From: Moon-Ryul Jung (moon@sogang.ac.kr)
Date: Mon Jan 28 2002 - 23:46:10 EST
Gleen,
Great!
[Glenn]
> I had asked
> >>Can verbs of "saying"
> >> in NTG take an infinitive without accusative "subject" as a complement?
>
> Moon answered
>
> >Consider
> >Lu 24:23: HLQON LEGOUSAI KAI OPTASIAN AGGELWN hEWRAKENAI
> > [came saying also vision of angels to see]
>
> OK. That would seem to answer my question. Languages subcategorize verbs
> rather arbitrarily as to whether the infinitival complement of a particular
> verb needs an explicit "subject" of the infinitive or not. For example, in
> English,
>
> I decided _____{i} to go.
> I said _____{j} to go.
> *I told _____{i or j} to go
> I told him to go OR I told myself to go.
>
> (Where ____{i} denotes a null infinitival subject co-referential with the
> subject of the matrix clause, and ____{j} denotes a null infinitival subject
> with a different referent.)
>
Perfect! I wish those who are for or against Hays' syntactical
analysis of Rom 4.1 would pay attention to this kind of argument in the
future.
[2] About the structure of Paul's argument thgough Rom 3-4:
[Glenn]
>ISTM Ro 4.1 fits this latter pattern better:
>
> Statement -- The circumcised and the uncircumcised alike are justified by
> faith. (3.30)
> Inference -- Then even the Jews were justified by faith, not by the deeds of
> the law.
> Question -- What, then, would we say Abraham, our father according to the
> flesh, discovered?
> Answer -- "Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for
> righteousness." (4.3)
> Further explanation -- (4.4-5) ". . . to him who does not work but believes
> . . . his faith is accounted for righteousness."
>
My working hypothesis for Romans seems different from yours underlying the
above
paraphrase. Our discussion crucially depends on how one takes Rom 3:27-31
and
what kind of objections or inferences one might draw from it.
28 LOGIZOMEQA GAR DIKAIOUSQAI PISTEI ANQRWPON CWRIS ERGWN NONOU.
[For we consider that man is justified by faith, apart from works of law
]
29 hH IOUDAIWN hO QEOS MONON; OUCI KAI EQNWN;
[Or is God only of Jews? Not of Gentiles as well? ]
NAI KAI EQNWN, 30 EIPER EIS hO QEOS, hOS DIKAIWSEI PERITOMHN EK PISTEWS
KAI AKROBUSTIAN DIA THS PISTEWS.
[Indeed also of Gentiles, seeing that God is one. He justifies
circumcision
from faith and uncircumcision through faith]
The passage claims that Gentiles can be included in the people of God
by believing in Jesus, without becoming Jews, that is, apart from works of
the Law, in particular, circumcision, which which was given to the Jews
and only the Jews could practice.
hH at the beginning of verse 29 tirggers me to put Paul's argument as
follows:
Suppose justification is based on "works of the Law".
Then it means that God is God of Jews only. Do you agree to it?
You can't. God is God of Gentiles as well, because God is one.
He (hOS is a continuative relative clause) justfies .....
From the supposition that justification is based on the "works of the
Law",
Paul infers that God is God of Jews only. Therefore,
The "works of the Law" was the unique thing, e.g. circumcision, which
only the Jews or those who became Jews could practice meaningfully. Hence
the issue was not "works versus faith" as the universal principles that
cut across both
Jews and Gentiles, as it was assumed in the traditional Protestantism.
If it were, the argument whether God is one and whether God is God of
Jews only loses its force. This argument makes sense only when the issue
at hand has to do with Gentiles versus Jews. So, I think the issue was
works of the Law as Jewish covenantal privilege versus faith in Jesus
Christ, the fulfillment of the Law and the Prophets.
So, while "even Jews were justified by faith, apart from works of the Law"
is a true statement, I wonder if that was an important issue to explain
further by using Abraham. Rather the issue at hand was that while Paul
regarded the Jewish covenantal privilege highly, he denied that
it was the basis for justification. Denying the Jewish covenantal
privilege
with respect to justification was not a small thing. It surely needed
explanation. Jews would have objected to Paul's conclusion by saying:
How come? Abraham, to whom the promise was given, and who passed
the covenant privilege onto us, is our forefather according to flesh!
Hence Gentiles can receive the blessing of Abraham only by becoming Jews
and
thus becoming children of Abraham.
Paul echoes this potential objection, and says: What then? Shall we say
that we have found Arbraham to be our forefather according to flesh?
So as in Galatians (Gal 3.7, 3.29), it was crucial for Paul to establish
that Gentiles can become children of Abraham by believing in Jesus Christ.
The question of who are children of Abraham is a core of the debate
between Paul and Jews. Gentile believers become people of God by becoming
children of
Abraham. This issue is quite alive in Romans. For exmaple, Rom 9.6-8:
But it is not as though the word of God had failed. For not all who are
descended from Israel belong to Israel, 9:7 and not all are children of
Abraham because they are his descendants; but "Through Isaac shall your
descendants be named." 9:8 This means that it is not the children of the
flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are
reckoned as descendants.
Now the questions remain whether the data of Romans 4 fit the hypothesis
that Paul tries to refute the objection of Jews that Abraham,
from whom the blessing was passed on, is the forefather ACCORDING TO
FLESH.
Let me try to show that by commenting on what you wrote.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Glenn]
> But the issue of him being the father of all nations is only an
> intermediate step to Paul's main argument, which is not whether or not
> Gentiles are the children of Abraham, but *how* they became the children of
> Abraham -- that is, by faith.
>
>
You stated the issue of our debate clearly.
[Moon]
> >Know therefore that those who are of faith are children of Abraham (Gal
> >3:7)
> >If you are Christ's, you are Abraham's seed and heirs according to the
> >promise (Gal 3:29).
>
[Glenn]
> The issue in Galatians certainly is related to the issue in Romans. But the
> argument structure ISTM is different, in fact almost opposite in approach.
> The verses you quote have the proposition "Those who are faith" and "You are
> Christ's" as the protasis, and "are children/seed of Abraham" as the
> apodosis. In Romans, on the other hand, the argument seems to move in the
> opposite direction -- from the assumption that Gentiles are included in the
> Abrahamic covenant to the conclusion that that could only be possible if the
> covenant were based on faith rather than the flesh. It does indeed seem
> critically important in Galatians to establish the fact of whether or not
> the Galatians are children of Abraham. In Romans, on the other hand, that
> seems to be an intermediate step in the arugment development.
>
Very interesting view point! But let me ask:
Is "assumption" that Gentiles are included in the Abrahamic covenant
the assumption already made when Paul utters Rom 4.1?
Or is it developed within Romans 4 as an intermediate step to the final
conclusion?
I will proceed assuming the second position is yours.
> This is what I mean:
>
> Protasis (4.9) "Does this blessedness then come upon the circumcised
> only?" -- assumed answer, "upon the uncircumcised also."
>
> Apodosis (4.10) "How then was it accounted? Not while circumcised, but
> uncircumcised."
>
> Conclusion (4.16) "Therefore, it is of faith that it might be according to
> grace."
>
The above reasoning omits very important threads of argument. First of
all,
the question of 4.10 is HOW WAS IT (THE FAITH) RECKONED TO HIM. That is,
the question assumes that Abraham believed in God and that faith was
reckoned for
righteousness. The question is how THAT FAITH was reckoned. The answer is
while he was uncircumcised. He recieved circumcision as a sign of the
righteousness he had by faith. What was the significance of this
historical sequence? It was IN ORDER FOR him to be the father of those
who believe while not circumcised and the father of the circumcised.
What is emphasized here is that Abraham, the man of faith,
is connected both to the uncircumcised and the circumcised, because of his
unique historical circumstance. We should pay a full attention to Paul's
NOT ONLY JEWS BUT ALSO GENTILES argument here in Romans 4 as well as in
other chapters. Abraham is unqiue because he was a Gentile as well as a
Jew.
The significance of Abraham is not simply that he believed God and it
was reckoned for righteousness, but also that he represents both Gentile
believers and Jewish believers, i.e., he is the father of both Gentile
believers and Jews, which Paul takes pains to argue in Romans 4.
Consider 4.16-17:
16 DIA TOUTO [hH EPANGGELIA] EK PISTEWS, hINA KATA CARIS, EIS TO EINAI
BEBAIAN THN EPANGGELIAN PANTI TWi SPERMATII, OU TWi EK TOU NOMOU MONON
ALLA KAI
not only those of the law but also
TWi EK PISTEWS ABRAAM, hOS ESTIN PATER PANTWN HMWN.
to those of Abraham's faith
17 KAQWS GEGRAPTAI hOTI PATERA POLLWN EQNWN TEQEIKA SE.
In this passage, TWi EK TOU NOMOU certainly refers to the Jews, who was
the people of the Torah, and TWi EK PISTEWS ABRAAM refers to the Gentile
believers. Similarly hPI EK NOMOU in 4.14 refers to the Jews, the people
of the Torah. "The promise is from faith not from the Law". But its
meaning in this context is that otherwise, only the Jews could have been
the heirs to the promise. The promise is from faith not from the Law IN
ORDER TO gurantee
the promise to all the children, not only to the Jews, TWi EK TOU NOMOU
but also to the Gentile believers, TWi EK PISTEWS ABRAAM.
So, it is my hypothesis that in Romans Paul does not argue for
the faith as the ground for righteousness per se, but for
the fact that Gentiles believers can be the people of God
on equal footing with Jews, by believing in Jesus Christ
apart from the works of the Law, that is, without becoming Jews.
Romans 4 argues for it by referring to the fact that Abraham
was to be the father of all nations, with his faith being
reckoned for righteousness WHILE HE WAS NOT CIRCUMCISED, but
CIRCUMCISED AS A SIGN for the righteousness from faith.
Even the verse 4.24, which you quoted, '' 'it was reckoned to him,'
were written not for his sake alone, but for ours also" does not
require us to take Abraham as a typical example. We can take it to
mean that he was justified by faith to be the father of all who believe,
whether Jews or Gentiles, and thereby to pass the blessing to the
children to which we belong by believing in Jesus.
In sum, Paul argues that Abraham is the forefather of both Jews and
Gentiles not according to flesh, not according to promise. I think that
it is not natural to make this to be an intermediate step. But I am open
and would like to listen to counter arguments.
Moon
Moon R. Jung
Associate Professor
Dept of Media Technology
Sogang Univ, Seoul, Korea
can be
interpreted to mean that
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