REL 2240 Fall 2009 Highlights and Lowlights
from Paper 3
Remember to plan your papers carefully. For example,
the
following is taken from the opening paragraph of one paper:
Paul once
persecuted Christians, which we will get into a bit more later on,
and
now he is sometimes known as the "second founder of Christianity."
(The Theology of the Apostle
Paul, Dunn,
D. G. James, Wm B. Eerdmans Publishing Co, p.10)
It sounds
more
professional to say "as we will see below" rather than "which
we will
get into a bit more later on". The trouble is, in this essay,
we never
did. That is a sign of poor planning: when you write the
opening
paragraph, you should know what is going to be in the rest of
the
paper. If you promise to tell me something, you had better
keep the
promise. If you change your mind when writing the paper, make
sure you
go back and correct any statements like this. It isn't
essential that
your paper contains a discussion of Paul's period persecuting
Christians, but the promise to present such a section could
easily have
been deleted.
There
are
many accounts in Hebrews where important people are rewarded
through
faith...
Yes,
but Paul
didn't write The Letter
to the
Hebrews. A paper about Paul may contain passages
from other New
Testament writings - e.g. Acts of
the Apostles, but you must demonstrate that they
really do cast
light on Paul. In this case, as far as I could tell,
passages from Hebrews
were quoted as though they
were direct evidence for Paul's own thinking. That shows a
lack of
attention to primary sources. It is true that in some
older editions of
the Bible, the letter is entitled The
Letter of St. Paul to the Hebrews, but there is
nothing in the
original text to justify this title, and it has now been
dropped. If
you use a good edition of the Bible, or do some basic
reading about
Paul's epistles - e.g. using the Oxford
One Volume Bible Commentary, you would know this.
Sanctification
through
the Holy Spirit is achieved by one's behavior and choice
of
living. When Jesus was resurrectedand in his holy bodily
form many
wanted him to stay on earth but he was not able to
because he had to
meet with his father in order for the holy spirit to be
sent down from
heaven to mankind.
In
this case,
no source is given, but if you were looking for a
source, you might
turn to the Gospel of John, 16:7-11 or Luke 24:49.
Again, these
passages are not from Paul's letters. If you were
majoring in Theology
(which you cannot do at FSU, this being a secular
institution), then
you would probably study Systematic Theology, and draw
up a consistent
account of Christian origins incorporating material
from all the New
Testament writings. However, your project in this case
was to focus on
one author, Paul. Before you can try producing a
synthesis of all the
New Testament writings, you need to study each
individually.
I said that I wanted you to demonstrate you can enter
into
controversies. Most of you are sticking to safe
ground, simply giving
the type of information you could find in any
encyclopedia article.
Consider the following conclusion:
Paul was a
great influence on modern Christianity due to his
writings of the
letters and his missionary work. His teaching on
faith still carries
on.
This would be a
reasonable opening sentence for an essay about
Paul, but as a
conclusion, it is too weak. It doesn't show that
you've attained a
level of understanding beyond what you could gain
from reading a
Wikipedia article. It may be acceptable at high
school, but not in a
university paper. When you do take a stand on
something difficult, you
should be aware of the fact, and have some kind of
defense ready.
Consider the following:
Paul also
leaves room for those who 'follow the law' or
'act with faith' even
without knowledge of their having been saved by
Jesus Christ.
In Chapter 2 of
Romans,
Paul certainly states
the Gentiles can be judged or excused by the
law that is written on
their hearts without knowledge of Jewish
revelation. But does he think
one can have faith without
knowledge of Jesus? This has been a big point
of controversy. Consider
the following from the Vatican document 'Dominus
Iesus':
For this
reason the distinction
between theological
faith and
belief in
the other religions,
must be firmly
held. If faith
is the acceptance in grace of revealed truth
which "makes it possible
to penetrate the mystery in a way that
allows us to understand it
coherently" (John Paul II, Fides et
Ratio, 13) then belief in other
religions, is that sum of
experience and thought that constitutes the
human treasury of wisdom
and religious aspiration, which man in his
search for truth has
conceived and acted upon in his relationship
to God and the Absolute.(Ibid,
31-32)
Dominus
Iesus was
issued by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, as he
then was, and was perceived
as being an attack on the works of his former
teacher, Karl Rahner.
Rahner was dead by the time 'Dominus Iesus'
was written, and he was not
mentioned by name. But, reading his works, one
does get the impression
that Rahner would have described
non-Christians as having faith in the
theological sense. He is best known for his
doctrine of the "anonymous
Christian", which states that a follower of
another religion who has
never heard of Jesus can still be classed as a
Christian.
The passage quoted from the student paper
implies that Rahner was right
and Ratzinger was wrong. This is an acceptable
point of view for you to
advance. However, it needs to be backed up
with evidence from Paul's
letters, followed by detailed discussion. You
may not think that
Ratzinger is infallible, but he is not likely
to have overlooked clear
and obvious evidence from Paul's letters
saying that non-Christians
have faith. The pro-Rahner position is one
that needs to be defended.
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