Phenomenology and Religion: New Frontiers

the future of emancipation

Accordingly, Derrida proves to be unable to relate to what should re-
ally have been the major force of his line of thinking: what Agamben
terms the operational time of messianic temporality. Thus, in his insist-
ence on keeping the promise as promise, on keeping the promise
“pure” and “intact,” Derrida betrays his own predilection for suspect-
ing purity. Hence, the openness of the thinking of the trace, of the
thinking of différance which, as we know following Derrida himself, is
inseparable from his later idea of justice,^21 becomes practically indis-
cernible from the historicism and conformism so recklessly torn to
pieces by Benjamin in his Theses. The time of deconstruction, with its
thoroughgoing predilection for the indecidable, becomes “homogene-
ous and empty,” just like the time of historicism. Keeping Žižek’s
description of Christian love in mind, we could say that, in his over-
arching emphasis on différance, Derrida neglects to exercise the differ-
ence which is a necessary precondition of love. In accordance with all
these charges, Agamben therefore seems quite justified when he
mercilessly summarizes Derrida’s thinking by saying that “[d]econ-
struction is a thwarted messianism, a suspension of the messianic.”^22
Or, as Agamben writes, referring to the difference between chrono-
logical time (the time of historicism) and messianic, operational time
(the time of historical materialism joined by messianism):

Whereas our representation of chronological time, as the time in which

we are, separates us from ourselves and transforms us into impotent

spectators of ourselves — spectators who look at the time that flies

without any time left, continually missing themselves — messianic time,

an operational time in which we take hold of and achieve our re-

presentations of time, is the time that we ourselves are, and for this very

reason, is the only real time, the only time we have.^23

The final word, here and now, for the time being: let us have time, let
us be haunted, let us address the ghosts — and inherit, as we can, in the

21. For the interrelation of these key terms of Derrida’s oeuvre, I take the liberty
    of referring the reader to my book La question de la justice chez Jacques Derrida, Par-
    is: L’Harmattan, 2007.


22. Agamben, The time that remains, 103.


23. Ibid., 68. Ibid., 68.