The Letter of Romans

We are living in the age of globalization, which involves the interchange of beliefs ideas, worldviews and cultures. Romans 4:1-25 reveals ways in which we can shift from a predominantly Eurocentric theology to what is a more pluralistic or polycentric theology. Religions have had porous boundaries, and through the movement of peoples and ideas across continents they have moved and interacted with each other, producing adaptations and amalgamations of faiths and practices. In Romans 4:1-25 Paul appeals to Abraham in order to find common ground for both the Jews and the Gentiles. His main argument is that both the Jews and the Gentiles are children of Abraham and hence heirs and joint heirs to the promise by faith. Paul uses the doctrine of imputation and righteousness to strengthen his rhetoric. He uses the circumcision and the law to reveal that Abraham was made righteous by faith long before the law was introduced through Moses. In this chapter Paul is preaching the gospel of inclusion and diversity. Paul intended to include the Gentiles into the family of faith and he never intended to exclude the Jews either. The apostle Paul is a proponent of equality and diversity; no side is superior or inferior to another.

Similarly David Tracy in his book On naming the present is convinced that the postmodern world is an eclectic mishmash of varying philosophies and ideologies. Tracy highlights that we are living in age that cannot name itself. He asserts that given the cultural milieu in the West, there can be no return to a pre-ecumenical, pre-pluralistic, ahistorical theology. Tracy highlights the deepest need of the Western philosophy and theology is to move from a Eurocentric theology to what can be named as pluralistic or polycentric theology. Tracy establishes that there are now many centers for authentic theology globally. David Tracy raises the point that the Western academic institutions deprive themselves from and their theology by willfully ignoring the central fact of polycentrism. According to Tracy the West has the pride of calling their philosophical and theological positions the center whilst every other position is marginal. Tracy provokes the white supremacy mindset by asking challenging questions that definitely shake the perceptive boots of the White Bourgeois. Tracy implores the West to hear the voice of the otherness and oppressed. The voice of the other churches of Latin America, Asia, and Africa; in the feminist theologies throughout the world; in the African American and Native American theologies of North America. Tracy insists that the voice of the voiceless, the poor, the suppressed, repressed and oppressed must be heard. David Tracy is definitely preaching the gospel of inclusion and diversity.

Paul used Abraham to shatter marginalization in the Roman Church. There was marginalization in Romans between the Jews and the Gentiles. Paul uses Abraham for the inclusion of the Gentiles however he never intended to exclude the Jews either. Paul appeals to Abraham to support his rhetoric that righteousness can be obtained through faith. To achieve this Paul elaborates Genesis 15:6: “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.”[1] Paul reveals that the “counting” of Abraham’s faith for righteousness is entirely by grace and grace alone. Grace by nature excludes any appeal to works.  Romans 4:9-12 states;

“Is this blessedness, then, pronounced only on the circumcised, or also on the uncircumcised? We say, ‘Faith was reckoned to Abraham as righteousness.’ How was it then reckoned to him? Was it before or after he had been circumcised? It was not after, but before he was circumcised. He received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. The purpose was to make him the ancestor of all who believe without being circumcised and thus have righteousness reckoned to them, and likewise the ancestor of the circumcised but who also follow the example of the faith that our ancestor Abraham had before he was circumcised.”[2] 

The contrariety between circumcision and uncircumcision overarches Romans 4:9-12. Here Paul demonstrates that “the counting” or “reckoning” of Abraham’s faith for righteousness transpired before he was circumcised thereby qualifying him to be the father of both the Christian Jews and Christian Gentiles. Paul uses circumcision to show the inclusive importance of Abraham. The apostle Paul also concentrates on the promise in Romans 4:13-22 to illustrate that Abraham was the father of “many nations”. The term “many nations” or “all the seed” are used to show the inclusive nature of Abraham. One of the chief reasons why Paul signals Abraham is polemical. The Jews venerated Abraham as their “father”; he was a paragon of strength and virtue. In Judaism Abraham was held as the epitome of obedience and righteousness. His righteousness and obtaining of the promise were connected to his obedience; they even argued that he obeyed the law even before Moses ushered in the dispensation of law. Paul desired to show his Romans audience that this understanding of Abraham that the Christian and non Christian Jews espoused was contrary to his teaching, and was not in accord with the Old Testament. Paul goes on to reveal that Abraham was not imputed righteous through obedience to the Torah but was made righteous through faith.

In Romans 4:1-8 Paul also uses Abraham as a case study for believers. Abraham was central in the establishment of the nation of Israel and in the communication of the promise. Paul’s rhetoric of justification by faith alone and his interest in the full inclusion of the Gentiles in the kingdom of God made it necessary for him to integrate Abraham theologically. It was pertinent for Paul’s teaching to have claim of continuity with the Old Testament. The continuity was pertinent for the preaching of the gospel to the Gentiles because God was the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Therefore the promises that were reserved for the Jews only through the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ were now readily available for the Christian Gentiles also. Paul intended to include the Christian Gentiles to the common wealth of Israel. Gentiles were now legal beneficiaries of the promise and they had every right to claim their portion according to the will of God. This was definitely a Gospel of inclusion and this was a wonderful message or good news to the Gentile slaves in Romans who were poor and discriminated.

Apostle Paul reveals that Abraham is justified by faith and faith alone (Sola fide). Since he is justified by faith alone all boasting is excluded. This reckoning of Abraham’s faith for righteousness is by the grace of God who justifies the ungodly. This eliminates the place of works, thereby eliminating the basis for boasting. Professor Robert Jewett in his book Romans A short commentary states that, “It was Abraham’s faith in such a God, rather than any virtuous action on his own part, that opened the door to this paradoxical view that counters the traditional interpretation of Abraham as a model of obedience to the Torah. In view of the central issue of boasting that was dividing the Roman churches into competitive factions, the word ‘impious’ clearly refers to persons who had no basis of boasting before God. In Paul’s interpretation, the God in whom Abraham believed is the same as the father of Jesus Christ who accepts and honors those who have no basis for honor, either in their religious accomplishments, their wisdom, or their social status.”[3] According to Jewett, apostle Paul is striving for equality, diversity and plurality. Paul is advocating for equality of both sides. Each side must legitimately recognize competitors. He asserts that no side is superior to another in terms of honor or shame. God equally honors all sides through his mercy.[4]

Similarly In his first chapter Tracy highlights that “We live in an age that cannot name itself. Tracy emphasizes that for some, we are still in the age of modernity and victory over the bourgeois subject, for others we are in a time of leveling of all traditions and await the return of the suppressed traditional and communal subject. For yet others, we are in a postmodern moment where the death of the subject is upon us as the last receding wave of the death of God”[5]. Tracy identifies these conflicting views of the present as being at the heart of the warped view of Western Christian theology and Western history. In the midst of numerous ways to interpret postmodernity, it might be considered intrinsically as opposition to dominance, supremacy or hegemony. This is an approach of resistance to any urge or inclination to obliterate difference or otherness. At the heart of postmodernity is polycentrism. Soon after modernity the West radically discovered that they no longer enjoy the comforts of autonomy but now are confronted with the real presence of ‘the other’ that it can no longer elude. One way of responding to the otherness by the West might be denial or refusal. Another way of response might be ‘despotic tolerance’ in which the other is not fully acknowledged and engaged as a full equal. Then plurality is no longer genuine plurality but skeptic plurality or negative plurality. The only way to treat difference is by acknowledging, respecting and fairly engaging ‘the other’. This will lead to genuine plurality where there is mutual respect and honor. This is the place of true diversity and polycentrism. Tracy asserts that,

“For any one in this troubled, quarreling center of privilege and power(and as a white, male, middle-class, American,Catholic professor and priest I cannot pretend to be elsewhere) our deepest need, as philosophy and theology in our period show, is the drive to face otherness and difference. Those must include all the subjugated others within Western European and North American culture, the others outside our culture, especially the poor and the oppressed now speaking clearly and forcefully, the terrifying otherness lurking in our own psyches and cultures, the other great religions and civilizations, the differences disseminating in all words and structures of our own Indo-European languages. A fact seldom admitted by the moderns, the anti-moderns, and the post-moderns alike-even with all the talk of otherness and difference-is that there is no longer a center with margins. There are many centers. Pluralism is an honourable but sometimes a too easy way of admitting this fact. Too many forms of modern Western theological pluralism are historicist, but too a-historical as well as curiously a-theological in their visions to allow for the unsettling reality of our polycentric present. There is a price to be paid for any genuine pluralism-that price many pluralists seem finally either unwilling to pay or unable to see. It is that there is no longer a center. There are many. And the conflicts about how to interpret the Western present (modern, anti-modern, post- modern) can often prove to be either blunt or subtle refusals to face the fascinans et tremendum actuality of our polycentric present.” [6]

According to Tracy, the global culture now forces every individual, every group, every culture, and every religious and theological tradition to recognize plurality and embrace it. The main challenge for pluralism is to accept the full presence of many centers.

Paul’s argument of equality of both the Jews and the Gentiles provides a new platform and thought process globally. Paul shows that both sides are equal before God. No side is superior to another. Similarly David Tracy reveals that there is no longer one Western table were the West invites others to eat of their doctrines, dogmas and philosophies but rather there are now many other tables: the table of the repressed traditions, feminist theologies, liberation theologies and the theologies of Asia, Africa, South America and the Middle East that need to be heard. They need to be heard not as the marginalized but rather as the equal other. It is true what apostle Paul said in Galatians 3:28,”There is no longer Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no longer male no female: for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.”[7]

Bibliography

Coogan, M. D. (2001). The New Oxford Annotated Bible. (M. D. Coogan, Ed.) New York, NY, USA: Oxford University Press, Inc.

Jewett, R. (2013). Romans A Short Commentary. Minneapolis, MN, USA: Fortress Press.

Tracy, D. (1994). On Naming the Present. Maryknoll, NY, USA: Orbis Books.

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[1]Michael David Coogan, The New Oxford Annotated Bible: With the Apocrypha, 4th ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), 31.

[2] Michael David Coogan, The New Oxford Annotated Bible: With the Apocrypha, 4th ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), 1982.

[3] Robert Jewett, Romans: A Short Commentary (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2013), 61.

[4] Ibid. , 68.

[5] David Tracy, On Naming the Present: Reflections On God, Hermeneutics, and Church, Concilium Series (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1994), 3.

[6] David Tracy, On Naming the Present: Reflections On God, Hermeneutics, and Church, Concilium Series (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1994), 4.

[7] Michael David Coogan, The New Oxford Annotated Bible: With the Apocrypha, 4th ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), 2047.