Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

corpus-paul - Re: [Corpus-Paul] Monotheism in Paul

corpus-paul AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Corpus-Paul

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: "Ian W. Scott" <iscott2 AT uwo.ca>
  • To: Corpus-Paul <corpus-paul AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Corpus-Paul] Monotheism in Paul
  • Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2005 15:23:18 -0400

Hi All,

This is an important question, and I'm enjoying the discussions it has
generated. I have to register my disagreement, though, with any suggestion
that
Paul is merely "henotheist" or "monolatrist." Paul is quite clear that
Israel's
God is the one and only creator, who is ultimately in control of all things,
and who is reconciling all things back to himself. Although Paul may not have
phrased this in terms of Greek ontology, he certainly did think of God as
being
on an entirely different order than any other being. Yes, he acknowledged the
existence of angels and demons, but these were not other "gods" in the sense
that they could be compared with God's own nature or status. So the issue is
not simply who Jews should worship. For Paul it is much more a matter of who
*rightfully deserves* worship because of his unique identity.

While the passage in 1 Cor 8 is important, we must not overelook other
passages
which make Paul's view plain. In Gal 4:8 the Apostle describes the audience's
former worship of pagain deities as enslavement "to beings that by nature are
not gods" and contrasts this with their coming to "be known by" Israel's God.
In 1 Thess 1:9 he characterizes the audience's conversion from paganism as a
turning "to God from idols, to serve a living and true God." In both of these
cases God is distinguished ontologically from the beings which pagans worship.
In the first case these beings are treated as real, but as fundamentally
unlike
Israel's God, members of a lower category of beings who should not be named by
the same title as Israel's God because they are not on the same ontological
plane. Moreover, it is not even clear that Paul regards them as "demons" or
personal heavenly beings. For the term "stoicheia" which he uses to denote
them
(and which is notoriously slippery) may well refer to heavenly bodies. In that
case, Paul would be saying that the pagans inappropriately worship the
heavenly
bodies as gods, even though they are not really gods at all but merely parts
of
God's creation (see Wis 13:2-3).

In the 1 Thess passage, Paul falls back on traditional Jewish description of
pagan gods as dead "idols." At this point I have to object to any blanket
suggestion that ancient Israel was simply henotheistic. For the source of this
anti-idol polemic, second-Isaiah, is not simply henotheistic. There as well
the
point is that a) Only Israel's God created the world, and only Israel's God is
in control of it (to such an extent that he is even responsible for evil); and
b) the beings worshipped by other nations are infinitely inferior. Those
foreign "idols" are unable to intervene to help their suppliants because they
are merely dead objects, "blind," "mute," and "deaf." Nor can we say that this
is only a comment about the images themselves, rather than the beings they
represent. For the point is precisely that, while Israel's God can save his
people, the idols are dead and will not do anything to help their devotees. Of
course, not all of the OT shares such a radical theological stance, but surely
this is an example of true "monotheism" in the exilic period. When Paul, who
is
so fond of Isaiah, speaks in similar terms in 1 Thess, surely he is implicitly
embracing the same model in which only Israel's God can save because only
Israel's God really exists.

In Second Temple Judaism more generally we can easily find evidence of the
same
true monotheism. This is not surprising, since Isaiah was so popular in most
Jewish circles. So we find Wisdom of Solomon, for example, deriding those who
worship "dead things," the "works of human hands," whom they name "gods" (Wis
13:10). The author's rhetoric in chapter 13 is drawn straight from
second-Isaiah, and here again the emphasis falls on the idol being "dead" and
"lifeless" and so unable to help itself, much less a suppliant. The point here
is emphatically not just that YHWH is the proper God for Israel, or even just
that pagan deities are lower beings. It is that the other "gods" don't
actually
exist. We find a strikingly similar polemic in Aristeas 134 ff.

Of course, Second Temple Jews were not consistent in their evaluation of idols
and pagan deities. I am not saying that all Jews were strict monotheists. Yet
we do have this evidence of a strong tradition of true monotheism, beginning
with Isa 40ff. and stretching through the Second Temple period. Moreover,
given
Paul's statements in Gal 4 and I Thess 1, and since the account of humanity's
epistemic fall in Rom 1:18-32 echoes so closely the rhetoric of Wis 13:1-9,
Paul seems to stand in this same Jewish monotheistic tradition. [I should also
add here that Philo is a poor example of a non-monotheistic Jew. He goes to
great lengths to say that Israel's God is ontologically unique and
immeasurably
superior to all other beings. In Somn. 1.228-30; Mut. 11-13; Mos. 1.75-6 Philo
emphasizes that no other being rightly shares God's name, and that in fact no
word properly refers to him because he is ontologically different from all
other beings. The ontological confusion around Philo's logos arises not from
an
allowance that other beings like God exist, but rather from the unique status
of the logos as an extension of God's own being].

To turn back to 1 Cor 8, I do not think Paul is affirming the existence of
other
"theoi" here. For he first appears to affirm a radically monotheistic view
that
"no idol in the world really exists" and that "there is no God but one." Both
of these statements fit well with the Isaiah-Wisdom tradition which Paul
embraces in 1 Thess. Both should be allowed to mean what they appear to. In v.
5 he does not affirm that any other gods exist, but simply that there are many
"so-called gods" (legomenoi theoi). So the parenthetical statement that "there
are many gods and many lords" should not be taken to reflect an acceptance
that
these beings actually exist (which would fly in the face of the preceding).
Rather, Paul is pointing to the common *practice* of referring to many
supposed-beings as "god" or "lord." His main point, though, is to affirm the
view of the Corinthian "gnostics" that these gods do not really exist. Hence
he
goes on in v. 6 to emphasize that everything was created and is held in
existence by Israel's God. Then in v. 7 he continues to talk as if the idols
do
not represent a real being, emphasizing that there is nothing actually wrong
with idol-meats because the idol is nothing. The troublesome "for us" (hemin)
in v. 6 should not be taken to mean that Israel's God is only the true God for
Jews or for Christians. After all, Paul goes on in the verse to affirm that
God's ontological uniqueness as creator and sustainer! More likely the hemin
is
simply a way of expressing the fact that this monotheism is the Christians'
view, in contrast to the view of those who believe there are actually many
"gods" and "lords." [If NA27 is right, 8:6 may actually quote a confessional
formula, in which case the hemin would be a confessional form].

Finally, I don't think it works to see Paul as including Jesus only
temporarily
in the divine activity. After all, right here in 1 Cor 8:6 the Apostle affirms
that Christ was involved in God's world-creative activity and that he
continues
to be the one "through whom we exist." This is a much more radical inclusion
in
the "divine identity" than a mere temporary elevation as a divine agent. This
seems to mean that Christ is sharing in the eternal and cosmic activities of
YHWH, the very activities which (since second-Isaiah) mark him off as
ontologically unique.

Cheers,

Ian.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ian W. Scott, Ph.D. (McMaster)
Assistant Professor, Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies
King's University College at The University of Western Ontario
London, Ontario, CANADA
email: iscott2 AT uwo.ca
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Please visit my web-site at http://www.ian-w-scott.com
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Quoting Philip HANSON <hansonp AT mac.com>:

> Or, maybe Max Muller's "henotheism?"
>
> On Jun 15, 2005, at 11:25 AM, Frank Jacks wrote:
>
> > Let second Jerry's motion by adding what I learned in graduate
> > school from courses with Samuel Terrien, who always insisted that
> > the OT was never "monotheistic" but "monolatrist," meaning that
> > Israel was to worship "YHWH only" not because he was the only
> > "real" or "true" or existing god but the only one FOR THEM, because
> > of the Horeb/Sinai contract/covenant. I dare say that by the
> > Hellenistic era that some Jews did draw upon Greek metaphysics and
> > its monism to justify/validate this "exclusivity" but to attribute
> > this philosophically based rationale as common to most (much less
> > all) Jews strikes me as rather over-reaching. I would go further
> > and suggest that Paul was quite clear that Jesus had been given all
> > of YHWH's powers and authority [albeit for a specific and hopefully
> > brief period of time] to exercise in HIS stead but I find little to
> > support that Paul sought to justify this on any metaphysical basis
> > of "substance" or any other philosophical categories, which I do
> > feel we are getting into whenever the topic of "monotheism" comes up.
> >
> > As an aside, my thanks to Jerry for "speaking up" since it
> > emboldened me to add my own "two cents," something I had been
> > wondering whether or not to contribute and had been "holding off"!
> >
> > Frank
> >
> > Clive F. Jacks
> > Professor of Religion, Emeritus
> > Pikeville College
> > Pikeville, KY
> >
> > (but now happily retired back home in the metro Atlanta area!)
> >
> >
> >
> > JERRY SUMNEY wrote:
> >
> >
> >> Chris and all,
> >> I would like to problematize the question a bit by asking
> >> whether the term monotheism is appropriate for anyone in the 1st
> >> century. I don't think our meaning of the term suits Paul, who
> >> recognizes other beings that many people call gods. He says only
> >> that they are not "god" to him and fellow believers (1 Cor 8).
> >> This opens the question of the meaning of /theos/ for 1st century
> >> folks. There are good Jews (e.g., Philo) who can speak of the
> >> logos as a second god (Philo in QG 2.62 and Somn 1.229-230). The
> >> DSS call angels /elim /and /elohim/. I would recommend a look at
> >> M. Meye-Thompson's book on /theos/ in John for the broad meaning
> >> of the term and how it might be understood in that period.
> >> Given these things, I think maybe the first question might be,
> >> What might it mean to exalt someone to the status of a /theos/?
> >> Then we can ask about whether Paul did and what it might mean to
> >> him and his communities. Then we can ask whether various strands
> >> of Judaism could make such claims about a person being a /
> >> theos/. Well, all of this may already be taken into account,
> >> but I think these questions have to be asked regularly so that our
> >> question does not become something about whether Paul affirms what
> >> 21st century people mean by the terms God and monotheism. All the
> >> best,
> >> Jerry
> >>
> >> Jerry L. Sumney
> >> Professor of Biblical Studies
> >> Lexington Theological Seminary
> >> 631 S. Limestone
> >> Lexington, KY 40508
> >> 859-252-0361
> >> jsumney AT lextheo.edu
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Corpus-Paul mailing list
> > Corpus-Paul AT lists.ibiblio.org
> > http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/corpus-paul
> >
>
> Philip HANSON
> hansonp AT mac.com
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Corpus-Paul mailing list
> Corpus-Paul AT lists.ibiblio.org
> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/corpus-paul
>








Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page