Paul, Canon Law and Ecclesiology

The subject of justification by faith has fascinated me ever since I was a young girl, reading Paul and trying to comprehend the lines he draws between grace and works (chiefly in Galatians) and then turning a few books over to find James and his discussion of working faith. Not being of Lutheran background, it is hard for me to imagine the full weight of tension Lutheran students must wrestle with to hear a new perspective of Paul’s regard for Mosaic Law—but as a Catholic now, I can implement such a tension between the liturgical and juridical (canon) law of my church and the grace believed to be communicated through our sacramental theology. Being rather consumed by a fascination with covenants from my own dispensational background, I came to Schnelle’s depiction of justification by faith in Galatians hoping to discover that Paul considered Mosaic Law to be a further-revelation from God to His people, rather than a horrible, death-instilling mechanism which removed people rather from God, thus needed to be done-away with.

Inspecting Schnelle’s careful explanation of the Galatian crisis, I think that Paul uses a heavy hand in dismissing the Law of Moses primarily for rhetorical purposes. Paul’s rhetoric seems very confusing in Galatians: on the one hand he seems to talk about the Law arousing sin and burdening the people of God, while on the other hand, the Law was from God and so could not be sinful in itself. I think the context and Paul’s purpose in writing to the Galatians explains much of why he drove a dichotomy between justification by faith and justification by law. I argue that this was mainly rhetorical dichotomy between the Abrahamic covenant and the Mosaic covenant, which are complementary rather than antithesized. I think Paul ultimately admits the complimentarity of these two covenants, but not until he has first established the point of his dichotomy: that Gentile believers are justified by faith without the prescriptions of Mosaic Law (primacy of Abraham’s covenant).

For me to encounter Schnelle’s interpretation of the Jerusalem church’s resistance to the Torah-free Gentile mission made quite a lot of sense with my own readings of James and Peter’s actions as described by Paul. I can’t claim to understand a typical Lutheran reaction to Schnelle’s perspective, but discussing the Galatian crisis at my Dominican school posed significant conflict: my Catholic counterparts considered it heterodox at best to count Peter and the Jerusalem church as opposed to Paul, on the side of those who were agitating the Galatian acceptance of salvation by faith. Schnelle admits that there is “no direct literary evidence” (Schnelle 275) for the connections that he makes but thinks it is obvious that there must be “some kind of connection between the Jerusalem authorities and Paul’s opponents in Galatia.” (275) While Schnelle’s interpretation of Galatians stands under inquisition by my Catholic classmates, his discussion of the Jerusalem church’s theological and political motivation for supporting Paul’s opponents  makes sense to me.

Since Paul’s rhetorical rejection of the Law is directed at his opponents, I think it fair to evaluate the possibility of interpreting the Jerusalem church as supporting the opponents. Schnelle has established throughout the entirety of his work on Paul thus far that since James, an orthopraxic Jewish Christian, was leader of the church in Jerusalem, it was most likely still entirely integrated into synagogue life and enjoying full privilege under the Jewish religious status. Since this church’s outlook on Christianity maintained its inclusion within the larger religion of Judaism, the issue of Gentile circumcision was quite volatile. Schnelle paints a competitive theological scene depicting a kind of context between Jewish and Gentile Christians over who were “exclusively the true people of God.” (275) Politically, Schnelle suggests that separation from the Jewish identity would put the church at risk for persecution from the government—so alerting the larger Jewish congregation to their divergent theology was to be avoided (275).

Noting these as motivating factors for the opponents, most likely aligning with the agenda of the Jerusalem church, addressing the polemical urging for the Galatian Christians in order to partake in the Abrahamic covenant can be understood as a practical concern. Why was Paul so concerned with refuting the need for circumcision in order to partake of this covenant faith? Schenlle seems to indicate that it was Paul’s Christology which motivated his emphasis of Abraham over Moses. As Schnelle voices it, “the theological heart of the Galatian letter” depicts Paul wrestling “the question of what significance the law/Torah can have for Christians now that circumstances have changed, and with how the status of justification and sonship to God are attained.” (277) As Dr. Balch has suggested in class, Paul seems to be refuting a fundamentalist/literalist approach to Jewish understanding of justification through law. Perhaps the opponents (whom I assume were supported by the Jerusalem congregation) fell back upon a fundamentalist reading of Leviticus in hopes of remaining so Jewish that their divergence from traditional Jewish monotheistic theology would never be suspected.

Schnelle sums up Paul’s basic theology of justification in Galatians as it has developed since the Jerusalem council: “Whereas he still acknowledged the coexistence of faith in Christ and loyalty to the Torah for Jewish Christians, he now maintains that no one can be justified before God by the works of the law/Torah.” (278) I question whether that was indeed the argument of the “Judiazers” (Jewish-Christian evangelists promoting Jesus + Torah gospel), for as we have noted in class, there was a plurality of forms of Judaism in Paul’s day. The perspective I was taught of Jewish thought regarding Mosaic Law never touched on the idea of justification (as a static sort of status one obtained), but rather a sense of dynamically maintaining one’s right standing before God. I wonder if perhaps the reading of Galatians wherein Paul’s opponents are assumed to be arguing justification as originating in the Law is not a modern-day Christian projection in retrospect. Perhaps that was never the point of the Judiazers’ mission—perhaps they were more concerned with the political predicament in Christianity; but also perhaps the message of the Mosaic Law as the justifying basis for their salvation was the misconstruing of the Galatian audience.

Schnelle seems to indicate one reason that Paul so staunchly drove a dichotomy between faith and works of the law regarding justification was because of a desire to strengthen and build a distinctly Christian identity (279). It would seem, then, that Paul’s convoluted argument concerning the law and justification is really quite simple: the Mosaic Law does not provide soteriological life to man, not because the Law itself is not perfect, but man is incapable of keeping the Law perfectly. The Law works externally while man is in need of a mode of justification that will align his internal condition to the grace of God. Being unable to act according to the Law because he is “always already conditioned by sin” (281). Since all people are infected by sin, Schnelle’s reading of Galatians indicates that Paul is annulling “the special status of the Jews as righteous, having a righteousness mediated by the Torah” (283). Yet from my understanding of Judaism, the general understanding  of the Mosaic Law was that it never imputed righteousness; I am rather unclear in my own mind how the majority of Jewish people of Paul’s day (if such a unity can be fathomed) viewed righteousness. Indeed the revelation of the Torah to the Jewish people, God’s disclosing of Himself to a people of promise would be privilege enough without finding justification in the Law. Schnelle seems to make a typical Christian assumption of the Law as imputing righteousness for the Jews, though I think Paul himself would recognize the promise which dispensed Law, the promise of Abraham, imputed righteousness. Perhaps Paul was connecting an interpretation of fundamentalism towards the Law which arose within the church in a desperate socio-political situation.

The identity concept Schnelle claims Paul to criticize amongst the Jewish Christians that “one’s relation to God to be ‘out of’ one’s own act, bound up with certain privileges” (282) rather by a faith granted by God. I hardly think that to be the situation of the Mosaic Law in relation to the Abrahamic covenant;  for both Law and promise were given by God. As for justification, how could a promise given by God, but acted upon by man, be summed up as justification by one’s own act? It would seem to me that Paul’s addition to the Jewish concept of justification adds Jesus to the equation, from the perspective that one’s relations with God are granted by Him vs. earned. Maybe it’s the influence of Catholicism on me, but I do believe that humans have “an active role in their relation to God” (283)—but not in the sense of our justification. I think justification is the some sort of spiritual stance which is perceived in the moment of conversion—perhaps of baptism. So to try and compare the Law and promise as means of justification fails, because the law was never meant to justify. Is Paul merely correcting a misinterpretation?

Paul’s rhetorical move is, I think, to amplify  a false dichotomy between justification by Law and justification by promise (an impossible comparison) in order to push his Christological agenda of Jesus and the new means through which one approaches God. He is filling a place theologically which did not exist before the coming of Christ, or even the need for such a redemption realized: that the fulfillment of the Abrahamic promise, the present existence of soteriological hope came in the human person of the Divine Jesus Christ. This is in the real-est sense, an innovation theologically (at least from a human point of comprehension) by God the Father. Abraham was justified by a future faith placed in the coming of a promise which had not yet occurred, but once the historical event of Jesus’ Christ’s life had come, Paul felt it to be the keystone to all previous theology—a missing link, if you will: since the promise was opened to all people (Jews and Gentiles) through Paul’s particular vocation of Apostleship, his desire to eradicate privileged status of persons in Christ developed as a rejection of Mosaic distinctives.

This leads me to a line of questioning that resurrects these same issues concerning the justification of Abraham that I am researching for my sacraments class. I am writing a paper that compares the justification of Abraham by faith in a future promise to the justification of Christians through a sacramental understanding of baptism which unites us to the life of this Promise Jesus as members of His Church. Sacramental baptism—at least from a Catholic perspective, I cannot speak to other sacramental traditions because the concept of sacrament is still so new to me—seems to  really be a participation in the death and resurrection of Christ, allowing one to be seated with Him in the heavenlies. What I ponder is the difference between our faith justification and Abraham’s (and if there is one), because his faith was on the coming of a Promised Seed, as Paul seems to interpret Genesis in Galatians, while my sacraments professor explained to me that Catholic theology considers justification of the Christian to occur at baptism, an event post-Promise, acting with Christ. So I wonder, has the nature of justification changed, with the nature of faith? For my context of Catholicism under the jurisdiction of Canon Law, I wonder about the means my church accepts as faith justification: the Catholic Church prescribes seven sacraments as reliable means of obtaining God’s grace and encountering His present, but do sacraments themselves limit the active grace of God to one necessary manifestation, or merely a dogmatic interpretation of the sacraments, as Paul refutes of the Mosaic Law interpreted from the Judaizers’ preaching?

Having used the transition of Abrahamic to Christian justification as a segway into my ecclesiological reflection, I wonder whether Paul would recognize what every denomination calls church as “Church” today. What was in his mind when he wrote to different “churches.” Noting Paul’s interpretation of Jewish and Gentiles Christians as continuing the covenant of Abraham, would the church communities apart from Christological theology, really be any different from the Temple/synagogue communities? I think the discussion of Law in Galatians really highlights a creative theology, perhaps the beginnings of the distinctive Church. Since we see James and the Jerusalem church maintaining a rather low profile with the Christological distinctive of Christianity, Paul’s innovation of Gentiles into the structure of the Christ-communities really forces the issue of ecclesiology. What is Paul’s idea of Church? I’d say it’s nicely summed up in the final four verses of Galatians 3:

²⁶ for all of you are the children of God, through faith, in Christ Jesus, ²⁷ since every one of you that has been baptised has been clothed in Christ. ²⁸ There can be neither Jew nor Greek, there can be neither slave nor freeman, there can be neither male nor female — for you are all one in Christ Jesus. ²⁹ And simply by being Christ’s, you are that progeny of Abraham, the heirs named in the promise.

While this still doesn’t address the issue of justification, or many of the questions I have raised for my own denomination, I think solidifying a better understanding of what sort of gatherings Paul referred to as “ekklesia” and what leadership and participatory distinctives he foresaw would greatly benefit further analogy of my Canon Law and sacraments exploration of grace. Paul’s theology of continuing the link between Abrahamic and Christological justification would be extremely important towards his theological conception of “church,” however.

 

Regarding Faith in Universals vs. Perception/Comprehension of Them

Reading through everyone’s very fast discussion on my recent blogs, I kind of appreciate having limited time during the middle of the week when such public forums get their highest volumes of traffic. It passed through my mind that perhaps I should distinguish between discussion of and existence of universals in the dialog which has surrounded recent blogs. I really am not claiming to disbelieve universals, and I hope my wording is careful enough in the blogs to distinguish strong objection to totalizing systems of thought and the personalized conception of universals: my purpose even writing about personal truths and unique human experience was to reject the idea that somehow the uniqueness could be bound together in one frame of thought—that human minds are not capable of so comprehending one another as to construct anything other than loose frameworks and very generalized bas principles from which to govern the form and substance of particular experience and understanding. I really object to the synthesizing of diversity. I would rather see our frameworks reflect what our minds are capable of comprehending, here in the human sphere of operation. I have worked on my understanding God and that perpetually humanly-viewed dichotomy of Divine will and human freedom, and have decided to relegate to separate spheres of understanding.

So I talked years ago about a belief that God’s divine will and human freedom coexisted, and I would maintain that claim, stating our understandings as humans are always based in our perceptions (um, duh, ‘scuse me). I hope we would all agree that no human being is capable of seeing every possible perspective (isn’t that the point of this whole discussion—why I feel its so necessary) and what the concept of God that is held in Christian faith includes all perspectives. The two ideas, held at once, seem to oppose each other; paradox? Perhaps, but I return to the remark about perception, which is perhaps quite central to my faith-understanding. And the sort of perception I am discussion is something more than reason or logic.

I have said previously that the Christian conception of the world—especially as the Apostle Paul communicates it—is based on a conception of the world in which the most real thing is God, who is wholly other. So if the most real basis of reality is wholly other, humans operate off perception, and our perceptions are always severely limited. So how could we perceive a divine will but by faith, mediated by a communication we call revelation? So we each operate on the basis of specific perception of the world. Look, I grew up with a fraternal twin sister and we perceive life very differently even though we grew up in close proximity, with almost the same sorts of conditions around us. The difference between individuals perspectives is so drastic unifying those seems to be like making a ball out of a broken window, gluing all sorts of fragments together.

So I am trying to propose that universalizing ideas, when part of a system that deals with more than the barest of necessary principles, are impossibly compromising to the individual experiences which form our unique perceptions. Again, there may in fact be universals which are outside all but the vaguest of human comprehensions. I do hold faith in God and His salvation through Jesus Christ, which speaks of the acceptance of at least three universals concepts right there. Sure, they’re unexplainable mysteries, and I believe they have a very real effect on the world and those living in it. But I tangented to faith, not perception. Faith dictates a kind of perception. May I wonder out loud as to whether any universalizing concept must be based more primarily in faith than on perception? And again, I did not deny the existence or possibility of universals, but merely the human ability to at least describe and define, maybe even perceive them. Faith… I would hardly call that a perception, though it filters perceptions; faith takes overactive maintenance. One last thought for now, would this suggest a tension between theology and devotion—the study of God and personal relationship with Him? Does this feed into deeper questions of faith and academics? Does it create a sort of dichotomy or no? Must I choose between devotion or study? I don’t think so, but they must be understood in their proper manners, or conflict with one another!

My favorite quote of the day, from my housemate Brett, responding to my remark that I don’t understand life: “Nobody understands it. It’s not as if there’s anything to understand.”

 

The Division of Totality for the sake of Relationality

Marcella Althaus-Reid’s Indecent Theology: Theological Perversions in Sex, Gender and Politics provided me much food for thought as I pursue my quest within Christendom to identify those who are rendered “invisible” in the process of inter-Christian othering, begging the question, which voices have/and are being silenced in the Church? Althaus-Reid introduces our chapter in the reader, “Indecent Proposals for women who would like to do theology without using underwear” with a question that frequently echoes through my own mind:  how is it that after centuries of Christian disagreement, each particular branch of the Christian Church tends to remain relatively uniformed as to the faith contributions of denominations with other perspectives? Addressing this as an issue of silencing, I will make allusions in this reflection to the type of thought system that enables such disabling of difference. I found the  analogy Althaus-Reid employed to describe silencing quite useful to understand the affect of totalizing belief systems on divergent opinions: that a covenant of silence was formed between those excluded from “orthodox” circles like that of “a silence of the magnitude of the planets, silenced as if by a set of Newtonian laws, replaced by a unified field theory and leaving behind anything outside the new cosmovation.”[1] To me, this speaks clearly of the progressive development of Christianity, and the gradual erasing of “heretical” voices, and casting out those that are “heterodox.” This analogy seems so apt because the language of “unified fields” and “particular laws” can be abstracted and applied to the universally encompassing claims of religion and the specific statues instituted to reinforce that totality.

Just a few days ago, I wrote a blog indirectly addressing ideas of particular theology: I proposed a conflict between personal inner truths (which I think are specifically individual and different to each human person) and one’s outer life, which I believe is characterized by relationality. The basis of my discussion in the blog was that each person’s experiences of and in the word are so incomparably unique that any attempt to present beliefs or creeds as a totalizing, all-encompassing expression of that belief seems to alienate some crucial components of individual meaning-formation through experience.  Therefore, I drew from my musings, why not maintain minimal creed and belief structures in any religion, with an understanding that what is usually considered “heterodoxy” is really the normal mode of belief for most people? So why not resist the temptation to universalize many, if any, beliefs and leave the experience and particular definition of such experience to its unsystematized organic state, were totality dissipates into plurality? In my mind this would allow for a more realistic unity: differing opinions being brought together in conversation would illumine the complimentary components of varying beliefs, resurrecting the dead value of one who is “other” or different rather than erasing the differences.

Hence I turn again to Althaus-Reid: Is it truly necessary to create what she terms as “Grand Narratives” in order to “sustain everyday life”[2]? What are these “Grand Narratives”? According to my redefinition, they are binary systems of totalizing belief that alienate one side of the binary, silencing its disagreement with the label “other” and attempting to force its conformity or assimilation. Althaus-Reid’s article is set in the context of colonial Latin American theology, which was imposed upon the natives by invasive European forces who brutalized the natural conditions of the natives into a state of marginalized other-ness through heartless imposition of the “Christian Grand Narrative.”[3] I think Althaus-Reid’s concept of “Grand Narrative” encapsulates many parts of Levinas’ philosophy of “othering” through its attempts to assimilate and annihilate difference. Taken with a colonial sort of mindframe, “Grand Narratives” were always externally constructed systems of control imposed upon invaded peoples (both spatially invaded and intellectually, which better serves my purposes) attempting to erase differences and form an undisturbed totality that maintained peace with force and silence, but kept human beings in states of inequality and lacking relationship. In my blog that I referenced, I question the need of a “Grand Narrative” at all: perhaps a few principles from a totalitarian mental state need to be erected, or at least general commonalities in order to read a communal, diversified, conversational unity, but the imposition of such a structure violates the very peace it is attempting to create or maintain. In my mind, any sort of true unity is related is dissolved with institution of force.  Althaus-Reid writes in specific objection to the normalization of heterosexual patriarchy through the Christian “Grand Narrative” enforced by colonialism in Latin America.

Althaus-Reid objects to this normalization on behalf of females who have been subjugated to male authority by posing what she terms as an “indecent” theology, comparing the concept of decency to the female wearing on underwear to deter male gaze. Upon a first read, I mused as to what kind of indecency Althaus-Reid was proposing… pondering the possibility of her objections leading the kind of extremism purported by bra-burning feminist theories. Finding this not to be the case as neither heterosexuality nor Christian theological foundations were Althaus-Reid’s points of contention, while the analogy of the panty-less female theologian could conjure the image of a flirt rather than a thoughtful reformer, the idea of defying a totalitarian concept of “decency” for the sake of diversity is quite appealing. Perhaps I can extract certain criticisms of totalitarianism structures which erase human individuality which Althaus-Reid eloquently voices as “an understanding based on hierarchy and submission by a process of affirmation by subtraction.”[4] Contrasting my own suggestions regarding personal truth, universality and Christian belief with Althaus-Reid’s thoughts, I too might find myself questioning the human organization of religion as a system of corrupted hierarchy and submission. At some level, there will always be human authority, and from my conception of human relations, this authority should gladly partake in a relationship of mutual submission between authorities and subordinates in order to avoid assimilation or annihilation of a valuable “other” human person.

Althaus-Reid makes an interesting criticism of heterosexuality as a system operating on an internal logic of false dichotomies—a criticism I find hard to evaluate because of my own state of being, but which I do recognize as a valid criticism of totalitarian systems in general. It would seem that universalizing one concept or perspective would force a choice of decision between things which may not be as separated or antithesise-able as presented in the system.[5] Mentioning Ricoeur’s analysis of Christianity as built around a “living metaphor,” Althaus-Reid seems agrees that “symbolic constructions develop quasi-biological life.”[6] Thus, in a real-world organization of Christianity (as distinguished from theologies, ideas, or binaries abstracted from such Christianity) human authority must reproduce itself in order to maintain a self-perpetuating order. This indicates a dangerous tendency of Christian interpretation which Althaus-Reid identifies as “a linear, terminal conception of Christian narratives”[7] that silenced the life-giving message of the Gospel, reducing its organically flourishing capacity to a dogmatic imposition of static, redundant interpretations of Scripture and tradition. I believe I would characterize such in a derogatory manner as “fundamentalism,” keeping a skeptical attitude towards dogmatism that could unwittingly breed malevolence within human relationships.

As the essay continues, Althaus-reid employs her earlier image of “indecent theology” in the native female lemon-seller whose refusal to wear undergarments rebukes male presumption to define decency, as equalizing the hierarchy/submission model of “othering”: “without an understanding of submission, there is no submission; without sexual constructs there are no Others.”[8] It would seem that without the structures defining totality, Althause-Reid would argue there are no majority opinions which would overwhelm minorities; I do not read her as suggesting that without definition, there would be no difference between male and female. Althaus-Reid makes a practical plea to revoke an enslaving “othering” in Latin America: through such totalizing, the Christian narrative remained linear, so as to define the natives as sub-human and permit oppressors to symbolically redefine the requirements of salvation in Christ to maintain that diminutive “other” distinction through economic and sexual exploitation.

My own question of the necessity of totalitarian thought systems tends to draw a negative conclusion, finding such systems to be stiflingly repressive and oppressive rather than freeing; yet, at the same time, this conflicts with my ideas and beliefs about the nature and possibility of salvation in Christ Jesus. Towards the end of Althaus-Reid’s first chapter of Indecent Theology, I deeply appreciated her movement from a universalizing study of anthropology to “Mujeriology, for the sake of love of differences, not equalities.”[9] Upon each re-read, that one line expressing a value of difference without concern for equality resurrected multiple philosophical and religious questions which I battle almost daily. Althaus-Reid emphasizes difference because “equal discourse confronts us with the fact that the center fixes the equation for the margins.”[10] This seems to suggest two things: first that “equality” tends to inherently contain some justifying idea of proportionality, and second that whatever is accepted in the totalizing system as “normal” sets the standards for what is marginalized. The first idea of justifying proportionality allows for unbalanced treatment for “normative” and “other,” permitting for the marginalization of “other” so long as the “normative” is proportionately regarded to a greater extent than the other, the scales of antithesis balance out. Using the introduced discussion of inter-Christian other-ing, one could say that “orthodox” and “heretical” are being compared together against inequality, but perhaps the favoring of one over the other should lead to contrast against one another. If “decency” becomes the persecutor of variation, such as Althaus-Reid feels heteronormative patriarchal standards are to Latin American women, perhaps an indecent treatment of marginalized issues would equalize the proportionality between major and minor differences. Erasing a smooth totality by exerting an extreme difference seems a desperate type of interruption, but perhaps the marginalization of “heretical” considerations has become so normative at this point that only such an interruption will attract attention. Thus I close my reflection by wondering what types of interruption would be most effective within Christian denominations to shock off assumed normativity and bring about critical reevaluation of totalitarian belief systems without causing further break in

 

---

 

[1] Allergy to the Other Reader, Part 2 of 2, pg 432.

[2] Reader 432.

[3] Ibid., 433.

[4] Ibid., 433.

[5] Reader 433.

[6] Ibid.

[7] Ibid., 434.

[8] Ibid., 435.

[9] Ibid., 449.

[10] Ibid.

 

Marcella Althaus-Reid’s Indecent Theology: Theological Perversions in Sex, Gender and Politics provided me much food for thought as I pursue my quest within Christendom to identify those who are rendered “invisible” in the process of inter-Christian othering, begging the question, which voices have/and are being silenced in the Church? Althaus-Reid introduces our chapter in the reader, “Indecent Proposals for women who would like to do theology without using underwear” with a question that frequently echoes through my own mind:  how is it that after centuries of Christian disagreement, each particular branch of the Christian Church tends to remain relatively uniformed as to the faith contributions of denominations with other perspectives? Addressing this as an issue of silencing, I will make allusions in this reflection to the type of thought system that enables such disabling of difference. I found the  analogy Althaus-Reid employed to describe silencing quite useful to understand the affect of totalizing belief systems on divergent opinions: that a covenant of silence was formed between those excluded from “orthodox” circles like that of “a silence of the magnitude of the planets, silenced as if by a set of Newtonian laws, replaced by a unified field theory and leaving behind anything outside the new cosmovation.”[1] To me, this speaks clearly of the progressive development of Christianity, and the gradual erasing of “heretical” voices, and casting out those that are “heterodox.” This analogy seems so apt because the language of “unified fields” and “particular laws” can be abstracted and applied to the universally encompassing claims of religion and the specific statues instituted to reinforce that totality.

Just a few days ago, I wrote a blog indirectly addressing ideas of particular theology: I proposed a conflict between personal inner truths (which I think are specifically individual and different to each human person) and one’s outer life, which I believe is characterized by relationality. The basis of my discussion in the blog was that each person’s experiences of and in the word are so incomparably unique that any attempt to present beliefs or creeds as a totalizing, all-encompassing expression of that belief seems to alienate some crucial components of individual meaning-formation through experience.  Therefore, I drew from my musings, why not maintain minimal creed and belief structures in any religion, with an understanding that what is usually considered “heterodoxy” is really the normal mode of belief for most people? So why not resist the temptation to universalize many, if any, beliefs and leave the experience and particular definition of such experience to its unsystematized organic state, were totality dissipates into plurality? In my mind this would allow for a more realistic unity: differing opinions being brought together in conversation would illumine the complimentary components of varying beliefs, resurrecting the dead value of one who is “other” or different rather than erasing the differences.

Hence I turn again to Althaus-Reid: Is it truly necessary to create what she terms as “Grand Narratives” in order to “sustain everyday life”[2]? What are these “Grand Narratives”? According to my redefinition, they are binary systems of totalizing belief that alienate one side of the binary, silencing its disagreement with the label “other” and attempting to force its conformity or assimilation. Althaus-Reid’s article is set in the context of colonial Latin American theology, which was imposed upon the natives by invasive European forces who brutalized the natural conditions of the natives into a state of marginalized other-ness through heartless imposition of the “Christian Grand Narrative.”[3] I think Althaus-Reid’s concept of “Grand Narrative” encapsulates many parts of Levinas’ philosophy of “othering” through its attempts to assimilate and annihilate difference. Taken with a colonial sort of mindframe, “Grand Narratives” were always externally constructed systems of control imposed upon invaded peoples (both spatially invaded and intellectually, which better serves my purposes) attempting to erase differences and form an undisturbed totality that maintained peace with force and silence, but kept human beings in states of inequality and lacking relationship. In my blog that I referenced, I question the need of a “Grand Narrative” at all: perhaps a few principles from a totalitarian mental state need to be erected, or at least general commonalities in order to read a communal, diversified, conversational unity, but the imposition of such a structure violates the very peace it is attempting to create or maintain. In my mind, any sort of true unity is related is dissolved with institution of force.  Althaus-Reid writes in specific objection to the normalization of heterosexual patriarchy through the Christian “Grand Narrative” enforced by colonialism in Latin America.

Althaus-Reid objects to this normalization on behalf of females who have been subjugated to male authority by posing what she terms as an “indecent” theology, comparing the concept of decency to the female wearing on underwear to deter male gaze. Upon a first read, I mused as to what kind of indecency Althaus-Reid was proposing… pondering the possibility of her objections leading the kind of extremism purported by bra-burning feminist theories. Finding this not to be the case as neither heterosexuality nor Christian theological foundations were Althaus-Reid’s points of contention, while the analogy of the panty-less female theologian could conjure the image of a flirt rather than a thoughtful reformer, the idea of defying a totalitarian concept of “decency” for the sake of diversity is quite appealing. Perhaps I can extract certain criticisms of totalitarianism structures which erase human individuality which Althaus-Reid eloquently voices as “an understanding based on hierarchy and submission by a process of affirmation by subtraction.”[4] Contrasting my own suggestions regarding personal truth, universality and Christian belief with Althaus-Reid’s thoughts, I too might find myself questioning the human organization of religion as a system of corrupted hierarchy and submission. At some level, there will always be human authority, and from my conception of human relations, this authority should gladly partake in a relationship of mutual submission between authorities and subordinates in order to avoid assimilation or annihilation of a valuable “other” human person.

Althaus-Reid makes an interesting criticism of heterosexuality as a system operating on an internal logic of false dichotomies—a criticism I find hard to evaluate because of my own state of being, but which I do recognize as a valid criticism of totalitarian systems in general. It would seem that universalizing one concept or perspective would force a choice of decision between things which may not be as separated or antithesise-able as presented in the system.[5] Mentioning Ricoeur’s analysis of Christianity as built around a “living metaphor,” Althaus-Reid seems agrees that “symbolic constructions develop quasi-biological life.”[6] Thus, in a real-world organization of Christianity (as distinguished from theologies, ideas, or binaries abstracted from such Christianity) human authority must reproduce itself in order to maintain a self-perpetuating order. This indicates a dangerous tendency of Christian interpretation which Althaus-Reid identifies as “a linear, terminal conception of Christian narratives”[7] that silenced the life-giving message of the Gospel, reducing its organically flourishing capacity to a dogmatic imposition of static, redundant interpretations of Scripture and tradition. I believe I would characterize such in a derogatory manner as “fundamentalism,” keeping a skeptical attitude towards dogmatism that could unwittingly breed malevolence within human relationships.

As the essay continues, Althaus-reid employs her earlier image of “indecent theology” in the native female lemon-seller whose refusal to wear undergarments rebukes male presumption to define decency, as equalizing the hierarchy/submission model of “othering”: “without an understanding of submission, there is no submission; without sexual constructs there are no Others.”[8] It would seem that without the structures defining totality, Althause-Reid would argue there are no majority opinions which would overwhelm minorities; I do not read her as suggesting that without definition, there would be no difference between male and female. Althaus-Reid makes a practical plea to revoke an enslaving “othering” in Latin America: through such totalizing, the Christian narrative remained linear, so as to define the natives as sub-human and permit oppressors to symbolically redefine the requirements of salvation in Christ to maintain that diminutive “other” distinction through economic and sexual exploitation.

My own question of the necessity of totalitarian thought systems tends to draw a negative conclusion, finding such systems to be stiflingly repressive and oppressive rather than freeing; yet, at the same time, this conflicts with my ideas and beliefs about the nature and possibility of salvation in Christ Jesus. Towards the end of Althaus-Reid’s first chapter of Indecent Theology, I deeply appreciated her movement from a universalizing study of anthropology to “Mujeriology, for the sake of love of differences, not equalities.”[9] Upon each re-read, that one line expressing a value of difference without concern for equality resurrected multiple philosophical and religious questions which I battle almost daily. Althaus-Reid emphasizes difference because “equal discourse confronts us with the fact that the center fixes the equation for the margins.”[10] This seems to suggest two things: first that “equality” tends to inherently contain some justifying idea of proportionality, and second that whatever is accepted in the totalizing system as “normal” sets the standards for what is marginalized. The first idea of justifying proportionality allows for unbalanced treatment for “normative” and “other,” permitting for the marginalization of “other” so long as the “normative” is proportionately regarded to a greater extent than the other, the scales of antithesis balance out. Using the introduced discussion of inter-Christian other-ing, one could say that “orthodox” and “heretical” are being compared together against inequality, but perhaps the favoring of one over the other should lead to contrast against one another. If “decency” becomes the persecutor of variation, such as Althaus-Reid feels heteronormative patriarchal standards are to Latin American women, perhaps an indecent treatment of marginalized issues would equalize the proportionality between major and minor differences. Erasing a smooth totality by exerting an extreme difference seems a desperate type of interruption, but perhaps the marginalization of “heretical” considerations has become so normative at this point that only such an interruption will attract attention. Thus I close my reflection by wondering what types of interruption would be most effective within Christian denominations to shock off assumed normativity and bring about critical reevaluation of totalitarian belief systems without causing further break in

 

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[1] Allergy to the Other Reader, Part 2 of 2, pg 432.

[2] Reader 432.

[3] Ibid., 433.

[4] Ibid., 433.

[5] Reader 433.

[6] Ibid.

[7] Ibid., 434.

[8] Ibid., 435.

[9] Ibid., 449.

[10] Ibid.

 

Mingling Inner Truth and Outer Relationality

I have been engaging pretty skeptically with commonly accepted ground in my conservative religious circles, everyday living, etc. At heart, a philosophical question of universals, the one and the many, propels me to seek a better approach to the totalizing tendencies of our individual human perspectives.  Maybe I am overly biased from my sporadic engagement in little Christian circles, but it fascinates me how many individual people I meet who are so convinced by something, that since they are convinced of this person or piece of information as truth, they seem to want some sort of regard for this thing as truth to be shared. Faced with the necessity of relation in our everyday interactions, how do we present our truths in the midst of these relations? This is not universally the case that all people feel some sort of urgency to convince others of their own convictions, but where does this desire/tendency arise in the nature[1] of relating? I loved the way I heard friendship/r explained at mass about a month ago: seeing through another’s eyes, to be contrasted with another level of relating that was said to be added between lovers as a movement outward and inward to embrace the other in fascination. How do we humans experience on another in and about our issues of difference.

 

I love the diversity of life; for all my questioning, I hope life never provides me with answers to all the things I wonder. Experience cannot be summed or described as an answer, and neither is a question always seeking that, merely opening itself to take in the new information or ways that would benefit relating. The question changes the questioner just as much as the one questioned, I think, allowing for a mutual exchange of experience between persons or person and object… moving one from the restless mode of questioning with an insatiable thirst for everything to a state a bit more complacent, patiently willing to experience rather than define the relationships and things life hands to us. Perhaps in our truths and the desire some of us have to see these same truths in others demonstrates a longing in us to share our most valued experiences with one another on that hardly-tapped level of relation wherein the experience genuinely takes on meaning for both individuals. Such is certainly the case when I try and share my Jesus. Is there a certain kind of boundary our inner truths cannot cross over, perhaps a boundary I could identify as solitude, a condition of self-relatedness, of sitting alone with oneself and being content in the way of not-always-being-present with another.

 

Over the past few years, I have experienced a combination of solitude and loneliness, in and out of relationship. We are always creatures apart and individual though constantly engaged in relationship, which is part of how/what we are as human beings. Our solitude manifests itself in a healthy manner when we hold our own truths and opinions as part of what suits how we are, how we have discovered what we enjoy and leads us forward as we pursue vocations. So our own truths, if we will play with the idea of universal truth momentarily, could be part of or point to a larger conception of truth, something that encompasses without contradiction the resonances with sound similarly, but with personal distinctions, within each human person. It seems so often though, maybe just in my circles of conversation, that our particular truths, in whatever part they may coincide with a larger truth, that personal inner truths are invasively forced on others. Perhaps the appearance of force comes with miscommunication, but I do wonder about the contrary manner of communicating inner truths as well.

 

I am tired of fruitless arguments stemming from belief (by ‘fruitless’ I mean that one or both sides refuse or cannot understand the other, and the comment about belief is that in my experience, many people assume things on the basis of uncontemplated belief rather than carefully); if we are sharing through discussion as a mode to communicate our experiences and to introduce the selves we always hide, I think it is more productive to permit one another to introduce our experiences of what convinced us of our truths rather than shuffling restlessly side-by-side, not working  towards any kind of harmony. I think this often happens in religious disagreement, a very internal and volatile subject made so public in very intimate worship. A few weeks ago, one of my classmates defined religion as something that should retie human relationships. I agree, especially when approaching my own personal struggles with Christianity… yes, Jesus brought many separations into the world, but was working towards a greater unity. Within Christian circles, should we not be “one in the Spirit, we are one in the Lord… and we pray that all unity may one day be restored. And they’ll know we are Christians by our love…” (from “We are One,” a song often sung in churches I grew up in). How often does inter-Christian love convince someone of Jesus?

 

Part of my motivation in writing and wondering about our truth disagreements and inconsiderate behavior for each other’s solitude by our very relational compulsions of sharing experience, to the exclusion of hearing each other. What I mean by solitude is a kind of space, the sort which we each need to know ourselves well enough to give ourselves in relationship. Solitude sometimes happens in aloneness, or just a kind of space in relationship that does not pressure us to conform, ignore, or assimilate what we find as our own inner truths to another’s experience.  Solitude is necessary for relationship because it allows the kind of stepping-back in respect for one another that allows each person engaged in the relationship to hear the other’s truth and try to see it through the other’s eyes, and/or hold it in fascination.

 

I’m not as much of a relativist as I sound, but merely one human being struggling with the idea of individually formed definitions being so absolute that they can be projected onto disunified experiences with conformity as goal. I approach universality through the experiences of individuals, wondering how much can be abstracted into a totality, and leaning towards the idea that any totality should be a sparely defined totality. What kind of engagement can personal truths have with one another, and does human relating necessitate a loss of solitude, because of inability to full see another’s truth?

 

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[1] “nature” may be a misleading word for some, I am not proposing that human relations each have an immaterial nature of their own, but simply mean this word as a way of going about relating.

 

Exegesis of Galatians 3.18-25… Gentiles and Jews Co-Inheritors With Abraham of the Spirit of Promise through Jesus Christ

The Apostle Paul caused quite a controversy in his day by maintaining a theology inclusive of Gentile peoples without requiring them to first convert to Judaism. In the epistle to the Galatians, one finds the tenuous agreement between Paul and orthopraxic Jewish Christians to a “two gospel”[1] version of the Gospel of Christ ruptured by certain parties whom commentators commonly term as “Judiazers,” trying to convince the Galatians that circumcision is necessary to enter into the covenant of Christ. Recounting his own conversion story in the first chapter of the epistle to add certainty to any speculation about his call to preach Christ Jesus to the Gentiles, Paul recounts his own perspective of the events which were addressed at the Jerusalem Council in the second chapter. In his passionate style, recounts his interaction with the Apostles, particularly Peter, in strong language when Peter relapsed from an ecumenical practice on circumcision to segregating the Gentile Christians. Paul’s tone is authoritarian and defensive, suggesting that the conflict between the apostle and infant church, that the Galatians are tempted to depart from the gospel Paul has preached to them. What is this gospel and what distinctions between it and the message of his opponents does Paul resurrect? Both of these questions can be answered from a careful exegetical study of Galatians 3.18-25, revealing Paul’s own exegesis of Hebrew scriptures: while his opponents exegete a harmony between the Abrahamic covenant of Genesis and the Mosaic covenant in Exodus, they perpetrate that one must follow the law (receive the sign of circumcision) in order to enter into the promises of Abraham, while Paul reverses the preferencing,  inclusively uniting both Jew and Gentile on the basis of faith to be rendered righteous in Christianity.

While some commentators, such as Walter Hansen, suggest that the conflict of Galatians was a return to paganism because of Paul’s words about “exchanging their experience of the Spirit for dependency on the flesh,”[2] Udo Schnelle and the majority of commentators I read believe that  Paul’s references to being perfected by the flesh in Galatians 3.3 are linked to Jewish Christians, commonly referred to as Mosaic, who believed that all Gentile Christian converts must conform to the rites of the Mosaic covenant mediated through Moses.  Beginning our exegesis with Galatians 3.18, Paul states a radical position in opposition to the “evangelization” of his orthopraxic Jewish-Christian opponents: that the inheritance of salvific relationship with God does not come from the law. Rather, here Paul introduces a new exegetical movement in his reading of the Torah: a preferencing of the Abrahamic covenant, blessings by faith, over the necessity follow Mosaic law. From this position, Paul supports his argument that the Gentile converts do not need to receive circumcision to enter into the covenant that God made with Abraham.

Paul’s argument regarding Mosaic Law in Galatians 3.18-25 finds itself embedded in the larger context of a polemical epistle most likely written to the Gauls in Northern Galatia. Paul is arguing against doubts the Galatian church is harboring about their part in the salvific covenant God made with Abraham because they have not received the external sign of circumcision with which God sealed this covenant to the Jewish people. Recounting the results of the Antioch conflict over Gentile circumcision debated at the Jerusalem Council, Paul asserts that since the council, Peter and others have gone against the agreed position that Jewish converts would maintain their religious distinctive as Christians, but Gentiles were not bound to take on these distinctions.[3] Paul seems greatly distressed over a conflict in which some Judaizers[4] have raised doubts in the minds of the Galatians both to the truth of Paul’s preaching and validity of his apostleship, as well as the validity of their own faith without circumcision. Paul maintains his argument that circumcision is not necessary to be included in the inheritance of the Abrahamic covenant. This being said, Paul insists that the Mosaic Law was still divinely inspired; simply that it did not instill in human nature the ability to follow in its righteous directing to right relationship with God.

Ultimately, Paul faults the fallen condition of man to find complementarity between the Mosaic Law and the Abrahamic covenant, though he does make the controversial distinction that the fulfillment of the Abrahamic promises in Christ make Law observance extraneous and even detrimental to the faith of those who were not first under the Law. Asserting the oneness of God and Christ as the Promised Seed of the Abrahamic covenant, Paul opposes his fellow Jewish Christians in regards to the necessity of entering into faith in Christ through the Law of Moses. Recognizing that Moses’ Law was inspired by God for His Chosen People the Jews, Paul equalizes the places of Jew and Gentile before God as sinners. Though the Jews had the path of Righteousness in the Law, they lacked the ability to walk in that path, and therefore were worse off in sin than the Gentiles because they had knowledge of it. Paul frames his argument regarding the Galatian’s assurance of co-inheritance with Christ by addressing the doubts Judaizers have instilled in their minds regarding Law observance and Gentile faith conditions.

Verse 18 of the selected passage addresses Paul’s overall conclusion regarding the Law: If one must pass through the requirements of Mosaic Law to embrace the faith of the Abrahamic covenant, negates the Abrahamic promises. Paul contrasts the term “ἐκ νόμος” (through the Law) with “ἐκ ἐπαγγελία” (through the promise)to point out that if the inheritance of righteousness comes through the Law, God has nullified His previous covenant to Abraham.[5] Madera indicates that this verse contains the only undisputed reference to “κληρονομία”[6] in all of Paul’s epistles, referring to an inheritance of “the promised Spirit” mentioned in Galatians 3.14.[7] Given the overall context of the passage, it indicates that the blessing of Abraham through its fulfillment in a person of promise, Jesus Christ, allowed both Jew and Gentile to “receive the promised Spirit through the faith.”[8] Recognizing the Spirit of Jesus as the fulfillment of the Abrahamic promise, Paul affirms that God gave Abraham this inheritance through promise. “χαρίζομαι”[9]translated as “has given” or “granted” is set in the present tense, though God obviously made His covenant with Abraham ages ago. Madera notes that this ”points to the gracious and enduring aspect of God’s promise to Abraham.”[10]

Verse 19 ponders why Mosaic Law observance for the Galatians would negate faith in the Abrahamic promises, and why was the Law given at all. The Law, as an impossible standard of righteous living to all sinful men, brought Jewish awareness to the fact that their condition was as sinful as the next Gentile. Inability to fulfill the Law spurned Jewish expectancy of the Promised Seed of Abraham; Paul plays on the singularity of the term “σπέρμα”[11] to introduce Christ as the seed promised to Abraham.[12] Not only did the Law bring about realization of sin amongst God’s chosen people, but Paul also points out its lesser status to the Abrahamic promises because it was given through mediation rather than direct communication. In verse 19, Paul rhetorically questions the purpose of the law, considering that he has asserted that Jewish and Gentile salvation come through the covenant of promise God made with Abraham. This verse is packed with Paul’s exalted Christology, pointing to Christ as the promised offspring of Abraham, who fulfilled the promise made. Paul makes note of two pieces of information with regard to the giving of the law in this verse: first, that “it was added because of transgressions” and that “it was put into place through angels by an intermediary.”[13] These are two negative purposes, the first regarding transgressions more controversial than the law’s subservient status to the Abrahamic promises because of mediation. What does Paul mean that the Law was given “because of transgressions?” Paul uses the Greek work “παράβασις,”[14] which is translated “transgressions,” which has two different meanings in Greek: to go over or to disregard or violate.[15] The second meaning seems to indicate a relation to law, and a developed state of mind in which sins “take on the character of transgressions, and thereby the consciousness of sin be intensified and the desire for redemption be aroused.”[16] Along with this premise, Paul supplies a second, that of the Law being given through angels and communicated by an intermediary, is lesser than the directly given promise from God to Abraham.

While Paul’s Judaizer opponents “probably appealed to both these traditions (the Abrahamic covenant of promise and the Deuteronomic covenant of blessings/curses under law) to persuade the Galatians that their lack of circumcision was a breach of God’s covenant and Law, and thus, in accordance with the witness of scripture, brought them under the Law’s curse.”[17] It is likely that these Judaizers prefaced entrance into sharing the Abrahamic covenant with the Jewish people, and the chief seed of Abraham (Jesus Christ), with conformity to Mosaic code, a physical affiliation. Paul spiritualizes the idea of being a “progeny of Abraham” by making the requirement faith rather than circumcision (Galatians 3.9).  Paul’s purpose in subordinating the Mosaic code to the Abrahamic promise is not to nullify the Mosaic code as a central observance in Jewish faith, serve his polemical agenda. Verse 20 continues Paul’s explanation of the subordinance of the Mosaic law to Abrahamic by further discussion of mediation as a negative factor in the giving of the law. How does “but God is one”[18] affirm “an antithesis to what is said about the mediator” of the Mosaic covenant[19]?  It seems that Paul’s point of controversy about the mediation of the Law is that to preference a covenant which was given through angelic parties and indirectly mediated through Moses to the Jews would divide the God of the Jews from the God of the Gentiles, demonstration that “it is fitting that He should provide one way of salvation for both—the way of faith.”[20] Verse 20 supplies an explanation of why mediation makes the Law secondary to faith. While commentators speculate about the mediatorship remark, but seem to indicate that the affirmation “God is one” means that both Jew and Gentile operate on the same playing field when approaching righteous living. Thus faith in Christ as the one means of fulfilling the Abrahamic promises for both: “it is fitting that He should provide one way of salvation for both—the way of faith.”[21]

Affirming that God is the same for Jew and Gentile, Paul’s insistence that righteousness living under the law is no greater than those who follow Christ without the law, but then turns to say that since the Mosaic law and the Abrahamic promises are both of God, they cannot oppose one another.  Paul’s “innovation” as it were, is the conclusion that “the law as a means of justification and life, in terms of Lv. 18.5, has been superseded by faith in terms of Hab 2.4.”[22] Paul seems to be reading Habakkuk 2.4 as his own scriptural proof text against a legalistic reading of Leviticus 18.5, saying the just will live by faith, not that life is only found when one keeps the laws and customs of the Mosaic law.[23] Yet he does not separate the Abrahamic promises and Mosaic Law, noting that if one could give life by a law, “righteousness would indeed be by the Law.”[24] Paul insists that it is not possible to find the law to be a source of righteousness, because the nature which the law is to direct is more fundamentally corrupted than the law can compensate for. Thus Paul says, if one could follow the law, it would maintain a righteous course. This argument strikes at Paul’s opponents, who have been trying to persuade the Galatians that to enter into the Abrahamic covenant,

Verse 21 proposes that if there is only one way into the salvific covenant of promise, do the requirements of the Mosaic Law contradict the Abrahamic promises? No, Paul responds, for if one were capable of fulfilling the Law, one would be living righteously. The problem is not the presence of the Law, but rather human nature: reception of Mosaic Law does not perfect fallen human nature; rather, it draws out the inability of man to please God of his own initiative. Thus the Law is unable to “ζῳοποιέω,”[25] impart life, but in more than a physical sense, a righteousness “of the spirit, quickening as respects the spirit, endued with new and greater powers of life;”[26] inferring from context a sense that the Law was incapable of providing the sort of spiritual and physical resurrection required by human nature. Linking the first clause of this verse to the second, Paul says if the Law could give life, righteousness, “the state of him who is as he ought to be…the condition acceptable to God,”[27] would come from the Law. Since it would seem that the Law was not intended to provide righteousness, the Law merely “offers apparent righteousness devoid of life.”[28] Paul’s negative description of the Law as not providing life from which righteousness would spring as a transformative effect of the life points towards the effects of faith after the heritage of Abraham.

Interestingly in verse 22, Paul notes that “Scripture (γραφή)[29] imprisoned everything under sin,”[30]not the Law (νόμος)[31]. Matera describes Paul’s use of Scripture over Law as “a personification of God’s will.”[32] So what is this Scripture Paul is employing to say that man is trapped in a sinful condition? Habakkuk 2.4 is cited as the main proof text his assertion that the only way out of man’s sinful condition is to partake in the “promise by faith of Jesus Christ.” Matera notes that Paul cites other passages from the Hebrew Scriptures regarding the sinful condition of man in Roman 3.9-28: Proverbs 1.16, 20.9; Psalms 5.9, 10.7, 14.1-3, 36.1 53.1-3, 140.3; Jeremiah 5.16; Isaiah 59.7-8.[33] Based on these Scriptural backings, Paul feels confidant to claim that faith in Jesus, then, is a continuation of the Abrahamic covenant of promise. Paul structures his argument employing the term “ἵνα,”[34]which allows the conclusion to be derived “that the promise is given to those who believe.”[35] Referring back to verse 19, the coming of Jesus as “the seed…to whom the promise (of Abraham) was made,” could be seen as the solution to man’s transgressions which were exemplified as unsolvable by the Law because He brought a new nature and adoption as sons for those with faith. Paul here is reinterpreting the faith of Abraham by “the subjunctive genitive, ‘faith in Christ.”[36]

Referring to the time “before faith came,”[37] Paul changes from speaking of the expectant faith of Abraham to the presence of Christ, the fulfillment of the promises in faith. Speaking of the Jewish people’s condition in verse 23, Paul changes his discussion of faith from Abraham to Jesus, saying that since the Law did not provide solutions to transgressions, the Jewish people under the Law were cut off from the realization of faith as a means of renewing their natures, returning to God. In a way, the Law incubated a helpless state of incapacitated obedience amongst the Jewish people since they were unable to maintain salvific promises. Thus to be “’under Law’ is in practice to be ‘under sin’—not because law and sin are identical, but because law, while forbidding sin, stimulates the very thing it forbids.”[38] Painting the weight of the Law as a kind of captivity from which the redemption of Christ is liberating, Paul’s emphasis that all are under sin brings all into the judgment of the Law, in need of liberation. Yet at the same time, the presence of the Law under which both Jews and Gentiles are “captive” draws a separation between Jews and Gentiles by subjecting all to penalization, but keeping: “the Gentiles out of the privilege of God and kept Israel apart from the rest of mankind; this divisive force has been overcome by the unifying effect of Christ’s redemptive act.”[39]

Calling the Law a schoolmaster or guardian in verse 24, Paul credits the presence of the Law with giving the Jewish Christian enough realization of their sins to know Law observance was impossible without faith, and that this faith found its justification in Jesus Christ without necessarily navigating through the Mosaic Law. The supervision of the Law is given in a temporal context, “εἰς Χριστόν” best translated “until Christ.”[40] The temporality of this phrase indicates that a kind of supervision was necessary (or perhaps fortification) until the object of promise, Abraham’s Seed, arrived as the fulfillment of his offspring’s inheritance of faith. F.F. Bruce considers the fulfillment of this promise to be the act of justification that was expected by Abraham[41] when his faith was accredited as righteousness before the coming of the promise. Interpreting “the appearance of Christ gave effect to the purpose of God—‘that we (Jews and Gentiles without distinction) should be justified in faith,’ in accordance with the promise to Abraham.”[42] According to Paul, God’s justification of the Abrahamic covenant through faith in Christ removes the Law as a distinction between Jews and Gentiles, uniting them in a common inheritance with Abraham in Christ.

Paul draws his Law and Promise discourse regarding the legitimacy of Gentile inheritance of the Spirit through Abraham-like faith draws to a conclusion in verse 25, demonstrating to the Galatians that the Mosaic Law brought about the realization that man could do nothing on his own to achieve inheritance-status in the Abrahamic covenant. While the Law would prepare the people for a leap of faith by disclosing their own depravity, Paul exegetes Genesis to claim that the Seed promised to Abraham would complete the righteous justification man needed in order to maintain obedience to God. Thus for the Jews, the coming of Jesus as the Promised Seed of Abraham would bring about a culmination of their entire expectant history, while for the Gentiles, Paul draws opposite conclusions. It is all very well and good for the Jewish converts to observe the Mosaic Law since it is part of their redemptive history with God. For the Galatian Gentiles, however, Paul says that to turn to Mosaic Law in order to partake in the Abrahamic covenant to which they have already been enjoined by faith in Christ would be a denial rather than an acceptance of the promise of Christ. As Schnelle notes, “Paul’s Christ hermeneutic necessarily presupposes that the Law/Torah as a soteriological principle has been annulled, for otherwise Christ would have died for nothing.”[43]

 

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[1] “two-gospel” approach refers to the agreement of the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15 that Gentiles could be admitted to Christianity without first assuming the Mosaic precepts of the Jewish faith, summed up under the symbols of circumcision, Sabbath, and food regulations. The settling of the Antioch conflict at the council was that Jewish Christians would maintain their Jewish heritage, but would be deemed no better or lesser than the Gentile Christians.

[2]Hansen, G. Walter. Abraham in Galatians: Epistolary and Rhetorical Contexts. Journal for the Study of the New Testament Supplement, Series 29. Sheffield, England: Sheffield Academic Press, 1989. 97.

[3] These distinctions were symbolized by the ritualistic circumcision.

[4] Most likely “Mosaic” according to most commentaries; orthopraxic Jewish Christians who believed Gentiles should receive circumcision to share in the benefit of the Abrahamic promises.

[5] Madera, Frank. Galatians. Sacra Pagina Series, Vol. 9. Ed. Daniel J. Harrison, S.J.. Collegeville, A Michael Glazier Book from The Liturgical Press.  127.

[6] Blue Letter Bible. “Dictionary and Word Search for klēronomia (Strong’s 2817)“. Blue Letter Bible. 1996-2009. 14 Nov 2009. <http:// www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?Strongs=G2817&t=ESV>.

[7] Ibid.

[8] Galatians 3.14, ESV.

[9] Blue Letter Bible. “Dictionary and Word Search for charizomai (Strong’s 5483)“. Blue Letter Bible. 1996-2009. 14 Nov 2009. <http:// www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?Strongs=G5483&t=ESV>.

[10] Madera, 127-8.

[11] Blue Letter Bible. “Dictionary and Word Search for sperma (Strong’s 4690)“. Blue Letter Bible. 1996-2009. 14 Nov 2009.<http:// www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?Strongs=G4690&t=ESV>.

[12] Matera, 131.

[13] Revised Standard Version of the Holy Bible. Galatians 3.19.

[14] Blue Letter Bible. “Dictionary and Word Search for parabasis (Strong’s 3847)“. Blue Letter Bible. 1996-2009. 14 Nov 2009. <http:// www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?
Strongs=G3847&t=ESV>.

[15] Blue Letter Bible. “Dictionary and Word Search for parabasis (Strong’s 3847)“. Blue Letter Bible. 1996-2009. 11 Nov 2009. <http:// www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?
Strongs=G3847&t=ESV>.

[16] Ibid.

[17] Wilson, Todd. The Curse of the Law and the Crisis in Galatia: Reassessing the Purpose of Galatians. Pg. 57

[18] Galatians 3.20

[19] Most commonly held to be Moses.

[20]Bruce, F.F. The Epistle to the Galatians: A Commentary on the Greek Text. The New International Greek Testament Commentary Series. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1982., pg. 179.

[21]Bruce, F.F., 179.

[22] Ibid., 180.

[23] Leviticus 18.5, ESV.

[24] Galatians 3.21, ESV.

[25] Letter Bible. “Paul’s Epistle – Galatians 3.21 – (ESV – English Standard Version).” Blue Letter Bible. 1996-2009. 12 Nov 2009. <http://www.blueletterbible.org/Bible.cfm?b=Gal&c=3&t=ESV>.

[26] Blue Letter Bible. “Dictionary and Word Search for zōopoieō (Strong’s 2227)“. Blue Letter Bible. 1996-2009. 14 Nov 2009. <http:// www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?
Strongs=G2227&t=ESV>.

[27] Blue Letter Bible. “Dictionary and Word Search for dikaiosynē (Strong’s 1343)“. Blue Letter Bible. 1996-2009. 14 Nov 2009. <http:// www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?
Strongs=G1343&t=ESV>.

[28] Madera, 135.

[29] Blue Letter Bible. “Paul’s Epistle – Galatians 3.22 – (ESV – English Standard Version).” Blue Letter Bible. 1996-2009. 12 Nov 2009. <http://www.blueletterbible.org/Bible.cfm?b=Gal&c=3&t=ESV>.

[30] Galatians 3.22, ESV

[31] Blue Letter Bible. “Paul’s Epistle – Galatians 3.21 – (ESV – English Standard Version).” Blue Letter Bible. 1996-2009. 12 Nov 2009. < http://www.blueletterbible.org/Bible.cfm?b=Gal&c=3&t=ESV>.

[32] Madera, 135.

[33] Romans 3.9-18; The Holy Bible, English Standard Version Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. 10 November 2009. < http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=romans%203.9-18&version=ESV>.

[34] Blue Letter Bible. “Paul’s Epistle – Galatians 3.22 – (ESV – English Standard Version).” Blue Letter Bible. 1996-2009. 12 Nov 2009. < http://www.blueletterbible.org/Bible.cfm?b=Gal&c=3&t=ESV>.

[35] Madera, 135.

[36] Ibid., 135.

[37] This is rendered in the Greek “πρὸ τοῦ δὲ ἐλθεῖν τὴν πίστιν,” translated literally as “Before of-the yet to-be-coming the belief,” [“Galatians 3.23,” Greek Interlinear Bible (NT). Scripture4all Foundation. Interlinear PDF files Copyright © 2009 Scripture4all Foundation. 10 November 2009. <http://www.scripture4all.org/OnlineInterlinear/NTpdf/gal3.pdf>.] which Bruce reads as implying a temporal force, suggesting a fulfillment, or a coming after of the thing which was promised to Abraham (183). Thus the coming of “faith” is not the expectant faith of Abraham which expected promises that were yet to be fulfilled, but the fulfillment itself.

[38] F.F. Bruce, 182

[39] Ibid. 182.

[40] Ibid. 183.

[41] Ibid. 183, referring back to Paul’s quotation of Genesis 15.6 earlier in chapter 3, vs. 6 “just as Abraham ‘believed God, it was counted to his as righteousness?”

[42] Ibid. 183.

[43] Schnelle, Udo. Apostle Paul: His Life and Theology. Boring, M. Eugene, translator. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2005. 285.

 

The Apostle Paul caused quite a controversy in his day by maintaining a theology inclusive of Gentile peoples without requiring them to first convert to Judaism. In the epistle to the Galatians, one finds the tenuous agreement between Paul and orthopraxic Jewish Christians to a “two gospel”[1] ruptured by certain parties whom commentators commonly term as “Judiazers,” trying to convince the Galatians that circumcision is necessary to enter into the covenant of Christ. Recounting his own conversion story in the first chapter of the epistle to add certainty to any speculation about his call to preach Christ Jesus to the Gentiles, Paul recounts his own perspective of the events which were addressed at the Jerusalem Council in the second chapter. In his passionate style, recounts his interaction with the Apostles, particularly Peter, in strong language when Peter relapsed from an ecumenical practice on circumcision to segregating the Gentile Christians. Paul’s tone is authoritarian and defensive, suggesting that the conflict between the apostle and infant church, that the Galatians are tempted to depart from the gospel Paul has preached to them. What is this gospel and what distinctions between it and the message of his opponents does Paul resurrect? Both of these questions can be answered from a careful exegetical study of Galatians 3.18-25, revealing Paul’s own exegesis of Hebrew scriptures: while his opponents exegete a harmony between the Abrahamic covenant of Genesis and the Mosaic covenant in Exodus, they perpetrate that one must follow the law (receive the sign of circumcision) in order to enter into the promises of Abraham, while Paul reverses the preferencing,  inclusively uniting both Jew and Gentile on the basis of faith to be rendered righteous in Christianity.

While some commentators, such as Walter Hansen, suggest that the conflict of Galatians was a return to paganism because of Paul’s words about “exchanging their experience of the Spirit for dependency on the flesh,”[2] Udo Schnelle and the majority of commentators I read believe that  Paul’s references to being perfected by the flesh in Galatians 3.3 are linked to Jewish Christians, commonly referred to as Mosaic, who believed that all Gentile Christian converts must conform to the rites of the Mosaic covenant mediated through Moses.  Beginning our exegesis with Galatians 3.18, Paul states a radical position in opposition to the “evangelization” of his orthopraxic Jewish-Christian opponents: that the inheritance of salvific relationship with God does not come from the law. Rather, here Paul introduces a new exegetical movement in his reading of the Torah: a preferencing of the Abrahamic covenant, blessings by faith, over the necessity follow Mosaic law. From this position, Paul supports his argument that the Gentile converts do not need to receive circumcision to enter into the covenant that God made with Abraham.

Paul’s argument regarding Mosaic Law in Galatians 3.18-25 finds itself embedded in the larger context of a polemical epistle most likely written to the Gauls in Northern Galatia. Paul is arguing against doubts the Galatian church is harboring about their part in the salvific covenant God made with Abraham because they have not received the external sign of circumcision with which God sealed this covenant to the Jewish people. Recounting the results of the Antioch conflict over Gentile circumcision debated at the Jerusalem Council, Paul asserts that since the council, Peter and others have gone against the agreed position that Jewish converts would maintain their religious distinctive as Christians, but Gentiles were not bound to take on these distinctions.[3] Paul seems greatly distressed over a conflict in which some Judaizers[4] have raised doubts in the minds of the Galatians both to the truth of Paul’s preaching and validity of his apostleship, as well as the validity of their own faith without circumcision. Paul maintains his argument that circumcision is not necessary to be included in the inheritance of the Abrahamic covenant. This being said, Paul insists that the Mosaic Law was still divinely inspired; simply that it did not instill in human nature the ability to follow in its righteous directing to right relationship with God.

Ultimately, Paul faults the fallen condition of man to find complementarity between the Mosaic Law and the Abrahamic covenant, though he does make the controversial distinction that the fulfillment of the Abrahamic promises in Christ make Law observance extraneous and even detrimental to the faith of those who were not first under the Law. Asserting the oneness of God and Christ as the Promised Seed of the Abrahamic covenant, Paul opposes his fellow Jewish Christians in regards to the necessity of entering into faith in Christ through the Law of Moses. Recognizing that Moses’ Law was inspired by God for His Chosen People the Jews, Paul equalizes the places of Jew and Gentile before God as sinners. Though the Jews had the path of Righteousness in the Law, they lacked the ability to walk in that path, and therefore were worse off in sin than the Gentiles because they had knowledge of it. Paul frames his argument regarding the Galatian’s assurance of co-inheritance with Christ by addressing the doubts Judaizers have instilled in their minds regarding Law observance and Gentile faith conditions.

Verse 18 of the selected passage addresses Paul’s overall conclusion regarding the Law: If one must pass through the requirements of Mosaic Law to embrace the faith of the Abrahamic covenant, negates the Abrahamic promises. Paul contrasts the term “ἐκ νόμος” (through the Law) with “ἐκ ἐπαγγελία” (through the promise)to point out that if the inheritance of righteousness comes through the Law, God has nullified His previous covenant to Abraham.[5] Madera indicates that this verse contains the only undisputed reference to “κληρονομία”[6] in all of Paul’s epistles, referring to an inheritance of “the promised Spirit” mentioned in Galatians 3.14.[7] Given the overall context of the passage, it indicates that the blessing of Abraham through its fulfillment in a person of promise, Jesus Christ, allowed both Jew and Gentile to “receive the promised Spirit through the faith.”[8] Recognizing the Spirit of Jesus as the fulfillment of the Abrahamic promise, Paul affirms that God gave Abraham this inheritance through promise. “χαρίζομαι”[9]translated as “has given” or “granted” is set in the present tense, though God obviously made His covenant with Abraham ages ago. Madera notes that this ”points to the gracious and enduring aspect of God’s promise to Abraham.”[10]

Verse 19 ponders why Mosaic Law observance for the Galatians would negate faith in the Abrahamic promises, and why was the Law given at all. The Law, as an impossible standard of righteous living to all sinful men, brought Jewish awareness to the fact that their condition was as sinful as the next Gentile. Inability to fulfill the Law spurned Jewish expectancy of the Promised Seed of Abraham; Paul plays on the singularity of the term “σπέρμα”[11] to introduce Christ as the seed promised to Abraham.[12] Not only did the Law bring about realization of sin amongst God’s chosen people, but Paul also points out its lesser status to the Abrahamic promises because it was given through mediation rather than direct communication. In verse 19, Paul rhetorically questions the purpose of the law, considering that he has asserted that Jewish and Gentile salvation come through the covenant of promise God made with Abraham. This verse is packed with Paul’s exalted Christology, pointing to Christ as the promised offspring of Abraham, who fulfilled the promise made. Paul makes note of two pieces of information with regard to the giving of the law in this verse: first, that “it was added because of transgressions” and that “it was put into place through angels by an intermediary.”[13] These are two negative purposes, the first regarding transgressions more controversial than the law’s subservient status to the Abrahamic promises because of mediation. What does Paul mean that the Law was given “because of transgressions?” Paul uses the Greek work “παράβασις,”[14] which is translated “transgressions,” which has two different meanings in Greek: to go over or to disregard or violate.[15] The second meaning seems to indicate a relation to law, and a developed state of mind in which sins “take on the character of transgressions, and thereby the consciousness of sin be intensified and the desire for redemption be aroused.”[16] Along with this premise, Paul supplies a second, that of the Law being given through angels and communicated by an intermediary, is lesser than the directly given promise from God to Abraham.

While Paul’s Judaizer opponents “probably appealed to both these traditions (the Abrahamic covenant of promise and the Deuteronomic covenant of blessings/curses under law) to persuade the Galatians that their lack of circumcision was a breach of God’s covenant and Law, and thus, in accordance with the witness of scripture, brought them under the Law’s curse.”[17] It is likely that these Judaizers prefaced entrance into sharing the Abrahamic covenant with the Jewish people, and the chief seed of Abraham (Jesus Christ), with conformity to Mosaic code, a physical affiliation. Paul spiritualizes the idea of being a “progeny of Abraham” by making the requirement faith rather than circumcision (Galatians 3.9).  Paul’s purpose in subordinating the Mosaic code to the Abrahamic promise is not to nullify the Mosaic code as a central observance in Jewish faith, serve his polemical agenda. Verse 20 continues Paul’s explanation of the subordinance of the Mosaic law to Abrahamic by further discussion of mediation as a negative factor in the giving of the law. How does “but God is one”[18] affirm “an antithesis to what is said about the mediator” of the Mosaic covenant[19]?  It seems that Paul’s point of controversy about the mediation of the Law is that to preference a covenant which was given through angelic parties and indirectly mediated through Moses to the Jews would divide the God of the Jews from the God of the Gentiles, demonstration that “it is fitting that He should provide one way of salvation for both—the way of faith.”[20] Verse 20 supplies an explanation of why mediation makes the Law secondary to faith. While commentators speculate about the mediatorship remark, but seem to indicate that the affirmation “God is one” means that both Jew and Gentile operate on the same playing field when approaching righteous living. Thus faith in Christ as the one means of fulfilling the Abrahamic promises for both: “it is fitting that He should provide one way of salvation for both—the way of faith.”[21]

Affirming that God is the same for Jew and Gentile, Paul’s insistence that righteousness living under the law is no greater than those who follow Christ without the law, but then turns to say that since the Mosaic law and the Abrahamic promises are both of God, they cannot oppose one another.  Paul’s “innovation” as it were, is the conclusion that “the law as a means of justification and life, in terms of Lv. 18.5, has been superseded by faith in terms of Hab 2.4.”[22] Paul seems to be reading Habakkuk 2.4 as his own scriptural proof text against a legalistic reading of Leviticus 18.5, saying the just will live by faith, not that life is only found when one keeps the laws and customs of the Mosaic law.[23] Yet he does not separate the Abrahamic promises and Mosaic Law, noting that if one could give life by a law, “righteousness would indeed be by the Law.”[24] Paul insists that it is not possible to find the law to be a source of righteousness, because the nature which the law is to direct is more fundamentally corrupted than the law can compensate for. Thus Paul says, if one could follow the law, it would maintain a righteous course. This argument strikes at Paul’s opponents, who have been trying to persuade the Galatians that to enter into the Abrahamic covenant,

Verse 21 proposes that if there is only one way into the salvific covenant of promise, do the requirements of the Mosaic Law contradict the Abrahamic promises? No, Paul responds, for if one were capable of fulfilling the Law, one would be living righteously. The problem is not the presence of the Law, but rather human nature: reception of Mosaic Law does not perfect fallen human nature; rather, it draws out the inability of man to please God of his own initiative. Thus the Law is unable to “ζῳοποιέω,”[25] impart life, but in more than a physical sense, a righteousness “of the spirit, quickening as respects the spirit, endued with new and greater powers of life;”[26] inferring from context a sense that the Law was incapable of providing the sort of spiritual and physical resurrection required by human nature. Linking the first clause of this verse to the second, Paul says if the Law could give life, righteousness, “the state of him who is as he ought to be…the condition acceptable to God,”[27] would come from the Law. Since it would seem that the Law was not intended to provide righteousness, the Law merely “offers apparent righteousness devoid of life.”[28] Paul’s negative description of the Law as not providing life from which righteousness would spring as a transformative effect of the life points towards the effects of faith after the heritage of Abraham.

Interestingly in verse 22, Paul notes that “Scripture (γραφή)[29] imprisoned everything under sin,”[30]not the Law (νόμος)[31]. Matera describes Paul’s use of Scripture over Law as “a personification of God’s will.”[32] So what is this Scripture Paul is employing to say that man is trapped in a sinful condition? Habakkuk 2.4 is cited as the main proof text his assertion that the only way out of man’s sinful condition is to partake in the “promise by faith of Jesus Christ.” Matera notes that Paul cites other passages from the Hebrew Scriptures regarding the sinful condition of man in Roman 3.9-28: Proverbs 1.16, 20.9; Psalms 5.9, 10.7, 14.1-3, 36.1 53.1-3, 140.3; Jeremiah 5.16; Isaiah 59.7-8.[33] Based on these Scriptural backings, Paul feels confidant to claim that faith in Jesus, then, is a continuation of the Abrahamic covenant of promise. Paul structures his argument employing the term “ἵνα,”[34]which allows the conclusion to be derived “that the promise is given to those who believe.”[35] Referring back to verse 19, the coming of Jesus as “the seed…to whom the promise (of Abraham) was made,” could be seen as the solution to man’s transgressions which were exemplified as unsolvable by the Law because He brought a new nature and adoption as sons for those with faith. Paul here is reinterpreting the faith of Abraham by “the subjunctive genitive, ‘faith in Christ.”[36]

Referring to the time “before faith came,”[37] Paul changes from speaking of the expectant faith of Abraham to the presence of Christ, the fulfillment of the promises in faith. Speaking of the Jewish people’s condition in verse 23, Paul changes his discussion of faith from Abraham to Jesus, saying that since the Law did not provide solutions to transgressions, the Jewish people under the Law were cut off from the realization of faith as a means of renewing their natures, returning to God. In a way, the Law incubated a helpless state of incapacitated obedience amongst the Jewish people since they were unable to maintain salvific promises. Thus to be “’under Law’ is in practice to be ‘under sin’—not because law and sin are identical, but because law, while forbidding sin, stimulates the very thing it forbids.”[38] Painting the weight of the Law as a kind of captivity from which the redemption of Christ is liberating, Paul’s emphasis that all are under sin brings all into the judgment of the Law, in need of liberation. Yet at the same time, the presence of the Law under which both Jews and Gentiles are “captive” draws a separation between Jews and Gentiles by subjecting all to penalization, but keeping: “the Gentiles out of the privilege of God and kept Israel apart from the rest of mankind; this divisive force has been overcome by the unifying effect of Christ’s redemptive act.”[39]

Calling the Law a schoolmaster or guardian in verse 24, Paul credits the presence of the Law with giving the Jewish Christian enough realization of their sins to know Law observance was impossible without faith, and that this faith found its justification in Jesus Christ without necessarily navigating through the Mosaic Law. The supervision of the Law is given in a temporal context, “εἰς Χριστόν” best translated “until Christ.”[40] The temporality of this phrase indicates that a kind of supervision was necessary (or perhaps fortification) until the object of promise, Abraham’s Seed, arrived as the fulfillment of his offspring’s inheritance of faith. F.F. Bruce considers the fulfillment of this promise to be the act of justification that was expected by Abraham[41] when his faith was accredited as righteousness before the coming of the promise. Interpreting “the appearance of Christ gave effect to the purpose of God—‘that we (Jews and Gentiles without distinction) should be justified in faith,’ in accordance with the promise to Abraham.”[42] According to Paul, God’s justification of the Abrahamic covenant through faith in Christ removes the Law as a distinction between Jews and Gentiles, uniting them in a common inheritance with Abraham in Christ.  

Paul draws his Law and Promise discourse regarding the legitimacy of Gentile inheritance of the Spirit through Abraham-like faith draws to a conclusion in verse 25, demonstrating to the Galatians that the Mosaic Law brought about the realization that man could do nothing on his own to achieve inheritance-status in the Abrahamic covenant. While the Law would prepare the people for a leap of faith by disclosing their own depravity, Paul exegetes Genesis to claim that the Seed promised to Abraham would complete the righteous justification man needed in order to maintain obedience to God. Thus for the Jews, the coming of Jesus as the Promised Seed of Abraham would bring about a culmination of their entire expectant history, while for the Gentiles, Paul draws opposite conclusions. It is all very well and good for the Jewish converts to observe the Mosaic Law since it is part of their redemptive history with God. For the Galatian Gentiles, however, Paul says that to turn to Mosaic Law in order to partake in the Abrahamic covenant to which they have already been enjoined by faith in Christ would be a denial rather than an acceptance of the promise of Christ. As Schnelle notes, “Paul’s Christ hermeneutic necessarily presupposes that the Law/Torah as a soteriological principle has been annulled, for otherwise Christ would have died for nothing.”[43]

 

---

 

[1] “two-gospel” approach refers to the agreement of the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15 that Gentiles could be admitted to Christianity without first assuming the Mosaic precepts of the Jewish faith, summed up under the symbols of circumcision, Sabbath, and food regulations. The settling of the Antioch conflict at the council was that Jewish Christians would maintain their Jewish heritage, but would be deemed no better or lesser than the Gentile Christians.

[2]Hansen, G. Walter. Abraham in Galatians: Epistolary and Rhetorical Contexts. Journal for the Study of the New Testament Supplement, Series 29. Sheffield, England: Sheffield Academic Press, 1989. 97.

[3] These distinctions were symbolized by the ritualistic circumcision.

[4] Most likely “Mosaic” according to most commentaries; orthopraxic Jewish Christians who believed Gentiles should receive circumcision to share in the benefit of the Abrahamic promises.

[5] Madera, Frank. Galatians. Sacra Pagina Series, Vol. 9. Ed. Daniel J. Harrison, S.J.. Collegeville, A Michael Glazier Book from The Liturgical Press.  127.

[6] Blue Letter Bible. “Dictionary and Word Search for klēronomia (Strong’s 2817)“. Blue Letter Bible. 1996-2009. 14 Nov 2009. <http:// www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?Strongs=G2817&t=ESV>.

[7] Ibid.

[8] Galatians 3.14, ESV.

[9] Blue Letter Bible. “Dictionary and Word Search for charizomai (Strong’s 5483)“. Blue Letter Bible. 1996-2009. 14 Nov 2009. <http:// www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?Strongs=G5483&t=ESV>.

[10] Madera, 127-8.

[11] Blue Letter Bible. “Dictionary and Word Search for sperma (Strong’s 4690)“. Blue Letter Bible. 1996-2009. 14 Nov 2009.<http:// www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?Strongs=G4690&t=ESV>.

[12] Matera, 131.

[13] Revised Standard Version of the Holy Bible. Galatians 3.19.

[14] Blue Letter Bible. “Dictionary and Word Search for parabasis (Strong’s 3847)“. Blue Letter Bible. 1996-2009. 14 Nov 2009. <http:// www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?
Strongs=G3847&t=ESV>.

[15] Blue Letter Bible. “Dictionary and Word Search for parabasis (Strong’s 3847)“. Blue Letter Bible. 1996-2009. 11 Nov 2009. <http:// www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?
Strongs=G3847&t=ESV>.

[16] Ibid.

[17] Wilson, Todd. The Curse of the Law and the Crisis in Galatia: Reassessing the Purpose of Galatians. Pg. 57

[18] Galatians 3.20

[19] Most commonly held to be Moses.

[20]Bruce, F.F. The Epistle to the Galatians: A Commentary on the Greek Text. The New International Greek Testament Commentary Series. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1982., pg. 179.

[21]Bruce, F.F., 179.

[22] Ibid., 180.

[23] Leviticus 18.5, ESV.

[24] Galatians 3.21, ESV.

[25] Letter Bible. “Paul’s Epistle – Galatians 3.21 – (ESV – English Standard Version).” Blue Letter Bible. 1996-2009. 12 Nov 2009. <http://www.blueletterbible.org/Bible.cfm?b=Gal&c=3&t=ESV>.

[26] Blue Letter Bible. “Dictionary and Word Search for zōopoieō (Strong’s 2227)“. Blue Letter Bible. 1996-2009. 14 Nov 2009. <http:// www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?
Strongs=G2227&t=ESV>.

[27] Blue Letter Bible. “Dictionary and Word Search for dikaiosynē (Strong’s 1343)“. Blue Letter Bible. 1996-2009. 14 Nov 2009. <http:// www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?
Strongs=G1343&t=ESV>.

[28] Madera, 135.

[29] Blue Letter Bible. “Paul’s Epistle – Galatians 3.22 – (ESV – English Standard Version).” Blue Letter Bible. 1996-2009. 12 Nov 2009. <http://www.blueletterbible.org/Bible.cfm?b=Gal&c=3&t=ESV>.

[30] Galatians 3.22, ESV

[31] Blue Letter Bible. “Paul’s Epistle – Galatians 3.21 – (ESV – English Standard Version).” Blue Letter Bible. 1996-2009. 12 Nov 2009. < http://www.blueletterbible.org/Bible.cfm?b=Gal&c=3&t=ESV>.

[32] Madera, 135.

[33] Romans 3.9-18; The Holy Bible, English Standard Version Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. 10 November 2009. < http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=romans%203.9-18&version=ESV>.

[34] Blue Letter Bible. “Paul’s Epistle – Galatians 3.22 – (ESV – English Standard Version).” Blue Letter Bible. 1996-2009. 12 Nov 2009. < http://www.blueletterbible.org/Bible.cfm?b=Gal&c=3&t=ESV>.

[35] Madera, 135.

[36] Ibid., 135.

[37] This is rendered in the Greek “πρὸ τοῦ δὲ ἐλθεῖν τὴν πίστιν,” translated literally as “Before of-the yet to-be-coming the belief,” [“Galatians 3.23,” Greek Interlinear Bible (NT). Scripture4all Foundation. Interlinear PDF files Copyright © 2009 Scripture4all Foundation. 10 November 2009. <http://www.scripture4all.org/OnlineInterlinear/NTpdf/gal3.pdf>.] which Bruce reads as implying a temporal force, suggesting a fulfillment, or a coming after of the thing which was promised to Abraham (183). Thus the coming of “faith” is not the expectant faith of Abraham which expected promises that were yet to be fulfilled, but the fulfillment itself.

[38] F.F. Bruce, 182

[39] Ibid. 182.

[40] Ibid. 183.

[41] Ibid. 183, referring back to Paul’s quotation of Genesis 15.6 earlier in chapter 3, vs. 6 “just as Abraham ‘believed God, it was counted to his as righteousness?”

[42] Ibid. 183.

[43] Schnelle, Udo. Apostle Paul: His Life and Theology. Boring, M. Eugene, translator. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2005. 285.

 

Book review: SCOTT HAHN, Swear to God: The Promise and Power of the Sacraments. New York: Doubleday, a division of Random House, Inc. 2004. Pp 1, 231. $19.95

SCOTT HAHN, Swear to God: The Promise and Power of the Sacraments. New York: Doubleday, a division of Random House, Inc. 2004. Pp 1, 231. $19.95

Scott Hahn’s personal conversion narrative sets the stage for a theological discussion of the sacraments as signs of our covenant with God, oaths we swear participating in each sacrament, in everyday language. Summing up the Church’s teaching from the Catechism and various documents in relational language, Hahn’s own relational narrative sets a relatable stage from which to present Catholic sacramental theology to non-Catholics or poorly catechized Catholics. Drawing from his deeply biblical Presbyterian roots, Hahn discusses the salvific relationship of man and God through the sacraments through Old Testament concepts of “covenant” and “oath,” drawing out the unity of the two scriptures and the Christian perspective of Jesus Christ’s fulfillment of the Old Covenant without abolishing it.

 

Framing his presentation of the sacraments in examples of age old human practice and culture, Hahn insists that covenants and oaths have been practices to secure relationship since ancient civilization. De-magicalizing the Sacraments, Hahn emphasizes repeatedly that God does not circumvent human nature in enacting a plan to redeem it, but having created man and physical things good, works through the embodiment of creation through the incarnation of Jesus to lift mankind out of sin and into sonship. Explaining the Sacraments through the incarnation as works and presence of Christ, Hahn draws from prophetic imagery in the Old Testament to relate Sacraments as renewing and fulfilling a marital bond between the visible and Invisible Body of Christ. While the Sacraments do renew relationship with God, Hahn warns that they are still veiled images of greater glory to come: “If we seek our rest in the gifts, we will never find rest. If we look beyond the gifts to the Giver, we will know everlasting peace, even and the most terrifying difficulties in life.” (177) While purporting that the Sacraments make life with God possible in this life, since we are united to the Invisible Life of Christ. Maintaining the good of human nature and created things, Hahn emphasizes that the human nature has become fallen, and therefore even accepting the truth and believing it is not enough for salvation, because we are incapable of obtaining our own salvation, so the he deems the Sacraments (along the lines of the teaching of the Catholic Church) as a maintenance of the spiritual life. Noting that “Sainthood is our everyday duty,” (198) holiness is unattainable to man, except that through the Sacraments, “our Father gives it to us.” (199).

 

Hahn’s work confidently presents well-understood positions of the Catholic Church on sacramental theology in a very easy-to-read and comprehensible manner. A wonderful introduction and relatable explanation, Hahn does not burden elementary theological readers with the depth of complexity an author such as Aquinas exerts. Repetitive emphasis creates a cumulative effect so that the reader is always clear about Hahn’s point, even though the work does not follow a flow of introduction, explanation, and conclusion. Resurrecting the concepts of covenant and oath really demonstrates a well-grounded understanding of the Sacraments in Scripture, presenting a unity of old and new covenants.

While I have noted that this piece is a good introduction, it heavily assumes a Catholic understanding of Church Authority. Hahn’s conclusions regarding the nature and need of the Sacraments tend to be stated rather than reasoned, so that an inquisitive reader is left with more questions than before encountering this book. The flow of the varying arguments is stated conversationally, in an engaging manner, but would not satisfy any sort of academic interest in the sacraments. Continuing of the topic of the flow of the book, I feel that Hahn’s thoughts could use a bit of reordering: the initial five chapters or so assume a great deal more than they explain, stating needs that, if not accepted, cause the arguments to be absolutely superfluous. Digressing into greater detail towards the middle of the book, Hahn’s historical background for the meaning attributed to Sacraments is a bit after the thought from the subject of the Sacraments themselves. Chapters full of catchy little section titles may confuse the reader from the author’s intent in combining personal story and theological teaching.

 

Regardless of the assumptive (and to the skeptical reader), unsubstantiated presentation of the Sacraments as covenantal signs, Hahn achieves the persuasive purpose of his work. Flowing smoothly in and out of personal and theological narrative, one may not leave this work convinced of the spiritual need for sacraments in order to achieve a salvific relationship with Jesus, but will be deeply impressed with Hahn’s own scriptural conviction. Since personal testimony is a tribute to one’s professed relationship with God, Hahn says, this author makes a very convincing declaration of his beliefs.

 

Hannah M. Mecaskey

Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology

 

A Quest for One Salvation: The Antioch Conflict and Soteriology meets Catholicism and Non-Litrugical

It seems to me that differing definitions of purity continue to separate believers just as they did in the first century Antioch conflict at the Jerusalem council. Writing as a new Roman Catholic who has journeyed most of my life in sincere, but non-liturgical churches, I believe we Christians continue to redefine lines of theological, if not behavioral (this does in fact remain) purity, drawing lines in the sands of life to separate ourselves… but these lines are as trivially solved by a breath of wind. At the Jerusalem council, the debate over which parts of the Mosaic law Gentile converts would be held to was hot. Schnelle presents three different positions which might have been discussed on Gentile relations to Torah: first, freedom from Torah except for ethical requirements (no circumcision); second was limited observance of Torah without circumcision, and thirdly entire Torah observance including circumcision (Schnelle 131). As Schnelle mentions earlier in this chapter, this is a debate of two gospels: that of Circumcision and that of Uncircumcision (126-8). I imagine this would sound shocking to most Christians to imagine that  there could ever have been more than one salvific gospel preached by the Church universal, but noting that denominational rifts today are still marked by considerations of theological purity, should we be surprised to find that multiple gospels are still being preached today?

 

Of course, when saying “gospels” I am following in Schnelle’s use of multiple gospels, for as he notes, the “two gospels” are really two different set of practices/beliefs stemming from the confession of the same, one event of Christ’s sinless death for our sins, was buried and rose from the depths of the grave three days later, to ascend into heaven and sit at the right hand of the Father. The idea of having a universal faith with numerous identities creates an interesting sort of problem. The original Jewish religious identity was constructed out of two aspects of Torah we discussed in class, the halachah (law part of the Torah) and haggadah (story narratives of the Torah). Their history was constantly reinterpreting Torah to make sense and keep current this religious identity… what kind of threat was this upstart of a preacher, Paul, preaching that salvation through a Jewish Messiah, Jesus could come without a crucial part of Torah observance? Well, I see a similar distinction drawn between liturgical and non-liturgical churches. Since this is a Lutheran class, I hope there will be no offence taken if I label, for comparison’s sake, liturgical churches as the “Jewish Christians” of today and nonliturgical churches as the “Gentile Christians.” Jesus is in both equally, my heart feels quite confident proclaiming.

 

So there have been numerous councils within my church denomination, the Catholic Church, concerning what are termed within our walls as “ecclesial communities”… i.e., those without “the full sacramentals.” In Catholicism, the sacramental life seems to be the way of things… we have those seven sacraments which are viewed as the marks of our communion with God, supposedly instituted by Christ to dispense the grace necessary to try and live holy lives {please do not the heavy skepticism in my tone}. Baptism is like our circumcision, without it, there is no salvation? Confirmation seems necessary for the whole entrance into the Catholic Church, so perhaps both of those are our initiates, but then one reaches our third and central sacrament, the Eucharist… and I am sure many of my beloved Catholic associates would be hesitant to assure the safe place of one’s soul without regular attendance to the sacraments of Eucharist as well as Confession to prepare the soul for communion with our Beloved Jesus in the Eucharistic sacrament. I come most rootedly from a good, conservative Baptist tradition, without the slightest notion of what a sacrament was… living what some might consider an ignorant spiritual life, devoid of that fullness of life Jesus came to bring to the world. Was I? Was the second gospel of the Gentile Christians agreed upon to settle the Antiochan conflict a compromise to the message of Jesus and the rest of the Apostles? Some individuals may have felt that way, and later history shows that tides turned more against Pauline multi-gospel preaching, but I render an emphatic no to that question. There are in fact, if we are defining “gospel” as requirements of practice to maintain salvation (I cannot say obtain, I still believe faith is a gift we must receive and then act upon in faith), then today, multiple gospels exist… dictated by personal conscience and understanding of God’s requirements (Romans 14.-6, I think Schnelle and Paul would agree with me).

 

Paul’s act of initiating the acceptance of this “second gospel” of salvation is really quite astounding. Schnelle recounts how profoundly Paul’s Damascus road encounter with the Resurrected Jesus was in Chapter 14, “The Presence of Salvation,” inspiring this entire movement:  “Paul was set before the task of interpreting afresh, from the perspective of the Christ event, the history of the world and God’s saving plan within it—God’s acts in the past, present, and future and his own role in God’s plan.” (Schnelle 389)The Antioch conflict is a prime example of Paul putting this call into action, demonstration (in a way which must have seemed an innovation to conservative bystanders)… preaching a second gospel. Of course salvation is through Christ alone, and only by faith can one approach God through Christ (Hebrews 11.6), so it was this “gospel” of working out faith and identity in Christ that Paul introduced. Taking the Torah-centered Judiasm and reinterpreting it in light of the “new covenant” of Christ, Paul’s soteriology must have broken many Jewish toes.

 

Schnelle describes Pauline soteriology as a sort of negotiating between two distinct groups and many differing ideas which could not really be harmonized: “God’s first covenant continues to be valid, but only the new covenant saves.” (Schnelle 390) Perhaps the parable of Christ and the workers in the field could be appropriated to explain the salvation… the first covenant  (I don’t want to cheat the Old Testament of the validity and fullness of what God gave, but looking back with Paul’s retrospective rationalizations, I must consider the old covenant as working, but also requiring the renewal of God’s covenant with His People in Jesus’ new covenant) was necessary in order that the second covenant might come, but one the salvation of Christ rather than Torah was being preached, the first salvation was not necessary to accept, but could be reinterpreted through retrospection. Considering this, I wonder about the liturgical/non-liturgical church examples I brought up earlier. The Catholic Church has traced its origins and history farther than any other church I have yet experienced… bridging the gap between modern day Chrisianity and the time of the Apostles. J Dare I challenge with my own reinterpretive/innovative statement the idea perpetuated in my church that non-liturgical churches are missing fullness of salvation without sacraments, but that perhaps their very existence, born out of what is now a liturgical church, was necessary for a more full understanding of Jesus and our salvation through him? Though not possible without a mother, the children have grown up and assumed valid identity and relationship with the Father.

 

Reflecting on Church, Catholicism in Levinas and Islam

Entering this class, I was not entirely sure, what to expect or think. So as I muse through my  copious notes on the class and the readings, I will try and interact with the line of questioning I was engaging when entering this class: what is the church, what is it about Christianity in general that has tried to be so totalitarian… when the message of Jesus Christ was love, and the basic tenants of Christianity articulated by Paul all centered initially on inclusivity, erasing the boundaries of otherness between Jew and Gentile…and somehow now we find ourselves in current day Christianity in little fragments of Churches, most still claiming that they in some way, have more truth than the others… My questions mostly stem from my lifelong quest to really try and understand at a religious and personal level, how it is that people who have strong beliefs in differing doctrines can have such a vehement ability to impersonalize and dehumanize one another. It’s not always a hate, but the more I consider the failing interactions between even people who are technically supposed to be united in some way or another, the more I consider it dangerous to try and engage individuals through the lens of a totalitarian system which tries to universalize a religion to all sorts of people, no two of whom are alike. So I will be engaging all my thoughts and the material from class as a struggling Catholic wrestling with my own presuppositions of the world and trying to learn a more Christ-like attitude to engage with people and to apply to the larger problem of whatever it is that makes up “Church.”

One of the first questions I wrote down in my journal, the first day of class was “Can we have belief in an absolute truth and not be relationally forceful? My conversion and internal faith perspectives spur this question….” Levinas began to play in my mind and my conception of God and faith… I did not grow up in the universal sort of absolutist faith system that considers reason the likeness and image of God. Reading Levinas’ Totality and Infinity, I gleaned a lot more of the perspective of God that I have, and of others,  which I feel needs to be integrated more deeply into the Catholic faith. When approaching the Catholic Church’s overall perspective of persons, I find Levinas’ preface to be very instrumental in identifying the demon in the rough of what I have been straining against religiously, both in engaging with God and other persons: “The relation between the same and the other is not always reducible to knowledge of the other by the same, nor even to the revelation of the other to the same, which is already fundamentally different from disclosure.”[1] Levinas’ own questions about the Other, rejecting knowing as the most appreciative knowing of the Other… encouraged me that the purpose of recognizing Other in what it fully was, was not to absorb it into the totality of my thought and identity—like I have often been afraid happens in my Church… it is not a possession, it is a mysterious wonderment to relate with something wholly apart from myself, fundamentally constituted in a reality I can never fully step into.  My approach to Church has always been to try and open myself up wide enough to encompass whatever is being offered in the particular denomination or culture I am present with, worshipping with… to assimilate it into myself. And perhaps my identity allows some adoption, but I will never be fully constituted in or by the group/person/identity which is different from me. I must learn to relate with it in its difference.

Levinas’ discussion of desire and the Desired was precisely put in the most romantic terms in which I love to consider my God, my Jesus… which is never fully sated, even in its absolute state, as he recognizes in “Metaphysics and Transcendence,” for the Desired is so absolutely other, my longing will simply drive me to a perpetually deepening in the sojourning of this life. Maybe this would drive a stake of despair into some hearts, but the revelation of these words to me, and the realization that my quest after an incorporeal, yet somehow physically present Body of Christ on earth…. And maybe even a mystically knowing-by-experience with this Jesus despite the distance of heaven… gave me a sense of hope. Mine, I realized, in relationship with God and Church, is a “metaphysical desire (that) has another intention; it desires beyond everything that can simply complete it.”[2] Levinas makes a beautiful transition from the categorical and impersonal language I am used to hearing when metaphyics is discussed to draw it into his intimate redefinition of transcendence, and experience of love and desire:  “To die for the invisible, this is metaphyics.”[3]

For Levinas, God is a Stranger to me, because I can only know Him in the glimpses of relational experience I catch now and again evades me grasp so I can never pin God down into a systematic totality… but rather, Levinas reaffirms that my identity and the identity of the Other necessarily remain distinct and relate in a way that does not try to dominate the Other.[4] This I struggle with a bit applying to God. At least in the freedom I perceive in my own life, the free will with which I make decisions and act out volitionally my own morality and personal relationships, I could agree with Levinas’ suggestions that the equal relationship with Other is permitted to remain Other is only in a condition where there is no power hierarchy. Yet… what theological difficulties does this present? What about the doctrines of omnipotence, omnipresence, etc? Can God be all-powerful if the relationship I establish with Him is based on my perception of no power hierarchy between us? Rather, I think this is a more easily applied to Church relations. Why cannot different denominations simply look at one another encounter the Divine in other another however He is held differently[5]? Perhaps I have tarried too long on just a portion of my beloved Levinas and should move forward to engaging our other readings, reading from them what I can apply to my own struggle with Christianity in the rather universalizing system I am part of.

The discussion concerning Islamapobia interested me quite a bit… partly because out of the three “Religions of the Books,” only Islam and Christianity and “universal” in the sense of making disciples and evangelizing. Judaism seems quite content to take only those who are willing to approach it and conform to it rather than inviting others to enter. Throughout our discussion in class, I wondered about the competition of conquest between the two religions, and if it were ever possible to claim a universal truth while not becoming too particularizing (in terms of membership or exclusive beliefs) when brought to a global context? Is pluralism the answer to solving monolithic systems of monotheistic and strictly principled religion like Christianity and Islam? Farid Esack mused a bit on pluralism within Islamic tradition in Qur’an, Liberation & Pluralism: noting that liberalism has difficulty interacting with some more traditional notions of religious concepts in Islam, Esack  distinguishes between a hermeneutic of pluralism with the aim of liberation from the hermeneutic of pluralism simply for the sake of integrating liberal ideology into a patriarchal religious system.[6] This chapter sought to redefine the labels and titles used in the Qur’an to dynamically assess the behavioral expectations of the labels’ content in progressively redefined context. Esack refuses to allow personal accountability to slide under the guise of group identity, but recognizes that religious individuality is open for perpetual transformation, thus making the group identity dynamic as well.[7] This recognition that the pluralistic group identity would be an extremely useful tool to integrate into Catholic understanding of tradition.

To some degree, I recognize that Catholisicm prides itself on the pluralism caught up in the universal religion, perhaps much like Islam, but sometimes I wonder about the extent of the pluralism. I must confess this musing is a bit uniformed… I do realize the diversity of Religious orders in the Catholic Church, as well as the multiple rites which are part of the larger Catholic Churches, beyond the Roman Latin rite most popularly celebrated in the West.[8] Yet how inclusive are these seven various rites of the Church, and would the Catholic Church be willing to expand those? Well, in recent news the worldwide Anglican Communion led by Archbishop Williams has announced plans to rejoin the Catholic Church: “Under the terms of an apostolic constitution (formal decree), disaffected conservative Anglicans will be able to join the Catholic Church while retaining their distinctive liturgical, spiritual and pastoral traditions.”[9] Is this a move of absorbing the Other, or is the preservation of the Anglican rite a type of inclusivity, as described in Esack’s Chapter 5, “The Qur’an & The Other: Pluralism and Justice.”

Interestingly, Esack points out that while “the Qur’an does not regard all people and their ideas as equal,” it does proceed “from the premise that the idea of inclusiveness is superior to exclusiveness.”[10] Utilizing another scholar’s comparison of inclusivity to working democracy and exclusivity to fascist political parties, where inclusivity is “not merely a willingness to let every idea and practice exist” but rather is “geared towards specific objectives, such as freeing humankind from injustice and servitude to other human beings so that they might be free to worship God.”[11] These principles as well, I think, can be applied to the Catholic Church, as well as all other church denominations that see themselves as universal. So perhaps to all my Catholic counterparts, I have a very skewed ecclesiology… but if the body of Christ is truly to be composed in relationship of the parts to one another, we cannot afford to be exclusive, but rooted in the same declaration of Christ sinlessly living, unjustly crucified, and resurrected, seated at God’s right hand in glory, can we not learn to treat one another in relationship with humility? So I conclude an all-too-brief reflection with a few verses from Romans 12:

³ And through the grace that I have been given, I say this to every one of you: never pride yourself on being better than you really are, but think of yourself dispassionately, recognizing that God has given to each one his measure of faith. ⁴ Just as each of us has various parts in one body, and the parts do not all have the same function: ⁵ in the same way, all of us, though there are so many of us, make up one body in Christ, and as different parts we are all joined to one another.[12]

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[1]Reader:  Levias, Emmanuel. Totality and Infinity. 28.

[2] Reader: Levinas, “Metaphysics and Transcendence,” Totality and Infinity. 34.

[3] Ibid., 35.

[4] Ibid.,39.

[5] ‘scuse me for a moment, I just realized I was using patriarchal language, or what is perceived as non-inclusive language when speaking about God. I don’t believe God has gender, in my thinking, I still am trying to resolve the patriarchal origins of the text, but I tend to think the authors had a purpose in using certain gender for God. My theology proper is rather conservative… I am very open to using female pronouns when speaking the Holy Spirit aspect of the Divine Trinity… I am just trying to clarify here that I am not attempting to be sexist, simply speaking from a conservative background, in an explorative state with my Christianity.

[6] Reader: Esack, Farid. Chapter 4, “Redefining Self & Other: Imam, Islam & Kufr,” Qur’an, Liberation & Pluralism, 116.

[7] Ibid., 144.

[8] According to a web page published by The Minnesota St. Thomas More Chapter of Catholics United for the Faith, March/April 2000, called “The Rites of the Catholic Church,” “The Catechism lists seven rites. These rites so listed: Latin, Byzantine, Alexandrian, Syriac, Armenian, Maronite, and Chaldean,² are actually families of liturgical expression.” Accessed 22 Oct 2009. <http://www.mncuf.org/rites.htm>.

[9] “Rome’s Anglican Option May Change Both Churches.” 21 October 2009. Sourced from News Website, “The Age,” through WAtoday.com.au. <http://www.watoday.com.au/opinion/editorial/romes-anglican-option-may-change-both-churches-20091021-h8zc.html>.

[10] Reader: Esack, Farid. Chapter 5, “The Qur’an & The Other: Pluralism & Liberation,” Qur’an, Liberation & Pluralism, 175.

[11] Ibid.

[12] New Jerusalem Bible, Copyright 2009 Catholic Online. All materials contained on this site, whether written, audible or visual are the exclusive property of Catholic Online and are protected under U.S. and International copyright laws, © Copyright 2009 Catholic Online. Any unauthorized use, without prior written consent of Catholic Online is strictly forbidden and prohibited. Accessed 25 October 2009. <http://www.catholic.org/bible/book.php?id=52>.

 

Set Apart to a Theology of Unified Living: Reflections on Catholicism and II Corinthians

From class discussion on the 20^th of October, we discussed “Paul’s Paradoxical Life as Apostolic Witness,” based out of chapter 10 in Schnelle. The conversation about the contradictory values/practice of the Corinthian people in comparison to Paul’s uplifting of his own life as a path of imitation of Christ nudged my own imagination towards something I have wrestled with in my own church, the Catholic church, since my confirmation in April… pretence of accepting the paradoxical salvation Jesus has laid out for us, while in reality fostering contradictory doctrine and practice. Hearing that the Corinthian people, who are widely recognized among Biblical scholars as people who loved to party, really held ascetical spiritual ideals of abstinence/celibacy and other separatist practices, I began contemplating the idea of consecration as held in the Catholic hierarchy, not the Catholic populous of lay people today. We have something like a hierarchy set up for life vocations… remaining one of the few churches, if not the only one, to uphold celibacy as a more complete imitation Christi than marriage; in my circles filled with people of the life style classified as “Religious,” I often hear that such a complete consecration is “a higher form of life.”As I explore this teaching of my church in conversation with Paul, Schnelle and our class in II Corinthians,  I will layout what I understand the paradox of Paul’s life witness from Schnelle, Paul and our class discussions, wrestle with the question of consecration as a separating out from the world, and then reflect on whether my church’s stratification of life vocations is really the paradox it is claimed to be or rather, a contradiction from my understanding of imitation Christi in Paul.

Since most of my reflection on what Paul’s life as paradoxical witness means come from section 10.3 of Schnelle (pg. 245-251), I will follow his categories of organization: (1) Power in Weakness, (2) The Apostle’s Integrity,  and (3) The Earthly and Heavenly House. The most striking aspect of the idea of a paradoxical life, to me at least, is the idea of power in weakness. Summed up in II Corinthians 4.7-12:

⁷ But we hold this treasure in pots of earthenware, so that the immensity of the power is God’s and not our own. ⁸ We are subjected to every kind of hardship, but never distressed; we see no way out but we never despair; ⁹ we are pursued but never cut off; knocked down, but still have some life in us; ¹⁰ always we carry with us in our body the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus, too, may be visible in our body. ¹¹ Indeed, while we are still alive, we are continually being handed over to death, for the sake of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus, too, may be visible in our mortal flesh. ¹² In us, then, death is at work; in you, life.

Schnelle articulates the paradox of Paul’s Apostolic ministry being the constant presence of death which seemed to only increase his energy, fervor and urgency of his message. From Paul’s own testimony, since encountering Jesus of the Damascus road, he has been longing for that death which would allow his glorification with his Lord (Philippians 1.21). Paul understands his purpose on earth to walk in the very footsteps of Jesus, to suffer in proclamation of the gospel, and to die… that he might be resurrected… he longs for a “more real” life, the complete and full life which is not obtained until one is in the presence of Christ. In emptying himself of the prestige he could have held among the Jewish people because of his education, Paul makes himself low like Jesus, serving the world to achieve His goal of salvation, with Jesus. This reminds me of the Henri Nouwen book, The Selfless Way of Christ: Downward Mobility and the Spiritual Life. The very title encapsulates what Schnelle portrays as paradox in Paul’s life witness: rather than oriented to death and decimation, Paul finds liberation from his own self-confined restraints in finally being filled fully with the life of Christ when his own life has run out of him.

In the profound understanding of Paul’s persistent seeking of life through a way of death and pain as the same paradox which allowed Jesus Christ to be glorified for the salvation of all, the second title-head of “The Apostle’s Integrity” also emphasizes paradox as the way of life for the believer. Schnelle states elegantly, “Externally, the life of the apostle is worn away and exhausted by the many sufferings he must endure in the course of his mission. At the same time, within this (outer nature, 4.16) the grace of God is at work through the Spirit.” (248) Paul’s sufferings have unlocked his heart to experience “the true treasures of life: faith and hope in God” (248) which he offers to the church as well. This, Schnelle explains, demonstrates the consistency of Paul’s belief in “a particular understanding of reality” which is not natural to human beings in unredeemed states (247).  Because Paul preaches “God as the ultimate ground of reality,” the external state of existence is unimportant and can be as wretched as Paul’s own life after meeting Christ, though God continues working through it (247). This separation of corporeal reality from ultimate reality in God allows Schnelle to turn to the final element of paradox in Paul’s life ministry, “The Earthly and Heavenly House.”

This discussion of earthly and heavenly homes in II Corinthians 5 led me to wonder about Paul being Gnostic in the past… but in more recent explorations of dualism in my own Catholic journey, I think there must be a greater continuity between body and soul, though Paul does seem to emphasize the liberation of life as spiritual. While the first 2 verses of this chapter seem to want to discard the body, the third erases ideas of dualism with the presentation of the idea of heavenly bodies: “… longing to put on our heavenly home over the present one; if indeed we are to be found clothed rather than stripped bare.” While Schnelle explicates this as indeed Paul’s desire for all mortality to be swallowed up, it is not a hope for purely spiritual state of being, but his desire to be “found clothed” is in a new body. Because of this interpretation I’m bringing to II Corinthians 5.3, while I agree with Dr. Balch’s notes that Paul’s assessment the body is usually negative (Schenelle Chapter 10 Summary, pg. 3, par 2), I don’t agree that dualism characterizes this section… only the appearance of dualism, but certainly individualism and abating an anxious expectation of a soon end. I prefer Schnelle’s explanation as dualistic imagery, which Paul uses to indicate that there is no soon departure from these imperfect bodies. The fellowship he experiences in the present with Jesus, both crucified and risen, will lack fulfillment until that heavenly body is obtained.

It would seem that no matter how much Paul seems to accept the current situation, he still demonstrates a discontent and longing for a future fullness. For all my attempts to not read dualism into II Corinthians, Paul strains towards this idea of separation with current situations…at least a future separation. In the present, the only thing besides godly behavior setting believers apart from their fellow Corinthians in the hope of this future separation… at base, this acceptance of an alternate reality according to which they are patterning their lives now. So, I am going to try and integrate this conversation back to my original issue of consecration in an ascetical sense… and how I wonder whether my church is creating more of a contradiction, perhaps a dualism in the life ideas we heirarchicize on earth. In II Corinthians, Paul doesn’t speak about a separate way of living, rather a hope and belief reality, which would affect behavior, but not as much as celibate ideal voiced in 1 Corinthians 7. So the only form of consecration I really see communicated in II Corinthians 4 and 5 is really the alternate reality to what is apparent to unredeemed peoples, the absolute reality.

This then leads me to wrestle with my own church’s ideal of consecration as a separation, ascetical existence…the Catholic sense of “highest form of life…”; is that more Jewish than Christian? Didn’t Jesus come to make up pure and different, in world, and where do we fit the other-worldly ideals. Are we in Catholicism preaching too much of a non-paradoxical gospel, and more of a human contradiction, by saying that; so how do we read 1 Cor 7 in light of the passion narrative? Jesus took flesh and touched women. The paradox of Paul was the acceptance of another reality, and willingness to suffer now in order to someday be admitted well into that heavenly reality… which is what the Catholic ascetical ideal seems to try and live out as a sign of a coming heaven on earth. My church interprets the Matthew 19 dialog about no giving in marriage in heaven to signify that heaven is celibate, a speculation which may be true, but definitely causes some confusion when one is choosing what sort of priorities to set on earth here and now for eternity.

We Catholics have in the heart of our theology retained an idea of imitating Jesus through asceticism, rather than integrated living which doesn’t contradict natural ends of life, but embracing suffering as a way of drawing closer to Christ, we seem to prefer elevating the contradiction of human nature. I love the idea of celibacy as a state of life consecrated to life, and it is special, rare, unusual, but how can it be a more complete consecration? Where do we find the beauty of something so abnormal and not make it the most perfect imitation of Christ… are we as people capable of living after Jesus without making comparison and judgment between degrees and values of holy living. How much paradox do we invite into our lives and are we willing to let go of reason and be fools in the living out. I hardly think so often times if our imago dei is reason (human reason?). Maybe paradise is a cloister, a monastery, a hermits hut. But heaven starts on earth, in that sense of hope looking forward, yes? If, according to 2 Cor 5.16-17… “we know according to the flesh Christ”; in suffering that we know Christ or that we no longer know the fleshly Jesus? As Dr. Balch said, the whole range of human feelings, including, but not at its peak in mystical experiences, is the expression of our gospel. But ok, that’s my perception.

 

Christianity: Consecrated, Separated, but unified in an ascetical ideal of Other/Beyond?

So trying to think about Paul, this developer of the expanded Christianity we have today… Gentiles and Jews, and that the distinctions didn’t matter for authentic and full practice of the faith. I think Paul too from his own declaration of personal revelation by the resurrected Jesus was also largely responsible for the formation of the Christian religion. I did distinguish between the faith and what’s generally called the religion… church memberships, etc.  I think what I have witnessed in my own experiences of Christianity, the faith and the religion, I’ve noticed rather a disconnect from how we live our salvation, and how at least in my mind and some churches I’ve been in, the ideal is capsulated in an idea of “other” which is beyond grasp now. Its beautiful… and sometimes maybe a living too literally in line of that ideal has caused not the paradox, which is Christianity, but a contradiction.

I was sitting in my Paul Class at the Lutheran Seminary this morning, musing over Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 7, discussion of a cultural ideal of stoicism and asceticism that may have existed in the mentality of the Corinthian people, whether or not they lived partying lives or not. So I got to thinking about the idea of consecration as a separation, ascetical existence…the Catholic sense of “highest form of life…” is that more Jewish than Christian? Didnt Jesus come to make up pure and different, in world, and were do we fit the other-worldly ideals. Are we in Catholicism preaching too much of a non-paradoxical gospel, and more of a human contradiction, by saying that; so how do we read 1 Cor 7 in light of the passion narrative? Jesus took flesh and touched women (;)). Maybe asceticism isn’t a problem, but ascetical life without the complementary acknowledgement of the beauty of the other vocation. But I really do wonder about what is it to be consecrated and not be apart from the world. Obviously we see that as something impossible… but somewhere in at least some of us… Ok, I’ll just talk for myself, ‘cause I can’t claim to understand any sort of generic Christianity apart from a confession of the rule of faith… I have some strange longing in me that seems to want to go beyond… a restless soul, one that even if filled up to a place I’ve never imagined, I still want to go farther/deeper. I don’t understand it. I love C.S. Lewis’ language of longing for Deep Heaven, though I have no idea what heaven is… and for Jesus, as some of the saints speak… though I am sure I fashion Him too much after my own wants, unconfessed needs, etc.

So take the idea of set apart and place it in context for Christianity… covenant. I kinda liked something pointed out from Paul’s perspective of Moses’ veiling his face story in Exodus (because it shone too brightly for the people to look upon… He’s spent a while in the presence of God’s glory…) 2 Corinthians 3.6-8, “6 He has given us the competence to be ministers of a new covenant, a covenant which is not of written letters, but of the Spirit; for the written letters kill, but the Spirit gives life. 7 Now if the administering of death, engraved in letters on stone, occurred in such glory that the Israelites could not look Moses steadily in the face, because of its glory, transitory though this glory was, 8 how much more will the ministry of the Spirit occur in glory!” Our professor read this as Paul reinterpreting the events of Exodus… Moses covering his face to hide the fading of the old covenant. Jesus is a new Moses, similar to Philo’s. …but more this-worldly. (2 Cor. 12.2… Paul’s trip up the mountain was important to him, but was not his imitation of Christ). Paul’s imitation of Christ was both suffering and glory. You don’t have the gospel without the paradox of the cross and the resurrection. So where do we find community in Jesus and all, because the Markian presentation of him a lot was pretty ascetical… that transfiguration ideal. We realize asceticism is unnatural to human people… what makes it soo fascinating? That beyond sense?

So where do we find the beauty of something so abnormal and not make it the most perfect imitation of Christ… are we as people capable of living after Jesus without making comparison and judgement between degrees and values of holy living. How much paradox do we invite into our lives and are we willing to let go of reason and be fools in the living out. I hardly think so often times if our imago dei is reason (human reason?). Maybe paradise is a cloister, a monastery, a hermits hut. But heaven starts on earth.

According to my author Schnelle in 2 Cor 5.16-17, Paul is saying that … “we know according to the flesh Christ”; in suffering that we know Christ or that we no longer know the fleshly Jesus? Whole range of human feelings, including, but not at its  peak in mystical experiences, is the expression of our gospel. Vs. 18 and 19… we are not trying to appease an angry God (Schnelle argues against the theory of atonement, that something else has to appease God); for God is reconciling us to Himself and we continue that; “18 It is all God’s work; he reconciled us to himself through Christ and he gave us the ministry of reconciliation. 19 I mean, God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not holding anyone’s faults against them, but entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.” This was really interesting, considering what the homily on Sunday addressed… suffering as something receptive, we receive it. That hit a curiosity in me, maybe my interest in woman studies … but to receive suffering and not have it created in our own action. And the priest at St, Alberts said our reception of suffering was part of our action in atonement. Curious. I hadn’t thought of atonement coming anywhere but Jesus…. Hm, does some of that suffering-for-atonement come to play in separatist consecration?

Again, I wonder  how purely we can consider this life in relation to a belief/hope for the next… I cannot only treat life-in-matter in light of life-in-soul… what about these bodies; how on earth could I ever dare look at relationship as something for the sake of eternal soul, of course they are, relationships deeply affect us, even effect us, but my consideration of those I love cannot intentionally be where they might benefit my soul.