Humanities & Social Sciences, Vol 7, No 5 (2014)

THE UNIVERSE AS A SATURATED PHENOMENON:The Concept of Creation of the World in View of Modern Cosmology and Philosophy

Alexei Nesteruk

Abstract


In this paper we advance J.-L. Marion’s theory of saturated phenomena by applying it to cosmology, namely to the notion of the universe as a whole, advocating that it must be considered as an aesthetical rather than a rational idea. It is demonstrated that the excess of intuition of the universe over its presentation in categories of the understanding places the universe as a whole in the range of saturated phenomena. Thus, as a matter of a phenomenological return, it is asserted that it is the universe as a whole, to the extent it cannot be comprehended by the intellect, that constitutes human subjectivity, so that humanity acquires a status of microcosm in a very non-trivial sense. Since the universe a s a whole correlates with the notion of creation in theology, it is argued that any approach to creation in the natural attitude is impossible, for it involves the issue of that consciousness which articulates creation. Creation enters the very facticity of consciousness through being formed by its saturating givenness.