate is the *ontologie de l'objet*. MP's positive counter-theology is the Dieu figuratif — a kenotic God who "s'est fait l'ombre de notre ombre" and lives at "la jointure des choses ou des mots" (EP p. 49).

Key Points

  • Saint Aubert's term: not MP's own. The phrase first appears in Saint Aubert's 2008 Archives de philosophie article ("L'Incarnation change tout. Merleau-Ponty critique de la 'théologie explicative'", vol. 71/3, p. 371–405). MP himself uses Dieu de survol (OntoCart NTontocart [127]) and grand diamant éternel (SNS(foi) p. N310/G212) for cognate targets.
  • Cardinal target: Leibniz: EM3 [244]v(26) + [256], spring 1960: MP explicitly develops his late ontology of figuratifs "contre ce Dieu leibnizien" and "contre la logique de Leibniz". The Leibnizian Deus est ens perfectissimum is the paradigm of the théologie explicative.
  • Structural feature 1 — God as maximum of positivity: The théologie explicative treats God as the summum of all positive qualities. There is nothing in God that is not fully posed. By contrast, MP's Dieu figuratif is structured by kénosis — God who "s'est comme rompu pour installer en lui-même le négatif" (EP p. 31).
  • Structural feature 2 — God as explicans: The théologie explicative explains the world by reducing it to God's intelligible plan. By contrast, MP's Dieu figuratif is figuratif in the technical sense (cf. figuratifs): not what is given but what makes given — without itself being available for survey.
  • Structural feature 3 — survol: The théologie explicative presupposes a position from which God can be posed en face. Ruyer's survol absolu (1946) is the secular-philosophical equivalent: the consciousness that sees without participating. MP refuses both — there is no survol absolu and no Deus est perfectissimum graspable from such a position.
  • Wider polemical scope: the théologie explicative is the theological form of the same critique MP levels at the philosophical ontology of the object (Descartes, Sartre, Kant, Piaget — see ontology-of-the-object). The unity is structural: all of these treat being (or God) as the correlate of survol.

Details

Saint Aubert's 2008 article (the term's origin)

Saint Aubert, "'L'Incarnation change tout'. Merleau-Ponty critique de la 'théologie explicative'" (Archives de philosophie 71/3, 2008, p. 371–405). The article reconstructs MP's scattered theological remarks (across EP 1953, OE 1961, the unpublished EM / DESC manuscripts) into a coherent polemic against a specific theological position — the théologie explicative — that Saint Aubert names. The systematic treatment in *Être et chair II* Ch VII § 3d builds on this 2008 article, extending the analysis to MP's positive counter-theology (the Dieu figuratif).

The Leibniz-target

Cardinal philological evidence (EM3 [244]v(26), [256], spring 1960): MP develops his late ontology of figuratifs explicitly against Leibniz. The Leibnizian theological-metaphysical position has three features MP rejects:

  1. God as perfectissimum: maximum of all positive qualities.
  2. The world as God's intelligible plan: explicable from God's point of view.
  3. The principle of sufficient reason: every fact is in principle explicable.

Each feature corresponds to the survol structure MP refuses. The théologie explicative is the theological projection of the ontologie de l'objet — being (here, God) as what can be posed fully and surveyed from above.

The scholastic background (via Gilson)

MP read Étienne Gilson's Index scolastico-cartésien (1913, 2nd ed. 1979). The scholastic-Cartesian background gives the théologie explicative its institutional weight: this is not a marginal position but the received theological framework against which the late MP must work. Saint Aubert's contribution is to extract the polemic from MP's scattered remarks and name it.

MP's positive counter-theology: the Dieu figuratif

Ch VII § 3d develops the alternative. MP's Dieu figuratif has three features that exactly invert the théologie explicative:

  1. Kénosis instead of perfectissimum: God "s'est comme rompu pour installer en lui-même le négatif" (EP p. 31). God is not maximum of positive qualities but the site of negation within positivity.
  2. God as figuratif, not figure: God is what makes visible without being visible — "un autre nous-même, qui épouse et authentifie toute notre obscurité" (PM p. 118), a God who "s'est fait l'ombre de notre ombre".
  3. God at the jointure: "la philosophie, qui ne le met jamais [le sacré] ici ou là, comme une chose, mais à la jointure des choses ou des mots, sera toujours exposée à ce reproche [d'athéisme] sans qu'il puisse jamais la toucher." (EP p. 49) The sacred is at the joint, not in the things — the structural place of figuratifs (cf. figuratifs: the figuratif is what works between the things).

Saint Aubert's reading of EP p. 49

EP p. 49 (Éloge de la philosophie, 1953) is the cardinal positive formulation. Saint Aubert reads it as MP's reversal of the atheism-accusation: the philosopher appears atheist to the théologie explicative because the philosopher refuses to put the sacred en face; but this refusal is not atheism — it is a different theology, one that places the sacred at the jointure.

The Dieu figuratif is therefore not a less full God than the Leibnizian perfectissimum; it is a more carnally adequate God, because the jointure (the figuratif) is precisely the structure within which divine action can be figured without being objectified.

The théologie explicative is the theological form of what MP diagnoses philosophically as the ontologie de l'objet. The unity is structural:

  • Sartre's En-soi = ontologie de l'objet at the level of being.
  • Descartes' idée claire et distincte = ontologie de l'objet at the level of knowledge.
  • Leibniz's perfectissimum = ontologie de l'objet at the level of theology.

Each is a form of the same survol structure. MP's late ontology of flesh, figuratifs, and the Dieu figuratif is the unified alternative.

Cardinal evidence

"contre ce Dieu leibnizien" / "contre la logique de Leibniz" (EM3 [244]v(26), [256], spring 1960) — MP's explicit naming of the target.

"Il faut admettre qu'on appelle athée toute pensée qui déplace ou définit autrement le sacré, et que la philosophie, qui ne le met jamais ici ou là, comme une chose, mais à la jointure des choses ou des mots, sera toujours exposée à ce reproche sans qu'il puisse jamais la toucher." (EP p. 49) — MP's positive counter-formulation.

"un autre nous-même, qui épouse et authentifie toute notre obscurité." (PM p. 118) — MP's kenotic God.

"qui s'est comme rompu pour installer en lui-même le négatif." (EP p. 31) — kénosis as the structural feature opposite to perfectissimum.

Positions

  • saintaubert-2021-etre-et-chair-ii Ch VII § 3d is the systematic treatment. The 2008 Archives de philosophie article is the term's origin.
  • MP himself does not use théologie explicative; the systematic naming is Saint Aubert's. MP's own targets are named Dieu de survol (OntoCart) and grand diamant éternel (SNS(foi)).
  • Jean-Luc Marion's icon/idol distinction (Dieu sans l'être, 1982) has structural parallels — Marion targets the philosophical idolatry of the metaphysical God, just as MP via Saint Aubert targets the idole and the théologie explicative. The two analyses are independent (Marion does not cite MP on this; Saint Aubert does not develop the Marion parallel) but worth juxtaposing.
  • Henri de Lubac's Drama of Atheist Humanism (1944) is the paradigmatic theistic critique of phenomenology MP responds to (PM p. 49). Chouraqui's 2016 reading takes MP's response as an extension of the ontological-cogito critique: whenever the absolute becomes object, it ceases to be absolute.

Connections

  • targets idole — the théologie explicative constructs the idole at the theological level (the grand diamant éternel).
  • targeted by figuratifs — MP's late ontology of figuratifs is developed contre ce Dieu leibnizien.
  • is the theological form of ontology-of-the-object — both share the survol structure; the théologie explicative is the theological projection.
  • contrasted with the Dieu figuratif — MP's positive counter- theology, structured by kénosis, jointure, and figuratif rather than by perfectissimum, en face, and figure.
  • operates within MP's broader Ineinander / flesh / hyper-dialectic alternatives.
  • parallels Jean-Luc Marion's idole/icone distinction (Dieu sans l'être, 1982) — independent but structurally cognate.
  • targeted in MP's reading of Ruyer's survol absolu — Ruyer's secular-philosophical equivalent of the Leibnizian perfectissimum.

Open Questions

  • Is the théologie explicative MP's actual target, or Saint Aubert's reconstruction of a target MP scattered across multiple named opponents (Leibniz, scholasticism, Descartes' God, Sartre's En-soi)? Saint Aubert's argument is that the unification is structurally warranted by the manuscripts; the question is whether MP himself would have accepted the unification.
  • How does the théologie explicative relate to Heidegger's onto-théologie (Heidegger's name for the metaphysical theology Western thought repeats)? The structural parallel is striking; the routes (philological vs. fundamental-ontological) differ.
  • Does MP's positive Dieu figuratif amount to a coherent theological position, or is it deliberately kept at the threshold of theology proper? The latter reading is more consistent with MP's overall reticence about theological commitment.
  • Marion's Dieu sans l'être (1982) develops a similar iconic/idolatric structure with explicit theological commitments. Could MP's Dieu figuratif be read as the secular phenomenological precursor of Marion's icon-theology?

"Important sans portance": the failure mode of survol-being (Saint Aubert 2023)

Saint Aubert 2023 offers a striking single-attestation diagnostic for the failure mode of survol-being: "un être de surplomb qui s'impose, important sans portance" (III.3, p. 23). The wordplay (important in the sense of "imposing/lording over," contrasted with portance as structural bearing) names the theological- metaphysical being that imposes without bearing flesh — Sartre's En-soi, Leibniz's perfectissimum, the Dieu de survol. Such a being "nous ne pouvons ni l'éprouver ni le mettre à l'épreuve". The phrase is the negative characterization of MP's positive portance: portance is not what survol-being lacks, it is the structural alternative.

Saint Aubert pairs this with the omnitenens / omnipotens distinction (2023, III.2, p. 22): "Omnitenens plutôt qu'omnipotens". Omnipotens is the classical divine attribute (all-powerful), the centerpiece of the théologie explicative; omnitenens — "all-holding-together" — names MP's being. The shift from potens to tenens is structural: power gives way to bearing, imposition to support, command to reliance. The omnitenens neologism is the positive counterpart of the important-sans-portance diagnostic.

"L'incarnation change tout / la profondeur change tout" parallel (Saint Aubert 2023)

The 2023 paper articulates the parallel that links the théologie- explicative critique to MP's positive ontology of figuratifs:

"'L'incarnation change tout', affirmait Merleau-Ponty, critiquant une certaine tradition théologique et la provoquant à se renouveler ; il suggère au moins autant, s'opposant à l'ontologie de l'objet et nous invitant à une nouvelle ontologie, que 'la profondeur change tout'." (Saint Aubert 2023, p. 24)

The parallel is structurally tight. L'incarnation change tout is MP's critique of the théologie explicative — a theology of survol-being that the Incarnation breaks. La profondeur change tout is the phenomenological-ontological counterpart — the ontologie de l'objet that depth breaks. Both formulas operate against survol-being: Incarnation breaks the closed-perfectissimum God; depth breaks the flat-determinable object. The two breaks are parallel because the structure against which each pushes is the same — survol in its theological and ontological forms.

Sources

  • saintaubert-2021-etre-et-chair-ii — Ch VII § 3c "Le crépuscule des idoles" (p. 299–302); § 3d "Écriture et réécriture du sacré" (p. 302–305). The systematic treatment.
  • Saint Aubert, "'L'Incarnation change tout'. Merleau-Ponty critique de la 'théologie explicative'", Archives de philosophie 71/3 (2008), p. 371–405. The term's origin.
  • saintaubert-2023-etre-et-chair — III.2 (p. 22) the omnitenens- omnipotens distinction; III.3 (pp. 23–24) the important sans portance diagnostic and the l'incarnation change tout / la profondeur change tout parallel. Public-facing condensation of the 2008 article and 2021 Ch VII § 3.
  • merleau-ponty-1964-primacy-of-perception — Éloge de la philosophie (EP) p. 31 (kénosis), p. 49 (sacred at the jointure).
  • Primary archival refs (via Saint Aubert): EM3 [244]v(26), [256] ("contre ce Dieu leibnizien"); SNS(foi) p. N310/G212–213 (grand diamant éternel); OntoCart NTontocart [127] (Dieu de survol); PM p. 118 (kenotic God); EP p. 31, 49.
  • Background: Étienne Gilson, Index scolastico-cartésien (Paris 1913, 2nd ed. Vrin 1979) — MP's likely source for the scholastic background.