Summary 5

What is Theology?

Theology comes from the Greek words Theos meaning “God” and logos meaning “word.” So, literally, theology means “words about God.” Yet as with many etymologies, the roots of this word tell us precious little about what theology is. Theology is a set of answers to numerous questions with which religions generally deal, and which cannot be answered by other modes of human inquiry. These include, but are not limited to: Why is there something (a world) rather than nothing? Does the world have a purpose, and if so, then what is it? What is “ultimate reality,” or that which accounts for everything else but itself needs no further explanation or reason (God, gods, matter and energy, spirit and matter, spirit or what)? What are human beings? Are we only material animals, souls or spirits in bodies? What is the human predicament, and what is its solution? Is our problem a lack of knowledge or ignorance, or a moral problem? Is there a purpose to history in general and human life in particular? What happens when we die? Do we simply cease to exist, do we “go” somewhere else such as paradise or punishment, or are we reborn in some way into this world?

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Religion and Theology

Religion is more than theology, although in the modern western world we have a tendency to associate religion almost exclusively with a set of beliefs and moral principles. Religion also involves rituals, symbols, myths, social, and sometimes political and economic elements. Theology is an important element of all religions.

Naturally, Paul had religious beliefs that included answers to the questions theology answers. One problem with determining Paul’s theology, though, is that all of Paul’s letters are occasional. That is, they were written as specific communications to specific people two thousand years ago to address specific situations, problems, and questions. Along with this, in each of his letters, Paul assumes a common background of knowledge and experience between himself and the recipients of the letter. Thus he leaves much unsaid, only addressing the particular issues at hand.

Another problem with determining Paul’s theology is that, as we have seen, scholars debate whether or not Paul himself wrote all of the letters with his name on them in the New Testament. Many scholars believe, for example, that Paul did not write 2 Thessalonians, Ephesians, Colossians, and the Pastoral Epistles. If not, then the theology of those letters is not necessarily identical with Paul’s theology. Rather, it is the theology of the pseudonymous authors who wrote them in Paul’s name. Thus, in seeking Paul’s theology, first and foremost, we must turn to Paul’s Undisputed/Authentic Epistles.

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Pauls Theology

Another problem is that Acts of the Apostles, in which Paul is a major character, was written by someone who may have never known Paul and was colored by the agenda of its author. Scholars have noted and we have seen numerous discrepancies between biographical details concerning Paul in Acts and what Paul himself says by way of autobiographical comments and his undisputed letters. Thus, as with the Disputed/Deutero-Pauline Epistles and the Pastoral Epistles, we must be careful when turning to Acts of the Apostles as we seek to learn Paul’s theology.

Yet another problem in determining Paul’s theology is that it self-consciously takes up the questions that religion answers and addresses in a systematic fashion. This is what theology books do, however, we have no surviving “theology textbook” of Paul in which he systematically takes up the many questions that theology addresses, and gives his answers to them. Thus we are left to study Paul’s occasional letters for insights and clues as to what Paul believed about any given theological topic. Many scholars believe that this is a viable task, however, we must be aware of the dangers and problems that we have noted.

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The Central Theme of Paul's Theology

In this and the remaining modules of the course we will take up this task of asking what Paul’s theology entailed on a number of important theological topics.

Scholars debate whether or not Paul’s theology would have a central, driving theme, had he actually written a systematic theology book. Some argue that Paul’s letters reveal so many differences, perhaps even inconsistencies, that Paul really had no center to his theology.

Others, however, argue that the differences and apparent inconsistencies are due to the occasional nature of Paul’s letters, but if we work diligently enough, we can attempt to discern the central theme of Paul’s theology.

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Scholarly Visions

Here are some proposals offered by scholars for Paul’s theology. The number of different proposals evidence the difficulty of finding a center to Paul’s theology:

•"A Tacit Trinitarianism Concerning the Contribution of Father, Son, and Spirit to Salvation" (Joseph Plevnik)

•"Anthropology" (Theology About Human Beings, Their Nature, Destiny, Problem And Its Solution) (e.g., Rudolph Bultmann)

•"Apocalyptic Theology and God’s Triumph Over Evil in Christ" (J. Christiaan Beker)

•"Christ’s Resurrection" (Paul J. Achtemeier)

•"Justification by Faith Alone" (Martin Luther, The Protestant Reformer Of The Ad 1500s)

•"Reconciliation" (Ralph P. Martin)

•"The Glory of God" (Thomas Schreiner)

•"The Glory and Triumph of God in Salvation" (J. Christiaan Beker, Thomas Schreiner)

•"The Grace of Jesus Christ" (St. Thomas Aquinas)

•"The History of God’s Plan of Salvation" (Herman Ridderbos)

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Paul and the Law

A key concept in Paul’s letters is the Law (nomos in Greek). Paul uses this term differently in various places, but the vast majority of the time he is referring to the Law of Moses; the first five books of the Hebrew Scriptures known as the Torah or the Pentateuch.

We have seen that Paul was considered a renegade and fringe Christian, because the earliest Christians observed the Law of Moses. They required ex-pagan Gentile Christian converts to observe the Law of Moses, but Paul, a Jew and Pharisee, did not.

In defending his message and mission, Paul clearly says that the Law is good, holy, and just. There is nothing wrong with the Law, per se.1 However, Paul adamantly believes that the Law of Moses, far from being God’s intended way to save the poor pagan Gentiles and many early Jewish Christians, played only a temporary plan in God’s plan for humanity. Using the Law itself, Paul argues that God’s promise of salvation in the Messiah Jesus came to Abraham four hundred years before the Law of Moses was given, was given to the Jews to “keep them in line” so to speak until the promised Messiah came, and that as an outward set of divine commands has no power to change human beings into the way God wants them to be.2

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The Solution Becomes the Problem

In fact, Paul seems to say that far from being the great and precious gift of God that many Jews thought made them special, the Law was meant to demonstrate the moral problem with humanity with the people of Israel who failed to keep it as an the primary example.3 By giving God’s moral requirements that human beings cannot keep because all human beings are “under sin,” the Law is actually manipulated and used by “sin” (a quasi-personal evil cosmic force in Paul’s apocalyptic theology) to incite people to sin even more.4

Paul’s apocalyptic theology saw the present evil age as one ruled by evil cosmic forces, including sin, which enslaves all human beings and subjects them to wrath of God, with death as the punishment for sin (another quasi-personal evil cosmic force). With the resurrection of Christ, death has been defeated, and therefore sin, and now there is no longer any need for the Law.5

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The Holy Spirit

Now, in the beginning of the new age of Christ, which still overlaps with the old age until Christ’s second coming, the Holy Spirit is given to those who have faith in Christ and have been baptized into Christ. The Holy Spirit changes Christians so that they are freed from the evil apocalyptic forces of the “flesh,” sin, and death, makes them holy, good, and righteous, and prompts them to do the good things that God requires expressed in the Law’s commandments, but without the need for the external standard of the Law.6

Paul speaks of the age in which the evil apocalyptic forces of the flesh, sin, and death enslaved humans in conjunction with the temporary role of the Law, and he speaks of the new age of the Holy Spirit initiated by Christ in terms of “grace.”

In the history of Christianity, starting with St. Augustine (AD 354 – 430), these terms in Paul’s theology took technical meanings that were based on what Paul said, but meant something different. The New Perspective on Paul in modern biblical scholarship has identified the misunderstandings of these Pauline terms that have dominated Church history ever since.

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Views of St Augustine

St. Augustine correctly envisioned Paul teaching the lesson that all human beings are under the power of “sin” as a result of Adam’s sin.7 This became the Christian theological concept of original sin. St. Augustine also correctly saw Paul's vision about the Law and how it functioned to reveal the human problem of sin. That for Paul, the Holy Spirit given to believers in Christ, is the solution to the human problem. St. Augustine wrongly, however, thought that the Law for Jews at the time of Paul was seen to be a way to “earn one’s way to heaven by being good.” He also wrongly saw the Law as applying as a hypothetical but not possible (due to sin) way for all human beings, Gentiles as well as Jews, to be pleasing to God, have a right relationship with God, and get into heaven. Thus St. Augustine wrongly interpreted Paul’s phrase "works of the Law" to mean a hypothetical way that humans can earn God’s favor and get into heaven, and contrasted this with grace and the Holy Spirit, which come by faith in Jesus Christ. This is the only way humans can actually become pleasing in God’s sight and be worthy of heaven.

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The Meaning of Faith

Modern scholars have determined that Jews in Jesus’ day did not see the Law as a way to earn salvation through their own good works in order to get to heaven, rather, they viewed it as a boundary marker separating the people of God from those who were not in a covenant relationship with God. This is called covenantal nomism. Paul saw the Law as only applying to Jews, and only temporarily. He also saw the Law and faith as two different criteria for identifying the people of God. Paul argued that God’s people are identified by their faith in God and His Messiah, Jesus, not Torah-observance. “Works of the Law” for Paul meant “being circumcised and Torah/Law- observant,” not a way to get into heaven. “Faith” for Paul did not mean “giving up on one’s efforts at being a good person and trying to earn salvation.” “Faith” for Paul was a holistic attitude of belief, inner attitude, and a life of obedience to God, which really characterizes those who are God’s people in the present evil age.

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Justification

Another key term in Paul’s theology is “justification” (dikaiousthai). This term appears almost eighty times in the Undisputed Epistles of Paul. Paul also uses the words “righteous/just” (dikaios) and “righteousness/justice” (dikaiosthunē), which are related in Greek, but the relation is not clear in English translations. Paul speaks of both God and humans with these terms.

These terms are rooted in the Hebrew Scriptures, which very early and speak of God’s “righteous deeds” and “righteousness” in God saving action of vindicating or justifying his people against their enemies and punishing the wicked enemies of God’s people.8 In Paul’s apocalyptic theology, the “justified” are those who are God’s people in this wicked, evil age and who have been saved from the evil cosmic forces, but who will be vindicated on the apocalyptic day of God’s judgment and the appearing of Jesus Christ as the judge.9 “Justification” and the “justified” refer, for Paul, to the way to identify the people of God in the present.

Importantly, the words “justification” and “justified” in Paul, frequently appear in the immediate context of discussions about Jews and Gentiles, and who, precisely, are God’s chosen people in the present age of the Messiah, Jesus.10 “Justification by faith apart from works of the Law”11 means for Paul, how one becomes a member of the Church, or the Messianic covenant community on the basis of personal faith and not by converting to orthodox, Torah/Law of Moses-observant Judaism. This, recall, was a primary concern in Paul’s letters to the Galatians and Romans.

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Varying Interpretations

Once again, the New Perspective on Paul contends that since St. Augustine, Paul’s term “justification” has been misinterpreted. St. Augustine interpreted “justification” to mean how a sinner can be loved and accepted by God in this life and the live to come. St. Augustine read Paul as saying that on the basis of faith one comes to Christ, is baptized, receives the sacraments, and thus is transformed from a sinner into a righteous person. The Holy Spirit and God’s grace make the person good, and they then, do the good things required by the Law of God “apart from the Law,” that is, apart from trying to keep God’s Law on their own strength.

Martin Luther, the famous Protestant Reformer of the AD 1500s, built upon St. Augustine but went further. He interpreted “justification by faith apart from works of the Law” in Paul to mean that we should abandon all attempts to earn our salvation by our own efforts at being good. Rather, by faith alone we believe in Christ, our sins are forgiven, and God considers Christ’s perfect righteousness as if it were our own. Yet, we ourselves are still sinners and can never please God. God reckons Christ’s perfect obedience to God as if it were our own. Modern biblical scholarship has by and large judged these understandings of justification as an indication of how sinners can be reconciled with a holy God to be far from Paul’s original meaning.

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Justice as a Theological Concern

These interpretations of Paul also see forgiveness of sins as central to Paul’s theology. They see the pre-Christian Paul as having a guilty conscience for not being able to keep God’s Law, but finding peace with God and a righteous standing with God only through faith in Christ. Yet, interestingly, in Paul’s undisputed letters he only ever uses the word “forgiveness” once. Also, interestingly, Paul speaks confidently of his pre- Christian life as a Jew in terms of being “blameless” in the requirements of the Law,12 speaks of his pre-Christian life, and the only remorse he feels regarding his pre-Christian life is for the fact that he persecuted Christians, never for not being able to live up to the demands of the Torah/Law of Moses.

Justification, not forgiveness, is indeed a central theological concern of Paul. Yet, justification for Paul has wrongly been interpreted to regard how sinners “get right with God” in terms of how Paul used the term; to identify the people of God, the Messianic community in the present who will be justified/vindicated at the second coming of Jesus.

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Before and After St. Augustine

Related to the concept of “justification” and “righteous” is a term we spoke of previously: “the righteousness of God.” By itself, this phrase is ambiguous, just like “love of God” can mean either our love for God or God’s love for us. Since St. Augustine, Paul’s term “righteousness of God” has been frequently taken to mean “righteousness from God” or the righteousness that God gives to those who have faith in Jesus, so that they can be acceptable and pleasing to God. Again, this has been seen as Christ’s perfection or righteousness given or reckoned to the believer, because, in Christian belief, Christ is God.

Interestingly, before St. Augustine (AD 354 – 430), during the first four hundred years of Christianity, no Christian interpreter of Paul ever understood Paul’s phrase “the righteousness of God” this way. Rather, the term was seen as referring to the fact that God himself is righteous. We saw in studying Romans how one of the reasons that Paul wrote Romans was to refute claims that his message and mission made God look unrighteous, unjust, and unfaithful. Once again, modern biblical scholarship has recovered what Paul originally meant by Paul’s phrase “the righteousness of God.” For Paul, the “righteousness of God” is God’s own righteousness, justice, fairness and faithfulness. The contexts of numerous passages where Paul uses this term makes this interpretation clear.13

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