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  • From: "Bob MacDonald" <bobmacdonald AT home.com>
  • To: "Corpus-paul" <corpus-paul AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: The purpose of the law in salvation-history
  • Date: Sat, 1 Sep 2001 10:06:04 -0700


1. Loren wrote of the need to

>>exonerate God (and the law) from the perverse implications of these texts

2. Then subsequently focusing the issue of theodicy
>>There is no getting around the fact that in
these texts, Paul connects sin to God's will, and,
moreover, that His purpose in doing so was to "confine
all things under sin" (Gal. 3:22) (or to "imprison all
people under disobedience" (Rom. 11:32)), "so that the
promise of faith may be given" (Gal. 3:22) (or "so
that he may be merciful to all" (Rom. 11:32))

My non-scholarly reading is as follows (you tennis pros need to hear from
the stands occasionally)

1. God needs no exoneration; more ancient texts than Paul associate God with
evil (e.g. Amos 3:6 Is there evil in the city and I the Lord have not done
it?)

On the surface, God is not attractive. This might be considered purely from
an evolutionary point of view - life triumphs in the midst of conflict and
competition. ("There must be differences among you to show who is approved"
to bring this into Paul's thought 1 Cor 11.19.)

2. This allows Paul to "connect" sin and the good things we have from God
(mercy, the Law, God's very self) and not to see any perversity in his
judgment. From an evolutionary point of view, the mercy is a reflection of
the impulse to life over death in creation. There are some verses that
suggest to me a universality apart from the revelation to Israel that could
be interpreted as a recognition of the presence of grace in all creation:
the righteous pagan who does the law by nature (Rom 2.14), their sound is
gone out into all the world, (Rom 10.18) etc.

But Paul and we have a revelation mediated through the chosen people - one
that we can explain away without faith - but also one that demands a
response due to the struggle each one of us finds ourselves in (eventually).
This revelation through the canon focuses us on the contradictions we
observe in the natural order. It raises questions and if we engage it,
forces us to refine them. Paul's conclusion (Rom 11.33) is about as far as
we can go. He comes down on the positive side of praise - we must assume by
his account that it is the experience of the revelation of the resurrected
Christ that has moved him. He finds in this a sufficient consistency with
his reading and living of the received texts and traditions. Whatever he was
himself enslaved to, he has found in Christ a release that is satisfactory.

I think the same turnaround is expressed in the Johanine writings e.g.
through John 16:
When the Spirit is come to you, he will show the world how wrong it was
about sin, and about righteousness, and about judgment. About sin, proved
because they refused to believe in me; about righteousness, because I go to
my Father, and you see me no more; about judgment, because the prince of
this world is judged.

Impossible to explain until explained by the gift of the Spirit.

Bless you all

Bob

mailto::BobMacDonald AT home.com
+ + + Victoria, B.C., Canada + + +

Catch the foxes for us,
the little foxes that make havoc of the vineyards,
for our vineyards are in flower. (Song 2.15)
http://members.home.net/bobmacdonald/homepage.htm





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