Emergence of History

What was necessary for history to emerge? It was not possible by spontaneous generation. The ancestral defence mechanisms were too massive. They had to be broken. They were. That occurred in Judeo-Christian space.

The category of history represents a radical innovation in human space. And this innovation is biblical. It is the Bible and the Bible alone which really opens history. History with the meaning that what is 'to do' overrides what 'is made', what 'has to be' overrides what simply 'is'. That starts with Creator Yahvé. No other divinity was allotted such an enormous prowness, that is to make emerge from nothing an infinity of innovation.

The category of history is not less essential in the Bible than that of creation. Nothing is before the creative act if not the act itself. And this creative act is at the same time the first historical act, the beginning of history. From here the being emerges in history. From here on the being is identified with history. Not only during the first six days… The cosmos, consequently, is only thinkable in gestation, in continuous and permanent creation. The cosmos is 'on the way'. It is in exodus through failures as well as through miracles. Il is delivered to adventure and risk.

By the irruption of the Judeo-Christian innovation, man was provoked and defied to become creator of History, that is creator of historicity. Provoked by the Other one man is projected out of himself. Out of his safety measures. He is irreversibly taken in the flow of ad infinitely opened time. He is irremediably embarked in History. He has to risk the big adventure.

In his image and his resemblance he created man. And what a man! With a freedom making fun of destiny. A man with nomadic and prophetic breath. Infinitely cramped in every installation. Always dissatisfied. Always 'out of'. Tensed ahead towards eschatologic extremes. Unceasingly called for decision and creation. In ceaseless exodus towards a new earth and new skies.

The Lord of the Bible is not the god of the philosophers; he is God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, that is God of a historical project. He is the God of an infinite exodus. The basic essentials, from now on, cross History. Man is compromised with the divine epic. God is compromised with the human epic.

The broken circle. There cannot be history, really history, without the scandalous and irrational temporal flow taking value for itself. When time does not require any more to find consistency by going back to the origins and being regenerated from 'behind', but becoming 'ahead' of itself the dynamics of new genesis. When the cosmological scenario does not monopolize any more the scene but leaves it free for improvisation. When the 'same' one of repetitiveness yields the relevance to the 'other' one of unforeseeable creation. When the irreversibility of the events means less primarily loss than gain of being. When non-being becomes a possibility of more-being. When historical corrosion proves to be less a threat than a challenge. In short, when man embarks in history while removing his defenses against history and becoming aware of himself as a historical creator. What an extraordinary moment in the evolution of humanity, that of the rupture of the cycle of the eternal return! Man dares to break the circle and to mark his difference with the cosmological order. Opening of a new space where freedom is spread. From now on man becomes aware of himself as creator and actor. He leaves the destiny to run the risk of his adventure.

However this revolution was achieved in a single way. But isn't it sufficient that this happened in only one point of the world, so that starting from this point and from this moment, the whole of universal history topples in historicity? Such an opening took place. The Bible gives evidence of it. The fact that the Word of God was not delivered as a dictation but as a compromising with an human adventure appears scandalous for more than one spirit avid of an absolute text which would have fallen from the sky. It is however in this manner that God speaks in the Bible. The sacred book is made a book of history! The sacral reality, from now on, does not any more have its place elsewhere.

What an amazing audacity of a people, and of only one, which dares to face the eternal sacral cosmic order and risks out of the circle. For pagans every thing is always at the beginning; it continues with emanations and degradations, and on the best assumption, with the possible return towards the origin. In the Bible alpha is for omega, without return, and the 'eschaton' is principle.

The Bible means the radical rupture of the circle of the eternal return and founds a theology of History. By making the experience of a divine 'plan', it reveals the foolish project of a common History of humanity with his God and thus opens the 'sense' of History. The People of God walking towards salvation and, with him, The whole of humanity. An exodus towards a Promised land… The Christian faith is consequently carried by the same History - a 'Holy History' - whose sense starts to be revealed through the Old Testament for being achieved 'ahead', in a 'now' open on a future.

With however the increasingly marked requirement of the distinction of two plans. The difference between visible History, simple empirical envelope, and True History, largely inaccessible to our daily experience. The mystery of the True History will be fully elucidated only in eschatology, that is in the achievement.When, once History is completed, the whole of the still currently veiled significances can appear in full light, in the Light of God .

What is necessary to launch History?

The Judeo-Christian innovation breaks the cycles of fate and opens time in front of itself. Out of the destiny of the eternal return. The circle opens to be vector. Alpha and Omega do not meet any more but on another plan. History is opened towards its transcendence and its eschatology. Impossibilities get possible. Nothing is never played definitively. There are no dead ends without exit. In the middle of the catastrophe the prophet can still shout hope.

This audacity of an 'exodus' beyond limits, beyond all limits, could only come through an Alliance with an 'Other' one - an All-Other - who,was revealed 'Yahwe'. 'I Am'. I am always with you. You are thus never again alone. Why would you be afraid?

Disconcerting history. Where the logical reason requires imperiously unity, identity, coherence, totality, history lets emerge abruptly multiplicity, difference, contradiction, infinite going ahead. History does violence to the logical reason. History is the cross of the logical reason. History means gaping of the logical reason. Some people can even suspect it of radical insanity. Maybe it is only scandal.

An act, here, can be posed against insanity and decide. Something like a faith. This one can consider history as an adventure which lets emerge unceasingly the difference and thus creation. Not just a naturalist deployment but a deep adventure of the spirit.

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