[Orontes]

Originally Posted by Fish-Hunter

Okay, before we move to the sovereignty of God according to Scripture, please post Scripture references from the 14 Epistles of Paul to support the Mormon understanding of the gospel of God's grace. These are not new issues that I have presented to you. Biblical Christians have always claimed that the Mormon Church teaches a works righteousness gospel, which is not the gospel of God's grace according to the Bible or the Apostle Paul.

Posts 824, 825 and 826 have not been responded to. Given your pattern, I assume you cannot respond or cede the points made until I see otherwise. Post 827 you quote, but don't actually engage, so I assume the points there are ceded.

To your post:


I'm not sure what a "gospel of God's grace" is as I'm not sure how you are using gospel. Are you using gospel as a synonym for doctrine? I also don't know what a Biblical Christian is. Is this simply an Evangelical like yourself? If so, then you should say Evangelical as there are no Christians I know of you don't use the Bible, so Biblical Christian would include all, or near all Christians: including Mormons which would make your statement incoherent. If by "works righteousness gospel" you mean that Mormons believe good acts actually exist and can be recognized as such: guilty as charged. If helping old women cross the street constitutes a good act and someone performs that act, then ipso facto, they have performed a good act.

To your request, you strike me as a Book of Romans man. Evangelicals typically see Romans 7 and 8 as the heart of Romans, so maybe I should give a reference from there. How about Romans 7:19-25 to Romans 8 1:2:

The passage:

19For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.

20Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. 21I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me. 22For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: 23But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. 24O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? 25I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin. 1There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. 2For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.

The above is a great scripture. Now, my guess is that were I to ask one like yourself the meaning I would get something like: the above demonstrates the fallen and miserable state of man. Paul speaks as a victim of his own sinful nature: constantly born down by the evils of the flesh. This wretched man can only hope for the redeemer Christ to pull him from his despair. And thus we can see it is not anything Paul, as a fallen man can do (and thus we reject the pride of any works based approach), but only through Christ that any hope is possible. Am I close?

The exegesis:

I have noted you state a few times that context is important. I agree. Context does not simply mean the verses that surround a chosen passage or even the book or the Bible proper, but actually entails the entire socio-cultural milieu any piece of literature was written in. The Greco-Roman World is the context. Paul as a Hellenized Jew was fully able to communicate to a Greek speaking audience on their own terms. A simple example would be his referencing the Greek poet Aratus when speaking to the Aeropagus on Mars Hill (Book of Acts). In Romans a similar tact is taken.

If I asked 'what is going on in verse 19?' My guess is the reply from yourself would be something connected to the notion of Original Sin and man's sinful falleness. This would be an anachronistic reading of the text that is only possible by one divorced from the linguistic-cultural context of the passage. I'll illustrate: if I asked what does "to be or not to be" mean? Some might give a response on existential angst. Most would tie it to Shakespeare. Some may even tie it to Hamlet. The above phrasing from verse 19 would have a similar impact on a Greek speaking audience. The phrase is a medean turn. What does that mean? It refers to Medea from Greek Tragedy.* The phrase is most commonly found in Euripides's "Medea':

"I am being overcome by evils. I know that what I am about to do is evil but passion is stronger than my reasoned reflection "

It can also be found in the larger literature of contemporary's and near contemporary's of Paul. For example. Epictetus:

"What he wants to do he doesn't do, and what he doesn't want he does."

Ovid's Medea:

I see the better and approve it, but I follow the worse"

Verse 24's phrase Paul's uses is almost an exact phrasing of his contemporary Seneca who wrote in his Medea Trajedy:

"O wretched woman that I am!" The phrase is "talaiporos ego anthropos".

What is going on here? Why would Paul refer to a figure from Greek myth and why this specific phrasing? The reason is because the figure of Medea and the phrasing was commonly used in the Greco-Roman world to illustrate akrasia which refers to weakness of the will or lack of self mastery. Attaining self mastery was a central principle in Greek and Roman Thought. This is why writers in Athens would often sing the praise of their mortal enemies the Spartans (often seen as those most able at self mastery). It is one of the reasons why Stoicism became the dominant ethos of the Roman world. It is also why Greco-Romans might become interested in Jewish Thought. The Law of Moses was portrayed as a vehicle for self mastery (Philo is a simple example of this). What Paul is skillfully doing in the passage is both showing how it is pathe that leads to wrong doing (hamartein), but also he is engaging in a trope when he turns the notion back on his audience. "Medea" was used as an illustration of the dangers of the foreign: the evils that can occur when the other is let within. The Romans/Greeks were very aware of the barbarorum and sought to maintain the divide. Paul's use turns the Romans/Greeks into the other vis-a-vis the Law of Moses. They are compared to the foreign Medea, the ones who have gone against the good and corrupted themselves. Once this is established, Paul then is able to show it is not adherence to a foreign law of Moses that will bring self mastery, but rather through Christ via the spirit.

The Conclusion

Now what you should notice is there is none of the stark divide between a grace vs. works dynamic which is a complete misreading of Paul's rhetoric. This also means that the very question of a "gospel of grace" is a failure to understand the text and ties into a larger mistaken Justification Theology that makes stark distinction between the saved and the other. This is common with Evangelical readings because they approach Paul as a believer and then begin to mine the text as a believer, rather than understanding who the text was actually written for and the rhetoric employed. The problem is then compounded by the base unfamiliarity with Greco-Roman Thought. The rub is basically that for the Greco-Roman, as for the Mormon, Paul's work was/is concerned with bringing the person into a relation with Deity, not drawing arbitrary justification lines in the sand and declaring who is or isn't worthy.