The Ontological Question: Existence and Being
Let us look at the ontological question first. According to Ricoeur's reading, the difference between existence and being is the difference between the human condition and transcendence; the latter leads finally to God. They are the two foci of Marcel's thought (GMKJ 32, 218, 265). Existence designates our human condition in the world which is embodied, free and dialoguing with others. But existence is not being; it is not transcendence. Existence comes about only by virtue of being, and this is how the idea of participation comes in. It is only in the case of authentic existence-one which recognizes the fullness of transcendence-that existence is indistinguishable from being (Cf. Marcel, Mystery of Being, 2:31). Once this distinction is made, the idea that the same uncharacterizable covers both existence and being in an undifferentiated way is not without difficulty. In an interview with Marcel, Ricoeur brings up this question and makes a further clarification of the terms. He notices that in Marcel's thought, existence and being easily overlap one another, but they can be distinguished in terms of the different preoccupations of Marcel. The question of existence is raised in relation to that of objectivity; it is the zone where doubt is no longer possible. The question of being is raised from the perspective of ontological exigence which, according to Marcel, bears us towards a fullness that resists functional and abstract determinations.6
In Gabriel Marcel et Karl Jaspers Ricoeur attempts to trace the source of Marcel's difficulty. He begins with an examination of the first part of Being and Having where Marcel explains why he accepts the neo-Thomistic affirmation of being in general (GMKJ 352-358; Being and Having 27-40). Ricoeur indicates that the whole struggle of Marcel starts with his determination to break with idealism. He has now a deep conviction that we are linked to being and not just to ideas. Upon reading Garrigou-Lagrange's book on God, he agrees with the author that the affirmation of being in general explains the structure of thought in our relation to being. The neo-Thomistic view that we affirm being in general every time when we affirm any particular thing shows the immanence of thought to being; it is in this light that a necessary relation can be conceived between existence and being, between the individual and transcendence. After a reflection on the principle of identity, Marcel is further convinced that this formal affirmation is not just a kind of "rule of the game" which thought must observe in order to function. Rather, it states the fact that thought is not a relation with itself; it transcends itself in knowing something.
But Ricoeur observes that very soon Marcel comes up with a real difficulty: how can one be sure that this being in general is a positive infinite, an ens realissimum which would be the height of the determined and not the pure indeterminate, the apeiron of the ancients, of which one can hardly say it is such or such? It is only in the first case that the principle of identity can assure us of the ontological meaning mentioned above. Ricoeur draws attention to the hesitations of Marcel in Being and Having and to fact that in spite of certain rectifications, the problem is not completely solved. All the other formulations do not exceed the vague knowledge of the self-transcendence of thought. It is difficult to tell whether being in general is a pure indeterminate or an ens realissimum which possesses all reality. Even if it can be shown to be the latter, question still remains as to whether it transcends the world as a whole or not. This is probably the point of Ricoeur when he asks for the difference between the immanence of thought to being and the immanence of thought to the "world" understood in the Heideggerian sense. Ricoeur ascribes the difficulty of Marcel concerning this distinction to the "purely logical path" inherent in the Thomistic affirmation of being (GMKJ 355). Marcel does try other way out, such as the distinction between thinking (penser) and thinking of (penser 
), and it is finally incorporated into Marcel's notion of "fidelity" which is introduced in Being and Having precisely after his reflections on the Thomistic understanding of being in general. The notion of fidelity, according to Ricoeur, represents Marcel's true reaction to the difficulties met by a reflection that is based on the form of thought alone.
The whole problem arises from the fact that Marcel needs an ontological background against which the existing individual stands, but at the same time he does not want this background to be mutilated by objective and functional categories. This explains the hesitations and tensions in Being and Having between the abstract approach of being in general and the concrete path of fidelity. The question whether there can be a way of understanding the ontological ground so that both of Marcel's conditions can be safeguarded brings us back to the epistemological question.¡@