Missing the Mark: Sin and Its Consequences in Biblical Theology

by Mark E. Biddle

Abingdon, Nashville, 2005. 190 pages. $19.00. ISBN 978­0-687-49462-0.

A YOUNG GIRL FROM A TROUBLED home becomes pregnant; a recovering and repentant alcoholic suffers in his body the ill effects of years of substance abuse; a pastor’s desire to provide sustenance for migrant workers appears to congre­gants to be meddling in areas of social concerns outside the focus of the gospel. What does the traditional understand­ing of sin as rebellion against God—a juridicial model that matches deed with guilt and punishment and cries for eternal salvation—have to say to situations such as these? Is a daughter’s pregnancy simply an act of rebellion, or is it also an act born of a system of abuse and despair? Does repentance mean that one is liberated from facing the consequences of one’s behaviors, or that others are kept safe from them? Does sin as individual rebellion address situations of social evil, or does redressing suffering occasioned by injustice require more than individual repentance?

These questions are central to Mark Biddle’s enlightening, accessible, and important explo­ration of biblical understandings of sin. If the category of sin is construed as willful rebellion against God, Biddle presents it as woefully inadequate to cover all the hurt, damage, and destruc­tive behavior that characterize our world, nor does it adequately reflect the complexity of the bibli­cal understanding of human sin. Instead, sin should be understood as an “umbrella term for the flaws in the human condition” (p. 1), broadly and biblically construed. Taking his cues from con­temporary theologians and from the intersection of human social sciences with biblical teaching and human experience, Biddle describes the social, objective, and diverse forms of sin found in the Bible. Contemporary theologians have argued that “sin” is not an adequate term to describe the multiple forms of human alienation and that different language is needed to explore other dimen­sions of it (e.g., brokenheartedness, anguish, han). But Biddle argues that the biblical understand­ing of sin is indeed large and complex enough to cover a multitude of alienating behaviors and afflictions and to amplify the social nature of sin that afflicts and affects communities and genera­tions. The Bible insists that sin is not only a matter between God and individual human beings, but also a malaise that infects communities.

Biddle’s argument revolves around four basic insights. First, while rebellion against God is surely a biblical insight into human sin, it is not the only form of sin reflected in the biblical text. Sin can be over-reaching, leading us to try to be more than we are (consider David and Bathsheba). It can also be under-reaching, with the result that we fail to live into the image of God that is the inheritance of each human being, accepting the lie that “I am not enough” (consider Eve’s temptation to believe that God has withheld the best gift of all).
Second, a more fundamental way of understanding human sin is as distrust: the failure to trust that God and God’s ways with the world are good. Biddle acknowledges that the Bible gives no systematic etiology for human mistrust, but argues that it often presents the chaotic nature of reality, damaged human relationships, and dysfunctional families as precursors to failure to trust. Drawing on psychological resources and contemporary theologies rooted in human experience, he offers a way to understand the basic human proclivity to mistrust that does not exonerate people, but enlightens ways in which the web of human relations and the fragile structure of creation as we know it are conduits for sin. We cannot prove that developmental experiences impede an indi­vidual’s capacity to trust others and God, but human sin can be born of broken human relation­ships. Sin as mistrust is communicable and shapes new generations. This understanding can be helpful to pastors dealing with the fallout of disintegrated families.

Third, harm happens whether or not people intend it. Thus intentionality is not the only key that determines whether or not an action or its consequences are sinful. Rather, one must also look at the “circumstances that linger in the world” (p. 118)—waiting for fruition— circumstances that twist reality so that those born into that world cannot see clearly. This tragic dimension of human existence—that we may often create effects we did not intend, sometimes as an expression of ignorance—is a dimension of human sin. From a biblical perspective, even acts of human error, from the perspective of their consequences for the community, are sin. By separating intention from accountability and by emphasizing growth in consciousness of one’s sin, Biddle acknowledges the damage that exists in the world and moves response to sin from blaming to healing.

Fourth, sin has consequences that are often suffered by the larger community. As a result, there are innocent victims (such as the son of David and Bathsheba, and Jepthah’s daughter), and a society into which people are born can foster twisted ways of encountering others and the world. Thus, the classical doctrine of original sin—that humans inherit a condition in which they cannot not sin, here construed as a social and learned condition—can be found in the Bible. I have argued elsewhere that the damage resulting from sin and the alienating postures one develops in the context of such damage should not be called sin, especially when such naming suggests guilt and culpability for a state of life that was more an expression of a will to survive than a desire to rebel against God. However, Biddle provides a way to speak about participation in the sinful circumstances of the world without heaping guilt upon people who are first of all victims.

Biddle’s interpretation of sin has repercussions for understanding the work of Christ and the meaning of the church. One longs for a fully developed christology from this perspective of sin. Is healing, for instance, an act of salvation, or is salvation confined to the realm of guilt? Still, there are enticing suggestions throughout the work. If sin is contagious, with consequences for the community and for future generations, and if the repercussions of sin can be halted by one who bears the consequences without passing them on, then in and through Jesus Christ, God bears the consequences of sin. In a world where sin twists reality so that people question the very goodness of God, indeed where God’s apparent hiddenness in the face of human suf­fering is a problem, Christ is God’s revelation of how trustworthy God is—of how far God will go to show the world God’s love. And the church becomes a community that mediates God’s trustworthiness to the world—a community that forms trusting relationships, that helps iden­tify postures of mistrust, and that redresses the afterlife of sin in all its forms.

Much work has been done on sin in contemporary theology. Biddle is informed by these works, graciously affirms their critical insights, and roots them deeply in the biblical soil— something few theologians have tried to do. His study will help pastors identify sin in human life and encourage people to live responsible and repentant lives. I only wish Biddle’s work had been available twenty years ago when, as a new theologian, I sought adequate biblical resources to buttress arguments that sin is the human choice to hide from our creator.

Susan L. Nelson
CLAREMONT SCHOOL OF THEOLOGY
CLAREMONT, CALIFORNIA

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Theological Hermeneutics and 1 Thessalonians

by Angus Paddison

Cambridge University, Cambridge, 2005. 230 pp. $80.00 (cloth). ISBN 978-0-521-84983-8.

IN RECENT YEARS THERE HAS been an increase of interest in the development of a theological hermeneutic in which bib­lical studies consciously engages in dialogue with systematic theology in the interpretation of biblical texts. With some notable exceptions, this interest has resulted most often in reflection on preliminary methodological questions rather than substantive theological readings of Scripture. This book by Angus Paddison is a welcome exception to that tendency. While he, too, offers a substantial methodological
discussion in Part 1 of the book, the majority of the book is a veritable feast of theological exe­gesis of 1 Thessalonians, particularly its eschatological sections (4:13–18; 5:1–11). Paddison pref­aces his reading of 1 Thessalonians (Part 3) with two chapters in Part 2 that focus on the history of the interpretation of I Thessalonians and its results. In these chapters, he examines the inter­pretive assumptions and actual substance of the pre-modern readings of Thomas Aquinas and John Calvin with a view to appropriating aspects of their readings for his own use. The final section then offers Paddison’s own theological interpretation of 1 Thessalonians using an eclectic dialogical model in which his exegesis is informed by other parts of the canon, by Aquinas and Calvin, and by a host of other theologians ranging from Cyril of Alexandria to Kathryn Tanner. Throughout, his intent is to focus on the eighty-nine verses of 1 Thessalonians and the subject matter to which they bear witness. The central argument of the book, expressed most clearly in Part 3, is that the actual subject matter of 1 Thessalonians is God’s all-powerful hold over death achieved by God’s actions in Christ.

In much of the NT guild, it remains suspect to interpret 1 Thessalonians by conversing with other canonical voices like John, Acts, and (at times) even other Pauline letters (not to mention conversing with pre-modern interpreters and contemporary systematic theologians). Doing such a thing, it is assumed, ignores the character of 1 Thessalonians as a discrete docu­ment addressing a particular (historically reconstructed) situation behind the text, thereby imposing on it alien categories of thought. This book rigorously challenges such assump­tions and demands reflection on the very nature and aim of NT studies.

For those familiar with typical critiques of the hegemony of historical-critical approaches to the NT, Paddison’s theologically driven critique in Part 1 is nothing new. He points out that historical criticism in practice illegitimately limits the meaning of a biblical text to what it meant in a historically reconstructed, putative original context. Sounding (intentionally) like the Barth of the Römerbrief prefaces who has also read Ricoeur, he charges that such an endeavor encourages its practitioners to be, in effect, curators in a “behind the text” museum rather than interpreters who engage the subject matter to which the text actually witnesses. Following John Webster, Paddison contends that scripture has an ontological status as a can­onical collection of texts set apart by God, which God uses in his saving activity. Hence, if one considers 1 Thessalonians to be Scripture, then treating it as a discrete document whose mean­ing is controlled by a historically reconstructed, putative original context is to ignore its actual character. In addition, it is to misunderstand the way revelation occurs in a progressive process over time as the Church interacts with scripture, producing an inexhaustible plurality of read­ings that unfold ever new aspects of God’s revelation in Christ.

In my view, these claims are essentially correct (although they might have been supple­mented with an explicit discussion of how the classic creeds provide a framework for Christian interpretations of Scripture). If one’s interpretive aim is to engage in theological interpreta­tion of Scripture for the sake of the church, then one ought to be committed to an ontology of Scripture that affirms that God has graciously provided the church with the whole of canonical Scripture as a framework within which ruled Christian readings continually emerge that go beyond the original intent of the human author. Hence, one’s exegesis of 1 Thessalonians ought to be informed not only by canonical voices (like Romans, John, and Exodus), but also by pre-modern interpreters and contemporary systematic theologians. Of course, if an inter­preter does not affirm the NT as revelatory or does not consider herself an interpreter in the service of the church, Paddison’s critique and accompanying proposal will hardly be persua­sive. Such interpreters will have different interpretive goals than Paddison, one of which may be simply to clarify how 1 Thessalonians is related to its first-century context. There is nothing illegitimate about this, since one’s interpretive aim should always precede and determine the appropriate interpretive method. Paddison recognizes this and, like Barth, assigns some limited value to such undertakings, even admitting that historical criticism may be necessary. Hence, the real challenge that Paddison’s work presents is not to the practice of historical criticism in general. It is to those who, like himself, understand the NT as revelatory Scripture and yet insist that a NT text’s meaning must be controlled by a reconstructed authorial intention tied completely to its putative original context. This, he rightly insists, is to ignore both Scripture’s ontological character and the nature of revelation itself.

There is no question that the concern with history and origins (i.e., the world behind the text) can become “distracting” for those who view the NT as revelatory. However, it is not clear, as Paddison seems to think, that such concerns need always be distracting if one is engaged in theological exegesis. If Aquinas, commenting on 1 Thess 4:14, can utilize Aristotle’s concept of causation to help explicate the instrumentality of Christ’s humanity in our resurrection, then why can’t some modest forms of historical reconstruction be put into the service of theo­logical interpretation that remains christologically focused? I am not arguing that historical information and reconstruction ought to be used to foreclose or completely control a text’s meaning, but rather that some readings informed by the first-century context might also enrich the ongoing revelatory conversation centered around the subject matter of Scripture, i.e., Christ. While Padisson praises Rahner for a similar contention, and concedes that “one meaning of the biblical text is that which is germane to its historical context” (p. 29), it remains unclear how (or even whether) he thinks readings informed by the first-century context might be used fruit­fully among the plurality of readings that make up the church’s ongoing revelatory conversation.

These comments should not be construed as taking anything away from Paddison’s main contribution in this book. The last section, in which he develops his own theological reading of 1 Thessalonians, is an outstanding demonstration of one form of theological exegesis in practice. The title of the book and his earlier claim to focus on the eighty-nine verses of 1 Thessalonians is a bit misleading, however. His focus is primarily on the letter’s eschatological sections (4:13–18; 5:1–11) with his exegetical spotlight shining mostly on 1 Thess 4:14. Con­centrating on the christology of that verse, he engages in a dialogue with the canon and nume­rous other pre-modern and contemporary readers of Scripture as he explores the eschatologi­cal images in 1 Thessalonians that point to “God’s all-powerful hold over death” (p. 148). Paddison maintains that Paul’s own christology is functional rather than ontological, a distinc­tion that seems unnecessary to me in light of the work of David Yeago and others. Even so, like Aquinas, he assumes the hypostatic union of the divine and human in the incarnation as the starting point for his interpretation that includes a penetrating exploration of what it means to say (as in 1 Thess 5:9–10) that “Jesus died for us.” True to his stated aim, his reading is centered on a christological axis.

Were it not for the price, this book would be excellent for use in a course on the theologi­cal interpretation of scripture. In its demonstration of how theologically fruitful canonical connections can emerge in the interpretive process, it would also bring a breath of fresh air to pastors whose homiletical imaginations have been deadened by the inflated claims of some forms of historical criticism. I highly recommend this book and look forward to Paddison’s future contributions to theological exegesis.

ANDY JOHNSON NAZARENE
THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY
KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI

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