When
I said in my first post on N.T. Wright’s book, Justification: God's Plan & Paul's Vision , that the book seemed “Catholic”
in its understanding of Paul and in its conclusions, I did not intend to
indicate that Wright himself has stated this– which I was clear about – but that
in attempting to reconsider Paul on his own terms, in light of the “new perspective” on
Paul and in opposition to the “old
perspective” (understood as the traditional Lutheran/Reformed position on Paul), Wright has moved into a
fairly Catholic position.
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St. Paul, St. Paul Outside the Walls, Rome, January 9, 2013 |
I spent at least a half of the last post describing what I
saw as a traditional Catholic understanding of “justification” in Paul as
opposed to the “old perspective.” I also mentioned in passing in the first post
that I was taught both by E.P. Sanders, considered by many as the source of the
“new perspective,” though I would argue many came before him, and Stephen
Westerholm, a defender of the “old
perspective” from a Lutheran perspective (and one of the finest scholars or
people one could meet). My point is not that I have no dog in this fight, but
that I have run with the pack in a number of directions. And when I read Wright’s work, I see the work
of a scholar whose careful (re)consideration of Paul’s writing has lead him to
an honest appraisal that tilts in the direction of the “new perspective,” but
adds an ecclesial and theological dimension which places his work on
justification in the Catholic conversation.
The first thing that one notices in reading Wright’s work on
justification in Paul is that Wright does not see this as the only issue in Paul. One of the failings
of much literature on Paul, going back to the Reformation, is to read all of
Paul (and each of Paul’s letters) through the lens of justification. The center
of Paul’s thought is Christ and depending on the situation and letter, Paul
will describe what Jesus Christ has accomplished on behalf of humanity using a
number of terms, such as glorification, reconciliation, transformation, redemption, salvation,
new creation, and, of course, justification.
The second thing Wright achieves in his book is placing the
discussion of Paul’s terminology in the midst of 1st century Judaism
and not 16th century Europe. This is something that seems simple
enough for historical critical scholars to do, but the wounds and pain of the
break-up of western Christianity still ache and hurt deeply. These wounds
emerge even in in scholarship today, often in the inability to want to give up or
reconsider long-cherished positions.
The third achievement is the focus on the ecclesiological
dimension of justification. Too often justification, and its close cousin
salvation (though not an identical twin as Wright stresses, Justification, 11), have been seen in
western Christendom as an individual and not ecclesial process (Justification, 23). One of Wright’s
great achievements in this book is the understanding that the Church is the
locus for Paul’s thought, precisely because the hopes which Christ has
fulfilled are the hopes of the people of Israel. In Wright’s language, the
Church is “the believing-in-the-Messiah people as the new reality to which
ethnic Israel pointed forward but to which, outside the Messiah, they could not
attain” (Justification, 143). This is not some add-on for Wright, but the
very center of his argument: God called a people through Abraham, a family of
God, which was always intended to include the whole of humanity; this promise
came to fruition with the coming of the Messiah and now the covenant includes
all those who follow the Messiah (Justification,
94f).
The fourth achievement of the book connects justification with
the Christian life and sanctification; this is the emphasis on the Holy Spirit.
Let me cite Wright at length here:
True freedom is the gift of the Spirit,
the result of grace; but, precisely because it is freedom for as well as freedom from,
it isn’t simply a matter of being forced now to be good, against our wills and
without our cooperation (what damage to genuine pastoral theology has been done
by making a bogey-word out of the Pauline term synergism, “working together with God”), but a matter of being
released from slavery precisely into responsibility, into being able at last to
choose, to exercise moral muscle, knowing both that one is doing it oneself and
that the Spirit is at work within, that God himself is doing that which I too am
doing. If we don’t believe that, we don’t believe in the Spirit, and we don’t
believe Paul’s teaching. Virtue is what happens…when the Spirit enables the
Christian freely to choose, freely to develop, freely to be shaped by God,
freely to become that which is
pleasing to God. (Justification, 189)
Boom. If N.T Wright was a rapper, I think this is where he
drops the mic and walks off the stage. The heirs of the Reformation have been
afraid of attributing justification to human merit and deeds, with good reason,
but in the meantime have sometimes overlooked the ongoing work of the Holy Spirit
in the individual and in the Church (not to mention the world itself – see Romans 8:18f).
So, above I said that Wright has adopted a “fairly Catholic
position,” but Wright is not naïve about the history of western Christianity –
he knows Catholic history and theology - and in fairness to him, he attributes his
position to open and honest exegesis of all of Paul’s letters and not repetition
or rejection of Reformation or Catholic doctrines and positions. I believe him.
If his reading of Paul’s letters pulls him toward a Catholic position on a
number of matters, this speaks well of traditional Catholic reading of Paul. I
wonder, however, if there are things Wright has discovered in Paul which
Catholic theology has not stressed enough? It’s all fun and games to point out
where Reformation exegesis might have missed the boat; what about Catholic exegesis
of Paul?
End of Part 2
John W. Martens
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John, does Wright's theme of Jesus completing the story of Israel ever bother you as bordering on supersessionistm? Could he be more sensitive to those of Jewish faith ...as we are directed in Vatican II Nostra Aetate?
ReplyDeleteTom,
ReplyDeleteThis is such a complex issue, and I thank you for bringing it up. I do think context matters here, that is, that Paul is writing as a 1st century Jew who understands that Jesus is the fulfillment of Jewish covenantal hopes and understands the entrance of Gentiles into the covenant as a part of that fulfillment of Jewish hopes through and in Jesus. That is Paul. When we begin move historically away from Jesus, Paul and the 1st century, we have a new conundrum: what for (some) 1st century Jews was seen as the fulfillment of Jewish hopes and the promises of God is now a movement which is seen in opposition to Judaism. It is here, especially 20 centuries later, where the Church and individual Christians have to reflect on past claims of "supersessionism" and as Notra Aetate (and Paul of course) stressed the continuing place and role of the Jewish people as God's beloved people and those who still are in covenant with God. That's a long answer to say that, yes, some of how Wright says this might seem to point in this direction, but I do think his focus is on explicating Paul in 1st century context and not the implications as they have worked themselves out (and our working themselves out) down through the centuries.