Revelation Enriquez Velunta, "Ek Pisteos Es Pistin and the Filipinos' Sense of Indebtedness" in Kent Richards, ed., Seminar Papers of the Society of Biblical Literature, 1998 (Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1998), pp.33-59.

EX PISTEOS ES PISTIN AND THE FILIPINOS'

SENSE OF INDEBTEDNESS (UTANG NA LOOB)

By

Revelation Enriquez Velunta

In Memory of Her: A Contextual Translation of Romans 1:16-17

16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel;1 it is the power of God to save2 everyone believing3, to the Jew first and to the non-Jew.4 17 For in it the solidarity5 of God is revealed6 from faith to faith;7 as it is written, "the just by faith8 will9 live."10 (modified NRSV).

Romans 1:16-17 were my late Nanay's (mother's) favorite Bible verses. She grew up in a predominantly Roman Catholic community where protes11 children were discriminated against and were not allowed to attend religion classes in public schools (of course, the reverse was equally true in predominantly Protestant communities). Lola (grandmother) was United Methodist. Lolo (grandfather) was a nominal Catholic.12 Their children, Nanay being the eldest, chose to go where Lola went to church. This did not make Lolo very happy and he poured all his frustrations on the children, especially on Nanay.

But Nanay stood her ground, not "ashamed" of the gospel that she lived by. She eventually won Lolo over, though not with words but with deeds. He became a Methodist. When Nanay decided, against Lolo's wishes, to go to seminary instead of finishing her business program, the verses from Romans, again, gave her support. Protestant pastors, then and now, have always lived near the poverty line. Nanay disappointed many people who had high hopes for her when she went to seminary. She disappointed even more when she married a classmate, another future pastor. Their marriage literally "lived by faith" until her death at 49 in 1984.

It was Nanay who taught us, her three children, about utang na loob13 as a legitimate translation of faith. She saw the Christian life as a life lived in a state of perpetual indebtedness, that is, also a state of perpetual gratitude.14 To a lot of people, many of her life choices could have been interpreted as walang utang na loob (having no sense of indebtedness), walang hiya (shameless), or makapal ang mukha (thick-faced). She was the eldest in a brood of six.15 Philippine society expected her to help with the schooling of her younger siblings. Society expected her to help her parents in their old age. Society expected bright children to pursue medicine or business so that she might offer her family a taste of the good life, and more importantly, her future success would bring honor to the family name. Society expected her to obey her parents wishes.16 And society expected her to be ashamed of what she eventually did. But she was not. What she did instead was offer her life to her siblings, her own family, her parishioners, the people around her.17 And, instead of being ashamed, she was really proud of what she did.

Her life was lived as an offering of thanksgiving to God because this was the only way she could ever "repay" God for everything she "owed" God, for everything God has done for her, for God's kagandahang loob.18 Thus she lived not trying to cancel her debt to God, which, of course, she could never have done. What she did was try to "repay" God by "owing" people love.19 Her sense of "utang na loob" was not reciprocal, in the strictest sense of the word but channeled or funneled. The only way she could ever repay her parents for what they did for her was to be a good parent herself. And she was. The only way I could ever repay her for everything she did for me is to be a good parent to my sons, Lukas and Ian. The only way Nanay could ever repay God for what God did for her was to take good care of God's children. And she did.

The relevant teaching of the text for me-as read through my mother's legacy-is that Paul's concept of faith can be translated in Filipino as utang na loob (as compared to the widely used pananampalataya which roughly means risk-taking or taking a gamble). "Faith-ing" as a dynamic response of gratitude to God's kagandahang-loob (mercies, justice, grace) liberates humanity from the clutches of sin and death. Also, God's kagandahang loob is revealed--the divine passive--by faith to faith, from utang na loob to utang na loob, by one indebted and thankful generation to the next. It is through people who live their lives as debts of gratitude that God's liberating acts are revealed. This is equally true of the counterpoint to God's justice, God's wrath is revealed by the lives of people who do not have any sense of gratitude or indebtedness (walang utang na loob), by one ungrateful generation to the next.

A Critical New Testament Study that Brings to Critical Understanding

a Pro Me Interpretation

Does this traditionally "unacademic" reading--Nanay's appropriation of a two-millenium-year-old text through the lens of a Filipino value system--qualify as a legitimate and valid interpretation? I have always considered her interpretation as a devotional reading--what others might call a pro me interpretation--which characterized the daily Bible-reading of many Filipino evangelicals--both lay and clergy. Believers come to the text (which many consider as a "direct line" from the Almighty) and try to discover for themselves God's challenge/message/teaching for them for this particular moment in their lives. The same is true about worship. People come to church expecting to receive God's distinct message for today either from the music, the reading, the sermon or the benediction. For many, the blessing at the end of the service is the most important part because it means being assured of God's protection for the coming work-week.

Having been trained in historical-critical discourse, like most graduates of Union Theological Seminary since its founding in 1907, I looked at these interpretations as interested and subjective readings into the text, pure eisegesis! I have always tried to discover what the text meant in the most neutral and objective way I could possible can. For a long time, I've engaged the text through foreign lenses, never even bothering to see if my own eyes could see without those foreign-made specs.20

Traditional historical-critical work has been "from text to text," a process of objectively dissecting the text to arrive at a universal truth. This model is a Euro-American/Androcentric construct whose aftereffects are still felt in most of the Two-Thirds World where Bible studies are still held in order to search for the one, more often than not, individualistic, status-quo-maintaining, true interpretation.21 But interpretation, by definition, is always perspectival and particular. We know that there is no disinterested reading. Whether we admit it or not, any critical study starts and ends with interested interpretation.22 Whether we admit it or not, any critical reading starts and ends with pro me/pro nobis interpretations. Thus by working with varied interpretations and the value judgments that go along with them, we do not end up with a reading that all of us need to live by. What we do end up with are alternative readings that inform23 our particular situations (the term "particular" by definition can never mean "universal" thus debunking any reading's claim to privilege). And then we choose among these readings and respond to the question: "Why did we choose this over the rest?" Some have called this move as "taking a stand and being both responsible and accountable" for such particular stand.

In order to demonstrate the legitimacy of my mother's interpretation, I will work with three different set of judgments: Is there textual evidence to support her reading? Does her reading make sense of the text? Is her reading relevant for me and my community at the present time? Patte has asked, "Does this reading amount to projecting upon the text something that is foreign to it? Is it plausible to interpret this text in terms of epistemological categories provided by the Filipino concept of utang na loob?"24 Will utang na loob really work as a reading lens for this text? Will Romans work as a reading lens for utang na loob?

I am prepared to argue that both will work because both already have. Nanay drew strength and inspiration from Paul's faith conviction. She lived by this passage. But bringing in utang na loob into the interpretative process not only transformed her perception of faith, it also transformed mine. Not only that--and this is most important to a lot of my female colleagues in the Philippines who despise Paul--it transformed my attitude toward Paul.25 But the opposite is equally transforming. Reading utang na loob from Romans helps conjure up images of the covenantal character of utang na loob--the human response to grace--which, unfortunately, have been relegated in the present Philippine society to the sidelines by a "degenerated idea of petty legalism and reciprocity."26 Equally important, for me as a Filipino Christian, is that "reading" utang na loob from Romans reveals the One who is deserving of utang na loob, God.

Ek Pisteos Es Pistin

Faith or grace, depending on who is describing and defining it-like love, salvation, righteousness and similar words-can mean everything, anything and nothing. I agree with Kwok Pui-lan who argues that the way a people's language is structured influences their mode of thinking.27 Her broad sketch of how the Asian psyche works applies to Filipinos. Filipino logic is very different from Aristotlelian logic. The traditional type of subject-predicate is absent in Filipino logic. Plato's world of ideas that is eternal and unchanging-which thus provides an Archemedian point (focused on "being")--is totally opposite to the Filipino's world of perpetual flux and change (focused on "becoming"). Dionisio Miranda, in Buting Pinoy, effectively argues that Filipino philosophy, instead of speculating about abstract propositional truth or constructing theories of metaphysics, focuses more on pragmatics-on the correct use of language to provide guidance for action (gawa) , to shape social relations (pakikipagkapwa), and to transmit a moral vision of society (magandang hinaharap/kinabukasan). Miranda continues: in Filipino thought there is no separation of the transcendent and the immanent, the human and the natural, the historical and the cosmological. Filipinos understand the self as one among many centers or circles of relationships (a community of loobs/pakikipag-kapwa), not an isolated entity. Salvation (kaligtasan) involves the broadening of the self to embody (bigyang katawan/katawanin) an ever-expanding circle of relatedness. According to Ferdinand Anno: for the Igorots of the North which number about one million--land, life, Kabunian (the Great One), the spirits of their ancestors, and nature are communing essences (loobs) in their world up in the Cordilleras.28 This kind of orientation, which does not seek absolute truths but seeks wisdom for life in the "nitty-grittiness"29 of the everyday, allows more room for dialogue, for difference, and for multiplicity.

It is with this Filipino concept of interlocking circles, of dynamic images that we come to undertand Nanay's reading of Romans 1:16-17. Three images play important roles in her interpretation: grace (kagandahang loob), debt (utang), and faith (utang na loob), and all three would help us understand and appreciate--what I call--her "earthy" interpretation of "from faith to faith."

GRACE AND KAGANDAHANG LOOB

"Kagandahang loob (in a first approximation, goodwill or beneficence) is the most important indigenous Filipino value."30 According to Miranda, the mechanism most related to this concept is utang na loob. The latter is really not a value in itself; it is explainable and understood only in terms of kagandahang loob. Utang na loob is a response to kagandahang loob. One who is truly magandang loob31 deserves utang na loob. Utang na loob is not the primary value; at best it is a secondary value, a response.

Miranda argues that Kagandahang loob is absolute unselfishness, or self-forgetfulness; it is acting purely for the sake of others. It never imposes, never forces, is completely free. Kagandahang loob is compassion. It is the natural sensitivity to the pain of a fellow human being, one's kapwa. Kagandahang loob is not exclusive but responds to all cries of pain. Kagandahang loob is pity. Pity is the instinctive response to another's pain. Kagandahang loob is most evident vis-a-vis the suffering. Kagandahang loob is mercy. It soothes the bitterness of humiliation. It cheers the sad, warms the heart, makes peace and understanding. Kagandahang loob is, in one word, grace.

Understandings of God's Grace Compatible with Kagandahang Loob

Most interpreters agree on what Romans 1:16-17 is all about: the most concise crystalization of Pauline conviction. They, on the whole, agree on what the text is saying: that salvation, for Paul, is about God's grace, God's agenda from start to finish, and what is left for humanity is to respond in faith.

Beverly Gaventa's commentary on grace in Romans isolates its most important characteristic as God's impartiality and care for all people: If God is not partial to the rich over against the poor, to the child with a family over against the orphan, then it follows that God is not also partial to the Jew over against the Gentile.32 She continues to say that, "When Paul refers to the righteousness of God, he refers to a characteristic of God (that is, God is righteous) and the implications of that characteristic for human beings (that is, God freely gives to human beings the gift of God's own righteousness)."33 She calls it God's radical grace for all people. In dealing with this text that is widely accepted as the heart of Paul's theology, Gaventa highlights its theocentricity. Her concept of radical grace is encompassed by kagandahang loob.

Several other scholars propose related interpretations, which nevertheless, emphasize another aspect of God's righteousness. Ernst Kasemann writes about God's righteousness in terms of power, God's saving power in loyalty to God's covenant, overthrowing the forces of evil and vindicating God's people.34 N.T. Wright's understanding is similar. For him, God's righteousness is "essentially the covenant faithfullness, the covenant justice of God who made promises to Abraham, promises of a worldwide family characterized by faith, in and through whom the evil of the world would be undone."35

These scholars emphasize other aspects of God's kagandahang loob. Yet like Gaventa, they consider righteousness as a fact about God and that this fact has a dynamic meaning. Righteousness refers to the way God acts and relates to human history and thus to God's gracious activity, to God's kagandahang loob.

Problematic Hermeneutical Appropriations of God's Faithfulness as Kagandahang Loob

This apparent easy identification of God's righteousness with God's kagandahang loob breaks down when one considers more closely the theological categories used to make sense of this concept, especially in hermeneutical appropriations of the Romans text. From his theological perspective, Karl Barth argues that the passage teaches us about God's omnipotent power; that this power is active "unto salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek."36 Barth 37 comments that the phrase "from faith to faith" is simply about God's faith (God's faithfulness) to our faith. God's grace always comes first, ours is never other than a response. He then continues to say that the content of this power is Jesus Christ. Jesus, his salvific act is, therefore, the background of the text. Without Jesus Christ the text has no meaning. Salvation is "by faith unto faith" and is really about God's faithfulness aimed at the trust, the faith of the Jewish and Greek people who hear it.38 Over against kagandahang loob, Barth's reading--of God's faithfulness made possible in the redeeming work and the person of Jesus Christ--is not very helpful for me. Where is God's radical impartiality? Locating God's revelation only in Jesus Christ maybe good news for the Christians that compose 3% of Asia's population, but bad news for the remaining 97%.39

Similarly, according to Charles Hodge, vs.16 teaches us that: "The salvation of men [sic], including the pardon of their sins, and the moral renovation of their hearts, can be effected by the gospel alone. The wisdom of men [sic] during four thousand years previous to the advent of Christ, failed to discover any adequate means for the attainment of either of these objects; and those who, since the advent, have neglected the gospel, have been equally unsuccessful." With vs. 17, he continues: "The power of the gospel lies not in its pure theism or perfect moral code, but in the cross, in the doctrine of justification by faith in a crucified Redeemer."40 Hodge and Barth both agree that the true revelation of God's kagandahang loob is found in Jesus Christ and in him alone. But Hodge goes further when he explicitly denies any possibility of discovering God activity, God's liberating acts, God's kagandahang loob in the midst of humanity's past, present and future struggles outside the Christian experience. Good news for dispensational premillenialists but bad news, I think, for the majority of Christians; horrifying news for all Jews, for Muslims, Buddhists, and peoples of other faiths.

John Stott also does a kagandahang loob-focused reading. He focuses on God's righteousness and thinks of it as a divine attribute (our God is a righteous God), an activity (God comes to our rescue), and an achievement (God bestows on us a righteous status). But he also offers something everyday Filipinos can identify with: utang or debt.

DEBT AND UTANG

Stott does a very good job of reading Romans 1:16-17, Paul's basic faith conviction, from the perspective of the other side, from the perspective of the recipients of God's grace, from the perspective of someone in debt, may utang. What he does is anchor his interpretation on vs. 14: I am a debtor both to Greeks and barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish. (NRSV) It is about Paul being a debtor (as translated in the NRSV above and the AV) trying to cancel his debt. He notes that many translations follow the NIV's I am bound and the RSV's I am under obligation probably because people might have problems equating Paul's motivation for sharing the gospel with the concept of debt cancellation. He then proceeds to explain what kind of debt Paul was trying to repay.

As Stott points out; there are two ways of getting into debt. The first is to borrow money from someone; the second is to be given money for someone by a third party. Using Stott's illustration, if I were to borrow $1,000 from you, I would be in your debt until I paid it back. Equally if a friend of yours were to hand me $1,000 to give to you, I would be in your debt until I handed it over. In the former case I would have got myself in debt by borrowing; in the latter it is your friend who has put me in your debt by entrusting me with $1,000 for you. For Stott, it is this second sense that Paul is in debt. He has not borrowed anything from the Romans which he must repay. But Jesus Christ has entrusted him with the gospel for them. It is Jesus Christ who has made Paul a debtor by committing the gospel to his trust. Similarly we are debtors to the world, even though we are not apostles. If the gospel has come to us, we have no liberty to keep it to ourselves. Nobody may claim a monopoly of the gospel. Good news is for sharing. We are under obligation to make it known to others. Such was Paul's first incentive. He was eager because he was in debt. It is universally regarded as a dishonorable thing to leave a debt unpaid. We should be as eager to discharge our debt as Paul was to discharge his.41 Murray offers a similar interpretation. He argues that the terminology cannot be divorced from the idea of an obligation that must be met or discharged.42

One of the first things that struck me about America when I got here in 1996 was the culture of indebtedness. Most everyone I knew had mortgages to pay, credit card bills to settle, and loans that needed refinancing. It is almost the complete opposite in the Philippines. In a lot of situations in the United States, a person's worth was based on his/her credit history. Stott's comment that it is universally regarded as a dishonorable thing to leave a debt unpaid might very well be true but his statement that we should be as eager as Paul to discharge our debt as Paul was to discharge his might not work very well in a society that thrives on credit. At any rate, eager or not as far as repayment is concerned, the debt eventually gets discharged.

My problem with Stott's utang metaphor is that I do not believe the debt Paul is describing is one that can ever be discharged. Using Stott's own illustration of the thousand dollars, a loan creates a debt situation. A gift does not. A gift evokes a grateful response. What motivates Paul's classic faith confession in 1:16-17 is not utang in 1:14 but utang na loob. Frederic Godet echoed this notion of debt of gratitude for a priceless gift when he said, "All those individuals, of whatever category, Paul regards as his creditors. He owes them his life, his person, in virtue of the grace bestowed on him and of the office which he has received."43

The possibility of a reading from the perspective of utang na loob can be developed from most of these scholars' definition of grace as a gift freely given. Therefore there is no utang, there is no debt that needs to be cancelled. But because the gift is unearned and unmerited then a different kind of debt is created, a debt of gratitude, utang na loob.

Miranda notes that Utang na loob, as a response to grace, has two strands: In the contractual sense there is a symmetry, a mutuality of duties and obligations or expectations. In brief, reciprocity (the same sort detected by Western and Western-educated Filipino social scientists). By contrast in the covenantal sense the reigning attitudes are complete trust and fudiciariness; the exchange is one of gift and gratuity.

FAITH AND UTANG NA LOOB

Miranda44 argues that Debts, utang can be incurred in a variety of ways: consciously or unconsciously, voluntarily or involuntarity. A debt incurred voluntarily arises either from the asking of a loan or a favor. If the loan or the favor is paid back in equivalent terms or with the margin agreed on, both parties can consider themselves a manos or "quits" (discharged in Stott's terms). Involuntary debts, like taxes, would occur when a loan or favor is offered or done without having been preceded by a formal request. Even here both loan or favor could be repaid in equivalent or with profit in order to be absolved of the debt. This is the kind of utang or opheilei Paul wants everyone to be absolved of (he does not want anyone to be beholden to anyone or to any structure except to Christ). This is the kind of utang or opheilei that people can and must cancel (Rom 13:7).

Miranda continues: Utang na loob, on the other hand, is a unique kind of debt: however it may have been incurred, no matter how insignificant the debt, there is no way by which one is absolved of the debt except perhaps by having the "lender" him/herself incur a similar utang na loob. The debt goes beyond the legal-juridical framework; it creates an extra-legal but even more binding debt because it involves a personal debt, one that can only be paid back not only in person but with one's person. Utang na loob as a debt of gratitude is not absolved legally but through a personal involvement which acknowledges the unmerited and unsolicited graciousness.

Utang na loob has also sometimes been translated, according to Miranda, as a debt of volition probably because one is bound no longer to a single compensating act but binds him/herself voluntarily to be committed beyond repayment. Utang na loob is not merely autonomous in the sense of independent, but also in the sense of self-binding. This kind of debt is not per se imposed; it binds only to the extent that one allows oneself to be thus bound (as Paul himself does in Rom 1:14). Utang na loob between familiar persons is usually not recognized as utang na loob precisely because it is so spontaneous. But utang na loob between strangers or non-intimates reveals another characteristic whereby it ceases to be a socially accepted value and turns into a burdensome social norm. Filipinos do not want to be considered, even unjustifiably, as walang utang na loob (having no sense of indebtedness). That would be equivalent to implying that a person has no sense of personal honor. This is probably one reason that Filipinos have culturally instituted the "repeated refusal" before one finally relents and allows the loan to be pressed on oneself or permits the favor to be imposed on oneself. Because the debt appears to have been accepted under duress, the person feels less obliged to consider it as utang na loob, and merely as utang; the moment the utang is repaid he can consider himself freed of loob obligations. But precisely because of its intensely binding character and disproportionate terms of repayment, there is the temptation, consciously or unconsciously, to make another enter into such an utang na loob. Instead of building up relationships based on human responses to grace, what is created is alienation fueled by legalism and forced reciprocity. To call it value in this form is to distort the meaning of words.

Faith, Miranda continues, also binds in a pattern similar to utang na loob. Without our having been asked, without our even wanting, despite our lack of merit, God, or Bathala, or Kabunian has given us life, sustains that life, and wishes us to enjoy the fullness of life. Christ has redeemed us from all evil and sin; indeed even when we were yet sinners (Rom 5:8) Christ willingly gave his life for us. The Spirit allows us to call God "Abba" (Rom 8:15) and Christ "Lord," (I Cor 12:3) assuring us that God's offer of life for us renewed in the redemption by God's Son will not be frustrated. A greater debt than this no one can incur; greater gratitude no one can show that one lays down one's life for God. This utang na loob incurred vis-a-vis God, precisely because it involves life and precisely because it is incurred vis-a-vis God, can never be absolved. One can only give tokens of the will to recognize this indebtedness by a life-long repayment, a repayment that can occur only in symbols because its real repayment is impossible (Paul echoes this symbolic repayment in Rom 12:1).

According to Miranda: this theonomous claim is at once value and norm. It is value because it is only in God that life ultimately has meaning, and therefore it is also reasonable that it be a norm, the better to guarantee its fulfillment. But God, by making it clear that all this is a gift (Rom 6:23), also returns our freedom to ourselves so that acceptance of the utang na loob is a conscious and voluntary binding, not a forced one. This binding of ourselves implies at least two things. First, we should not think that we can involve God in a similar utang na loob. Nothing we can do, no holiness that we can attain, no sacrifice that we can make, can ever bind God to us. God is not susceptible to utang na loob to humanity because God is kagandahang loob. Second, theonomous utang na loob obliges us, negatively, not to behave in the same way as the unforgiving servant (Mt 18:23-35); positively, to imitate the mercy and graciousness of God (owe no one anything but love, Rom 13:8). Faith as utang na loob is an appropriate response to God's eminent kagandahang loob.

FROM FAITH TO FAITH : UTANG NA LOOB TO UTANG NA LOOB

This identification of faith with utang na loob challenges the theological categories traditionally used to make sense of "faith" in Romans. Martin Luther in commenting about the teaching of the phrase "from faith to faith" offers that "the righteousness of God is entirely from faith, yet growth does not make it more real but only gives it greater clarity." He continues: "And just so also, 'from faith to faith,' by always believing more and more strongly, so that he [sic] 'who is righteous can be justified still....and so that no one should think that he [sic]has already apprehended and thus ceases to grow, i.e., begins to backslide."45 Luther's reading does not directly address either kagandahang loob or utang na loob. What it does is focus on the individual's growth in faith, from one level of faith to another, like the United Methodist's doctrines of justification, sanctification, and glorification.46

Frequently Paul is made to say that faith increases, that one activation of faith gives rise to another and that the latter, again, is faith rather than seeing. Other interpretations distribute the occurrences of pistis to different believers: "Because of God's faithfulness in regard to the individual's faith, on account of the faith of Jesus in the faith of Christendom, from the faith of the teacher to the faith of the hearers."47

Stott, as an evangelical, offers the traditional four interpretations of the phrase "from faith to faith." The first relates to faith's origin, from the faith of God who makes the offer to the faith of the men [sic] who receive it....Secondly, the spread of faith by evangelism....from one believer to another. Thirdly....from one degree of faith to another. Fourthly, faith's primacy as an unfolding process, by faith from first to last or by faith through and through."48 However appealing and high-sounding most of these readings are, they are in a foreign language (an imposed language), using concepts (like faith, righteousness, etc.) that, as stated earlier, can mean everything, anything and nothing to the common Tao (human in Filipino).

In the Philippines, as Miranda point out, the criterion of ethical value is not to be found in isolation (like Luther's individual on a faith journey) but in interpersonal relationships and communal interaction. It is the other tao (human), the equal tao, kapwa (neighbor, fellow human), that is the primary objective and external reality that tests the humaneness of humanity. The ideal of loob is kabuuan (wholeness, integrity, harmony) or kapwa/kapatiran (the collective body of loobs).49 In the New Testament, the church has often been described as the body of Christ. According to Melanio Aoanan, "body" takes on so many meanings when translated into the vernacular.50 Leonardo Mercado points out that in Filipino thought, this body symbolism is most important because the body and body parts have always been used to symbolize the Filipino.51 For example, the English "You worthless ingrate" is Walang hiya (shameless) or Makapal ang mukha (thick faced). Both translations are about "face." A man without honor is "walang bayag" (no balls) in Filipino.

According to Aoanan, the most important part of the Filipino human body is the loob. The center, the core of one's loob, is his/her lamanloob or bituka ( the intestines--roughly the equivalent of the Greek splagxnon which literally means "guts" or "entrails"). The most concrete example of its use as a term for connectedness, for the community of loobs is the word kapatid (brother/sister/sibling). The word is a contraction of the Tagalog patid ng bituka (cut off from one intestine). The word in Visayan is igsoon (igsumpay sa tinai) and kabsat (kapugsat iti bagis) in Ilocano. Therefore siblings come from one and the same intestine!52 . To children who get bruised or who are bleeding from minor cuts their elders say in a soothing tone: Huwag kang mabahala, malayo sa bituka (No need to worry, the wound is far from your intestine). But more than being body-related concepts, these terms do not just describe individual parts but communal body parts.53 Thus a small wound is not just far from the center of one's loob but also peripheral and insignificant as far as the center of the community of loobs is concerned. Those soothing words from our elders simply mean: "Children, we (meaning the community and its collective experience) know about little cuts like these and we do not worry about them so you do not have to worry about them too."

This is the reason why most Filipinos greet each other with "Kumain ka na ba?" (Have you eaten?)54 instead of the Western form "How are you?" And this is not just a perfunctory greeting. Filipinos are renowned for their hospitality. Closely linked to this "relational" practice, according to Aoanan, is the padigo or patikim where neighbors share with neighbors what they have cooked.

When my brother, sister and I were children we could not understand why Nanay had to share food with our neighbors. We also had to leave some food on our plates for our pet dogs and cats. She used to tell us that food shared fills up more than one's stomach. When I was a teenager working with urban poor communities in the garbage dumps of Tondo, Manila, I met a girl, a young scavenger. She was probably around twelve. I offered her the remaining half of the Coke I had on that hot, humid morning. She drank a third of it. Realizing that she might not be accustomed to having a softdrink all to herself, I told her, "Drink all of it, that's all yours." She smiled back and asked (and I remember this scene as if it were yesterday), "Can I bring this home? I have two little brothers who would love to have a taste of Coca-Cola."

According to Virgilio Enriquez, "Relationship or pakikipagkapwa is evidently the most important aspect of Filipino life. As codified in the language, eight levels of interaction have been identified: (a) pakikitungo (transaction/civility with); (b) pakikisalamuha (interaction with); (c) pakikilahok (joining/participating with); (d) pakikibagay (in-conformity with/in-accord with); (e) pakikisama (being along with); (f) pakikipagpalagayan/pakikipagpalagayang-loob (being in rapport with/understanding/acceptance with); (h) pakikiisa (being one with). These levels of conceptual and behavioral differences are most concretely manifested in Filipino food-sharing, in the context of meals."55

It is in these relationships where kagandahang loob and utang na loob are most concretely encountered. What is most surprising is that all these acts of pakikipagkapwa are motivated by utang na loob. Each one does something for another because he or she responds in gratitude for something he or she has received. The initiators say that they do what they do because of utang na loob. But observers and the recipients of the gift describe these acts as kagandahang loob.

Daniel Patte comments: "Through faith 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)."56

For Patte, God is revealed primarily in the present experience of believers. Believers' faith is established through and because of God's interventions, God's breaking into their experience. He continues, "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 daily life, and thus also other people who are parts of his or her life experience."57

What Patte does is locate God and God's activity within the locus of human experiences in the present. It is faith that allows people to "see" God's righteous interventions in their life, interventions via human agents. Along with Gaventa's God whose radical grace that knows no bounds, Patte's interventionist God who reveals Godself in the midst of people's experiences present very appealing and affirming readings for peoples in the Philippines who, despite having to face the violence of poverty everyday, still manage to whistle happy tunes because they believe, no, they know that God is with them. They are not alone. They are never alone.

It is within the realm of people's acts of faith, of people's utang na loob , in the living out of what Paul calls his "debt" to peoples that God breaks in as kagandahang loob.

According to Miranda: God never, ever, comes face to face with humanity like everybody else or like anything else, yet humanity is to believe that God is revealed (the divine passive) as beyond reach (mysterious, transcendent) in every pakikipagharap (face to face encounters); yet that God is revealed as Immanuel (immanent) in every embrace of a person in care, responsibility, respect and knowledge. God cannot be embraced like anybody or like anything else, yet a person is to cling to God in the desire to be embraced, as God is already embraced in every experience of family, kinship, fraternity, justice, truth, peace, in every act of utang na loob. God, because God is absolute freedom (blowing wherever God wills), cannot be forced to respond, but because God is absolute love, God as kagandahang loob cannot be indifferent, so that people can seek to become worthy to be manifested to, spoken to, accepted and commended for every kindness and solidarity, for every sacrifice and generosity tendered to those whom God has called the least of God's children, our sisters and brothers.58

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1In traditional interpretations, the shame referred to is that which comes when one is disillusioned by something one has trusted in. Suggested positive renderings of the statement would be "I am proud of the gospel" (Moffat) or "I have complete confidence in the gospel" (see Barclay Newman and Eugene Nida, UBS' Translator's Handbook on Romans [Stuttgart: United Bible Societies, 1973], 19). I will challenge this understanding of shame.

2Instead of the noun phrase "into salvation," thus focusing on God's saving activity. Can also be translated "the power of God saving all who are believing" so as to focus again on the acts, the dynamics of salvation and faith. Salvation in the Old Testament is often expressed as liberation from physical danger. In the New Testament salvation more often than not is equated with deliverance from the power or bondage of sin (Newman and Nida, 19-20).

3The NRSV, RSV and AV translate panti t( pisteuonti as "to everyone who has faith" which, for me, is a reading that equates faith to something one can possess; a thing, an object one has instead of an activity, an unfolding process. In Tagalog (a Filipino language used by about a third of the Philippine population), "faith" can be translated as pananampalataya (literally means habitual risk taking) which, in actual usage, is more of a verb than a noun. We don't say, "I have faith" but Nananampalataya ako (literally "believing or faithing I do" with emphasis on the act not on the possession of something). A study conducted by the SVD (Society of the Divine Word) seminary in Cavite, Philippines, on language shows that there are at least 300 prefixes and suffixes one can add on a single verb stem. To illustrate this verb-focused language, let's take ulan (to rain) which can go Umuulan (is raining), Uulan (will rain), Umulan (it rained), Uulanin (will be rained out). All of these, by the way, are complete sentences.

4Literally rendered "to the Jew first and to the Greek." This translation, though, would be problematic to most Filipinos who know who Jews are but who would identify Greeks as folks who live in Greece.

5Traditionally dikaiosun' has been translated "righteousness" but even Paul uses the same verb to mean justification, see 3:24,26. In my particular context, the word justice (katarungan) conjures more concrete, earthy liberating images compared to righteousness (katuwiran) and its abstract, other-wordly connotations.

6Paul, I think, puts emphasis on the connection between God's justice and God's wrath, vs.18, both of which is described as apokaluptetai (as being revealed) in human experience. Put another way, only in the realm of human affairs can one discover manifestations of God's justice and God's wrath.

7The phrase can also be translated "starts from faith and ends in faith" (NEB) which is actually another rendering of "believing" as an ongoing process of trust in God, a more anthropocentric reading of the phrase. An alternative reading, which affirms God's power, is to focus on the fact that salvation is God's agenda, it is about God's faithfulness from "alpha to omega," a theocentric reading. This paper develops both.

8An alternative would be "the just by believing will live" again to emphasize the action, the process of trusting completely.

9I agree with Stendahl's choice to use "will" instead of "shall." He comments, "In the third person you express straight future by 'will,' and Paul reads this statement about the future. 'For that time will come--not as a principle, but as a statement--the time. . . when there will be this living faith.'" (Krister Stendahl, Final Account: Paul's Letter to the Romans [Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1995],17).

10The one whom God has put right with Godself because s/he trusts God, or because God is faithful, or both are faithful.

11The Philippines was under Roman Catholic Spain for over three centuries; under Protestant America a century this year. Today, more than 80% of the population is Roman Catholic (from Michael Amaladoss, Life in Freedom: Liberation Theologies from Asia [New York: Orbis, 1997], 12). Protestant children were teased as being "protes" meaning "followers" of the protesting Luther. I had a taste of the discrimination in first grade. The religion teacher asked all the Protestants in class to raise their hands. I was the only one. I was asked to leave the room. I hated every moment of that daily routine. This Catholic-Protestant tension still exists to this day. As an illustration, the evangelical PCEC (Philippine Council of Evangelical Churches) was established as a reaction against the NCCP (National Council of Churches in the Philippines) because the group was perceived as being Catholic-lovers. Evangelistic crusades are held to "convert" (proselyte is the better term) Catholics.

12By nominal, I mean one who went to church about three times a year (Good Friday, Christmas and on one's birthday). When Lolo got "converted," however, he became one of the most active United Methodist Men in Santiago, Isabela.

13Utang na loob can be translated sense of indebtedness or sense of gratitude. The "sense" comes from the term loob which literally means "inside." Utang is debt. In Filipino, the inside or "essense" is what makes one human. But loob is more than one individual's essence but the community's, the "collective essence." For the most comprehensive work on the Filipino loob read Dionisio Miranda, SVD's Buting Pinoy (Manila: Divine Word Publications).

14Tomas Andres in his Positive Filipino Values (Quezon City: New Day Publishers, 1989) offers the same translation of utang na loob : sense of gratitude.

15Actually there were ten Enriquez children. The eldest, Jesus, nicknamed Susing, was killed in a vehicular accident when he was 16. Three children died very young. Among the surviving siblings, Nanay was the eldest.

16Daniel Patte in his article "Whither Critical New Testament Studies for a New Day? Some Reflections on Luke 17:11-19," in Putting Body and Soul Together: Essays in Honor of Robin Scroggs, A. Brown, G.F. Snyder, and V. Wiles, eds. (Valley Forge: Trinity Press International, 1977), 275-296, talks about his encounter with the more common, reciprocal expectations regarding utang na loob: we have utang na loob toward our parents, our neighbors in the village.because they have done and are doing so many things for us, from the time of our childhood. This means that we have the duty to express our gratitude toward them, by respecting them, offering them gifts, doing things for them, and taking care of them in time of need (291-292).

17During her wake, a woman we did not know came weeping over her casket. When we went over to talk with her, she told us that she knew Nanay from 20 years back. She was a fish vendor and Nanay was her favorite customer. She talked about Nanay's thoughtfulness. This, for me, was a sign of Nanay's "pagtanaw ng utang na loob." Having been blessed, she became a blessing to others, a blessing to the fish vendor.

18Her interpretation fits nicely with the "life offering" of Romans 12:1-2, and the challenge of I John 4:11, 19-21. God's mercies is translated kagandahang loob in Filipino translations of the Bible. Kagandahang loob is the quintessential Filipino value (Miranda, Buting Pinoy, 182).

19Romans 13:8-9.

20It was Melinda Grace Aoanan, my spouse who as a fellow Filipino, urged me to use my own "eyes" to engage the biblical text instead of other peoples' lenses. It was Daniel Patte who challenged me to focus on utang na loob as a legitimate lens to use in reading this particular pericope. These two people's proddings helped me remember my mother's reading.

21Union Theological Seminary in Dasmarinas, Cavite, Philippines is a case in point. Up until 1994, the standard hermeneutical model taught there was the historical-critical method. Anderson's Introduction to the Old Testmanent has been the standard text since the 1960's. The faculty is almost half Westerners. 95% of the books in the library are authored by European-American males. And only two of the present Filipino faculty have had books published.

22From Daniel Patte, "Whither?," 279.

23The suggestion that proposes that "a text should inform, instead of define behavior" is from Elisabeth Schussler-Fiorenza's "The Bible as prototype not archetype" paradigm which she proposed in a series of lectures delivered at Union Theological Seminary, Philippines (January 1996).

24Patte, "Whither?," 292-293.

25A book that also helped me appreciate Paul more is Robert Jewett's Paul: Apostle to America (Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1994).

26I am borrowing E.P. Sander's terminology in his excellent Paul and Palestinian Judaism (London: SCM Press, 1977), 419ff where he discusses covenant and law which echoes utang na loob's two strands, the covenantal and the reciprocal.

27For this particular section on language, I have drawn from Kwok Pui-Lan's essay "Toward a Dialogical Model of Interpretation," a chapter from her excellent book, Discovering the Bible in the Non-Biblical World (New York: Orbis, 1995) 34ff.

28Ferdinand Anno, "Toward a Liturgical Approach to Theological Reconstruction," Explorations in Theology, Journal of Union Theological Seminary (Cavite, Philippines: UTS, 1996), Vol 1, No. 1, 81.

29The term nitty-gritty denotes raw, hard and concrete realites (from Anthony Pinn's Why Lord? Suffering and Evil in Black Theology [New York: Continuum, 1995], 116).

30See Miranda, Buting Pinoy, 182f.

31One who actualizes kagandahang loob is described as magandang loob (roughly, one who is kind or gracious).

32Beverly Gaventa, "Romans," The Women's Bible Commentary, eds. Newson-Ringe, 315ff.

33Gaventa, 315.

34Ernst Kasemann, Commentary on Romans (1973; ET, SCM and Eerdmans, 1980), 23ff.

35N.T. Wright, The Climax of the Covenant: Christ and the Law in Pauline Theology (T&T Clark, 1991) 234ff.

36Karl Barth, A Shorter Commentary on Romans (Virginia: John Knox Press, 1959), 20ff.

37Karl Barth, The Epistle to the Romans (Oxford University Press, 1933, 6th edition), 41.

38Barth, Shorter Commentary, 22.

39Kwok Pui-Lan, Discovering, 2.

40Charles Hodge, Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans (Philadelphia: William and Martien, 1861), 29-40. For Nygren, (Commentary on Romans [Philadelphia: Muhlenberg Press, 1949], 96ff.) the pericope presents the juxtaposition of God's righteousness and God's wrath. God's righteousness is set not in contrast with humanity's unrighteousness but God's wrath (against unrighteousness and against the unrighteousness of the law). Thus, the text is really a teaching about God's activity. Again, this is a reading from the divine perspective but I don't have enough to correlate his interpretation with kagandahang loob.

41Based on Stott's excellent discussion of Romans 1:14-15 in his Romans: God's Good News for the World (Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 1994), 58ff.

42John Murray, The Epistle to the Romans. The New International Commentary on the New Testament, F.F. Bruce, ed. (Grand Rapids, Michigan: 1959), 24.

43Godet quoted in Murray, 12-24.

44This section adopted from Dionisio Miranda's Lakbay Diwa (Tagaytay City, Philippines: Divine Word Publications, 1987), 36-38.

45Martin Luther, Luther: Lectures on Romans, The Library of Christian Classics, Vol XV, trans. Wilhelm Pauck (Philadephia: Westminster Press, 1961), 18ff.

46I learned about this three levels of one's faith development from attending youth camps sponsored by the United MethodistYouth Fellowship in the Philippines. We were taught that one is justified when one accepts Jesus as personal Lord and Savior. One is sanctified as one lives up to the ideals of discipleship. One is glorified when one gets to heaven.

47Adolf Schlatter, Romans: The Righteousness of God, trans. Siegried Schatzmann (Peabosy, Mass: Hendrickson, 1995), 25.

48Stott, 63ff.

49Miranda, Buting Pinoy, 81-83.

50This portion is based on Melanio Aoanan's "Teolohiya ng Bituka at Pagkain: Tungo sa Teolohiyang Pumipiglas," Explorations in Theology, Journal of Union Theological Seminary, Vol. 1 No. 1, November 1996, 23-44.

51Fr. Leonardo Mercado discusses this in his Elements of Filipino Philosophy (Tacloban Divine Word Publications, 1974).

52Aoanan, "Teolohiya ng Bituka," 35.

53Daniel Patte in his Discipleship According to the Sermon on the Mount (Valley Forge, Pennsylvania: Trinity Press International, 1996), 386, comments: "While conversing with students and colleagues at Union Theological Seminary (Dasmarinas, Philippines), who cannot think of themselves apart from the community to which they belong, it became clear to me that I was looking in the wrong direction. The word of God is never 'for me' by myself; it is always 'for us.'"

54In its most literal sense, the greeting means, "How are your intestines?," because it is a question prompted by a situation of kumakalam ang bituka (hunger pangs).

55See Virgilio Enriquez, "Kapwa: A Core Concept in Filipino Social Psychology, " Sikolohiyang Pilipino, Aganon and Ma. Assumpta, eds. (Manila: National Bookstore, 1985).

56Daniel Patte, Paul's Faith and the Power of the Gospel: A Structural Introduction to the Pauline Letters (Philadelphia:Fortress Press, 1983), 257ff.

57Patte, Paul's Faith, 232-233.

58See Miranda, Lakbay Diwa, 80.