"The genius of the Christian ethic is to point out in the simplest of ordinary lives, accessible to all and comprehensible by all, the concrete conditions – the circumstances, as it were – in which the extraordinary event is produced by which the ego’s life will be changed into God’s. As an example, let us consider the parable of the Good Samaritan (whose good deed is terrifyingly represented by Luca Giordano in the painting in the Rouen Museum). Someone like the priest or Levite, who passes by without helping the man robbed by brigands who has been thrown down and is covered with wounds – that person now advances along the route to perdition without knowing it. By contrast, the Samaritan, setting aside his own business, all preoccupations about himself or his interests, is concerned only with the unfortunate one. Taking him to an inn, having him tended, paying for everything – in short, practicing mercy, he has done everything that could be done to “inherit eternal life” (Luke 10:25-37). If such is the metaphysical destiny of the protagonists in the parable, it is good that acts are what count."
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Michel Henry, I am the Truth. Toward a Philosophy of Christianity, translated by Susan Emanuel, Stanford University Press, 2003, p. 166
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Michel Henry
Michel Henry (10 January 1922 – 3 July 2002) was a French philosopher, phenomenologist and novelist. He wrote five novels and numerous philosophical works. He also lectured at universities in France, Belgium, the United States, and Japan.
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