"To see what ought to be done without possessing the power to do so, to see what ought to be done while finding oneself deprived (in and through this seeing, in and through this commandment) of the ability to execute it â this is the dramatic and desperate situation in which the Law has placed each person, despite the fact that it is addressed to him from outside as a transcendent Law. A Law that defines the infraction and the crime, that opens before people the gaping possibility without giving them the power to avoid either, is a cursed Law. An absence of Law would be better, a state of innocence in which the possibility of crime was not every moment within sight. The Law, on the contrary, curses all those who do not put it into practice â in fact, it curses everybody, since it gives nobody the power to follow it. The Law multiples crime, as the Apostle says in a striking phrase: âThe law was added so that trespass might increaseâ (Romans 5:20)."
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Michel Henry, I am the Truth. Toward a Philosophy of Christianity, translated by Susan Emanuel, Stanford University Press, 2003, p. 177-178
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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