IBR: Pauline and Patristic Soteriology

Just a week or so away from the annual conference season, so I (Ben) am excited to point your attention to Edith Humphrey’s contribution as the main lecture at IBR this year. In addition Mike Gorman and I will be serving as respondents, so I’ll get to be on stage with two of my friends who are among my favorite Paul scholars.

After having read the paper, I know it will be a treat. It won’t be a boxing match like it was a couple of years back, but we’ll have a good discussion.

P18-401
Institute for Biblical Research
11/18/2016
7:00 PM to 9:00 PM
Room: Texas ABC & Corridor (4th Level) – Grand Hyatt (GH)

Edith M. Humphrey, Pittsburgh Theological Seminary
Reclaiming all Paul’s Rs: Apostolic Atonement by Way of the Eastern Fathers (40 min)

Ben Blackwell, Houston Baptist University, Respondent (10 min)
Michael Gorman, Saint Mary’s Seminary and University, Respondent (10 min)
Discussion (20 min)

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Wright on Justification–A Summary

When ruling out transformation as part of justification, he gives his best short summary:

‘Justification’ is the declaration of the one God, on the basis of the death of Jesus: this really is my adopted child, a member of Abraham’s covenant family, whose sins are forgiven. And that declaration, in the present, anticipates exactly the final verdict which can also be described as ‘adoption’…. Whichever way you look at justification, whichever Pauline context you line up beside it, it always retains this character: the ultimate future brought forward into the present, and the two have joined hands by the spirit. (Paul and the Faithfulness of God, 958-59)

My only beef with that, in light of my larger project, is that Paul so directly connects justification with new life, that the new life is not just at the resurrection but starts now. So, while justification is a new status it is also eschatological life–both now and the future. It is not based on works, but the life given now is the ability to love and serve God through the Spirit as God’s new creation act in us, that is through his justification of us. And, with Wright, this justification will ultimately entail resurrection from the dead.

You may be interested in a nice summary here as well: What N.T. Wright Really Said

 

Participating in the Righteousness of God: Scope

Now that I’ve described the rationale for my in-progress book, Participating in the Righteousness of God: Justification in Pauline Theology, I’m laying out below the goals and scope of my study:

Part 1: Historical Framework
To set the stage for a reevaluation of Paul’s theology of justification, I demonstrate how historical frameworks influence contemporary biblical interpretive models. In particular, I establish how Protestant readings of justification are reactionary against Catholic theology and therefore explicitly frame justification in light of Christology and faith to the exclusion of the Holy Spirit and love. Rather than being overly influenced by post-Enlightenment anthropological conceptions, I also show the need to incorporate more a more robust pre-modern understanding of the porous self, making explicit use of Charles Taylor’s work on the buffered and the porous self.

Part II: Reading Paul
In distinction to post-Reformation readings of justification which place Christ over the Spirit and faith over love, my exegetical analyses demonstrate that Paul intertwines the Spirit and Christ in his employment of justification language in key texts—namely, Galatians 2–4; 2 Corinthians 3–5; Romans 1–8. Thus, my reading of Paul shows the coherence of this doctrine with the transformative participation of believers in the triune God. After establishing the relationship of participation and justification through close readings of specific passages, I then treat a variety of participatory topics that relate to justification—namely, suffering/cruciformity, the community (adoption, covenant), and sanctification/ethics.

Part III: Theological Framework
To conclude the monograph, I explore a participatory reading of justification through the lens of the fifth century patristic theologian Cyril of Alexandria, showing that readers not limited by the later Protestant-Catholic categories offer a similar reading as my own. With this model in mind, I then provide an essay that explores justification in light of theosis, an important and growing topic of study arising from wider ecumenical discussions.

This monograph does not attempt to answer all the opposing positions regarding the topic of justification. Rather, it provides a focused and sustained reading of Paul that demonstrates how justification serves as one primary way that he develops his doctrine of a transformative participation in the triune God.

 

Participating in the Righteousness of God: Rationale (2)

In my previous post, I described the rationale for my current project with Eerdmans–Participating in the Righteousness of God: Justification in Pauline Theology–in light of wider theological concerns. In this post, I situate the rationale even more closely to the biblical studies context:

In contemporary biblical studies much discussion of justification just serves as a rehashing of “old” and “new” positions. These two perspectives have dominated, but the insistence on participation in Christ/God via Schweitzer and Sanders has served as a burr under the saddle. In fact, Wright places the relationship of participation and justification as a central theme of debate over the last century. (See N.T. Wright, Paul and His Recent Interpreters, Part 1.) The roots of the debate, he says, go back to Luther’s justification-only view in contrast to Calvin’s placement of justification in the wider sphere of participation. (Wright’s categorization of Luther greatly simplifies and weakens Luther’s proposal about faith being uniting; however, later Lutheranism (through Melanchthon) could much more be open to Wright’s charge.) Pauline scholars in the Reformed tradition have repeatedly attempted to place justification within the sphere of participation; however, their claims are hindered due to their repetitive emphasis upon justification as primarily forensic, by means of imputation. (For example, see Constantine R. Campbell, Paul and Union with Christ (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2012), 388–405.) They, like Wright, set the debates about justification in post-Reformation terms, and therefore “status” issues are primary, whether status before God (as in traditional readings) or status within the community (as with New Perspective readings).

The old and new perspectives have been challenged by those we might call participationists: E.P. Sanders, Michael Gorman, Douglas Campbell. The problem is that these participationists have not provided a thoroughgoing study of justification in Paul. Influenced by Sanders discussion of Paul’s “participationist eschatology,” recent participationists—e.g., Michael Gorman and Douglas Campbell—have provided interesting readings of justification in Paul; however, neither provides a monograph length study of texts which substantiates a holistic reading. (Campbell, for example, has done better at critiquing other models than providing a positive reading of Paul of his own.) Accordingly, there remains a need for a theologically rich and exegetically sustained reading of justification in Paul that frames it within his wider theology of participation.

 

Participating in the Righteousness of God: Rationale (1)

After reading my post about Luther and SBL, I had a couple of friends ask about my larger book project: Participating in the Righteousness of God: Justification in Pauline Theology. I should note that this new project is built on the foundation of my doctoral work, which is being republished by Eerdmans in about a couple of months: Christosis: Engaging Paul’s Soteriology with His Patristic Interpeters (slightly updated from the WUNT edition, but much cheaper!).

As far as my Participating the Righteousness of God, here’s an abstract that clarifies where I’m headed:

In light of contemporary reassessments of justification which have arisen through ecumenical discussion as well as fresh approaches to biblical texts, this monograph creatively examines Paul’s theology of justification in relationship to the topic of participation in God. Explicitly engaging with post-Reformation and patristic concerns, I provide an exegetical analysis of Paul’s letters and argue that Paul’s view of justification ultimately entails participation in the life of God through Christ and the Spirit. I then integrate this reading with other Pauline theological loci and demonstrate its wider relevance through patristic exegesis and the doctrine of theosis.

Rationale for the Book (based on the wider context of scholarship and theology):

The doctrine of justification has come under a level of scrutiny and reconsideration among systematic theologians and biblical scholars not seen since the 16th century. Arising from wide-ranging ecumenical discussions, Protestant theologians are reassessing the role and meaning of justification due to engagement with alternative soteriological frameworks—both contemporary and historical. At the same time, biblical scholars are reassessing Paul’s teaching of justification within his first century context. The New Perspective has gained much ground, shifting the focus from justification as a status before God to one’s status among the Christian community. In addition, the topic of participation in God—sometimes styled as “being in Christ” or “union with Christ”—has been a repetitive theme in Pauline scholarship since the early 20th century due to the work of Albert Schweitzer and others. While the importance of the relationship of participation to Paul’s doctrine of justification is frequently affirmed, the nature of the relationship remains debated and only lightly explored.

While reassessment in the theological sphere has been more robust, the academic community is therefore waiting for a sustained and compelling reading of Paul’s letters that explains this connection between participation and justification. The time, then, is ripe to bring together discussions from historical theology and biblical studies to show that participatory concerns cohere with Paul’s letters themselves, and particularly with his doctrine of justification. Therefore, this monograph will provide an exegetically focused reading of Paul’s theology of justification in relation to participation themes, which at the same time fosters a conversation between post-Reformation perspectives and the Greek patristic tradition. E.g., Besides my work Christosis, few have picked up this task, though Richard Hays called for this very approach over a decade ago in his The Faith of Jesus Christ: The Narrative Substructure of Galatians 3:1–4:11, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002), xxxii.