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corpus-paul - Coherence and sovereignty (Was: Re: [Corpus-Paul] Gal 2:19 & Rom 7)

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  • From: "Rabbi Saul" <tim AT rabbisaul.com>
  • To: "Corpus-Paul" <corpus-paul AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Coherence and sovereignty (Was: Re: [Corpus-Paul] Gal 2:19 & Rom 7)
  • Date: Fri, 13 Aug 2004 14:46:52 -0600

Richard, I will try to respond somewhat here, but I must note at the outset that this is an exegetical list, and not strictly a theological one, and many of your questions take us into the heart of theology.  So I will attempt to answer some of this without taking us too far afield.
 
Richard Godwin writes,
 
> ME:   I suspect you assume, for your emphasis on God's original planning,
> God's omniscience, in the sense of knowledge of all future events.  So in
> this case, then the "in order that" would follow as accurate, in that
> knowing man would sin, then "consigning" would have been both known and
> planned, as well then as condemned (God would not plan something not
> desirable and good, right?). 
 
But you keep assuming this condemnation, as if I thought that Paul is saying that all people pre-Christ were condemned.  I have never so much as hinted at that; I have in fact insisted quite the opposite repeatedly.  There has always been right standing with God available outside the accounting of the law.  This right standing, of course, was not universal, but only given to human pistiV.  That's Paul's teaching, quite clearly, and I think it's quite clearly the teaching of the Hebrew Scriptures, as well.  If you think that such condemnation to those who do not respond with pistiV is unjust, that's your issue, but I don't really think it derives from exegesis of the texts.
 
>I take Psa. 143 as rhetorical for the
> purpose of supplication (v.1) and quest for forgiveness and mercy, not as
> literal propositional knowledge about reality, understanding that in past
> experience it was apparent that MAYBE or probably fulfilling such
> responsibility was impossible for man/Israel.
 
In other words, it is quest for forgiveness and mercy apart from knowledge of reality?  No, that makes no sense.  David speaks unequivocably there:  *no man living* is righteous in some sense.  And yet he is confident that he can appeal to God at another point of contact. 
 
>But to say that God
> intended this odd senario is IMO ridiculous.  IMO God always has and still
> does work with and through humanity.  There is no knowledge of future events
> (this is a contradiction in terms: an event to occur requires time process,
> so that in prior time, and God operates in time, he cannot know what has not
> yet occured in time: this is the biblical understanding!)  The idea of
> timeless eternity is a later Platonic concept.  In the Bible, eternity means
> time without end, not "no-time". 
 
Richard, as you know, I am exegeting the Pauline text.  I happen to believe the Pauline text.  You can call things "ridiculous" if you wish, but if we are to have an exegetical discussion, you will need to deal with the texts.  Now, as to the issue of time:  I am well aware of the meaning of the Hebrew concept of 'olam; and I'm also sufficiently aware that matters of Greek philosophy had undue impact upon subsequent Christian theology.  I do not concede, however, that you have a balanced reading of Scripture itself.  You know as well as I do that the TaNaK represents God as foretelling future events, and those events coming to pass (e.g. the prophecies concerning Jeroboam's worship system in 1 Kg 13).  Whether you think they actually happened that way or that in fact the prophecy was written after the event does not change the exegetical matter in terms of the text.  You may not agree with the text, but the text *does* say repeatedly and in many ways that God knows the end from the beginning.  If you disagree, you are imposing your philosophical presuppositions regarding the nature of reality upon the text, you are not exegeting.
 
For all the passages you cite concerning God's repentance, as I am sure you are well aware, there are far more passages insisting that (1) God never changes; (2) God knows all things; (3) God controls all things.  The epistle of James, which is surely as Hebrew in content as anything in the NT says that in God there is no shadow of turning (Jas. 1.17).  The statement which you objected to, that "God cannot deny Himself," was not generated by me, but was a quotation of 2 Tim 2.13.  Moreover, these statements are not unique to the NT writers, but themselves draw heavily from the Hebrew Scriptures.  So your point is wholly one-sided at best.
 
>God is just, but he is not an accountant;
> he sincerely is trying to get done what will work, first operating through
> Torah, not apart from it.  You merely are making up your own theories, not
> supported by Rom. 3:25, which says that with Christ, God has changed
> directions, you might say changing from Torah, or as rationalizing
> "reinterpreting" Torah.
Making up theories?  Who is doing that?  Where does Rom 3:25 say that God changed direction?  Absolutely the opposite, actually.  It says that God in His forbearance passed by sins.  Quite clearly, that means that all along He knew they were not being looked after by the present system.  Whether you think that is sensible is beside the point; that's what the text is saying.
 
Throughout Paul's exposition, he claims that God is looking ahead.  He personifies Scripture as foreseeing that God would justify the nations through faith (Gal 3.8). 

>
> You say Torah was incompetent in
> the long run, yet at the time was competent. 
Doesn't this strick you as a
> bit unrealistic for your kind of God?  Was the purpose of the
> competent-at-the-time Torah to break the back of his chosen people, perhaps
> so he could be the great Hero at the end by doing himself what he expected
> his people to do:  perhaps just to show off?  So God kept the books: writing
> down all those bad things do (as some children are taught), placing
> numerical values on them with a graduated scale, and at the end say
> "gottcha." 
 
You invented this one; I never said anything of the sort.  As I have made clear throughout, God always had a means of dealing with His people.  Let me repeat one more time:  the accounting was for God's purposes, not Israel's.  How God was going to take care of their sins was His business; their responsibility was to live in covenant faithfulness (pistiV).
 
> ME:   Yes, this would follow based on your basic presupposition, which btw I
> don't find supportable in the Bible.  Can you point to it? 
 
[The basic presupposition in question = the unity/integrity/coherence of Scripture.]
 
These are just off the cuff....
 
God is One (Dt 6.4), and all Scripture is God-breathed (2 Tim 3.16; cf. also 2 Pet 1.20-21).  The coherent character of Scripture is based upon God's own self-coherence, God's own unity.
 
God is not a man, that He should lie, nor the son of man, that He should repent (Num 23.19).  This association of verbal verity with God's faithfulness has direct implications for the coherence of His Word.
 
Because God is faithful, God's word is not "yes and no."  (2 Cor 1.18ff)
 
> YOU:   ....unless I can integrate in short order, Paul must be either
> incoherent, or at least self-contradictory.
>
> ME:   This is a mark I have always found in the Evangelical theology:  the
> "either-or" complex:  Either absolute or nothing.  There is no truth unless
> there is Absolute Truth.  If Paul cannot be fitted into the whole Bible in a
> completely coherent consistent system of thinking and theology, then he is
> incoherent and/or self-contradictory.  When will you people realize that
> ancient thinking is not like modern thinking in our scientific way? 
 
First of all, your quotation of me was radically de-contextual.  The either-or you quote is not mine at all, as is clear if you reread the original context.  The either-or above is in fact the presupposition of a great deal of Pauline scholars who have given up on reading Paul coherently (think of Raisanen, Drane, Hubner, and others) which I am *criticizing*. 
 
Do not presuppose that the consistency I am looking for is modern or scientific.  Nor do I suppose that we can fill every lacuna.  That is not my goal, and I believe that there are always limits to human knowledge.  The nature of reality as dictated by an infinite God demands this.  (Ironically, it is only belief in an infinite God that leaves genuine room for paradox; if all is finite, then in principle everything is comprehensible.)  The integration I seek is much more modest; I simply want to show how the teaching as a whole is not self-contradictory.  I expect there to be gaps and even tensions.  Anyone who believes in the Trinity, as I do, can hardly live without tensions and mystery.

> YOU:   Regarding my actual interpretation once more:  There is no trickery
> whatsoever in my view of God's purpose for Torah.  It was never intended to
> be a means of achieving perfection, and it was not presented by Yahweh as
> the means for justification.  It always stood within the context of God's
> covenantal righteousness, to which God's people were to appeal for salvific
> (whether you take that widely or narrowly, including vindication against
> political oppression).
>
> ME:   I beg to differ from you:  Torah always was and still is intended to
> be a means of achieving perfection, and this is obvious IMO from its
> reading. 
 
"Obvious"?  I frankly don't see how.  (BTW, one must be very careful regarding the biblical terms that have been translated "perfection."  Job was a "perfect" man.  Does that mean he had absolutely no faults?  Nope.  The biblical terms for perfection range in meaning from "wholeness" to "maturity" and beyond.)
 
tim
 
 
Tim Gallant
Pastor, Conrad Christian Reformed Church
Conrad, MT
 
Biblical Studies Center
http://www.timgallant.org/center.htm
 
Pauline studies:
http://www.rabbisaul.com
 
(406) 278-5846 / (406) 278-7809
Fax:  (406) 278-7809
http://www.timgallant.org



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