Predestination, Imperatives, and the Meaning of Being

Stanislas Breton (A Radical Philosophy of Saint Paul, 59) observes that for Paul “Time [is] the expression or explication . . . of the eternal.” He elaborates by linking predestination with the imperative of creation to sketch out a linguistic/constructivist ontology: 

“Word and seed correspond to each other . . . . as Meister Eckhart will remember when he writes, ‘The being [of things] is the verb by which God speaks all things in speaking to them.’ Or again . . . he describes his thought in totally grammatical fashion: ‘[The creatures] are the adverb of the Verb.’ This adverbial condition, inscribed within being, establishes a system of relations that makes of the world an immense interlocution and ‘conversation by which the essences of things speak to each other, embrace each other, and unite with each other in order to tell of the glory of God.’”

This is not, Breton insists, a “Christian transposition of the Greek Logos,” but is drawn from the opening chapter of the Hebrew Bible, where everything is an effect “of a generative FIAT.” 

In Genesis, “the imperative is the essential mode. It does not have a merely linguistic value. On this point, ‘fact [fait]’ bears the mark of a ‘fashioning [faire]’ by which the imperative unites the being of things under the aspect of a predestination, a vocation, or a call, all of which defines for them ‘the meaning of being.’”

I could attempt to unpack that. Best, though, to leave it as is and invite readers to read it five times before the end of the day.