Excellent in-depth of God’s attributes of Immutability and Impassibility- both necessary for Him to be…God. The Creator is always greater than his creation- try as we might to domesticate Him.
As Stephen Charnock notes, “ Slowness to anger, or admirable patience, is the property of the Divine nature. As patience signifies suffering, so it is not in God. The Divine nature is impassible, incapable of any impair, it cannot be touched by the violences of men, nor the essential glory of it be diminished by the injuries of men...”
I hope someday someone elaborates more fully on the kind of theological thinking implied behind Paul's elliptical arguments in Acts 14, Acts 17, and Romans 1. In each case he seems to be making allusive reference to cosmological arguments, without explaining them in detail. But those kinds of arguments imply a certain kind of theism.
OK, but can you comment on my rationale? My take is that since the end of Rom 1 goes beyond Torah and Paul (as a Torah keeper) would not tell others to go beyond Torah (altho he might build a fence around Torah for himself). Therefore, it cannot be Paul's thots.
Wyatt this is helpful. Especially the point about the physicality of our emotions.
Another way I've seen texts like this handled is to locate the change in the experience of the author/audience. For Gen 6:6, it would mean that change happens in the experience of the people, not in God's emotional state. Same way with Saul in 1 Samuel. His experience of God is different after the Agag event. That seems to be something different than Grudem's view, but also kind of punts the ball regarding the reality of God in the text. What you think?
I think speaking about a change in us, not God, that changes our relation to God from wrath to peace, for example, follows from passages like Jeremiah 18. God there is just to punish evil and forgive repentance, but we change, not him.
That said, texts that say God repents or has wrath ALSO say something about God, or else what would the point of such passages be? I suppose human-accommodated language plays a role here, but it feels insufficient to say that this is ALL it is.
Douglas Campbell says that Rom 1:18-32 are the first part of a diatribe literary form where Paul is quoting his opponents and therefore are not Paul's thoughts and which Paul repudiates in Rom 2:1ff. I independently came to the same conclusion. I thought you should at least be aware of this possibility.
I have read Campbell here, and I think his method is a literary one that aims to understand the "foil" that Paul argues against which Paul appears to present as his own words. To me, it's too speculative at a literary level.
I do not understand. Do you think the end of Rom 1 are Paul's thoughts which he then repudiates or do you think he does not repudiate them in Rom 2:1ff or what? I see Paul as a Torah-keeping Jew both before and after his encounter with Christ, per Acts 21, and one thing is not to go beyond what Torah specifies, which I see the end of Rom 1 doing, so I think it is impossible for it to be Paul's thoughts. Perhaps you have different suppositions?
All I am saying here is that Campbell's literary reading does not seem to be the obvious way to read Paul's words, and I think it's too speculative as a literary device to use a guide to grasp Paul here.
Excellent in-depth of God’s attributes of Immutability and Impassibility- both necessary for Him to be…God. The Creator is always greater than his creation- try as we might to domesticate Him.
As Stephen Charnock notes, “ Slowness to anger, or admirable patience, is the property of the Divine nature. As patience signifies suffering, so it is not in God. The Divine nature is impassible, incapable of any impair, it cannot be touched by the violences of men, nor the essential glory of it be diminished by the injuries of men...”
I hope someday someone elaborates more fully on the kind of theological thinking implied behind Paul's elliptical arguments in Acts 14, Acts 17, and Romans 1. In each case he seems to be making allusive reference to cosmological arguments, without explaining them in detail. But those kinds of arguments imply a certain kind of theism.
OK, but can you comment on my rationale? My take is that since the end of Rom 1 goes beyond Torah and Paul (as a Torah keeper) would not tell others to go beyond Torah (altho he might build a fence around Torah for himself). Therefore, it cannot be Paul's thots.
Wyatt this is helpful. Especially the point about the physicality of our emotions.
Another way I've seen texts like this handled is to locate the change in the experience of the author/audience. For Gen 6:6, it would mean that change happens in the experience of the people, not in God's emotional state. Same way with Saul in 1 Samuel. His experience of God is different after the Agag event. That seems to be something different than Grudem's view, but also kind of punts the ball regarding the reality of God in the text. What you think?
I think speaking about a change in us, not God, that changes our relation to God from wrath to peace, for example, follows from passages like Jeremiah 18. God there is just to punish evil and forgive repentance, but we change, not him.
That said, texts that say God repents or has wrath ALSO say something about God, or else what would the point of such passages be? I suppose human-accommodated language plays a role here, but it feels insufficient to say that this is ALL it is.
Douglas Campbell says that Rom 1:18-32 are the first part of a diatribe literary form where Paul is quoting his opponents and therefore are not Paul's thoughts and which Paul repudiates in Rom 2:1ff. I independently came to the same conclusion. I thought you should at least be aware of this possibility.
I have read Campbell here, and I think his method is a literary one that aims to understand the "foil" that Paul argues against which Paul appears to present as his own words. To me, it's too speculative at a literary level.
I do not understand. Do you think the end of Rom 1 are Paul's thoughts which he then repudiates or do you think he does not repudiate them in Rom 2:1ff or what? I see Paul as a Torah-keeping Jew both before and after his encounter with Christ, per Acts 21, and one thing is not to go beyond what Torah specifies, which I see the end of Rom 1 doing, so I think it is impossible for it to be Paul's thoughts. Perhaps you have different suppositions?
All I am saying here is that Campbell's literary reading does not seem to be the obvious way to read Paul's words, and I think it's too speculative as a literary device to use a guide to grasp Paul here.