You May Want To Rethink Justification by Faith

Faith & Science Conversation
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One thing I feel is worthy of observation in this discussion, as it has broader ramifications…

I think the rest of the conversation has borne out that I indeed had some very legitimate concerns and criticisms of the article and especially of the underlying rationale. Hence I respectfully object to the idea that, just because a person doesn’t possess the same level of formal education in a topic, that they are unable to recognize flaws in the underlying reasoning - or that they should refrain from engaging to raise such criticisms, especially on a discussion board specifically intended to foster open dialogue.

Just because my level of Hebrew and Greek are presumably far below that of @mtp1032, it does not follow that I should simply “take a seat for a minute and try to learn some things”, nor that I am claiming to be a “know-it-all” for raising relevant objections. I am conversant enough in the languages to follow his argument, and intelligent enough to recognize bad reasoning when I see it.

And I humbly suggest this same principle applies to other disciplines as well.

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Sure, there are things to critique. That’s the whole point of asking for input. But the discussion has been intelligent, and Michael has been citing expert sources, and he deserves to be taken seriously as someone who has read and thought about the topic and has a PhD and has done real academic writing in an attempt to engage real academics. I am still bothered when people who are actually trying are treated by the cynics here (many of whom are not academics themselves) like someone who sits in their basement and types delusional psuedo-intelectual rants. I can totally disagree with someone’s premise and yet still respect that they are producing scholarship and they probably know more than me in some area of expertise. Also, you weren’t the main person I had in mind for seat-taking.

I learned things about Hebrew participant tracking by following this discussion. It made me read this article to check out what Michael was claiming, and I found this, which is a feature of Hebrew discourse that counters the rule he is claiming. Since YHWH is the immediately preceding object of a preposition, YWWH would be the inferred subject of the verb “accounted.”

In Hebrew there is the syntactic regularity that if there is an object (direct or indirect) or object complement (i.e., a prepositional direct or indirect object) in the preceding clause, the anaphoric subject in the current clause is coreferential with that previous object, provided it is of the same gender and number.

https://unisapressjournals.co.za/index.php/JSEM/article/download/6746/4098/34477

So I disagree that his main thesis was something you could just look at logically and know was wrong.

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Interesting indeed.

Well, a qualified agreement…

I agree that his main thesis about applying certain rules of grammar to argue for a certain interpretation of Abram being the subject of said clause isn’t a matter of logic but of knowledge of the subject matter. Regarding his main thesis, my initial objection was indeed based on what knowledge I had of the original languages and my ability to study and find counter-examples that conflicted with his main thesis. That and my understanding of languages made me extremely skeptical that any certain rule of grammar, all by itself, demanded his position as the only possible correct interpretation. I don’t usually see academic papers making quite such bold claims, claiming that because of a particular rule of grammar (that apparently all other Hebrew experts, both Jewish and Christian, just missed), that his interpretation is indisputably the only conceivably correct one. But whatever; fine, that is what any academic paper does, argue for their position and present evidence for it, and then that thesis is further discussed, challenged, examined, etc., by the academic community.

But then he used the proposed reading - i.e., the thesis in his paper that he was arguing for, assumed it to be the only correct understanding, and then used the assumption of his position’s sole and absolute truth to then present as “fact” this claim that the Septuagint was mistranslated, as it didn’t follow his preferred rendering of the MT. That I can recognize on its face as logical question-begging even if I had no knowledge of the original languages.

In other words, I have no issue with the basic reasoning in someone making the observation, “If this proposed alternate reading is in fact correct, then the translators of the LXX erred.” That would be reasonable, logical, and a true “if/then” observation, and a perfectly reasonable and legitimate conclusion or observation in such an academic paper.

But I object when the reasoning starts to look like this:

  • Premise 1: If this proposed alternate reading is in fact correct, then the translators of the LXX erred.
  • Premise 2: This proposed alternate reading is the sole correct one and all other scholars are wrong, end of discussion.
  • Conclusion: It is a fact that the translators of the LXX erred.

And that is where I can simply recognize bad reasoning or faulty logic on its face.

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As I understand the NPP people, Paul was emphasizing faith in Christ’s work as a means of covenant membership, as opposed to birth and Torah observance, which was the established means of covenant membership. The Reformers messed up by assuming “works” is about earning salvation because they were precoccupied with countering specific doctrines promoted by Roman Catholicism and they co-opted Paul in their intramural fights. The NPP people say the tension was never between human effort vs God’s grace for achieving salvation/child of God status/reconciliation with God, it was the tension between Christ-following Jews with some prejudiced ideas against Gentile converts and the people who said that membership in the new Body of Christ was open to all. Paul’s point was that participating in the covenant community had always been by God’s grace through faith (allegiance, loyalty, faithfulness along with belief), so all the more now that Christ has destroyed the divisions between Jew and Gentile and extended grace and community membership to the world, a fulfilment of the Abrahamic covenant.

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Paul was both Roman and Jewish. It’s a misrepresentation to claim he was a Jew all his life.

What that means is that, given his father was Roman, Paul was raised with both influences…so his writings were less Jewish because he was chosen to bring the gospel to the Gentiles and for obvious reasons…he was also Roman and understood the non-Abrahamic cultures.

The point is, a semitic is not someone who forwards Christian faith…they are not even believers in the New Testament gospel. Christ is not the saviour of the Jewish religion. So, of course, a semitic critic is not presenting a holistic argument…I would challenge that it is lunacy to rely on them for interpretations of Paul’s writings…they believe he was following a cult leader (Christ) who was leading disciples away from the Jewish faith!

So what it appears to me that you are seeking here, is a writer from ancient times (ie a semitic) who disagrees with the general New Testament interpretation of Pauls writings where they do not align with science!

Again, that simply won’t work! We do not use only Paul’s writings to develop doctrine…we use it in conjunction with as many other intrinsic sources as is available (cross referencing). This not only ensures appropriate doctrine, it comprehensively defeats the genre and language arguments used to promote Darwinian Evolution in Christianity…these extremely poor defences do not survive that kind of testing. They don’t survive because of the huge number of inconsistencies and contradictions created as a result of poor theological foundational positions that must be defended! Its like Christian Pinocchio…

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…the nose keeps right on growing with each successive theological lie that must be defended by another…and another…and another!

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No it’s not. A person can have both citizenship and a religious/ethic identity.

This is wrong. Semitic is an ethnic/linguistic modifier that describes people of a certain heritage. Jesus was a Jew, Paul was a Jew, the apostles were Jews, many of the early Christians were Jews. We know that many continued to observe Torah as Christ-followers from the topics addressed in the NT letters.

Jewish interpreters of Paul add needed context to his writing. He was a highly trained Jewish cleric who taught in synagogues, for crying out loud.

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You give a darned good summary; that could have come right out of Paul Was Not a Christian!

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No student of Gamaliel would have writings that could count as “less Jewish”! The only thing “not Jewish” about Paul’s letters is that he was writing to Gentiles in every single one.

“Semitic” is an ethnic description; it has nothing to do with theology.

You haven’t read any pertinent works, have you? I’ve read a couple of books by Jewish scholars about Paul’s letters, and none of them said anything remotely like what you wrote. Your view is a product more of Augustine and the the Reformation than of anything else.

Why do you keep bringing in science?

Genre and language have to do with understanding literature – all and any literature. They have nothing to do with Darwin or evolution.

You keep claiming that, but you never have any theology to back it up – you resort to cross-referencing, which is not theology. Theology begins with the Incarnation and the Creed.

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It’s worth noting, I think, that Paul never said anything negative about Jews continuing to follow Torah. That’s important for this topic since Paul’s whole argument depends on both Jews and Gentiles being justified by grace, which means Torah came from grace and so for Jews who followed Jesus to continue to follow Torah makes perfect sense.

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I don’t really understand this claim that Paul is not a Christian. It is the teachings of Paul which made me a Christian (particularly Philippians). Are you simply saying he didn’t call himself a Christian? To be sure, most of the labels ultimately accepted by those of a religion originate in what other people called them, usually with some implication of condemnation, and the label “Christian” is no exception. In that case, isn’t whether he called himself Christian somewhat irrelevant.

Some may argue that Paul would not agree with the Nicene Christology. But I don’t see how this stands up, since it is Paul who makes the most radical claims for Jesus in the New Testament. Frankly it is the synoptic gospels which are far more compatible with the idea that Jesus is a lesser being than God Himself.

Looking it up, I found the Wikipedia article New perspective on Paul. But I only see that as showing that Paul is not in line with what I would consider a Gnostic distortion of Christianity.

Hmmm… perhaps a part of the problem is that I am not much of a justification fanatic which often sound a bit too much like entitlement to me. My emphasis is more on sanctification. It is getting rid of sin which is what I see as the crucial part of salvation and forgiveness looks trivial to me. I just cannot buy into this image of God having some kind of burning resentment which requires blood magic to get rid of. It looks to me like something carried over from pagan religions.

Yeah Paul teaches justification. I know. But I cannot make myself care so much about the details of this part of his teaching. Justification by faith sound fine to me, and I think that is what Paul teaches. But since for me, sanctification is the crucial part of salvation, the role works have in this part of salvation looks more than enough.

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The point is that he never stopped thinking of himself as a Jew, that there was no radical break where he suddenly became anti-Torah or anything, but that he saw his apostleship to the Gentiles as the fulfillment of being Jewish.

Yeah, that goes a bit far, though a case can be made if the material is restricted to just the seven letters everyone agrees are by Paul – a weak case, IMO, but a case nevertheless.

Not if they’re read with a Jewish perspective, or even just a first-century Hellenistic perspective. Then, the amazing thing is how often and baldly Jesus claimed to be Yahweh and that He didn’t get killed off a lot sooner than He did.

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Don’t want to derail this thread too much, but it at least relates… I’m not sure I understand the novelty of the claim of the NPP people.

I agree that a simple (dispensationalist?) understanding Paul as saying “Judaism is works based, end of story”, is problematic, since Paul himself regularly affirms that this “justification by faith alone” was indeed present throughout the old Covenant (“to which the law and prophets testify…” “was not our ancestor Abraham justified by…”) So unless one wants to understand Paul as espousing some kind of radical dispensationalism, he can’t be understood as claiming a “Judaism was indeed based on works, but we’re doing it differently” system. But I’m not sure any of the reformers or their modern theological descendants categorically thought or think differently. (Perhaps this is true of Luther and in Lutheran circles, I couldn’t say, but I certainly don’t see this in Calvin or his theological descendants).

But on the other hand, any system, even modern churches, can grow out of, or descend from, grace-based systems, and have a statement of faith that they believe in grace on their website and everything, and yet devolve into works-based self-righteousness. That seems to be what Jesus and Paul et al were doing in their conflicts with Pharisaical Judaism. I mean, rightly or wrongly, we use the term “Pharisaical” today for a reason. And given that the critique of that era’s Judaism as having been one of legalism and works-righteousness isn’t just from Paul, those critiques are all across the gospels as well, no? I don’t follow why it would be specifically a new perspective on Paul, specifically.

I’m not especially well read on the topic, but I am just completely misunderstanding this new perspective on Paul?

I’d have to agree - I’ve got no time or inclination to read through that book, but from the blurb about the book on Amazon…

She explores the idea of Paul not as the founder of a new Christian religion, but as a devout Jew who believed Jesus was the Christ who would unite Jews and Gentiles and fulfill God’s universal plan for humanity.

then I could say the same thing and claim just as correctly that neither was Jesus a Christian… nor Peter, nor James, nor John, nor any of the other apostles.

But if so, then someone is just writing a book to state something completely unsurprising and obvious, so there must be more to it than that?

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A lot of Protestant theology treats Paul’s experience on the road to Damascus as a total break with Judaism, treating the latter as works-righteousness, and much of what NPP people do is exploring how that changes the way all Paul’s letters should be read.

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Kind of. You are still trying to fit Paul’s arguments into the Reformed construct of “works-based righteousness.” The NPP people say this is a wrong-headed interpretation of Paul.

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Well, perhaps so, but I was thinking more of Jesus’s teaching… this man went home justified rather than the other, whoever believes in him is not condemned…etc. Does this mean the new perspective on Paul entails a new perspective on Jesus?

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Maybe, I guess it depends on how you are interpreting Jesus. Lots of people seem to think that the gospel Jesus preached before the crucifixion and resurrection is fundamentally different from the gospel Paul preached to the early church. The NPP people would say that (counter to many Reformed interpretations) Jesus and Paul preached the same gospel, the gospel of the Kingdom of God. Which is at its heart about identity as a reconciled child of God and the inheritance associated with covenant community membership, not transactional salvation for your eternal soul when you die. “Belief in Jesus” as in the context you cite was about accepting Jesus as the Jewish messiah and true covenant Son of God, which had all kinds of conceptual links about being a bridge to God and a representative of God and a mediator between Heaven and Earth. It wasn’t really about “believe in Jesus so you can go to heaven when you die because your sins are paid for by grace through faith apart from works.”

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Unless I’m not following your intent, those are people who are generally called “dispensationalist”, but certainly not those “reformed” Types that, if I’m reading you rightly, are the ones you seem to think have the most conflict with this NPP?

for instance, I recall listening to a sermon by John Piper, where his entire point was how they preached the same gospel.

Who are these reformed people who are suggesting that Jesus and Paul preached different gospels? Again, everything in my experience says that we call these people “dispensationists”, which are essentially opposite of reformed Christians.

Perhaps I am beginning to lean on AI a bit too much, but I still find it seems to get basic ideas right:

do reformed Christians believe that Jesus and Paul preached different gospels?
No, reformed Christians generally believe that Jesus and Paul preached the same gospel, though with different emphases and in different contexts. They understand the gospel as the good news of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ, which both Jesus and Paul proclaimed

why cannot it be both? You present these two options as if It has to be one or the other… They do not seem remotely to be mutually exclusive.

I mean, the Westminster confession seems to explicitly affirm both in one sentence:

The Lord Jesus, by His perfect obedience and sacrifice of Himself, which He through the eternal Spirit once offered up unto God, hath fully satisfied the justice of His Father; and purchased not only reconciliation, but an everlasting inheritance in the kingdom of heaven for all those whom the Father hath given unto Him.

Similarly, I’m not seeing why these cannot both be true, there seems nothing mutually exclusive about them, and I certainly find both Jesus and Paul teaching both of these concepts throughout their respective ministries.

(Except that I know no theologian : Catholic, Dispensationalist, Arminian, or Reformed, that would ever say that “our sins are paid for by grace through faith apart from Works.” That is not remotely how any of them would state their understanding. “Grace through faith” (with our without works) didn’t pay for anyone’s sin - Jesus’s death did, the benefits of which are received by faith. They would of course say that the blood of Christ was poured out for the forgiveness of sins… and they’d say of course that it is by grace we have been saved, through faith… but not that our sins are paid for by grace through faith.)

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Dispensationalism is a post-Reformation Protestant theology and they also have a very diferent understanding than than the NPP folks.

Sure, he probably didn’t like it when Scot McKnight claimed he and his buds were saying otherwise in The King Jesus Gospel. John Piper and NT Wright wrote competing books about justification. They define their terms very differently in places and definitely disagree with each other and with each other’s characterization of each other. John Piper thinks Jesus and Paul meant different things by “gospel” than NT Wright thinks they meant. For many Reformed Christians “the gospel” is justification by grace through faith in Christ alone. For the NPP people “the gospel” is Jesus is Lord and his Kingdom is coming. Justification is a benefit of kingdom participation, not the whole thing.

They aren’t coming out and saying it like that, it’s their critics who are pointing it out. Along with critics of Christianity who listen to some Reformed theologians and assert Paul started a cult that went a totally different direction from Jesus’ teaching.

I think it’s a matter of emphasis. And it is a fact that neither dispensationalists nor typical neo-Puritan Reformed teachers (like Piper) are typically emphasizing the Jewish understanding of covenant community or an understanding of eschatology that fits with the Hebrew frame of reference. They are emphasizing body/soul dualism and going to heaven when you die because you’re on the right list because you have mentally assented to the proper doctrines and said the right prayer of repentance.

Justification and atonement are different concepts. Atonement is the means of justification and the mode of applying Jesus’ atonement to our justification is by grace through faith. I took a shortcut to emphasize that the Reformed view of justification is almost exclusively focused on atonement. Don’t be so pedantic.

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Well, Piper is a Baptist, after all, so by definition he doesn’t have the same emphasis on “covenant” as do most other Reformed theologians… not to mention it isn’t that much of a stereotype to recognize that Baptists in general put a stronger emphasis on “saying the right prayer” in order to get to heaven than you find in the larger Reformed tradition (not that I’m claiming Piper would be one of those).

But that said, if you are correct that the only difference between traditional Reformed, Reformational theology, and that of the New Perspective on Paul is one of emphasis …

Then the NPP isn’t really or actually saying anything new, simply emphasizing different things than the Reformation or later Reformed theologians tend or tended to emphasize… and if so, then there is by definition no actual core conflict between the two, and thus there was nothing messed up at core in the Reformers actual understanding of justification of an individual being by grace through faith, rather they merely emphasized that aspect, perhaps wrongly, and failed to emphasize the larger covenantal ramifications other implications of justification and the larger Gospel?

But certainly this wouldn’t be particularly controversial. I haven’t read anything in detail by Wright or other proponents of the NPP, but from my vague recollection, they certainly seem to have been saying more than that the difference between their perspective and that of the traditional Reformed view was merely one of emphasis. It always seemed to me that Wright or other proponents of the NPP were claiming that the Reformers erred in their understanding of justification, rather than that they wrongly emphasized a certain aspect?

(Even so, the “emphasis” for individuals to repent, to be wary of the fact of a final judgment to heaven or hell, and to believe in Jesus in order to have eternal life doesn’t seem to be an emphasis that began during the Reformation… “Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.” “Today you will be with me in Paradise”… etc., etc., etc.)

Ah, copy. Not trying to be pedantic but I couldn’t make sense of the words.

That said, if there is any “focus” of justification on atonement, I’d submit the root cause may not be the Reformation or later Reformed theology… it seems that someone prior to the Reformation also occasionally combined justification and atonement in the same breath…

…are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement…

…While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since we have now been justified by his blood…

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I didn’t say that.
Daniel, NPP is a whole school of theological thought that has developed over several decades with a ton of biblical scholarship to back it up. And Reformation theology has an even longer history. I’m not going to convey all of the nuances and contrasts between them (as a non-expert myself) in a forum post. NPP is a fundamentally different way of understanding Paul’s writing and doctrines of justification than traditional Reformed TULIP Calvinism. It is indeed “saying something new.” That’s why it’s literally named NPP, NEW Pauline Perspective. You can either read up on it and understand it better, or you can take my word for it. But making sweeping assessments of entire branches of scholarship based on your uninitiated comprehension of my summaries is silly.

Yes. Because they would say that emphasizing the wrong things leads you to wrong interpretations. I would agree.

But let’s not pretend that everyone is operating with the same concept of belief, condemnation, God’s Son, and life after death. We aren’t. So how you understand the meaning of that verse goes far beyond whether or not you think it’s true and important.

I still don’t think you are acknowledging that your understanding of what these verses mean is a Reformed understanding, not necessarily what Paul meant. NPP is saying Paul probably meant something different by justification, redemption, and atonement, as a Jew operating within Jewish theological frames, than what the Reformers (or even earlier Western Gentile convert Christians) taught that he meant.

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