Reflections on Romans 6

“We were therefore buried with Him through baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from dead through the glory (doxa) of the Father, we may walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with Him like this in His death, we will certainly also be united with Him in His resurrection. We know that our old self was crucified with Him so that the body of sin might be rendered powerless, that we should no longer be slaves to sin. For anyone who has died has been freed from sin.” (Rom. 6:4-7)

“But I have a few things against you, because some of you hold to the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to place a stumbling block before the Israelites so they would eat food sacrificed to idols and commit sexual immorality. In the same way, some of you also hold to the teaching of the Nicolaitans.” (Rev. 2:14-15)

“So it is written, ‘The first man Adam became a living being’; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit.” (1 Cor. 15:45)

“When He had said this, He breathed on them and said, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.’” (John 20:22)

“For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Rom. 6:23)

“He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” (Rev. 21:4)

 

Quasi-analysis

There is an apparent tension within Paul’s ministry. On the one hand, no one is capable of being justified by work. Faith is the only route unto salvation. On the other hand, Paul rejects the teaching of the Nicolaitans, the view that whether one continues to commit sinful behaviors is irrelevant to his Christian status since spiritual and physical are separate. (This gnostic view may have been partly queued by certain misinterpretations of Platonism then.) Paul’s resolution was the doctrine that a proper Christian would not commit sins because his nature has gone through a transformation. This view could be understood through the lens of virtue ethics: what the right thing to do is to achieve the excellence of the relevant subject-matter, and the excellence can be achieved through habitual trainings of the relevant dispositions. For instance, the excellence of horse-riding is fast and safe riding of horses. To achieve this excellence, the trainer should train the horse to develop relevant dispositions (strength, health, agility, etc.). Whether one can develop dispositions relevant to the subject-matters is determined by its own essence/nature. We can hardly expect a table to become an excellent horse because it lacks the essence of horse, certain morphological features and genetic make-ups that make horse-riding possible. Likewise, Christian life can be understood as achieving the excellence of divine life (i.e., life without sufferings) through developing certain dispositions (humility, kindness, caring, etc.). But, to develop these dispositions, one must possess the essence/nature fit for this purpose, viz., the life of a divine being. Only if one has such a life could he realize its life-form.

Given that humans lack eternal life (as we are clearly mortal), there must be a way for them to receive this life. Otherwise, Christianity is not applicable to humans. (And, if Christianity is the only way unto salvation, or life without sufferings, then humans are doomed to suffer to the extent that Christianity is not applicable.) The gospel (good news) is the message that such a way has become available by the death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. (How such events can impute eternal life, in my opinion, can be understood as an epistemological process. This is hinted by the fact that the process by which Jesus was raised from dead was the glory of God. The word for glory is ‘doxa,’ which means opinion or belief, the basic unit of move in the game of knowledge/episteme. But more on this topic next time…[1]) It is said that the last Adam (Jesus) became a life-giving spirit. I think that we should take this verse literally by interpreting it as saying that we receive the life of a diving being through Jesus Christ.

A little note on death being the wages of sin. The Greek word for death is ‘thanatos’ (θάνατος). In Greek mythology, thanatos is personified into the god of death. Thanatos was the son of Nyx (goddess of night) and had a number of siblings. He had a twin brother, Hypnos (Sleep). Other siblings include Geras (Old Age), Oizys (Suffering), Moros (Doom), Apate (Deception), Momus (Blame), Eris (Strife), Nemesis (Retribution), and Charon (the boatman of the underworld). Charon carries the dead across Acheron (Sorrow) and Styx. In the underworld, the dead drink from Lethe (forgetfulness), which is contrasted with Aletheia (Truth). In Socratic traditions, knowledge aims at truth and is gained by remembering what one has forgotten. This view of knowledge comes from the observation that the knowledge of Euclidean geometry (which served as the model of certainty in ancient Greece) does not seem to come from experience, but from the pure intellectual intuition of logic. Plato expanded on this thought by suggesting that we could access the world of Ideas via this intellectual intuition (rational revelation) which was the matter of remembering innate knowledge. Just how innate or empirical knowledge is, is still a topic of discussion in contemporary philosophy; a peripheric topic is how to understand AI models of cognition. As I mentioned above, there is a sense in which the imputation of divine life could be reconstructed as an epistemological process. In my view, there are a lot to think about here, given these conceptual materials.

 

Reflections

As explicated in quasi-analysis above, the formula for justification (unto salvation—from sufferings) is quite simple. One receives the divine life (essence of God) by faith (pistis: trust in the jurisdiction of God), this axiomatic life is given by grace, and this life develops certain dispositions fit for achieving and sustaining the excellence of diving life (i.e., life without sufferings) through training. The question then is obviously why it seems to me that this new life does not take notable effects in my living. I am just as moral or immoral as others. There is no difference between me and unbelievers except that I just possess one more conceptual framework to interpret the world by at my disposal: the Christian paradigm which explains the phenomena in terms of God’s plan (rather than in terms of evolution, quarks, utility values, legal documents, etc.). There are two anxieties associated with this observation. First, am I deluded about myself in such a way that I am in fact not a believer while I think I am? Second, is it the case that the Christian paradigm is not the reality at all, but a mere fairytale? All these anxieties center on the mismatch between Christianity (according to which my sinful nature has been neutralized) and the observation (that what Christianity would judge as sinful is still effective in my living). Inspired by Goodman’s distinction of the old problem of induction and the new riddle of induction, I postulate two problems of evil. If the old problem of evil is the question of sufferings in the alleged presence of God, the new riddle of evil is the internal mismatch. In my opinion, the old problem of evil is a pseudo-problem (*refer to "On the Problem of Evil: Why Passionate Atheism Doesn't Make Sense"). However, the new riddle of evil is an actual challenge. Perhaps the key to answering this question is hinted by the textual fact that Jesus talked about forgiveness rather than self-development after having dispensed the Holy Spirit into the disciples (John 20:23) and the consideration that forgiveness is possible only if one truly realizes that he is just as sinful and incapable as those whom he himself accuses (Matt. 7:1-5). Perhaps, it all starts with repentance (Matt. 3:2). If so, have I not repented enough? Am I misconceiving what it is to repent? Is there a blank stage between repentance and the transformation progress? If so, how am I supposed to be conducting myself meanwhile? Just how do I start taking the course of this route unto salvation delivered by the gospel?

“And behold, instead of giving a firm foundation for setting the conscience of man at rest for ever, Thou didst choose all that is exceptional, vague and enigmatic; Thou didst choose what was utterly beyond the strength of men, acting as though Thou didst not love them at all—Thou who didst come to give Thy life for them! Instead of taking possession of men’s freedom, Thou didst increase it, and burdened the spiritual kingdom of mankind with its sufferings for ever.” (The Brother Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoevsky)

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[1] For partial discussions, refer to "Reflections on Christian Faith", "믿음과 시인, 구원의 확신에 대한 고찰", and "Reflections on Romans 1".