St. Paul, chameleon? Relativist?

[AlanFromWichita]

Thank you for reading my writing. I know the title may sound provocative, and if that’s how you want to take it, then you are welcome to post your reply in accordance with CAF rules, and I’ll listen as best I know how. If you want controversy, I hope I don’t disappoint you. If you are looking for unity or affirmation, I also hope I don’t disappoint you.

Consider these words from St. Paul:
1 Cor 9:19-23 (DR 1899):

For whereas I was free as to all, I made myself the servant of all, that I might gain the more. And I became to the Jews, a Jew, that I might gain the Jews: To them that are under the law, as if I were under the law, (whereas myself was not under the law,) that I might gain them that were under the law. To them that were without the law, as if I were without the law, (whereas I was not without the law of God, but was in the law of Christ,) that I might gain them that were without the law. To the weak I became weak, that I might gain the weak. I became all things to all men, that I might save all. And I do all things for the gospel’s sake: that I may be made partaker thereof.

As far as I’m concerned, good people with much obedience to church law as they possibly know how to have, are on both sides of the “relativism” issue. Maybe by “relativism” I mean in the “not absolutist” sense. I’ve discussed absolutism on other threads, but here is one where we can focus on them.

All I ask it this, for this thread, in addition to CAF rules: Please try to keep of mind that even if the other poster seems objectively wrong, that doesn’t mean they are being so intentionally, or with bad intent. You may self-disclose a thought paradigm, or label, if you wish – I will try to hear you no matter whether or not you have a “name tag.”

I’d like to give you the freedom to write to me directly from the heart without risk of hurting me; I’ll trust the Holy Spirit will help me through this. If I’m hurt by what you say, then that’s a form of poverty and it could be enriching. So please, don’t sweat me taking you wrong; if I have a problem, I’ll ask rather than think bad things or feel hurt. Of course, if it is objectively outside forum rules, as determined by the moderators, then I can’t help you there.

Also, I want to allow a lot of leeway for the topic to shift. I’m much more interested in having a meeting of the minds about wherever the Spirit takes us, than I am in getting yes/no answer to the questions implied by the thread title. If it goes against forum rules, I defer to the mods with no discussion.

Now, about the reading, I have some ideas to kick it off …

Specifically the part about being like those without the law. What type of law might St. Paul be referring to?

What does anybody think St. Paul meant by “whereas I was not without the law of God, but was in the law of Christ”

What is the difference between the law of God, and the law of Christ? Obviously you can be in good standing with both, it seems.

What law is Paul not under, and what sort of freedom does that imply? What can he do that he couldn’t if he were still under the law?

What is the “law of sin and death?” How does the Torah relate to God’s law?

I expect we will have different opinions. My goal in this thread is to share these opinions in a non-threatening tone of writing style with each other, so we will have a better appreciation of our own opinions and even maybe learn something from each other. :newidea:

After all, what is the difference between a teacher and a student? Which one learns from the other? Is it just a matter of which one the earthly authorities have giving the power to, that they may judge the other and put that judgment on the other’s Permanent Record?
http://bestsmileys.com/jail/1.gif

I wonder about a lot of things. Let’s bring our diversity and share in a thread using that diversity to advantage, rather than seeing it as a stumbling block. :grouphug:

Thank you for reading my ideas. I invite you to post or to lurk.

I hope you all have a wonderful day!

Alan

 

[FightingFat]

Specifically the part about being like those without the law. What type of law might St. Paul be referring to?

You’re joking right? The Mosaic Law, the Torah, the Ha’Torah hamizwhat Adonai, the Law and the precepts of the Lord.

What does anybody think St. Paul meant by “whereas I was not without the law of God, but was in the law of Christ”

He means He’s a Jew.

What is the difference between the law of God, and the law of Christ? Obviously you can be in good standing with both, it seems.

Yes, the distinction he is making is between the Law of Moses, the Torah and the Law of Christ, the living Torah.

What law is Paul not under, and what sort of freedom does that imply?

Read Galations and Romans. This theme is put more forcefully there. The Torah has lots of things you have to do, Christ frees you from the slavery of the letter of the Law because you follow Him rather than worrying about ritual cleansing, eating shelfish, etc, stc.

What can he do that he couldn’t if he were still under the law?

Eat shellfish, not worry about ritual cleansing, eat with gentiles, etc, etc.

What is the “law of sin and death?”

Off the top of my head, the Torah’s purpose was to show men that they needed redemption, i.e. it demonstrated the impossibility of man’s own actions and demonstrated that man needed God.

How does the Torah relate to God’s law?

They are one and the same.

 

[AlanFromWichita]

Thank you for taking time to respond to my questions.

You’re joking right? The Mosaic Law, the Torah, the Ha’Torah hamizwhat Adonai, the Law and the precepts of the Lord.

No joke at all. I thought I had a pretty good idea, but I’ve learned how much I don’t know or know incorrectly, so I want to make sure right up front we’re using the same words to mean the same things – otherwise I find discussions either go in circles, are confrontational, or both. Really, I can imagine a world where the lion sleeps with the lamb, and where the relativists coexist with the absolutists next to each other in a pew even when both have knowledge of, and peace with, what the other believes. By taking us through this line of reasoning, I’m testing my own ideas about what might lead to this sort of utopia on CAF, and what is likely not to.

I can tell you this. Thus far I can’t remember seeing an absolutist-relativist debate anything of substance, where the debate has gone for any length and didn’t turn ugly or ending up with awkward standoff. I have delusions of grandeur that we can do it, and right here in this thread we can begin to show the way. :whacky:

When I try to describe that world directly, other people get confused, bored, or insulted. So I thought I’d ask who thinks we can have a civil discussion on what might be a divisive issue. I really wanted to call the thread, “Jesus: absolutist or relativist” but I decided to with dessert and not the Main Course. Anyone who thinks I’m being provocative or misleading or stupid or whatever, is welcome to lurk for a while to see how the rest of us get along before you decide if you want to join.

He means He’s a Jew.

OK. So far so good…

Yes, the distinction he is making is between the Law of Moses, the Torah and the Law of Christ, the living Torah.

Thank you. That’s kind of what I thought it meant.

Read Galations and Romans. This theme is put more forcefully there. The Torah has lots of things you have to do, Christ frees you from the slavery of the letter of the Law because you follow Him rather than worrying about ritual cleansing, eating shelfish, etc, stc.

I love Galatians and Romans. One of my favorite chapter is Rom 8, but whatever is second favorite isn’t far behind.

Eat shellfish, not worry about ritual cleansing, eat with gentiles, etc, etc.

OK, those are good examples. Later I will likely try to not only give examples, but to define how we know which rules he may now break – if we actually do know, that is – and which ones he may not.

Since you mentioned Galatians, I’d like to throw out another scripture to add to this discussion. What does everyone get from the following, literally and/or what it means to your value system?
Gal 3:5-13 (DR 1899):

He therefore who giveth to you the Spirit, and worketh miracles among you; doth he do it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of the faith? As it is written: Abraham believed God, and it was reputed to him unto justice.

Know ye therefore, that they who are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham. And the scripture, foreseeing, that God justifieth the Gentiles by faith, told unto Abraham before: In thee shall all nations be blessed. Therefore they that are of faith, shall be blessed with faithful Abraham.

For as many as are of the works of the law, are under a curse. For it is written: Cursed is every one, that abideth not in all things, which are written in the book of the law to do them. But that in the law no man is justified with God, it is manifest: because the just man liveth by faith.
But the law is not of faith: but, He that doth those things, shall live in them. Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written: Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree:

So can I rephrase that without changing its meaning, by suggesting that acting in good faith doesn’t necessarily mean following the law? If it doesn’t, then what does Paul mean by making the distinction?

I think you’ve addressed that with examples, but I just want to look at this idea from slightly different rhetorical point of view.

Off the top of my head, the Torah’s purpose was to show men that they needed redemption, i.e. it demonstrated the impossibility of man’s own actions and demonstrated that man needed God.

So I propose we say it another way: the Law was useful in creating a hunger for Christ, as people found their efforts at living up to it perfectly as futile. Once a person receives Christ, that person is renewed in mind and spirit, and then seeks the proper action by his very nature, and not as an intellectual exercise of going down a checklist to see whether something is right or wrong.

So when we sing the song about Santa Claus that “he’s making a list and checking it twice, gonna find out who’s naughty or nice,” it reflects the nature of how God was perceived under the Torah, as opposed to nature of God that Christ revealed and is unknowable by any stagnant (not alive), written code?

They are one and the same.

Thank you for your help.

So if I get this right, Paul was essentially saying “whereas I was not without the Torah, but was in the law of Christ”

So when Christ went against the Torah, or when St. Paul does to the outward observer (although of course inwardly he knows he is with the spirit, if not the letter) then is that a sin against the law that St. Paul as a spirit-led being is allowed to interpret or even appear to contradict, or is it simply not a sin at all? Does it matter?

Thanks again,
Alan

 

[FightingFat]

Since you mentioned Galatians, I’d like to throw out another scripture to add to this discussion. What does everyone get from the following, literally and/or what it means to your value system?

The Pauline epistles don’t offer a systematic theology, they are a snapshot of specific responses to pastoral problems. Galatians is my favourite, I think, because of the fact that he’s pretty much going barmy in it. You can almost envisage him jumping up and down as it’s dictated.

We’ve lost much of the beauty of this kind of Scripture study because, since the Reformation, we are determined to prove that this is about justification. The truth is that’s a absolute nonsense. Once we get that out of the way, we can discuss what Paul is really trying to say. I would anticipate a Catholic forum would be the very best place to do this, cast of all Protestant allusions and really get down to the meat of the text!

So can I rephrase that without changing its meaning, by suggesting that acting in good faith doesn’t necessarily mean following the law? If it doesn’t, then what does Paul mean by making the distinction?

He does mean following the Law, following by following Christ, not getting circumcised. Galatians is a polemic against “Judaisers”, Jewish Christians who were going round convincing people that in order to be saved they needed to adhere to Ha’Torah ha’mizwat Adonai.

Even St. Peter’s was backsliding a little:

[bibledrb]Galatians 2:11-14[/bibledrb]

The Galatians are believing that acts of the flesh can save them:

[BIBLEDRB]Galatians 3:3[/BIBLEDRB]

Paul is adamant that faith in Christ relieves the need to observe the letter of the Law.

[BIBLEDRB]Galatians 5:3-6[/BIBLEDRB]

the Law was useful in creating a hunger for Christ, as people found their efforts at living up to it perfectly as futile. Once a person receives Christ, that person is renewed in mind and spirit, and then seeks the proper action by his very nature, and not as an intellectual exercise of going down a checklist to see whether something is right or wrong.

So when we sing the song about Santa Claus that “he’s making a list and checking it twice, gonna find out who’s naughty or nice,” it reflects the nature of how God was perceived under the Torah, as opposed to nature of God that Christ revealed and is unknowable by any stagnant (not alive), written code?

I think that the Pharisees (and many Hasidic Jewish sects today) believed that they could bring about the coming of the Messiah by being utterly holy, setting themselves apart from the unclean and sticking to the absolute letter of the Law. Jesus teaches that this ritualism means nothing without the Law changing us interiorly.

 

[FightingFat]

So when Christ went against the Torah, or when St. Paul does to the outward observer (although of course inwardly he knows he is with the spirit, if not the letter) then is that a sin against the law that St. Paul as a spirit-led being is allowed to interpret or even appear to contradict, or is it simply not a sin at all? Does it matter?

The Law is fulfilled in Christ. Jesus always presupposed the validity of the Ten Commandments as a matter of course (see for example Mk 10:19; Lk 16:17). In the Sermon on the Mount he recapitulates and gives added depth to the commandments of the second tablet, but he does not abolish them (cf. Mat 5:21-48). To do so would in any case diametrically contradict the fundamental principle underpinning his discussion of the Ten Commandments (Mt 5:17-18). **Jesus understands himself as the Torah—as the Word of God in person. **

The concrete juridical and social forms and political arrangements are no longer treated as a sacred law that is set for all times and is so for all peoples. The decisive thing is the underlying communion of will with God given by Jesus. It frees men and nations to discover what aspects of political and social order accord with this communion of will and so to work out their own juridical arrangements.

The absence of the whole social dimension in Jesus’ preaching so obvious from a Jewish perspective includes and also conceals an epoch making event in world history that has not occured as such in any other culture:** The concrete political and social order is released from the directly sacred realm, from theocratic legislation, and is transferred to the freedom of man, whom Jesus has established in God’s will and taught thereby to see the right and the good.**

This is what Papa Ratzinger calls The Torah of the Messiah In Gal 5:13 we read “you were called to freedom”—not to a blind and arbitrary freedom—a freedom “understood according to the flesh,” as Paul would say, but to a “seeing” freedom, anchored in communion of will with Jesus and so with God himself. It is a freedom that, as a result of this new way of seeing, is able to build the very thing that is at the heart of the Torah—with Jesus, universalising the essential content of the Torah and thus truly “fulfilling” it.

The ceremonial laws expressed a theology of separation appropriate to the Old Covenant as they served through antiquity as the symbol of election, demonstrating Israel’s distinction from the Gentiles. Because the Church is an international community including both Jews and Gentiles, instituted by Christ who came to gather all nations into the fold of the New Covenant, the ceremonial boundaries that divided Israel from everyone else were redundant (Rom 1:5, 16; 3:29-30; Gal 3:28).66 These Mosaic rituals constituted ceremonies which were signs of grace but not sacraments of grace. They point to better things to come in Christ (Col 2:16-17), but they did not, in themselves, confer the benefits they direct us towards (Heb 7:18-19; 10:1-4).

The sacrifices of the Mosaic Law set the stage for the perfect sacrifice of Jesus, which alone effects a true remission of sins (Heb 10:11-18).

I hate having to split posts, it means I’ve gone on too long, but now I’ve gone to all this effort…

 

[FightingFat]

…Jesus Christ came not to “abolish the old law but to fulfil it” (Mt 5:17); but he also speaks of his blood as being the blood of the “new covenant” (cf. Lk 22:20), and like a new Moses he speaks words which bring the Old Covenant to its ultimate perfection, a perfection which at the same time transcends it. Therefore, while it “gives fulfilment to the law”, it sets us free from the regime of the Mosaic Law.

St. Paul is emphatic that Christ’s victory over sin also brings freedom from the Old Law. The Law was in itself holy, just and good (cf Rom 7:12) but it was in some way an occasion of sin; firstly, because the detailed knowledge it gave if the natural law and of what was sinful meant that sin was something people were more aware of and they could sin more gravely. The Apostle points this out when he says: “If it had not been for the law, I should not have known sin. I should not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, ‘You shall not covet’” (Rom 7:7). Secondly, because once the Law was promulgated, sin became a transgression of a positive law of God. That does not mean that there were no sins before the Law came (the natural law, impressed on men’s hearts, made them responsible for their actions); it means that sin acquired a new dimension, one which only Adam’s sin had before that—transgression of a positive divine law. This explains why St. Paul could say that “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law” (Gal 3:13).

Once God sent His Son “to redeem those who were under the law” (Gal 4:5), the Christian is no longer under the letter of the Law. The old legal precepts are no longer in force, and the rites of that Law have no longer any meaning (as signalled by the rending of the veil of the Temple when Christ died on the Cross: cf. Mt 27:51). However, the moral precepts of the Law remain in force, not because they are part of the Mosaic Law, but because all that law did was to spell out the natural law. By virtue of the Passion of Christ, the New Law confers the grace needed to keep its commandments. And so St. Paul can write that we are “not under the law but under grace” (Rom 6:14). Grace always brings with it charity, whereby we share in the Holy Spirit who is infinite love, and since the new Law is summed up in the precepts of charity, the obligatory nature of this Law does not force our freedom, because one cannot love unless one is free. The New Law then is “the perfect law of liberty” (Jas 1:25). According to Pauline teaching, the Old Law "disappears naturally with the coming of Christ, who is its end, when it has no more reason for existence, and when the promises which are irreconcilable with it are realised. But even though it should retain its validity in principle, the Christian, by the fact of Baptism, is released from its empire.