The Christian and Society in St Paul

Extract

It is intriguing to speculate where theological controversy would be without St Paul. From the very beginning he has been quoted on both sides of every argument. This has been facilitated by the proverbial obscurity of many of his statements, but indirectly it is evidence of the complexity of his thought. Paul is not easy to understand because he was not a simple man. His enthusiasm had nothing of the shallow lucidity that characterizes the fanatic. The Corinthians accused him of ambivalence, but it is probably truer to say that he was simply a very hard-headed pragmatist. He was certainly capable of letting his mind run free in a sweep that carried his thought into a cosmic dimension, but for all that he never lost his sharp awareness of the realities of any given situation. This latter facet of his character has been rather overlooked, because the interest of commentators has lain elsewhere. However, at precisely this juncture in the history of the Church it is important to recognize the pragmatic dimension of his thought, because its realism is very instructive. Fortunately this aspect appears most clearly when Paul has to concern himself with the relationship of the believer to the society in which he lived, since this problem is perhaps the most crucial confronting the Christian today.