Corpus-Paul

[Jim West <jwest AT highland.net>]

At 03:51 PM 5/12/99 -0500, you wrote:

>As many, if not most, List members know, since Schweitzer (if not
>before) there has been a scholarly debate regarding the place
>"justification by faith/faithfulness" -- what ever the expression means
>-- actually has within Paul's theology. Schweitzer, Davies, and others
>saw it as peripheral. Bultmann, Kasemann, and others (not to mention
>Luther) placed it  at the center.

I think it might be more correct to say that those following in the train of
Luther saw it as central because Luther did.  There can be absolutely NO
denying the fact that Luther's interpretation of Paul has colored all
interpretation of him (at least in protestantism) since then.  But was
Luther right? was justification by faith the center of Paul's theology?  I
think the answer is no.  The center of Paul's theology is found in God
rather than Christ.  Paul is a theocentric theologian rather than a
Christocentric one (unlike Luther and Bultmann and the rest of our Lutheran
friends).

For Paul, God is everything and Christ makes God known.  Paul is closer to
the evangelists in this regard than he is to his distant son Luther.

>
>I'd be interested to hear what the current take on this debate is and
>what arguments are being used by partisans within it in support of their
>positions. In other words, who is right, those following Schweitzer or
>those following Bultmann/Luther, and why?

Im not sure where the present status questionis rests on this.  But I think
it is moving away from Luther and towards a more balanced view of Paul.  At
least I hope it is. 

Making Paul a mere hawker of redemption really lessens his significance and
as the all around theocentric theologian that he was.


Best,

Jim

+++++++++++++++++++++++++
Credimus in Deum Patrem omnipotentem, universorum creatorum, regem
saeculorum, immortalem et invisibilem.

Jim West, ThD
email- jwest AT highland.net
web page-  http://web.infoave.net/~jwest