Trust in the potential for change and transformation is a significant topic in philosophical readings of the Apostle Paul in contemporary thought. Giorgio Agamben is one of the main names in this discussion, given his account of Paul’s messianic pistis. On the other hand, Paul Ricoeur, who is also interested in Paul, is not often considered in these discussions. However, the present investigation proposes that Ricoeur’s hermeneutical reflection, especially his concept of attestation, enriches the philosophical discussion on Paul and the notion of trust in potentiality and transformation. The study is organized into three main parts to achieve this goal. The first two treat Ricoeur’s attestation and Agamben’s pistis individually, while the third part articulates a constructive dialogue between the two for a dialectical account of trust in potentiality and
transformation. The dialogue offers a rich combination of philosophical anthropology and (political) metaphysics in contemporary thought.
Adriani Milli Rodrigues is originally from Brazil. He received a bachelor’s degree in Theology from the Adventist University of Sao Paulo, Brazil, in 2006, and a master’s degree in Religious Studies from the Methodist University of Sao Paulo, Brazil, in 2009. In 2017, he obtained a PhD in Religion (Theological Studies) at Andrews University, in the United States of America. A revised version of his dissertation was published in 2018 by Fortress Academic, entitled Toward a Priestly Christology: A Hermeneutical Study of Christ’s Priesthood. Between 2016 and 2024, he was a professor of systematic theology at the Adventist University of Sao Paulo, and since 2024 he has been Associate Professor of Systematic Theology and Christian Philosophy at Andrews University. As a PhD candidate in the department of Metaphysics and Philosophical Anthropology at Radboud University, Adriani started working on his dissertation about dialectical trust in potentiality and transformation in 2019.