Covenant, Promise, and the Gift of Time

If we categorize religions according to whether they give greater prominence to time or to space, the role of “promise” marks a religion of covenant as clearly a religion of time. Yet the future is unknowable and can only be present to us as a field of possibilities. How far do these possibilities extend? The question directs us back to the nature of time, a question that became concealed in the course of Western philosophical development or that was answered in terms of time s nullity. Modern philosophy (Levinas) has, however, pointed to the inseparability of time, language, and responsibility, thereby giving to time a positive content in terms of the ethical responsibility that, before God, we have for one another.