Deliverance of God: Can We Be Rescued From These Dire Straits?

First, no, the title of this blog post was not a coded allusion to an 80s rock band.

Coming to the end of his first major section, “Justification Theory and Its Implications,” Campbell lays out some serious consequences for adopting Justification Theory. Important here is that in his view all these problems, or most of them at any rate, are built (wittingly or no) on the assumptions of justification theory.

And this is why I found this part of the book to be much less compelling than I had anticipated. In short: there is no way around these issues in the alternative apocalyptic theory, which, because of the concession DAC had to make earlier about its containing a God who judges the world, equally entails many of the most important consequences.

A further general reflection: I continue to be frustrated that DAC does not wrestle in this first part of the book with those theologians who have seen justification as a function of Paul’s union with Christ soteriology. No doubt Campbell will get to these at the end, when he deals with other key texts, but every time he makes these hard and fast distinctions–insisting not only that they are logically necessary but the antinomy Paul himself is working with, I think, “What about, ‘seeking to be justified in Christ‘ in Gal 2?” Or, “So how about righteousness that comes through union with Christ and faith in Phil 3?” Of course, there’s also the massive problem of Romans 5 that mixes the models so extensively that people debate whether Rom 5 is the end of 1-4 or the beginning of 5-8.

But what about the “problems” that the alternative theory can’t avoid?

First, I need to reiterate that Campbell must concede that the God of retributive justice, the God who is judge and will judge the world, is ubiquitous in Paul, not confined to the justification texts. “Paul does occasionally endorse punitive action by God, and this even if his vision of the eschaton is not always consistent. This is a small vein of evidence in his texts, but I concede that it is there; Paul’s thinking at this point is not unalloyed” (94).

To my mind, this concession critically blunts the argument of much of the book, because Campbell is going on to argue that just the kind of God who does not exercise retributive justice, etc. is really Paul’s God and one who gets us out of all sorts of difficulties. But such a God is not to be found in Paul’s soteriological narrative.

Here are some “problems” that the alternative theory can, therefore, not alleviate:

Post-Holocaust Perspectives (p. 205). Campbell suggests that since Justification Theory (“JT”) leaves those on the outside highly culpable for their actions, including receiving God’s wrath on the day of judgment, that it tacitly endorses this-worldly violence against outsiders, most notably Jews. But since Paul’s God is always one who inflicts wrath on the day of judgment, and since even the apocalyptic Paul does not give much evidence of a numerically universal salvation, the alternative does not get us very far. Yes, anti-Judaism is a huge problem. No, introducing a disjunction between “apocalyptic” and “JT” is not the way forward.

Homosexual Relations (p. 206-7). Paul’s sexual ethics are as often derived from union with Christ soteriology as they are from the “natural theology” of Romans 1. 1 Cor 6 is a case in point, and Campbell concedes that this shows up in Paul’s vice lists. Putting Rom 1 into someone else’s voice might help the pro-homosexuality argument, but it does not make Paul’s “real God” a supporter of that particular expression of sexuality.

Constantinianism (207). I agree that Constantinianism is bad. I agree that it gets the story wrong. But the way forward cannot simply be abandoning JT for apocalyptic, because (see the concession on p. 94) both views maintain a God of judgment, who avenges the wrong. There has to be another way to get our story straight…

Totalizing metanarratives (208-9). Simply put, it’s hard for me to imagine a more totalizing metanarrative than the apocalyptic one! The whole point of Rom 5:12ff. is to move the narrative of Israel’s God from the realm circumscribed by the Law to the entire human race and even to the whole cosmos with its powers of sin and death!

Other systematic theological issues depend on a minimalist account of JT. This is another point at which DAC’s interaction with his own construal of JT rather than actual advocates of it creates a barrier in my conceding his argument. Is JT really less Trinitarian, pneumatologically deficient, sacramental? Only if you give the thinnest possible account. Someone might argue that Gal 3 ties pneumatology inseparably to justification by faith as an integral part of the saving process. One might argue that the Reformed ordo salutis that places effectual calling (and union with Christ!) before justification shows how the Spirit is intimately connected to the soteriological process in justification, etc.

In all, I found myself leaving section 1 thinking that the difficulties for justification theory were much less than DAC wants us to think, and that apocalyptic is much less free from the difficulties than Campbell’s alternate theory requires.

Up next: Part 2, “Hermeneutical Clarifications”

Disclaimer: I received a gratis copy of this book from Eerdmans, though with no stipulations either that I would review it or review it favorably.