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This is an installment of\u00a0my replies to a series of articles on the epistle to the Romans<\/a> (written by St. Paul) by\u00a0Dr. David Madison<\/strong>: an atheist who was a Methodist minister for nine years: with a Ph.D. in Biblical Studies from Boston University. His summary article is called,<\/span> \u201cBad Bible Theology: Paul\u2019s Letter to the Romans: Let me count the ways\u2026that Paul got it wrong\u201d<\/a> (2-26-18). He devotes a paper to each chapter. Unless he repeats himself (a bad habit of his) or descends to sheer biblical skepticism (which I have less than no<\/em> interest in), I will reply to all.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The<\/span> introduction<\/a> is basically a catalogue of rank insults, where he calls St. Paul<\/span> \u201ca crank\u201d<\/span> and a<\/span> \u201cdelusional cult fanatic\u201d<\/span> and<\/span> \u201cthe prototype for Christian crazies\u201d and<\/span> \u201can obsessive-compulsive mediocre thinker and bad theologian\u201d and<\/span> \u201can embarrassment.\u201d\u00a0He adds:<\/span> \u201chow can anyone take this guy seriously?\u201d That about covers the \u201ccontent\u201d there.\u00a0Bears poop in the woods, brats throw fits, squirrels walk telephone lines, and the prevalent anti-theist brand of atheists insult Christians. Ho hum. What else is new?<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Dr. Madison\u2019s words will be in<\/span>\u00a0blue\u00a0<\/span>below.<\/span><\/p>\n *****<\/p>\n Dr. Madison calls his critique of Romans chapter 3, \u201cPaul the Apostle and the Hogwarts Factor: For Paul, sin was a disease of the soul\u2026he was sure he knew the cure\u201d<\/a> (2-24-17)\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n For Paul, sin was a disease of the soul\u2026he was sure he knew the cure\u00a0<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n Thanks to countless cartoons, we all know the iconic image of St. Peter perched at a desk, with his big ledger book, surrounded by fluffy clouds, just outside the Pearly Gates: You get to enter heaven if you\u2019ve got enough good deeds to your credit. While most Christians\u2014I suspect, I hope\u2014know this scene is comic book stuff, they do go along with the theology behind it. In fact, they know this in their guts. That is, God lets you in if you\u2019ve been a good person. If you\u2019ve been bad or nasty, then your odds go down. Isn\u2019t that just fair play, common sense? After all, heaven is called your Eternal\u00a0Reward<\/i><\/b>.<\/span><\/p>\n Well, all Christians agree that salvation is by God\u2019s grace. They differ on the relationship between faith and works, but not as much as many think. Protestants, of course, teach faith alone, but they do not deny the importance and necessity of (non-salvific, non-justifying) good works. Both Luther<\/a> and Calvin<\/a> taught that these works would necessarily flow from a true, genuine, authentic faith. And of course the book of James famously stated:<\/span><\/p>\n James 2:14<\/strong> (RSV)\u00a0What does it profit, my brethren, if a man says he has faith but has not<\/span> works<\/span>? Can his faith save him?<\/span><\/p>\n James 2:17\u00a0<\/strong>\u00a0So faith by itself, if it has no<\/span> works<\/span>, is dead.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n James 2:20-22\u00a0<\/strong>Do you want to be shown, you shallow man, that faith apart from<\/span> works<\/span> is barren?\u00a0[21] Was not Abraham our father justified by<\/span> works<\/span>, when he offered his son Isaac upon the altar?\u00a0[22] You see that faith was active along with his<\/span> works<\/span>, and faith was completed by<\/span> works<\/span>,\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n James 2:24<\/strong>\u00a0You see that a man is justified by<\/span> works<\/span> and<\/span> not<\/strong> by faith alone<\/span>.<\/p>\n James 2:26<\/strong>\u00a0For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so faith apart from<\/span> works<\/span> is dead.\u00a0<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Consistent with this biblical teaching, Scripture, in<\/span> fifty passages about final judgment<\/a>, mentions works every time, and never<\/em> \u201cfaith alone.\u201d And Jesus, asked by the rich young ruler how he could attain eternal life<\/a>, asked if he kept the commandments (works), and then told him he had to sell all he had and give it to the poor (a good work). Faith was never mentioned.<\/span><\/p>\n No Matter How Good You Are<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n But the New Testament requirements for making the grade are not really that simple, thanks, in large part, to the theology of Paul. He didn\u2019t see eye-to-eye with Peter anyway, so giving Peter a desk at the Pearly Gates wouldn\u2019t have been his idea. That\u2019s a story for another time, however.<\/span><\/p>\n Paul recoiled at the idea that anyone could\u00a0deserve<\/i><\/b>\u00a0to be granted eternal life. There was no way to merit it. His Letter to the Romans stands in the way of this intuitive approach,i.e., adding up your good deeds to get into heaven. So now let\u2019s open our Bibles to Romans, chapter 3. Atheists who want to make the case that the good book is\u00a0not all that good<\/i><\/b>\u00a0should know how bad the Book of Romans is.<\/span><\/p>\n Yes; of course Paul teaches salvation by grace through faith. But he doesn\u2019t exclude<\/em> the necessity of works, or the notion of merit. In other words, he doesn\u2019t teach Protestant soteriology, which Dr. Madison, as a good former Methodist, mistakenly thinks the Bible teaches. And he doesn\u2019t disagree with Peter\u2019s theology. When he rebuked him, it was for behavioral hypocrisy<\/em>, not false doctrine<\/em>. Here is what Paul taught:<\/span><\/p>\n Romans 2:5-13:\u00a0<\/b>\u201cBut by your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God\u2019s righteous judgment will be revealed. For he will render to every man according to his works: To those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; but for those who are factious and do not obey the truth, but obey wickedness, there will be wrath and fury. There will be tribulation and distress for every human being who does evil, the Jew first and also the Greek, but glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good, the Jew first and also the Greek. For God shows no partiality. All who have sinned without the law will also perish without the law, and all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law. For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n To summarize: The concept of \u201cdemerits\u201d is present (verse 5). Differential rewards for works (by implication, differential \u201cmerit\u201d) exist (verse 6). Eternal life is correlated with well-doing (verses 7, 10). Divine wrath is due to disobedience (verses 8, 9). Obedient doers of the law shall be justified (verse 13; a striking similarity to James 1:22-23; 2:24).<\/span><\/p>\n The theme of obeying the gospel, or the obedience of faith, is also common in St. Paul\u2019s writings (for example, Rom. 1:5, 6:17, 10:16, 15:18-19, 16:25-26; 2 Thess. 1:8; cf. Acts 6:7; Heb. 11:8).<\/span><\/p>\n Judgment, according to Paul in Romans, is also according to works, just as Christ also explicitly taught. This is a theme that runs through St. Paul\u2019s writings (for example, 1 Cor. 3:13, 4:5; 2 Cor. 5:10; Gal. 6:7-9; Col. 3:23-25).<\/span><\/p>\n Romans 1:17<\/strong>\u00a0For in it the righteousness of God is revealed\u00a0through faith\u00a0for faith; as it is written, \u201cHe who\u00a0through faith\u00a0is righteous\u00a0shall live.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Romans 15:17-18<\/strong>\u00a0In Christ Jesus, then, I have reason to be\u00a0proud of my work for God. For I will not venture to speak of anything except\u00a0what Christ has wrought through me\u00a0to win obedience from the Gentiles,\u00a0by word\u00a0and deed,<\/span><\/p>\n 1 Corinthians 3:8-9:\u00a0<\/b>\u201cEach shall receive his wages according to his labor. For we are God\u2019s fellow workers; you are God\u2019s field, God\u2019s building.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n 1 Corinthians 15:10:\u00a0<\/b>\u201cBut by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God which is with me\u201d (see also 1 Cor. 15:58; Gal. 5:6, 6:7-9).<\/span><\/p>\n Philippians 2:12-13:\u00a0<\/b>\u201cWork out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for God is at work in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.\u201d<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n St. Paul again regards faith and the human cooperation of works (labor) as two sides of the same coin, both proceeding from grace. Elsewhere, the\u00a0apostle writes of the \u201cworks of faith\u201d and related concepts (1 Thess. 1:3; 2 Thess. 1:11; Titus 1:15-16). Faith and works are not at all incompatible in all these Pauline passages. Salvation is described as a struggle, a process, a goal \u2014 not merely an abstract, past, instantaneous event.<\/span><\/p>\n In verse 9 he mentions \u201cthe power of sin\u201d\u2014it\u2019s not that people just\u00a0commit<\/i>\u00a0sins, rather sin is an indwelling force. To make the point, he culls a few of the gloomiest texts from the Old Testament to show how bad people are, functioning under this power. Paul can have his Hallmark moments, but these verses (vv.10-18) will never end up on sentimental Christian greeting cards. There isn\u2019t enough space to quote them all here, but v. 12 and v. 13 are representative:<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cAll have turned aside, together they have become worthless; there is no one who shows kindness, there is not even one \u201d and \u201cTheir throats are opened graves; they use their tongues to deceive. The venom of vipers is under their lips.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n These passages are, of course, examples of typical Jewish hyperbole, or exaggeration: not to be taken absolutely literally. For example, Jesus said,\u00a0\u201cNo one is good but God alone\u201d (Lk 18:19; cf. Mt 19:17). Yet He also said: \u201cThe good person brings good things out of a good treasure.\u201d (Mt 12:35; cf. 5:45; 7:17-20; 22:10).\u00a0Is this a contradiction? No; Jesus is merely drawing a contrast between our righteousness and God\u2019s, but He doesn\u2019t deny that we can be \u201cgood\u201d in a lesser sense. We observe the same dynamic in the Psalms:<\/span><\/p>\n Psalm 14:2-3<\/strong>\u00a0The LORD looks down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there are any that act wisely,\u00a0that seek after God. [3] They have all gone astray, they are all alike corrupt; there is none that does good,\u00a0[Hebrew,\u00a0tob<\/em>] no not one. (cf. 53:1-3; Paul cites this in Rom 3:10-12)<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Yet in the immediately preceding Psalm, David proclaims,\u00a0\u201cI have trusted in thy steadfast love\u201d (13:5), which certainly\u00a0is\u00a0<\/em>\u201cseeking\u201d after God! And in the very next he refers to \u201cHe who walk blamelessly, and does what is right\u201d (15:2). Even two verses later (14:5) he writes that \u201cGod is with the generation of the righteous.\u201d So obviously his lament in 14:2-3 is an indignant hyperbole and not intended as a literal utterance.<\/span><\/p>\n\n