Justice as Gift: Thinking Grace with the Help of Derrida

Abstract

In the larger project of which this essay represents a part, I am attempting to show how a reading of Derrida may be of help in thinking what Paul is arguing, especially in Romans, concerning justice. The starting point of this discussion is the supposition that it is important to separate the reading of Paul from the ecclesial and confessional presuppositions that continue, even in academic discussions, to set the terms of interpretation. It is thus an attempt at a nonreligious or at least non-confessional reading of Paul;1 what I have termed in another context, in a description of the project of Hendrikus Boer’s work, a “humanistic” interpretation or Paul (Jennings 1990, ix—xvi). In this case it means reading Paul m relation to a powerful contemporary discussion of die theme of justice, namely that of Derrida. Of course in much contemporary and traditional reading of Paul it is not even noticed that Paul is concerned with justice as a political or philosophical problem. That this is Paul’s concern has been emphasized above all in Latin American Liberation Theology and is especially present in the work of Jose Porfirio Miranda and Elsa Tamez. Agreeing with these readers of Paul that this is the issue and with Boers that it is important to read Paul not simply as the private possession of a confessional stance but as one whose thought must be understood within a wider and more public and indeed philosophical discourse are the enabling conditions of the project upon which I am embarked.