In novitate vitae. Il significato del “nuovo” nelle interpretazioni contemporanee della kainē ktisis paolina

The aim of this paper is to outline an understanding of the idea of “newness” in contemporary thought. Can the “new” aspire to its own fullness of meaning or does it have no other function than to complete the meaning of other notions? What object can constitute a question of philosophical interest? Does only the content defined as “new” matter or also the reasons of this definition and its profound meaning? How did philosophy, in this case contemporary philosophy, deal with the question of the “new” and how did it try to think a conceptual understanding of it? The starting thesis of this essay is that despite of the lament of the Qohelet (1,9-10), nihil sub sole novum, much of the general understanding that Western thought delineated about the idea of novum grounds itself on the underlying biblical root and the founding Christian religious reflection. Although it already characterized many sections of the Old Testament, the idea of novitas (in Greek kainotēs) assumes an extremely more central and radical role in the Epistles of Saint Paul of Tarsus. The Christian idea of novitas evidently represents a possible object of interest also for philosophy. In order to grasp this philosophical perspective on newness some interpretations of this Pauline doctrine of the kainē ktisis in contemporary thought will be traced. Philosophy of religion, philosophy of history, philosophical and theological anthropology, ethics, political theology, metaphysics: it is possible to deduce the fundamental importance of Paul also from the variety of approaches with which the various interpreters approached the Corpus Paulinum. Philosophy has to integrate the common focus on the same object and the diversity of approaches to comprehend the force of the newness with which the passionate Pauline proclamation challenges it.