Knowledge
puffs up, but love builds up.
1 Cor 8:1
An ongoing
challenge for Paul’s readers (past and present) is to understand
where Paul was coming from in his letters. When he spoke to
different situations and in different contexts, it is not always
clear whether he was speaking in theological terms, ethical terms or
merely to the situation. This understanding is made difficult when
the context of his words is limited to the historical Paul in human
contextualization. This limited view of Paul is insufficient to
grasp his discourse as theological and his language as relational,
both of which expressed the whole of Paul and not merely the
historical Paul. This critical distinction is necessary to
understand where Paul was coming from.
Throughout
his letters Paul always engaged in theological dialogue and
relational discourse, because he spoke from the whole of God’s
relational context and process which constituted the whole of Paul.
It was this experiential truth constituting his whole person
(notably the relational Paul) which then constituted the whole in
his theology (the theological Paul). For Paul, his language could
not be separated from his theological experience in God’s relational
context and process from which he spoke. Likewise, his conjoint
theological dialogue and relational discourse are inseparable and
emerge only from his experiential truth of the whole of God in
relationship. Accordingly, Paul’s theology is indistinguishable from
his function since his theology was ongoingly developed by his
relational function with God, whose revealed desires are entirely
for whole relationship together. Paul’s thematic purpose and concern
in his letters were always for the function of this
relationship—function based on theology which emerged from only the
experiential truth of whole knowledge and understanding of God.
Paul did
not have a theological agenda to promote his theological theories
or, as an innovator, to promote models to establish Christianity
beyond Jesus. Despite little reference to Jesus’ words, his
theological cognition was not speculative but the relational outcome
of whole function in vulnerable relationship together with the whole
of God and God’s communicative action in thematic relational
response to the human condition. Therefore, Paul’s theological
dialogue and relational discourse throughout his letters are indeed
good news for the inherent human relational need and human
relational problem, which are further quantified by modern
neuroscience. Moreover, this functional good news, not theoretical,
also informs physics for the quality of life in the cosmos, chastens
the development of technology for whole relationships, and makes
whole such human efforts as the medicalization to control and extend
life by advanced yet fragmented knowledge, as discussed previously.
In eschatological progression, Paul’s theological dialogue and
relational discourse have even further and deeper significance for
human ontology and function today, whether in the church, the
academy or their surrounding context: "Knowledge puffs up, but love
builds up" (1 Cor 8:1).
Given the language from the whole of Paul in God’s relational
context and process, there are some related questions to address in
his pleroma theology.
Eleven Interrelated Questions in
Paul’s Theology
It would be helpful to read these questions in sequence since they
interrelate somewhat in progression.
1. How important is
continuity and discontinuity in Paul?
Part
of the answer depends on the focus of what Paul had continuity with
and discontinuity from. Related questions implied here involve
whether Paul converted to Christianity or remained in Judaism,
whether Christianity is a new religion or not, and whether Paul’s
emphases were innovations about Christ or an extension of Jesus.
Paul’s continuity or discontinuity varies with the position of each
question.
The
primary question, however, involves a deeper significance which
gives full meaning to the issue of continuity-discontinuity and how
important it was to Paul. This issue needs to be framed in the whole
of God’s thematic action in relational response to the human
condition, and thus be framed by the extent of God’s self-disclosure
in this relational purpose for its only relational outcome. God’s
self-disclosed action included the incarnation which Christ embodied
to fulfill God’s relational purpose. Yet God’s relational response
is not limited to the incarnation, thus for Paul both God’s
relational context and process were not christocentric and the
relational outcome was not just about Christ. This focus on the
whole of God is critical to understand in Paul, and with what he has
continuity (see previous discussion on continuity in "Paul’s
Pleroma Christology," chap. 7). The primary question then—which
signified Paul’s direct experiential truth of God’s thematic
relational response to him—becomes the extent of continuity between
the OT and the NT of this definitive relational purpose and outcome.
Since
God’s thematic action is a function only of relationship, the nature
of God’s relational involvement necessitates reciprocal human
relational response. The human response compatible to God by
necessity is part of the continuity question, which includes the
extent of continuity existing between Abraham’s faith and NT faith,
specifically as delineated by Paul (see
question 5). Moreover, as the significance of the relational purpose
and outcome of God’s thematic action is grasped—which Paul did in
his experiential truth and synesis from the Spirit—the
continuity-discontinuity issue becomes the inseparable issue between
God’s whole and reductionism (raised in question 2).
Therefore, the issue of continuity-discontinuity in Paul needs to be
understood in the deeper issues both relational and qualitative: (1)
congruity and incongruity with God’s thematic relational action, and
(2) compatibility and incompatibility with God’s whole and
wholeness. These deeper issues, and their importance for Paul, do
not fully emerge from focusing on the historical Paul merely in
human contextualization and its related questions, but only from the
relational Paul in God’s whole relational context and process—that
is, from the function of the whole of Paul who constituted the
theological Paul and the whole in his theology, in continuity with
God’s revealed whole and in discontinuity with reductionism, which
is anything less and any substitutes. Decisively for him and
unequivocally in his thought and theology, continuity in Paul
depends functionally on the presence of the whole in Paul, which is
contingent on the reality of the wholeness of Paul. And
discontinuity in Paul depends conjointly, on the one hand, on the
experiential truth of this wholeness and, on the other, on the
reality of reductionism and its presence and influence in human
life. The latter raises the next question, perhaps already asked by
some readers of this Paul study.
2. Is reductionism
a straw man in Paul’s polemic which becomes reified as his discourse
unfolds?
Partly, the answer depends on understanding Paul’s relational
language. Mostly, the answer will not be apparent if Paul is just
seen in human contextualization, because there is no wholeness
present in the historical Paul to illuminate God’s whole needed to
identify this reductionism. Reductionism functions only to counter
wholeness, thus the function of the whole is necessary to clearly
expose the reality of reductionism. The unequivocal existence of
reductionism has an ontological source but its primary presence
appears in functions (individual and collective) as the alternative
of anything less and any substitutes to God’s whole. The appearance
of reductionism in human function is indistinguishable without the
presence of whole function. Even the contrast between reduced
function and whole function is obscure when our interpretive lens
does not pay attention to or ignores the difference. This lens
becomes part of the issue in answering this question for Paul’s
readers.
In a
sense, this question would be like asking the historical Paul if he
existed prior to the Damascus road since that’s when the reality of
reductionism had specific existence in his ontology and function.
That period of his life had less to do with Judaism and the law and
was more about his practice of it. Paul could not and did not deny
the reality of his faith-practice. After the Damascus road,
reductionism was not a straw man for Paul to justify a new faith and
practice. Rather reductionism signified the condition of his
faith-practice—in contrast to the significance of Abraham’s
faith—from which he necessarily was redeemed and was ongoingly
transformed in order to be made whole in the ontology and function
of God’s new creation family. If anything, reductionism was promoted
by those who shaped and constructed alternative practices in the
church to this wholeness, which was the nature and focus of Paul’s
polemic.
Paul’s
conjoint fight for the gospel of God’s thematic relational response
signified the acutely real and present reality of reductionism and
its influence to shape and construct alternatives to, or otherwise
fragment, God’s relational whole—pervading and prevailing even in
churches. Reductionism was never its reification in Paul’s polemic
but unmistakably the ontological simulations and epistemological
illusions engendered by its ontological source, the author and
propagator of metaschematizo and deception, as Paul made
definitive and exposed (2 Cor 11:13-15; cf. Jn 8:44; Lk 12:1). The
source and its reduced ontology and function must be accounted
for—which Peter and Barnabas learned the hard way (Gal 2:13)—and
whose influence and alternatives must be exposed, refuted and
redeemed by the reciprocal involvement of all of Paul’s readers. Or
the relational consequence is to be rendered to reductionist
practice themselves, whether in the church or academy, individually
or collectively, even unintentionally or unknowingly, as Barnabas
appeared to function with Peter above.
The
question about reductionism then becomes for Paul’s readers: On
what basis do we ignore or not pay attention to the reality of
reductionism and its prevailing presence and pervasive influence on
human life, evident even to observations in modern science noted
previously? Part of this answer involves the strength and adequacy
of our view of sin, notably in its normative character and
collective nature.
In Paul’s
pleroma theology, he is focused unavoidably on a full view of
sin, not on moral and ethical issues. This focus is necessary to
engage not only the qualitative holy God but also the relational
whole of God. Paul never assumes in theological discourse that
illuminating the whole of God and the whole gospel are without
struggle, the struggle due solely to the sin of reductionism and its
source (cf. Col 1:28-2:8). Based on the epistemological
clarification and hermeneutic correction from tamiym and
Abraham’s faith, Paul grasped the deeper significance of Satan’s
seduction in the primordial garden to redefine human ontology and
function from inner out to outer in. This redefinition was attempted
unsuccessfully with Jesus in his temptation to reduce Jesus’
ontology and function. What Paul gained from the narratives of
others’ lives and his own life was a full view of sin, the strength
and adequacy of which is necessary to expose and establish the
ongoing presence and influence of reductionism in operational
tension and conflict with the wholeness of the whole and holy God.
Without this lens of sin, Paul’s readers have inadequate relational
connection with the definitive basis for understanding the
alternatives used for ontology and function, both for God and
humans, which signify and constitute anything less and any
substitutes of God’s whole and the gospel of wholeness. The
relational consequence from this epistemic gap would be,
functionally, a different gospel than Paul’s experiential truth,
and, theologically, an incomplete Christology, a truncated
soteriology, an immature pneumatology and a renegotiated
ecclesiology—that is, reductionism of the pleroma of God,
which reduces Paul’s function to pleroo the word of God and
illuminate pleroma theology. That is the nature of
reductionism, reified not by Paul but by its ontological source, for
whom all of Paul’s readers must account.
Paul’s discourse is nonnegotiable in holding his readers accountable
for God’s whole. He grasped fully that the only alternative
functionally and theologically is to be rendered to human terms,
shaping, construction or fragmentation from reductionism. Perhaps
this is the current state in which many church leaders have become
embedded and Pauline scholarship has struggled.
3. How much of
Paul’s claim to have received direct revelation from God can be
factored in
to make definitive the whole in his theology, the development of
which goes both further
than Judaism and even deeper than the Jesus tradition?
Paul
underwent a hermeneutic shift in his understanding of Hebrew
Scripture. His interpretive lens changed from an outer-in
quantitative view to the qualitative whole from inner out, thus from
fragmented knowledge about God and skewed understanding of God’s law
to whole knowledge and understanding. This transformation involved
the embodied Word who took Paul from a disembodied perception of
Scripture to the communicative words from God. God’s words revealed
in Scripture are relational communication which cannot be
disembodied from their source, or those words lose their relational
significance. Paul had been a learned student of Scripture, filled
with information about God without its relational significance. That
changed with his relational encounter with the embodied Word.
In Paul’s
theological systemic framework and forest, God’s revelation is God’s
communicative act only from top down, implicit in creation and
explicit in God’s thematic relational action responding to the human
condition. The whole of God’s self-disclosure in relational response
was fulfilled by the embodiment of Jesus, the extension of whom Paul
experienced face to face on the Damascus road. The whole of God’s
communicative action, however, did not end here for Paul, who
continued to experience God’s further self-disclosures in the
relational epistemic process together both from Christ (Gal 1:11-12)
and from the Spirit (1 Cor 2:10,13; Eph 3:3-5). The relational
outcome of this relational epistemic process was never diminished by
Paul, chastened but never minimalized (2 Cor 12:1-7), because these
revelations from God in communicative action were the definitive
basis for Paul to fulfill his relational purpose and responsibility
(oikonomia) for the pleroma of God’s family to
pleroo the word of God’s relational communication in response to
the human condition (Col 1:19-22, 24-28; cf. Eph 3:2-12). Therefore,
since Paul was not engaged in a conventional theological task from
bottom up, his theological focus centered always on subject-theos
relationally disclosed from top down; and Paul accounted for all of
God’s revelations to him in his pleroma theology because he
was accountable for the communicative action of God’s irreducible
and nonnegotiable words.
In Paul’s
conjoint fight for the gospel of wholeness and against reductionism,
he presents three sets of contrary approaches to the revelation of
God’s communicative word and how it’s used:
1. To define
and determine ontology and function only to the extent of God’s
revelation from top down, thus on the basis solely of the relational
word of God; or to disengage from this relational epistemic process
and to go "beyond what is written [words from God]" (1 Cor 4:6) to
shape ontology and function in human terms (cf. Col 2:8).
2. To
relationally share the word of God as a relational extension of
God’s communicative action to fulfill only the whole of God’s
desires for relationship together (Paul’s oikonomia), which
necessitates the wholeness of his person presented to others and the
relational quality of his communication; or to use it as did the
"peddlers of God’s word" for personal gain or profit (kapeleuo,
2 Cor 2:17), which may appear from outer in to be meaningful but has
no relational significance to God.
3. To present
the totality of God’s revelation as God’s communicative word in its
whole (Paul’s pleroo), without reductionism, as constituted
in the incarnation by the embodied Word in the dynamic of nothing
less and no substitutes, thus involving the relational vulnerability
from inner out, both to receive the Word and to present it; or to
intentionally reduce God’s word and to engage in the ambiguous
practice "to falsify God’s word" (doloo, 2 Cor 4:2), that is,
to adulterate, dilute, water down and cheapen—for example, as
merchants did with wine in Paul’s time—which may be more agreeable
for popular consumption, but lacking in wholeness and thus
significance for the inherent human relational need and problem.
These three approaches overlap within their own type of approach
and interact together to intensify the conflict with the contrary
type of approaches. Each set-type signifies a different phronema
that constitutes a different phroneo to interpret God’s
word. The first set-type approaches God’s word as a function of
relationship together on God’s terms from inner out; the latter
set-type disembodies God’s word from the primacy of this
relationship and shifts to a reduced function from outer in. Thus,
the first set of approaches can emerge only from God’s revelation as
the sole determinant for ontology and function, while the latter set
can signify no more than human terms, shaping and construction as a
substitute.
For Paul,
nothing less and no substitutes for the revelation from top down of
God’s definitive word constituted the whole in his theology. And the
extent of what the whole of God relationally shared with Paul went
further than Judaism and deeper than the Jesus tradition. Therefore,
Paul’s pleroma theology was whole knowledge and
understanding, the extent and depth of which Paul could not be
puffed up about but could only be in epistemic humility (cf. 2 Cor
12:7) since his synesis was entirely the relational outcome
of God’s relational response of grace to build up God’s new creation
family (Eph 3:2,7-12).
Moreover, since God’s self-disclosures (more phaneroo than
apokalypto) were for the sole purpose of whole relationship
together, Paul’s theology necessarily involved the reciprocal
relational response to complete the relational connection for this
wholeness. Before we further discuss this reciprocal response to
God’s revelation, however, we need to ask a transitional question.
4. How important
was methodology to Paul’s theology?
As
discussed in chapter five, Paul’s theological engagement cannot be
described in conventional terms but is better defined in function as
a process of living theology—in which theology was never separated
from function and the priority was always function over theology for
Paul. Thus, Paul was involved in communicating God’s story of
thematic relational response to the human condition, a story with
which Paul earlier had had only historical association. He now,
however, has directly experienced the truth of God’s story
relationally and continues in that experiential truth to illuminate
God’s story theologically. This relational process is vital to
theological engagement and was Paul’s basis for it.
The
theological Paul was able to distinguish the fact of God’s story
from fiction, and to grasp God’s definitive relational action
without speculation, unequivocally on the basis, and thus to the
extent, of God’s direct revelation to him. That is to say, the
theological Paul was not wholly constituted by the limited
historical Paul but most significantly by the vulnerable relational
Paul. Theological engagement, then, involved implicitly a
relational "methodology" for Paul. His readers need to
understand that this theological process is a function of
relationship, not a quantified theological task without that
qualitative involvement even if it included biblical exegesis.
In his
theological process, Paul made a further claim to "have the mind of
Christ" (1 Cor 2:16). If his claim is understood in only
epistemological terms, then what Paul possessed was further
knowledge (albeit inside) about God. For Paul, however, having the
mind of Christ was the relational outcome of reciprocal relationship
with the Spirit (1 Cor 2:9-10; cf. Jesus’ claim, Jn 14:26; 15:26;
16:12-15). To have the mind of Christ from the Spirit signifies the
new phroneo and phronema with the Spirit (Rom 8:5-6),
which are necessary for the whole knowledge and understanding (synesis)
to engage unequivocally in factual theological discourse of God’s
story and definitive theological dialogue of the whole of God’s
thematic relational action. This theological engagement for Paul
further implies a qualitative "methodology" of having the
mind of Christ for the needed interpretive framework and lens, which
provide the relational awareness and qualitative sensitivity to
wholly grasp the relational extent and qualitative depth of God’s
vulnerable revelation (cf. Paul’s imperative, Rom 12:2). This
qualitative methodology emerges in function entirely from reciprocal
relationship with the Spirit, the outcome of which is by its nature
a relational outcome and not from a subjective self-consciousness.
Therefore, Paul’s qualitative methodology is inseparable from and in
ongoing interaction with his relational methodology.
Paul never
engaged in theological discourse beyond God’s self-disclosure (as he
demonstrated, 1 Cor 4:6) in order to construct any fictional parts
of God’s story or to speculate about God’s thematic relational
response to the human condition. He did not need to be engaged in
such theology from bottom up because he was relationally involved
with the mind of Christ ongoingly with the Spirit to extend the
theological dialogue of the Word from top down. The relational
outcome of Paul’s reciprocal relational response was from "him
who…within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we
can do or imagine by our own theological reflection"
(Eph 3:20, my paraphrase): "‘What no eye has seen, nor ear heard,
nor the human heart conceived, what God has prepared for those who
love him’—those things God has revealed to us through the Spirit" (1
Cor 2:9-10).
Listening to God became a relational function for Paul and not
merely a pronouncement of moral obligation from the tradition of
Jewish Scripture. Relational connection and involvement with the
whole of God was nonnegotiable for Paul and the relational
imperative for both his function and his theology. Therefore, Paul
was able to pleroo the communicative word from God and to
illuminate pleroma theology only on the basis and to the
extent of his relational and qualitative methodology; this
compatible process clearly signified his reciprocal relational
response to God’s vulnerable revelation and Paul’s ongoing
relational involvement with the whole of God. And by his reciprocal
relational involvement in the whole of God’s relational context and
process, Paul’s theological engagement is paradigmatic for all his
readers, notably in Pauline studies.
5. What was the
nature of Paul’s faith-response to God’s revelation and how did it
differ
from OT faith? Was Paul’s view of faith (including for
justification) any different than
James’ view?
The
nature of God’s revelation defined the nature of and determined the
terms for the response to the words from God. Since the nature of
God’s words is relational communication, the nature of the response
can only be relational and must function in the reciprocal
relational terms of God to be compatible (see previous discussion on
faith in chap. 8). This response becomes equivocal when determined
merely by the notion of obedience. That is, obedience is
insufficient response by itself and becomes incompatible when this
response is only to disembodied words, laws or propositional truths.
This type of obedience essentially shifts the nature of the response
from God’s relational terms to human terms, even with good
intentions or unintentionally, and thus focuses the response more on
what we do rather than how to be relationally involved with God.
Such obedience’s focus is quantitative from outer in and the
response becomes measured, for example, in accordance with a code of
behavior or doctrinal purity. The response of God’s relational terms
is qualitative from inner out and is increasingly vulnerable to the
vulnerable presence and relational involvement of God.
Obedience
alone, at best, is an ambiguous response to God’s revelation and can
be, at worst, an incompatible response in conflict with God’s
words—an issue raised even in a response for justification by faith.
Moreover, disobedience can even have the appearance of obedience in
settings of the normative character and collective nature of the sin
of reductionism.
By the
definitive nature of God’s words, listening to God is solely a
relational function from inner out for Paul, whose response is
distinguished by its nature from all reductionist alternatives. Both
the nature of God’s relational action and of human relational
response are irreducible and nonnegotiable. In the relational
language of Paul’s discourse, his shorthand term for this reciprocal
relational response is faith. Yet, faith in practice is often
the notion of what we have and/or do, the possession or act of which
is perceived as necessary and also sufficient in itself. James
certainly refuted such a redefined view of faith (Jas 1:22; 2:17-20)
and Paul’s practice did also. While the object of such faith is God,
God becomes only an Object in the relationship who intervenes and
supports as necessary. Paul’s theological discourse is centered also
on God as the Subject in whole ontology and function for reciprocal
relationship together (cf. 2 Cor 4:6); and compatible response to
subject-theos in Paul’s theology is with the whole ontology
and function of the human person as subject also in
Subject-to-subject relational connection (cf. Eph 3:12).
In Paul’s
own experience, his faith shifted from the tradition of what he had
and did back to the nature of God’s revelation and terms. His shift
was to the faith constituted by Abraham, which often was not the
faith practiced in Judaism throughout the OT narrative. Even further
and deeper than Abraham’s experience, Paul’s faith-response to God’s
vulnerable revelation signified the relational response of being
vulnerable with his whole person. Yet, just as Abraham was in
tamiym, this vulnerable involvement was constituted by the
ongoing relational trust of his person from inner out to the whole
of God for reciprocal relationship together, not unilateral
relationship or measured involvement. Nothing less and no
substitutes of relational trust make a person vulnerable for
compatible response to the communicative words from God,
significantly and vulnerably embodied by the Word. Paul did not
define a new faith-response but extended the original relational
response further and deeper into God’s relational context and
process in order to intimately participate in the whole of God’s
life in whole relationship together—just as Jesus embodied, promised
and prayed for (Jn 14:6,23; 17:26), and Paul illuminated
theologically (Eph 2:8,18,22) and prayed functionally (Eph 3:14-19).
Both Paul
and James challenged a faith reduced to practice without relational
and functional significance (Gal 5:6; 1 Thes 1:3; 2 Thes 1:11; Jas
2:14,21-24). Both countered a faith that was an end in itself or a
means for oneself, even for justification. When justification is
seen only in its judicial aspect before God, dikaiosyne has
lost the compatible relational function with God necessary for
ongoing involvement in relationship together. Justification by faith
becomes inadequate when the process is limited solely to being
justified before God. This limitation involves a reduced faith,
which implies a truncated soteriology focused only on being saved
from sin—and that view of sin is limited also. Dikaiosyne,
however, also involves righteousness, which is not an attribute but
the congruent function of a person’s whole ontology in relationship.
That is, righteousness is the inner-out function of the person’s
whole ontology which God and others can count on in relationship
together. Being righteous engages the whole person in pleroma
soteriology and involves those persons directly in what we are saved
to—whole relationship together in God’s new creation family.
Righteousness constitutes the compatible involvement needed for
relationship with the whole of God, which is an inner-out relational
function emerging only from the vulnerable relational response of
trust, whole faith. Therefore, the more basic issue underlying the
issue of justification by faith is the nature of the faith practiced
to claim justification. This basic issue addresses the sin of
reductionism and its influence to redefine faith and truncate
salvation.
Reductionism in faith-practice has had an ongoing history among
God’s people, whether by ancient Jews, Christian Jews, Jewish and
Gentile Christians, or modern Christians, whether for identity,
ideology or justification. Such faith has the primary focus on
oneself, which has no relational significance to God and functional
significance to others. The practice of such faith in relationship
is outer in, and thus is measured or distant, if not detached. In
contrast, the relational response of trust makes one vulnerable from
inner out and engages the primacy of relationship, first with God
and then with others, for the reciprocal relational involvement
necessary for relationship together to be whole—not measured or
distant and thus, simply, fragmented. In other words, for both Paul
and James, faith is not static, passive, self-involved and a mere
statement of belief. Rather, by the nature of God’s relational
action, compatible faith is a relational dynamic, actively
responding to God and others in relationship with one’s whole person
from inner out as the relational outworking of one’s belief (Gal
5:6; Jas 2:17; cf. Amos 5:21-24). Anything less and any substitutes
of this relational response are reduction, the sin of reductionism.
The simulations and illusions of faith from reductionism is the
underlying issue Paul and James challenged in its function and
outcome, both of which they countered with whole faith—the wholeness
of one’s relational response of trust and its relational outcome of
whole relationship together with God and God’s family.
Paul and James did not differ in their views of faith and were
united in their fight against reductionism in faith. This may be
confusing since their discourses on faith and works appear to be in
opposition to each other’s, notably in relation to Abraham (cf. Rom
4:2-5; Jas 2:21-24). In truth, each is challenging reductionism in
his discourse. Paul challenged reductionism in the practice of
works, which became a substitute for faith as the relational
response expected by God. James challenged reductionism in the
practice of faith, which became a substitute for accountability of
faith’s conjoint works expected by God (see James’ definitive
analogy, Jam 2:26). For both James and Paul, the relational outcome
of whole faith is the relational function of dikaiosyne,
whose ongoing relational work can be counted on by God in
relationship together, with nothing less and no substitutes of one’s
whole person. They indeed were not in opposition but were fully
complementary, fighting for God’s whole and against reductionism.
6. How did Paul see
works and what did he mean by doing good, good works?
In the discussion above, works and faith are inseparable, on the one
hand, yet Paul also distinguishes works from faith, on the other
hand. Paul sees works also as inseparable from God’s law, those
desires framed in the torah and created in the human heart (Rom
2:13-15). The works of the law can be further distinguished in its
moral aspect and ceremonial aspect (e.g., circumcision, kosher and
Sabbath for Jews). While these two distinctions certainly existed in
Paul’s background to influence his view on works, I suggest that his
discourse on works also went beyond these distinctions and thus
deeper than their contextual practice involved, notably for the
context of Judaism.
Works of
the law, whether moral for all persons and/or ceremonial for Jews,
in practice reflect an interpretive framework which Paul addressed,
challenged and exposed. Paul’s roots did not originate in Judaism,
thus his discourse on works went beyond his religious tradition and
deeper into human origin. That is, Paul is addressing human ontology
and how the human person is defined, and what determines human
function. Paul knew from the creation narrative that the human
person was designated with "work" to accomplish (Gen 2:4-5,15). The
term for work (abad) also means to serve, minister and
worship. Abad then is not an end in itself by which to define
human persons. Abad is a designated function in a broader
context than just the individual person, which the Creator
established to define human ontology and determine human function.
The issue for abad becomes whether this broader context is to
serve the physical creation, minister to the human creature or
worship the Creator. This is an ongoing problem of interpretive
framework which will determine our perception of work, the
significance of its context and what will define the human person.
Paul was addressing these issues in his discourse on works.
The
creation narrative further illuminated the context of abad by
defining human persons as created in the image of God and by
determining human function as "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the
earth and subdue it" (Gen 1:27-28). "To fill the earth" (male)
denotes to complete what God established and set in motion for all
life and function. What makes the broader context definitive,
however, was God’s declaration that the human person in God’s image
cannot "be alone," or "be apart,"—that is, be separated from God’s
whole with other human persons—but by the nature of God’s likeness
all persons are created for, and therefore must be in, whole
relationship together (Gen 2:18).
Relationship in God’s likeness is the deeper context of abad
which established the roots for Paul’s interpretive framework
defining all works, inclusive of all human activity for physical
creation, for human creatures or for the Creator. In Paul’s deeper
framework, therefore, the primary work defining human ontology and
determining human function is relational work: namely, the whole
person from inner out in the vulnerable relational response of trust
with God (faith) and in the vulnerable relational involvement with
others in relationship (agape, Gal 5:6). All other works and
human activity are secondary to this relational work in the primacy
of relationship together. If persons are defined by doing secondary
work or activity, for Paul this constitutes a reduction of the
person created in God’s qualitative image and relational likeness, a
reduction which signifies a quantitative interpretive framework
redefining human ontology and function from inner out to outer in.
In Paul’s polemic, if persons define themselves by this reduced
human ontology and by their function in the works of the law, then
they are obligated to do "all the things written in the book of the
law" (Gal 3:10) and are measured by "the entire law" (Gal 5:3).
Without complete and perfect adherence, they can never fully measure
up on these terms; therefore they are deficient ("cursed") and must
be deemed as less and unacceptable to God, that is, on these
redefined terms based on reduced human ontology constituting persons
by what they do. Paul is only raising a hypothetical process of
works on human terms, not God’s terms. By this polemic, Paul
challenges the assumptions about theological anthropology of all his
readers.
Works
based on reduced human ontology and function are never sufficient to
complete (male) what God constituted at creation to be whole
in relationship together, with God and each other, which is the
deeper issue in Paul’s polemic. Paul was able to be decisive because
no one knew more from personal experience than Paul in his own
previous works (Phil 3:4-7). These works are reductions to human
terms and shaping, not God’s terms in his image and likeness. These
are the ontological simulations and epistemological illusions which
Paul exposed to make them whole. That included certain practices in
Judaism, among Gentiles, with churches and by church leaders, such
as Peter and Barnabas in the incongruity of their outer-in actions
(Gal 2:13). Reductionism influences, if not pervades, human ontology
and function in all contexts, and works are its most common yet
subtle denominator, and thus the most difficult to distinguish and
change in Paul’s fight for wholeness.
On God’s
terms, Paul grasped that works are inseparable from the relational
work of faith (Gal 5:6). Faith is the primary relational work which
by its nature constitutes the functional significance of the
person’s involvement in all other works (1 Thes 1:3; 2 Thes 1:11).
When Paul talks about "doing good" and "good works" (Rom 2:7,10; 2
Cor 9:8; Gal 6:9; Eph 2:10; Col 1:10; 1 Tim 6:18; 2 Tim 3:17; Tit
2:7,14), he is not creating a new category of ‘good’ in contrast to
‘bad’ which quantifies a different measurement to define human
ontology and function. Paul never established a new ethical
framework; and what has been perceived as ethical discourse
throughout his letters needs to be understood with his lens and
language of "doing good" and "good works." This is a critical
distinction for Paul’s perspective on works and his discourse on
observing the law because Paul put all of these practices into their
full context and deeper process of God’s whole—just as Jesus made
conclusive about the law (cf. Mt 5:17-48).
While Paul
discusses "doing good" based on God’s law (in the torah for Jews and
in human conscience for Gentiles, Rom 2:13-15), he uses "good" in a
limited sense in his discourse here. The perception of good is again
an issue of interpretive framework and lens (cf. Mk 10:17-18), which
Paul unfolds in his theology and later makes definitive (Rom 8:5-6).
In this context, Paul is both breaking down the barrier between Jews
and Gentiles and dissolving the reductionist distinction between
"more" and "less." Yet, Paul did not open the door to anyone (Jew or
Gentile) who reduces "doing good" to merely moral and/or ceremonial
practice based on God’s law. For Paul, good (agathos) is not
about what is useful, profitable or even benevolent. He limits good
to an inner-out quality of whole ontology which determines whole
function (cf. Rom 7:12-13, and Jesus’ clarification, Mt 19:16-17).
Though good may have a useful, profitable or benevolent result,
doing good and good works are a function only of relationship that
emerges entirely from the relational work of faith—an inner-out
function on God’s relational terms.
Good works
are inseparable from relational faith because of the relational
nature of God’s communication revealing the law (cf. Num 12:6-7).
God’s law, without reduction and disembodiment, expresses God’s
desires and terms just for reciprocal relationship together.
Observing the law is more accurately described as the relational
function of responding to God’s desires for relationship, which for
Paul became the experiential truth of his discipleship with Christ
in relationship (cf. Acts 26:16b; 1 Cor 11:1)—just as Jesus made
definitive for observing the law (Mk 10:21) and for serving him (Jn
12:26). God did not vulnerably share these desires and terms for the
sake of the moral and ethical conformity of persons in doing good.
The relational response of God is to redeem persons from such
reductionism and to reconcile them to whole relationship together
(Gal 4:3-7, pleroma soteriology).
The reciprocal relational response of trust is the vulnerable
involvement necessary to be compatible with God’s relational
response communicated in the relational message of the law, and to
be congruent with the human ontology and function created in
relational likeness to the whole of God. Merely doing good and good
works, even with good intentions, reduce God’s relational response,
God’s law, human ontology and function. Paul’s polemic exposes these
reductions and illuminates the good to make them whole. His
pleroma theological discourse on good defines its determinant
relational work by those who function from inner out ongoingly in
reciprocal relational response back to God for nothing less than and
no substitutes for whole relationship together—what the pleroma
of God saves us to, which is indeed the only good news for
the inherent human relational need and problem.
7. As a Jew and a
Christian, what was Paul’s understanding of God’s people?
This
involved his theological cognition of who, what and how God is, and
his theological assumptions of human ontology and function.
On the one
hand, God’s people were the same for Paul, though, on the other,
there was a qualitative and functional difference which needed to be
grasped. A Jew was not unclear about the identity of ‘who God is’.
Most Jews in ancient Israel, however, typically had difficulty with
the ontology of ‘what God is’ and often had problems with the nature
of ‘how God is’. These ontological and functional issues certainly
influenced and shaped, if not constructed, knowledge and
understanding not only of God but also of God’s people. Whether
God’s people were the same for Paul or had a difference depended on
his theological cognition of God’s ontology and function and his
directly related theological anthropology.
Prior to
the Damascus road Paul claimed his identity with God’s people
through membership in Israel as a nation-state. As a nation-state in
Paul’s day, Israel was dominated by the Roman state and threatened
by the Way in its identity as God’s people. Jewish identity was
based on the identity of their God, rooted in the monotheism of the
Shema. The identity of ‘who God is’ may have been compromised in
Israel’s history but never redefined. Only the one God prevailed and
would save them from their plight. The issue, however, was not the
identity of who the Deliverer is but the insufficiency of both the
ontology of the one God and the nature of this God as well as the
full significance of God’s salvation. Their God, for example, was
also the holy God, yet the full significance of God being uncommon
was not grasped in depth (cf. Ez 22:26). This lack equally signified
and constituted a reduced ontology and function from outer in by
human terms and shaping, which redefined the qualitative being and
renegotiated the relational nature of God and of the ontology and
function of God’s people in likeness (cf. Moses’ lens, Ex 33:15-16).
In the process, Israel’s identity as God’s people shifted to
nation-state in a truncated soteriology and away from the covenant
people of God being saved to whole relationship together as God’s
family. Paul had to account for this as a Jew and be accountable as
a Christian.
Paul
received the needed epistemological clarification and hermeneutic
correction to understand the inner-out significance of God’s people
(Rom 2:28-29). This further and deeper significance was based on the
experiential truth of his whole knowledge and understanding (synesis)
of the whole of who, what and how God is, that is, Paul’s pleroma
theology relationally revealed to him face to face in the embodied
face of Christ (2 Cor 4:6). His grasp of the whole of God and God’s
relational whole involved his own ontology and function made whole.
Having been restored to God’s relational context and reconciled in
God’s relational process, as a Jew now from inner out, Paul turned
from identity in a nation-state back to the covenant relationship of
God’s people; and as a Christian, he experienced the full
significance of the relational belonging and ontological identity of
God’s people (cf. 2 Cor 6:16; Ti 2:14).
Turning
away from nation-state, Paul’s discourse partially turned to "the
kingdom of God" (e.g., Acts 19:8; 20:25; 28:23,31). This focus for
God’s people, however, did not clearly distinguish it from
nation-state if it was still perceived with a quantitative lens from
outer in. Paul’s discourse about the kingdom was an extension of
Jesus’ kingdom discourse, who made definitive its qualitative
ontology from inner out (Lk 17:20-21) and relational function (Lk
11:20; 18:16-17). Paul extended this qualitative ontology and
relational function of the kingdom as God’s people (cf. Rom 14:17; 1
Cor 4:20), and he also further distinguished the kingdom and
deepened the understanding of God’s people in his pleroma
theology (Col 1:12-13; Eph 1:4-14, 22-23).
In the
whole of Paul’s theology, and in the relational progression with
Christ (the pleroma of God) and the Spirit (Christ’s
relational replacement), God’s people became the relational outcome
which emerged in the church (the pleroma of Christ). Yet, for
Paul the pleroma of Christ (Eph 1:23) is not the institution
of the church but the embodiment of the church in the qualitative
ontology from inner out and the relational function of agape
involvement in the whole relationship together of God’s new creation
family—conjointly in the image of the one God’s qualitative ontology
and in the likeness of the whole of God’s relational function.
Nothing less and no substitutes of who, what and how God is and
God’s people are could signify and can constitute their whole
ontology and function. More important than as a Jew and a Christian,
Paul’s experiential truth as the adopted son in the whole and holy
God’s family was ‘who he is’ and ‘whose he is’, in whole
relationship together both intimate and equalized with his sisters
and brothers.
This relational outcome raises some further questions about
practices (e.g., in culture) and relationships (e.g., for women and
slaves), which may result in compromise in the surrounding context
and may appear contradictory in Paul’s letters, thus diminishing the
functional significance of his pleroma theology. The
remaining questions address such problems.
8. As a Jew and a
Christian and an adopted son, to what extent did change need to take
effect ‘already’ for his theology to be functional?
It was
never sufficient for Paul to change from outer in, either by outward
change only, giving the appearance of some inner significance (metaschematizo,
2 Cor 11:13-15), or by change just from conforming outwardly to a
surrounding context’s normative influence and terms (syschematizo,
Rom 12:2). What only constituted change for Paul, together as a Jew
and a Christian and an adopted son, involved a pivotal relational
process which by its nature necessitated his whole person from inner
out. The relational outcome of whole relationship together in God’s
family can emerge just from this pivotal relational process. In
Paul’s theology, the pivotal relational process is made definitive
by being "baptized into Christ" for the redemptive change ‘already’
in which the old dies and the new rises with Christ (Rom 6:4-5) by
the Spirit (Rom 8:10-11). The old is the reduced human ontology and
function entrenched in the sin of reductionism which needs
redemption to be conjointly freed and made whole as a person in
relationship together. The dynamic of the cross becomes paradigmatic
for this ongoing process of the old to die ‘already’ and the reality
of the new to rise (cf. Paul’s desire for further intimate
relationship with Christ, Phil 3:10-11).
The
wholeness dynamic of redemptive change is the pivotal process of
relational involvement with Christ for the inner-out transformation
of the whole person by the Spirit (metamorphoo, 2 Cor 3:18;
Rom 12:2), which is necessary for the experiential truth ‘already’
of the relational outcome for relational belonging and ontological
identity in God’s new creation family of transformed relationships
together, both intimate and equalized (Rom 8:14-17; Gal 3:26-29; 1
Cor 12:13; Col 3:9-11; Eph 4:22-24). Without full and ongoing
engagement in redemptive change, there is no reconciliation to these
relationships together—though possibly in appearance from outer in,
but not inner out. The inseparable dynamic of redemptive
reconciliation is indispensable for relationship with the whole and
holy God and for all relationships together to be whole in God’s
likeness.
This relational outcome entirely from redemptive reconciliation was
the experiential truth of Paul, from inner out as a Jew and a
Christian and an adopted son. Therefore, redemptive change is
nonnegotiable and its pivotal relational process of baptism into
Christ is irreducible in Paul’s pleroma theology. And Paul’s
readers need to understand ‘already’ that nothing less and no
substitutes are of functional significance both for the whole of
Paul’s person and the whole in his theology.
9. Since the
influence of reduced human ontology and function limits this
relational outcome,
what was Paul’s position on religio-cultural and sociocultural
practices which may appear
to be problematic, or not?
The key
word in this question is "appear." What appears to be a problem to
someone may not be to another, which was an ongoing issue in Paul’s
surrounding contexts of Judaism and the Mediterranean world as well
as within churches. Of course, this issue directly involves one’s
interpretive lens, which extends from one’s interpretive framework
rooted in religious culture or a worldview rooted in social culture.
The bias created from our interpretive framework and lens needs to
be understood, accounted for and addressed accordingly. This process
was a major part of what Paul engaged in his discourse on
religio-cultural and sociocultural practices.
Prior to
the Damascus road, Paul’s view of Judaism was religious. Yet, what
he was unaware of during that time was the sociocultural influence
on Judaism which shaped its interpretive framework and determined
the significance of its religio-cultural practice. The overlap of
Judaism’s religio-cultural practice with sociocultural practice in
its surrounding context may not be apparent on the surface. Yet,
Israel’s shift, for example, to nation-state (with its quantitative
identity markers) indicated the sociocultural influence surrounding
Israel and the implicit interaction taking place between the
frameworks of the surrounding sociocultural practice and Judaism’s
religio-cultural practice. Despite overt differences in behavioral
appearance (e.g., circumcision or uncircumcision, kosher or not),
these frameworks demonstrate a common quantitative character and
concern focused on the outer in to define and determine human
ontology and function, whether in relation to God, other persons or
nations (e.g., 1 Sam 8:5,19-20). In other words, Israel as God’s
so-called people often got embedded in the surrounding context
rather than sojourning in covenant relationship together to its
apocalyptic end.
After the
Damascus road, Paul’s view of Judaism was no longer religio-cultural
and his view of Israel was not sociocultural. Yet Paul fully grasped
their subtle interaction and its effect on ontology and function,
because Paul’s framework changed from quantitative to qualitative
and his lens refocused from outer in to inner out as a follower of
Christ made whole in relationship together. Thus, just as Jesus did
not condemn the identity that culture promotes but made whole its
life and practice (cf. Jn 3:17), Paul did not start condemning the
identity of Judaism and Israel as God’s people. Nor did Paul really
condemn the circumcision which symbolized that identity. He affirmed
that identity (cf. Rom 11:1), and in fact supported the practice of
circumcision only as it signified the circumcision of the whole
person from inner out necessary to be God’s whole people (Rom
2:28-29). These overlapping aspects of religious culture as a Jew
and a Christian, Paul affirmed and had no issue with.
The
aspects of a culture’s practice (religious and/or social) which
needed to be made whole, however, had to be addressed by Paul, just
as Jesus did. Righteousness, for example, could not be measured by
conformity to a moral-ethical code or ceremonial observance of
behavior—an outer-in framework. Righteousness is, rather, only the
congruence of one’s whole person to inner-out ontology and function
that others can count on in the context of relationship. This is the
critique of reductionist Jews that Jesus made imperative for his
followers’ righteousness to exceed (Mt 5:20). With this
righteousness, along with the significance of the rest of Jesus’
critique of reductionist religio-cultural practice (Mt 5-7), Paul’s
critical basis was established for his position against reductionism
both in Judaism and among Christian Jews who imposed conformity to
the observance of circumcision, kosher and calendar practices onto
Gentiles. This type of religio-cultural practice demonstrated the
sociocultural influence of the surrounding context, which signified
the terms and shaping of human ontology and function from the outer
in of reductionism. The interpretive framework and worldview that
defined and determined this reduced human ontology and function is
what Paul exposed as the elementary rudiments or basic parts,
elements and principles (stoicheion) prevailing in the
surrounding context and now pervading religious life and practice to
be a prevailing influence shaping its participants (Gal 4:3,9; Col
2:8,16, 20-22).
These
religious and church practices in reduced human ontology and
function signify the ontological simulations and epistemological
illusions constituted only by the influence of reductionism from the
surrounding context. In Paul’s fight for the gospel of wholeness,
reductionism is never tolerable in any form and must be fought
against without compromise in all contexts. For Paul, sociocultural
practice and its framework are never neutral; and since they are not
whole, they are at best fragmentary. While some of their parts may
point to God’s whole (cf. Acts 17:23), they are never sufficient to
define and determine life and function in the kosmos, much
less human ontology and function. Such fragmented knowledge and
understanding are reductions and their use to shape and construct
the whole is the sin of reductionism. Notably, but not exclusively,
in religio-cultural and church practice, Paul exposes, confronts,
refutes and seeks the redemption of the sin of reductionism in order
to make it whole. And Paul is not fooled by the fact that such
fragmented knowledge and understanding "have indeed an appearance of
wisdom" because his whole interpretive framework and lens from the
Spirit is able to discern that "they are of no value" for wholeness
in human ontology and function (Col 2:23; cf. Rom 8:6).
Where Paul
is accepting or affirming of religio-cultural and sociocultural
practices, it is based on those practices not being incompatible
with whole ontology and function. When he is intolerant of their
practices, or his critique appears to contradict his acceptance,
those are the practices of reductionism which are in conflict with
God’s whole. With his synesis from the Spirit, Paul is
vulnerably engaged in the relational dynamic of wholeness;
therefore, any and all reductionism creates unavoidable problems and
must be dealt with directly, whether in Judaism, Christianity, the
church or in the world. More than problematic in Paul’s theological
systemic framework and forest, reductionism is counter-relational to
God’s relational whole: diminishing, minimalizing or otherwise
fragmenting the relational outcome ‘already’ of whole relationship
together, thus distancing the intimate relationships and
re-stratifying the equalized relationships necessary for
constituting the transformed relationships together of God’s new
creation family. In his agape relational involvement fighting
for the gospel of wholeness and to pleroo the word from God,
the pleroma of God and the pleroma of Christ were the
whole of Paul’s witness and the whole in his theology. For Paul,
anything less and any substitutes did not and cannot account for
this wholeness.
In Pauline scholarship, both the traditional perspective of Paul and
the new Paul perspective, I suggest, fall short of understanding
this qualitative and relational whole, and thus focus only on
fragmentary aspects (or reductionist fragments) of God’s whole,
namely in doctrinal terms or from human contextualization. Yet,
Paul’s relational language in theological dialogue still redeems his
vulnerable readers from reductionism and reconciles them to God’s
relational whole.
10. Given Paul’s
emphasis on the relational outcome ‘already’ of God’s relational
response
to the human condition, how is Paul’s discourse on slaves congruent
with this relational
outcome, and his directives for them compatible with its function in
transformed
relationships together?
As we
discuss slaves in this question, and women in the next question, the
issue of freedom and its determinative dynamic of redemption are
basic to both. In Paul’s pleroma theology, part of the
outcome of redemption is to be free, which cannot end here or the
outcome becomes fragmentary and reduced in human ontology and
function. The full outcome of redemption is a relational outcome.
Redemption in Christ is not about just being set free and Christian
freedom is not the freedom to be free—that is, for self-autonomy,
self-determination, or even a variation of self-justification. We
are redeemed to be made whole in ontology and function for the
primacy of relationship together with the whole of God and with
God’s whole family, which is the relationship that the Creator
originally created in God’s likeness and that the whole of God
redemptively reconciles in the new creation.
Paul’s
relational discourse on slaves (and women) is from this framework
within this context, by which his theological dialogue must be
interpreted and understood. Otherwise, his readers are left with
only the human contexts of Paul’s situations to frame his dialogue
with slaves, and thus will go no further and deeper into his
framework in the context of relationship with God, the primary
context into which Paul contextualizes these theological issues and
their human shaping.
There are
two levels of slavery for Paul:
1. Slavery embedded in social
conditions, thus from outer in (cf. 1 Tim 6:1).
2. Slavery embodied in the human
condition, thus from inner out (cf. Rom 6:6).
These two levels interact between them, with the first emerging
from the second and the first confirming or reinforcing the second.
Paul always contextualizes level one in the workings of level two.
Thus, Paul always gives greater priority to level two over the
first, because two underlies one and is necessary to be redeemed in
order for level one to have full redemption. Yet, in what appears
contrary to his directives for slaves in level one, Paul neither
ignores this level nor accepts it due to its underlying condition in
the sin of reductionism.
Paul
addressed all sin of reductionism (slavery in both levels, cf. Phlm)
while he was focused on being whole, God’s relational whole on God’s
relational terms. This conjoint dynamic is critical to Paul’s
discourse. Redemption is neither an end in itself for slaves nor
sufficient to deal with the sin of reductionism in the human
condition involved in slavery. Paul is unequivocal that we are not
redeemed just to be free but for whole relationships together (Gal
5:1, 13-14; cf. 1 Cor 8:9-13). Relationships together necessitate a
process of reconciliation to be in conjoint function with redemption
for the redemptive reconciliation required for relationships
together to be whole on God’s relational terms from inner out, not
shaped by human terms from outer in (cf. Rom 14:13-19). Paul neither
pursues redemption over reconciliation nor does he sacrifice
reconciliation for the sake of redemption since there cannot be
wholeness for slaves and their relationships without this
reconciliation.
When Paul
directs slaves in the social conditions of slavery, who are also
part of the church, to submit to their masters (Col 3:22-24; Eph
6:5-7; 1 Tim 6:1-2; Tit 2:9-10; cf. for masters, Col 4:1; Eph 6:9),
he did not define an obligation (or duty, opheilo) or an
ethical framework for slaves to conform to. Paul is focused on
slaves being whole and the relational outcome of whole relationship
together for slaves. That is, he calls for their congruity from
inner out with the ontological identity of who they are and whose
they are, without outer-in distinctions defining their persons. And
he takes them further and deeper into their whole function on God’s
relational terms to live whole together and even to make whole in
the world, without outer-in terms and circumstances in the
surrounding context determining their primary life and function.
Paul’s implied message to slaves is that freedom does not guarantee
their whole ontology and function, nor does being a social-level
slave preclude it.
Since Paul defines the ontological identity of God’s new creation
family without outer-in distinctions like "slave or free" (Gal 3:28;
Col 3:11), and did not determine its function by situations and
circumstances, he did not give those matters priority over being
God’s relational whole. Thus, as discussed in the previous chapter
about Philemon and Onesimus, Paul’s primary focus was not on the
social conditions of slavery but on the primacy of a slave’s
redemptive outcome of relational belonging and ontological identity
in God’s family, and on the redemptive reconciliation of slavery’s
human condition necessary for persons like Philemon and Onesimus to
be equalized brothers in this family. This process of equalization
certainly then will have direct relational implications for the
social level of slavery, but even more important for Paul was his
intended purpose for social-level slaves in whole ontology and
function to plant the seeds, cultivate and even grow whole
relationships together, first within the church and then in the
surrounding context.
11. Equally
important, if not more, how are Paul’s new creation view of women
and his
prescriptions for them in agreement, and how are his directives
compatible for the
relational outcome of God’s new creation family?
The above
discussion on slaves extends in direct application to women. I have
purposefully left this question for last, not since women have
traditionally occupied last place. Rather because, in my opinion,
women signify the most consistent and widespread presence of reduced
human ontology and function in the history of human
contextualization, this condition is unavoidable for all persons to
address for our wholeness. Theological discourse and pronouncements
have not significantly changed the embodiment of this human
condition, perhaps due to ignoring its enslavement. Paul has been
placed at the center of this human divide which fragments the church
and renders God’s family "to be apart" from being whole in likeness
of the relational whole of God—a condition existing knowingly or
unknowingly, intentionally or unintentionally. As long as this
condition of reduced human ontology and function continues, the
relational outcome ‘already’ will not be our experiential truth
until ‘not yet’.
Paul would
dispute how his relational discourse on women has been interpreted;
he would expose and confront the reductionism underlying such
interpretation and application for the reduced ontology and function
of women—for example, by both complementarians and egalitarians.
Yet, his prescriptions and directives for women will have to be
clarified in order for Paul to be vindicated, his theological
anthropology affirmed and his pleroma ecclesiology in
transformed relationships together to be the experiential truth
‘already’.
The issue
of Christian freedom continues in Paul’s discourse, which he always
frames, defines and determines by the dynamic of redemption and
baptism into Christ. Just as Paul defined for slaves, the importance
of women having freedom is never about self-autonomy and
self-determination or justification but only to be whole in ontology
and function, not yoked to reduced ontology and function (Gal 5:1).
This also applies to men, and any other classification of persons.
The issues of freedom and of wholeness are critically interrelated
for Paul; and, as was discussed earlier for slaves, having freedom
is no guarantee of whole ontology and function. The dynamic of
redemption and baptism into Christ is the functional bridge between
freedom and wholeness. Paul makes this link definitive.
From the
interpretive lens of his theological framework, Paul’s definitive
view of women is that "there is no longer male and female" (Gal
3:28). His perception could be taken as contrary to the reality of
creation, yet Paul is not implying that there are no physical and
biological differences between the genders, and thus that no
distinctions should be seen. Paul’s view is the definitive
declaration: In the dynamic of baptism into Christ, the redemptive
outcome is the human ontology freed from being defined and the human
function freed from being determined by the gender differences of
any kind shaped or constructed by human terms, whether in the
surrounding context or even within churches. These human differences
are used to create distinctions which reduce the whole human
ontology and function of those baptized into Christ’s death and
raised with him by the Spirit in the whole image and likeness of
creator God (cf. Col 3:10-11; 2 Cor 3:18).
As Paul
makes definitive, the person emerging from baptism is a new
creation, whose ontology and function from inner out cannot be
defined and determined by any differences and distinctions from
outer in, not even by one’s gifts or role in the church. This
transformation from inner out in the redemptive change to whole
human ontology and function also involves reconciliation to the
whole of God in God’s family, which is constituted in the process of
redemptive reconciliation to the transformed relationships together
both intimate and equalized (Eph 2:14-22). As with slaves, Paul’s
concern for women is their whole ontology and function and the
relational outcome of whole relationship together, of which women
are an integral part and whose function women are the key. Yet, it
has been difficult for Paul’s readers (both women and men) to
reconcile his definitive view of women with his prescriptions and
directives for them.
In his
relational discourse, Paul continues to integrate Christian freedom
with redemption, which is inseparably conjoined with reconciliation.
Also in his theological dialogue, Paul converges the
redemptive-reconciliation dynamic with the creation narrative for
the redemptive outcome in the image and likeness of God. His
convergence is made deeply in his main directives for women, and
this convergence must be accounted for to understand where Paul is
coming from in his relational discourse. As discussed previously
about hermeneutic factors in interpreting Paul (chaps. 3 and 5),
though he speaks in a human context involving women and
speaks to their human context, Paul is not speaking from
a human context. His prescriptions and directives for women are
contextualized beyond those human contexts to his involvement
directly in God’s relational context and process. These directives
emerged in human contexts, along with his letters, but were
constituted from the further and deeper context of the whole
of God—which is the significance of Paul’s convergence I will
attempt to account for in this limited discussion.
There are two main
directives representative of Paul’s relational discourse with women
and his theological dialogue for all persons: 1 Corinthians 11:3-16
and 1 Timothy 2:8-15.
1 Corinthians 11:3-16
This
section of Paul’s letter must be read in the full context of his
letter. From the beginning Paul was dealing with the reductionist
practices fragmenting this church (1:10-15). While confronting these
persons in family love throughout the letter, in fairness to them
and for their encouragement Paul puts their context into a larger
picture of God’s people (10:1-11) and their practices into the
deeper process of the dynamic of redemption and baptism into Christ
(10:16-
17). This exposed the sin of reductionism common not only in
Israel’s history but the history of humankind ("common to everyone,"
10:13). Despite its normative character and structural nature, human
contextualization and its common practices are incompatible with
God’s (10:21); therefore, Christian freedom must function on God’s
relational terms, not human terms (10:23-24, 31-33).
On this
basis, Paul’s further relational discourse with women continues,
with its convergence with the creation narrative. Earlier in his
letter, Paul had made definitive for this fragmented church:
"‘Nothing beyond what is written,’ so that none of you will be
puffed up in favor of one against another" (4:6). The comparative
dynamic Paul magnifies here is the natural relational consequence of
reduced human ontology and function defined from outer in and
determined by human terms, that is, beyond God’s relational terms
revealed in God’s communicative word written in Scripture. In this
section on women, Paul restores the focus to what is written in the
creation narrative in order to illuminate the relational outcome
from the dynamic of redemption and baptism into Christ (1 Cor
10:16-17; 12:13). If the creation narrative does not converge with
this dynamic in the intended focus of Paul’s interpretive lens, then
the relational outcome will be different for Paul’s readers, and
neither compatible with his relational discourse nor congruent with
his theological dialogue.
Paul’s
focus can be misleading due to the explicit aspects he highlights in
the creation narrative, namely, chronological or functional order
and quantitative significance. Yet, Paul’s focus remained on God’s
communicative action in the words written, without disembodying
those words in the narrative, which would be essentially to go
beyond what is written.
In
chronological and functional order, Christ participated in the
creation of all things and its whole, as Paul later made definitive
in the cosmology of his theological systemic framework (Col
1:16-17). Thus, "Christ is the head (kephale, principal or
first) of every created man" (1 Cor 11:3). The embodied
Christ also became the kephale "over all things for the
church" (Eph 1:22) and the first to complete the dynamic of
redemptive reconciliation as its functional key (Col 1:18). Whether
Paul combines the embodied Christ with creator Christ as the
kephale of man is not clear in 1 Cor 11:3. The creator Christ
certainly has the qualitative significance of the embodied Christ,
conversely, yet highlighting the chronological-functional order has
a different emphasis in this context. This quantitative difference
is confirmed by "the head of Christ" is God. Since the Creator (the
Father and the Son with the Spirit) precedes the creation, creator
Christ is obviously first in order before Adam. It follows that Adam
came first in the creation narrative before Eve, thus this husband
(or man, aner) was created before his wife (or woman, gyne).
This is only a quantitative significance Paul is highlighting. If
Christ later became God, then there would be a qualitative
significance to "God is the head of Christ." Christ as the embodied
God was neither less than God nor subordinate to God, yet in
functional order the Son followed and fulfilled what the Father
initiated (e.g., Jn 6:38-39; Acts 13:32-33).
The
quantitative significance of this chronological-functional order has
been misinterpreted by a different lens than Paul’s and misused
apart from his intended purpose by concerns for the sake of
self-autonomy and self-determination, even self-justification
efforts—which have reduced human ontology and function and fragment
relationships together. Paul expands on the quantitative
significance with application to prayer and whether the head should
have a covering or not (11:4-7). The quantitative significance of
head coverings during prayer is connected by Paul to the
chronological-functional order in creation. While such practice is
actually secondary (11:16), Paul uses it to illustrate an underlying
issue. Apparently, for a man to cover his head was to void or deny
that Christ is the head, who created man in the image and glory of
God (11:7). For a woman to be uncovered implies her independence
from the creative order, implying her self-determination, which in
Paul’s view she needed to be purified of (11:6; cf. Lev 14:8)
because she was created from the qualitative substance of the first
human person in the same image and glory of God (11:7). Her glory
cannot be reduced to being "the glory of man" but nothing less and
no substitutes of the man’s glory, that is, in the same image and
glory of God. This distinction of glory is critical for
understanding the basis used for defining gender ontology and, more
likely, for determining gender function in reductionism or
wholeness. Yet, it would also be helpful for women to have for
themselves a clear basis (exousia) for distinguishing their
whole ontology and function to grasp their position and purpose in
the created order (as angels needed, 11:10).
A further
distinction is also critical to Paul’s relational discourse. The
glory of God had a more quantitative focus in Hebrew Scripture and
quantitative significance for Israel. The focus and significance of
God’s glory deepened to its full qualitative and relational depth in
the relationally revealed face of Christ (2 Cor 4:6). This
qualitative and relational depth is the glory Paul experienced from
Christ and the full significance of glory he alludes to. It is this
glory in Paul’s pleroma theology which is basic to whole
ontology and function, both of God and of human persons.
When Paul
restates this chronological order (11:8) and its functional order
(11:9; cf. Gen 2:18), he is shifting from its outer-in quantitative
significance to point to the inner-out qualitative significance of
creation: the primacy of whole relationship together (in contrast,
"to be apart" as in creation narrative above) constituted by the
whole human ontology and function created in the image and likeness
of God (11:11-12; cf. Gen 1:26-27; 2:25). In this shift, Paul also
engages the dynamic of redemptive reconciliation to converge with
the creation narrative. The other quantitative matters are
secondary, even if they appear the natural condition (physis,
11:14-15); therefore, they should not define and determine human
ontology and function, both for women and men (11:16). To use
secondary matters as the basis is to reduce all persons’ ontology
and function, and thus to go beyond what is written by substituting
outer-in practices of ontological simulation and epistemological
illusion from reductionism—that is, ontology and function shaped
from outer in by human terms, not God’s relational terms from inner
out. The relational consequence is to diminish the primacy of
relationships, minimalize their function, and fragment relationships
together, which can only be restored in the process of redemptive
reconciliation to the transformed relationships together of the new
creation (cf. 2 Cor 5:16-18).
This is
the ontological and functional condition Paul addressed and the
purpose of his relational discourse with the church at Corinth to
fight conjointly against their reductionism and for God’s relational
whole—which Paul makes definitive in the remainder of his letter
(11:17ff), notably with the summary declaration: "for God is a God
not of fragmentation but of wholeness" (14:33). When
Paul adds to this declaration further relational discourse for
women, somewhat parenthetically, his only concern is for this
wholeness of human and church ontology and function (14:34-35). Paul
is not seeking the conformity of women to a behavioral code of
silence but rather their congruity to the whole ontology and
function in the image and glory of God. Thus, what Paul does not
give permission to for women in the church is for them to define
their persons by what they do ("to speak") and have (knowledge,
position or status) because this would reduce their ontology and
function. Certainly, this applies to men equally, whom Paul has been
addressing throughout this letter.
How persons define themselves is a major issue basic to how persons
engage in relationships, and on this basis how these persons in
these relationships then constitute church. The whole of Paul and
the whole in his theology challenge the assumptions and theological
basis persons have in these three major issues. In his family
communication with Timothy, Paul extends his relational discourse
for women to provide further clarity to this process to wholeness.
1 Timothy 2:8-15
The
letters to Timothy and Titus have been perceived to depict a less
intense, more domesticated Paul, with a more generalized focus of
faith and an emphasis on the virtue of "godliness" (1 Tim 2:2; 3:16;
4:7,8; 6:3,5,6,11; 2 Tim 3:5; Ti 1:1; cf. 1 Tim 5:4). This milder
image and emphasis not found in his undisputed letters are part of
the basis for disputing Paul’s authorship of these letters. His
relational discourse for women, I suggest, helps "restore" the
intensity of Paul in his fight, not for having a mere faith and mere
virtue, but for wholeness and against reductionism.
In his
loving encouragement of Timothy to engage in this fight (1 Tim
1:18), he reminds Timothy that the primary purpose and outcome (telos)
of his proclamation (parangelia) for the church is not purity
of doctrine and conformity of belief but is only relational: persons
in whole ontology from inner out agape-relationally involved
by the vulnerable relational response of trust (1:3-5). Paul’s
intensity of meaning should not be confused with quantitative
density, thus not grasping the quality of Paul’s intensity in the
absence of any quantitative density in his words. The faith and love
referenced above by Paul (v.5) were first Paul’s experiential truth
of vulnerable relationship face to face with Christ (1:12-14).
Paul’s intensity of meaning is critical for his readers to grasp in
order to understand where Paul is coming from. On the basis of his "relational
faith and experiential truth" (2:7), Paul’s whole function
establishes the context of his communication with Timothy and his
relational discourse for women.
Paul
begins this section with the practice of worship, with the focus
first on men (2:8). Based on where Paul is coming from, his deep
desire is for men to move beyond any negativity they have from
situations and circumstances—not letting that define and determine
them—and to openly participate in worship, not merely observing or
being detached (cf. abad, work from the creation narrative,
also rendered as worship). Yet, participation was not about being
more demonstrative by lifting up their hands outwardly. "Holy hands"
signified an inner out action of personal involvement, not as an end
in itself but lifted up in relational response to God. This personal
relational involvement with God was Paul’s deep desire for men to
engage further and experience deeper, because the only alternative
is a reductionist practice even if the hands were lifted. Paul’s
focus for men is the focus by which his similar desires for women
need to be seen.
Paul’s
concern for women’s practice in worship may initially appear to be a
reverse emphasis than for men, less visible and more in the
background as observers (2:9-10). Paul’s focus, however, went deeper
than outward appearance and further than the common church practice
of "good works." This involved the vital issue in all practice about
the integrity of the person presented to others, which is directly
integrated with how that person defines herself. In other words,
Paul’s concern is about women who focus on the outer in to define
themselves by what they have and do. Defined on this basis, women
depend on drawing attention to their appearance and other outer-in
aspects of themselves.
The issue
for Paul was not about dressing modestly and decently, with
appropriateness. Again, Paul was not seeking the conformity of women
to a behavioral code. While modesty is not the issue, highlighting
one’s self to draw attention to what one has and does is only part
of the issue. When Paul added "suitable" (NRSV) or "propriety" (NIV)
to this matter and later added "modesty" (NRSV), "propriety" (NIV)
to another matter (2:15), the same term, sophrosyne, is more
clearly rendered "sound mindset." That is, Paul was qualifying these
matters by pointing to the necessary interpretive lens (phroneo)
to distinguish reductionist practice from wholeness—the new
interpretive framework (phronema) and lens (phroneo)
from the dynamic of redemption and baptism into Christ (Rom 8:5-6).
The underlying issue for Paul, therefore, is whole human ontology
and function, or the only alternative of reduced human ontology and
function. Paul’s initial focus on men clearly indicates that this
issue equally applies to men.
How a
person defines one’s self interacts with the presentation of self,
which further extends in interaction with how the person engages
relationships. The person’s interpretive framework with its lens is
critical to this process. Paul’s alternative to outer-in function
for women is "good works" (2:10), yet this can be perceived still as
being defined by what a woman does. With Paul’s lens, however, good
works must always be defined by and determined from the primary
relational work of relational involvement with God from inner
out—the ongoing vulnerable relational response of trust in
relationship together, as discussed earlier in question 6 above on
good works. This is also the lens and focus of the process of
learning for women. Yet, Paul appears to constrain and conform women
to keeping quiet (hesychia) as objects in the learning
process. Rather, hesychia signifies ceasing from one’s human
effort—specifically engaged in defining one’s self and notably to
fill oneself with more knowledge to further define one’s self with
what one has (cf. 1 Cor 8:1)—and, with Paul’s lens, to submit one’s
person from inner out for vulnerable involvement in the relational
epistemic process with God (further qualifying 1 Cor 14:35).
Certainly, this learning process equally applies to men (cf. 1 Cor
2:13; Gal 1:11-12).
Paul’s
deep desire and concern for persons are for their whole ontology and
function and for their whole relationships together, which can only
emerge with these persons transformed from inner out, thus redeemed
from life and practice, both individually and collectively as
church, which are defined and determined from outer in. He pursues
them intensely with family love for their congruence to this
wholeness. Yet, his further communication to Timothy about women
appears incongruent with God’s relational whole created in
relational likeness to the whole of God: "no women to teach or to
have authority" (1 Tim 2:12). The lens and focus of the relational
epistemic process continued to apply in Paul’s directive for women.
Information and knowledge about God gained from a conventional
epistemic process from outer in do not have the depth of
significance to teach in the church, that is, teach to God’s
relational whole on the basis of God’s relational terms. Such
information and knowledge may have functional significance to define
those human persons by what they have but have no relational
significance to God and qualitative significance for God’s family.
The term for authority (authenteo) denotes one acting by her
own authority or power, which in this context is based on the human
effort to define one’s self further by the possession of more
information and knowledge, even if about God. Therefore, Paul will
not allow such women of reduced ontology and function to assume
leadership in God’s family. Moreover, he would not advocate for
Christian freedom for women to be the means for their self-autonomy
and self-determination, because the consequence, at best, would be
some form of ontological simulation and epistemological illusion,
that is, only reduced ontology and function. He turns to the
creation narrative to support this position (2:13-14).
By
repeating the chronological order of creation, Paul was not
ascribing functional significance to man to establish male priority
in the created order. Paul was affirming the whole significance of
the human person created in the image and glory of God, just as he
affirmed in his previous directive to women (1 Cor 11:7). Yet, Paul
appears to define their function differently by blaming Eve for the
dysfunction in the primordial garden, as if Adam did not engage in
it also and was an innocent bystander. What Paul highlights was not
Eve’s person but the effort of Eve’s self-autonomy to gain more
knowledge for self-determination, perhaps even
self-justification—human effort based on outer-in terms in reduced
ontology and function—which she certainly engaged first, followed by
the willful engagement of Adam (cf. Gen 3:2-7). Paul uses the
chronological order in the creation narrative to magnify, on the one
hand, the qualitative and relational significance of the human
person’s ontology and function and, on the other, the functional and
relational consequences of engagement in the sin of reductionism
with reduced ontology and function.
At this
point Paul converges the creation narrative with the dynamic of
redemptive reconciliation and integrates them into the relational
outcome of baptism into Christ (2:15). In Paul’s pleroma
soteriology, sozo (saved) is conjointly deliverance and being
made whole. Curiously, Paul declares that women "will be saved
through childbearing," which appears to be a human effort at
self-determination and justification, limited to certain women. With
Paul’s lens, he highlights an aspect from the creation narrative,
whose quantitative significance is only a secondary function in
God’s whole plan (cf. Gen 1:28), to magnify the qualitative
significance of the primary function of whole relationship together,
both with God and with persons in the image and likeness of God (cf.
2:18)—which childbearing certainly supports in function but does not
displace as the primary function. Therefore, with Paul’s convergence
and in his pleroma theology, women will be saved from
any reduced ontology and function and saved to wholeness and
whole relationship together. That is, women are sozo while
they engage in secondary functions—as identified initially in the
creative narrative by childbearing, but not limited solely to this
secondary function—based not on the extent of their secondary
functions but entirely on ongoing involvement in the relational
contingency ("if they continue in," Gk active voice, subjunctive
mood) of what is primary: the vulnerable relational response of
trust ("faith") and the vulnerable relational involvement with
others in family love ("agape") only on God’s relational
terms from inner out ("holiness") with a sound mindset ("sophrosyne"),
the new phronema-framework and phroneo-lens from the
dynamic of baptism into Christ and redemptive reconciliation.
Women’s ontology and function pivot on this contingency.
The faith
in Paul’s relational contingency is not the generalized faith of
what the church has and proclaims but the specific function only of
relationship. The vulnerable relational response of trust signifies
the ongoing primary relational work which constitutes the "good
works" of Paul’s alternative to outer-in function for women, and
from which all secondary functions need to emerge to be whole from
inner out. Moreover, the agape in Paul’s relational
contingency is also reflexively contingent on faith. To be agape-relationally
involved with others must be integrated with and emerge from the
vulnerable relational response of trust; without this, agape
becomes a more self-oriented effort at sacrifice, focused on what
that person does—for example, about others’ needs, situations or
circumstances—without the relational significance of opening one’s
person to other persons and focusing on involvement with them in
relationship. Paul was definitive that any works without the primacy
of relational work are not the outworking of the whole person
created in "the image and glory of God" (1 Cor 11:7).
Of course,
everything which Paul has directed to women is also necessarily
directed to men in Paul’s pleroma theology, except perhaps
for childbearing. Paul sees both of them beyond their situations and
circumstances and defines them as persons from inner out. Yet, I
wonder if an ‘unexpected difference’ has emerged in the church,
which no one has, or perhaps wants to, seriously address. Whole
ontology and function for persons of both genders are defined and
determined only as transformed persons from inner out relationally
involved in transformed relationships together, both intimate and
equalized—the relational outcome ‘already’ in Paul’s pleroma
ecclesiology. This relational outcome of the experiential truth of
the gospel has been problematic in church history as far back as
Peter (cf. the churches in Rev 2:2-4; 3:1-2, 15-17), and which
continues to grieve the Spirit. While the situations and
circumstances in the church have certainly varied, the underlying
issue of reductionism in church ontology and function has remained
the common problem—which may be pointing to an emerging solution
needing our attention.
Since Paul
was occupied with fragmentation in churches, I doubt if he had any
initial awareness of this ‘unexpected difference’ in his early
experience with churches. But if the difference between Jesus’
relationships with women compared with men during his earthly life
has any further significance for the church, it supports what I
suggest without apology: Women who are emerging in whole ontology
and function are the relational key for the whole function of this
relational outcome and the persons most likely to be vulnerable from
inner out in order to lead other persons in this process to
wholeness in church ontology and function.
The
Creator made no inner out distinction between male and female, as
Adam and Eve experienced in whole relationship together (Gen 2:25),
in contrast to their experience in reduced ontology and function
(Gen 3:7). The extent of a person’s engagement in reductionism is
the key. In Paul’s pleroma theology, the righteous are not
those who simply possess faith—a common theological notion. The
righteous are those in ongoing congruence with their whole ontology
and function in relationship with God, whom God can count on to be
those persons in their vulnerable relational response of trust. Whom
God can count on to be vulnerable in relationship with their whole
person is the question at issue; which persons will step forward to
be accountable with God and to act from inner out on the challenge
in transformed relationships together, conjointly intimate and
equalized, as the church is the question before us all. No human
distinctions in Paul’s lens have any qualitative significance for
persons baptized into Christ (Gal 3:27-29), only the primary
relational work of trust making persons vulnerable to be agape-relationally
involved with others in and for God’s new creation family ‘already’
(Gal 5:6; 6:15)—nothing less and no substitutes.
This is
the whole of Paul and the whole in Paul’s theology, whom he
vulnerably presented for the experiential truth for his readers—the
whole of the gospel who fulfills the inherent human relational need
and resolves the human relational condition and problem. And Paul
holds his readers accountable for the whole of who, what and how God
is—vulnerably revealed only for whole relationship together.
Therefore, this raises a twelfth question for all of Paul’s readers
to answer:
Who
will extend his fight conjointly for the experiential truth
of the whole gospel and against reductionism, without
anything less or any substitutes?
The Spirit, indeed the whole of God, waits for our compatible
response.