The Evangelical Universalist Forum

St. Paul preaches universalism at Mars Hill / Areopagus?

Lord, I sure want to get back to posting here on a regular basis… (sigh. Still several projects to complete, though, so as not to be distracted from them.)

Until then, since I was passing through on other business, I thought I’d put forth the rhetorical logic of St. Paul’s address to the philosophers of the Mars Hill forum in Athens (aka the Areopagus; Acts 17:16-34). (I mentioned this in the body of my document critiquing Professor De Young’s critique of The Shack, but I don’t see that I’ve posted it anywhere more obviously online yet.)

Paul is saying that he has come to proclaim to them new knowledge, not about “strange demons” (as some of the philosophers had wondered, being unable to quite cipher out what Paul was talking about in the marketplaces), but about “the Unknowable God” whom they are already willing to acknowledge (along with all the other idols collected in the city).

The emphasis here, for our purposes, is on St. Paul’s rhetorical use of “all”. Consider the developing line of thought:

1.) This God makes the world (kosmos, all natural creation) and all that is in it.
2.) He gives life and breath (or maybe spirit) to all.
3.) He makes every nation of humankind, to be dwelling on every surface of the earth.
4.) He does this (and appoints the setting of the seasons and the bounds of their dwelling, probably referring to death in the latter case) for them (i.e. all of them) to be seeking Him if they consequently grope for Him.
5.) And they may be finding Him, for to be sure He inheres “not far from each one of us”; for in Him we live and move and exist. (Thus it isn’t like they have to grope for something far off).
6.) Condoning (literally “winking at”) times of ignorance, God is now charging mankind that all everywhere are to repent.
7.) For He assigns a day in which He is about to be judging (all) the inhabited earth in righteousness…
8.) … offering faith to all.

Unfortunately, at this point St. Paul mentions that God will be doing this by “the Man whom He specifies, raising him of the dead”; which leads to jeering and a breakdown of his presentation. (Though some are willing to hear him again on this, and some converts are eventually made, one being Dionysius the Areopagite–traditionally believed to be the first bishop of Athens–and a woman named Damaris.)

The grammatic thrust of those last two points are connected: a day is coming when God will be judging the earth in righteousness and (per the grammar) in that judgment He shall be offering faith to all: the same ‘all’ St. Paul has been collectively talking about throughout his speech.

This, to say the least, is not what most non-universalists are expecting from the judgment of the Final Day. It could of course still be consonant with some Arminian soteriologies–C. S. Lewis would have no problem with it–but at the very least the grammar indicates what amounts to a post-mortem (and post resurrection) offer of ‘saving faith’ at the final judgment.

It might be rather more than merely giving people a chance to ‘believe’, too: God is offering faith. That’s an action of God, something does for us from the inside–an action restricted only to the ‘elect’ in Calvinism. But the faith God is offering is God’s own faithfulness; the faithfulness of the Persons for one another, but also the faithfulness of God to us.

As St. Paul writes in his epistle to the Romans: does the unfaithfulness of sinners to God, annul the faithfulness of God? May it never be!! God is faithful to us even when we are unfaithful to Him.

So!–comments? :slight_smile:

Good stuff.
Some will view this slightly differently among universalists as to the when of this (regarding point 7), but good points and observations here. You’re right in pointing out that this is certainly not language a non-universalist would expect at all, which is probably why we don’t hear many sermons on this passage in mainstream churches! :laughing:

That, and the typical translations of that final sentence in the speech (it’s a summary recount almost surely, not the whole presentation) add some other things in. Because it’s ridiculous that God should be offering faith as part of His Day-of-the-Lord judgment!

So, for example, the NASB translates the phrase in question “having furnished proof to all men” i.e. by raising Him (Jesus, the appointed judge) from the dead.

To be fair, the “offering faith to all” phrase falls between two descriptions of Christ; so I can understand translators wanting to connect the phrase to those two other phrases rather than to the judgment per se.

Here is the USB text of verse 31, the key verse in question here. (It’s pretty long. As usual, I’m putting underscores after long ‘o’ and long ‘e’, and parenthesising the subscripted iotas.)

kathoti este_nsen he_meran en h(i)e_ mellei krinein te_n okoumene_n en dikaiosun(i)e_ en andri h(i)o_ ho_risen pistin parascho_n pasin anaste_sas auto ek nekro_n.

{kathoti} is a particularly strong version of ‘because’, which is difficult to translate into English idiom: the closest I can think of would be an emphatic “and in any case”, if we used that phrase to mean ‘because’. (Which, if that sounds weird, remember I said it was difficult to translate into English idiom. :mrgreen: )

{este_nsen} == ‘he has done’, talking about God, and using a verb of being to emphasize God making or setting…

{he_meran} …a day

{en h(i)e_} in which

{mellei krinein} he is going to judge

{te_n oikoumene_n} the communal home (a term for the inhabited earth, also a nickname for the Roman Empire which considered its territory a home together–but probably something wider is in view here)

{en dikaiosun(i)e_} in fair-togetherness (‘in righteousness’)

{en andri} in a man (though more often this is translated ‘by a man’; ‘through a man’ would be better but still not really the thrust of the phrase)

{h(i)o_ ho_risen} who is appointed (or placed for seeing, or revealed)

{pistin parascho_n pasin} faith having provided for/to all (or ‘providing’–there’s some dispute about how the verb should be translated, but all my sources seem to agree that {pasin} is the recipient of the action delivering {pistin})

{anaste_sas auto ek nekro_n} raising him from death.

The grammar is so peculiar that no two of my sources agree quite how this sentence should be translated, especially the key phrase {pistin parascho_n pasin} in relation to its surrounding material. (Maybe it means “having provided all faith”? “All” and “faith” do have common suffixes…)

Discuss! :ugeek: :mrgreen:

Well yeah Jason – that is an incredibly fascinating take on this sermon of Pauls.
And I really hope you are correct about it! It seems, at least to my mind, to fit on many levels.

Except that, and this is a fear/deficiency I feel from time to time when discussing theologic truths like this one, to have “access” to it I must be a biblical languages scholar… Which I am not. Which should mean then that this truth, based on this nuance of language and grammar, is unattainable to me as a layman.

Does that make sense?

Thanks for bringing this perspective on this really wonderful passage to my attention; I’ll keep pondering it and look forward to hear what others think…

TotalVictory
Bobx3

Sure. And that’s why people who can suss out the language have an obligation to translate and interpret cooperatively together, for the sake of people who don’t know the language/contexts/etc. :slight_smile:

(Edited to add: which to a large extent includes me, too. :wink: This is a hugely difficult sentence to translate; I’d be glad for any more technical help on it.)