Paul the Apostle: The Triumph of God in Life and Thought

Paul has been a controversial figure throughout history and has provoked extreme reactions of admiration and dislike. The complexity of his thought is in no small way responsible for this. However, when we turn to the world of scholarship for a more balanced judgment, we encounter similar extremes. The history of interpretation presents us with a bewildering variety of evaluations: portraits of Paul the rationalist and systematic theologian, and of Paul the mystic or religious genius, have claimed equal validity. Champions of a pervasive Hellenistic influence on Paul have vied with those who claim his purely Jewish provenance. Although in recent years the sharp alternatives have been reduced to a broader consensus, the nature of Paul’s thought and its relevance for the variety of human circumstance in his mission field have not been sufficiently clarified. Too often analyses of various segments of Paul’s thought have been made to appear as if they comprehend the whole of Paul; and too often the “original” of Paul’s thought has been distorted for the sake of modern relevance and instant edification. This study attempts to move toward an understanding of “the whole Paul” by focusing on two fundamental questions. What is the coherent theme of Paul’s thought and what is the texture of his hermeneutic? I posit the triumph of God as the coherent theme of Paul’s gospel; that is, the hope in the dawning victory of God and in the imminent redemption of the created order, which he has inaugurated in Christ. Moreover, I claim that Paul’s hermeneutic translates the apocalyptic theme of the gospel into the contingent particularities of the human situation. Paul’s ability to correlate the consistent theme of the gospel and its contingent relevance constitutes his unique achievement in the history of early Christian thought.