This essay argues that Jean‐Luc Marion’s theology of nature and grace provides a lens through which to assess his entire project. It considers his thought with attention to the nouvelle théologie movement and issues that arise for a contemporary theology of nature and grace—focusing on the question of a shared human ‘nature.’ The article demonstrates how problematic emphases of Marion’s phenomenological account of the self’s givenness mirror a conflation of nature and grace in his explicitly theological work. It then points briefly to what Marion’s project might gain through the intervention of a key insight from Josef Pieper’s The Silence of St. Thomas. Marion and Pieper engender two versions of apophaticism with divergent approaches to the mystery of our shared human nature. In the light of this, I show how Pieper offers a corrective to Marion’s theology that could make his overall project a better resource for theologians. The analysis results in a constructive proposal for approaching nature and grace through dialogical engagement with the disciplines of phenomenology and theological metaphysics.