What Does the Gift Reveal

The question of the gift has once again arisen as a question of debate for phenomenology and theology. In this article the work of Jean-Yves Lacoste on the gift is considered in light of earlier reflections by Jean-Luc Marion and Jacques Derrida. Reading closely his recent work on gift and sacrament, especially in Être en danger, the author looks anew at issues arising there around the sacred, the economy, presence, and exchange. Lacoste’s phenomenological thinking of the gift of the holy in a wound of experience, one that signifies only by the feeling of a lack of feeling, offers a new way forward for theological discernment of the divine gift