Philosophy and the Covenant

Abstract

We have seen how the biological continuity of man remains incomprehensible if an explanation is sought in the perpetuation of the species or in the pursuit of pleasure. Levinas has shown that the erotic as a phenomenon hovers at the brink of relation but sinks back into the biological domain of need. Love is fulfilled in fecundity and inaugurates a new dialectic, attesting continuity with the past while breaking with it through the emergence of an absolutely new self. The past is not a destiny. In the family, the self as egoity is called to responsibility and a distinctive mode of temporalization established, a mode in which existence is extended without denying the inevitability of death. Time is redeemed through the appearance of a new generation which unmakes the work of the past yet develops in fundamental continuity with it.