Another blow to Hyper-Preterists argument that "TIME" is the substance of things to be hoped for, the evidence of things that appear not.
John D. Caputo; The Prayers and Tears of Jacques Derrida: Religion Without Religion; 1997.
"Jewish messianic thought gives us a way to think about time, about events, about the way they eventuate precisely inasmuch as they do not occur. Let us suppose, the story goes, that the Messiah shows up one day, at the gates of Roman, but in disguise, dressed as a begger or a leper, an incognito meant to "protect or prevent his coming (venue)." The venue of the the Messiah, his coming or arrival, is something to shelter or protect from ordinary time and the present. The whole order of venir and a-venir belongs to an other, messianic time and an other language, so that nothing coming (venue) could ever actually occur or come about, or have occurred or have come about, in ordinary time. The Messiah's "coming" CAN NEVER ACTUALLY CORRESPOND TO AN ACTUAL-HISTORICAL APPEARANCE IN ORDINARY TIME. Whatever appearance the Messiah does not make must be carefully protected or sheltered by the discretion of a disguise, lest the infinite provocation, the discreet delicacy and lightness, of that is coming be destroyed by its exposure to ordinary time, by its absorption into the grossness of the order of presence."
"Even if the Messiah is there, la, in the flesh, present in ordinary time, such a presence can never amount to a coming, for coming - venue, venir, l'avenir- does not belong to the order of presence, "se venue ne correspond pas a une presence," but to a messianic order."
"So when the Messiah says "today," now he means "Now if only you heed me, or if you are willing to listen to my voice." The messianic "today" means: if you will begin, now, to respond to the call that the Messiah himself addresses to you, begin to answer the demands he places upon you, if, in order words, you are willing now to say viens as a response to the Messiah's call, . . . " "The messianic "today" means: if you are willing to respond - by your passivity and your patience - to the coming of the Messiah, for the Messiah's kingdom IS ALWAY TO COME, the very meaning of the Messiah is of a kingdom to come, of what is structurally coming, even as it makes an urgent demand upon us NOW." (Page 80)
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Footnote: Caputo received his B.A. in 1962 from La Salle University, his M.A. in 1964 from Villanova University and his Ph.D. in philosophy in 1968 from Bryn Mawr College. Caputo was the David R. Cook Professor of Philosophy at Villanova University from 1968 to 2004. Since 2004, Caputo has been the Thomas J. Watson Professor of Humanities at Syracuse University, where he teaches in both the departments of philosophy and religion. He is active in the American Philosophical Association, the American Academy of Religion, and chairs the board of editors for the Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory.
