Justification and Law in Paul

This is not correct reasoning. Of course, God could harden anybody, we all acknowledge and understand this. But in Romans 9-11, Paul is clearly focusing on Jews and how Jews have been hardened. Yes, Paul refers to Pharaoh as being hardened. But this is an example of God's right to harden and it is deployed in this section as one of many examples leading to Paul's overall conclusion - God has hardened Jews for the benefit of Gentiles.

The fact that God could harden Gentiles obviously does not mean that Paul is not permitted to make an argument about how God has specifically hardened Jews for a specific redemptive purpose.

The problem with your position is this: First, we read in chapter 9 about "vessels of destruction being hardened". Let's say that we agree that we provisionally conclude that there is no "Jew-specificity" here - that Paul is talking about Gentile as well. But when we get to this passage, clearly directed at the Jew, we should clearly get the point that he is talking about Jews being hardened, and only Jews:

What then? What Israel is seeking, it has not obtained, but those who were chosen obtained it, and the rest were hardened;

8just as it is written,
"(M)GOD GAVE THEM A SPIRIT OF STUPOR,
EYES TO SEE NOT AND EARS TO HEAR NOT,
DOWN TO THIS VERY DAY."
9And David says,
"(N)LET THEIR TABLE BECOME A SNARE AND A TRAP,
AND A STUMBLING BLOCK AND A RETRIBUTION TO THEM.
10"(O)LET THEIR EYES BE DARKENED TO SEE NOT,
AND BEND THEIR BACKS FOREVER." 11(P)I say then, they did not stumble so as to fall, did they? (Q)May it never be! But by their transgression (R)salvation has come to the Gentiles,

Paul is quoting Old Testament texts that refer to the hardening of Israel here. I can make the case in more detail but the overall context of 9-11 really does drive us in the direction in seeing the vessels of destruction as hardened Jews. Otherwise, we have Paul talking about the tragedy of hardened Israel all throughout the 9 to 11 block, and yet mysteriously going off on a tangent in the middle of chapter 9 to make a case about "hardening" that has no Israel specificity whatsoever.

Competent writers do not do that. And Paul is most clearly a very competent writer.

 

I agree with you to this point - but this in no way challenges my assertion that the vessels of destruction are Jews and Jews only.

I could not make sense of the rest of your argument. In any event there is no logical, structural, or narrative necessity to see the "vessels of destruction" as containing non-Jews.

Yes, Paul is indeed saying that there is a true Israel whose members are not limited to ethnic Jews. But that in no way prevents Paul from arguing thus: God has hardened some ethnic Jews in order that salvation can be extended to Gentiles so that the true family of God contains both Jews and Gentiles.

Again, I could not figure out what you were saying. But I suspect you are basically trying to say "since the vessels of mercy" contain both Jews and Gentiles, the "vessels of destruction" must also contain Jews and Gentiles.

That line of argument, whether you are making it or not, is simply incorrect.

 

Sorry, your argument is not clear to me.

Please do not assume that the problems lies with me - there is also the possibility that your argument is unclear.

Agree.

Agree.

Agree - this poses no challenge at all to my position.

Agree. But again, providing examples of God hardening Pharoah can be used by Paul as an example of the fact that God can harden people for his purposes, supporting his conclusion that God has hardened "a lot of Jews"

The fact that the "us" who are vessels of mercy is a group constituted by Jew and Gentiles does not logicallly require us to see the "vessels of destruction" as likewise constituted by Jews and Gentiles.

If you cannot understand this, we are at an impasse. But it is simply incorrect reasoning to argue thus:

1. The vessels of mercy contain Jews and Gentiles;
2. Therefore the vessels of destruction contain both Jews and Gentiles.

Point 1 is obviously true - no one is denying that the vessels of mercy contain both Jews and Gentile. But point 2 simply does not follow logically.

Suppose that there was a scientist who discoverd how to make a medecine out of the dead bodies of a certain sub-class of male flies in order to give that medecine to all female flies and the rest of the male flies (the ones not in that first sub-class) to save that second set of flies (female and male) from extinction. This is a possible scenario.

And it could be said that that the first subset of male flies are "vessels of destruction" and that all females and the rest of the male flies are "vessels of mercy".

This proves, yes proves, that the fact that one group - the vessels of mercy - contain both Jews and Gentiles does not logically require that the vessels of destruction contain both Jew and Gentile.

Now you have a right to choose to believe otherwise, but that would not be a defensible position to take.

I have just proven this reasoning to be incorrect.

 

Pharaoh is neither. I have addressed this in detail in the other thread.

 

(1) It is somewhat inappropriate, in light of how the argument has actually gone so suggest that my argument is irrational - I politely suggest that my argument is eminently rational and has entirely survived all of your critiques.

(2) You do not engage my argument - I have demonstrated that, indeed, there is no specifically logical necessity to conclude that just because the vessels of mercy category contains both Jew and Gentile, this must be also be so for the vessels of destruction category. However, see point (3);

(3) With respect to the "source clay" argument. I have shown that there is no force in the "since the vessels of mercy are both Jew and Gentile, therefore, on this basis alone, there must be Gentiles and Jews in the vessels of destruction category" argument. But that, of course, does not make the case that the vessels of destruction category does not include Gentiles.

In any event, I suggest that "common source of clay" is all Israel, not all humanity, as you suggest above. I believe that Paul is saying "from the same Israel, I have the right to harden some Jews and not others". We need to bear in mind that in the Old Testament, it is Israel that is always the clay in the hands of God the potter. Your interpretation is at odds with that precedent, seeing clay as referring to all humanity. Paul is steeped in the Old Testament story and it is not likely that he would morph the "Israel-specificity" of the potter and clay metaphor so that the clay refers to all humanity.

 

You have no actual case to support this assertion, but if you like saying it, feel free.

Of course - I have never denied that God only hardens a sub-set of Israel. Others are not hardened and make up the remnant. Granted, in the course of many posts, it is possible that I have been less than perfect in always making this clear, so let me clarify right now: God hardened a sub-set of national Israel and it is these people that are the "vessels of destruction".

My response is quite simple: God chooses to harden those Jews who otherwise freely reject God. The others he does not harden. So, there is no problem with my position in respect to "explaining" that some Jews are hardened and others are not.

I have already addressed this issue. No one is saying that God cannot, or does not, harden Gentiles at various points in the history of the world.

What I am saying is that, in Romans 9 to 11, Paul is making an argument about Jews being hardened.

Your objections are grounded in not fully understanding the nature of my position - and so you see elements of my argument through your take on this passage. This is partly because I have probably not explained all elements of my position to you in this and other threads.

Paul is arguing that God has done something very specific in Israel's history - hardened most Jews so that, strangely enough, the entire world can be integrated into God's family. You see the potter metaphor as some timeless universal statement - I see it as a statement of what God has done in Israel's history and how that has benefited the Gentile.

I will not tire of pointing out that the potter metaphor appears right in the middle of a recounting of Israel's history - I talk about this in detail in the other thread. So it would be very odd indeed for Paul to veer off into some treatment of pre-destination that has no Israel-specificity whatsoever.

 

We are going in circles - I have fully addressed these objections and I am not going to invest more time saying the same things over and over again.

This is incorrect logic and I have provided a detailed argument as to why. Again, there is no value in repeating material already provided.

You have no evidence at all for this:

1. You have demonstrated no evidence that I am inconsistent;
2. You have demonstrated no evidence that I am irrational;
3. And you most certainly have no magical access to inner motivations to justify the conclusion that I "seek to satisfy" my own belly.

 

No. You presume that "all Israel in verse 26 is a reference to national Israel. If it were, you would have a point. But I am prepared to argue that, as in Galatians, Paul uses the term "Israel" in verse 26 to denote the church comprised of both Jew and Gentile.

You will need to wait for these arguments - I do not have time now.

Did you really think, given all the detailed arguments that I have provided, that I had not given Romans 11:25-32 consideration?

 

Not true - you keep making this posts that both conflict with what the transcript of this thread actually shows and where you engage in strange speculation about things you cannot possibly know about, such as my internal motivations.

I highly doubt this approach supports your position.

I challenge you to provide any evidence at all, anything, that constitutes a challenge to my position that I have not already dealt with, or have stated that I plan to deal with.

Let the content of the relevant arguments be the metric that readers use to judge between our respective positions.

Implying that I am some sort of "cult" member really does not help maintain the discussion at the level of seriousness that it should be maintained at.

But where is the evidence, Dr. W. Where? Which posts? In which posts have you successfully undermined my argument.

If you can back up your assertion here with actual evidence, then by all means do so. Otherwise, it is just empty rhetoric.

I have fully addressed this objection and demonstrated in detail that my position is perfectly coherent.

The relevant defense of my position is provided in posts 125 of the present thread and post 9 in the "vessels" thread.

I will not repeat arguments that I believe require no clarification and whose substance you have not actually engaged.

In post 125 of the present thread, I show (as if this really needs to be shown) that the fact that the "vessels of mercy" category includes both Jew and Gentile does not, in and of itself necessitate that the "vessels of destruction" category contain both Jews and Gentiles. In post 9 of the other thread, I show that even though Pharaoh is a hardened Gentile, this too does not require us to understand that the "vessels of destruction" category contains Gentiles.

Both arguments are detailed and, I believe, quite clear.

So why are you not actually engaging those arguments? Do you think vague carpet-bombing attacking my motivations somehow reduces the force of those arguments?

 

As stated in my previous post, interested readers can see post 125 in the present thread and / or post 9 of the "vessel" thread.

Here you engage in circular argument - assuming that Paul is engaging in some universal treatment that must include all human beings in its embrace.

You need to actually support that argument. And I suspect that will be very challenging since it would be very odd for Paul to interrupt the flow of what is otherwise clearly an argument about God's historical dealings with Israel, in order to make some global point about human beings in general.

What I am suggesting makes much more contextual sense. Having introduced the chapter with a lament about Israel, and then reviewed Israel's covenant history from Abraham to the present, Paul, in the middle of that argument, asserts that God has hardened the Israelites.

This explains both why they are in the sad state they are in - which is what the chapter starts with and fits perfectly in the middle of what is otherwise clearly an historical account of what has happened to Israel.

 

This is not a valid argument. Here is the text:

For (AL)I do not want you, brethren, to be uninformed of this (AM)mystery--so that you will not be (AN)wise in your own estimation--that a partial (AO)hardening has happened to Israel until the (AP)fullness of the Gentiles has come in;
26and so all Israel will be saved; just as it is written,
"(AQ)THE DELIVERER WILL COME FROM ZION,
HE WILL REMOVE UNGODLINESS FROM JACOB."
27"(AR)THIS IS MY COVENANT WITH THEM,
(AS)WHEN I TAKE AWAY THEIR SINS."
28From the standpoint of the gospel they are (AT)enemies for your sake, but from the standpoint of God's choice they are beloved for (AU)the sake of the fathers;

I am, of course, perfectly aware that the "they" in verse is "all Israel".

Your argument is based on an incorrect generalization about how pronouns are used. If it were true that a pronoun, such as "they" in verse 28, always qualified the most recent group that is otherwise explicitly identified, then this critique of yours would be valid.

And in most cases, this is indeed true - the pronoun qualifies the most recently referenced group.

But this is not always true as I will show in a later post.

We have obvious reasons why the "they" in verse 28 cannot be a reference to people who will be saved. Throughout chapter 9 Paul laments over Jews who are hardened and lost. Now you are arguing that he is saying that these same Jews - clearly the "they" in verse 28 are the hardened Jews - will be saved?

How does that work Dr. W? How does a vessel fitted for destruction end up being saved?

Throughout the Bible story, hardening is not a reversible process - hardened people do not magically become "unhardened".

Besides, we know from verse 23 that Paul does not believe that all Jews will in fact be saved. Note the conditional "if":

And even they – if they do not continue in their unbelief – will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again

So the evidence is really quite clear - Paul would not say "all Israel", as in "the nation of Israel" (or all ethnic Jews) will be saved just after having clearly stated that this is very much a matter that is highly contingent.

I will get back with an example showing that the "grammar argument" does not always work.

Your impliciation that I am dishonest is sad, coming from a person who claims to be a believer.
You have precisely no evidence that I am in any sense dishonest. So why do you say such things. Remember, "every careless word...."

 

Indeed. But as the text below shows, this "rule" - that the pronoun always qualifeis the nearest antecednent - does not always apply:

"The men who fought and died in WWII were great self-sacrificial heroes whose bravery and courage stemmed a great evil and rescued the world from tyranny. And so the peoples of Europe were freed and enabled to live in freedom and libery and pursue their dreams. These freed peoples are now able to live without fear and can raise their families in an environment that promotes justice and equality for all

So they indeed died for your sake......."

Clearly, the "they" refers to the men who died, not the freed peoples.

So even though it is normal grammatical practice to use a pronoun to qualify the most recently identified noun, this is not always the case.

Therefore, one cannot use solely grammatical arguments to claim that the "they" in Romans 11:28 qualifies "all Israel" in verse 26.

Besides, we have other grounds - given in my previous post - for knowing this is not the case.