The spirit and messianic time

political-theological implications on the law

Abstract

The aim of this article is to understand the relationship between messianic time and the spirit from the political-theological assumptions constructed by Giorgio Agamben. The starting point for this analysis is the problem of law and its implications for political action and its strategies for capturing forms of life. The fundamental problem is: how to escape from politics centered on the legal-political terrain (sovereignty) and/or based on the logic of government (biopolitics)? This question dialogues with an “antinomy” present in W. Benjamin’s reflections, especially in the tension between “mythical violence” – which establishes law and is called “arbitrary violence”; and “administered violence”, which maintains law and is at the service of the former. Between the violence that creates and that which maintains law, W. Benjamin signals a third: divine violence, which annihilates law itself. This is an important point of discussion in this work: the connection between “political action,” the messiah as an interruption in history—an event in “political time”—and the spirit. Therefore, this text, which is indebted to the archaeological journey constructed by Agamben, points out possible relationships for the disarticulation of the “governmental machine” in a logic that involves understanding (i) the messianic time in the fulfillment of the law; (ii) the messianic time and its theological interpretations; and (iii) the spirit, from a Trinitarian theology, in its relationship with the inoperativeness of the law itself and bare life