“Already/not yet” : St Paul’s eschatology and the modern critique of historicism
Abstract
This paper interrogates some prominent post-Marxist engagements with St Paul’s messianism by reading them in the theological context of the anti-historicist revival of Pauline eschatology in the twentieth century. In both readings, the means through which the critique of historicism is delivered is the revival of the eschatological core of Paul’s proclamation. Paul is read as inaugurating a “new world” of freedom, love and redemptive hope as opposed to the “old world” of oppression, sorrow, death and despair. And yet, it is exactly in such an apocalyptic reading of Pauline eschatology that both philosophical and theological critiques of historicism, despite protestations to the contrary, remain prisoners to the aporias of a historicist temporality. The symptom of the philosophers’ residual parasitism on historicism is expressed as antinomian negativism, while in the case of the theologians it can take the form of a self-assured Church triumphalism.
Citation
Paipais , V 2018 , ' “Already/not yet” : St Paul’s eschatology and the modern critique of historicism ' , Philosophy & Social Criticism , vol. 44 , no. 9 , pp. 1015-1038 . https://doi.org/10.1177/0191453718769455
Publication
Philosophy & Social Criticism
Status
Peer reviewed
ISSN
0191-4537Type
Journal article
Rights
© 2018 the Author. This work has been made available online in accordance with the publisher’s policies. This is the author created accepted version manuscript following peer review and as such may differ slightly from the final published version. The final published version of this work is available at https://doi.org/10.1177/0191453718769455
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