I wrote my Master’s thesis on a Pauline pericope, an exegetical analysis of I Corinthians 1.17-25. I was inspired to write a thesis of this nature, in the realm of New Testament studies, based upon Martin Luther’s theologia crucis (theology of the cross). At that point, in 2002, I was only nascently aware of the division between the disciplines of Systematic/Dogmatic theology and biblical studies. This post will veer, as is usual these days, towards the side of systematic theology; more focusedly, to the side of apocalyptic theology in its current and developing iteration. I brought up my Master’s thesis because the content of this post touches upon that passage, and other Pauline passages. For the remainder of this post we will engage with apocalyptic theology and what that entails in regard to not only knowledge of God, but knowledge of ourselves in a world that has been ‘twice-invaded,’ by sin and the Christ.

Natural Law, and as corollary, natural theology are continuously present in the theologizing and the hermeneutics of not only the Roman Catholics, but remain present for the repristination of the Post Reformed orthodox tradition that continues to surge in the Western Christian world; at least in significant parts of that tradition (I think of the work that Davenant Institute is doing for example). Natural Law theorizes that not only is their intelligibility in the created order, but that it is accessible to the sentient human creatures who inhabit that order; that it is not only accessible to the regenerate mind, but also to the unregenerate (to a degree), and thus can be appealed to in order to construct civil law that both Christian and unChristian alike can flourish under. In other words, natural law presumes that there is a remainder within the created order, even after the ‘fall’, wherein a common nature can be appealed to in order to develop a common natural law and ethics that is equally available to the Christian and the nonChristian; that there is a degree to which all humanity can discerningly live under God’s order embedded inherently within the taxis of creation.

But there is a counter-proposal, one that I believe is more fitting with the Gospel story. The counter-proposal comes from the so called apocalyptic reading of Paul wherein the created order is understood to be in a place of rupture twice over. In other words, apocalyptic theology understands the world to have been disentangled from its rightly ordered relationship with God once sin entered the world (Gen. 3); at that decisive point the noetic capacities of humanity lost their ability to rightly discern God’s order for the world, and thus their ability to establish governments and ethics that would allow the human species to flourish as God had intended were likewise lost. Yet, this is of course is not the end of the story in the Christian narrative; for the Christian we realize that God entered this world in the Incarnation, and in his atoning work he reconciled humanity unto God (II Cor. 5) through the recreation and new creation that occurred in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. For the apocalyptic theologian, though, this does not bring the sort of dénouement that some might suspect; no, instead it further problematizes things, not for the Christian but for the world at large. Indeed, the new creation has set things to rights with God with an eye to and from the eschaton, but it has also so disrupted the created order that any latent perception that this ‘world’ might have of an order is negated by the reality of the cross and the new creation. In other words, for the apocalyptic theologian there is no space for natural law or ethics in the new creation; what is appealed to for that construct to work, under the apocalyptic has been put to death and recreated. As such the only possibility for discerning an order in creation or recreation is that we ‘walk by the faith of Christ rather than by the sight of our fathers and mothers.’ I would only note, before sharing Philip Ziegler’s thoughts, as he sketches Louis Martyn’s thinking in the apocalyptic direction, that as we look out at the governments of the world, I think the apocalyptic reading is given the type of empirical realization that we might (ought to) conclude that this apocalyptic reading is onto something; in other words, the world is in utter chaos, a chaos that bears witness to its negated reality and need for something outside (extra) of itself in order for genuine flourishing before God to take place. Here are Ziegler’s comments on this Pauline evangelical reality, and with this we will close (hopefully it is readable, if not click on each section):

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[1] Philip G. Ziegler, Militant Grace: The Apocalyptic Turn and the Future of Christian Theology (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Academic, 2018), 132-33 kindle.