"Here arises a critique of the Law within Christianity, formulated with rare violence by Christ, and for which Paul finds and wonderfully explains the ultimate motivation, which relates it to the Christianity’s central thesis, which places reality within life. It is precisely because the Law is transcendent and exterior to life and perceived by life as beyond it that it is deprived of reality. And by the same token, it is deprived of what finds in life’s reality the possibility of being fulfilled: action. The Law is thus unreal and powerless. Because it unites powerlessness with unreality, the Law places the whole system organized around it (especially the people to whom it is addressed) in an untenable situation. On the one hand, it prescribes, in the form of injunctions that are perceived quite clearly and thus indubitably: “Thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not commit adultery,” and so on. On the other hand, however, this clearly enunciated commandment (not susceptible to being used for trickery) is by itself incapable of producing the action that suits it. “Has not Moses given you the law? Yet not one of you keeps the law” (John 7:19)."
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Michel Henry, I am the Truth. Toward a Philosophy of Christianity, translated by Susan Emanuel, Stanford University Press, 2003, p. 176-177
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Michel_Henry
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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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