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Paul's faith and the Power of the Gospel:

A Structural Introduction to the Pauline Letters

by Daniel Patte

Copyright @ 1983 by Fortress Press

ISBN: 0-8006-1682-0

Romans: The Gospel as Power of God for Salvation

An Overall Presentation of Paul's Faith

THROUGH A SERIES of readings of Galatians, 1 Thessalonians, Philemon Philippians, and other texts, we have elucidated many elements of Paul's system of convictions and several characteristics of his convictional pattern. We can now gather together these partial results in order to obtain an overall picture of the convictional pattern which characterizes Paul's faith as system of convictions. This is another stage of the structural approach, which involves formulating, on the basis of partial results, a hypothesis concerning the overall organization of a system. In our case, we shall formulate a hypothesis concerning the organization of Paul's system of convictions. Keeping in mind the rules which govern the organization of any system of convictions--the oppositions by pairs, the correlations and homologations of these pairs--we can now show how these various partial results are interrelated. This tentative overall picture of Paul's system of convictions will also point out that we still do not know anything about important aspects of it. In fact, we still do not understand the meaning of such central statements as "[the gospel] is the power of God for salvation to every one who has faith" (Rom. 1:16). After formulating this overall hypothesis, we will be in a position to proceed to a new kind of structural reading which begins with this tentative overall picture. In other words, our systematic presentation of the results reached so far will allow us to make proposals about elements of Paul's system of convictions which we have not yet encountered in our readings of his letters. Of course, we will need to verify these proposals, and we will do so by considering how Paul deals with these elements in the letter which is the most systematic presentation of his faith: the letter to the Romans.

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When looking for ways to express what is most characteristic of Paul's faith, the three qualifications "charismatic," "eschatological," and "typological" seem most appropriate.

By the term "charismatic" I want to say that, according to this system of convictions, the revelation (the fundamental convictions) which establishes the believers' true identity as "chosen by God" and as "in the right relationship with God" is discovered primarily in the present experience of the believers and is not found in a tradition (it is not a past revelation that one appropriates). I also want to articulate that this revelation is discovered directly by the believers themselves and not through the intermediary of an institution (e.g., the institution of the Temple as the place where the believers can be in the presence of God through the intermediary of priests). In other words, the believers' faith is established through and because of God's interventions in their experience: God's gifts (charismata), grace (charts), and revelation. Yet, we need to remember that what we call "the believer's experience" is not limited to the private experience of an individual. It includes all that is related to this believer in the daily life, and thus also other people who are parts of his or her life experience.

This charismatic faith is of a very peculiar kind. Usually, charismatic believers view themselves and are viewed by their followers as having a religious authority over others. Indeed, Paul has authority over the believers, and so he does not hesitate to designate himself as their "father" (cf., e.g., 1 Thess. 2:11; Philem. 10), a term which presupposes an authority comparable to God the Father, and claims for himself the title "apostle," a term which presupposes an authority comparable to the Lord (see Chapter 4). He mentions this authority to insure that the churches he founded will listen to his exhortations. At the same time, he constantly refuses to use this authority over his followers. Yes, he would have the authority to give them orders: he is an apostle (1 Thess. 2:6), he is an ambassador (of Christ) and a prisoner for Christ (Philem. 9), he is not inferior to "these superlative apostles" who, because of their spiritual gifts, are viewed by the Corinthians as having authority (2 Cor. 12:11) He can boast of such spiritual experiences, but as far as he is concerned, he is making a fool out of himself when he does so. No, he

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did not demand that the Thessalonians recognize his authority as apostle (and give him "glory"; 1 Thess. 2:6); he is rather a baby among then Yes, he is their father, but not as one who demands something from his children but as the one who gives of himself (a nursing mother) to his children. Or, as he puts it in 2 Cor. 12:14, "children ought not to lay up [reserve their belongings] for their parents, but parents for their children." No, he does not use the title "ambassador of Christ" or ''prisoner for Christ" to command Philemon. No, he does not want to boast of his personal spiritual experience to impose his authority upon the Corinthians. Rather, he boasts of his weaknesses because, in them, the power of Christ is manifested (2 Cor. 12:9-10).

Thus while Paul does not see himself as a charismatic leader who because of special gifts from God, can use his authority over his followers, he is not denying the charismatic character of his faith. In other words, he is not denying that the revelations he has discovered in his own experience are central for him. Indeed, they are the very basis of his faith, as he emphatically expresses in Gal. 1:11-17. His faith, which he aims at transmitting to others, is so fundamentally charismatic that he cannot conceive that the believers, in the churches he founded, could merely be followers who would be dependent upon his own charismatic faith (upon the revelations he received). In such a case the believers would have a different kind of faith as compared with the faith Paul has.

Paul's faith is a radical charismatic faith. Yes, Paul is a charismatic. He was directly chosen by God, from whom he received a revelation and the vocation of Apostle to the Gentiles without the intermediary of any human being and without recourse to a tradition (Gal. 1:11-17). But his preaching to the Gentiles is aimed not at transmitting to them a fixed system of convictions (the one which was revealed to him) but at helping them to have the same faith as he has, a faith through which they will themselves discover God at work in their present experiences and receive direct revelations from God. His aim is to allow them to discover the power of Christ, that is, Christ-like manifestations of God in their own experience. These direct revelations to the believers "supersede' those of Paul, not in quality (indeed, they are the same type) but in newness. These revelations to the-believers concern what God is doing in new situations.

An analogy might be helpful here: mountain climbing. A charismatic leader who demands that the revelations which he or she has received

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be viewed as authoritative by his or her followers can be compared to the leader of an expedition who has reached the top of a mountain peak by using only his own strength and skills (which could be comparable to the charismatic leader's "superior insight, strength, goodness"). From the top, he guides the other members of the expedition in their climb by showing them where he has set pitons in the rock and helping them to climb with the rope that he has secured for them. In such a case, the followers do not have the same faith as the leader. They do not have a charismatic faith. By contrast, Paul can be compared to a member of a group of free climbers, that is, climbers who each climb as the leader of the expedition did in the preceding example. On this particular trip he climbs first, up to a ledge. Other members of the group, seeing that he was able to do it, feel challenged. They are confident that they can do as well as this first climber, who actually encourages them by suggesting how he overcame difficulties similar to those they are encountering, and he continues to do so even when they have passed him and climb higher than the ledge where he is. And all the while he applauds their accomplishments.

This analogy, despite its limitations, helps us understand how Paul can both claim that he has authority over the believers in the churches which he founded and at the same time see himself as having the same status as they. Because he preceded them in the faith, he is indeed a type for them, and thus he is in a position to exhort and to encourage the younger believers. Looking at him and at his experience in which through faith he discovered God at work, they can in turn make sense, through faith, of their own experience and discover in it God at work and thus revelations from God to them. Indeed, insofar as Paul is part of their experience, he might be (and often was) God's manifestation among them. Because his experience is a type for the new believers (and eventually a manifestation of God for them), he cannot tolerate his experience being distorted or belittled, because this would mean distorting and belittling the Gospel itself. But Paul is not the only type. Anyone who precedes the believers in the faith has a similar role and authority over them. Such is the case of Paul's companions, of the churches in Judea, of the other apostles and disciples mentioned in 1 Cor. 15:5-7, as well as of those Paul calls the "first fruits," the first converts in a region (cf. Rom. 16:5; 1 Cor. 16:15), who can also be God's manifestation in the experience of later converts. While this chronological priority gives a

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certain authority to some believers over others, it does not give them different talus. Everybody who shares this faith with Paul is a brother a sister, Co-worker, or a co-soldier. Through faith, they are in the same relation to God. They discover God at work in their present, as does Paul. In his way, they receive revelations (elections, vocations) which supersede/hose received by Paul.

From the perspective of Paul's radical charismatic faith, the new believers themselves can be perceived only as having such a charismatic faith characterized by the same specific convictional pattern. Consequently, Saul cannot and should not impose a specific set of convictions upon other believers. Neither should the believers do this among themselves. They should look at others as better than themselves, because in others they can discover Christ-like manifestations (Phil. 2:3) as Paul can also see God's interventions in others (as he expresses in his thanksgivings to God about various believers). Since all have the same status they should comfort one another, encourage one another, exhort one another (cf., e.g., 1 Thess. 4:18; 5:11, 14).

Paul expresses this part of his system of convictions again and again and in various ways. For the Corinthians, who are very much concerned about spiritual experiences (ecstatic experiences, prophecies, speaking in tongues, he expresses it in terms of the gifts of the Spirit. Against those who claim that they are superior to other believers because they have great r spiritual gifts (and thus should be viewed as charismatic leaders), hi affirms that "all [the believers] were made to drink of one Spirit' (1 Cor. 12:13). He also writes, "Now there are varieties of gifts but the sane Spirit; and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of working, but it is the same God who inspires them all in every one" (1 Cor. 12:4-6). All the believers share in this charismatic faith through which they discover interventions of God in their present and receive revelations and gifts of his Spirit. There are different offices and functions in the community, but these offices and functions d, not establish certain believers above others in the faith. All of them are fulfillments of the type Christ, and therefore all of them are Christ-like, and all together form the body of Christ (1 Cor. 12:27).

Paul can hold this radical charismatic faith which demands that one see others is equal to oneself, because this faith is also eschatological.

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Paul's faith can be called "eschatological" for reasons which differ according to the system of convictions and the theologian explanations.

According to Paul's system of convictions--a System of convictions--the only absolute and permanent convictions e the ones which will be established for the believers at the end of tin (at the eschaton, at the Parousia). As Paul expresses it, "Now we seer a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I she understand fully, even as I have been fully understood" (1 Cor. 13: l2). Since the eschatological revelation alone is absolute, all other revelations are relative, partial, incomplete; they are "seeing dimly in a mirror" This is also true for the revelations that Paul or any other believer ha,, received through their charismatic faith. But then, if true believers do not view their system of convictions as absolute, it also means that they can perceive other believers' systems of convictions as being, at jest potentially, as valid as, and possibly better than, their own system of convictions (yet it does not mean that all the systems of convictions al valid). Thus, because the absolute, complete, and final revelation is Elected only in the eschatological future, each believer (and not merely ~leader) can have a charismatic faith, that is, each believer can be expend to discover new revelations in his or her experience.

Paul's charismatic faith also is properly designed "eschatological" because the manifestations of God discovered by disbelievers are prefigurations of the manifestations of God at the end Of me (the Parousia). In other words, this charismatic faith is characterized hope' eschatological hope. As Paul expresses it in 1 Cor. 15:12-19, "faith is null and void" (au.trans.) if it does not allow for such a hope this is one of the criteria which permit Paul to distinguish between true and false charismatic faiths. The manifestations of God, which are discovered as revelatory by the believers, also have to be promises of the eschatological salvation, otherwise they cannot be true revelations. If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all men most tube pitied (1 Cor. 15:19).

In summary, Paul's faith, as system of convictions can be designated as charismatic and eschatological because it involves he convictions that the believers discover in their present:

1. Interventions of God which are revelations of heir revealed identity as chosen by God and as "in the right relationship with God," and which also establish for them a specific vocation defined, for

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instance, by the "gifts" received by the believers (cf. 1 Corinthians 12).

2. Revelations which are promises or types for future manifestations of God and especially for those at the Parousia.

Such a system of convictions is thus intrinsically dynamic, and involves a meta-system of convictions as its basis or framework. It is not a complete and final revelation. It is promise, and as such it points beyond itself toward other revelations, the eschatological revelations at the Parousia.

From the perspective of theological explanations, this faith can also be designated as eschatological, but for different reasons. To begin with, the conviction that God intervenes in the present experience of the believers is explained by Paul in terms of the unfolding of sacred history. The believers live in the last period of history, in the beginning of the eschatological period. This period has been inaugurated by Christ's death and resurrection through which the world was reconciled to God, and God can (and does) intervene in the affairs of humankind in the present, as the believers discover through faith. In this theological perspective, Paul's faith is eschatological because the present already belongs to the eschatological period which will culminate in the Parousia. Similarly, the conviction that the present interventions of God are promises, prefigurations, or even preliminary manifestations of what will be fully manifested at the Parousia is explained theologically by emphasizing the imminence of the Parousia. But as with any theological explanation, this one can be changed to take into account concrete or cultural situations. Thus, while in 1 Thessalonians Paul expected the Parousia to occur in such a near future that most of his readers and himself would be alive at that time, later (e.g., when writing 1 and 2 Corinthians), he no longer has such an expectation, although he still conceives of the Parousia as occurring in a relatively near future.

This eschatological charismatic faith also needs to be designated as topological. The present interventions of God and the revelations they involve are true and valid only insofar as they can be viewed as fulfillments of the types which are the experiences of former believers, of Christ and of biblical personages, and/or as fulfillments of former promises (the verbal promises and prophecies contained in Scripture, especially). The believers' faith is "null and void" if it does not bring them to

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see their experience as fulfillment of Christ's death and resurrection (cf. 1 Cor. 15:12-19).

In fact, for Paul, these types are the very conditions for the possibility of charismatic faith. In order to understand this statement, we must first note that Paul has the conviction that God is at work in the present experience of every human being. This conviction is repeatedly expressed in (or, more exactly, presupposed by) his theological statements about reconciliation and justification (in the sense of reconciliation). "In Christ God was reconciling the world to himself" (2 Cor. 5:19). "One man's act of righteousness leads to acquittal and life for all men" (Rom. 5:18). This is true even of the pagans who rejected God: "For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them.... Although they knew God they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him" (Rom. 1:19, 21). In the pagans' experience, there are revelations/manifestations of God. And, of course, this is also true of the Jews. The painful fact that they do not have faith (the charismatic faith) should not be interpreted to mean that God has rejected them. "By no means!" (Rom. 11:1). When reconciling the world to himself, God also reconciled the Jews to himself. But the Jews (or most of them) "were hardened." In sum, Paul has the conviction that God is at work and reveals himself in the experience of all human beings, including that of the Jews.

But the manifestations of God in the present of the believers are not in and of themselves sufficient to bring about faith. These manifestations of God are not such that they impose themselves upon all human beings so that the only possible response would be the amazed recognition that God is at work in their present. In other words, God's manifestations are "ambiguous" (we shall see below why this is so). The cross is indeed God's intervention (cf. 1 Cor. 15:3-4, pp. 224-26). It is an event which belongs to the experience of many people in Jerusalem at that time. But most of them did not see in this event God's intervention. The cross can be discovered as God's intervention in human affairs only with the help of Scripture, that is, with the help of the types and promises contained in Scripture and fulfilled by it. Similarly, without the help of Scripture, the appearances of Jesus after his death cannot be recognized as appearances of the resurrected Christ and thus as resulting from an intervention of God. We can add that the believers cannot recognize God's work in their experience without the help of these other types, which are expressed in the proclamation about Christ and the witness of Paul and

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other believers who precede them. The charismatic faith, which recognizes new revelatory manifestations of God, cannot exist as long as Scripture, the kerygma about Christ, and the testimony of earlier believers are not recognized as trustworthy types. Trust in the promises contained in former manifestations of God (the types) is a necessary part of Paul's charismatic faith.

Yet we can be more specific and say that it is trust or belief in Christ which is a necessary part of Paul's charismatic faith, for it is obvious that, among these types, Christ's death and resurrection have a preeminent place. In fact, it can be said that, for Paul, Christ is the normative type. Scripture, because of its association with the "dispensation of condemnation," is by itself unclear, tarnished, without splendor by comparison with "the splendor that surpasses it" (cf. 2 Cor. 3:7-11). Scripture and its types are veiled "to this day" for the Jews, but through Christ, and only through him, the veil which covers Scripture is taken away (cf. 2 Cor. 3:14-16). When this veil which hides the glory of God is removed, the believers can "behold the glory of the Lord," that is, perceive directly the manifestation of the Lord. Thus they "are being changed into his likeness," they become Christ-like (cf. 2 Cor. 3:18). We can therefore say that the types of Scripture become available for the believers as types only because they are first fulfilled in Christ. Similarly, Paul and earlier believers are types for later believers only insofar as they themselves are Christ-like, in his likeness. The validity of all the other types depends therefore upon their conformity with Christ, the normative type.

Thus, from this perspective, any manifestation of God is Christ-like. Consequently, the theological (sacred historical) expression of this conviction can say that before "taking the form of a servant" he was "in the form of God" (Phil. 2:6-7). Furthermore, what is said in Scripture about the Lord God can be viewed as applying to the Lord Christ. In other words, God's interventions in the biblical time are themselves Christlike. Similarly, God's intervention or the manifestation of God's Spirit after Christ's resurrection can also be said to be intervention of the resurrected Christ by following the logic of the sacred historical development. Since Christ is resurrected and brought back to life as the Lord, he intervenes in the believers' experience and will intervene at the end of time. These observations help us understand why Paul so easily attributes the same role to God, to his Spirit, and to Christ the Lord. This is the same phenomenon we have discussed several times.

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On the basis of Paul's system of convictions, it is possible to speak of any stage of the typological chain in terms of the others, to speak of a Christian of Jewish origin as if he were a Christian of pagan origin, of Abraham as if he were Christ, and so on. Thus, even though Christ plays a predominant and indeed a normative role in the typology, he remains a type, a promise pointing toward new interventions and revelations of God which are Christ-like. And thus the charismatic faith which discovers these new revelations needs to involve trust in the promises contained in Christ, in other words, belief or faith in Christ, in the sense of trust in the promises contained in Christ as type.

In his discussion of the situation of the Jews, Paul makes clear the conditions of the possibility of faith. We can now understand this statement in Romans:

But how are men to call upon him in whom they have not believed? And

how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how

are they to hear without a preacher? . . . So faith comes from what is heard,

and what is heard comes by the preaching of Christ. (Rom. 10:14, 17)

Faith, the charismatic faith which allows the believers to call upon the Lord, cannot exist as long as they do not believe in Christ, that is, trust that in him, and especially in his death and resurrection, God was at work and that these are promises that God fulfills in their experience. Without this trust in God's promises in Christ, the believers cannot discover what God (or Christ or the Spirit) is doing in the present. But in order to believe in Christ as type they must hear about Christ, and thus Christ must be preached.

Yet as we saw in several texts, Paul considers that the proclamation of his own experience and of that of other believers is just as necessary and effective for establishing the faith of his readers (cf. our discussion of 1 Thessalonians, Philippians, 1 Corinthians 15, and also that of Galatians). What then is the uniqueness of the type Jesus Christ? Before addressing this question we need to consider other aspects of Paul's System of convictions.

Our description of Paul's faith is still incomplete. One essential dimension is missing. As we have emphasized in Chapters 1 and 2, a system of convictions also involves a series of "negative convictions." So

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far our discussion has focused upon positive convictions: upon revelations, upon interventions of God, upon salvation, upon freedom, and so on. But in a system of convictions all these have negative counterparts: the absence of revelations (the hardening of the heart, the spirit of stupor, the not-seeing, the not-hearing: cf. Rom. 11:7-8); the interventions of evil powers, the wrath of God and destruction; slavery; and so on. We cannot pretend to understand Paul's system of convictions as long as we have not elucidated this "dark side" of his faith. For instance, we do not understand why it is still necessary for God to intervene in the present of the believers, after the reconciliation operated once and for all by Christ's death and resurrection. Consequently, we do not truly understand the nature of these interventions of God, because we do not know what they are achieving. Yet after having elucidated, at least partially, the positive side of Paul's system of convictions, it will be easier to study its negative dimensions. Indeed, we know that the negative convictions are the counterparts of positive convictions.

Our study of Galatians has already shown that the negative counterpart of"being in the right relationship with God" is "being under a curse," or "being slave" to Torah, idols, and/or the elemental spirits of the universe, in other words, "being in the right relationship with beings which by nature are not gods." From this starting point, and on the basis of what we know about the positive dimensions of Paul's system of convictions, we can formulate hypotheses concerning other aspects of its negative dimensions.

Since the believers are established in the right relationship with God through God's interventions, we can expect that the nonbelievers are under a curse or slaves because of interventions of a god-like negative power. At first glance, this hypothesis is strange, because it almost says that Paul held the conviction that there is an evil god (or evil gods), while he affirms that he makes his own the Jewish belief that "God is One," for instance in Gal. 3:20. But, as this text also shows, he had to struggle with this issue. His view could easily be (mis)understood as a claim that there are gods other than the true God. Thus we can expect to find that Paul expressed this same negative conviction in different ways, namely, as the negative interventions of God, as the manifestations of the "wrath of God," a concept that we encountered several times.

We also know that God's interventions in the believers' experience are comparable to God's interventions in Jesus' experience. God inter-

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vened to raise Christ from the dead. His death is clearly both a positive type (as in Gal. 2:20 and other passages, where Paul can say that he was crucified with Christ) and a negative type (as in Romans 4, where it is a hopeless situation). In this latter case, it means that before God's interventions the believers are in a death-like situation. As in Romans 4, this death-like situation is a hopeless situation out of which there is apparently no escape, as there is apparently no escape from death. There we noted that Paul speaks of death as a power comparable to other powers. Thus Christ's work at the end of time will be to destroy "every rule and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death" (1 Cor. 15:24-26). The technical terms "rule," "authority," and "power" clearly designate "enemies," which keep human beings under their power, as death also does. But then, according to the typological pattern, if the ultimate intervention of Christ (or God) at the Parousia consists in fully destroying these powers, it means that Christ's resurrection from the dead as prefiguration, or preliminary manifestation, of the Parousia is also the overcoming of death viewed as a power. Thus, the Christ-like interventions of God in the believers' experience are also the overcoming of powers which, from a human perspective, cannot be overcome. But what are these "powers" which are death-like and deadly? To say that the terms Paul uses to refer to them are the Jewish designations of demons or spirits (good or evil) does not truly answer this question. What are these demons or spirits? Or, to use the vocabulary we find in 1 Thessalonians, who is Satan or the Tempter? How do they manifest themselves in the experience of the believers?

One thing we can already say is that these powers constantly intervene in the believers' experience, that is, also after their conversion. Indeed, we have shown that God's interventions in the believers' experience are far from being limited to their conversion experience. To put it in another way, none of God's interventions in the believers' experience is the complete destruction of these evil powers. This will only take place at the Parousia. God's interventions are only punctual and partial overcomings of these powers in specific situations. From the perspective of the believers, this means that they are constantly in danger of being overcome by the evil powers, and thus need again and again to be delivered from them. There is always the possibility that they might have run in vain (cf. Phil. 3:11, where Paul speaks of his

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salvation as a mere possibility; he is still in the race toward that goal) and that Paul would have labored in vain (cf., e.g., 1 Thess. 3:5; Phil. 2:16). Persecutions as well as the killing of Jesus (cf. 1 Cor. 2:8) are manifestations of the evil powers. But so is being bewitched by a false gospel (Gal. 3:1). This is to say that these powers have both "concrete" and "spiritual" manifestations. Furthermore, these powers are clearly not manifested merely in the private spiritual experience of the individual person; they have a social dimension (persecutions, the separation of the Jews from the Gentiles, the separation of the slaves from their masters, the separation of the sexes, which are overcome through faith and thus through interventions of God; cf. Gal. 3:28) and even a cosmological dimension (the creation as a whole is in bondage; cf. Rom. 8:20-22). It is these evil powers which necessitate God's (or Christ's) continuing interventions.

The formulation of these hypotheses about the negative dimensions of Paul's system of convictions suggests that sin is somehow related to these evil powers. Therefore it is not surprising that sin is viewed by Paul as a power. The question is then, What kind of power is it? How is it related to these evil powers?

Such are the questions we will raise and the hypotheses we will test through our reading of Romans. Together with the positive dimensions of Paul's system of convictions that we have already tentatively elucidated, these questions and hypotheses will be the "model" (in the scientific sense of the term) which will guide our reading of Romans. Through this reading we shall verify this "model," complement it, and eventually modify it. Thus our reading of Romans will be devoted to the elucidation of the negative dimensions of Paul's charismatic, eschatological, and typological faith.

Paul's letter to the Romans is the most systematic presentation of his faith. But what kind of text is it? Is it a systematic doctrinal presentation of the Christian faith? In such a case, this letter--which could then be called an "epistle"--would be comparable to a doctrinal encyclical. It

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could be termed "Paul's testament," the mature statement of his faith. As such, this text would be quite different from the other letters, which were written in order to address the specific situations in which his readers were involved. If this text were a systematic doctrinal presentation, its historical reading would not need to take into consideration the specific situation in Rome. Indeed, it could be sent to any church. This epistle would then refer to, and thus should be understood in terms of, the general situation of the Pauline churches. It would be a statement made on the basis of Paul's overall experience as Apostle to the Gentiles and thus should be interpreted in this light. Therefore we must first consider the literary character of this text by asking, Why did Paul write it?

A first reason is given in Rom. 1:13 and 15:22-29. Paul plans to go to Rome and to visit the church in that city, as he has wanted to do for a long time (1:13). On the basis of Acts 20:3-6 and some indirect indications in Romans, scholars generally agree that Paul wrote this letter from Corinth around the year 57 (see Appendix: Chronologies of Paul). Indeed, he is ready to leave on a long journey which will first take him to Jerusalem and from there to Rome and Spain (15:24-29). As far as he is concerned, he has completed his missionary activity in Asia Minor and Greece. The churches he has established in these regions can continue the work by themselves, which means that the problems which developed in these churches (especially in Corinth; see Chapter 8) have been satisfactorily resolved. He is now free to go and proclaim the Gospel to countries in which it has not yet been proclaimed, and especially in Spain, which is the western end of the "inhabited world." On his way to this new missionary field he will stop in Rome. It is possible that he viewed the church in Rome as the base from which he would launch this new missionary activity.

Paul might have written this letter to the church in Rome in order to introduce himself and his teaching to that church which he had not founded, which did not know him, and which he did not know. This turning point in his ministry was the occasion for reflecting upon and presenting systematically the Gospel he preached in Asia Minor and Greece. If that were the case, Romans would be written without any reference to the situation in Rome. Then this text should be read as his "confession of faith" that he formulates on the basis of his preceding missionary activity and in light of the conflicts described in Galatians

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and 1 and 2 Corinthians. But this understanding of the letter to the Romans has to be rejected. This is not denying that Paul apparently thought his letter to the Romans could be useful for at least one other church, because of the comprehensive presentation of the Gospel which it involves. But it remains a letter written with specific addressees in mind.

Paul also might have written to the church of Rome because he thought that they had heard negative reports about him concerning his radical position in favor of Gentile Christianity and against Jewish Christianity, as well as about his tense relationship with Judaism. He alludes to such negative reports when he writes, "And why not do evil that good may come?--as some people slanderously charge us with saying" (Rom. 3:8). In that case, this text would be an apologetic letter demonstrating the well-balanced character of his proclamation, according to which the truth of the Gospel confronts both Judaism and paganism. Then Romans should be read and interpreted primarily in terms of Galatians and the situation described therein. We cannot deny that one of the goals of this letter is to make an apology for Paul's view of the Gospel; a part of this letter does aim at establishing the validity of Paul's teaching. But this is not merely in order that he and his teaching might be welcomed when he arrives at Rome. In fact, chapters 12-15 contain specific exhortations to his readers. The "apologetic" part of the letter (chaps. 1-11) prepares the way for these exhortations, which are the actual goal of the letter.

Therefore Paul could also have written because he had some knowledge of the situation in the Roman church and wanted to address specific problems of that community. But since he did not found that church, he proceeds with great caution, taking the time to present at length his view of the Gospel before formulating exhortations addressing the concrete situation of the church in Rome. This view, advocated by Ernst Kasemann and Willi Marxsen, among others, is from our perspective the correct one.

A full analysis of Romans aimed at elucidating the dialogic and warranting levels of this discourse could show in great detail how the argument unfolds so as to bring about the exhortations of Romans 12-15, but a few general observations will suffice to help us understand that this is indeed the purpose of the letter.

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In the first verses of the letter, which belong to the dialogic level, we find a long description of Paul's apostolate and a brief description of the addressees: "to all God's beloved in Rome, who are called to be saints" (Rom. 1:7a). In other words, they are elected, chosen by God, and their vocation is to be "saints," thus "holy," because of their close relationship (right relationship) with God. As Israel was a "people of priests," a holy people which is the intermediary between God and the nations, so they are. Beginning with a thanksgiving, Paul expresses his wish to preach the Gospel to the Romans (1:8-15). Then through a long and involved development (1:16--11:36), he establishes the warrants for his wish and the exhortations addressed to these saints in chapters 12-15. These exhortations, which generally speaking belong to the dialogic level, are introduced with the following words:

I appeal to you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world.... (Rom. 12:1-2a)

This is what is demanded of"saints": to be "priests" offering sacrifices, and in light of the Gospel offering themselves as sacrifice; and to be separated from the world. This is followed, first, by general exhortations (chaps. 12 and 13) and then by more specific exhortations (chaps. 14 and 15). In these chapters the goal of the discourse is expressed. The material in the main body of the letter needs to be understood in terms of these exhortations that it warrants.

In Romans 14 and 15, Paul expresses his concern for the relations among two groups: those that he calls "the strong" and those that he calls "the weak." What are these two groups? Paul knows enough about the situation in the Roman church to say that they are divided over the question of food (some eat meat, the others only vegetables; Rom. 14:2), and drink (some drink wine, others do not; 14:21), and over the question of a special day that some observe while the others esteem all days alike (14:5). Thus there are, on the one hand, the strong who think that "nothing is unclean in itself" (14:14) and feel free to eat meat, to drink wine, and to esteem all days alike and, on the other hand, the weak, who are rigorists and follow certain practices. They judge and despise each other. In Romans 15 Paul comes back to the distinction between the strong and the weak and goes on to speak of the circumcised, that is, the Jews, and the Gentiles (15:1, 8-9). From this and the preceding chapters, one can conclude that this dispute is between Gentile Chris-

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tians (the strong) and Jewish Christians (the weak). Paul does exhort the weak not to pass judgment on the strong (14:3, 10), yet it is clear that he addresses primarily the strong, exhorting them not to think of themselves as better than others (12:3), not to despise the weak (14:3, 10), but rather, out of love, to avoid "putting a stumbling block . . . in the way of a brother" (14:13). Here we simply note that these chapters seem to refer to a dispute between Gentile Christians and Jewish Christians in the church of Rome. Paul aims, through his letter, to exhort the Gentile Christians to "pursue what makes for peace and for mutual upbuilding" (14: 19).

This is confirmed by the small but significant information we have about the historical situation of the church in Rome." From the writings of Suetonius, a Roman historian, we know that the Emperor Claudius expelled the Jews from Rome because of disturbances caused by "Chrestos." This name certainly refers to Christ (the word "Chrestos," and "Christos" would have been pronounced almost exactly in the same way). And thus Claudius's edict was certainly the result of disturbances in the Jewish community caused by the development of the church. Acts 18:1-2 also mentions this edict in relation to Aquila and Priscilla, who were Jewish and had to depart from Rome. This means that, at first, the church in Rome included Jewish Christians. But these were expelled from Rome together with the rest of the Jews. Thus, only Gentile Christians remained in the church of Rome, which certainly went on growing.

At the time when Paul writes the letter, it seems that there is still a majority of Gentile Christians, but there are also Jewish Christians in the church at Rome. We know this because Claudius died in the year 54 and his successor Nero was favorably inclined toward the Jews. Thus the letter was written at the time when Jewish Christians were coming back to Rome. The church now had a majority of Gentile Christians and a sizable minority of returning Jewish Christians.

This would explain the conflict reflected in Romans 12-15. During the period following the expulsion of the Jews (and Jewish Christians), the remaining Gentile church developed along the lines of other Gentile churches. In other words, they followed a Gospel without the Law. As the Jewish Christians come back, they try to reinstitute the church as it was before their departure, a church following a Gospel with the Law. They "pass judgment" on the developments which took place in their absence. But the Gentile Christians consider them weak and despise them.

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Paul, through his letter, intervenes in this delicate situation. For him this is not a new problem. He was confronted with a similar situation in Jerusalem (at the apostolic assembly). But here, addressing a church made up of Jewish and Gentile Christians, he has to be cautious. His readers will assume that he is on the side of the Gentile Christians, so his exhortations are primarily directed to the Gentile Christians. They should be the peacemakers. He does not demand that the Jewish Christians live like the Gentile Christians, therefore the latter should avoid being a stumbling block for them. Yet this is not a mere tactic, but rather what is demanded by his system of convictions, as we shall see. He also addresses exhortations to the Jewish Christians (the weak).

The main body of the letter (which warrants these exhortations) attempts, among other things, to establish that Jews and Gentiles are believers of equal status. Thus, sometimes he addresses the Jewish Christians (e.g., Rom. 7:1: "for I am speaking to those who know the law"), and at other times he addresses the Gentile Christians (e.g., 11:13: "Now I am speaking to you Gentiles"). There was no difference between them before the coming of Christ. Yes, the Jews had an advantage as compared with the Gentiles, but all had revelations from God and all are sinners (1:18--3:20). Similarly, after the coming of Christ, there is no difference between them with respect to righteousness (3:21--4:25). The righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ is for all who believe, both the Jews and the Gentiles (3:22). "Is God the God of the Jews only? Is he not the God of the Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, since God is one" (3:29-30). Then in chapters S-8 he presents the results of justification by faith for all the believers. They are reconciled to God, freed from the condemnation (chap. 5). They have died to sin by being baptized into Christ's death (chap. 6). They are freed from the Law, in which sin found opportunity (chap. 7). They have a life in the Spirit (8:1-17) and they live in hope (8:13-39). Thus neither the Jews nor the Jewish Christians can make a special claim for themselves (3:9). All of them share this righteousness through faith. But at the same time Paul is careful to avoid giving the Gentile Christians an occasion for making a special claim for themselves, even though they are the strong. Romans 9-11 is in part devoted to making this point (see esp. 11:17-24, where Paul exhorts the Gentile Christians not to claim superiority over Israel by means of the parable of the olive tree).

In sum, Paul's text is indeed a letter addressing first of all the situation in the church of Rome. Because he has had very little contact with

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that church, he must develop at length the warranting level of his discourse, so that his exhortations might be accepted as valid. He therefore needs to provide a comprehensive explanation of his message which could be accepted by both Jewish and Gentile Christians, even if his exhortations will be aimed primarily at the latter. In fact, the discourse is organized in such a way as to have different effects upon the two groups he addresses.

Paul assumes that the Gentile Christians who form the majority of the community are in agreement with him concerning the understanding of the Gospel. The overall content of chapters 1-11 is therefore not new to them. It is basically a reminder of what they already believe, even if it includes new dimensions, so it can be used for establishing the legitimacy of the exhortations through which he rebukes them. Consequently, Paul can criticize quite strongly the attitude of the Gentile Christians who call themselves the strong by comparison with the Jewish Christians that they call the weak. For Paul, the Jewish Christians who have such a lack of freedom can indeed be viewed as "weak in faith," but they do have faith, and it is important not to make them stumble upon unimportant matters. The strong have to adopt the way of life of the weak. As Christ became a servant to the circumcised (the Jews) (15:8), they must become servants of the weak.

By contrast, Paul assumes that the Jewish Christians are suspicious of his teaching. They might well remain unconvinced by the arguments of Romans 1-11, and thus Paul cannot really use these developments as a basis for strongly exhorting and rebuking the Jewish Christians. He does not do so. Yet his rebuke of the Gentile Christians' attitude toward them is something they can view favorably. But if Paul's message is the basis upon which such "good" exhortations can be made, it means that this message and its view of the Gospel can itself be viewed as "good." Thus Paul's overall discourse would have the effect of convincing the Jewish Christians of the validity of this Gospel which gives equal status to the Gentile Christians (cf. 15:15-21).

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A Letter Sent Also to Ephesus?

Because this letter addresses equally Gentile Christians who can readily identify themselves to Paul, and Jewish Christians and others who might be suspicious of Paul's teaching, it can apply to different situations in other churches as well. Indeed, it is possible that Paul felt this letter

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could be useful elsewhere. It appears that he sent a copy of it together with a short letter of introduction and of greetings to Ephesus. Such is the conclusion reached by many scholars (following T. W. Manson).

There are two problems regarding Romans 16. First, in the various manuscripts the doxology (Rom. 16:25-27) is found at different places: at the end of chapter 14, at the end of chapter 15, and at the end of chapter 16. It is known that the heretic Marcion had, for doctrinal reasons, cut off Paul's letter at the end of chapter 14, which explains the presence of the doxology at the end of that chapter. But why is it found at the end of chapter 15 in one manuscript? Could it be that the letter originally ended here? The use of a concluding formula at the end of chapter 15 suggests that this could be the case. This is confirmed by the content of chapter 16, which contains greetings to twenty-six people. Does Paul know that many people in Rome? He mentions Aquila and Priscilla (16:3), who we know were in Ephesus when Paul wrote 1 Corinthians (1 Cor. 16:19); of course, they were from Rome and might have returned there. He also mentions Epacnetus, "who was the first convert [the first fruits] in Asia" (i.e., from the region of Ephesus; 16:5). Furthermore, the sharp warning against false teachers (16:17-20) is in a polemical style which he carefully avoids in the rest of the letter.

Thus it is possible that Paul also sent a copy of this letter to Ephesus together with a short letter, Romans 16, involving a commendation for Phoebe (who might have carried the letter), greetings to the members of the church of Ephesus that he knew so well for having spent a long period with them, as well as a warning addressing a specific situation at Ephesus.

Our second reading of Romans aims to elucidate the negative dimensions of Paul's system of convictions: his view of the wrath of God, God's judgment, death, evil powers, sin, and unbelief. For this purpose we will examine successively the role and place of evil in the sacred historical perspective of Paul's theological argument and in the perspective of Paul's typological system of convictions.

From what we know about the positive dimensions of Paul's system of convictions, we can expect to find that various manifestations of evil are comparable to each other. The manifestations of evil in the biblical time,

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in Jesus' experience, in the Judean churches' experience, in Paul's and other believers' experience, are typical of the present manifestations o evil in the believers' experience, which are themselves typical of the manifestations of evil at the end of time (the Parousia). According to the convictional pattern, what is essential is that these various manifestations are comparable and indeed homologable to each other. So Paul can speak of one specific manifestation of evil in terms of any one of the others, or even in terms of all the others. Such is the case, for instance, in Rom. 7:7-24, as Franz J. Leenhardt has pointed outfit.

In the perspective of the typological system of convictions, the sequence of these manifestations of evil is important insofar as it determines what/who is "type" and what/who is "imitator"; sequence also plays a significant role in the theological argument. From our discussion of the concept of reconciliation, we can expect that various manifestations of evil are expressed in the theological explanations in terms of the unfolding of sacred history. This distinction between the theological and convictional dimensions of Paul's discourse will help us understand what appear, at first, to be contradictory statements about evil.

A first cursory reading of Romans aimed at identifying what Paul says about evil in its various manifestations reveals two apparently contradictory kinds of affirmations. On the one hand, Paul emphasizes that human beings are responsible for evil, or at least for some of its manifestations. The pagans are responsible for being idolatrous and sinners, so "they are without excuse" (Rom. 1:20b). Similarly, those who pass judgment upon the pagans, the Jews, have no excuse themselves (2:1). The: Jews are responsible for breaking the Law (2:17-24), so God is not unjust when punishing both the Jews and the Gentiles (2:9; 3:5, 8). Yes, God does find fault in the Jews and is in the right when condemning them, even if this appears to be unjust (9:14, 19). In brief, humans are responsible for their idolatry and sin. Thus, they bring upon themselves this other evil which is the condemnation of God, his wrath, his destruction.

On the other hand, humans are under the power of evil. If the Jews do not believe, it is because they have hardened hearts, and this because God hardened their hearts (Rom. 11:7-8). That is why one could

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say that God is unjust when punishing them (9:14-24). God also gave the pagans up to sinful conduct (1:24, 26, 28). In other words, "all men, both Jews and Greeks, are under the power of sin" (3:9). They are "slaves of sin" (6:17). And this power of sin is such that there is no way to escape from it (7:7-24) without an intervention of God. Humans are under the power of evil, be it in the form of hardened hearts, of the power of sin, or of "tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword" (8:35) or of death (5:12-14). Even the creation is under this power of evil (8:20).

How can humans be at once under the power of evil and responsible for evil? We have to let ourselves be puzzled by this question which Paul himself raises (cf. Rom. 3:5; 9:14, 19). Furthermore, what is God's relationship to evil? We might be able to understand God's condemnation and punishment of sinners, although this seems to contradict statements describing God as the God of grace and of mercy. It is even more puzzling to find that God causes people to sin, as we can read in the passages mentioned above. We should not avoid this problem by saying that Paul could not have meant this and thus that these passages should be interpreted to mean that God tolerated sin. God "handed over" the pagans to sinful conduct even as the Jews "handed Jesus over" to Pilate (the same verb is used). And yet sin appears as a power independent from God (although God's Law is the occasion for sin).

These problems and apparent contradictions suggest that Paul's convictional logic is at work here. Elucidating how the various manifestations of evil are organized, according to both his theological/sacred historical way of thinking and his convictional pattern, will allow us to understand how Paul can make such statements without contradicting himself.

This letter is, for Paul, the occasion for reflecting upon the message he proclaims and for explaining it at length to a twofold audience made up of Jewish and Gentile Christians. Since it is not a passionate plea (as Galatians is), but rather a calm and carefully balanced argument, the warranting part of the letter is often presented in the form of theological explanations using the classical form of argumentation in Paul's time: the diatribe. In contrast with Galatians, in which the convictional logic often commands the development of the argument (with many breaks in the

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argumentative logic), here Paul's argument unfolds more smoothly. In other words, the convictional pattern more consistently plays its usual role of undergirding a (theo)logical argument, although in certain passages this convictional logic has a significant part.

This predominant place of the theological explanations is manifested by the fact that the argument is based upon reflections concerning the unfolding of sacred history. Before considering how evil is viewed by Paul in this context, we shall emphasize some aspects of Paul's theological presentation of positive convictions.

In Rom. 5:1-11, Christ is presented in terms of his place in the unfolding of sacred history, that is, as accomplishing the reconciliation of humankind to God. Christ is presented as accomplishing a redemption and even "an expiation by his blood." Thus Jesus' death is described as an expiatory sacrifice (3:24-25). For Paul, this is an unusual way of speaking about the cross. Nonetheless, such statements can easily be understood as a theological/sacred historical explanation of his convictions which emphasize the correlation of the believers' experience with Christ's death. In the same theological/sacred historical perspective, justification is understood as the result of this reconciliation, that is, of forgiveness. Justification is thus often presented in a legal terminology. For instance, Paul says that God "had passed over former sins" (3:25) and that Abraham's faith "was reckoned to him as righteousness" (4:3-8 using biblical texts with such a legal terminology), as is also the believers' faith (4:24). But once again this theological argumentation should not be opposed to the convictional view of Christ (as type fulfilled in the believers' experience) and of justification (as being in the right relationship with God because of the manifestation of God's power in the believers' experience). This theological presentation is, so to speak, establishing the logical possibility for the convictions which are also expressed in these texts. Therefore, justification through faith is, in the perspective of the unfolding of sacred history, a "reckoning as righteousness," that is the forgiveness of former sins, and faith is trusting in certain promises (faith thus has a content). But at the same time, as Ernst Kasemann has shown, faith is also used as an absolute, as referring to a relationship with God. Consequently, "justification through faith" is also "being in the right relationship with God through faith" and not merely being forgiven.

Similarly, from the perspective of the unfolding of sacred history,

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Paul's presentation of evil is not to be opposed to Paul's convictions about evil. It expresses in terms of chronological sequences and cause-and-effect relations what is perceived in the convictional system in terms of homologation and correlation of comparable manifestations of evil. Keeping these observations in mind, note what is, in Paul's view, the place and role of evil in the unfolding of sacred history. We can discern four steps in Paul s reasoning.

1. Paul places sin at the beginning of sacred history after the creation: "sin came into the world through one man" (Rom. 5:12), who is identified as Adam (5:14). Therefore, from the beginning all humans are sinners and under the condemnation. As a consequence of sin, death came into the world also at that time (5:12). Sin and death reigned before as well as after the giving of the Law to Moses (5:13-14), but before the Law sin was not counted (5:13), as in the case of Abraham (4:1-8). This is the time of faith.

2. What is the effect of the Law? On the positive side, the Israelites received "the sonship, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises" (Rom. 9:4). This election of Israel is irrevocable: "For the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable" (11:29). But the giving of the Law also has negative effects. The Law was for them a stumbling block (9:31-33), and thus "the law came in, to increase the trespass" (5:20). So that trespass might increase, the Law is necessary, because "where there is no law there is no transgression" (4:15) and thus "sin is not counted" (5:13). Without the Law there would be no need for a reconciliation of humankind to God. But because of the Jews' trespasses, salvation has come to the Gentiles (11:11). The Jews' trespasses constitute a necessary stage of sacred history demonstrating that "God has consigned all men to disobedience" (11:32). Not only the Gentiles but also the Jews need to be reconciled to God. Because of the Jews' disobedience, Jesus Christ could, through his death, accomplish the reconciliation of all human beings (be they Jews or Gentiles) to God (5: 18).

3. So that this reconciliation might be extended to the Gentiles, God had to make the Jews stumble. They had to be made into "vessels of wrath" (Rom. 9:19-23). In other words, in order that the election might be extended by God to the Gentiles, the Jews had to be temporarily rejected by God. They had to be "predestined" to fail, that is, they had to be made to fail (9:6-18). For this, God hardened their hearts (9:18;

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11:7-10), so that even though they hear (10:18) and have the promises (9:4), they cannot truly hear them and appropriate them (11.8). They have eyes, but do not see (11:8) the fulfillments of the promises. The promises are also theirs. They too have been reconciled to God. Indeed God is at work in their experience. They could have faith. But they do not hear, they do not see. They have been given a "spirit of stupor" and have been hardened. Blindly they pursue "the righteousness which is based on the law" and do "not succeed in fulfilling that law" (9:31).

4. Yet the Jews are not rejected permanently (Rom. 11:1-2). Because of their trespasses, which have shown that all humans are sinners, God has reconciled the world to himself, and thus the Gentiles can be reconciled to God and have faith. But as the Gentiles convert, they will "make Israel jealous" (11:11). Then Israel will also convert at the end of time, "for if their rejection means the reconciliation of the world what will their acceptance mean but life from the dead?" (11:15). This time of the general resurrection will also be the time of God's judgment and of the manifestation of God's wrath upon the wicked.

There will be wrath and fury. There will be tribulation and distress for every human being who does evil, the Jew first and also the Greek, but glory and honor and peace for every one who does good, the Jew first and also the Greek. (2:8-10)

Such are the main elements of Paul's view of the place and role of evil in the unfolding of sacred history. Through this theological explanation, Paul aims at demonstrating that Jews and Gentiles are in the same position ("under the power of sin") and that righteousness through faith without the Law is indeed valid, and this without denying the irrevocable election of Israel. But this theological explanation also expresses and presupposes Paul's convictions about the reality of evil in human experience.

From what we know of the positive side of Paul's system of convictions, we can infer that the various manifestations of evil in the different, stages of sacred history are in a typological relationship with each other as are also the various manifestations of God. A study of Paul's texts about evil will allow us to verify that this is indeed the case and to

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elucidate the features of evil which are typical, that is, what Paul views as the recurrent characteristics of the manifestations of evil which are the common lot of sinners of any period in sacred history.

Several passages of the letter to the Romans speak of evil without reference to the sacred historical perspective discussed above. They are like snapshots showing manifestations of evil in various situations. This is the case in Rom. 1:18-32, which presents the manifestations of evil in the pagans' experience.

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and wickedness of men who by their wickedness suppress the truth. (1:18)

To whom is God's wrath revealed? Obviously not to people who are ungodly and wicked. They do not believe in God, and thus they cannot perceive what happens to them as manifestation of the wrath of God. The manifestation of God's wrath against these people is revealed to those to whom is also revealed the righteousness of God (Rom. 1:17). In other words, there is a twofold revelation to the believers:

1. Through faith, the believers discover manifestations of the righteousness of God, manifestations of God's power for the salvation of the believers (Rom. 1:16). This revelation of God's righteousness is through faith (discovered and actualized through faith) and for faith (for those who have faith), as is expressed in 1:17a. This is the positive intervention of God in the believers' experience (involving other people) which is discovered and actualized in a life in the right relationship with God (1:17b).

2. Through faith, the believers also discover other manifestations of God in their experience, manifestations of the wrath of God. In their experience, they encounter people who are ungodly and wicked, that is, people who are in the wrong relationship with God. In these people they can perceive, through faith, the manifestation of the "wrath of God coming from heaven." This phrase is often used by Paul to describe the last judgment and destruction of evil people at the end of time (cf. Rom. 2:5, 7-9). Thus, according to his convictional pattern, Paul describes the negative interventions of God in the present of the believers, in terms of the negative interventions of God at the end of time. For Paul, these are

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equivalent, the one being the preliminary manifestation (or prefiguration) of the other. We can note with Kasemann" that "wrath" is the power of curse, that is, of condemnation which effectively brings destruction In the same way that the righteousness of God is actualized as power of salvation (establishing the believers in a constructive relationship with God) by means of faith, so the wrath of God is actualized as power of curse (establishing the ungodly in a destructive relationship with God) by means of the wickedness which "suppresses the truth."

In summary, beside the positive interventions of God, there are negative interventions of God. Both can be recognized through faith by the believers. Both are actualized by human beings. The positive interventions of God offer salvation (the right relationship with God), which is actualized if, through faith, these interventions are recognized for what they are. But the negative interventions of God offer curse and destruction, which are actualized if truth is suppressed, that is, if the interventions of God are not recognized for what they are, the manifestations of God, the God from heaven.

For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. Ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made. so they are without excuse.... (Rom. 1:19-20)

Human beings, whoever they may be, cannot use the excuse that God does not manifest himself to them. Indeed, "ever since the creation of the world," God has shown himself to them. Despite the vocabulary borrowed from Hellenistic philosophy and from Hellenistic Judaism, this passage should not be understood as embodying a natural theology. Paul speaks of the present experience of the believers and unbelievers in terms of the type "humankind after the creation and before other revelations," as he spoke of it in terms of the eschatological judgment in the preceding verse. So these verses express what is, for Paul, the way in which God reveals himself at any stage of the sacred history before the Parousia, when he will be seen face to face.

To begin with, God is not hidden in such a way that humans would have to seek him in a philosophical or religious quest which can either be successful or not, according to the quality of this human quest. What is knowable about God is manifest (or "plain"). Furthermore, God is not passive. He makes himself known. He shows himself. He intervenes to

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show himself to everybody (and not merely to the believers). In anybody's experience, God manifests himself.

What is the nature of this manifestation of God? It is not a face-to-face encounter with God, for his nature is "invisible." In other words, as we noted about the cross and the resurrection, a manifestation of God is not such that, when one is confronted with it, the only possible response is "This is God." For Paul, this kind of manifestation of God will take place only at the Parousia. A manifestation of God in the present needs to be apprehended by means of human intelligence. It must be "known," perceived, as is expressed in Rom. 1:20 (although the RSV does not express this clearly enough). In the present human experience, only certain aspects of God are knowable (1:19), namely, "his eternal power and deity" (1:20), God's divine power. This aspect of God's invisible nature is manifested in visible things. It is "clearly perceived" (Paul's play on the words visible/invisible is difficult to render in English). It is manifested in visible works. As is clear from the preceding mention that God actively shows himself, God manifests himself not merely in his creative act but "since the creation exists." He manifests himself in the creative act and in the creation which he sustains and in which he intervenes. In sum, God manifests himself in the world in such a way that any human being can clearly perceive and know him.

So they are without excuse; for although they knew God they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking and their senseless minds were darkened. (Rom. 1:20b-21)

Human beings know God. They can see his manifestations and they can interpret them correctly. They have the intellectual capacity to do so (as is indicated in the preceding verse), but they do not honor him as God should be honored. They do not give thanks to God, even though it is the only appropriate response to the discovery of God's interventions.

Why did they fail to recognize and/or acknowledge God's manifestation in the creation? Paul does not explain it here, but he will do so in Rom. 7:7-13 when speaking of the role of sin in the Jews' experience. At any rate, because they failed to give honor and thanks to God, "they were made futile or vain in their thinking and their senseless minds were darkened." As the two passive verbs indicate, this does not mean that these people themselves made their thinking futile and their senseless minds (or hearts) darkened. This is something which happened to

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them. Who or what made their thinking vain and darkened their minds? From the perspective of Paul's system of convictions, this is already a manifestation of God's wrath, which these people experience as a curse. God's interventions and revelations are a blessing for those who recognize them for what they are and who therefore give honor and thanks to God. But for those who do not recognize these interventions and revelations of God for what they are, they are a curse which traps them in a futile way of thinking and in a darkened heart.

This is true of all God's interventions and revelations and not merely of those in the creation. This is true of the cross. "For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God" (1 Cor. 1:18). For those who recognize the cross as God's intervention, and who give honor and thanks to God for it, it is a blessing. It is the manifestation of God's power, which is also manifested in the experience of the believers who, consequently, "are being saved." For those who do not recognize the cross as God's intervention, it is a curse, as Paul makes clear by quoting Isa. 29:14 and Ps. 33:10: "For it is written, 'I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the cleverness of the clever I will thwart'" (1 Cor. 1:19). God has made their wisdom foolish (1 Cor. 1:20). God's intervention in the cross, instead of being power of salvation, is a power which makes their thinking futile and darkens their minds. Thus their futile and darkened "wisdom" sees the cross as a folly, because according to their wisdom, "God" cannot manifest himself in such a way. Their wisdom has established for them an image of "God" (a perception of God which is, in fact, an idol) which is such that it is impossible for him to manifest himself in a cross. And thus they cannot see the cross as wisdom of God and power of God (cf. 1 Cor. 1:20-25). For them, the cross, instead of being a blessing, is a curse:

block to Jews and folly to Gentiles" (1 Cor. 1:23).

Similarly, God's Law, Torah--which is "holy and just and good" (Rom. 7: 12), revelation from God, promise of God, and thus power of salvation (by analogy with the cross)--is a stumbling block for those who do not have faith. Israel, "who pursued the righteousness which is based on law," failed to attain righteousness (the right relationship with God) "because they did not pursue it through faith" (9:31-32). The Jews failed to see in Torah the manifestation of the power of God. They failed to recognize it for what it is: the promises of new acts and revelations of God which would establish them in the right relationship with God.

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Consequently, Torah became for them a stumbling block: "They have stumbled over the stumbling stone, as it is written, 'Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone that will make men stumble, a rock that will make them fall; and he who believes in him will not be put to shame'" (Rom. 9:32-33, quoting Isa. 28:16; see also Isa. 8:14).

Everybody can know or see (or hear about) manifestations of God's power and deity in the creation, in Torah, or in the cross. Everybody has the opportunity to give honor and thanks to God. Those who do not do so are then made vain in their way of thinking. They are made foolish, senseless. Their minds are darkened. God hardens them. "God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes that should not see and ears that should not hear" (Rom. 11:8). And thus because of their senseless minds which they call wisdom (1 Cor. 1:20), they can no longer know God. In the case of the Jews, because they stumbled on Torah, not taking the opportunity to give honor and thanks to God for the promises contained in Torah, they are now unable "to see and hear" that God was at work in Jesus and is at work in their present.

The following verses describe in three parallel statements (Rom. 1:22-24; 1:25-27; 1:28-31) how this curse on the unbelievers takes effect in their lives.

Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man or birds or animals or reptiles. Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves. (Rom. 1:22-24)

In the case of the unbelievers who only benefitted from God's manifestations and revelations in the creation, the outcome of this curse is idolatry. God had manifested himself to them in the creation, that is, in "mortal man," in "birds," in "reptiles." But instead of perceiving manifestations of God in these, they see absolutes. They worship the creatures instead of the Creator, as is expressed in Rom. 1:25. Instead of worshiping the glory of the immortal God, whose power and deity was manifested in the creation, they worship idealized and glorified images of the creatures. But their very idolatry is also the manifestation of God's wrath. God enslaved them to their idolatry. They are made slaves of their ''selfish desires" (the term rendered by "lusts" in the above translation), which are not merely sexual desires but all kinds of selfish desires. And thus they dishonor their bodies. They corrupt the human body and

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the human relations which were supposed to be manifestations of God's power and deity.

In these verses, as well as in the following (Rom. 1:25-32), we find a list of vices. Paul's description of these vices reflects the traditional Jewish abhorrence of idolatry and is expressed with the help of Hellenistic categories. Here we simply note that in conclusion Paul emphasizes the responsibility of the pagans: "They know God's decree that those who do such things deserve to die" (1:32a). Indeed, they have all they need to know God and his will; they do not need Torah. As Paul puts it in 2:15: "They show that what the law requires is written on their hearts while their conscience also bears witness and their conflicting thoughts accuse or perhaps excuse them." For instance, the Hellenistic tradition itself recognizes these things as vices, and the pagans also correctly identify virtues. But in their idolatry "they not only do them [these vices] but approve those who practice them" (1:32b). They are sinners. And so those who have sinned without the Law will also perish without the Law when the wrath of God will be fully manifested at the end of time, although this wrath of God is already manifested in their present corruption.

The Jews without faith are in the same situation. They have sinned under the Law, and thus they will be judged by the Law and will suffer the destruction and fury of God's wrath at the end of time (Rom. 2:12 cf. also 2:8-9). According to Paul's system of convictions, their situation is homologable to that of the pagans. And thus we can expect that they also perverted what was given to them as the manifestation of God's power and deity, namely, the Law, and that they were given up by God to their selfish desires so as to corrupt and destruct themselves. Their conduct is also a manifestation of God's wrath. This is what Paul expresses in 2:1-24, which he introduces by these words: "Therefore you have no excuse, O man, whoever you are, . . . because you . . . are doing the very same things." The Jews will object to such a description of their life. They do not have such depraved behavior. And to Paul's accusations that they are stealing, committing adultery, robbing temples, and dishonoring God (cf. 2:17-24), the Jews could object: "You Paul, the former Pharisee, should know better. Of course, there are always evil people in a community. But as you know, many of us are 'as to the righteousness under the law blameless' [Phil. 3:6] as you were. And we are striving to sanctify the Name and to keep the Name of God

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from being blasphemed among the Gentiles because of us [cf. Rom. 2:24]. This is a defamation of the Jews."

But Paul is not concerned with providing an accurate description of the Jewish way of life. He is merely pointing out that, according to his system of convictions, the Jews' situation is equivalent to that of the pagans, whom they so readily judge and condemn in the very terms used in the preceding passage. Whatever might be the concrete expression of their sinfulness, they are just as sinful as the pagans are. Indeed, their sin is the same. This is what we found expressed in Galatians, where Paul identifies his own experience as a Jew with the Galatians' experience as pagans are enslaved to the idols that they have made out of the creatures which manifested God to them, so the Jews are enslaved to the Law given to them by God and out of which they made an absolute means of salvation by viewing it as the complete and final revelation (see above, Chapter 3).

This enslavement to the Law has the same effect upon the Jews' life that the enslavement to idolatry has on the pagans. The pagans follow the demands of their bodies--this part of the creation out of which they made an absolute--because they believe that in so doing they do good (and thus they approve those who do such things; Rom. 1:32). Similarly, the Jews follow the demands of the Law--this revelation that they received from God and out of which they made an absolute--because they believe that in so doing they do good. By seeking to fulfill the Law, by doing works of the Law in order to attain righteousness, they fail to attain righteousness. Why? Because they do not succeed in fulfilling the Law (9:31). And how could they? By the very fact that they seek to establish their own righteousness instead of submitting to God's righteousness (10:3), they are transgressing the Law, or better, transgressing its very essence. They are corrupting the Law. Furthermore, the pagans "know God's decree that those who do such things deserve to die" (1:32), as their own lists of vices and virtues show. Nevertheless, they do these evil things. Similarly, the Jews know what sin is. The Law showed them what it is (7:7). They know also that sin brings death (5:12). And yet they do these very things that the Law condemns.

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The Jews do have an advantage over the pagans: "The Jews are entrusted with the oracles of God" (Rom. 3:1-2). The pagans had only the revealed knowledge of God's decrees, concerning what is good and evil. By being given the Law, Torah, the Jews had not only a revealed knowledge of what is good and evil as expressed in the various laws, that is, a knowledge of the various sins as transgressions of these laws. They also had God's oracles, God's words, that is, his promises and verbal revelations. Among these is the revelation of the nature of sin. The pagans know God and know his decrees. They know that the way of life they follow because of their enslavement to idolatry is evil. Yet they do not know that the evil in which they are enslaved is a manifestation of God's wrath because they did not honor and give thanks to him. Furthermore, they do not know why they refused to give honor and thanks to God and why they became idolatrous. According to Paul, the Jews knew why. God's oracles reveal why people do not honor and give thanks to God. It is because of a power: the power of sin.

Yes, the pagans have no excuse. They know God and his decrees. Therefore they are under the wrath of God and will perish at the end of time. But the Jews will perish first (Rom. 2:9), because they have even less of an excuse since, in addition, they also knew the nature of sin (3:20). This additional revelation did not help them. They stumbled over it. They hear it. They know it. But they do not truly hear it. They have ears which do not hear.

In Rom. 7:7-25 Paul describes this situation of the Jews, which is also the situation of all sinners whatever their origin and the time in which they live. This passage first addresses the heart of the problem of evil, which is sin, and then moves on to describe the concrete experience of the sinners.

SIN AND ITS POWER (ROM. 7:7-13)

What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet, 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." But sin, finding opportunity in the commandment, wrought in me all kinds of covetousness. Apart from the law sin lies dead. I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin revived and I died; the very commandment which promised life proved to be death to me. For sin, finding opportunity in the commandment, deceived me and by it killed me. So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and just and good.

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Did that which is good, then, bring death to me? By no means! It was sin, working death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure. (Rom. 7:7-13)

In the context of a discussion about the Christians' freedom from the Law (Rom. 7:1-6), Paul had stated, "While we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death" (7:5). From this the reader could conclude that the Law is sin. Thus one of the purposes of this passage is to show that it is not sin, but revelation from God. We have already discussed how, for Paul, any revelation is both a potential blessing (for the believers) and a potential curse (for the unbelievers). Here he describes in greater detail why this is so.

To begin with, here the Law is described as the revelation of sin. Without the Law, one does not know sin, as Paul repeatedly affirms: "through the law comes knowledge of sin" (Rom. 3:20). Of course, the Law gives a knowledge of the transgressions of God's will, for "where there is no law there is no transgression" (4:15; cf. 5:13). Because of the Law (or, better, the laws), we can know our standing before God and be aware that we are sinners. But this is not what Paul means here. In fact, in these verses the Law conveys knowledge of sin in two ways:

First, "our sinful passions [are] aroused by the law" (Rom. 7:5). In other words, we "know" sin because we are sinners. It is the Law as curse which makes sinners out of us. We shall come back to this.

Second, the Law gives a knowledge of what sin is. The commandment "You shall not covet" is not given as an example (as would be the case if Paul had written, "for instance, I should not have known what it is to covet . . ."). This commandment is for Paul a summary of the whole Law. Paul follows a Jewish tradition which saw in this commandment the core of the Law.2' In other words, the Law reveals that sin is primarily "coveting' or "desire," as the Greek word can also be translated. Furthermore, by quoting only the first words of this commandment, Paul makes it clear that this coveting is most general. It is the selfish desire to which the pagans were themselves enslaved (Rom. 1:24). Indeed, all the transgressions of the Law can be viewed as having their root in such a selfish desire. Any transgression is wanting and pursuing something for oneself rather than serving God. This selfish desire can take crude forms, such as stealing (taking for oneself what is not one's

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own), committing adultery (taking for oneself the spouse of someone else), or not honoring one's parents (by keeping things for oneself). But it can take more subtle forms. Seeking to establish one's own righteousness rather than submitting to God's righteousness (10:3) is a form of coveting. Serving God for oneself is also a form of coveting. It is sin. It is idolatry, as Paul suggested in Galatians. Any kind of idolatry has its roots in coveting.

Here and in the following verses Paul expresses the dramatic and tragic effect and power of sin upon any human being by speaking in the first person. Sin is not merely a problem for those infamous pagans about whom he spoke in Romans 1, or for those hardened Jews who reject the good news of Jesus Christ. It is also a problem for him, as well as for any human being. Sin as selfish desire is the source of all idolatries, including the idolatries which involve making idols out of the true God and out of Christ (see below, Chapter 8). In other words, it is because of sin that we view our systems of convictions as absolute and that they have power over us as self-evident truths, instead of viewing them as provisional views of life and of the world constantly pointing beyond themselves, as Paul's faith demands. Indeed, this view of sin-- together with the complementary conviction about God's activity in the believers' experience--is the basis upon which Paul's entire meta-system of convictions stands.

SIN AS SELF-ASSERTING DESIRE

We need to circumscribe Paul's use of the term sin/desire. First, it should not be limited to sexual desire. Paul refers to "desire" in the most general sense. It can take the forms of "all kinds of covetousness" (or desire) (Rom. 7:8). Thus sexual desire is only one form of sin/desire.

Second, for Paul, sin/desire is closely associated with death and life. "Sin revived and I died" (Rom. 7:9). The Law which reveals sin/desire is supposed to bring life: "The very commandment which promised life proved to be death to me" (7:10). Thus sin/desire tricks me into pursuing death instead of pursuing life (cf. 7:11). This implies that sin/desire deceived me into thinking that, by following it, I should have life although it was leading me to death.

Third, Paul notes that sin is "finding opportunity in the commandment" (Rom. 7:11). In other words, sin existed before the Law, as Paul says explicitly in 5:13, "Sin indeed was in the world before the law was

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given"--in the world since the beginning of humankind. Indeed, sin/desire is a characteristic of humankind. It pervades humankind: "All have sinned" (3:23). Sin/desire is a part of the human condition.

Thus, for Paul, sin/desire, which is related to idolatry, appears to be an integral part of the human condition. As such it is closely related to two other characteristics of the human condition: life and death. This suggests that Paul's convictions about sin/desire are, together with convictions about life and death, a part of the fundamental cluster of convictions which characterizes his faith. We know that Paul's cluster of fundamental convictions also includes convictions about the right relationship with God, that is, true faith which is opposed to idolatry (i.e., false faith). Before dealing with any specific manifestation of sin/desire, we must therefore raise a question: for Paul, how is sin/desire related to life, death, true faith, and idolatry?

There are a limited number of ways in which these five convictions can be interrelated. We already know that true faith and idolatry are opposed as life and death also are. It appears, therefore, that sin/desire brings about idolatry, which in turn brings about death (or destruction; Rom. 2:12). In contrast, it is freedom from idolatry which brings about true faith (the right relationship with God) and life (true life, honor, glory; 2:10). Yet it remains for us to understand what this means. How does sin/desire bring about idolatry?

It might be useful to describe this process with the help of concepts borrowed from a few contemporary thinkers who, like Paul, closely interrelate sin/desire, idolatry (false faith), and death. Of course, their vocabulary is different from Paul's; for instance, they do not speak about sin but merely about desire. In the following comments, I intend to borrow from these thinkers some concepts which will allow us to construct a kind of philosophical parable.

When reflecting on the characteristics of the human condition, social scientists often compare and contrast human beings and animals. The instincts of animals are sometimes seen as the major difference between humans and animals, because humans have little or no instinctive behavior.- In effect, instincts have the same function for the animals as a system of convictions has for human beings.

1. Instincts have power over the animals.

2. Instincts define for animals their "world," the relations that they must have with the world. Thus instincts dictate the habitat, the eco-

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logical milieu, in which a given species must live and outside of which it would become extinct. For example, a certain species of wasps cannot reproduce itself without a certain species of caterpillars which they paralyze and in which they lay their eggs. Without such an instinct this wasp species would. not survive, but it also could not survive in a world where there are no such caterpillars.

3. Instincts define for the animals their "identity" and the "purpose of their lives." There is no quest for identity and no real freedom for these animals. From birth a bird is a bird and has in its body complex instincts which allow it to migrate and to build a nest at the proper season. This is not to say that they do not learn anything, but what they learn is how to implement their instincts in specific situations. They can also lose their instincts, but in the process they lose their "identity"--for instance, when they are domesticated and become dependent upon people for their survival--for these instincts which determine the animals' identities, their destinies, their fates, are also what allow them to survive.

By contrast, human beings are born with almost no instincts and therefore without a predetermined identity. Therefore they have fantastic freedom. They can choose whom they shall be. Their society gives them a first identity, but they can choose to transform this society or to have a life different from the one imposed upon them by their society. Collectively they construct "semantic universes," and in this way they establish what is a good world and a good life. As individuals they can modify this semantic universe and "reconstruct" it to establish their own individual identities and thus the purposes of their lives.

Even though this view of the human condition does not include any thought about the divine, it is consistent with Paul's own view. As we saw, Paul presupposes that human beings are fundamentally free to choose their identity. Humans are able to view themselves in relationship with God or to view themselves in other ways, as the pagans chose to do. God does not impose upon them an identity, a destiny, a fate. But the identity they choose becomes their fate. For instance, they aye enslaved to their idolatry. This is where desire intervenes.

Human beings are free to establish their own identity and their own semantic universe, but there are limitations to their freedom. People cannot fly like birds. They have to use aircraft. Sigmund Freud called this limitation the reality principle. People have to accept certain limitations, but within the framework of these limitations they can follow their

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own "drives," their own desire to be what they want to be. What is this drive or desire? Freud said it is the pleasure principle. People choose what will give them the most "pleasure," in the broadest sense of the term. As far as possible I will strive to be in a warm and dry place rather than in the cold and the rain. It is clear that this drive or desire, led by the pleasure principle, is not what Paul views as sin, as evil desire.

Herbert Marcuse and Norman O. Brown appropriated Freud's insight and developed it further. Human beings follow the pleasure principle, but there is another important drive which explains people's behavior. Marcuse calls it the performance principle, a concept which could be related to Paul's concept of the "works of the law," the drive or desire to do good works. Brown describes it as a drive to do death-defying works, a concept we could relate to fulfilling the Law because the Law "promised life" (Rom. 7:10). Although in a different vocabulary, the philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre describes the same drive when, in the context of his discussion of "bad faith," he speaks of a drive to become a being as things are.24

For each of these authors this drive, this basic desire, has its origin in human freedom and insecurity. Humans cannot live in insecurity. They cannot be without an identity. They cannot stand the idea of not-being (nothingness), and therefore death is a constant source of anxiety. Humans want to live, to survive like the stones and the mountains which appear to be eternal. For this purpose humans struggle to overcome this insecurity, to find an identity, to make out of themselves something they feel will be worthwhile. For this reason, both collectively and individually, they "perform" all kinds of things which will give value to their lives. In this way they overcome the fear of death. They will survive in their works. On their tombstone will be written what they were, indeed, what they are: a hero who died for his country; a woman who dedicated herself to the betterment of society; a great philosopher; and so on.

This fundamental self-asserting desire, this performing principle, this drive to do death-defying works and to be "something" leads humans to create idols and absolute systems of convictions. Sartre illustrates this subtle process by taking the example of love. Our parable of the lovers and more precisely its very beginning--a man and a woman in love--has already described the result of this process. Their love is an absolute system of convictions, an idolatry. What we now need to understand is

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how they constructed this absolute system of convictions, how they became idolatrous. In other words, how did they fall in love? In brief, it is because of sin, that is, because of desire (coveting), or again because of the performance principle.

We are discussing the courting process. The man charms the woman and the woman charms the man. Let us take the case of the man, with the understanding that the same things could be said about the woman. Why does he charm the woman? Why does he do everything to cast a spell on her? Is it because of his sexual drive (or desire)? This might play a role, but it is not the actual reason. There are ways of satisfying sexual drive without falling in love. In fact, he is charming the woman in order to satisfy his performance principle. He wants somebody--in this instance, the woman--who will recognize some kind of value in him. He wants somebody he will be able to trust, somebody who will always recognize value in him, in the better as well as in the worst of circumstances. He wants her to see in him a hero when he succeeds and a martyr when he fails. He wants somebody who will always be on his side, whatever may happen, somebody who will constantly affirm and confirm his worthiness, somebody who will always understand him. For this purpose he charms the woman. He casts a spell on her in subtle ways. He manipulates her in such a way that she owes so much to him that she cannot but play her role. In other words, she will now satisfy his performance principle, his self-asserting desire, by constantly confirming his identity and the value of his life.

Of course, the woman charms the man in the same ways and for the same reasons. They allow themselves to be manipulated by each other and accept the role of asserting the value of each other's identity, because in this way they make themselves indispensable to the other, who therefore cannot but assert the value of their own identity. Thus they establish between them a network of relations which will govern their mutual assertion. In other words, they establish their love as a system of convictions which establishes their identities.

But consider the result of this process. The man loves the woman and asserts the value of her identity and of her life: she is a unique, exceptional person. The woman does the same things for the man. They are no longer affirming the value of their own life. There is no longer a need for self-assertion. The man is asserting the value of the life of the woman. Now she is what she desired to be. This value of her life is an objective

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reality, since it is no longer she who claims it but the man who recognizes it and alarms it. And the same is true for the man when the value of his life is affirmed by the woman. His life has value. He is a "good man" or a "great man," whatever the appearances and the circumstances. This is objective. He is a "good man" as the stones are stones. The performance principle, the self-asserting desire, fades into the background. He can and must deny this self-asserting desire and the performance principle which led to the establishment of their love as an absolute system of convictions. Acknowledging the origin of their love in this mutual manipulation would be acknowledging that his identity and its value are nothing but his self-assertion and therefore that he has no actual reality. Overt manipulation (i.e., charming) is no longer necessary. Expressing their love to each other (i.e., asserting that the other is a very special person) is enough of a manipulation to force the partner to remain in his or her role of asserting the value of the other's identity. Not remaining in this role would be running the risk of losing one's identity as an objective reality. Thus love as system of convictions is self-reinforcing.

Then we find this apparent paradox. The lovers can fully reveal themselves to each other. They do not need to hide anything from each other. They can be confident that even their weaknesses will be viewed positively by their partner. Loving is allowing oneself to be fully known. Love is not blushing when showing oneself to the other. Even one's self-asserting desire is unveiled and thus can be seen. For instance, the man will speak to the woman of his ambitions. But because of love this self-asserting desire is not seen for what it is. Thus love, which is by definition unselfish, has become the ally of selfish desire. The woman interprets the manifestation of self-asserting desire in the man's life as a noble, altruistic desire and asserts it in this way to the man who himself sees it as an altruistic desire, even though he "knows" that it is a selfasserting desire. This is what Sartre calls "bad faith." I know that I am not this person described by the other, but I nevertheless believe the other whom I have manipulated so that he/she will send me this image of myself. I need to be somebody, something. This is what Paul expresses by such statements as "they became futile in their thinking and their senseless minds were darkened" (Rom. 1:21); they "were hardened" (11:7); they have "a spirit of stupor, eyes that should not see and ears that should not hear" (11:8).

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What should we say? That love is self-asserting desire and manipulation? By no means! Yet if it had not been for love I would not have known self-asserting desire. Indeed, I would not have known desire if love had not said, "Love does not insist on its own right" (cf. 1 Cor. 13:5). But self-asserting desire, finding opportunity in love, wrought in me all kinds of selfishness (cf. Rom. 7:7-8). Love multiplied the manifestations of self-asserting desire (cf. 5:20) by making believe that they are not selfish because "love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things" (1 Cor. 13:7).

This is the story of any idolatry, according to Paul. It involves three steps.

1. In our quest for identity, in our craving for identity, for meaning and purpose in our lives, for being something which has an objective reality, through our self-asserting desire we take hold of something which is good and/or has a real existence. This is to say that we take hold of something which is self-evidently real and good, that is, of a revelation: God's revelatory manifestations in the creation (Rom. 1:18-32); God's revelation in Torah (7:7-12); love as fruit of the Spirit; Christ as manifestation of God (cf. 1 and 2 Corinthians); the political authorities which "have been instituted by God" (Rom. 13:1); and so on. Each of them is "holy and just and good" (Rom. 7:12). Each of them reveals our true condition: that we are creatures whose meaning and purpose can be established only in relationship to our Creator; that we are people constantly desiring identity and whose identity can be established only by an election from God, who chooses us as his people; that we are people who cannot but be in relationship with other people because in them God manifests himself and thus they are better than ourselves (Phil. 2:3); that we are people who cannot have a true identity if it were not for Christ-like manifestations of God in our experience; that we are people who cannot live without order provided by political and cultural institutions, because without them we would not have any guideline for discerning useful from harmful conduct.

2. Our holding on to something which is good and/or which has a real existence demonstrates that "what can be known about God is plain to [us], because God has shown it to [us]" (Rom. 1:19). Furthermore, we know about our human condition because we know God's decree (1:32) and the nature of sin (7:7), and thus we "know that nothing good dwells in [us], that is, in [our] flesh" (7:18).

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3. But our self-asserting desire (our performance principle) leads us to absolutize our relationship to one or the other of God's manifestations. In this way we will have an identity, an objective, permanent identity. It does not matter what this identity is. What we dread is not having an identity. If our identity, our fate, is to be a slave to the "weak and beggarly elemental spirits" of the cosmos (Gal. 4:9), this satisfies our self-asserting desire. We are something. This is what is essential for us. It does not matter if this something is a cog in a machine-like universe, a slob whose fate is to wiggle in the mud, a prostitute subjected to the most abject treatment (in sacred prostitution possibly alluded to in Rom. 1:24, or in secular prostitution as discussed by Sartre) or a member of the holy Chosen People, which is "little less than God" and whom God "crowns with glory and honor" (Ps. 8:5).

In order to absolutize our relationship to one of God's manifestations, we need to transform it so that it might be a fixed mirror which always gives us the same image of ourselves. We need to manipulate this manifestation of God, to charm it, to fossilize it. The lovers of our parable make "idols" out of each other, that is, they reduce each other to fixed images with immutable qualities and roles. The pagans make out of this or that part of the creation an idealized and fixed image: a golden calf (to which Paul alludes in Rom. 1:23 by using the vocabulary of Ps. 106:20); stone or wood "images resembling mortal man or birds or animals or reptiles" (1:23). The Jews make out of the Law (i.e., out of Torah, as promises of God) the complete and final revelation. The Christians make out of Christ an absolute spiritual reality (which, as we shall see, some of the Corinthians did). Certain people make out of the state or of the Roman emperor, a god. And so on.

Once they are transformed into idols, these manifestations of God satisfy our self-asserting desire. They establish for us a permanent, objective identity. We no longer have to fear "nothingness." We no longer have to be anxious about death. In other words, our idols promise life to us. Such is the case for the Jews and their idol, Torah. They view Torah as promising life to them (see above, Chapter 3). Paul writes: "The very commandment which promised life" (Rom. 7:10). But despite our "bad faith," according to which we profess to believe this, we know and should be aware (although we are not aware of it because of our "bad faith") that this is not in fact true, since it is we who constructed this idol. This is nothing else than a death-defying attitude.

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What is the result of this attitude? Yes, we have an objective, permanent identity. We have made it. We are lovers in love. We are forever the Chosen People. We are attuned to the universe (the cosmos) and participate in its eternity. We are spiritual beings saved from this world (I allude, once more, to the heretics in Corinth). We are a celebrity. We are rich. We are really something. But this also means that we are trapped in a role. We are condemned to play our role. When you are a celebrity, you cannot but behave accordingly. When you are a lover, you cannot but behave accordingly. We are "something" as the stones are. We are no longer truly alive. We are living dead. We are in hell where everything is fixed for all eternity. We are under the wrath of God. We have lost what makes us alive: our freedom. We are fossilized as much as our idols are.

We are nothing else than this something we desired to be. We are this something that our idols tell us we are. We are enslaved, bewitched, under the power of a curse. We are no longer truly persons. We have lost any authentic existence. We are "as good as dead."

Paul, speaking of the Jews and the Law (as well as of human beings under the power of any kind of idols), writes: "I was once alive apart from the law"--that is, as long as I did not "appropriate" the Law--"but when the commandment came, sin revived and I died" (Rom. 7:9). Taking advantage of this revelation of God, desire, self-asserting desire, which was dormant, became alive and active. And I died.

"The very commandment which promised life"--that is, which truly promised life as revelation of God and which deceitfully promised life as idol--"proved to be death to me" (Rom. 7:10). "For sin [desire], finding opportunity in the commandment, deceived me"--by causing me to see in it an absolute, the complete and final revelation--"and by it killed me (7: 11).

Despite my "bad faith" brought about by sin (self-asserting desire), I know that the Law is truly revelation from God. Paul can then affirm that this proves what is evil is not the Law itself but sin and what sin has made out of the Law: "So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and just and good" (7:12). Therefore it is not the- Law which brought death to me. "It was sin, working death in me through what is good" (7:13). In this way, since there is no doubt that the Law is good and from God, one can clearly see what the nature of sin is and what its role in human experience is. The Law magnifies sin and thus makes it clearly apparent (7:13).

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LIFE UNDER SIN (ROM. 7:14-24)

Paul describes the life under sin as the life according to the flesh (7:14). This is a life governed by the idol which we have made for ourselves and which enslaves us. Paul is not describing the common experience of interior ethical conflict, according to which, while our conscience tells us that we should not do something, we nevertheless go and do it. These are minor struggles which occur when we are caught between conflicting systems of convictions. But in Romans 7 Paul speaks about the situation of people who are totally committed to a system of convictions, in this case the Jewish system of convictions viewed as complete and final revelation.

"I do not understand my own actions" (Rom. 7:15a) or, more literally, "I do not know what I am doing." I "know that the law is spiritual" (7:14). "I agree that the law is good" (7:16). "I delight in the law of God, in my inmost self" (7:22). I know that it is the Law of God, revelation from God. And I want to serve God. Indeed, I strive to serve God. But by doing so I serve sin (my self-asserting desire), and thus my actions are against God. "I do not do what I want" (serving God), "but I do the very thing I hate" (acting against God and his will) (7:15). In fact, I practice the idolatry that I abhor (cf. 2:1).

So I am enslaved to sin. "It is no longer I that do it, but sin which dwells within me" (Rom. 7:17, 20, 23). "I can will what is right, but I cannot do it" (7:18; cf. 7:19). As soon as I undertake to do the good that I want, I end up doing evil.

This becomes clear when we put these comments in the context of what Paul says about the Jews. The more the Jews strive to do good works, that is, the more the Jews strive to "fulfill" the Law in order to sanctify God's Name, to be a faithful people, the less they "fulfill" the Law (9:31). I purposely used the phrase "fulfill the Law" twice but with different meanings, in the same way Paul does. In the context of Judaism as a system of convictions which sees Torah as the complete and final revelation, fulfilling the Law means carrying out the laws. It means striving to be the Chosen People, and to carry out one's vocation of sanctifying the Name. The Jews are aware that they do not totally fulfill the Law, that they transgress the laws and that as a result "the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles" instead of being sanctified (Rom. 2:24; cf. 2:17-29). But this is a "minor" problem. In Torah, as perceived in Judaism, there are means of atonement if they repent and thus if they commit themselves to striving even harder to fulfill the Law.

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From Paul's perspective, however, the more they strive to fulfill the laws, the more they make Torah the complete and final revelation, the idol Torah. The more they do good, the more impossible it becomes to see in Torah the promises of new interventions and revelations of God. The more they strive to sanctify the Name of God, the less he is sanctified, that is, the less he can be recognized and thus honored and given thanks in his interventions in the present. The more they do works of the Law and the more they are striving to be in the right relationship with God, the less they are in the right relationship with God, for fulfilling Torah, from the Gospel perspective, is discovering in one's experience the fulfillment of the promises contained in Torah, and giving thanks and honoring God as revealed in these fulfillments. The true fulfillment of Torah is through faith and not through works.

When Paul attacks the Jews for seeking to establish their own righteousness, he does not want to say that they are consciously selfish, that they have selfish or greedy motives. No. They truly want to serve God. "I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God" (Rom. 10:2). But they are under the power of sin, which made them transform Torah into the complete and final revelation and thus darkened and hardened their hearts, eyes,